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'TT\OmAS  (D©©^>yj^"l,i).iJ 


Harper- &Br<"i'^T'^- 


THE 


HISTORY  OF   THE  PURITANS, 

OR 

PROTESTANT    NONCONFORMISTS; 

FROM 

THE   REFORMATION    IN    1517,   TO    THE   REVOLUTION   IN    1688;. 

COMPRISING 

Un  Account  of  tiitiv  ^vintipltu; 

THEIK    ATTEMPTS    FOR    A    FARTHER    REFORMATION    IN    THE    CHURCH  ;    THEIR    SUFFERINGS  • 
AND  THE    LIVES    AND    CHARACTERS    OF    THEIR    MOST    CONSIDERABLE    DIVINES. 

BY    DANIEL  "nEAL,  A.M. 

REPRINTED 

FROM    THE    TEXT    OF    DR.    TOULMIn's    EDITION  :    WITH    HIS    LIFE    OF    THE    AUTHOR- 

AND    ACCOUNT    OF    HIS    WRITINGS. 

REVISED,    CORRECTED,    AND    ENLARGED,    WITH    ADDITIONAL    NOTES 

BY    JOHN    0.    CHOULES,    A.M. 

S^ttfi   nint   IBovtvuitB   on    Steel. 

IN      TWO      VOLUMES. 

V  O  L.  XL 


NE  W-YORK: 
PUBLISHED   BY   HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  82   CLIFF-STREET. 

18  44. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1843, 

By  Hakper  &  Brothers, 

In  the  Clerk's  OflSce  of  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


PART    III.— Continued. 


CHAPTER  Vr. 

THE    PROGRESS    OF    THE    WAR. DEBATES    IN    THE 

ASSEMBLY  ABOUT  ORDINATION. THE  POWER  OF 

THE  KEYS. THE  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  PRESBYTERI- 
AN GOVERNMENT.  —  COMMITTEES  FOR  COMPRE- 
HENSION AND  TOLERATION  OF  THE  INDEPEND- 
ENTS. 

The  king's  commissioners  had  been  told  at 
the  treaty  of  Uxbridge  that  the  fate  of  the  Eng- 
lish monarchy  depended  upon  its  success  ;  that 
if  the  treaty  was  broken  off  abruptly,  there  was  a 
set  of  men  in  the  House  who  would  remove  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  and  constitute  such  an  army  as 
might  force  the  Parliament  and  king  to  consent 
to  everything  they  demanded,  or  change  the 
government  into  a  commonwealth  ;  whereas,  if 
the  king  would  yield  to  the  necessity  of  the 
times,  they  might  preserve  the  general,  and  not 
only  disappoint  the  designs  of  the  enemies  to 
monarchy,  but  soon  be  in  circumstances  to  en- 
able his  majesty  to  recover  all  he  should  resign. 
However,  the  commissioners  looked  upon  this 
as  the  language  of  despair,  and  made  his  maj- 
esty believe  the  divisions  at  Westminster  would 
soon  replace  the  sceptre  in  his  own  hands.* 

The  House  of  Commons  had  been  dissatisfied 
with  the  conduct  of  the  Earls  of  Essex  and 
Manchester  last  summer,  as  tending  to  protract 
the  war,  lest  one  party  should  establish  itself 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  other ;  but  the  warmer 
spirits  in  the  House,  seeing  no  period  of  their 
calamities  this  way,  apprehended  a  decisive 
battle  ought  to  be  fought  as  soon  as  possible, 
for  which  purpose,  after  a  solemn  fast,  it  was 
moved  that  all  the  present  officers  should  be 
discharged,  and  the  army  intrusted  in  such 
hands  as  they  could  confide  in.  December  9, 
it  was  resolved  that  no  member  of  either  House 
should  execute  any  office,  civil  or  military,  du- 
ring the  present  war ;  accordingly,  the  ordi- 
nance, commonly  called  the  Self-denying  Ordi- 
nance, was  brought  in,  and  passed  the  Com- 
mons ten  days  after,  but  was  laid  aside  by  the 
Lords  till  after  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge,  when  it 
was  revived  and  carried  with  some  little  oppo- 
sition. The  Earls  of  Essex,  Manchester,  War- 
wick, and  Denbigh,  the  Lord  Roberts,  Willough- 
by.  and  others,  were  dismissed  by  this  ordi- 
nance,t  and  all  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 


*  Clarendon,  vol.  ii.,  p.  595. 

+  "  Thus  almost  all  those  men  by  whose  interest, 
power,  and  authority  the  war  with  the  king  had  been 
undertaken,  and  without  whom  no  opposition,  of  any 
weight,  could  possibly  have  been  raised,  were  in  a 
short  time  deprived  of  their  power  and  influence  over 
their  own  army,  and  obliged,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  to 
truckle  before  them.    So  little  can  men  see  into  fu- 


mons,  except  Lieutenant-general  Cromwell, 
who,  after  a  few  months,  was  dispensed  with, 
at  the  request  of  the  new  general.  All  the  regi- 
ments were  disbanded,  and  such  only  listed  un- 
der the  new  commanders  as  were  determined 
to  conquer  or  die.  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  was  ap- 
pointed general,*  and  Oliver  Cromwell,  after 
some  time,  lieutenant-general ;  the  clause  for 
preservation  of  the  king's  person  was  left  out 
of  Sir  Thomas's  commission  ;  nor  did  it  run  ia 
the  name  of  the  king  and  Parliament,  but  of  the 
Parliament  only.  The  army  consisted  of  twen- 
ty-one thousand  resolute  soldiers,  and  was  call- 
ed in  contempt  by  the  Royalists,  the  new-mod- 
elled army  ;  but  their  courage  quickly  revenged 
the  contempt. 

Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  was  a  gentleman  of  no 
quick  parts  or  elocution  ;  but  religious,  faithful, 
valiant,  and  of  a  grave,  sober,  resolved  disposi- 
tion ;  neither  too  great  nor  too  cunning  to  be 
directed  by  the  Parliament,  t  Oliver  Cromwell 
was  more  bold  and  aspiring ;  and  being  a  sol- 
dier of  undaunted  courage  and  intrepidity,  pro- 
ved, at  length,  too  powerful  for  his  masters.  The 
army  was  more  at  his  disposal  than  at  Fairfax's, 
and  the  wonders  they  wrought  sprung  chiefly 
from  his  counsels. 

When  the  old  regiments  were  broken,  the 
chaplains,  being  discharged  of  course,  returned 
to  their  cures  ;  and  as  new  ones  were  formed, 
the  officers  applied  to  the  Parliament  and  As- 
sembly for  a  fresh  recruit ;  but  the  Presbyteriaa 
ministers  being  possessed  of  warm  benefices, 
were  unwilling  to  undergo  the  fatigues  of  an- 
other campaign,  or,  it  may  be,  to  serve  with 
men  of  such  desperate  measures.  This  fatal 
accident  proved  the  ruin  of  the  cause  in  which 
the  Parliament  were  engaged  ;  for  the  army  be- 
ing destitute  of  chaplains,  who  might  have  re- 
strained the  irregularities  of  their  zeal,  the  offi- 
cers set  up  for  preachers  in  their  several  regi- 
ments, depending  upon  a  kind  of  miraculous  as- 
sistance of  the  Divine  Spirit,  without  any  study 
or  preparation ;  and  when  their  imaginations 
were  heated,  they  gave  vent  to  the  most  crude 
and  undigested  absurdities;  nor  did  the  evil  rest 
there,  for,  from  preaching  at  the  head  of  their 


turity  !  so  different  are  the  turns  things  take,  from 
what  men  are  apt  to  expect  and  depend  on." — Dr. 
Harris's  Life  if  Oliver  Cromwell,  p.  118. 

*  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax's  power  extended  to  the  ex- 
ecution of  martial  law  and  the  nomination  of  the  of- 
ficers under  him.  The  army  was  put  solely  under 
the  command  of  one  man.  "  What  was  this  (it  has 
been  properly  asked)  but  to  put  it  into  his  power  to 
give  law  to  the  Parhament  whenever  he  thought 
fit  ?" — Dr.  Harris,  ut  supra. — Ed. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  p.  48. 


HISTORY    OF   THE   PURITANS. 


regiments,  they  took  possession  of  the  country 
pulpits  where  they  were  quartered,  till  at  length 
they  spread  the  infection  over  the  whole  nation, 
and  brought  the  regular  ministry  into  contempt. 
Most  of  the  common  soldiers  were  religious 
and  orderly,  and  when  released  from  duty,  spent 
their  time  in  prayer  and  religious  conferences, 
like  men  who  carried  their  lives  in  their  hands  ; 
but,  for  want  of  prudent  and  regular  instruction, 
were  swallowed  up  in  the  depths  of  enthusiasm. 
Mr.  Baxter,  therefore,  observes  very  justly,  '^  It 
was  the  ministers  that  lost  all,  by  forsaking  the 
army,  and  betaking  themselves  to  an  easier  and 
quieter  way  of  life.  When  the  Earl  of  Essex's 
army  went  out,  each  regiment  had  an  able  chap- 
Iain,  but  after  Edgehiil  fight  most  of  them  went 
home,  and  left  the  army  to  their  own  conduct." 
i3ut,  even  after  the  decisive  battle  of  Naseby, 
lie  admits,  great  numbers  of  the  officers  and  sol- 
diers were  sober  and  orthodox ;  and  from  the 
little  good  which  he  did  while  among  them,  con- 
cludes, that  if  their  ministers  would  have  fol- 
lowed his  measures,  the  king,  the  Parliament, 
and  religion  might  have  been  saved.* 

The  new-modelled  troops  were  kept  under 
the  severest  discipline,  commissioners  being  ap- 
pointed to  take  care  that  the  country  was  not 
oppressed ;  that  no  soldiers  were  quartered  in 
•any  place  but  by  appointment  of  the  quarter- 
master ;  that  ready  money  be  paid  for  all  pro- 
visions and  ammunition  ;  every  soldier  had  six- 
pence a  day  for  his  diet,  and  every  trooper  eight- 
pence.  No  inhabitants  were  compelled  to  fur- 
nish more  provisions  than  they  were  able  and 
willing  to  spare,  under  the  severest  penalties  ; 
•whereas  the  royal  army,  having  no  regular  pay, 
lived  upon  the  plunder  of  those  places  that  had 
the  misfortune  to  receive  them. 

May  30,  the  king  took  the  town  of  Leicester 
by  storm,  with  a  very  great  treasure,  which  the 
country  people  had  brought  thither  for  security, 
his  soldiers  dividing  the  spoil,  and  treating  the 
inhabitants  in  a  most  cruel  and  unmerciful  man- 
ner ;  after  this  conquest,  his  majesty  wrote  to 
the  queen  that  his  atfairs  were  never  in  so  hope- 
ful a  posture  since  the  Rebellion.!  The  Par- 
liament army  were  preparing  to  lay  siege  to  the 
city  of  Oxford,  but  upon  news  of  this  disaster, 
had  orders  to  follow  the  king  and  hazard  a  bat- 
tle at  all  events  ;  whereupon  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax petitioned  the  two  houses  to  dispense  with 
their  self-denying  ordinance  with  respect  to 
Lieutenant-general  Cromwell,  whose  courage 
and  counsels  would  be  of  great  service  in  the 
present  crisis :  Cromwell  was  accordingly  dis- 
pensed with  during  pleasure,  and  having  joined 
the  army  with  six  hundred  horse  and  dragoons, 
they  overtook  the  king,  and  gave  him  battle 
June  14,  at  Naseby,  about  three  miles  from 
Harborough  in  Leicestershire. 

The  action  began  about  ten  in  the  morning, 
and  ended  about  three  or  four  in  the  afternoon, 
in  an  absolute  defeat  of  the  king's  forces,  which 
was  owing,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the  wise  con- 
duct and  resolution  of  Lieutenant-general  Crom- 
well on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  indiscreet  fury 
and  violence  of  Prince  Rupert  on  the  other. 
The  armies  were  pretty  equal  in  number,  about 
twelve  or  fourteen  thousand  on  a  side,  but  the 
Parliament  soldiers  were  better  disciplined,  and 

*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  51,  56. 

i  Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  143,  144. 


fought  with  all  the  bravery  and  magnanimity 
tliat  an  enthusiastic  zeal  could  inspire.  Gen- 
eral Fairfax,  having  his  helmet  beat  off,  rode 
up  and  down  the  field  bareheaded  ;  Major-gen- 
eral Skippon  received  a  wound  in  the  beginning 
of  the  engagement,  upon  which,  being  desired 
to  go  off,  he  answered,  he  would  not  stir  as  long 
as  a  man  would  stand.  Ireton  was  run  through 
the  thigh  with  a  pike,  had  his  horse  killed 
under  him,  and  was  made  a  prisoner,  but  found 
means  to  escape  upon  the  turn  of  the  battle. 
The  king  showed  himself  a  courageous  com- 
mander, but  his  soldiers  were  struck  with  such  a 
panic,  that,  when  they  wereonce  disordered,  they 
would  never  rally  ;  whereas,  if  their  enemies 
were  beaten  from  their  ground,  they  presently 
returned,  and  kept  their  ranks  till  they  received 
fresh  instructions.*  When  Prince  Rupert  had 
routed  Ireton's  left  wing,  he  lost  his  advantage, 
first,  by  following  the  chase  almost  three  miles, 
and  then  by  trying  to  become  master  of  the  train 
of  artillery,  before  he  knew  the  success  of  the 
main  body  ;  whereas,  when  Cromwell  had  broke 
the  right  wing  of  the  enemy,  he  pursued  them 
only  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  and  leaving  a  small 
party  of  horse  to  prevent  their  rallying,  returned 
immediately  to  the  battle,  and  with  his  victori- 
ous troops  charged  the  royal  infantry  in  flank. 
The  Parliament  army  took  above  five  thousand 
prisoners  ;  all  the  king's  train  of  artillery,  bag 
and  baggage,  with  his  cabinet  of  letters,  some 
of  which  were  afterward  published  to  the  world  ; 
not  above  six  or  seven  hundred  of  his  men  be- 
ing killed,  with  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  of- 
ficers. The  king,  with  a  party  of  horse,  fled 
into  Wales,  and  Prince  Rupert  to  Bristol  ;  but 
the  Parliament  forces  pursued  their  victory  with 
such  eagerness,  and  marched  with  that  rapidity 
over  the  whole  west  of  England,  to  the  very 
land's  end,  that  in  a  few  months  all  the  royal 
forces  were  dispersed,  and  his  majesty's  gar- 
risons surrendered  almost  before  they  were 
summoned.!  The  city  of  Bristol,  into  which 
Prince  Rupert  had  thrown  himself,  capitulated 
before  the  besiegers  approached  the  walls, 
which  provoked  the  king  to  that  degree  that  he 
commanded  him  by  letter  to  depart  the  land,  as 
did  also  the  Prince  of  Wales,  for  the  security  of 
his  person  ;  so  that,  by  the  end  of  the  campaign, 
the  unhappy  king  was  exposed  to  the  mercy  of 
his  enemies,  and  shut  up  all  winter,  little  better 
than  a  prisoner,  in  his  garrison  at  Oxford. 

To  return  to  the  affairs  of  the  Church.  When 
it  is  recollected  what  great  numbers  of  clergy- 
men had  deserted  to  the  king,  or  were  other- 
wise dissatisfied  with  the  new  terms  of  con- 
formity, we  must  conclude  it  very  difficult  to 
supply  the  vacant  pulpits  in  the  country  with  a 
learned  and  regular  clergy  :  one  of  the  univer- 
sities was  entirely  useless,  and  the  young  stu- 
dents who  adhered  to  the  Parliament  could  not 
obtain  ordination  in  a  legal  way,  because  all  the 
bishops  were  in  the  opposition,  and  would  or- 
dain none  but  those  of  their  own  principles, 
which  was  another  cause  of  the  increase  of  un- 
qualified preachers.  To  put  some  stop  to  the 
clamours  of  the  Royalists,  and  to  the  mischiefs 
of  lay  preaching,  which  began  to  appear  in  the 
army,  the  Parliament  ordained,  April  26,  "  that 
no  person  shall  be  permitted  to  preach  who  is 

*  Whitelocke,  p.  145.    Clarendon,  vol.  ii.,  p.  658. 
t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  517,  518,  folio. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


•not  ordained  a  minister  in  this  or  some  other 
Reformed  churcii,  except  such  as  intend  the 
ministry,  who  shall  be  allowed  for  the  trial  of 
their  gifts,  by  those  that  shall  be  appomted 
thereunto  by  both  houses  of  Parliament;  and 
it  is  earnestly  desired  that  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax 
take  care  that  this  ordinance  be  put  in  execu- 
tion in  the  army.  It  is  farther  ordered  to  be 
sent  to  the  lord-mayor,  and  committee  of  the 
militia  in  London  ;  to  the  governors  and  com- 
manders of  all  forts,  garrisons,  forces,  cities, 
and  towns,  with  the  hke  injunction  ;  and  the 
mayor,  sheriffs,  and  justices  of  the  peace  are 
to  commit  all  offenders  to  safe  custody,  and  give 
notice  to  the  Parliament,  who  will  take  a  speedy 
course  for  their  punishment."* 

At  the  same  time,  the  Lords  sent  to  the  As- 
semblyt  to  prepare  a  new  directory  for  the  or- 
dination of  ministers  of  the  Church  in  England, 
-without  the  presence  of  a  diocesan  bishop. 
This  took  them  up  a  great  deal  of  time,  by  rea- 
son of  the  opposition  it  met  with  from  the  Eras- 
tians  and  Independents,  but  was  at  last  accom- 
plished, and  passed  into  an  ordinance,  bearing 
date  November  8,  164r),  and  was  to  continue 
in  force,  by  way  of  trial,  for  twelve  months  ;  on 
the  28th  of  August  following,  it  was  prolonged 
•for  three  years,  at  the  expiration  of  which  term 
it  was  made  perpetual. 

The  ordinance  sets  forth,  "  That  whereas  the 
words  presbyter  and  bishop  do,  in  Scripture, 
signify  the  same  function,  though  the  title  of 
bishop  has  been,  by  corrupt  custom,  appropria- 
ted to  one  who  has  assumed  to  himself,  in  the 
matter  of  ordination,  that  which  was  not  meet ; 
which  ordination,  notwithstanding  being  per- 
formed by  him,  we  hold  for  substance  to  be 
valid,  and  not  to  be  disclaimed  by  any  that  have 
received  it ;  and  whereas  it  is  manifest  that 
ordination,  that  is,  an  outward,  solemn  setting 
apart  of  persons  for  the  office  of  the  ministry  in 
the  Church  by  preaching  presbyters,  is  an  in- 
stitution of  Christ,  it  is  therefore  ordained  by 
the  Lords  and  Commons,  with  the  advice  of  the 
^Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster,  that  the 
several  and  respective  classical  presbyters,  with- 
in their  respective  bounds,  may  examine,  ap- 
•prove,  and  ordain  presbyters  according  to  the 
following  Directory.''^  which  I  have  placed  in 


*  Husband's  Collections,  p.  645. 

i  Everything  touching  this  venerable  council  is 
interesting,  and  I  would  gladly  add  all  that  the  light 
of  history  can  furnish  ;  but  such  has  been  the  indus- 
try, research,  and  fidelity  of  Neal,  that  very  little  can 
be  added.  The  Christian  Keview  for  December, 
1843;  while  it  speaks  in  commendation  of  Mr.  Heth- 
erington's  History  of  the  Assembly,  adds,  "  In  many 
respects,  the  account  of  the  Assembly  given  by  Neal 
in  his  'History  of  the  Puritans'  is  much  more  satis- 
factory than  the  work  of  Hetherington.  The  latter 
seems  to  have  had  access  to  few,  if  any,  sources  of 
information  which  were  not  known  to  the  former 
Neal,  in  his  text  and  appendices,  furnishes  many 
items  extremely  valuable  in  themselves  and  necessa- 
ry to  a  complete  history  of  the  Westminster  Assem- 
bly, but  which  Hetherington  wholly  omits.  Neal, 
being  an  Independent,  gives  all  diligence  that  the  In- 
dependents should  have  due  honour.  The  Independ- 
ents and  Presbyterians,  however,  harmonized  in  so 
many  points,  both  being  Nonconformists,  that  justice 
to  one  is,  in  most  cases,  justice  to  both."  In  order 
to  avoid  any  appearance  of  undue  partiality,  I  have 
.added  few  notes  on  this  portion  of  the  work.— C. 

t  Rushworth,  part  iv.,  vol.  i.,  p.  212. 


the  Appendix,*  and  is  in  substance  as  fol- 
lows : 

First,  "  The  person  to  be  ordained  must 
apply  to  the  Presbytery,  with  a  testimonial  of 
his  taking  the  Covenant,  of  his  proficiency  in 
his  studies,"  &c. 

Secondly,  "  He  is  then  to  pass  under  an  ex- 
amination as  to  his  religion  and  learning,  and 
call  to  the  ministry." 

Then  follow  rules  for  examination,  as  in  the 
Appendix. 

"After  examination  he  shall  receive  a  public 
testimonial  from  his  examiners,  which  shall  be 
read  publicly  before  the  people,  and  then  fixed 
to  the  door  of  the  church  where  he  preaches 
for  approbation,  with  liberty  to  any  person  or 
persons  to  make  exceptions. 

"  Upon  the  day  of  ordination  a  solemn  fast 
shall  be  kept  by  the  congregation,  when,  after 
a  sermon,  the  person  to  be  ordained  shall  make 
a  public  confession  of  his  faith, t  and  declare 
his  resolutions  to  be  diligent  and  constant  in  the 
discharge  of  his  pastoral  duty.  After  which 
he  shall  be  separated  or  set  apart  to  the  pasto- 
ral office  with  a  short  prayer,  and  the  laying  on 
of  the  hands  of  the  ministers  present.  After  the 
ordination,  there  is  to  be  an  exhortation  to 
minister  and  people,  and  the  whole  solemnity 
to  conclude  with  a  psalm  and  a  prayer." 

It  is  farther  declared,  "  that  all  ordinations, 
according  to  the  former  usage  of  the  Church 
of  England,  as  well  as  those  of  Scotland  and 
other  Reformed  churches,  shall  be  esteemed 
valid. 

"  A  register  is  to  be  kept  by  every  presbytery 
of  the  names  of  the  persons  ordained  by  them, 
of  the  ministers  concerned,  and  of  the  time  and 
place  where  they  were  settled.  No  money  or 
gift  whatsoever  shall  be  received  from  the  per- 
son ordained,  or  from  any  on  his  behalf,  for  his 
ordination,  or  anything  relating  to  it,  except 
for  the  instruments  or  testimonials,  which  shall 
not  exceed  ten  shillings." 

Lastly,  it  is  resolved,  "  that  all  persons  or- 
dained according  to  this  Directory  shall  be  for- 
ever reputed  and  taken,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, for  lawfully  and  sufficiently  authorized 
ministers  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  as 
capable  of  any  ministerial  employment  in  the 
Church,  as  any  other  presbyter  already  or- 
dained, or  hereafter  to  be  ordained." 

To  give  a  short  specimen  of  the  debates 
upon  this  ordinance  ;  when  the  passage  in  Tim- 
othy, of  "  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the  presby- 
tery," was  voted  a  full  warrant  for  presbyters 


*  Appendix,  No.  9. 

t  It  deserves  to  be  noticed  here,  that  the  advice 
and  orders  of  the  Westminister  Assembly  are,  on 
this  point,  very  general,  namely  :  "That  the  person 
to  he  ordained  be  asked  of  his  faith  in  Jesus  Christ, 
of  his  persuasion  of  the  truth  of  the  Reformed  reli- 
gion according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  of  his  zeal  for 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel  and  unity  of  the  Church, 
against  error  and  schism."  "  This,  I  think,  is  an  ev- 
ident presumption,"  observes  a  late  writer,  "that  the 
majority  of  the  Assembly  were  against  imposing  hu- 
man tests,  and  making  subscription  to  their  confes- 
sion a  necessary  term  of  communion,  either  to  min- 
isters or  other  Christians." — "  The  Religious  Estab- 
lishmtiit  of  Scotland  Examined"  «Sic.,  printed  for  Ca- 
dell,  1771,  p.  105.  This  is  the  more  remarkable,  as, 
in  other  instances,  this  synod  showed  themselves  dog- 
matical and  intolerant. — Ed. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


ordaining  without  a  bishop,  Mr.  Selden,  Light- 
foot,  and  some  others,  entered  their  dissent, 
declaring  that  the  imposition  of  hands  there 
spoken  of  was  only  upon  ordination  of  an  elder ; 
and  though  elders  might  ordain  elders,  it  did  not 
necessarily  follow  they  might  ordain  bishops. 

The  Independents  maintained  the  right  of 
every  particular  congregation  to  ordain  its  own 
officers  ;  this  was  debated  ten  days  ;  and  the 
arguments  on  both  sides  were  afterward  pub- 
lished by  consent  of  the  several  parties,  in  a 
book  entitled  "  The  Grand  Debate  between 
Presbytery  and  Independency."*  At  length  the 
question  being  put,  that  it  is  requisite  no  sin- 
gle congregation,  that  can  conveniently  as- 
sociate with  others,  should  assume  to  itself  the 
sole  right  of  ordination,  it  was  carried  in  the 
affirmative,  the  following  Independent  minis- 
ters entering  their  dissent : 

Tho.  Goodwin,      I      Sidrach  Simpson, 
Phil.  Nye,  |      William  Bridge, 

Jer.  Burroughs,  |  Will.  GreenhiU. 
William  Carter, 
It  was  next  debated  whether  ordination  might 
precede  election  to  a  particular  cure  or  charge  ; 
Dr.  Temple,  Mr.  Herle,  Vines,  Palmer,  Whit- 
aker,  and  Calamy  argued  for  the  affirmative. 
1.  From  the  ordination  of  Timothy,  Titus,  and 
Apollos,  without  any  particular  charge.  2.  Be- 
cause it  is  a  different  thing  to  ordain  to  an  office, 
and  to  appropriate  the  exercise  of  that  office  to 
any  particular  place.  3.  If  election  must  pre- 
cede ordination,  then  there  must  be  a  new  ordi- 
nation upon  every  new  election.  4.  It  would 
then  follow  that  a  minister  was  no  minister  out 
of  his  own  church  or  congregation.  And,  5. 
Then  a  minister  could  not  gather  or  plant  church- 
es, or  baptize  new  converts,  because,  according 
to  the  Independents,  there  must  be  a  church  be- 
fore there  can  be  a  minister.! 

Mr.  Goodwin,  Nye,  Bridge,  and  the  rest  of 
the  Independents,  replied  to  the  foregoing  rea- 
sons, that  Timothy  and  Titus  were  extraordi- 
nary officers  ;  that  it  appeared  to  them  absurd 
to  ordain  an  officer  without  a  province  to  ex- 
ercise the  office  in  ;  that  they  saw  no  great  in- 
convenience in  reordinations.  though  they  did 
not  admit  the  consequence  that  a  person  reg- 
ularly ordained  to  one  church  must  be  reor- 
dained  upon  every  removal ;  but  they  asserted 
that  a  pastor  of  one  particular  church  might  pre- 
serve his  character  in  all  places  ;  and  if  there 
was  extraordinary  service  to  be  done  in  plant- 
ing new  churches,  or  baptizing  converts,  the 
churches  might  send  out  their  officers,  or  create 
new  ones  for  that  purpose.  The  grand  diffi- 
culty with  the  Independents  lay  here,  that  ordi- 
nation without  election  to  a  particular  charge 
seemed  to  imply  a  conveyance  of  office-power, 
■which,  in  their  opinion,  was  attended  with  all 
the  difficulties  of  a  lineal  succession.  The  de- 
bates upon  this  article  continued  several  days, 
and  issued,  at  last,  in  a  compromise,  in  these 
words  :  "  It  is  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God, 
and  very  expedient,  that  those  who  are  to  be 
ordained  ministers,  be  designed  to  some  particu- 
lar church,  or  other  ministerial  charge."  And 
with  regard  to  the  ceremony  of  imposition  of 
hands,  the  Independents  acquiesced  in  the  prac- 
tice, provided  it  was  attended  with  an  open 


Grand  Debate,  p.  185. 


t  MS.  penes  me. 


declaration  that  it  was  not  intended  as  a  con- 
veyance of  office-power. 

It  may  seem  absurd  to  begin  the  reformatioir 
of  the  Church  with  an  ordinance  appointing 
classical  presbyters  to  ordain  ministers  within 
their  several  districts,  when  there  was  not  as 
yet  one  classical  presbytery  in  all  England  ;  but 
the  urgency  of  affairs  required  it ;  the  scarcity 
of  ministers  would  not  suffer  a  delay  till  th© 
whole  fabric  of  Presbytery  was  erected  ;*  there^ 
fore,  to  supply  this  defect  for  the  present,  the 
whole  business  was  intrusted  with  the  As- 
sembly, who  voted,  December  24,  1645,  that  a- 
committee  for  examination  of  ministers  should 
sit  every  Tuesday  and  Thursday  in  the  after- 
noon, at  two  o'clock,  and  the  members  of  the 
Assembly  should  attend  in  their  turns,  as  they 
shall  be  nominated  and  appointed  by  the  scribe, 
according  to  the  order  of  their  names  in  the 
register-book,  five  at  a  time,  and  each  to  attend 
a  week. 

While  the  point  of  ordination  was  depending,, 
committees  were  chosen  to  prepare  materials 
for  a  new  form  of  discipline  and  church  govern- 
ment ;  a  measure  of  the  greater  consequence, 
because  the  old  form  was  dissolved,  and  no  oth- 
er as  yet  established  in  its  room.t  Here  the 
Independents  agreed  with  the  Presbyterians, 
that  there  was  a  certain  form  of  church  govern- 
ment laid  down  in  the  New  Testament,  which 
was  of  Divine  institution  ;  but  when  they  came 
to  the  question,  What  that  government  wasl  and 
whether  it  was  binding  in  all  ages  of  the  Church  T 
both  the  Erastians  and  Independents  divided 
against  them.  The  proposition  was  this,  that 
the  Scripture  holds  forth  that  many  particular 
congregations  may,  and  by  Divine  institution 
ought  to  be  under  one  Presbyterial  government. 
The  debate  lasted  thirty  days  ;  the  Erastians 
did  not  except  against  the  Presbyterial  govern- 
ment as  a  political  institution,  proper  to  be  es- 
tablished by  the  civil  magistrate,  but  they  were 
against  the  claim  of  a  Divine  right.  Upon  this 
occasion,  Bulstrode  Whitelocke,  Esq.,  one  of 
the  lay  commissioners,  stood  up  and  made  the 
following  speech  :t 
"  Mr.  Prolocutor, 

"  I  might  blush  to  speak  in  this  reverend  As- 
sembly, upon  the  question  now  in  debate  be- 
fore you,  had  I  not,  by  the  honour  of  being  one- 
of  your  members,  seen  your  candour  to  others, 
and  observed  you  to  be  most  capable  to  give 
satisfaction  to  any  scruple  here,  and  to  enable- 
such  as  I  am  to  satisfy  objections  abroad,  where- 
of I  have  met  with  some,  your  question  not  be- 
ing under  secrecy. 

"  By  government  all  men  understand  the  pru- 
dent and  well-ordering  of  persons  and  affairs,, 
that  men  may  live  well  and  happily  ;  and  by  the 
government  of  the  Church,  the  ordering  and 
ruling  of  persons  and  matters  having  relatioa 
to  the  worship  of  God,  in  spiritual  matters. 

"  The  word  presbyter  was  in  great  honour 
among  the  Jews,  being  given  to  the  members 
of  their  great  sanhedrin,  and,  therefore,  is  not 
now  so  properly  to  be  attributed  to  the  rulers 
of  every  small  congregation.  I  am  none  of 
those,  Mr.  Prolocutor,  who  except  against  tho 
Presbyterian   government ;   I   think  it   has  a 


♦  Vide  Appendix,  No.  9. 

t  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  95 


■f  Ibid. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


good  foundation,  and  has  done  much  good  in 
the  Church  of  Christ. 

"  But,  sir,  whether  this  form  of  government 
be  jure  divino  or  not,  may  admit  of  some  dis- 
pute ;  and  whether  it  be  now  requisite  for  you 
to  declare  that  it  is  so. 

"  If  the  meaning  be  that  it  is  jure  divino  eccle- 
siasltco,  then  the  question  will  be  raised  of  the 
magistrates  imposing  forms  upon  men's  con- 
sciences, for  then  they  will  be  only  the  magis- 
trates' imposition.  But  if  the  meaning  be  jure 
divino  absolute,  it  must  then  be  the  precept  of 
God,  and  they  are  in  a  sad  condition  who  are 
not  under  this  government. 

"  But  it  is  objected  that  no  form  of  govern- 
ment is  jure  dioino,  but  that,  in  general,  all 
things  must  be  done  decently  and  in  order.  A 
government  is  certainly  jure  divino,  but  whether 
Presbytery,  Episcopacy,  Independency,  or  any 
other  form  of  government  be  jure  divino  or  not, 
that  is,  whether  there  be  a  prescript,  rule,  or 
command  of  Scripture  for  any  of  those  forms, 
will  not  be  admitted  by  many  as  a  clear  thing. 

"  It  may,  therefore,  not  be  unworthy  your 
consideration,  whether  it  be  not  more  prudent 
at  this  time  to  forbear  to  declare  your  judg- 
ments in  this  point ;  the  truth  will,  neverthe- 
less, continue  the  same. 

"If  this  government  be  not  jure  divino,  no 
opinion  of  any  council  can  make  it  so  ;  and  if 
it  be  jure  divino,  it  continues  so  still,  though 
you  do  not  declare  it  to  be  so. 

"  I  therefore  humbly  submit  it  to  your  judg- 
ments, whether  it  be  not  better,  at  this  time, 
to  avoid  giving  occasion  to  disputes  of  this 
nature,  and  only  to  present  your  judgment  to 
the  Parliament,  that  the  government  of  the 
Church  by  Presbyteries  is  most  agreeable  to 
the  Word  of  God,  and  most  fit  to  be  settled  in 
this  kingdom  ;  or  in  what  other  expressions  you 
may  think  fit  to  clothe  your  question  ;  and  I 
hope  you  may  soon  have  a  desired  issue." 

Mr.  Selden  and  St.  John  were  of  this  mind  ; 
and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Colman  was  so  zealous  on 
this  side  that  he  declaimed  against  the  Divine 
right,  not  only  in  the  Assembly,  but  in  the  pul- 
pit, apprehending  Presbytery  would  prove  as 
arbitrary  and  tyrannical  as  Prelacy  if  it  came 
in  on  the  foot  of  a  Divine  claim.  He  therefore 
proposed  that  the  civil  magistrate  should  have 
the  sole  power  of  the  keys,  by  way  of  interim, 
till  the  nation  was  settled. 

But  the  Independents  opposed  the  proposition 
of  the  Divine  right  of  Presbytery,  by  advancing 
a  counter  Divine  right  of  their  own  scheme ; 
fifteen  days  they  took  the  part  of  opponents, 
and  fifteen  days  they  were  upon  the  defensive. 
To  give  a  short  specimen  of  their  debates  : 

The  chief  inquiries  were  concerning  the  con- 
stitution and  fijrmofthe  first  Church  of  Jerusa- 
lem ;  the  subordination  of  synods  and  of  lay-el- 
ders.* Upon  the  first  question,  the  Independ- 
ents maintained  that  the  first  church  at  Jerusa- 
lem was  not  larger  than  could  meet  in  one 
place.  In  support  of  which  allegation  they  pro- 
duced several  passages  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment;  as.  Acts  i,  15,  The  whole- number  of  dis- 
ciples being  about  one  hundred  and  twenty,  met 
together  with  one  accord.  And  Acts  ii.,  1,  They 
were  all  with  one  accord  in  one  place.  When 
they  were  multiplied  to  three  thousand,  it  is 


♦  Grand  Debate,  p.  13,  &c. 


still  said,  they  met  together  with  one  accord, 
and  in  one  place,  Acts,  ii.,  46.  When  they  were 
farther  increased,  multitudes  bemg  added  to 
them,  both  men  and  women,  they  still  met  to- 
gether with  one  accord,  and  in  one  place.  Acts, 
v.,  12,  14.  When  the  number  of  disciples  had 
received  yet  farther  addition,  so  that  it  became 
necessary  to  choose  deacons  to  take  care  of  the 
poor,  the  whole  multitude  were  called  together, 
and  chose  out  seven  men  from  among  them- 
selves, and  set  them  before  the  apostles.  Acts, 
vi.,  2,  5.  And  even  after  the  general  dispersion 
of  the  disciples  mentioned  Acts  viii.,  it  is  re- 
corded that  those  who  remained  met  together  in 
one  place  as  a  church.  Acts,  xv.,  4,  22,  "  Then 
pleased  it  the  apostles  and  elders,  with  the 
whole  church,  to  send  chosen  men  of  their  own 
company  to  Antioch."  They  allowed  that  there 
was  a  mention  of  a  Presbytery  in  Scripture,  but 
that  it  was  no  other  than  the  Presbytery  or  el- 
ders of  one  particular  church  or  congregation, 
it  being  nowhere  expressed  that  God  has  set  in 
the  Church  distinct  sorts  of  Presbyteries,  such 
as  consistories,  classes,  provincial  synods,  and 
general  assemblies,  one  above  another.  They 
objected,  also,  to  the  high  powers  claimed  by 
the  Presbyteries,  as  the  right  of  admission  and 
exclusion  from  the  Christian  Church,  with  pains 
and  penalties,  which,  as  they  had  no  foundation 
in  Scripture,  were  not  very  consistent  with  the 
powers  of  the  civil  magistrate. 

By  way  of  reply,  the  Presbyterians  main- 
tained that  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  was  made 
up  of  more  congregations  than  one,  as  appeared 
from  the  multitude  of  disciples  mentioned  in  di- 
vers places  ;*  from  the  many  apostles  and  teach- 
ers in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  who  could  not 
exercise  their  gifts  in  one  assembly  ;  and  from, 
the  diversity  of  languages  mentioned.  Acts,  ii. 
and  vi.  Now,  it  being  granted  that  the  disci- 
ples were  too  numerous  to  assemble  in  one 
place,  it  must  follow  that  they  were  under  one 
Presbyterial  government,  because  they  are  stilL 
called  one  church.  Acts,  viii.,  I,  the  elders  of 
which  are  often  mentioned  in  the  same  history. 
The  ablest  critics  in  the  Assembly  were  divi- 
ded upon  this  head,  as  Dr.  Temple,  Lightfoot, 
Selden,  Colman,  Vines,  and  others,  but  it  was 
carried  for  the  Presbyterians. 

It  was  alleged,  in  favour  of  the  subordination 
of  synods,  that  the  Scripture  speaks  of  an  ap- 
peal from  one  or  two  brethren  to  the  whole 
church.  Matt.,  xviii.,  15,  and  of  the  appeal  of 
the  church  at  Antioch  to  the  apostles  and  elders 
at  Jerusalem,  Acts,  xv.,  2.t  But  the  Independ- 
ents affirmed  that  a  synod  of  Presbyters  is  no- 
where called  a  church,  and  that  the  appeal  of 
the  Church  of  Antioch  was  only  for  advice,  not 
for  a  judicial  determination  ;  but  that,  suppo- 
sing the  assembly  of  the  apostles  at  Jerusalem 
had  been  a  synod,  it  could  neither  have  been 
provincial  nor  national  in  respect  of  the  church 
at  Antioch,  and,  consequently,  no  proof  of  a  ' 
subordination.  The  masters  of  Jewish  antiqui- 
ties displayed  all  their  learning  upon  this  sub- 
ject, for  the  Jewish  sanhedrin  being  proposed 
as  the  model  of  their  Christian  Presbytery,  it 
was  necessary  to  inquire  what  were  the  re- 
spective powers  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil 
courts  under  the  law. J   Moses  having  appointed 


*  Grand  Debate,  p.  41.        +  Ibid.,  p.  115, 128,  &c.- 
t  Lightfool's  Remarks,  p.  17. 


10 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


that  he  that  would  not  hearken  to  the  priest  or 
the  judge  should  die,  Deut.,  xvii,,  12,  it  was  in- 
ferred, in  favour  of  church  power,  that  the  priest 
held  one  court  and  the  civil  magistrate  another ; 
but  Mr.  Selden  observed,  that  the  Vulgar  Latin, 
till  within  these  forty  years,  reads  thus  :  "  Qui 
non  obediveret  sacerdoti  ex  decreto  judicis 
niorietur" — "He  that  will  not  obey  the  priest 
shall  die  by  the  sentence  of  the  judge,"  and 
Mr.  Lightfoot  added,  that  when  the  judges  of 
inferior  courts  went  up  to  Jerusalem  by  way 
of  appeal,  it  was  only  for  advice  and  con- 
sultation ;  but  when  the  question  was  put,  De- 
cember 12,  for  a  subordination  of  synods  with 
lay-elders,  as  so  many  courts  of  judicature, 
with  power  to  dispense  church  censures,  it 
■was  carried  in  the  affirmative,  and  inserted  in 
their  humble  advice,  with  this  addition,  "  So 
Christ  has  furnished  some  in  his  Church,  be- 
sides ministers  of  the  Word,  with  gifts  for  gov- 
ernment, and  with  commission  to  execute  the 
same  when  called  thereunto,  who  are  to  join 
■with  the  minister  in  the  government  of  the 
Church,  which  officers  the  Reformed  churches 
generally  call  elders."* 

Thus  the  main  foundations  of  the  Presbyteri- 
al  government  were  voted  of  Divine  appoint- 
ment by  a  very  great  majority  ;  but  the  Inde- 
pendents entered  their  dissent  in  writing,  and 
-complained  to  the  world  "  of  the  unkind  usage 
they  met  with  in  the  Assembly  ;  that  the  papers 
they  ofTered  were  not  read  ;  that  they  were  not 
allowed  to  state  their  own  questions,  being  told 
they  set  themselves  industriously  to  puzzle  the 
cause,  and  render  the  clearest  propositions  ob- 
scure, rather  than  argue  the  truth  or  falseness 
of  them  ;  that  it  was  not  worth  the  Assembly's 
"while  to  spend  so  much  time  in  debating  with 
so  inconsiderable  a  number  of  men  -,1  they  also 
declared  that  the  Assembly  refused  to  debate 
their  main  proposition,  viz.,  whether  a  Divine 
right  of  church  government  did  not  remain  with 
every  particular  congregation."  To  all  which 
it  was  replied,  that  the  Assembly  were  not  con- 
scious they  had  done  them  any  injustice  ;  and 
as  for  the  rest,  they  were  the  proper  judges  of 
their  own  methods  of  proceeding. 

The  Erastians,  seeing  how  things  were  car- 
ried, reserved  themselves  for  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, where  they  were  sure  to  be  joined  by  all 
the  patrons  of  the  Independents.  The  English 
•and  Scots  commissioners,  being  no  less  solicit- 
ous about  the  event,  gave  their  friends  notice  to 
be  early  in  their  places,  hoping  to  carry  the 
question  before  the  House  should  be  full  ;  but 
Mr.  Glyn,  perceiving  their  intention,  spoke  an 
hour  to  the  point  of  jus  divmum  ;  and  after  him 
Mr.  Whitelocke  stood  up  and  enlarged  upon  the 
same  argument  till  the  House  was  full,  when 
the  question  being  put,  it  was  carried  in  the 
negative,  and  that  the  proposition  of  the  As- 
sembly should  stand  thus  :  "  That  it  is  lawful 
and  agreeable  to  the  Word    of  God  that   the 


*  Vide  Appendix,  No.  9. 

t  This  is  a  specimen  of  that  insolence  of  spirit, 
that  pride  and  haughtiness  in  numbers,  which  a  con- 
■viction  of  acting  with  the  majority  begets.  These 
men  did  not  recollect  that  the  Christians  themselves, 
at  the  beginnmg,  were  an  inconsiderable  number  of 
rnen,  and  the  disciples  of  the  true  and  faithful  wit- 
ness a  "little  flock."  They  had  forgotten  the  gra- 
-■cious  promise  made  to  "  two  or  three"  only,  gathered 
together  in  the  name  of  Christ. — Ed. 


Chuch  be  governed  by  congregational,  classical, 
and  synodical  assemblies  "* 

The  disappointment  of  the  Scots  commission- 
ers and  their  friends  at  the  loss  of  this  question 
in  the  House  is  not  to  be  expressed  ;  they 
alarmed  the  citizens  with  the  danger  of  the 
Church,  and  prevailed  with  the  common  coun- 
cil to  petition  the  Parliament  [November  15] 
that  the  Presbyterian  discipline  might  be  estab- 
lished as  the  discipline  of  Jesus  Christ ;  but  the 
Commons  answered,  with  a  frown,  "  that  the 
citizens  must  have  been  misinformed  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  House,  or  else  they  would  not 
have  precipitated  the  judgment  of  Parliament." 
Not  discouraged  at  this  rebuke,  they  prevailed 
with  the  city  ministers  to  petition,  who,  when 
they  came  to  the  House,  were  told  by  the  speak- 
er, "  they  need  not  wait  for  an  answer,  but  go 
home  and  look  to  the  charges  of  their  several 
congregations,"  and  immediately  appointed  a 
committee  to  inquire  into  the  rise  of  these  peti- 
tions. 

The  Presbyterian  ministers,  despairing  of 
success  with  the  Commons,  instead  of  yielding 
to  the  times,  resolved  to  apply  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  who  received  them  civilly,  and  promised 
to  take  their  request  into  consideration  ;  but  no 
advances  being  made  in  two  months,  they  were 
out  of  all  patience,  and  determined  to  renew 
their  application  ;  and  to  give  it  the  greater 
weight,  prevailed  with  the  lord-mayor  and  court 
of  aldermen  to  join  with  them  in  presenting  an 
address,  which  they  did  January  16,  "  for  a 
speedy  settlement  of  church  government  ac- 
cording to  the  Covenant,  and  that  no  toleration 
might  be  given  to  popery,  prelacy,  superstition, 
heresy,  profaneness,  or  anything  contrary  to 
sound  doctrine,  and  that  all  private  assemblies 
might  be  restrained. "+  The  Lords  thanked 
them  for  their  zeal,  and  recommended  it  to  the 
city  magistrates  to  suppress  all  such  unlawful 
assemblies ;  but  the  houses  were  not  to  be 
moved  as  yet  by  such  disagreeable  importunity  ; 
however,  this  laid  the  foundation  of  those  jeal- 
ousies and  misunderstandings  between  the  city 
and  Parliament  which,  in  the  end,  proved  the 
ruin  of  the  Presbyterian  cause. 

But  the  fiercest  contention  between  the  As- 
sembly and  Parliament  arose  upon  the  power 
of  the  keys,  which  the  former  had  voted  to  be 
in  the  eldership  or  presbytery,  in  these  words : 
"  The  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  were  com- 
mitted to  the  officers  of  the  Church,  by  virtue 
whereof  they  have  power  respectively  to  retain 
and  remit  sins,  to  shut  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
against  the  impenitent  both  by  the  Word  and 
censures,  and  to  open  it  to  the  penitent  by  ab- 
solution ;  and  to  prevent  the  profanation  of  the 
holy  sacrament  by  notorious  and  obstinate  of- 
fenders, the  said  officers  are  to  proceed  by  ad- 
monition, suspension  from  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  for  a  season,  and  by  excommuni- 
cation from  the  Church,  according  to  the  nature 
of  the  crime  and  demerit  of  the  person  ;"t  all 
which  power  they  claimed,  not  by  the  laws  ol'the 
land,  bat  jure  divino,  or  by  Divine  appointment. 

The  Independents  claimed  a  like  power  for 
the  brotherhood  of  every  particular  congrega- 
tion, but  without  any  civil  sanctions  or  penal- 


*  Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  106. 
t  Vol.  Pamp.,  No.  xxxiv.,  p.  3. 
i  Vide  Appendix,  No.  9. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


11 


ties  annexed  ;  the  Erastians  were  for  laying  the 
communion  open,  and  referring  all  crimes  to 
the  civil  magistrate.  When  the  question, 
therefore,  came  under  consideration  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  learned  Mr.  Selden  de- 
livered his  opinion  against  all  suspensions  and 
excommunications,  to  this  effect :  "  That  for  four 
thousand  years  there  was  no  law  to  suspend 
persons  from  religious  exercises.  Strangers, 
indeed,  were  kept  from  the  Passover,  but  they 
were  pagans,  and  not  of  the  Jewish  religion. 
The  question  is  not  now  for  keeping  away  pa- 
gans in  times  of  Christianity,  but  Protestants 
■from  Protestant  worship.  No  divine  can  show 
that  there  is  any  such  command  as  this  to  sus- 
pend from  the  sacrament.  No  man  is  kept  from 
the  sacrament,  eo  nomine,  because  he  is  guilty 
of  any  sin,  by  the  constitution  of  the  Reformed 
churches,  or  because  he  has  not  made  satisfac- 
tion. Every  man  is  a  sinner  ;  the  difference  is 
■only,  that  one  is  in  private  and  the  other  in  pub- 
lic. Die  ecclesia  in  St.  Matthew  were  the  courts 
of  law  which  then  sat  at  Jerusalem.  No  man 
can  show  any  excommunication  till  the  Popes 
Victor  and  Zephorinus,  two  hundred  years  after 
■Christ,  first  began  to  use  them  upon  private 
<juarrels,  whereby  it  appears  that  excommuni- 
cation is  a  human  invention  taken  from  the  hea- 
thens."* 

Mr.  Whitelocke  spoke  on  the  same  side  of  the 
Kjuestion,  and  said,  "The  Assembly  of  Divines 
have  petitioned  and  advised  this  house,  that  in 
■every  presbytery,  or  Presbyterian  congregation, 
the  pastors  and  ruling  elders  may  have  the  pow- 
er of  excommunication,  and  of  suspending  such 
as  they  shall  judge  ignorant  or  scandalous.! 
By  pastors,  I  suppose,  they  mean  themselves, 
and  others  who  are  or  may  be  preachers,  and 
■would  be  bishops  or  overseers  of  their  congre- 
gations. By  ruling  elders,  they  mean  a  select 
number  of  such  in  every  congregation  as  shall 
be  chosen  for  the  execution  of  government  and 
discipline  therein.  A  pastor  is  one  who  is  to 
•feed  his  sheep  ;  and  if  so,  how  improper  must  it 
be  for  such  to  desire  to  excommunicate  any,  or 
keep  them  from  food ;  to  forbid  any  to  eat,  or 
whomsoever  they  shall  judge  unworthy,  when 
Christ  has  said,  'Take,  eat,  and  drink  ye  all  of 
it,'  though  Judas  was  one  of  them.  But  some 
have  said  it  is  the  duty  of  a  shepherd,  when  he 
sees  a  sheep  feeding  upon  that  which  will  do 
him  hurt,  to  chase  him  away  from  that  pasture; 
and  they  apply  this  to  suspending  those  from 
the  sacrament  whom  they  fear,  by  eating  and 
drinking  unworthily,  may  eat  and  drink  their 
own  damnation.  But  it  ought  to  be  observed, 
that  it  is  not  receiving  the  sacrament,  but  the 
unworthiness  of  the  receiver,  that  brings  de- 
struction ;  and  this  cannot  be  within  the  judg- 
ment of  any  but  the  person  himself,  who  alone 
can  examine  his  own  heart  ;  nor  can  any  one 
produce  a  commission  for  another  to  be  judge 
thereof  But  it  is  said  that  ruling  elders  are  to 
be  joined  with  the  pastors  ;  now,  in  some  coun- 
try villages  and  congregations,  perhaps,  they 
may  not  be  very  learned,  and  yet  the  authority 
given  them  is  very  great  :  the  word  elders, 
among  the  Hebrews,  signified  men  of  the  great- 
est power  and  dignity  ;  so  it  was  among  the  Ro- 
mans, whose  Senate  was  so  called  from  senes. 


*  Rushworth,  p.  203. 

t  Whitelocke,  p.  163,  164. 


elders.  The  highest  title  among  the  French, 
Spaniards,  and  Italians,  seigneur,  and  sigmori, 
is  but  a  corruption  of  the  Latin  word  senior,  el- 
der. The  same  may  be  observed  in  our  Eng- 
lish corporations,  where  the  best  and  most  sub- 
stantial persons  are  called  aldermen,  or  elder- 
men.  Thus,  the  title  of  elders  may  be  given  to 
the  chief  men  of  every  presbytery  ;  but  if  the 
power  of  excommunication  be  given  them,  they 
may  challenge  the  title  of  elders  in  the  highest 
signification. 

"  Power  is  desired  to  he  given  to  suspend 
from  the  sacrament  two  sorts  of  persons,  the 
ignorant  and  scandalous  ;  now  it  is  possible, 
that  they  who  are  judged  to  be  competent  in  one 
place,  may  be  deemed  ignorant  in  another ;  how- 
ever, to  keep  them  from  the  ordinances  is  no 
way  to  improve  their  knowledge.  Scandalous 
persons  are  likewise  to  be  suspended,  and  this 
is  to  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  pastors  and 
ruling  elders  ;  but  where  have  they  such  a  com- 
mission ^  Scandalous  sinners  should  be  ad- 
monished to  forsake  their  evil  ways,  and  amend 
their  lives  ;  and  how  can  this  be  done  better 
than  by  allowing  them  to  hear  good  sermons, 
and  partake  of  the  holy  ordinances'?  A  man 
may  be  a  good  physician,  though  he  never  cuts 
off  a  member  from  his  patient ;  and  a  church 
may  be  a  good  church,  though  no  member  of  it 
has  ever  been  cut  off.  I  have  heard  many  com- 
plaints of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  prelates,  who 
were  but  few;  now  in  this  ordinance  there  will 
be  a  great  multiplication  of  spiritual  men  in. 
government,  but  I  am  of  opinion  that  where  the 
temporal  sword  is  sufficient  for  punishment  of 
offences,  there  will  be  no  need  of  this  new  dis- 
cipline." 

Though  the  Parliament  did  not  deem  it  pru- 
dent wholly  to  reject  the  ordinance  for  excom- 
munication, because  it  had  been  the  popular 
complaint,  in  the  late  times,  that  pastors  of 
churches  had  not  power  to  keep  unworthy  com- 
municants from  the  Lord's  Table  ;  yet  the 
speeches  of  these  learned  gentlemen  made  such 
an  impression,  that  they  resolved  to  render  it  in- 
effectual to  all  the  purposes  of  church  tyranny  ; 
accordingly,  they  sent  to  the  Assembly  to  speci- 
fy in  writing  what  degrees  of  knowledge  in  the 
Christian  religion  were  necessary  to  qualify  per- 
sons for  the  communion,  and  what  sorts  of 
scandal  deserved  suspension  or  excommunica- 
tion ;  which,  after  much  controversy,  they  pre- 
sented to  the  houses,  who  inserted  them  in  the 
body  of  their  ordinance  for  suspension  from  the 
Lord's  Supper,  dated  October  20,  1645,  together 
with  certain  provisoes  of  their  own. 

The  ordinance  sets  forth,  that  the  several  el- 
derships, within  their  respective  limits,  shall 
have  power  to  suspend  from  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  all  ignorant  and  scandalous 
persons,  within  the  rules  and  directions  here- 
after mentioned,  and  no  others.* 

Rules  for  Suspending  from  the  Sacrament  in  case 
of  Ignorance. 
"  All  that  do  not  know  and  believe  the  being 
of  a  God,  and  the  Holy  Trinity  :  They  that  are 
not  acquainted  with  original  sin,  and  the  fall  of 
man  :  They  that  do  not  believe  Christ  to  be  God 
and  man,  and  our  only  Mediator  and  Redeemer ; 
that  Christ  and  his  benefits  are  applied  only  by 


Rushworth,  part  iv.,  vol.  i.,  p.  211. 


12 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


faith,  which  faith  is  the  gift  of  God,  and  implies 
a  trusting  in  him,  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and 
life  everlasting ;  the  necessity  of  sincere  repent- 
ance, and  a  holy  life,  in  order  to  salvation  ;  the 
nature  and  importance  of  the  two  sacraments, 
especially  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  that  the  souls 
of  the  faithful  do  immediately  live  with  Christ 
after  deatli,  and  the  souls  of  the  wicked  imme- 
diately go  to  hell ;  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
and  a  final  judgment." 

Rules  for  Suspe7ision  in  case  of  Scandal. 

"  The  elderships  shall  have  power  to  suspend 
from  the  sacrament  all  scandalous  persons  here- 
after mentioned,  and  no  others,  being  duly  con- 
victed by  the  oaths  of  two  witnesses,  or  their 
own  confession  ;  that  is  to  say, 

"All  blasphemers  against  God,  his  holy  Word, 
or  sacraments. 

"  Incestuous  persons  ;  adulterers  ;  fornica- 
tors ;  drunkards ;  profane  swearers  and  cursers ; 
murderers. 

"  Worshippers  of  images,  crosses,  crucifixes, 
or  relics. 

*'  All  that  make  images  of  the  Trinity,  or  of 
any  person  thereof 

"  All  religious  worshippers  of  saints,  angels, 
or  any  mere  creature. 

"  Such  as  declare  themselves  not  to  be  in 
charity  with  their  neighbours. 

"  Such  as  shall  challenge  others  to  a  duel,  or 
that  shall  accept  such  challenge. 

"  Such  as  knowingly  shall  carry  a  challenge, 
either  by  word,  message,  or  writing. 

"  Such  as  profane  the  Lord's  Day  by  dancing, 
playing  at  cards,  or  dice,  or  any  other  game  ; 
or  that  shall  on  the  Lord's  Day  use  masking, 
wakes,  shooting,  bowling,  playing  at  football 
or  stoolball,  wrestling ;  or  that  shall  resort  to 
plays,  interludes,  fencing,  bull-baiting,  or  bear- 
baiting  ;  or  shall  use  hawking,  hunting,  coursing, 
fishing,  or  fowling  ;  or  that  shall  publicly  ex- 
pose any  wares  to  sale,  otherwise  than  is  pro- 
vided by  the  ordinance  of  April  6,  1644  ;  or  that 
shall  travel  on  the  Lord's  Day  without  reasona- 
ble cause. 

"  Such  as  keep  known  stews,  or  brothel-hous- 
es ;  or  that  shall  solicit  the  chastity  of  any  per- 
son for  himself,  or  another. 

"  Such  parents  as  give  their  consent  to  marry 
their  children  to  papists  ;  and  such  as  do  them- 
selves marry  a  papist. 

"  Such  as  consult  for  advice,  witches,  wiz- 
ards, or  fortune-tellers. 

"  Such  as  assault  their  parents,  or  any  magis- 
trate, minister,  or  elder,  in  the  execution  of  his 
office. 

"Such  as  shall  be  legally  attainted  of  barra- 
try, forgery,  extortion,  or  bribery. 

"  And  the  several  elderships  shall  have  pow- 
er to  suspend  all  ministers  who  shall  be  duly 
convicted  of  any  of  the  crimes  above  mentioned, 
from  giving  or  receiving  the  Lord's  Supper. 

"  Persons  suspended  by  one  congregation 
shall  not  be  admitted  to  the  sacrament  by  an- 
other, without  certificate  from  that  congregation 
of  which  he  was  a  member.  But  in  all  cases 
of  suspension,  if  the  party  suspended  shall  man- 
ifest his  repentance  before  the  eldership  by 
whom  he  was  suspended,  he  shall  be  readmit- 
ted to  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  the  suspension 
taken  off." 


But  then  follow  the  provisoes,  which  stripped 
the  Presbyteries  of  that  power  of  the  keys 
which  they  were  reaching  at. 

"  Provided,  always,  that  if  any  person  find 
himself  aggrieved  with  the, proceedings  of  the 
presbytery  to  which  he  belongs,  he  may  appeal 
to  the  classical  eldership  ;  from  them  to  the 
Provincial  Assembly  ;  from  them  to  the  Nation- 
al ;  and  from  them  to  the  Parliament." 

It  is  farther  provided,  "  that  the  cognizance 
and  examination  of  all  capital  offences  shall  be 
reserved  entire  to  the  magistrate  appointed  by 
the  laws  of  the  kingdom,  who,  upon  his  com- 
mitting the  party  to  prison,  shall  make  a  cer- 
tificate to  the  eldership  of  the  congregation  to 
which  they  belonged,  who  may  thereupon  sus- 
pend them  from  the  sacrament. 

"  The  presbytery  or  eldership  shall  not  have 
cognizance  of  anything  relating  to  contracts, 
payments,  or  demands  ;  or  of  any  matter  of  con- 
veyance, title,  interest,  or  property,  in  lands  or 
goods. 

"  No  use  shall  be  made  of  any  confession,  or 
proof  made  before  an  eldership,  at  any  trial  at 
law  of  any  person  for  any  offence. 

"  And  it  is  farther  ordained,  that  those  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  who  are  members  of  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines,  or  any  seven  of  them,  shall 
be  a  standing  committee,  to  consider  of  sucli 
other  offences  or  scandals,  not  mentioned  ia 
this  ordinance,  which  may  be  conceived  to  be 
a  sufficient  cause  of  suspension  from  the  sac- 
rament, and  shall  lay  them  before  the  Parlia- 
ment." 

By  an  ordinance  of  June  5,  1646,  a  discretion- 
ary power  was  lodged  in  a  committee  of  Lords 
and  Commons,  not  less  than  nine,  to  adjudge 
and  determine  scandalous  offences  not  formerly 
enumerated,  and  report  them  to  the  two  hous- 
es, that  if  they  concurred  with  the  committee,, 
they  might  be  added  to  the  catalogue. 

By  these  provisoes,  it  is  evident  the  Parliament 
were  determined  not  to  part  with  the  spiritual 
sword,  or  subject  their  civil  properties  to  the 
power  of  the  Church,  which  gave  great  offence 
to  the  Scots  commissioners,  and  to  most  of  the 
English  Presbyterians,  who  declaimed  against 
the  ordinance,  as  built  upon  Erastian  principles, 
and  depriving  the  Church  of  that  which  it  claim- 
ed by  a  Divine  institution.  They  allowed  of 
appeals  from  one  spiritual  court  to  another,  but 
declared  openly  from  the  pulpit  and  press,  that 
appeals  to  the  Parliament  or  civil  magistrate, 
as  the  dernier  resort,  were  insufferable.  The 
Parliament,  observing  their  ambition  of  making 
the  Church  independent  of  the  State,  girt  the 
laws  closer  about  them,  and  subjected  their  de- 
terminations more  immediately  to  the  civil  ma- 
gistrate, by  an  ordinance  dated  March  14, 1645-6, 
which  enacts,  "  that  an  appeal  shall  lie  from 
the  decisions  of  every  classis  to  the  commis- 
sioners chosen  by  Parliament  out  of  every  prov- 
ince, and  from  them  to  the  Parliament  itself. 
That  if  any  person  commit  any  scandalous  of- 
fences not  mentioned  in  the  ordinance,  the  min- 
ister may  forbear  to  administer  the  sacrament 
to  him  for  that  time  ;  but  then  he  shall,  within 
eight  days,  certify  the  same  to  the  commission- 
ers, who  shall  send  up  the  case,  with  their  opin- 
ions, to  the  Parliament,  by  whose  determinatioa- 
the  eldership  shall  abide." 

This  ordmance  of  suspension  from  the  sac- 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


13 


ramenl  was  extorted  from  the  two  houses  be- 
fore the  time,  by  the  importunate  solicitations 
of  the  city  clergy  ;  for  as  yet  there  were  no 
classes  or  presbyteries  in  any  part  of  England 
which  ought  to  have  been  erected  before  they 
had  determined  their  powers.  The  houses  had 
voted  that  there  should  be  a  choice  of  lay-elders 
throughout  England  and  Wales,  and  had  laid 
down  some  rules  for  this  purpose  August  19, 
1645  ;  but  it  was  on  the  14th  of  March  follow- 
ing before  it  passed  into  a  law. 

It  was  then  ordained,  1.  "That  there  be  forth- 
with a  choice  of  [ruling]  elders  throughout  the 
kingdom  of  England  and  dominion  of  Wales. 

2.  "  That  public  notice  be  given  of  such  elec- 
tion in  every  parish,  by  the  minister  of  the 
church,  a  fortnight  before,  and  that  on  the 
Lord's  Day  on  which  the  choice  is  to  be  made 
a  sermon  be  preached  suitable  to  the  occasion. 

3.  "  Elections  shall  be  made  by  the  congrega- 
tion, or  the  major  part  of  them  then  assembled, 
being  heads  of  families,  and  such  as  have  taken 
the  Covenant. 

4.  "  That  certain  persons  be  appointed  triers 
in  every  classis,  viz.,  six  ministers  and  three 
laymen,  whereof  seven  to  be  a  quorum,  to  de- 
termine the  validity  of  elections.  All  members 
of  Parliament,  and  peers  of  the  realm,  to  be  tri- 
ers in  the  parishes  wherein  they  live. 

5.  "  No  man  to  be  a  ruling  elder  but  for  one 
congregation,  and  that  in  the  parish  where  he 
lives. 

6.  "  The  qualifications  of  a  ruling  elder  are, 
that  he  be  of  good  understanding  in  religion, 
sound  in  the  faith,  prudent,  discreet,  grave,  of 
unblameable  conversation,  willing  to  undergo 
the  office,  and  in  communion  with  the  Church. 

7.  "All  parishes,  privileged  places,  exempt 
jurisdictions,  and  all  other  places  whatsoever, 
shall  be  brought  under  the  exercise  of  congrega- 
tional, classical,  provincial,  and  national  assem- 
blies, except  chapels  within  any  of  the  king's 
houses,  or  the  House  of  Peers,  which  shall  con- 
tinue free  for  the  exercise  of  religion,  according 
to  the  Directory,  but  not  otherwise. 

8.  "  The  province  of  London  shall  be  divided 
into  twelve  classical  elderships,  each  to  contain 
about  twelve  parishes  of  the  city  and  parts  ad- 
jacent, and  these  to  be  the  boundaries  of  the 
province  of  London. 

9.  "  The  several  counties  of  England  and 
Wales  shall  be  divided  into  classical  presbyter- 
ies by  persons  to  be  appointed  by  Parliament  for 
this  purpose,  who  shall  settle  the  boundaries  of 
each  classis,  and  certify  the  same  to  the  Parlia- 
ment for  their  approbation. 

10.  "  The  presbytery  or  eldership  of  every 
parish  shall  meet  once  a  week ;  the  classical 
assemblies  of  each  province  once  a  month,  by 
adjournment,  in  such  places  as  may  be  most 
convenient ;  provincial  assemblies  shall  meet 
twice  a  year ;  national  assemblies  as  often  as 
they  shall  be  summoned  by  Parliament,  and 
shall  continue  sitting  as  long  as  the  Parliament 
shall  direct  and  appoint,  and  not  otherwise. 

11.  "Every  congregational  or  parochial  el- 
dership shall  send  two  elders,  or  more,  not  ex- 
ceeding four,  and  one  minister,  to  the  classical 
assembly  ;  every  classical  assembly  within  the 
province  shall  send  two  ministers,  and  four  ru- 
ling elders  at  least,  but  not  to  exceed  nine,  to 
the  provincial  assembly.     Every  provincial  as- 


sembly shall  appoint  two  ministers,  and  four 
ruling  elders,  which  shall  constitute  a  national 
assembly,  when  such  a  one  shall  be  summoned 
by  Parliament."* 

When  this  ordinance  had  passed  the  Com- 
mons, it  stuck  a  considerable  time  with  the 
Lords,  insomuch  that  the  Presbyterian  clergy 
thought  it  necessary  to  quicken  them  by  a  peti- 
tion. May  29,  under  the  hands  of  three  hundred 
ministers  of  SutTolk  and  Essex,  lamenting  the 
decay  of  religion,  and  the  want  of  church  disci- 
pline, and  beseeching  their  lordships  to  put  the 
finishing  hand  to  the  bill  so  long  depending; 
which  they  did,  accordingly,  June  6,  1646. 

Thus  the  Presbyterian  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment became  the  national  establishment,  by 
way  of  probation,  as  far  as  an  ordinance  of  Par- 
liament could  make  it ;  for  the  preamble  sets 
forth,  "that  if,  upon  trial,  it  was  not  found  ac- 
ceptable, it  should  be  reversed  or  amended.  It 
declares,  farther,  that  the  two  houses  found  it 
very  difficult  to  make  their  new  settlement 
agree  with  the  laws  and  government  of  the 
kingdom  ;  that  therefore  it  could  not  be  expect- 
ed that  a  present  rule  in  every  particular  should 
be  settled  at  once,  but  that  there  will  be  need 
of  supplements  and  additions,  and  perhaps  al- 
terations, as  experience  shall  bring  to  light  the 
necessity  thereof" 

The  Parliament  apprehended  they  had  now 
established  the  plan  of  the  Presbyterian  disci- 
pline, though  it  proved  not  to  the  satisfaction 
of  any  one  party  of  Christians  ;  so  hard  is  it  to 
make  a  good  settlement  when  men  dig  up  all  at 
once  old  foundations.  The  Presbyterian  hie- 
rarchy was  as  narrow  as  the  prelatical ;  and  as 
it  did  not  allow  a  liberty  of  conscience,  claim- 
ing a  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  authority 
over  men's  persons  and  properties,  it  was 
equally,  if  not  more,  insufferable.  Bishop  Ken- 
net  observes,  that  the  settling  Presbytery  was 
supported  by  the  fear  and  love  of  the  Scots 
army,  and  that  when  they  were  gone  home  it 
was  better  managed  by  the  English  army,  who 
were  for  Independency  and  a  principle  of  toler- 
ation ;  but  as  things  stood,  nobody  was  pleased ; 
the  Episcopalians  and  Independents  were  ex- 
cluded ;  and  because  the  Parliament  would  not 
give  the  several  presbyteries  an  absolute  power 
over  their  communicants,  but  reserved  the  last 
appeal  to  themselves,  neither  the  Scots  nor 
English  Presbyterians  would  accept  it. 

When  the  scheme  was  laid  before  the  Scots 
Parliament  and  General  Assembly,  as  a  plan  of 
uniformity  between  the  two  nations,  they  insist- 
ed upon  the  following  amendments  : 

(I.)  "That  no  godly  minister  be  excluded 
from  being  a  member  of  classical,  provincial, 
or  national  assemblies, 

(2.)  "  That  the  ordinary  time  for  the  meeting 
of  the  National  Assembly  may  be  lixed  ;  with 
a  reserve  of  power  to  the  Parliament  to  con- 
vene them  when  they  please,  and  liberty  to  the 
Church  to  meetoftener  on  necessary  occasions. 

(3.)  "  That  the  congregational  eldership  may 
have  power  to  judge  in  cases  of  scandal  not  ex- 
pressed. This,  they  conceive,  cannot  be  con- 
strued lodging  an  arbitrary  power  in  the  Church ; 
whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  appointing  such 
provincial  commissioners  as  are  settled  in  the 


Rushworth,  p.  226. 


14 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


ordinance,  will  occasion  disputes,  create  a  dis- 
conformity  between  this  and  other  churches, 
and  is  a  mixture  in  church  government  alto- 
gether without  precedent.  This  business,  there- 
fore, they  conceive  may  be  better  managed  by 
assemblies  of  ministers  and  ruling  elders. 

(4.)  "That  the  ordinance  for  ordination  of 
ministers  may  be  perpetual. 

(.'}.)  "The  manner  of  subjecting  church  as- 
semblies to  the  control  and  decision  of  Parlia- 
ment, being  very  liable  to  mistakes ;  the  exemp- 
tion, likewise,  of  persons  of  distinction  from  ec- 
clesiastical censures ;  and  the  administering  the 
sacrament  to  some  persons,  against  the  con- 
science of  the  ministry  and  elderships ;  these, 
and  some  other  particulars,  being  more  than 
they  can  admit,  they  desire  may  be  altered  to 
general  satisfaction. 

(6.)  "As  to  the  articles  relating  to  the  per- 
petual officers  of  the  Church,  with  their  respect- 
ive functions  ;  the  order  and  power  of  church 
assemblies  ;  the  directions  for  public  repent- 
ance or  penance  ;  the  rules  for  excommunica- 
tion and  absolution  ;"*  all  these  they  desire 
may  be  fixed  and  settled  pursuant  to  the  Cove- 
nant, and  with  the  joint  advice  of  the  divines  of 
both  kingdoms  [t.  e.,  the  Assembly  at  Westmin- 
ster] long  since  offered  to  both  houses. 

After  the  delivery  of  these  papers  by  the  Scots 
commissioners,  and  before  the  houses  had  re- 
turned an  answer,  they  were  published  with  a 
preface  by  a  private  hand,  which  provoked  the 
houses  to  such  a  degree,  that,  April  14,  they 
voted  it  to  be  burned  by  the  hands  of  the  com- 
mon hangman,  which  was  done  accordingly. 
April  17,  the  Commons  published  their  answer 
to  the  commissioners'  papers,  in  which  they  de- 
clare to  the  world,  "that  their  real  intentions 
are  to  settle  religion  according  to  the  Covenant, 
and  to  maintain  the  ancient  and  fundamental 
government  of  this  kingdom.  They  think  it 
strange  that  any  sober  and  modest  men  should 
imagine  they  are  unwilling  to  settle  any  gov- 
ernment in  the  Church,  after  they  have  decla- 
red so  fully  for  the  Presbyterian  ;  have  taken  so 
much  pains  for  the  settling  it ;  have  passed 
most  of  the  particulars  brought  to  them  by  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  without  any  material  al- 
teration, save  in  the  point  of  commissioners  ; 
and  have  published  so  many  ordinances  for  put- 
ting the  same  in  execution  ;  only  because  they 
cannot  consent  to  the  granting  an  arbitrary  and 
unlimited  power  and  jurisdiction  to  near  ten 
thousand  judicatories  to  be  erected  within  this 
kingdom,  and  this  demanded  in  such  a  way  as  is 
not  consistent  with  the  fundamental  laws  and 
government  of  the  same,  and  by  necessary  con- 
sequence excluding  the  Parliament  of  England 
from  the  exercise  of  all  ecclesiastical  jurisdic- 
tion. This,  say  they,  has  been  the  great  cause 
that  church  government  has  not  been  long  since 
settled  ;  and  we  have  the  more  reason  not  to 
part  with  this  power  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
civil  magistrate,  since  the  experience  of  all 
ages  will  manifest  that  the  reformation  and  pu- 
rity of  religion,  and  the  preservation  and  pro- 
tection of  the  people  of  God  in  this  kingdom, 
have,  under  God,  been  owing  to  the  Parliament's 
exercise  of  this  power.  If,  then,  the  minds  of 
any  are  disturbed  for  want  of  the  present  set- 

*  Rushworth,  p.  253, 


tling  of  church  government,  let  them  apply  to 
those  [ministers]  who,  having  sufficient  power 
and  direction  from  the  houses  on  that  behalf, 
have  not  as  yet  put  the  same  in  execution." 

The  English  Presbyterians,  having  resolved 
to  stand  and  fall  with  the  Scots,  refused  per- 
emptorily to  comply  with  the  ordinance,  rely- 
ing upon  the  assistance  and  support  of  that  na- 
tion. Mr.  Marshal  stood  up  in  the  Assembly, 
March  20,  and  said,  that  since  an  ordinance  of 
Parliament  for  church  government  was  now 
published,  and  speedily  to  be  put  in  execution  ; 
and  since  there  were  some  things  in  that  ordi- 
nance which  lay  very  hard  lipon  nis  conscience, 
and  upon  the  consciences  of  many  of  his  breth- 
ren (though  he  blessed  God  for  the  zeal  of  the 
two  houses  in  settling  the  government  of  the 
Church  thus  far),  yet,  being  much  pressed  in 
spirit  with  some  things  contained  therein,  he 
moved  that  a  committee  might  be  appointed  to 
examine  what  things  in  the  ordinance  were 
contiary  to  their  consciences,  and  to  prepare  a 
petition  to  present  them  to  the  two  houses.* 

A  petition  was  accordingly  drawn  up,  and 
presented  March  23.  by  the  whole  Assembly, 
with  Mr.  Marshal  at  their  head.  In  this  peti- 
tion they  assert  the  Divine  right  of  the  Presby- 
terian government,  and  complain  of  a  clause  in 
the  late  ordinance,  which  establishes  an  appeal 
from  the  censures  of  the  Church  to  a  commit- 
tee of  Parliament.  It  was  a  sanguine  and  da- 
ring attempt  of  these  divines,  who  were  called 
together  only  for  their  advice,  to  examine  and 
censure  the  ordinances  of  Parliament,  and  dis- 
pute in  this  manner  with  their  superiors  ;  the 
Commons,  alarmed  at  this  petition,  appointed  a 
committee  to  take  into  consideration  the  matter 
and  manner  of  it,  who,  after  sometime,  report- 
ed it  as  their  opinion,  that  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines, in  their  late  petition,  had  broken  the  privi- 
leges of  Parliament,  and  were  guilty  of  a  pre- 
munire;  and  whereas  they  insisted  so  peremp- 
torily on  the  jus  divinum  of  the  Presbyteriaa 
government,  the  committee  had  drawn  up  cer- 
tain queries,  which  they  desired  the  Assembly^ 
might  resolve  for  their  satisfaction  ;  the  House 
agreed  to  the  report  of  the  committee,  and  on 
the  30th  of  April  sent  Sir  John  Evehn,  Mr.  Na- 
thaniel Fiennes,  and  Mr.  Browne,  to  the  Assem- 
bly, to  acquaint  them  with  their  resolutions. 
These  gentlemen  set  before  them  their  rash  and 
imprudent  conduct,  and  in  several  speeches 
showed  wherein  they  had  exceeded  their  prov- 
ince, which  was  to  advise  the  houses  in  such: 
points  as  they  should  lay  before  them,  but  not 
to  dictate  to  those  to  whom  they  owed  their 
being  an  assembly.  Then  they  read  the  votes 
above  mentioned,  and  delivered  in  the  following 
questions,  with  the  orders  of  the  House  there- 
upon : 

Questions  propounded  to  the  Assembly  of  Divines 
by  the  House  of  Commons,  touching  the  Point  of 
Jus  Divinum  in  the  Matters  of  Church  Govern- 
ment. 

1.  "  Whether  the  Congregational  and  Presby- 
terial  elderships  appointed  by  ordinance  of  Par- 
liament, or  any  other  Congregational  or  Presby- 
terial  elderships,  are  jure  divino,  and  by  the  will 
and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ  1  and  whether 


*  MS.  penes  me,  sess.  603. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


IS- 


any  particular  church  government  be  jure  divi- 
nol  and,  what  that  government  is?* 

2.  "  Whether  all  the  members  of  the  said  el- 
derships, as  members  thereof,  or  which  of  them, 
are;'u?c  divino,  and  by  the  will  and  appointment 
of  Jesus  Christ  ] 

3.  '•  Whether  the  Classical,  Provincial,  and 
National  Assemblies,  all  or  any  of  them,  and 
■which  of  them,  are  jure  divmu,  and  by  the  will 
and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ ! 

4.  "  Whether  appeals  from  Congregational 
elderships  to  Classical,  Provincial,  and  National 
Assemblies,  or  any  of  them,  and  to  which  of 
them,  are  jxire  divino,  and  by  the  will  and  ap- 
pointment of  Jesus  Christ  1  and  whether  their 
powers  upon  such  appeals  are  jure  d.ivino,  and 
by  the  will  and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ? 

5.  "  Whether  CEcumenical  Assemblies  are 
jure  divino  1  and  whether  there  be  appeals  from 
any  of  the  former  assemblies  to  the  said  (Ecu- 
menical jwrc  divino,  and  by  the  will  and  appoint- 
ment of  Jesus  Christ  T 

6.  "  Whether,  by  the  Word  of  God,  the  power 
of  judging  and  declaring  what  are  such  notorious 
and  scandalous  otTences,  for  which  persons 
guilty  thereof  are  to  be  kept  from  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  of  convening  before 
them,  trying,  and  actually  suspending  from  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  such  oflenders, 
is  either  in  the  Congregational  eldership.  Pres- 
bytery, or  in  any  other  eldership,  congregation, 
or  persons  \  and  whether  such  powers  are  in 
them  only,  or  any  of  them,  and  in  which  of  them, 
jure  divino,  and  by  the  will  and  appointment  of 
Jesus  Christ  1 

7.  "  Whether  there  be  any  certain  and  partic- 
ular rules  expressed  in  the  Word  of  God  to  di- 
rect the  elderships  or  presbyteries,  congrega- 
tions, or  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  the  exercise 
and  execution  of  the  powers  aforesaid,  and  what 
are  those  rules  1 

8.  •'  Is  there  anything  contained  in  the  Word 
of  God  that  the  supreme  magistracy  in  a  Chris- 
tian state  may  not  judge  and  determine  what 
are  the  aforesaid  notorious  and  scandalous  of- 
fences, and  the  manner  of  suspension  for  the 
same;  and  in  what  particulars  concerning  the 
premises  is  the  said  supreme  magistracy  by  the 
Word  of  God  excluded  ! 

9.  "  Whether  the  provision  of  commissioners 
to  judge  of  scandals  not  enumerated  (as  they 
are  authorized  by  the  ordinance  of  Parliament) 
be  contrary  to  that  way  of  government  which 
Christ  has  appointed  in  his  Church  \  and  where- 
in are  they  so  contrary?" 

In  the  Assembly's  answer  to  these  proposi- 
tions, the  House  of  Commons  ordered  the  proofs 
from  Scripture  to  be  set  down,  with  the  several 
texts  at  large,  in  the  express  words  of  the  same  ; 
and  that  every  minister  of  the  Assembly,  who 
should  be  present  at  the  debate  of  any  of  these 
questions,  should  subscribe  his  respective  name 
in  the  affirmative  or  negative,  according  as  he 
gave  his  vote ;  and  that  those  who  dissented 
from  the  major  part  should  set  down  their  pos- 
itive opinions,  with  the  express  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture upon  which  their  opinions  are  grounded. 

It  is  easy  to  discover  the  masterly  hands  of 
Mr.  Selden  and  Whitelocke  in  these  questions ; 
which  were  sent  to  the  Assembly,  not  with  any 
prospect  of  a  satisfactory  answer,  but  to  employ. 


*  Rushvvorlh,  p.  2(i0. 


and,  it  may  be,  to  divide  them,  till  they  saw- 
how  they  were  like  to  settle  with  the  king.  The 
houses  were  afraid  of  being  fettered  with  the 
Scot's  discipline,  and  yet  the  Scots  v\ere  not  to 
be  disgusted,  because  they  had  an  army  in  the 
north,  to  whom  the  king  had  committed  the 
custody  of  his  person. 

As  soon  as  tlie  Assembly  had  heard  the  reso- 
lutions of  the  House  of  Commons  above  men- 
tioned, and  the  questions  read,  first  by  Sir  J.. 
Evelin,  and  then  by  their  scribe,  they  adjourned 
in  a  very  great  fright  till  next  morning,  in  order 
to  consult  their  brethren  in  the  city,  and  then 
appointed  a  day  of  fasting  and  humiliation  for 
themselves,  in  reference  to  their  present  cir- 
cumstances, and  sent  letters  to  all  the  members 
to  give  their  attendance.  The  fast  was  observ- 
ed within  their  own  walls  on  Wednesday,  May 
6,  from  nine  in  the  morning  till  four  in  the  af- 
ternoon ;  and  committees  were  appointed  to  con- 
sider of  an  answer  to  the  questions,  whose  re- 
port we  shall  consider  under  the  next  year. 

In  the  mean  time,  we  must  go  back  a  little  ta 
take  a  view  of  the  attempts  which  were  making 
to  comprehend  the  Independents,  or  dissenting 
brethren  in  the  Assembly,  within  the  new  estab- 
lishment, or,  at  least,  to  obtain  a  toleration  for 
them  ;*  the  Parliament  had  ordered,  September 
13,  1644,  that  the  "committee  of  Lords  and 
Commons  appointed  to  treat  with  the  Scots 
commissioners,  and  the  committee  of  divines, . 
do  take  into  consideration  the  differences  ot 
the  opinions  of  the  members  of  the  Assembly  in 
point  of  church  government,  and  endeavour  a 
union  if  possible  ;  and  if  that  cannot  be  accom- 
plished, endeavour  to  find  out  some  way  how 
far  tender  consciences,  who  cannot  in  all  things 
submit  to  the  same  rule,  may  be  borne  with,  ac- 
cording to  the  Word  of  God,  and  consistent 
with  the  public  peace."  This  was  called  the 
Grand  Committee  of  Accommodation,  which, 
met  the  first  time  September  20,  and  chose  a 
sub-committee  of  six  divines  of  the  Assembly,  to 
consider  the  points  of  difference,  and  to  prepare 
materials  for  the  consideration  of  the  grand 
comtnittee  :  the  names  of  these  divines  were, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Marshal,  Mr.  Herle,  Mr. 
Vines,  Dr.  Temple,  Mr.  Goodwin,  and  Mr.  Nye, 
who,  after  several  consultations  among  them- 
selves, delivered  to  the  committee  certain  prop- 
ositions [October  15,  1644],  which  were  read 
by  Mr.  Vines,  their  chairman  :  the  Independents 
would  have  stated  the  points  in  variance  be- 
tween the  two  parties,  and  endeavoured  a  com- 
promise while  the  discipline  of  the  Church  was 
depending  ;  but  the  Presbyterians  insisted  that 
the  new  form  of  government  should  first  pass 
into  a  law  as  a  standard,  before  the  exceptions 
of  the  Independents  be  considered  ;  upon  which 
they  were  adjourned,  by  order  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  till  the  affair  should  be  determined 
in  the  Assembly,  who  agreed,  April  4,  1645, 
that  the  brethren  who  had  entered  their  dissent 
against  the  Presbyterian  government  should  be 
a  committee  to  bring  in  the  whole  frame  of  their 
government  in  a  body,  with  their  grounds  and 
reasons. t  The  Independents  desired  liberty  to 
bring  in  their  objections  by  parts,  as  the  Presby- 
terians had  done  their  advices  ;  but  this  not  be- 
ing admitted,  they  desired  time  to  perfect  their 


*  Papers  of  Accommodation,  p.  L 
t  Remonstrance,  p.  3. 


16 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


plan  before  any  other  scheme  passed  into  a  law ; 
but  the  Presbyterians,  without  any  regard  to  the 
compromise,  by  the  assistance  of  their  Scots 
friends,  puslied  the  affair  to  a  conclusion  in 
Parliament ;  upon  which  the  Independents  laid 
aside  their  own  model,  and  published  a  remon- 
strance, complaining  of  the  artful  conduct  of  the 
Assembly,  and  that  the  discipline  of  the  Church 
■being  fixed,  it  was  too  late  to  think  any  more  of 
a  comprehension.  The  House  of  Commons 
having  seen  their  mistake,  resumed  this  affair 
with  their  own  hands,  and  by  an  order  dated  No- 
vember 6,  1645,  revived  the  Committee  of  Ac- 
commodation, which,  besides  the  Scots  commis- 
sioners, consisted  of  the  following  peers,  viz. : 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  Lord  Vise.  Say  and  Scale, 
Earl  of  Manchester,  Lord  Wharton, 

Lord  Howard. 
These  were  to  be  met  by  the  following  mem- 
bers of  the  Assembly,  viz.  .- 
Dr.  Burgess,  Dr.  Hoyle,  Dr.  Temple, 

Mr.  Marshal,  Mr.  White,  Mr.  Palmer, 

Mt.  Herle,  Mr.  Vines,  Mr.  Tuckney, 

Mr.  Reynolds,        Mr.  Hdl,  Mr.  Arrowsmith, 

Dr.  Smith,  Mr.  Newcomen, 

Mr.  Seaman,  Mr.  Young; 

With  the  dissenting  brethren  of  the  Assembly, 
M.  T.  Goodwin,     Mr.  Nye,  Mr.  Bridge, 

Mr.  Simpson,  Mr.  Burroughs,  Mr.  Drury. 

The  committee  met  in  the  Jerusalem  Cham- 
ber, November  17,  and  would  have  entered  upon 
a  scheme  for  comprehension,  but  the  Independ- 
ents moved  only  for  an  indulgence  or  toleration, 
observing  that,  as  they  had  already  moved,  in 
the  Assembly  and  elsewhere,  that  their  scheme 
-of  government  might  be  debated  before  the 
Presbyterian  had  passed  into  a  law,  and  for  this 
purpose  had  offered  to  prepare  a  complete  mod- 
el, if  they  might  have  been  indulged  a  few  days,* 
and  that  having  been  overruled,  and  another 
form  of  government  settled,  they  apprehended 
themselves  shut  out  from  the  establishment, 
and  precluded  from  any  farther  attempts  to- 
wards a  union  or  comprehension  ;  but  still  they 
were  willing  to  enter  upon  the  second  part  of 
the  Parliament's  order,  which  was  to  consider 
how  far  tender  consciences,  who  cannot  in  all 
things  submit  to  the  established  rule,  may  be 
indulged,  consistent  with  the  Word  of  God  and 
the  public  peace.  Accordingly,  in  their  next 
meeting,  December  4,  they  offered  the  follow- 
ing proposals : 

Taking  for  granted  that  both  sides  shall  agree 
in  one  confession  of  faith,  they  humbly  crave, 

1.  That  their  congregations  may  have  the 
power  of  ordination  within  themselves. 

2.  That  they  may  not  be  brought  under  the 
povi'er  of  classes,  nor  forced  to  communicate  in 
those  parish  churches  where  they  dwell,  but 
that  they  may  have  liberty  to  join  with  such 
congregations  as  they  prefer ;  and  that  such  con- 
gregations may  have  power  of  all  church  cen- 
sures within  themselves,  subject  only  to  Parlia- 
ment, and  be  as  so  many  exempt  or  privileged 
places. 

To  the  preamble  the  Presbyterians  replied, 
that  only  such  as  agreed  to  their  confession  of 
faith  and  Directory  should  have  the  benefit  of 
the  forbearance  to  be  agreed  on,  with  which  the 
committee  concurred  ;  but  the  Independents 
would  admit  only  of  the  affirmative,  that  such 

*  Papers  of  Accommodation,  p,  14,  24. 


as  agree  with  them  should  be  tolerated ;  and 
would  not  consent  to  the  negative,  so  as  to  set 
bounds  or  limits  of  forbearance  to  tender  con- 
sciences, nor  make  such  an  agreement  a  neces- 
sary qualification  for  receiving  the  sacrament.* 
To  the  request  of  the  Independents,  of  being 
exempted  from  the  jurisdiction  of  their  classes, 
and  having  a  liberty  of  erecting  separate  con- 
gregations, the  Presbyterians  replied, 

1.  That  this  implied  a  total  separation  from 
the  established  rule. 

2.  The  lawfulness  of  gathering  churches  out 
of  other  true  churches. 

3.  That  the  Parliament  would  then  destroy 
what  they  had  set  up. 

4.  That  the  members  of  Independent  church- 
es would  then  have  greater  privilege  than  those 
of  the  establishment. 

5.  That  this  would  countenance  a  perpetual 
schism.     And, 

6.  Introduce  all  manner  of  confusion  into  fam- 
ilies.t 

They  therefore  proposed  that  such  as,  after 
conference  with  their  parish  minister,  were  not 
satisfied  with  the  establishment,  should  not  be 
compelled  to  communicate  in  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, nor  be  liable  to  censures  from  classes  or 
synods,  provided  they  joined  with  the  parish 
congregation  where  they  lived,  and  were  under 
the  government  of  it  in  other  respects. 

The  Independents  replied,  that  they  did  not 
intend  a  total  separation,  but  should  agree  with 
their  brethren  in  the  most  essential  points  ;  as 
in  worshipping  according  to  the  Directory,  in 
choosing  the  same  officers,  pastors,  teachers, 
ruling  elders,  with  the  same  qualifications  as  in 
the  rule.     That  they  should  require  the  same 
qualifications  in  their  members  as  the  Assembly 
had  advised,  that  is,  visible  saints,  professing 
faith  in  Christ,  and  obedience  to  the  rules  of 
faith  and  life  taught  by  Christ  and  his  apostles  ;t 
that  they  should  practise  the  same  church  cen- 
sures, being  accountable  for  their  conduct  to 
their  civil   superiors.     They  would   also  hold 
occasional   communion  with  the  Presbyterian 
churches,  in  baptism  and   the  Lord's  Supper, 
communicating  occasionally  with  them,  and  re- 
ceiving their  members  to  communion  as  occa- 
sion required.     Their  ministers  should  preach 
for  each  other,  and,  in  cases  of  difficulty,  they 
would  call  in  their  assistance  and  advice  ;  and 
when  an  ordination  falls  out,  they  would  desire 
the  presence  and  approbation  of  their  ministers 
with  their  own.      Now  surely,  say  they,  this 
does  not  imply  a  total  separation  ;  but  if  in  some 
things  men  cannot  comply  with  the  established 
rule  without  sin,  we  think  such  persons  ought 
not  to  live  without  communicating  in  the  Lord's 
Supper  all  their  days,  rather  than  gather  into 
churches  where  they  may  enjoy  all  ordinances 
without  offence  to  their  consciences  ;  nor  ought 
such  separation  to  be  accounted  schism,  which 
is  a  name  of  reproach  we  desire  not  to  be  brand- 
ed with,  when  we  are  willing  to  maintain  Chris- 
tian lov«  and  communion  with  our  neighbfjurs,  as 
far  as  our  consciences  will  permit. (J     They  add, 
farther,  that  if  the  state  is  pleased  to  grant  them 
this  liberty,  they  will  refer  themselves  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  Legislature  to  consider  of  limil- 


♦  Papers  of  Accommodation,  p.  18, 19,  26,  27. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  20,  21.  I  Ibid.,  p.  29,  30. 

^  ibid.,  p.  35,  36. 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


Kig  their  congregations  to  a  certain  number,  to 
be  as  so  many  receptacles  for  pious  persons  of 
tender  consciences.* 

The  Presbyterians,  in  their  next  reply,  De- 
cember 23,  after  having  blamed  the  Independ- 
ents for  not  going  upon  a  comprehension,  argue 
against  the  lawfulness  of  a  separation  after 
this  manner  :  "  That  if  a  pretence  of  conscience 
be  a  sufficient  ground  of  separation,  men  may 
gather  impure  and  corrupt  churches  out  of  pu- 
rer, because  upon  the  dictates  of  an  erring  con- 
science they  may  disallow  that  which  is  pure, 
and  set  up  that  which  is  agreeable  to  their  er- 
ring consciences  ;  and  we  very  much  doubt,  say 
they,  whether  tenderness  of  conscience  in  doubt- 
ful points  will  justify  a  separation  ;  it  may  oblige 
men  to  forbear  communion,  but  not  to  set  up  a 
contrary  practice.  If  a  church  impose  any- 
thing that  is  sinful,  we  must  forbear  to  comply, 
yet  without  separation,  as  was  the  practice  of 
the  Puritans  in  the  late  times. "+  They  then 
argue,  from  the  concessions  of  the  Independ- 
ents, that  because  they  agree  with  them  in  so 
many  material  points,  therefore  they  should  not 
separate.  "  If,"  say  they,  "  you  can  commu- 
nicate with  our  church  occasionally,  once,  or  a 
second  and  third  time,  without  sin,  we  know  no 
reason  why  you  may  not  do  it  constantly,  and 
then  separation  will  be  needless  :  as  for  such  a 
toleration  as  our  brethren  desire,  we  apprehend 
it  will  open  a  door  to  all  sects  ;  and  though  the 
Independents  now  plead  for  it,  their  brethren  in 
New-England  do  not  allow  it."$ 

As  to  the  charge  of  schism,  they  admit  that 
difference  in  judgment  in  some  particular  points 
is  not  schism  ;  nor  does  an  inconformity  to 
some  things  enjoined  deserve  that  name ;  but 
our  brethren  desire,  farther,  to  set  up  separate 
communions,  which  is  a  manifest  rupture  of  our 
societies  into  others,  and  is  therefore  a  schism  in 
the  body.tj  This  is  setting  up  altar  against  al- 
tar, allowing  our  churches  (as  the  Independents 
do)  to  be  true  churches  ;  for  St  Austin  says, 
"  Schismaticos  facit  non  diversa  fides,  sed  com- 
munionis  disrupta  societas."  And  we  conceive 
it  is  the  cause  of  the  separation  that  makes 
schism,  and  not  the  separation  itself;  if,  then, 
the  cause  of  our  brethren's  separation  be  not 
sufficient,  by  what  other  name  can  it  be  called  ! 
To  all  which  they  add,  that  this  indulgence,  if 
granted,  will  be  the  mother  of  all  contentions, 
strifes,  heresies,  and  confusions  in  the  Church, 
and  contrary  to  their  Covenant,  which  obliges 
them  to  endeavour  to  their  utmost  a  uniform- 
ity- 

When  the  committee  met  the  next  time,  Feb- 
ruary 2, 1645-6,  the  Independents  replied  chiefly 
to  the  point  of  uniformity,  and  argued  that  it 
was  not  necessary  to  the  peace  of  the  church- 
es ;  and  ought  not  to  extend  beyond  people's 
light  and  measure  of  understanding,  according 
to  the  apostolical  canon,  "  As  far  as  we  have 
attained,  let  us  walk  by  the  same  rule,"  Phil., 
iii.,  15.11  As  for  a  mere  exemption  from  the 
censures  of  the  classes,  they  declared  frankly 
they  could  not  acquiesce  in  it,  because  it  would 
deprive  them  of  the  enjoyment  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  ;  and  that  it  was  very  hard  to  urge  that, 
because  they  came  so  near  the  brethren,  there- 


*  Papers  of  Accommodation,  p.  40 
+  Ibid.,  p.  51.  t 

i)  Ibid.,  p.  65,  73,  74, 
Vol.  II.— B 


t  Ibid.,  p.  56. 
Ibid.,  p.  86. 


17 

fore  they  should  be  obliged  to  a  total  and  con- 
stant conformity. 

The  committee  met  the  last  time,  March  9, 
when  the  sub-committee  of  Presbyterian  di- 
vines answered  the  last  paper  of  the  Independ- 
ents, maintaining  all  their  former  positions,  and 
concluding  in  this  strange  and  wonderful  man- 
ner :  "  That  whereas  their  brethren  say  that  uni- 
formity ought  to  be  urged  no  farther  than  is 
agreeable  to  all  men's  consciences,  and  to  their 
edification  ;  it  seems  to  them  as  if  their  breth- 
ren not  only  desire  liberty  of  conscience  for 
themselves,  but  for  all  men,  and  would  have  us 
think  that  we  are  bound  by  our  Covenant  to  bring 
the  churches  in  the  three  kingdoms  to  no  near- 
er a  conjunction  and  uniformity  than  is  consist- 
ent with  the  liberty  of  all  men's  consciences  ; 
which,  whether  it  be  the  sense  of  the  Covenant, 
we  leave  with  the  honourable  committee."* 

Hereupon  the  Reverend  Mr.  Jer.  Burroughs, 
a  divine  of  great  candour  and  moderation,  de- 
clared, in  the  name  of  the  Independents,  "  that 
if  their  congregations  might  not  be  exempted 
from  that  coercive  power  of  the  classes  ;  if  they 
might  not  have  liberty  to  govern  themselves  in 
their  own  way,  as  long  as  they  behaved  peace- 
ably towards  the  civil  magistrate,  they  were 
resolved  to  suffer,  or  go  to  some  other  place  of 
the  world,  where  they  might  enjoy  their  liberty. 
But  while  men  think  there  is  no  way  of  peace 
but  by  forcing  all  to  be  of  the  same  mind,"  says 
he  ;  "  while  they  think  the  civil  sword  is  an  or- 
dinance of  God  to  determine  all  controversies 
of  divinity,  and  that  it  must  needs  be  attended 
with  fines  and  imprisonment  to  the  disobedient ; 
while  they  apprehend  there  is  no  medium  be- 
tween a  strict  uniformity  and  a  general  confu- 
sion of  all  things  ;  while  these  sentiments  pre- 
vail, there  must  be  a  base  subjection  of  men's 
consciences  to  slavery,  a  suppression  of  much 
truth,  and  great  disturbances  in  the  Christian 
world." 

Thus  ended  the  last  committee  of  Lords  and 
Commons,  and  Assembly  of  Divines,  for  ac- 
commodation, which  adjourned  to  a  certain  day, 
but,  being  then  diverted  by  other  affairs,  never 
met  again.  Little  did  the  Presbyterian  divines 
imagine  that  in  less  than  twenty  years  all  their 
artillery  would  be  turned  against  themselves ; 
that  they  should  be  excluded  the  establishment 
by  an  act  of  prelatical  uniformity ;  that  they 
should  be  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  pleading 
for  that  indulgence  which  they  now  denied  their 
brethren  ;  and  esteem  it  their  duty  to  gather 
churches  for  separate  worship  out  of  others, 
which  they  allowed  to  be  true  ones.  If  the 
leading  Presbyterians  in  the  Assembly  and  city 
had  carried  it  with  temper  towards  the  Inde- 
pendents, on  the  foot  of  a  limited  toleration, 
they  had,  in  all  likelihood,  prevented  the  dis- 
putes betw^een  the  army  and  Parliament,  which 
were  the  ruin  of  both  ;  they  might  then  have 
saved  the  Constitution,  and  made  their  own 
terms  with  the  king,  who  was  now  their  prison- 
er ;  but  they  were  enamoured  with  the  charms 
of  Covenant  uniformity  and  the  Divine  right  of 
their  Presbytery,  which,  after  all,  the  Parliament 
would  not  admit  in  its  full  extent.  Mr.  Baxter, 
who  was  no  friend  of  the  Independents,  says, 
"  that  the  Presbyterian  ministers  were  so  little 
sensible  of  their  own  infirmities,  that  they  would 


*  Papers  of  Accommodation,  p.  123. 


18 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


not  agree  to  tolerate  those  who  were  not  only 
tolerable,  but  worthy  instruments  and  members 
in  the  churches,  prudent  men,  who  were  for 
union  in  things  necessary,  for  liberty  in  things 
unnecessary,  and  for  charity  in  all;  but  they 
could  not  be  heard."* 

Great  was  the  resort  of  the  city  divines  to 
Sion  College  at  this  time,  where  there  was  a 
kind  of  synod  every  Monday,  to  consult  proper 
methods  to  propagate  religion,  and  support  the 
Assembly  at  Westminster  in  their  opposition  to 
the  toleration  of  sectaries  ;  for  this  purpose 
they  wrote  them  a  letter,  dated  January  15, 
1645-6,  in  which  they  recite  the  arguments  of 
the  committee,  and  beseech  them  to  oppose  with 
all  their  might  the  great  Diana  of  the  Independ- 
ents,t  and  not  to  suffer  their  new  establishment 
to  be  strangled  in  the  birth  by  a  lawless  toleration. 

The  whole  Scots  nation  was  also  command- 
ed into  the  service ;  the  Parliament  of  that  king- 
dom wrote  to  the  two  houses  at  Westminster, 
February  3,  telling  them,  that  "  it  was  expect- 
ed the  honourable  houses  would  add  the  civil 
sanction  to  what  the  pious  and  learned  Assem- 
bly have  advised  ;  and  I  am  commanded  by  the 
Parliament  of  this  kingdom,"  says  the  president, 
"  to  demand  it,  and  I  do  in  their  names  demand 
it.  And  the  Parliament  of  this  kingdom  is  per- 
suaded that  the  piety  and  wisdom  of  the  hon- 
ourable houses  will  never  admit  toleration  of 
any  sects  or  schisms  contrary  to  our  solemn 
League  and  Covenant. "1:  At  the  same  time  they 
appealed  to  the  people,  and  published  a  declara- 
tion against  toleration  of  sectaries  and  liberty 
of  conscience  ;  in  which,  after  having  taken 
notice  of  their  great  services,  they  observe,  that 
there  is  a  party  in  England  who  are  endeavour- 
ing to  supplant  the  true  religion  by  pleading  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  which  (say  they)  is  the 
nourisher  of  all  heresies  and  schisms.  They 
then  declare  against  all  such  notions  as  are  in- 
consistent with  the  truth  of  religion,  and  against 
opening  a  door  to  licentiousness,  which,  to  the 


*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  103. 

t  Their  Diana  was  toleration,  of  which  the  minis- 
ters at  Sion  College  expressed  their  detestation  and 
abhorrence ;  and  the  design  of  their  letter  was  to 
show  the  unreasonableness,  the  sin,  and  the  mis- 
chievous consequences  of  it.  "  Not,"  said  they,  "  that 
we  can  harbour  the  least  jealousy  of  your  zeal, 
fidelity,  or  industry,  in  the  opposing  and  extirpating 
of  such  a  root  of  gall  and  bitterness  as  toleration  is 
and  will  be,  both  in  present  and  future  ages."  An- 
other instance  of  the  same  bitter  spirit  appeared  in  a 
piece  published  by  the  ministers  and  elders  of  Lon- 
don, met  together  in  a  provincial  assembly,  Novem- 
ber 2,  1749,  entitled  "  A  Vindication  of  the  Presby- 
terial  Government  and  Ministry,"  in  which  they 
represent  the  doctrine  of  universal  toleration  as  con- 
trary to  godlmess,  opening  a  door  to  libertinism  and 
profaneness,  and  a  tenet  to  be  rejected  as  soul  poison. 
The  ministers  of  Lancashire  published  a  paper  in 
1618,  expressing  their  harmonious  consent  with  their 
brethren  in  London ;  and  remonstrate  against  tolera- 
tion, as  putting  a  cup  of  poison  into  the  hand  of  a 
child,  and  a  sword  into  that  of  a  madman  ;  as  letting 
loose  madmen  with  firebrands  in  their  hands,  and 
appointing  a  city  of  refuge  in  men*s  consciences,  for 
the  devil  to  fly  to ;  and  instead  of  providing  for  ten- 
der consciences,  taking  away  all  conscience.  In  the 
same  year,  another  paper  was  published  in  Warwick- 
shire, by  forty-three  ministers,  breathing  the  same 
spirit,  and  expressing  the  like  sentiments,— Cro.56y's 
History  of  the  English  Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p.  188,  192. — 
Ed.  X  Rushworth,  p.  234. 


Utmost  of  their  power,  they  will  endeavour  to- 
oppose ;  and  as  they  have  all  entered  into  one 
Covenant,  so  to  the  last  man  in  the  kingdom 
they  will  go  on  in  the  preservation  of  it.  And 
however  the  Parliament  of  England  may  deter- 
mine in  point  of  toleration  and  liberty  of  con- 
science, they  are  resolved  not  to  make  the  least 
start,  but  to  live  and  die,  for  the  glory  of  God, 
in  the  entire  preservation  of  the  truth. 

Most  of  the  sermons  before  the  House  of 
Commons,  at  their  monthly  fasts,  spoke  the  lan- 
guage of  severity,  and  called  upon  the  magis- 
trate to  draw  his  sword  against  the  sectaries. 
The  press  teemed  with  pamphlets  of  the  same 
nature  ;  Mr.  Prynnc,  against  .1.  Goodwin,  says> 
that  if  the  Parliament  and  synod  establish  Pres- 
bytery, the  Independents  and  all  others  are  bound 
to  submit,  under  pain  of  obstinacy.  Another 
writes,  that  to  let  men  serve  God  according  to 
the  persuasion  of  their  own  consciences,  is  to 
cast  out  one  devil  that  seven  worse  may  enter.* 


*  Prynne  was  foremost  in  this  inglorious  contest. 
Forgetful  of  his  own  sufferings,  he  transferred  to  the 
cause  of  intolerance  the  same  zeal,  intrepidity,  and 
unwearied  diligence,  as  had  distinguished  him  in  a 
better  service.  His  publications  were  numerous, 
and  all  were  directed  to  the  one  great  end  of  his 
party,  the  suppression  of  sects  and  the  triumph  of 
Presbytery.  "  Up,  therefore,"  said  the  fiery  advo- 
cate of  the  Covenant,  in  one  of  his  addresses  to  Par- 
liament, "  and  be  doing  justice  to  some  few  chief 
offenders  of  this  kind,  for  the  present,  to  prevent 
execution  upon  many  others,  if  not  ruin  on  us  all, 
for  the  future,  and  God  himself,  no  doubt,  will  be  with, 
you  ;  and  not  fear  what  flesh  can  do  unto  you,  or  sec- 
taries speak  or  write  against  you." — A  Fresh  Discovery 
of  some  Prodigious  New  Wandering,  Blasting  Stars, 
&C.,  Epistle  dedicatory,  1645. 

The  same  course  was  enforced  by  the  most  cele- 
brated Presbyterian  divines  in  their  discourses  before 
Parliament.  "If  you  do  not  labour,"  said  Calamy,. 
in  a  sermon  preached  before  the  Commons  October 
22,  1644,  "  according  to  your  duty  and  power  to  sup- 
press the  errors  thereby  that  are  spread  in  the  king- 
dom, all  those  errors  are  your  errors,  and  those 
heresies  are  your  heresies ;  they  are  sins,  and  God 
calls  for  a  parliamentary  repentance  from  you  for 
them  this  day.  You  are  the  Anabaptists,  you  are 
the  Antinomians,  and  'tis  you  that  hold  that  all  re- 
ligions are  to  be  tolerated." — See  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  176. 

Baillie,  speaking  of  the  propositions  of  the  Inde- 
pendents, in  the  Committee  for  Accommodation, 
says,  "They  plead  for  an  accommodation  to  other 
sects  as  well  as  to  themselves ;  and  with  much  ado 
could  we  get  them  to  propose  what  we  desired  to 
themselves.  At  last  they  gave  us  a  paper,  requiring 
expressly  a  full  toleration  of  congregation  in  their 
way  everywhere,  separate  from  ours.  In  our  answer, 
we  flatly  denied  such  a  vast  liberty,  and  backed  it 
with  reasons,  and,  withal,  we  began  to  show  what  in- 
dulgence we  could  for  peace'  sake  grant.  Here 
Mr.  Marshal,  the  chairman,  has  been  their  most  dili- 
gent agent  to  draw  too  many  of  us  to  grant  them 
much  more  than  my  heart  can  yield  to,  and  which 
to  my  power  I  oppose.  We  have  had  many  bicker- 
ings with  the  Independents  about  the  indulgence  for 
their  separate  congregations;  for  this  point  both  Ihey 
and  we  contend  tanquam  pro  oris  et  focis." — Letters, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  172,  174. 

Dr.  Price  on  this  subject  remarks,  "  Had  they  (the 
Assembly)  yielded  to  the  reasonable  request  of  the 
Independents,  the  supremacy  of  the  army  might  have 
been  prevented,  and  the  civil  liberties  of  the  nation 
have  been  established  on  an  imperishable  basis.  But, 
by  an  opposite  course,  they  threw  the  sectaries,  as 
ail  dissenters  from  their  policy  were  opprobriously 
styled,  into  the  arms  of  the  soldiery ;  and  thus  gave 
to  the  latter  a  ?norat  weight  and  influence  which  enabled 


HISTORY  OF   THE    PURITANS. 


19 


But  the  cause  of  liberty  was  not  destitute 
of  advocates  at  this  time ;  the  Independents 
pleaded  for  a  toleration  so  far  as  to  include 
themselves  and  the  sober  Anabaptists,  but  did 
not  put  the  controversy  on  the  most  generous 
foundation  ;  they  were  for  tolerating  all  who 
agreed  in  the  fundamentals  of  Christianity,  hut 
when  they  came  to  enumerate  fundamentals 
they  were  sadly  embarrassed,  as  all  must  be 
who  plead  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  yet  do  not 
place  the  religious  and  civil  rights  of  mankind 
on  a  separate  basis  :  a  man  may  be  an  ortho- 
dox believer,  and  yet  deserve  death  as  a  traitor 
to  his  king  and  country  ;  and.  on  the  other  hand, 
a  heretic  or  errant  nonconformist  to  the  estab- 
lished religion  may  be  a  loyal  and  dutiful  subject, 
and  deserve  the  highest  preferment  his  prince 
can  bestow. 

The  letter  of  the  city  divines  to  the  Assembly 
received  a  quick  reply  from  a  writer  of  more 
generous  principles,  who  complains,  "  that  the 
Presbyterians,  not  content  with  their  own  free- 
dom and  liberty,  nor  with  having  their  form  of 
government  made  the  national  establishment, 
were  grasping  at  as  much  power  as  the  prelates 
before  them  had  usurped  ;  for  this  purpose  they 
had  obtained  the  privilege  of  licensing  the  press, 
that  nothing  might  be  written  against  them  but 
what  they  should  please  to  approve  ;*  they 
were  continually  soliciting  the  Parliament  to 
establish  their  church  government,  which  they 
called  the  government  of  Christ,  with  a  coer- 
cive power ;  they  were  always  busy  in  framing 
petitions,  and  engaging  the  magistrates  of  the 
city  to  present  them  to  the  houses ;  and  not 
content  with  this,  they  were  now  moving  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  of  whom  themselves  are 
a  considerable  part,  to  become  the  patrons  of 
oppression."  Our  author  maintains  that  "lib- 
erty of  conscience  is  the  natural  right  of  every 
man,  though,  of  all  parties  of  men,  those  deserve 
least  the  countenance  of  the  state  who  would 
persecute  others,  if  it  were  in  their  power,  be- 
cause they  are  enemies  of  the  society  in  which 
they  live.  He  that  will  look  back  on  past  times, 
and  examine  intd  the  true  causes  of  the  subver- 
sion and  devastation  of  states  and  countries, 
will  find  it  owing  to  the  tyranny  of  princes  and 
the  persecution  of  priests.  All  governments, 
therefore,  which  understand  their  true  interests, 
will  endeavour  to  suppress  in  every  sect,  or  di- 
vision of  men,  whether  Papist,  Episcopal,  Pres- 
byterian, Independent,  or  Anabaptist,  the  spirit 
of  dominion  and  persecution,  which  is  the  dis- 
turber of  mankind  and  the  offspring  of  the  devil. 
But  the  ministers  say,  if  we  tolerate  one  sect 
we  must  tolerate  all ;  which  our  author  admits, 
and  adds,  that  they  have  as  good  a  right  to  the 
liberty  of  their  consciences  as  to  their  clothes 


them  to  crush  the  Parliament.  The  only  alternative 
left  to  the  assertors  of  civil  liberty  was  to  counter- 
poise the  power  of  the  Presbyterians  by  that  of  the 
army.  The  danger  thus  incurred  has  been  proved 
by  the  event  to  be  great ;  but  it  need  not  awaken 
surprise  that  men  should  have  sought  rehef  from  a 
present  and  previous  evil  at  the  hazard  of  one  that 
was  distant  and  undefined.  Nor  must  it  be  forgot- 
ten, in  order  to  a  correct  appreciation  of  their  con- 
duct, that  the  army  was  yet  submissive  to  the  Par- 
liament, and  its  officers  free  from  those  ambitious 
views  by  which  their  patriotism  was  ultimately 
eclipsed." — Vol.  li.,  p.  324. — C. 
*■  Vol.  Pamphlets,  No.  52. 


or  estates ;  no  opinions  or  sentiments  of  reli- 
gion being  cognizable  by  the  magistrate,  any  far- 
ther than  they  are  inconsistent  with  the  peace 
of  the  civil  government.  The  way  to  put  an 
end  to  diversity  of  opinions  is  not  by  fines  and 
imprisonments  ;  can  Bedlam,  or  the  Fleet,  open 
men's  understandings,  and  reduce  them  from 
error  1  No,  certainly,  nothing  but  sound  reason 
and  argument  can  do  it,  which,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
they  are  not  furnished  with,  who  have  recourse 
to  any  other  weapons.  Schism  and  heresy  are 
to  be  rooted  out,  not  by  oppression,  but  by  rea- 
son and  debate ;  by  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  not 
of  the  flesh  ;  by  argument,  not  by  blows,  to 
which  men  have  recourse  when  they  are  beat 
out  of  the  other.  Schism  and  heresy  are  words 
of  terror  thrown  upon  the  adversary  by  all  par- 
ties of  men ;  and,  perhaps,  there  may  need  an 
infallible  judge  to  determine  where  the  schismt 
lies,  before  we  venture  upon  extraordinary  meth- 
ods to  extirpate  it."  He  adds,  "that  persecu- 
tion will  breed  more  confusion  and  disturbance 
than  toleration  ;  and  that  their  solemn  League 
and  Covenant  ought  to  bind  them  no  farther 
than  it  is  consistent  with  the  Word  of  God. 
Now  that  toleration,  or  liberty  of  conscience,  is 
the  doctrine  of  Scripture,  is  evident,  1.  From 
the  parable  of  the  tares  and  wheat  growing  to- 
gether till  the  harvest.  2.  From  the  apostle's 
direction,  'Let  every  man  be  persuaded  in  his 
own  mind.'  3.  That  '  of  whatsoever  is  not 
faith,  is  sin.'  4.  From  our  Saviour's  golden 
rule,  '  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  that  do  ye  to  them.'  " 

This  pamphlet  was  answered  by  another,  en- 
titled "Anti-Toleration,"  in  which  the  author  en- 
deavours to  vindicate  the  most  unbounded  li- 
cense of  persecution ;  but  neither  the  Assembly, 
.nor  the  city  divines,  nor  the  whole  Scots  nation, 
could  prevail  with  the  Parliament  to  deliver  the 
sword  into  their  hands.  The  high  behaviour  of 
the  Presbyterians  lost  them  the  affections  of 
great  numbers  of  people,  who  began  to  discover 
that  the  contention  between  them  and  the  prel- 
ates was  not  for  liberty,  but  power,  and  that  all 
the  spiritual  advantage  they  were  like  to  reap 
from  the  war  was  to  shift  hands,  and  instead  of 
Episcopal  government,  to  submit  to  the  yoke  of 
Presbyterial  uniformity. 

Lord  Clarendon  admits*  that  the  king  en- 
deavoured to  make  his  advantage  of  these  di- 
visions, by  courting  the  Independents,  and  prom- 
ising some  of  them  very  valuable  compensations- 
for  any  services  they  should  do  him  ;  intima- 
ting that  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  expect 
relief  in  their  scruples  from  persons  who  Rre-- 
tended  they  were  erecting  the  kingdom  of  CTirist ; 
but  though  the  Independents  were  enemies  t* 
the  Presbyterian  discipline,  they  had  no  confi- 
dence in  the  king's  promises.  Mr.  Whitelockef, 
agrees  with  the  noble  historian,  that  the  king: 
was  watchful  to  take  advantage  of  these  divis- 
ions, and  commanded  one  Ogle  to  write  to  Mr. 
Tbo.  Goodwin  and  Phil.  Nye,  two  of  the  In- 
dependent ministers,  and  make  them  large 
overtures,  if  they  would  oppose  the  Presbyteri- 
an government  intended  to  be  imposed  upon. 
England  by  the  Scots ;  but  these  two  gentle- 
men very  honestly  acquainted  their  friends  witk 
the  proposal,  which  put  an  end  to  the  corre- 
spondence ;    all  which  might   have  convinced 


Vol.  ii.,  p.  746. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  76. 


20 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS 


the  Presbyterians  of  the  necessity  of  coming  to 
some  terms  with  the  dissenters  ;  but  the  king's 
affairs  were  so  low,  that  they  were  under  no 
apprehensions  of  disturbance  from  that  quarter 
at  present. 

The  Assembly  perfected  nothing  farther  this 
year  ;  however,  complaint  being  made  of  the 
obsolete  version  of  the  Psalms  by  Sternhokl  and 
Hopkins,  the  Parliament  desired  them  to  recom- 
mend some  other  to  be  used  in  churches  ;  ac- 
cordingly, they  read  over  Mr.  Rouse's  version, 
and  after  several  amendments,  sent  it  up  to  the 
House,  November  14.  1645,  with  the  following 
recommendation  :  "  Whereas  the  honourable 
House  of  Commons,  by  an  order  bearing  date 
November  20,  1643,  have  recommended  the 
Psalms  published  by  Mr.  Rouse  to  the  consider- 
ation of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  the  Assembly 
nas  caused  them  to  be  carefully  perused,  and 
as  they  are  now  altered  and  amended  do  ap- 
prove them,  and  humbly  conceive  they  may  be 
useful  and  profitable  to  the  Church,  if  they  be 
permitted  to  be  publicly  sung;"*  accordingly, 
they  were  authorized  by  the  houses.  Care  was 
also  taken  to  prevent  the  importation  of  incor- 
rect Bibles  printed  in  Holland.! 

To  return  to  the  proceedings  of  Parliament. 
The  committee  for  plundered  ministers  having 
reported  to  the  House  of  Comm.ons,  January  28, 
1645,  certain  blasphemies  of  Paul  Best,  who  de- 
nied the  Holy  Trinity,  the  House  ordered  an 
ordinance  to  be  brought  in  [March  38]  to  pun- 
ish him  with  death  ;t  but  several  divines  being 
appointed  to  confer  with  him,  in  order  to  con- 
vince him  of  his  error,  he  confessed  his  belief 
of  that  doctrine  in  general  terms  before  he  was 
brought  to  his  trial,  and  that  he  hoped  to  be 
saved  thereby,  but  persisted  in  denying  the  per- 
sonality, as  a  Jesuitical  tenet;  upon  this  con- 
fession his  trial  was  put  off,  and  he  was  at  length 
discharged. 

i  The  government  of  the  Church  being  now 
changed  into  a  Presbyterian  form,  and  the  war 
almost  at  an  end,  the  Parliament  resolved  to 
apply  the  revenues  of  the  cathedrals  to  other 
public  uses,  and  accordingly,  November  18,  it 
was  ordained,  "  That  whereas  the  present  Dean 
and  Prebendaries  of  Westminster  have  deserted 
their  charge,  and  w'ere  become  delinquents  to 
the  Parliament,  they  did  therefore  ordain,  that 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  with  about  ten 
other  lords,  and  twenty-two  commoners,  should 
be  a  committee  ;  and  that  any  person  or  more 
of  them  should  have  authority  to  order,  direct, 
and  dispose  of  the  rents,  issues,  and  profits  be- 
longing to  the  college,  or  collegiate  church,  and 
to  do  and  execute  all  other  acts  that  did  any 
•way  concern  either  of  them."<J  They  ordained, 
farther,  "that  the  dean,  prebendaries,  and  all 
other  officers  belonging  either  to  the  college  or 
Church,  who  had  absented  themselves,  and  were 
become  delinquents,  or  had  not  taken  the  Cov- 
enant, should  be  suspended  from  their  several 
offices  and  palaces,  and  from  all  manner  of  ben- 
efit and  profit  arising  from  them,  or  from  the  ar- 
rears of  them,  Mr.  Osbaldeston  only  excepted." 

When  the  Cathedral  of  Hereford  fell  into  the 
Parliament's  hands,  the  dignitaries  of  that 
church  were  dispossessed,  and  their  lands  and 


*  MS.,  sess.  535. 

t  Whitelocke,  p.  196. 

^  Husband's  Collections,  p.  753 


t  Pari.  Chr.,  p.  319. 


revenues  seized  into  the  hands  of  the  commit- 
tee of  that  county.  The  dignitaries  of  the 
cathedral  churches  of  Winchester  and  Carlisle 
were  seri-ed  in  the  same  manner  the  latter  end 
of  this  year,  when  the  whole  frame  of  the  hie- 
rarchy was  dissolved. 

The  Parliament,  at  the  request  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  gave  some  marks  of  their  favour 
to  the  University  of  Cambridge,  which  was  re- 
duced to  sucii  necessitous  circumstances,  by 
reason  of  the  failure  of  their  college-rents,  that 
they  could  not  support  their  students ;  it  was 
therefore  ordained,  April  11,  1645,  "  that  no- 
thing contained  in  any  ordinance  of  Parliament 
concerning  levying  or  paying  of  taxes  should 
extend  to  the  University  of  Cambridge,  or  any 
of  the  colleges  or  halls  within  the  said  univer- 
sity, nor  to  any  of  the  rents  or  revenues  belong- 
ing to  the  said  university  or  colleges,  or  any 
of  them,  nor  to  charge  any  master,  fellow,  or 
scholar,  or  any  of  the  said  colleges,  nor  any 
reader,  officer,  or  minister  of  the  said  universi- 
ty or  colleges,  for  any  stipend,  wages,  or  profit, 
arising  or  growing  due  to  them,  in  respect  of 
their  places  and  employments  in  the  said  uni- 
versity."* They  likewise  confirmed  all  their 
ancient  rights  and  privileges,  and  ordered  the 
differences  between  the  university  and  town  to 
be  determined  according  to  law.  On  the  same 
day,  the  ordinance  for  regulating  the  university, 
and  removing  scandalous  ministers  in  the  asso- 
ciated counties  by  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  men- 
tioned in  the  beginning  of  the  last  year,  was  re- 
vived and  continued. 

On  the  17th  of  April,  this  year,  died  Dr.  Dan. 
Featly  ;  he  was  born  at  Charlton,  in  Oxford- 
shire, 1581,  and  educated  at  Corpus-Christi  Col- 
lege, of  which  he  was  fellow;  upon  his  leaving 
the  university  he  went  chaplain  to  Sir  Thomas 
Symmonds,  the  king's  ambassador  to  the  French 
court,  where  he  gained  reputation  by  his  ser- 
mons and  disputations  with  the  papists. t   When 


*  Husband's  Collections,  p.  636,  637. 

t  There  was  also  a  celebrated  piece  from  his  pen, 
levelled  against  the  Baptists.  It  originated  from  a 
disputation  which  he  held  with  four  of  that  persua- 
sion in  Southwark,  in  the  month  of  October,  1641. 
About  two  years  afterward  he  published  an  account 
of  this  debate  in  a  book  entitled  "The  Dippers  dip- 
ped ;  or,  the  Anabaptists  ducked,  and  phmged  over 
head  and  ears,  at  a  Disputation  in  Southwark."  This 
title  savoured  of  the  taste  and  spirit  of  the  times,  and 
is  no  favourable  omen  of  the  strain  of  the  work.  In 
his  dedication,  he  tells  the  reader,  "that  he  could 
hardly  dip  his  pen  in  anything  but  gall."  The  doctor 
wrote,  indeed,  under  an  irritation  of  spirits,  from  being 
deprived  of  two  livings,  which  he  enjoyed  before  the 
unhappy  differences  between  the  kmg  and  Parlia- 
ment. He  had  the  character,  however,  of  an  acute 
as  well  as  vehement  disputant.  He  had  for  his  fel- 
low-prisoner Mr.  Henry  Denne,  educated  at  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  and  ordained,  in  1630,  by 
the  Bishop  of  St.  David,  who  signalized  himself  by 
his  preaching,  writing,  disputing,  and  suffering  for 
the  baptistical  opinion.  As  soon  as  he  came  into 
prison,  Dr.  Featly's  book  was  laid  before  him  in  his 
apartment ;  when  he  had  read  it,  he  offered  to  dis- 
pute with  the  author  on  the  arguments  of  it.  The 
challenge  was  accepted,  and  they  debated  on  the 
first  ten  arguments,  when  the  doctor  declined  pro- 
ceeding, urging  that  it  was  not  safe  for  them  to  dis- 
pute on  the  subject  without  license  from  govern- 
ment ;  but  he  bid  Mr.  Denne  write,  and  said  he 
would  defend  his  own  arguments.  Mr.  Denne,  on 
this,  drew  up  a  learned  and  ingenious  answer;  but  it 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


21 


he  returned  home  he  became  domestic  chaplain 
to  Archbishop  Abbot,  and  was  presented  by  him 
to  the  Rectory  of  Lambeth,  and  in  the  year 
1627,  to  that  of  Acton.  In  1643  he  was  nomi- 
nated of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  sat  among 
them  till  his  correspondence  with  the  court  was 
discovered,  by  an  intercepted  letter  to  Arch- 
bishop Usher  relating  to  their  proceedings ;  upon 
which  he  was  committed  to  Lord  Peters's  house 
as  a  spy,  both  his  livings  were  sequestered,  and 
himself  expelled  the  Assembly.*  The  doctor 
was  a  thorough  Calvinist,  but  very  zealous  for 
the  hierarchy  of  the  Church  ;  so  that  when  in 
prison  he  published  the  following  challenge  : 

"  Whereas  I  am  certainly  informed  that  di- 
vers lecturers  and  preachers  in  London  do  in 
their  pulpits,  in  a  most  insolent  manner,  de- 
mand where  they  are  now  that  dare  stand  up 
in  defence  of  the  Church-hierarchy,  or  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  or  any  ways  oppose  or  impugn 
the  new-intended  reformation,  both  in  doctrine 
and  discipline,  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  I  do, 
and  will  maintain,  by  disputation  or  writing, 
against  any  of  them,  these  three  conclusions  : 

1.  "That  the  Articles  of  Religion  agreed  upon 
in  the  year  1562,  by  both  houses  of  convocation, 
and  ratified  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  need  no  alter- 
ation at  all,  but  only  an  orthodox  explication  of 
some  ambiguous  phrases,  and  a  vindication 
against  false  aspersions. 

2.  "  That  the  discipline  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, established  by  many  laws  and  acts  of  Par- 
liament, that  is,  the  government  by  bishops 
(removing  all  innovations  and  abuses  in  the  ex- 
ecution thereof),  is  agreeable  to  God's  Word,  and 
a  truly  ancient  and  apostolical  institution. 

3.  "  That  there  ought  to  be  a  set  form  of 
public  prayer ;  and  that  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  (the  calendar  being  reformed  in  point  of 
apocryphal  saints  and  chapters,  some  rubrics 
explained,  and  some  expressions  revised,  and 
the  whole  correctly  printed  with  the  Psalms, 
chapters,  and  allegations,  out  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  according  to  the  last  transla- 
tion) is  the  most  complete,  perfect,  and  exact 
liturgy  now  extant  in  the  Christian  world." 

The  doctor  was  a  little  man,  of  warm  pas- 
sions, and  exceedingly  inflamed  against  the  Par- 
liament for  his  imprisonment,  as  appears  by  his 
last  prayer  a  few  hours  before  his  death,  which 
happened  at  Chelsea,  whither  he  had  been  re- 
moved for  the  benefit  of  the  air,  in  the  sixty- 
fifth  year  of  his  age.  His  prayer  had  these 
words  in  it :  "  Lord,  strike  through  the  reins  of 
them  that  rise  against  the  Church  and  king,  and 
let  them  be  as  chaff  before  the  wind,  and  as 
stubble  before  the  fire  ;  let  them  be  scattered 
as  partridges  on  the  mountains,  and  let  the 
breath  of  the  Lord  consume  them ;  but  upon  our 
gracious  sovereign  and  his  posterity  let  the 
crown  flourish."    A  prayer  not  formed  at'ter  the 


does  not  appear  that  the  doctor  ever  replied.  He 
was  esteemed  one  of  the  greatest  ornaments  of  the 
Corpus-Christi  College,  and  acquitted  himself  with 
great  applause  in  a  funeral  oration  on  the  death  of 
its  celebrated  master.  Dr.  Rainnlds,  and  in  a  public 
exercise  with  which  he  entertained  the  Archbishop 
of  Spalato.  Unwholesome  air,  bad  diet,  and  worse 
treatment,  hastened  his  death. — Crosby's  History  of 
the  English  Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p.  152  and  303;  and 
Changer's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  176,  177, 
8vo. — Ed.  ( Toulmin).  *  See  before,  chap.  ii. 


model  of  St.  Stephen's,  or  that  of  our  blessed 
Saviour  upon  the  cross. 

The  writer  of  the  life  of  Archbishop  Usher 
says  the  doctor  was  both  orthodox  and  loyal  ; 
but  Lord  Clarendon  and  Dr.  Heylin  cannot  for- 
give his  sitting  in  the  Assembly,  and  being  a 
witness  against  Archbishop  Laud  at  his  trial. 
"  Whether  he  sat  in  the  Assembly,"  says  Hey- 
lin, "  to  show  his  parts,  or  to  head  a  party,  or 
out  of  his  old  love  to  Calvinism,  may  best  be 
gathered  from  some  speeches  which  he  made 
and  printed  ;  but  he  was  there  in  heart  before, 
and  therefore  might  afford  them  his  body  now, 
though,  possibly,  he  might  be  excused  from  ta- 
king the  Covenant,  as  others  did."* 

Soon  after  died  famous  old  Mr.  John  Dod, 
whose  pious  and  remarkable  sayings  are  remem- 
bered to  this  day  ;t  he  was  born  at  Shotlidge, 
in  Cheshire,  in  the  year  1550,  and  educated  ia 
Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  of  which  he  was  fel- 
low.J  At  thirty  years  of  age  he  removed  to 
Hanwell,  in  Oxfordshire,  where  he  continued 
preaching  twice  on  the  Lord's  Day,  and  once 
on  the  week  days,  for  above  twenty  years  ;  at 
the  end  of  which  he  was  suspended  for  noncon- 
formity by  Dr.  Bridges,  bishop  of  the  diocess. 
Being  driven  from  Hanwell,  he  removed  to  Can- 
ons Ashby,  in  Northamptonshire,  and  lived  qui- 
etly several  years,  till,  upon  complaint  made  by- 
Bishop  Neal  to  King  James,  he  commanded 
Archbishop  Abbot  to  silence  him.  After  the 
death  of  King  James,  Mr.  Dod  was  allowed  to 
preach  publicly  again,  and  settled  at  Faustly  ia 
the  same  county,  where  he  remained  till  his 
death.  He  was  a  most  humble,  pious,  and  de- 
vout man,  and  universally  beloved  ;  an  excel- 
lent Hebrician,  a  plain,  practical,  fervent  preach- 
er, a  noted  casuist,  and  charitable  almost  to  a 
fault  ;  his  conversation  was  heavenly  ;  but  be- 
ing a  noted  Puritan,  though  he  never  meddled 
with  state  affairs,  he  was  severely  used  by  the 
king's  cavaliers,  who  plundered  his  house,  and 
would  have  taken  away  his  very  sheets,  if  the 
good  old  man,  hardly  able  to  rise  out  of  his 
chair,  had  not  put  them  under  him  for  a  cush- 
ion ;  all  which  he  endured  patiently,  calling  to 
mind  one  of  his  own  maxims,ij  Sanctified  afflic- 

*  Hist.  Presb.,  p.  464. 

t  During  the  civil  wars,  when  some  of  the  soldiers 
came  to  his  house  and  threatened  to  take  away  his 
life,  this  heavenly  divine  with  holy  confidence  replied, 
"  If  you  do,  you  will  send  me  to  heaven,  where  I  long  to 
be  ;  hut  you  can  do  nothing  except  God  give  ymi  leave." 
His  enemies  called  him  "Faith  and  Repentance,"  be- 
cause he  was  constantly  recommending  these  two 
things.  His  last  words  were,  "/  desire  to  be  dis- 
solved, and  to  be  with  Christ." 

Mr.  Dod  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  war,  and 
continued  fixed  in  his  allegiance  to  Charles.  Arch- 
bishop Usher  had  the  most  exalted  opinion  of  him, 
and  said,  "  I  desire  that,  when  I  die,  my  soul  may  rest 
with  his."  Nothing  was  ever  objected  to  this  meek 
and  humble  man  but  his  being  a  Puritan!  Fuller, 
Lloyd,  Echard,  and  Bishop  Wilkins,  all  praise  him 
for  holiness,  learning,  and  great  aptness  to  teach. 
He  was  the  author  of  the  well-known  little  sermon 
on  the  word  "malt."  .Mr.  Dod  is  often  styled  the 
Z>'"ca/o»^!s7,  because  he  and  Mr.  Cleaver  published"An 
Exposition  of  the  Ten  Commandments,"  1635. — 0. 

i  Clarke's  Martyrol.,  p.  168  of  the  annexed  lives. 

i)  His  name  has  derived  celebrity  from  his  max- 
ims, usually  called  Dod's  Sayings:  they  having  been 
printed  in  various  forms,  many  of  them  on  two  sheets 
of  paper,  are  still  to  be  seen  pasted  on  the  walls  of 
cottages.     "  An  old  woman  in  my  neighbourhood  told 


22 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


tions  are  spiritual  promotions*  He  died  of  the 
strangury,  in  the  ninety-six  year  of  his  age,  and 
lies  buried  in  his  parish  church  at  Faustly. 


CHAPTER  Vir 

THE    CONCLUSION    OF    THE     FIRST    CIVIL     WAR,    BY 
THE    king's    SURRENDERING   HIS  ROVAL    PERSON 

TO    THE    SCOTS. PETITIONS    OF    THE    ASSEMBLY 

AND  CITY  DIVINES  AGAINST  TOLERATION,  AND 
POR  THE  DIVINE  RIGHT  OF  THE  PRESBVTERIAL 
GOVERNMENT,  WHICH  IS  ERECTED  IN  LONDON. 
DEBATES  BETWEEN  THE  KING,  MR.  HENDER- 
SON, AND  THE  SCOTS  COMMISSIONERS. HIS  MAJ- 
ESTY IS  REMOVED  FROM  NEWCASTLE  TO  HOLM- 
BY  HOUSE. FARTHER  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  SEC- 
TARIES. 

The  king  being  returned  to  Oxford,  Novem- 
l)er  6,  1646,  after  an  unfortunate  campaign,  in 
■which  all  his  armies  were  beaten  out  of  the  field 
and  dispersed,  had  no  other  remedy  left  but  to 
jnake  peace  with  his  subjects,  which  his  friends 
in  London  encouraged  him  to  expect  he  might 
t)e  able  to  accomplish  by  the  help  of  some  ad- 
vantage from  the  growing  divisions  among  the 
members,  the  majority  of  whom  were  inclined 
to  an  accommodation,  provided  the  king  would 
consent  to  abolish  Episcopacy,  and  offer  suffi- 
cient assurances  to  govern  for  the  future  accord- 
ing to  lavv.t  But  though  his  majesty  was  will- 
ing to  yield  a  little  to  the  times,  with  regard  to 
the  security  of  the  civil  government,  nothing 
could  prevail  with  him  to  give  up  the  Church. 
Besides,  as  the  king's  circumstances  obliged 
him  to  recede,  the  Parliament,  as  conquerors, 
advanced  in  their  demands.  In  the  month  of 
December,  his  majesty  sent  several  messages  to 
the  Parliament,  to  obtain  a  personal  treaty  at 
London,  upon  the  public  faith,  for  himself  and  a 
certain  number  of  his  friends,  residing  there 
■with  safety  and  honour,  forty  days ;  but  the  Par- 
liament would  by  no  means  trust  their  enemies 
"within  their  own  bowels,  and  therefore  insist- 
ed peremptorily  upon  liis  signing  the  bills  they 
■were  preparing  to  send  him,  as  a  preliminary  to 
a  well-grounded  settlement. 

The  king  made  some  concession  on  his  part 
■relating  to  the  militia  and  liberty  of  conscience, 
!but  very  far  short  of  the  demand  of  the  two 
4iouses,  who  were  so  persuaded  of  his  art  and 
ability  in  the  choice  of  ambiguous  expressions, 
capable  of  a  different  sense  from  what  appeared 
at  first  sight,  that  they  durst  not  venture  to  make 
use  of  them  as  the  basis  of  a  treaty.  J  Thus 
the  winter  was  wasted  in  fruitless  messages  be- 
tween London  and  Oxford,  while  the  unfortu- 
nate king  spent  his  time  musing  over  his  papers 
in  a  most  disconsolate  manner,  forsaken  by 
some  of  his  friends,  and  rudely  treated  by  others. 
;Mr.  Locke  says,  the  usage  the  king  met  with 
from  his  followers  at  Oxford  made  it  a  hard,  but 
almost  an  even  choice,  to  be  the  Parliament's 
prisoner,  or  their  slave.  In  his  majesty's  letter 
to  the  queen  he  writes,  "  If  thou  knew  what  a 

me,"  says  Mr.  Granger,  "that  she  should  have  gone 
-distracted  for  the  loss  of  her  husband,  if  she  had  been 
-without  Mr.  Dod's  Sayings  in  the  house."— History 
^England,  vol.  i.,  p.  370,  8vo. — Ed. 

♦  Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.,  p.  220.  f  Rapin,  p.  320. 

i  Rushworth,  vol.  vi.,  p.  215,  216. 


life  I  lead  in  point  of  conversation,  I  dare  say 
thou  would  pity  me."  The  chief  officers  quar- 
relled, and  became  insupportably  insolent  in  the 
royal  presence  ;  nor  was  the  king  himself  with- 
out blame  ;  for,  being  deprived  of  his  oracle  the 
queen,  he  was  like  a  ship  in  a  storm  without 
sails  or  rudder.  Lord  Clarendon,*  therefore, 
draws  a  veil  over  his  majesty's  conduct  in  these 
words  :  "  It  is  not  possible  to  discourse  of  par- 
ticulars with  the  clearness  that  is  necessary  to 
subject  them  to  common  understandings,  with- 
out opening  a  door  for  such  reflections  upon  the 
king  himself  as  seem  to  call  both  his  wisdom 
and  steadiness  in  question  :  as  if  he  wanted  the 
one  to  apprehend  and  discover,  and  the  other  to 
prevent,  the  mischiefs  that  were  evident  and 
impending."  And  yet  nothing  could  prevail 
with  him  to  submit  to  the  times,  or  deal  frankly 
with  those  who  alone  were  capable  of  retriev- 
ing his  affairs. 

The  king  having  neither  money  nor  forces, 
and  the  queen's  resources  from  abroad  failing, 
his  majesty  could  not  take  the  field  in  the  spring, 
which  gave  the  Parliament  army  an  easy  con- 
quest over  his  remaining  forts  and  garrisons. 
AH  the  west  was  reduced  before  midsummer, 
by  the  victorious  army  of  Sir  Thos.  Fairfax  ; 
the  city  of  Exeter  surrendered  April  9,  in  which 
one  of  the  king's  daughters,  Princess  Henrietta, 
was  made  prisoner,  but  her  governess,  the  Count- 
ess of  Dalkeith,  found  means  afterward  to  con- 
vey her  privately  into  France.  Dennington 
Castle  surrendered  April  1,  Barnstaple  the  12th, 
and  Woodstock  the  26th  ;  upon  which  it  was 
resolved  to  strike  the  finishing  blow,  by  besieg- 
ing the  king  in  his  headquarters  at  Oxford  ; 
upon  the  news  of  which,  like  a  man  in  a  fright, 
he  left  the  city  in  the  night,  April  27,  and  trav- 
elled as  a  servant  to  Dr.  Hudson  and  Mr.  Ash- 
burnham,  with  his  hair  cut  round  to  his  ears, 
and  a  cloke  bag  behind  him,  to  the  Scots  army 
before  Newark,  t  His  majesty  surrendered  him- 
self to  General  Leven,  May  5,  who  received 
him  with  respect,  but  sent  an  express  immedi- 
ately to  the  two  houses,  who  were  displeased  at 
his  majesty's  conduct,  apprehending  it  calcula- 
ted to  prolong  the  war,  and  occasion  a  differ- 
ence between  the  two  nations  ;  which  was  cer- 
tainly intended,  as  appears  by  the  king's  letter 
to  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  in  which  he  says  he 
had  good  security  that  he  and  his  adherents 
should  be  safe  in  their  persons,  honours,  and 
consciences  in  the  Scots  army,  and  that  they 
would  join  with  him,  and  employ  their  forces  to 
obtain  a  happy  and  well-grounded  peace :  where- 
as the  Scots  commissioners,  in  their  letter  to 
the  House  of  Peers,  aver,  "  they  had  given  no 
assurance,  nor  made  any  capitulation  for  join- 
ing forces  with  the  king,  or  combining  against 
the  two  houses,  or  any  other  private  or  public 
agreement  whatsoever,  between  the  king  on 
one  part,  and  the  kingdom  of  Scotland,  their 
army,  or  any  in  their  names,  and  having  power 
from  them,  on  the  other  part ;"  and  they  called 
the  contrary  assertion  a  damnable  untruth  ;  and 
add,  "  that  they  never  expect  a  blessing  from 
God  any  longer  than  they  continue  faithful  to 
their  Covenant. "t     So  that  this  must  be  the  ar- 


*  Vol.  iv.,  p.  626. 

t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  523.     Rushworth,  vol.  vi.,  p. 
268,  273,  274,  303,  304. 
t  Dr.  Grey,  to  confute  these  declarations,  which 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


23 


t'ifice  of  Montreville,  the  French  ambassador, 
•who  undertook  to  negotiate  between  the  two 
parties,  and  drew  the  credulous  and  distressed 
king  into  that  snare,  out  of  which  he  could 
never  escape. 

His  majesty  surrendered  his  person  to  the 
Scots,  and  sending  orders  to  the  governors  of 
Newark,  Oxford,  and  all  his  other  garrisons 
and  forces,  to  surrender  and  disband,  conclu- 
ded the  first  civil  war  ;  upon  which  most  of  the 
officers,  with  Prince  Rupert  and  Maurice,  re- 
tired beyond  sea  ;  so  that  by  the  middle  of  Au- 
gust all  the  king's  forces  and  castles  were  in 
■the  Parliament's  hands,  Ragland  Castle  being 
the  last ;  which  was  four  years,  wanting  three 
days,  from  the  setting  up  the  royal  standard  at 
Nottingham. 

Some  lime  before  the  king  left  Oxford,*  he 
had  commissioned  the  Marquis  of  Ormond-  to 
■conclude  a  peace  with  the  Irish  papists,  in  hopes 
of  receiving  succours  from  thence,  which  gave 
great  offence  to  the  Parliament ;  but  though 
his  majesty,  upon  surrendering  himself  to  the 
Scots,  wrote  to  the  marquis,  June  ll,t  not  to 
proceed,  he  ventured  to  put  the  finishing  hand 
to  the  treaty,  July  28,  1646,  upon  the  following 
scandalous  articles,^  among  others,  which  surely 
the  marquis  durst  not  have  consented  to,  with- 
out some  private  instructions  from  the  king  and 
■queen. 

1.  "  That  the  Roman  Catholics  of  that  king- 
dom shall  be  discharged  from  taking  the  oath  of 
supremacy. 

2.  "  That  all  acts  of  Parliament  made  against 
them  shall  be  repealed  ;  that  they  be  allowed 
the  freedom  of  their  religion,  and  not  be  de- 
barred from  any  of  his  majesty's  graces  or  fa- 
vours. 

3.  "  That  all  acts  reflecting  on  the  honour  of 

Mr.  Neal  has  brought  forward,  quotes  several  affida- 
vits and  assertions  of  Dr.  Hudson  :  the  substance  of 
which  is,  that  the  Scots  agreed  to  secure  the  person 
and  honour  of  the  king ;  to  press  him  to  nothing  con- 
trary to  his  conscience  ;  to  protect  Mr.  Ashburnham 
and  himself;  and  if  the  Parliament  refused  to  re- 
store the  king,  upon  a  message  from  him,  to  his  rights 
and  prerogatives,  to  declare  lor  him,  and  take  all  his 
friends  into  their  protection.  But  the  doctor  omits 
to  observe,  that  Hudson  spoke  on  the  authority  of  the 
French  agent,  one  Montreville,  who  negotiated  the 
business  between  the  king  and  the  Scots  ;  and  who, 
it  appears,  promised  to  the  king  more  than  he  was 
empowered,  and  was  recalled  and  disgraced. — Ra- 
pin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  523,  524.  It  is  more  easy  to  conceive 
1hat  Montreville  exceeded  his  commission,  as,  accord- 
ing tQ_  Hudson's  confession,  quoted  by  Dr.  Grey,  the 
Scots  "would  not  give  anything  under  their  hands. — 
Ed. 

*  It  was  before  leaving  Oxford  that  Charles  wrote 
to  Lord  Digby,  m  which  he  says,  "  /  desire  you  to  as- 
sure my  friends  that  if  I  cannot  live  as  a  king,  I  shall  die 
like  a  gentleman,  without  doing  that  which  may  make 
honest  men  blush  for  me."  His  course  with  the  com- 
missionei-s  hardly  accorded  with  this  profession. — C. 

t  Lord  Digby  wished  to  have  it  understood  that 
this  letter  was  surreptitious,  or  a  forged  one  from  his 
majesty,  and  most  contrary  to  what  he  knew  to  be 
his  free  resolution  and  unconstrained  will  and  pleas- 
ure.— Dr.  Grey. — Ed. 

i  Mr.  Neal,  as  Dr.  Grey  observes,  gives  only  a  very 
concise  abridgment  of  these  articles,  which  were 
thirty  in  number,  and,  as  they  stand  in  Ru.shworth, 
take  up  almost  twelve  pages  in  folio.  But  Mr.  Neal's 
■view  of  some  of  them,  though  the  doctor  calls  it  cur- 
tailing them,  is  sufficient  to  show  the  tenour  and  spirit 
of  the  whole. — En. 


the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  since  August  7, 
1641,  be  repealed. 

4.  "  That  all  indictments,  attainders,  outlaw- 
ries, &c.,  against  them,  or  any  of  them,  be  va- 
cated and  made  void. 

5.  "That  all  impediments  that  may  hinder 
their  sitting  in  Parliament,  or  being  chosen 
burgesses,  or  knights  of  the  shire,  be  removed. 

6.  "  That  all  incapacities  imposed  upon  the 
nation  be  taken  away,  and  that  they  have  pow- 
er to  erect  one  or  more  inns  of  court  in  or  near 
the  city  of  Dublin  ;  and  that  all  Catholics  edu- 
cated there  be  capable  of  taking  their  degrees 
without  the  oath  of  supremacy. 

7.  "That  the  Roman  Catholics  shall  be  em- 
powered to  erect  one  or  more  universities,  and 
keep  free-schools  for  the  education  of  their 
youth,  any  law  or  statute  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 

8.  "  That  places  of  command,  honour,  profit, 
and  trust,  shall  be  conferred  on  the  Roman 
Catholics,  without  making  any  difl^erence  be- 
tween them  and  Protestants,  both  in  the  army 
and  in  the  civil  government.* 

9.  "  That  an  act  of  oblivion  shall  be  pass- 
ed in  the  next  Parliament,  to  extend  to  all  the 
Roman  Catholics,  and  their  heirs,  absolving 
them  of  all  treasons  and  offences  whatsoever, 
and  particularly  of  the  massacre  of  1641, t  so 
that  no  person  shall  be  impeached,  troubled,  or 
molested,  for  anything  done  on  one  side  or  the 
other. 

10.  "  That  the  Roman  Catholics  shall  con- 
tinue in  possession  of  all  those  cities,  forts,  gar- 
risons, and  towns  that  they  are  possessed  of, 
till  things  are  come  to  a  full  settlement. "t 

Was  this  the  way  to  establish  a  good  under- 
standing between  the  king  and  his  two  houses  1 
or  could  they  believe  that  his  majesty  meant 
the  security  of  the  Protestant  religion,  and  the 
extirpation  of  popery  in  England,  when  his  gen- 
eral consented  to  such  a  peace  in  Ireland,  with- 
out any  marks  of  his  sovereign's  displeasured 
nay,  when,  after  a  long  treaty  with  the  Parlia- 
ment commissioners,  he  refused  to  deliver  up 
the  forts  and  garrisons  into  their  hands,  inso- 
much that,  after  six  weeks'  attendance,  they 
were  obliged  to  return  to  their  ships,  and  carry 
back  the  supplies  they  had  brought  for  the  gar- 
risons,i5i  having  only  published  a  declaration  that 

*  Rushworlh,  part  iv.,  vol.  i.,  p.  402. 

t  But  it  was  provided  that  such  barbarities  as 
should  be  agreed  on  by  the  lord-lieutenant  and  the 
Lord-viscount  Mountgarret,  or  any  five  or  more  of 
them,  should  be  tried  by  such  indifferent  commis- 
sioners as  they  should  appoint. — Dr.  Grey. — Ed. 

t  Our  author  having  called  the  preceding  proposi- 
tions "scandalous  articles,"  Dr.  Grey  appeals  from 
his  sentence  to  the  remonstrance  of  the  Protestant 
archbishops,  bishops,  and  inferior  clergy  of  the  king- 
dom of  Ireland  to  the  lord-lieutenant,  on  the  11th 
and  13th  of  August,  16-16,  in  which  they  express  a 
strong  and  grateful  sense  of  obligation  for  the  peace 
established  among  them.  But  it  will  still  remain  a 
question,  whether  the  sentiment  of  these  prelates 
and  clergy  were  disinterested  and  judicious. — En. 

()  Our  author  incurs  here  the  censure  of  Dr.  Grey 
for  not  "  affording  us  any  authority  in  proof  of  this 
assertion."  The  editor  confesses  that  he  cannot  sup- 
ply the  omission.  Dr.  Grey  confronts  Mr.  Neal  with 
large  quotations  from  Lord  Clarendon's  History  of 
the  Rebellion  in  Ireland,  p.  53,  54,  65,  66.  73-75. 
But  they  appear  not  to  the  point  for  which  they  are 
produced.    The  purport  of  them  is,  "  That  the  Mar- 


24 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


the  Parliament  of  England  would  take  all  the 
Protestants  of  Ireland  into  their  protection,  and 
send  over  an  army  to  carry  on  the  war  against 
the  papists  with  vigour. 

The  king  being  now  in  the  hands  of  the  Scots, 
the  English  Presbyterians  at  London  resumed 
their  courage,  concluding  they  could  not  fail  of 
a  full  establishment  of  their  discipline,  and  of 
bringing  the  Parliament  at  Westminster  to  their 
terms  of  uniformity ;  for  this  purpose,  they 
framed  a  bold  remonstrance  in  the  name  of  the 
lord-mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  council,  and 
presented  it  to  the  House,  May  26,  complaining,* 
"that  the  reins  of  discipline  were  let  loose ;  that 
particular  congregations  were  allowed  to  take 
up  what  form  of  Divme  service  they  pleased, 
and  that  sectaries  began  to  swarm  by  virtue  of  a 
toleration  granted  to  tender  consciences.  They 
put  the  Parliament  in  mind  of  their  Covenant, 
which  obliged  them  to  endeavour  the  extirpa- 
tion of  popery,  prelacy,  superstition,  heresy, 
schism,  profaneness,  and  whatsoever  else  was 
found  contrary  to  sound  doctrine ;  and,  at  the 
same  time,  to  preserve  and  defend  the  person 
and  authority  of  the  king ;  they  therefore  de- 
sired, since  the  whole  kingdom  was  now  in  a 
manner  reduced  to  the  obedience  of  the  Parha- 
ment,  that  all  separate  congregations  may  be 
suppressed  ;  that  all  such  separatists  who  con- 
form not  to  the  public  discipline  may  be  decla- 
red against ;  that  no  person  disaffected  to  the 
Presbyterial  government  sent  forth  by  Parlia- 
ment may  be  employed  in  any  place  of  public 
trust  ;t  that  the  House  will  endeavour  to  re- 
move all  jealousies  between  them  and  the  Scots, 
and  hasten  their  propositions  to  the  king  for  a 
safe  and  well-grounded  peace. "t 

This  remonstrance  was  supported  by  the 
whole  Scots  nation,  who  acted  in  concert  with 
their  English  brethren,  as  appears  by  a  letter 
of  thanks  to  the  lord-mayor,  aldermen,  and 
common  council,  from  the  General  Assembly, 
dated  June  10,  1646,  within  a  month  after  the 
delivery  of  the  remonstrance  :^  the  letter  com- 
mends  their  courageous    appearance    against 


quis  of  Ormond  resolved  not  to  proceed  to  any  con- 
junction with  the  commissioners  without  his  majes- 
ty's express  directions,  for  which  he  privately  de- 
spatched several  expresses;  that,  in  consequence  of 
this,  the  commissioners,  not  obtaining  possession  of 
the  garrisons,  returned  with  all  their  supplies  to  their 
ships ;  that  the  marquis  received  his  majesty's  order 
not  to  deliver  up  the  garrisons,  if  it  were  possible  to 
keep  them  under  the  same  entire  obedience  to  his 
majesty ;  but  should  there  be  a  necessity,  to  put  them 
into  the  hands  of  the  English,  rather  than  of  the 
Irish."  The  rest  of  the  quotation  describes  the  dif- 
ficulties and  distresses  under  which  the  marquis  la- 
boured, which  drove  him  at  last  to  x.^ke  a  disadvan- 
tageous agreement  with  the  commissioneis.  The 
reader  will  judge  whether,  by  these  references,  Mr. 
Neal's  assertions  are  not,  instead  of  being  confuted, 
established. — See,  also,  Mrs.  Macaulay,  vol.  iv.,  p.  250, 
note  (+).— Ed  *   Vol.  Pamp.,  No.  34. 

t  Presbyterianism  thus  displayed  the  same  intol- 
erance as  Episcopacy  had  done.  "  Religious  tyran- 
ny," observes  Mr.  Robinson,  "  subsists  in  various 
degrees,  as  all  civil  tyrannies  do.  Popery  is  the  con- 
summation of  it,  and  Presbyterianism  a  weak  degree 
of  it.  But  the  latter  has  in  it  the  essence  of  the 
former,  and  differs  from  it  only  as  a  kept-mistress  dif- 
fers from  a  street-walker,  or  as  a  musket  differs  from  a 
cannon." — Plan  of  Lectures,  5th  edition,  p.  38. — Ed. 
(Toulmin).  X  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  212. 

()  Rushworth,  p.  306. 


sects  and  sectaries  ;  their  firm  adherence  to  the 
Covenant,  and  their  maintaining  the  Presbyte- 
rial government  to  be  the  government  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  beseeches  them  to  go  on  boldly  in  the 
work  they  had  begun,  till  the  three  kingdoms  were 
united  in  one  faith  and  worship.  At  the  same 
time,  they  directed  letters  to  the  Parliament, 
beseeching  them,,  also,  in  the  bowels  of  Jesus 
Christ,  to  give  to  him  the  glory  that  is  due  to 
his  name,  by  an  immediate  establishing  of  all 
his  ordinances  in  their  full  integrity  and  power, 
according  to  the  Covenant.  Nor  did  they  for- 
get to  encourage  the  Assembly  at  Westminster 
to  proceed  in  their  zeal  against  sectaries,  and 
to  stand  boldly  for  the  sceptre  of  Jesus  Christ 
against  the  encroachments  of  eartlily  powers. 
These  letters  were  printed,  and  dispersed  over 
the  whole  kingdom. 

The  wise  Parliament  received  the  lord-mayor 
and  his  brethren  with  marks  of  great  respect 
and  civility  ;  for  neither  the  Scots  nor  English 
Presbyterians  were  to  be  disgusted  while  the 
prize  was  in  their  hands  for  which  both  had 
been  contending  ;  but  the  inajority  of  the  Com- 
mons were  displeased  with  the  remonstrance, 
and  the  high  manner  of  enforcing  it,  as  aiming,, 
by  a  united  force,  to  establish  a  sovereign  de- 
spotic power  in  the  Church,  with  a  uniformity 
to  which  themselves,  and  many  of  their  friends, 
were  unwilling  to  submit ;  however,  they  dis- 
missed the  petitioners,  with  a  promise  to  take 
the  particulars  into  consideration. 

But  the  Independents  and  sectarians  in  the 
army,  being  alarmed  at  the  impending  storm, 
procured  a  counter  petition  from  the  city  with 
great  numbers  of  hands,  "  applauding  the  la- 
bours and  successes  of  the  Parliament  in  the 
cause  of  liberty,  and  praying  them  to  go  on 
with  managing  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  ac- 
cording to  their  wisdoms,  and  not  suffer  the 
freeborn  people  of  England  to  be  enslaved  upoa 
any  pretence  whatsoever  ;  nor  to  suffer  any  set 
of  people  to  prescribe  to  them  in  matters  of  gov- 
ernment or  conscience,  and  the  petitioners  will 
stand  by  them  with  their  lives  and  fortunes.'* 
Mr.  Whitelocke  says  the  hands  of  the  Royalists 
were  in  this  affair,  who,  being  beaten  out  of  the 
field,  resolved  now  to  attempt  the  ruin  of  the 
Parliament,  by  sowing  discord  among  their 
friends.* 

The  houses  were  embarrassed  between  the 
contenders  for  liberty  and  uniformity,  and  en- 
deavoured to  avoid  a  decision  till  they  saw  the 
effect  of  their  treaty  with  the  king.  They  kept 
the  Presbyterians  in  suspense,  by  pressing  the 
Assembly  for  their  answer  to  the  questions  re- 
lating to  the;Ms  divimtm  of  Presbytery  already 
mentioned,  insinuating  that  they  themselves 
were  the  obstacles  to  a  full  settlement,  and  as- 
suring them,  when  this  point  was  agreed,  they 
would  concur  in  such  an  ordinance  as  they  de- 
sired. Upon  this  the  Assembly  appointed  three 
committees  to  take  the  questions  into  considera- 
tion ;  but  the  Independents  took  this  opportuni- 
ty to  withdraw,  refusing  absolutely  to  be  con- 
cerned in  the  affair. 

The  first  committee  was  appointed  to  deter- 
mine whether  any  particular  church  govern- 
ment was  jure  dirino,  and  to  bring  their  proofs- 
from  Scripture.     But  here  they  stumbled  at  the 


*  Oldmixon's  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  308.    Me- 
morials, p.  213. 


HISTORY    OF  THE    PURITANS. 


25 


very  threshold,  for  the  Erastians  divided  them, 
and  entered  their  dissent,  so  that  when  the  an- 
swer was  laid  before  the  Assembly,  it  was  not 
called  the  answer  of  the  committee,  but  of 
some  brethren  of  the  committee  ;  and  when  the 
question  was  put,  they  withdrew  from  the  As- 
sembly, and  left  the  high  Presbyterians  to  them- 
selves, who  agreed,  with  only  one  dissenting 
voice,  that  Jesus  Christ,  as  king  of  the  Church, 
hath  himself  appointed  a  church  government 
distinct  from  the  civil  magistrate.  The  names 
of  those  who  subscribed  this  proposition  were, 


Rev.  Mr.  White. 

Rev.  Dr.  Staunton. 

Mr.  Pahner. 

Dr.  Hoyle. 

Dr.  Wincop. 

Mr.  Bayly. 

Mr.  Ley. 

Mr.  Taylor. 

Dr.  Gouge. 

Mr.  Young. 

Mr.  Walker. 

Mr.  Cawdrey. 

Mr.  Sedgwick. 

Mr.  Ash. 

Mr.  Marshal. 

Mr.  Gibson. 

Mr.  Whitaker. 

Mr.  Good. 

Mr.  Newcomen. 

Mr.  Vines. 

Mr.  Spurstow. 

Mr.  Seaman. 

Mr.  Dehny. 

Mr.  Chambers. 

Mr.  Calamy. 

Mr.  Corbet. 

Mr.  Proffet. 

Mr.  Dury. 

Mr.  Perne. 

Mr.  Salway. 

Mr.  Scuddir. 

Mr.  Hardwickc. 

Mr.  Carter,  Sen. 

Mr.  Langley. 

Mr.  Caryl. 

Mr.  Simpson. 

Mr.  Woodcocke. 

Mr.  Conant. 

Mr.  Carter,  Jun. 

Mr.  De  la  March 

Mr.  Goodwin. 

Mr.  Byfield. 

Mr.  Nye. 

Mr.  Herle. 

Mr.  Greenhill. 

Mr.  De  la  Place. 

Mr.  Valentine. 

Mr.  Wilison. 

Mr.  Price. 

Mr.  Reyner. 

Dr.  Smith. 

Mr.  Gower. 

The  divine  who  entered  his  dissent  was  Mr. 
Lightfoot,  with  whom  Mr.  Colman  would  have 
joined,  if  he  had  not  fallen  sick  at  this  juncture, 
and  died. 

The  discussing  the  remaining  questions  en- 
gaged the  Assembly  from  May  till  the  latter  end 
of  July,  and  even  then  they  thought  it  not  safe 
to  present  their  determinations  to  Parliament, 
for  fear  of  a  premunire  ;  upon  which  the  city 
divines  at  Sion  College  took  up  the  controver- 
sy in  a  treatise  entitled  "  The  Divine  Right  of 
Church  Government,"  by  the  London  ministers. 
Wherein  they  give  a  distinct  answer  to  the  sev- 
eral queries  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  un- 
dertake to  prove  every  branch  of  the  Presbyterial 
discipline  to  be  jure  divino,  and  that  the  civil 
magistrate  had  no  right  to  intermeddle  with  the 
censures  of  the  Church. 

And  to  show  the  Parliament  they  were  in 
earnest,  they  resolved  to  stand  by  each  other, 
and  not  comply  with  the  present  establishment, 
till  it  was  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  the  civil 
magistrate ;  for  which  purpose  they  drew  up  a 
paper  of  reasons,  and  presented  it  to  the  lord- 
mayor,  who,  having  advised  with  the  common 


council,  sent  a  deputation  to  Sion  College,  offer- 
ing to  concur  in  a  petition  for  redress,  which 
they  did  accordingly,  though  without  effect ;  for 
the  Parliament,  taking  notice  of  the  combina- 
tion of  the  city  ministers,  published  an  order 
June  9,  requiring  those  of  the  province  of  Lon- 
don to  observe  the  ordinance  relating  to  church 
government,  enjoining  the  members  for  the  city 
to  send  copies  thereof  to  their  several  parishes, 
and  to  take  effectual  care  that  they  were  imme- 
diately put  in  execution.  Upon  this  the  minis- 
ters of  London  and  Westminster  met  again  at 
Sion  College  June  19,  and  being  a  little  more 
submissive,  published  certain  considerations 
and  cautions,  according  to  which  they  agree  to 
put  the  Presbyterial  government  in  practice  ac- 
cording to  the  present  establishment.  Here 
they  declare,  "  that  the  power  of  church  cen- 
sures ought  to  be  in  church  officers,  by  the  will 
and  appointment  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  then  they 
are  pleased  to  admit  that  the  magistracy  ought 
to  be  satisfied  in  the  truth  of  the  government 
they  authorize  ;  and  though  it  be  not  right  ia 
every  particular,  yet  church  officers  may  act 
under  that  rule,  provided  they  do  not  acknowl- 
edge the  rule  to  be  right  in  all  points.  There- 
fore, though  they  conceive  the  ordinances  of  Par'- 
liament  already  published  are  not  a  complete 
rule,  nor  in  all  points  satisfactory  to  their  con- 
sciences, yet  because  in  many  things  they  are 
so,  and  provision  being  made  to  enable  the  el- 
derships, by  their  authority,  to  keep  away  from 
the  Lord's  Supper  all  ignorant  and  scandalous 
persons  ;  and  a  farther  declaration  being  made, 
that  there  shall  be  an  addition  to  the  scandalous 
offences  formerly  enumerated,  therefore  they 
conceive  it  their  duty  to  put  in  practice  the  pres- 
ent settlement,  as  far  as  they  conceive  it  cor- 
respondent with  the  Word  of  God  ;  hoping  that 
the  Parliament  will  in  due  time  supply  what  is 
lacking  to  make  the  government  entire,  and 
rectify  what  shall  appear  to  be  amiss."  Thus 
reluctantly  did  these  gentlemen  bend  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Parliament  !* 

The  kingdom  of  England,  instead  of  so  many 
diocesses,  was  now  divided  into  a  certain  num- 
ber of  provinces,  made  up  of  representatives 
from  the  several  classes  within  their  respective 
boundaries  ;  every  parish  had  a  congregational 
or  parochial  presbytery  for  the  affairs  of  the 
parish ;  the  parochial  presbyteries  were  com- 
bined into  classes  ;  these  returned  representa- 
tives to  the  Provincial  Assembly,  as  the  Provin- 
cial did  to  the  National ;  for  example,  the  prov- 
ince of  London  being  composed  of  twelve  class- 
es, according  to  the  following  division,  eacii 
classis  chose  two  ministers  and  four  lay-elders, 
to  represent  them  in  a  Provincial  Assembly, 
which  received  general  appeals  from  the  paro- 
chial and  classical  presbyteries,  as  the  National 
Assembly  did  from  the  Provincial. 


THE    DIVISION    OF    THE    PROVINCE   OF    LONDON. 


1.  AUhallows,  Bread-Street. 

2.  Andrew's  Wardrobe. 

3.  Bennet,  Paul's  Wharf. 

4.  Faith's. 

5.  St.  Gregory. 


The  first  classis  to  contain  the  foUowvig  parishes  : 


6.  St.  John  Evangelist. 

7.  Margaret  Moses. 

8.  St.  Martin,  Ludgate. 

9.  St.  Anne,  Blackfriars. 
10.  St.  Austin's. 


U.  St.  Mary  Aldermary. 

12.  St.  Mary  le  Bow. 

13.  St.  Matthew,  Friday-street. 

14.  Mildred,  Bread-st.,  St.  Paul's; 

15.  St.  Peter's,  Paul's  Wharf. 


*  It  would  be  difficult  for  Mr.  Hetherington  to 
justify  the  presumptuous  slur  with  which  he  alludes 
to  Neal  at  this  passage.     The  history  of  the  Assem- 

voL.  n.— D 


bly  seems  to  be  faithfully  reported  by  the  historian, 
of  the  Puritans. — C. 


26 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


1.  St.  Antholine. 

2.  Bennet  Sheerhog. 

3.  St.  James,  Garlickhithe. 

4.  St.  John  Baptist. 

5.  Martin  the  Vintry. 


1.  Allhallows  the  Greater. 

2.  Allhallows  the  Less. 

3.  Allhallows,  Lombard-street. 

4.  St.  Edmund,  Lombard-street. 


'■ .  St.  Andrews  Hubbert. 

2.  St.  Bennet,  Grace  Church. 

3.  St.  Botolph,  Billingsgate. 

4.  St.  Clement,  Eastcheap. 

5.  Dionis  Back-church. 


1.  St.  Anne,  Aldersgate. 

2.  St.  Botolph,  Aldersgate. 

3.  St.  Bride's. 

4.  Bridewell. 


1.  St.  Alban,  Wood-street. 

2.  Allhallows,  Honey  Lane. 
'3.  St.Alphage. 

4.  St.  Giles,  Cripplegate. 

5.  St.  James's  Chapel. 


1.  Allhallows  in  the  Wall. 
a.  St.  Bartholomew,  Exchange. 
■3.  St.  Bennet  Finck. 


1.  St.  Andrew  Undershaft. 

2.  St.  Botolph,  Aldgate. 

3.  St.  Ethelburga. 

4.  St.  John,  Hackney. 

1.  Allhallows  Barking. 

2.  Allhallows  Steyning. 

3.  St.  Dunstan  in  the  East. 

4.  St.  Gabriel,  Fenchurch. 

5.  St.  Katherine,  Coleman. 

1.  St.  George,  Southwark. 

2.  Lambeth. 

3.  St.  Mary  Magdalen,  Bermond- 

sey. 

1.  St.  Clement  Danes. 

2.  St.  Giles  in  the  Fields. 
-3.  Knightsbridge. 

1.  St.  Andrew,  Holborn. 

2.  St.  Bartholomew  the  Greater. 

3.  St.  Bartholomew  the  Less. 

Thus  the  Presbyterian  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment began  to  appear  in  its  proper  form ;  but 
new  obstructions  being  raised  by  the  ministers 
to  the  choice  of  representatives,  the  Provincial 
Assembly  did  not  meet  till  next  year,  nor  did  it 
ever  obtain  except  in  London  and  Lancashire. 
The  Parliament  never  heartily  approved  it,  and 
the  interest  that  supported  it  being  quickly  dis- 
abled, Mr.  Echard  says,  the  Presbyterians  never 
saw  their  dear  presbytery  settled  in  any  one 
part  of  England.*  But  Mr.  Baxter,  who  is  a 
much  better  authority,  says  the  ordinance  was 
executed  in  London  and  Lancashire,  though  it 


The  second  classis. 

6.  St.  Mary  Magdal.,  Old  Fish-st. 

7.  St.  Mary,  Somerset. 

8.  St.  Mary  Mounthaw. 

9.  St.  Micnael,  Queenhithe. 
10.  St.  Michael  Royal. 

The  third  classis. 
5.  Lawrence  Pountney. 
C.  St.  Mary  Abchurch. 

7.  St.  Mary  Bothaw. 

8.  St.  Mary  Woolchurch. 

The  fourth  classis. 

6.  St.  George,  Botolph  Lane. 

7.  St.  Leonard,  Eastcheap. 

8.  St.  Magnus. 

9.  St.  Margaret,  New  Fish-street. 
10.  St.  Martin  Orgars. 

The  fifth  classis. 

5.  Christ  Church. 

6.  St.  John  Zachary. 

7.  St.  Leonard,  Foster  Lane. 

8.  St.  Mary  Staynings. 

The  sixth  classis. 

6.  St.  Lawrence,  Jewry. 

7.  St.  Martin,  Ironmonger  Lane. 

8.  St.  Mary,  Aldermanbury. 

9.  St.  Mary  Magdalen,  Milk-street. 

The  seventh  classis. 

4.  St.  Botolph,  Bishopsgate. 

5.  St.  Christopher's. 

6.  St.  Margaret,  Lothbury. 

The  eighth  classis. 

5.  St.  Helen's. 

6.  St.  James,  Duke  Place. 

7.  St.  Katherine,  Creechurch, 

The  ninth  classis. 

6.  St.  Katherine,  Tower. 

7.  St.  Margaret  Pattoons. 

8.  St.  Olive,  Hart-street. 

9.  St.  Peter  in  the  Tower. 

The  tenth  classis. 

4.  St.  Mary  Overies. 

5.  Newington  Butts. 

6.  St.  Olave,  Southwark. 

The  eleventh  classis. 

4.  St.  Margaret,  Westmihstei. 

5.  St.  Martin  in  the  Fields. 

6.  New  Church. 

The  twelfth  classis. 

4.  Charter  House. 

5.  St.  Dunstan  in  the  West. 

6.  St.  James's,  Clerkenwell. 


11.  St.  Nicholas,  Old  Abby. 

12.  St.  Nicholas  Olives. 

13.  Pancras,  Soper's  Lane. 

14.  St.  Thomas  Apostle. 

15.  Trinity. 


9.  St.  Mary  Woolnoth. 

10.  St.  Nicholas  Aaron. 

11.  St.  Stephen's,  Walbrook. 

12.  St.  Swithin's. 


11.  St.  Mary  Hill. 

12.  St.  Michael,  Crooked  Lane 

13.  St.  Michael,  Cornhill. 

14.  St.  Peter,  Cornhill. 


9.  St.  Michael  in  the  Corn,  vulgo 
in  the  Querne. 

10.  St.  Olave,  Silver-street. 

11.  St.  Peter,  Cheap. 

12.  St.  Foster,  alias  Vedast. 

10.  St.  Mary  Colechurch. 

11.  St.  Michael,  Wood-street. 

12.  St.  Mildred,  Poultry. 

13.  St.  Olave,  Jewry. 


7.  St.  Michael,  Bassishaw. 

8.  St.  Peter  Poor. 

9.  St.  Stephen,  Coleman-street. 


8.  St.  Leonard,  Shoreditch. 

9.  St.  Martin,  Outwich. 

10.  St.  Mary,  Stoke-Newington. 


10.  Stepney. 

11.  Trinity,  Minories. 

12.  Wapping. 

13.  Whitechapel. 


7.  Rotherhithe. 

8.  St.  Thomas's  Hospital, 

9.  St.  Thomas's,  Southwark. 


7.  St.  Peter,  Westminster. 

8.  St.  Paul,  Covent  Garden. 


7.  St.  Mary,  Islington. 

8.  St.  Sepulchre's. 


Echard,  p.  634. 


remained  unexecuted  in  almost  all  other  parts. 
However,  the  Presbyterian  ministers  had  their 
voluntary  associations  for  church  affairs  in  most 
counties,  thoughjA'ithout  any  authoritative  ju- 
risdiction. 

To  return  to  the  king,  who  marched  with  the 
Scots  army  from  Newark  to  Newcastle,  where 
he  continued  about  eight  months,  being  treated 
with  some  respect,  but  not  with  all  the  duty  of 
subjects  to  a  sovereign.  The  first  sermon  that 
was  preached  before  him  gave  iiopes*  that  they 


*  Mr.  Whitelocke  informs  us  (Memorials,  p.  234), 
"  that  a  Scotch  minister  preached  boldly  before  the 
king,  December  16, 1646,  at  Newcastle,  and  after  his 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


27 


would  be  mediators  between  him  and  the  Par- 
liament ;  it  was  from  2  Sam.,  xix.,  41-43,  "  And 
behold,  all  the  men  of  Israel  came  to  the  king, 
and  said  to  the  king.  Why  have  the  men  of  Ju- 
dah  stolen  thee  away!  And  all  the  men  of  Ju- 
dah  answered  the  men  of  Israel,  Because  the 
king  is  near  of  kin  to  us  ;  wherefore  then  be  ye 
angry  for  this  matter  ■?  have  we  eaten  at  all  of 
the  king's  cost !  or  hath  he  given  us  any  gift  1 
And  the  men  of  Israel  answered  the  men  of 
Judah,  and  said,  We  have  ten  parts  in  the  king  ; 
and  we  have  also  more  right  in  David  than  ye  ; 
why  then  did  ye  despise  us,  that  our  advice 
should  not  be  first  had,  in  bringing  back  our 
king  !  And  the  words  of  the  men  of  Judah 
were  fiercer  than  the  words  of  the  men  of  Is- 
rael." But  it  quickly  appeared  that  nothing 
would  be  done  except  upon  condition  of  the 
king's  taking  the  Covenant,  and  establishing 
the  Presbyterial  government  in  both  king- 
doms. When  the  king  was  pressed  upon  these 
heads,  he  pleaded  his  conscience,  and  declared 
that,  though  he  was  content  the  Scots  should 
-enjoy  their  own  discipline,  he  apprehended  his 
honour  and  conscience  were  concerned  to  sup- 
port Episcopacy  in  England,  because  it  had 
been  established  from  the  Reformation,  and  that 
he  was  bound  to  uphold  it  by  his  coronation 
oath ;  however,  he  was  willing  to  enter  into  a 
conference  with  any  person  whom  they  should 
appoint,  protesting  he  was  not  ashamed  to 
change  his  judgment  or  alter  his  resolution,  pro- 
vided they  could  satisfy  him  in  two  points  : 

1st.  That  the  Episcopacy  he  contended  for 
was  not  of  Divine  institution.  2dly.  That  his 
coronation  oath  did  not  bind  him  to  support  and 
defend  the  Church  of  England  as  it  was  then 
established. 

To  satisfy  the  king  in  these  points,  the  Scots 
sent  for  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson  from  Edin- 
burgh, pastor  of  a  church  in  that  city,  rector  of 
the  university,  and  one  of  the  king's  chaplains, 
a  divine  of  great  learning  and  abilities,  as  well 
as  discretion  and  prudence.  Mr.  llushworth 
says  that  he  had  more  moderation  than  most  of 
his  way  ;  and  Collyer  adds,  that  he  was  a  per- 
son of  learning,  elocution,  and  judgment,  and 
seems  to  have  been  the  top  of  his  party.*  The 
debate  was  managed  in  writing  :  the  king  drew 
up  his  own  papers,  and  gave  them  Sir  Robert 
Murray  to  transcribe,  and  deliver  to  Mr.  Hender- 
son ;t  and  Mr.  Henderson's  hand  not  being  so 
legible  as  his.  Sir  Robert,  by  the  king's  appoint- 
ment, transcribed  Mr.  Henderson's  papers  for 
his  majesty's  use. J: 

sermon  called  for  the  fifty  second  Psalm,  which  be- 

'Why  dost  thou,  tyrant,  boast  thyself, 
Thy  wicked  works  to  praise  V 

His  majesty  thereupon  stood  up  and  called  for  the 
fifty-sixth  Psalm,  which  begins, 

'  Have  mercy,  Lord,  on  me  I  pray. 
For  men  would  me  devour.' 

The  people  waived  the  minister's  psalm,  and  sung 
that  which  the  king  called  for." — Ed. 
.    *  Collyer,  p.  848. 

+  Duke  of  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  277. 

j  Dr.  Grey  blames  Mr.  Neal  here  for  omitting 
Bishop  Burnet's  account  of  the  king's  superiority  in 
this  controversy.  "  Had  his  majesty's  arms,"  says 
the  bishop,  "been  as  strong  as  his  reason  was,  he 
4iad  been  every  way  unconquerable,  since  none  have 
.the  disingenuity  to  deny  the  great  advantage  his  maj- 


The  king,  in  his  first  paper  of  May  29,  de- 
clares his  esteem  for  the  English  Reformation, 
because  it  was  effected  without  tumult,  and  was 
directed  by  those  who  ought  to  have  had  the 
conduct  of  such  an  affair.*  He  apprehends 
they  kept  close  to  apostolical  appomtment,  and 
the  universal  custom  of  the  primitive  Church  ; 
that  tlierefore  the  adhering  to  Episcopacy  must 
be  of  the  last  importance,  as  without  it  the 
priesthood  must  sink,  and  the  sacraments  be 
administered  without  effect ;  for  these  reasons 
he  conceives  Episcopacy  necessary  to  the  being 
of  a  church,  and  also,  that  he  is  bound  to  sup- 
port it  by  his  coronation  oath.  Lastly,  his  maj- 
esty desires  to  know  of  Mr.  Henderson  what 
warrant  there  is  in  the  Word  of  God  for  subjects 
to  endeavour  to  force  their  king's  conscience, 
or  to  make  him  alter  laws  against  his  will. 

Mr.  Henderson,  in  his  first  paper  of  June  3, 
after  an  introduction  of  modesty  and  respect, 
wishes,  when  occasion  requires,  that  religion 
might  always  be  reformed  by  the  civil  magis- 
trate, and  not  left  either  to  the  prelates  or  the 
people ;  but  when  princes  or  magistrates  are 
negligent  of  their  duty,  God  may  stir  up  the 
subject  to  perform  this  work.t  He  observes, 
that  the  Reformation  of  King  Henry  VIII.  was 
very  defective  in  the  essentials  of  doctrine,  wor- 
ship, and  government ;  that  it  proceeded  with  a 
Laodicean  lukewarmness  ;  that  the  supremacy 
was  transferred  from  one  wrong  head  to  anoth- 
er, and  the  limbs  of  the  anti-Christian  hierarchy 
were  visible  in  the  body.  He  adds,  that  the  im- 
perfection of  the  English  Reformation  had  been 
the  complaint  of  many  religious  and  godly  per- 
sons ;  that  it  had  occasioned  more  schism  and 
separation  than  had  been  heard  of  elsewhere,  and 
had  been  matter  of  unspeakable  grief  to  other 
churches.  As  to  the  king's  argument,  that  the 
validity  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  efficacy  of  the 
sacraments,  depended  upon  Episcopacy,  he  re- 
plies, that  Episcopacy  cannot  make  out  its  claim 
to  apostolical  appointment ;  that,  when  the  apos- 
tles were  living,  there  was  no  difference  between 
a  bishop  and  a  presbyter  ;  no  inequality  in  power 
or  degree,  but  an  exact  parity  in  every  branch 
of  their  character;  that  there  is  no  mention  in 
Scripture  of  a  pastor  or  bishop  superior  to  other 
pastors.  There  is  a  beautiful  subordination  in 
the  ministry  of  the  New  Testament ;  one  kind 
of  ministers  being  placed  in  degree  and  dignity 
above  another,  as  first  apostles,  then  evange- 
lists, then  pastors  and  teachers,  but  in  offices  ot 
the  same  rank  and  kind  we  do  not  find  any  pref- 
erence ;  no  apostle  is  constituted  superior  to 
other  apostles  ;  no  evangelist  is  raised  above 
other  evangelists  ;  nor  has  any  pastor  or  dea- 
con a  superiority  above  others  of  their  order. 

Farther,  Mr.  Henderson  humbly  desires  his 
majesty  to  take  notice,  that  arguing  from  the 


esty  had  in  all  these  writings  ;  and  this  was  when  the 
help  of  his  chaplains  could  not  be  suspected,  they  be- 
ing so  far  from  him  ;  and  that  the  king  ihew  with  his 
own  hand  all  his  papers  without  the  help  of  any,  is 
averred  by  the  person  who  alone  was  privy  totheinter- 
changingof  them,  that  worthy  and  accomplished  gen- 
tleman, Robert  Murray."  The  bishop's  opinion  may 
be  justly  admitted  as  a  testimony  to  the  ability  with 
which  the  king  handled  the  question  ;  and  yet  some 
allowance  should  be  made  for  the  bias  with  which 
this  prelate  would  naturally  review  arguments  in  fa- 
vour of  his  own  se7ili7ner>/s  a?ul  rank. — En. 
*  Bibl.  Reg.,  p.  296.  t  Ibid.,  p.  312,  &c. 


28 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


practice  of  the  primitive  Church,  and  the  con- 
sent of  the  Fathers,  is  fallacious  and  uncertain, 
and  that  the  law  and  testimony  of  the  Word  of 
God  are  the  only  rule.  The  practice  of  the 
primitive  Church,  in  many  things,  cannot  cer- 
tainly be  known,  as  Eusebius  confesses  that 
even  in  the  apostles'  time  Diotrcphes  moved  for 
the  pre-eminence,  and  the  mystery  of  iniquity 
began  to  work ;  and  that,  afterward,  ambition 
and  weakness  quickly  made  way  for  a  change 
in  church  government. 

Mr.  Henderson  hopes  his  majesty  will  not  de- 
ny the  lawfulness  of  the  ministry,  and  due  ad- 
ministration of  the  sacraments,  in  those  Re- 
formed churches  where  there  are  no  diocesan 
bishops  ;  that  it  is  evident  from  Scnplure,  and 
confessed  by  many  champions  for  Episcopacy,  that 
presbyters  may  ordain  presbyters  ;  and  to  disen- 
gage his  majesty  from  his  coronation  oath,  as 
far  as  relates  to  the  Church,  he  conceives,  when 
the  formal  reason  of  an  oath  ceases,  the  obliga- 
tion is  discharged  :  when  an  oath  has  a  special 
regard  to  the  benefit  of  those  to  whom  the  en- 
gagement is  made,  if  the  parties  interested  re- 
lax upon  the  point,  dispense  with  the  promise, 
and  give  up  their  advantage,  the  obligation  is  at 
an  end.  Thus,  when  the  Parliaments  of  both 
kingdoms  have  agreed  to  the  repealing  of  a  law, 
the  king's  conscience  is  not  tied  against  signing 
the  bill,  for  then  the  altering  any  law  would  be 
impracticable.  He  concludes  with  observing, 
that  King  James  never  admitted  Episcopacy 
upon  Divine  right ;  and  that,  could  his  ghost 
now  speak,  he  would  not  advise  your  majesty 
to  run  such  hazards,  for  men  [prelates]  who 
would  pull  down  your  throne  with  their  own, 
rather  than  that  they  perish  alone. 

The  king,  in  his  second  paper*  of  June  6,  avers 
no  reformation  is  lawful,  unless  under  the  con- 
duct of  the  royal  authority ;  that  King  Henry 
VIII. 's  reformation  being  imperfect,  is  no  proof 
of  defects  in  that  of  King  Edward  VI.  and 
Queen  Elizabeth ;  that  Mr.  Henderson  can  never 
prov^  God  has  given  the  multitude  leave  to  re- 
form the  negligence  of  princes  ;  that  his  com- 
paring our  Reformation  to  the  Laodicean  luke- 
warmness,  was  an  unhandsome  way  of  begging 
the  question,  for  he  should  have  first  made  out 
that  those  men  [the  Puritans]  had  reason  to 
complain,  and  that  the  schism  was  chargeable 
upon  the  conformists.  His  majesty  is  so  far 
from  allowing  the  Presbyterian  government  to 
be  practised  in  the  primitive  times,  that  he  af- 
firms that  it  was  never  set  up  before  Calvin  ; 
and  admits  that  it  was  his  province  to  show  the 
lawfulness,  and  uninterrupted  succession,  and, 
by  consequence,  the  necessity  of  Episcopacy  ; 
but  that  he  had  not  then  the  convenience  of, 
books,  nor  the  assistance  of  such  learned  men 
as  he  could  trust,  and  therefore  proposes  a  con-  j 
ference  with  his  divines.  And  whereas  Mr. 
Henderson  excepts  to  his  reasoning  from  the 
primitive  Church  and  consent  of  the  fathers, 
his  majesty  conceives  his  exception  indefensi- 
ble ;  for  if  the  sense  of  a  doubtful  place  of  Scrip- 1 
ture  is  not  to  be  governed  by  such  an  authority,  i 
the  interpretation  of  the  inspired  writings  must 
be  left  to  the  direction  of  every  private  spirit, 
which  is  contrary  to  St.  Peter's  doctrine,  2  Pet., 
i.,  20,  "  No  prophecy  of  Scripture  is  of  private 
interpretation  ;"  it  is  likewise  the  source  of  all 


Bib.  Reg.,  p.  320,  322,  &c. 


sects,  and,  without  prevention,  will  bring  these 
kingdoms  into  confusion.  His  majesty  adds, 
that  it  is  Mr.  Henderson's  part  to  prove  that 
presbyters  without  a  bishop  may  ordain  otlier 
presbyters.  As  to  the  administration  of  the 
sacraments,  Mr.  Henderson  himself  will  not  de- 
ny a  lawfully-ordained  presbyter's  being  neces- 
sary to  that  office  ;  so  that  the  determination 
of  this  latter  question  will  depend  in  some  meas- 
ure on  the  former.  With  regard  to  oaths,  his 
majesty  allows  Mr.  Henderson's  general  rule, 
but  thinks  he  is  mistaken  in  the  application  -^ 
for  the  clause  touching  religion  in  the  corona- 
tion oath  was  made  only  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Church  of  England  ;  that,  therefore,  it  is  not 
in  the  power  of  the  two  houses  of  Parliament 
to  discharge  the  obligation  of  this  oath,  without 
their  consent.  That  this  Church  never  made 
any  submission  to  the  two  houses,  nor  owned 
herself  subordinate  to  them  ;  that  the  Reforma- 
tion was  managed  by  the  king  and  clergy,  and 
the  Parliament  assisted  only  in  giving  a  civil 
sanction  to  the  ecclesiastical  establishment. 
These  points  being  clear  to  his  majesty,  it  fol- 
lows, by  necessary  consequence,  that  it  is  only 
the  Church  of  England,  in  whose  favour  he  took 
this  oath,  that  can  release  him  from  it,  and  that, 
therefore,  when  the  Church  of  England,  lawful- 
ly assembled,  shall  declare  his  majesty  dischar- 
ged, he  shall  then,  and  not  till  then,  reckon 
himself  at  liberty.* 

Mr.  Henderson,  in  his  reply  to  this  second  par 
per  of  June  17,  agrees  with  the  king,  that  the 
prime  reforming  power  is  in  kings  and  princes, 
but  adds,  that  in  case  they  fail  of  their  duty,  this 
authority  devolves  upon  the  inferior  magistrate, 
and  upon  their  failure,  to  the  body  of  the  people, 
upon  supposition  that  a  reformation  is  necessa- 
ry, and  that  people's  superiors  will  by  no  means 
give  way  to  it ;  he  allows  that  such  a  reforma- 
tion is  more  imperfect  with  respect  to  the  man- 
ner, but  commonly  more  perfect  and  refined  ia 
the  product  and  issue.  He  adds,  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church  of  England  is  not  sup- 
posed to  be  built  on  the  foundation  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles,  by  those  who  confess  that  church 
government  is  mutable  and  ambulatory,  as  was 
Ibrmerly  the  opinion  of  most  of  the  English  bish- 
ops ;  that  the  Divine  right  was  not  pleaded  till 
of  late  by  some  few  ;  that  the  English  Reforma- 
tion has  not  perfectly  purged  out  the  Roman 
leven,  but  rather  depraved  the  discipline  of  the 
Church  by  conforming  to  the  civil  polity,  and 
adding  many  supplemental  officers  to  those  in- 
stituted by  the  Son  of  God.  "■  To  his  majesty's 
objections,  that  the  Presbyterian  government 
was  never  practised  before  Calvin's  time,  he  an- 
swers, that  it  is  to  be  found  in  Scripture  ;  and 
the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster  had 
made  it  evident  that  the  primitive  Church  at 
Jerusalem  was  governed  by  a  presbytery  ;  that 
the  church  at  Jerusalem  consisted  of  more  con- 
gregations than  one ;  that  all  these  congrega- 
tions were  combined  under  one  Presbyterial 
government,  and  made  but  one  church ;  that 
this  church  was  governed  by  elders  of  the  same 
body,  and  met  together  for  functions  of  authori- 
ty, and  that  the  apostles  acted  not  in  quality  of 
apostles,  but  only  as  elders.  Acts.  xv.  ;  that  the 
same  government  was  settled  in  the  churches  of 
Ephesus,  Corinth,  Thessalonica,  and  continued 


*  Bib.  Reg.,  p.  325. 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


29 


many  years  after  ;  and  at  last,  when  one  of  the 
presbytery  presided  over  the  rest  with  the  style 
of  bishop,  even  then,  as  St.  Jerome  says,  church- 
es were  governed  with  the  joint  consent  of  the 
presbytery,  and  it  was  custom,  rather  than  Di- 
vine appointment,  which  raised  a  bishop  above 
a  presbyter.  To  his  majesty's  argument,  that 
where  the  meaning  of  Scripture  is  doubtful,  we 
must  have  recourse  to  the  fathers,  Mr.  Hender- 
son replies,  that  notwithstanding  the  decrees  of 
councils,  and  the  resolutions  of  the  fathers,  a  lib- 
erty must  be  left  for  a  judgment  of  discretion,  as 
had  been  sufficiently  shown  by  Bishop  Davenant 
and  others.  To  prove  presbyters  may  ordain 
other  presbyters  without  a  bishop,  he  cites  St. 
Paul's  advice  to  Timothy,  1  Tim.,  iv.,  14,  not  to 
neglect  the  gift  that  was  given  him  by  the  laying 
on  of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery;  but  granting 
■bishops  and  presbyters  to  be  distinct  functions,  it 
•will  not  follow  that  the  authority  and  force  of 
the  presbyter's  character  were  derived  from  the 
bishop  ;  for  though  the  evangelists  and  seventy 
disciples  were  inferior  to  the  apostles,  they  re- 
ceived not  their  commission  from  the  apostles, 
but  from  Christ  himself 

Concerning  the  king's  coronation  oath,  Mr. 
Henderson  apprehends  nothing  need  be  added. 
As  to  the  supremacy,  he  thinks  such  a  headship 
as  the  kings  of  England  claim,  or  such  a  one 
as  the  two  houses  of  Parliament  now  insist  on, 
that  is,  an  authority  to  receive  appeals  from  the 
supreme  ecclesiastical  judicatures,  in  things 
purely  spiritual,  is  not  to  be  justified  ;  nor  does 
he  apprehend  the  consent  of  the  clergy  to  be 
absolutely  necessary  to  church  reformation,  for 
if  so,  what  reformation  can  be  expected  in 
France,  in  Spain,  or  in  Rome  itself!  It  is  not 
to  be  imagined  that  the  pope  or  prelates  will 
consent  to  their  own  ruin.  His  majesty  had 
said,that  if  his  father,  King  James,  had  been  con- 
sulted upon  the  question  of  resistance,  he  would 
have  answered,  that  prayers  and  tears  are  the 
Church's  weapons.  To  which  Mr.  Henderson 
replies,  that  he  could  never  hear  a  good  reason  to 
prove  a  necessary  defensive  war,  a  war  against 
unjust  violence,  unlawful  ;  and  that  Bishop 
Jewel  and  Bilson  were  of  this  mind.  To  the 
question.  What  warrant  there  was  in  Scripture 
for  subjects  to  endeavour  to  force  their  king's 
conscience!  he  replies,  that  when  a  man's  con- 
science is  mistaken,  it  lies  under  a  necessity  of 
doing  amiss  ;  the  way,  therefore,  to  disentangle 
himself  is  to  get  his  conscience  better  informed, 
and  not  to  move  till  he  has  struck  a  light  and 
made  farther  discoveries.* 

The  king,  in  his  answer  of  June  22,  to  Mr. 
Henderson's  second  paper,  still  insists  that  in- 
ferior magistrates  and  people  have  no  authority 
to  reform  religion.  If  this  point  can  be  proved 
by  Scripture,  his  majesty  is  ready  to  submit  ; 
but  the  sacred  history  in  the  Book  of  Numbers, 
chap,  xvi.,  is  an  evidence  of  God's  disapproving 
-such  methods.  Private  men's  opinions  disjoin- 
ed from  the  general  consent  of  the  Ciiurch  sig- 
nify little,  for  rebels,  says  his  majesty,  never 
want  writers  to  maintain  their  revolt.  Though 
his  majesty  lias  a  regard  for  Bishop  Jewel  and 
Bilson's  memories,  he  never  thought  them  m- 
fallible ;  as  for  Episcopal  government,  he  is  ready 
to  prove  it  an  apostolical  institution,  and  that  it 


*■  Bib.  Reg  ,  p.  337,  «&c. 


has  been  handed  down  through  all  ages  and 
countries  till  Calvin's  time,  as  soon  as  he  is  fur- 
nished with  books,  or  such  divines  as  he  shall 
make  choice  of;  he  does  not  think  that  Mr.  Hen- 
derson's arguments  to  prove  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land not  built  on  the  foundation  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles  are  valid,  nor  will  he  admit  that 
most  of  the  prelates,  about  the  time  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, did  not  insist  upon  the  Divine  right. 
The  king  adds,  Mr.  Henderson  would  do  well  to 
show  where  our  Saviour  has  prohibited  the  addi- 
tion of  more  church  officers  than  those  named 
by  him  ;  and  yet  the  Church  of  England  has  not 
so  much  as  offiared  at  this,  for  an  archbishop  is 
not  a  new  officer,  but  only  a  distinction  in  the 
order  of  government,  like  the  moderator  of  as- 
semblies in  Scotland.  His  majesty  denies  that 
bishops  and  presbyters  always  import  the  same 
thing  in  Scripture,  and  when  they  do,  it  only 
respects  the  apostles'  times,  for  it  may  be  pro- 
ved that  the  order  of  bishops  succeeded  that  of 
the  apostles,  and  that  the  title  was  altered  in 
regard  to  those  who  were  immediately  chosen 
by  our  Saviour.  As  for  the  several  congrega- 
tions in  Jerusalem,  united  in  one  church,  his 
majesty  replies.  Are  there  not  many  parishes  in 
one  diocess  !  And  do  not  the  deans  and  chap- 
ters, and  sometimes  the  inferior  clergy,  assist 
the  bishop  1  So  that,  unless  some  positive  and 
direct  proof  can  be  brought  of  an  equality  be- 
tween the  apostles  and  other  presbyters,  all  ar- 
guments are  with  him  inconclusive.  The  king 
confesses,  that  in  case  he  cannot  prove  from 
antiquity  that  ordination  and  jurisdiction  are 
peculiar  branches  of  authority  belonging  to  bish- 
ops, he  shall  begin  to  suspect  the  truth  of  his 
principles.  As  for  Bishop  Davenant's  testimo- 
ny, he  refuses  to  be  governed  by  that ;  nor  will 
he  admit  of  Mr.  Henderson's  exception  against 
the  fathers,  till  he  can  find  out  a  better  rule  of 
interpreting  Scripture.  And  whereas  Mr.  Hen- 
derson urged  the  precedent  of  foreign  Reformed 
churches  in  favour  of  presbytery,  his  majesty 
does  not  undertake  to  censure  them,  but  sup- 
poses necessity  may  excuse  many  things  which 
would  otherwise  be  unlawful ;  the  Church  of 
England,  in  his  majesty's  judgment,  has  this  ad- 
vantage, that  it  comes  nearest  the  primitive  doc- 
trine and  discipline  ;  and  that  Mr.  Henderson 
has  failed  in  proving  presbyters  may  ordain  with- 
out a  bishop,  for  it  is  evident  St.  Paul  had  a 
share  in  Timothy's  ordination,  2  Tim.,  i.,  6.  As 
to  the  obligation  of  the  coronation  oath,  the  king 
is  still  of  opinion  none  but  the  representative 
body  of  the  clergy  can  absolve  him  ;  and  as  for 
the  impracticableness  of  reformation  upon  the 
king's  principles,  he  cannot  answer  for  that,  but 
thinks  it  sufficient  to  let  him  know,  that  incom- 
modum  7ion  solvit  argumentnm.  His  majesty 
then  declares,  that  as  it  is  a  great  sin  for  a  prince 
to  oppress  the  Church,  so,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  holds  it  absolutely  unlawful  for  subjects  to 
make  war  (though  defensively)  against  their  law- 
ful sovereign,  upon  any  pretence  whatsoever. 

Mr.  Henderson,  in  his  third  paper  of  July  2, 
considers  chiefly  the  rules  his  majesty  had  laid 
down  for  determining  the  controversy  of  church 
government,  which  are  the  practice  of  the  prim- 
itive Church,  and  the  unive^al  consent  of  the 
lathers  ;  and  affirms,  there  is  no  such  primitive 
testimony,  no  such  universal  consent  in  favour 
of  modern  Episcopacy ;  the  fathers  very  often 


30 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


contradicting  one  another,  or  at  least  not  con- 
curring in  tlieir  testimony.  But  to  show  the  un- 
certainty of  his  majesty's  rule  for  determining 
controversies  of  faith,  Mr.  Henderson  observes, 

1.  That  some  critics  joined  the  Word  of  God 
and  antiquity  together;  others  make  Scripture 
the  only  rule,  and  antiquity  the  authentic  inter- 
preter. Now  he  thinks  the  latter  a  greater  mis- 
take than  the  former,  for  the  papists  bring  tra- 
dition no  farther  than  to  an  equality  of  regard 
with  the  inspired  writings,  but  the  others  made 
antiquity  the  very  ground  of  their  belief  of  the 
sense  of  Scripture,  and  by  that  means  exalt  it 
above  the  Scripture ;  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
fathers  is  made  the  very  formal  reason  why  I 
believe  the  Scripture  interpretable  in  such  a 
sense  ;  and  thus,  contrary  to  the  apostle's  doc- 
trine, our  faith  must  stand  in  the  wisdom  of  man, 
and  not  in  the  power  of  God. 

2.  He  observes,  that  Scripture  can  only  be  au- 
thentically interpreted  by  Scripture  itself  Thus 
the  Levites  had  recourse  only  to  one  part  of 
Scripture  for  the  interpreting  another,  Neh.,  viii., 
8.  So,  likewise,  our  Saviour  interprets  the  Old 
Testament,  by  comparing  Scripture  with  Scrip- 
ture, and  not  having  recourse  to  the  rabbles. 
This  was  likewise  the  apostles'  method.  Be- 
sides, when  persons  insist  so  much  upon  the  ne- 
cessity of  the  fathers,  they  are  in  danger  of 
charging  the  Scriptures  with  obscurity  or  im- 
perfection. 

3.  The  fathers  themselves  say,  that  Scripture 
is  not  to  he  interpreted  but  by  Scripture. 

4.  Many  errors  have  passed  under  the  shelter 
of  antiquity  and  tradition  ;  Mr.  Henderson  cites 
a  great  many  examples  under  this  head. 

And,  lastly.  He  insists  that  the  universal  con- 
sent and  practice  of  the  primitive  Church  are 
impossible  to  be  known  ;  that  many  of  the  fa- 
thers were  no  authors  ;  that  many  of  their  tracts 
are  lost ;  that  many  performances  which  go  un- 
der their  names  are  spurious,  especially  upon 
the  subject  of  Episcopacy,  and  that  therefore 
they  are  an  uncertain  rule. 

The  king,  in  his  papers*  of  July  3  and  16,  says, 
no  man  can  reverence  Scriptm-e  more  than  him- 
self; but  when  Mr.  Henderson  and  he  differ 
about  the  interpretation  of  a  text,  there  must  be 
some  judge  or  umpire,  otherwise  the  disputes 
can  never  be  ended  ;  and  when  there  are  no 
parallel  texts,  the  surest  guide  must  be  the  fa- 
thers. In  answer  to  Mr.  Henderson's  particulars, 
his  majesty  answers,  that  if  some  people  over- 
rate tradition,  that  can  be  no  argument  against 
the  serviceableness  of  it ;  but  to  charge  the 
primitive  Church  with  error,  and  to  call  the  cus- 
toms and  practices  of  it  unlawful,  unless  the 


*  Bib.  Reg.,  p.  351-353. 

In  addition  to  the  encomium  bestowed  by  Bishop 
Burnet  on  the  king's  papers,  which  we  have  already 
quoted,  it  may  be  subjoined,  that  Sir  Philip  Warwick 
also  extolled  them,  as  showing  his  majesty's  "  great 
abihty  and  knowledge,  when  he  was  destitute  of  all 
aids."  Yet  it  is  remarkable,  as  observes  Dr.  Harris, 
who  had  turned  over  Stillingtleet's  Irenicum,  and  Un- 
reasonableness of  Separation,  Hoadly's  Defence  of 
Episcopal  Ordination,  and  many  other  volumes,  these 
royal  "  papers  have  been  little  read,  and  are  seldom 
or  never  quoted  on  the  subject  of  Episcopacy."  So 
that  it  is  "possible  thise  learned  churchmen  had  not  so 
great  an  opinion  of  the  arguments  made  use  of  by 
Charles  in  these  papers  as  the  historians  (viz.,  Bur- 
net and  Sir  P.  Warwick)  1  have  quoted.'" — Life  of 
Charles  L,  p.  101.— Ed. 


charge  can  be  supported  from  Scripture,  is  an 
unpardonable  presumption.  Those  who  object 
to  the  ancient  rites  and  usages  of  the  Church 
must  prove  them  unlawful,  otherwise  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Church  is  sufficient  to  warrant  them. 
His  majesty  denies  it  is  impossible  to  discover 
the  universal  consent,  and  understand  the  prac- 
tice, of  the  primitive  Church ;  and  concludes 
with  this  maxim,  that  though  he  never  esteem- 
ed any  authority  equal  to  the  Scriptures,  yet  he 
believes  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  fathers, 
and  the  universal  practice  of  the  primitive 
Church,  the  best  and  most  authentic  interpret- 
ers, and  by  consequence  the  best-qualified  judg- 
es between  himself  and  Mr.  Henderson. 

One  may  learn,  from  this  controversy,  some 
of  the  principles  in  which  King  Charles  I.  was 
instructed  ;  as, 

( 1 . )  The  Divine  right  of  Diocesan  Episcopacy. 

(2.)  The  uninterrupted  succession  of  bishops, 
rightly  ordained,  from  the  time  of  the  apostles  ; 
upon  which  the  whole  validity  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Christian  sacraments  depends. 

(3.)  The  necessity  of  a  judge  of  controver- 
sies, which  his  majesty  lodges  with  the  fathers 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  by  that  means 
leaves  little  or  no  room  for  private  judgment.* 

(4.)  The  independency  of  the  Church  upon 
the  State. 

(5.)  That  no  reformation  of  religion  is  lawful 
but  what  arises  from  the  prince  or  Legislature  ; 
and  this  only  in  cases  of  necessity,  when  a  gen- 
eral council  cannot  be  obtained. 

(6.)  That  the  multitude  or  common  people 
may  not  in  any  case  take  upon  them  to  reform 
the  negligence  of  princes.     Neither, 

(7.)  May  they  take  up  arms  against  their 
prince,  even  for  self-defence,  in  cases  of  ex- 
treme necessity. 

How  far  these  principles  are  defensible  in 
themselves,  or  consistent  with  the  English 
Constitution,  I  leave  with  the  reader  ;  but  it  is 
very  surprising  that  his  majesty  should  be  so 
much  entangled  with  that  part  of  his  corona- 
tion oath  which  relates  to  the  Church,  when 
for  fifteen  years  together  he  broke  through  all 
the  bounds  of  it  with  relation  to  the  civil  liber- 
ties of  his  subjects,  without  the  least  reinorse. 

Upon  the  close  of  this  debate,  and  the  death 
of  Mr.  Henderson,  which  followed  within  six 
weeks,  the  king's  friends  gave  out  that  his  maj- 
esty had  broke  his  adversary's  heart. t  Bishop 
Kennet  and  Mr.  Echard  have  published  the  fol- 
lowing recantation,  which  they  would  have  the 
world  believe  this  divine  dictated  or  signed 
upon  his  deathbed  : 

"  I  do  declare  before  God  and  the  world,  that, 
since  I  had  the  honour  and  happiness  to  con- 
verse and  confer  with  his  majesty  with  all  sorts 


*  The  monarch  would  have  seen  little  to  object 
against  in  the  Oxford  Tracts,  had  they  appeared  in 
his  day. — C. 

t  This  effect  was  ascribed  to  his  majesty's  argu- 
ments by  Bishop  Kennet  and  Lord  Clarendon,  who 
certainly  were  a  little  too  hasty  in  this  judgment ; 
for,  as  it  is  well  observed  by  Dr.  Hams,  "dispu- 
tants, veteran  ones,  as  Henderson  was,  have  gener- 
ally too  good  a  conceit  of  their  own  abilities  to  think 
themselves  overcome  ;  and  though  the  awe  of  maj- 
esty may  silence,  it  seldom  persuades  them." — The 
Life  of  Charles  I.,  p.  99,  100.  Some  said  Mr.  Hen- 
derson died  of  grief,  because  he  could  not  persuade 
the  king  to  sign  the  propositions. —  ^'hitelocke's  Me- 
morials, p.  225. — Ed. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


31 


of  freedom,  especially  in  matters  of  religion, 
whether  in  relation  to  the  Kirk  or  State,  that  I 
found  him  the  most  intelligent  man  that  I  ever 
spoke  with,  as  far  beyond  my  expression  as 
expectation.  I  profess  that  I  was  oftentimes 
astonished  with  the  solidity  and  quickness  of 
his  reasons  and  replies ;  and  wondered  how  he, 
spending  his  time  so  much  in  sports  and  recre- 
ations, could  have  attained  to  so  great  knowl- 
edge ;  and  must  confess  ingenuously,  that  I 
was  convinced  in  conscience,  and  knew  not 
how  to  give  him  any  reasonable  satisfaction  ; 
yet  the  sweetness  of  his  disposition  is  such, 
that  whatsoever  I  said  was  well  taken.  I  must 
say,  I  never  met  with  any  disputant  of  that 
mild  and  calm  temper,  which  convinced  me 
the  more,  and  made  me  think  that  such  wis- 
dom and  moderation  could  not  be  without  an 
extraordinary  measure  of  Divine  grace.  I  had 
heard  much  of  his  carriage  towards  the  priests 
in  Spain,  and  that  King  James  told  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  upon  his  going  thither,  that  he 
durst  venture  his  son  Charles  with  all  the  Jes- 
uits in  the  world,  he  knew  him  to  be  so  well 
grounded  in  the  Protestant  religion,  but  could 
never  believe  it  before.  I  observed  all  his  ac- 
tions, more  particularly  those  of  devotion,  which 
I  must  truly  say  are  more  than  ordinary  :  if  I 
should  speak  of  his  justice,  magnanimity,  chari- 
ty, sobriety,  chastity,  patience,  humility,  and  of 
all  his  other  Christian  and  moral  virtues,  I  should 
run  myself  into  a  panegyric;  no  man  can  say 
there  is  conspicuously  any  predominant  vice  in 
him  :  never  man  saw  him  passionately  angry  ; 
never  man  heard  him  curse,  or  given  to  swear- 
ing ;  or  heard  him  complain  in  the  greatest 
durance  of  war  or  confinement.  But  I  should 
seem  to  flatter  him,  to  such  as  do  not  know 
him,  if  the  present  condition  that  I  lie  in  did 
not  exempt  me  from  any  suspicion  of  worldly 
ends,  when  I  expect  every  hour  to  be  called 
from  all  transitory  vanities  to  eternal  felicity, 
and  the  discharging  of  my  conscience  before 
God  and  man  did  not  oblige  me  to  declare  the 
truth  simply  and  nakedly,  in  satisfaction  of  that 
which  I  have  done  ignorantly,  though  not  alto- 
gether innocently."*  The  declaration  adds, 
that  he  was  heartily  sorry  for  the  share  he  had 
had  in  the  war  ;  that  the  Parliament  and  Synod 
of  England  had  been  abused  with  false  asper- 
sions of  his  majesty  ;  and  that  they  ought  to 
restore  him  to  his  just  rights,  and  his  crown 
and  dignity,  lest  an  indelible  character  of  in- 
gratitude lie  upon  him. 

Mr.  Echard  confessest  he  had  been  informed 
that  this  declaration  was  spurious, t  but  could 


*  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  190.  Bennet's  Def.  of  his 
Mem.,  p.  130.  t  Echard,  p.  526,  ed.  3d. 

X  Dr.  Grey  sneers  here  at  Mr.  Neal  for  not  re- 
ferring to  the  place  where  Mr.  Echard  makes  this 
confession,  and  for  keeping  out  of  view  the  name  of 
the  memorialist  on  whose  authority  he  speaks.  He 
then  spends  nearly  five  pages  in  cavilling  at  this  au- 
thority, and  in  strictures  on  that  of  Mr.  Burnet ; 
through  these  I  am  not  properly  qualified  to  follow 
the  doctor,  as  1  have  not  Mr.  Bennet's  Defence  of 
his  Memorial ;  and  it  is  unnecessary,  for  the  ques- 
tion concerning  the  spuriousness  of  this  piece  had 
been  discussed  in  1093,  ere  Neal  or  Burnet  had 
written,  by  Lieutenant  general  Ludlow,  in  a  tract 
against  Dr.  Hollingworth,  entitled  "Truth  brought 
to  Light."  Ludlow  argues  against  its  authenticity 
on  these  grounds :  that  Archbishop  Lamplngh,  the 


find  no  authority  sufficient  to  support  such  an 
assertion.  It  will  be  proper,  therefore,  to  trace 
the  history  of  this  imposture,  and  set  it  in  a 
clear  and  convincing  light,  from  a  memorial 
sent  me  from  one  of  the  principal  Scots  di- 
vines. Professor  Hamilton,  of  Edinburgh.  The 
story  was  invented  by  one  of  the  Scots  Episco- 
jial  writers,  who  had  fled  to  London,  and  was 
first  published  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1648, 
in  a  small  pamphlet  in  quarto,  about  two  years 
after  Mr.  Henderson's  death.  From  this  pam- 
phlet Dr.  Heylin  published  it  as  a  credible  re- 
port. Between  thirty  and  forty  years  after 
Heylin  had  published  it,  viz.,  1693,  Dr.  Hollings- 
worth.  in  his  character  of  King  Charles  I.,  re- 
published the  paper  above  mentioned,  entitled 
"  The  Declaration  of  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson, 
principal  Minister  of  the  Word  of  God  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  chief  Commissioner  of  the  Kirk  of 
Scotland  to  the  Parliament  and  Synod  of  Eng- 
land ;"  which  paper  the  doctor  says  he  had  from 
Mr.  Lamplugh,  son  to  the  late  Archbishop  of 
York  of  that  name,  from  whom  the  historians 
above  mentioned,  and  some  others,  have  copied 
it ;  but,  says  the  memorial,  upon  publishing  the 
aforesaid  story  to  the  world,  the  assembly  of 
the  Kirk  of  Scotland  appointed  a  committee  to- 
examine  into  the  affair,  who,  after  a  full  inqui- 
ry, by  their  act  of  August  7,  1648,  declared  the 
whole  to  be  a  forgery,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
printed  acts  of  the  General  Assembly  for  that 
year,  quarto,  page  420,  &c.,  in  which  they  sig- 
nify their  satisfaction  and  assurance  that  Mr. 
Henderson  persisted  in  his  former  sentiments 
to  his  death  ;*  that  when  he  left  the  king  at 
Newcastle,  he  was  greatly  decayed  in  his  natu- 
ral strength  ;  that  he  came  from  thence  by  sea 
in  a  languishing  condition,  and  died  within 
eight  days  after  his  arrival  at  Edinburgh  ;t  that 
he  was  not  able  to  frame  such  a  declaration  as 
is  palmed  upon  him,  and  that  all  he  spoke  upor» 
his  deathbed  showed  his  judgment  was  the- 
same  as  it  ever  had  been  about  church  reform- 
ation. This  was  attested  before  the  Assem- 
bly by  several  ministers  who  visited  him  upon 
his  deathbed,  and  particularly  by  two  who  con- 
stantly attended  him  from  the  time  he  came 
home  till  the  time  he  expired.  After  this,  and 
a  great  deal  more  to  the  same  purpose,  "  they 
declare  the  above-mentioned  paper,  entitled  'A 
Declaration  of  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson's,' &c.^ 
to  be  forged,  scandalous,  and  false,t  and  the 
author  and  contriver  of  the  same  to  be  void  ot 
charity  and  a  good  conscience  ;  a  gross  liar  and 


great  advocate  for  the  king,  had  it  not  been  a  forge- 
ry, would  not  have  failed  to  publish  it ;  that  it  is  not 
found  in  King  Charles's  works,  though  all  that  pass- 
ed between  the  king  and  Mr.  Henderson  is  there  re- 
cited ;  that  Mr.  Henderson  was  a  Scotchman,  where- 
as the  words,  style,  and  matter  are  plainly  and  ele- 
gantly English,  and  not  Scottish ;  but  the  great 
stress  is  laid  on  the  inscription  on  his  monument, 
and  on  the  Assembly's  declaration,  to  which  Mr. 
Neal  refers,  and  which  Dr.  Grey  treats  as  spurious. 
These  papers,  as  Ludlow's  tract  is  scarce,  shall  be 
given  in  the  Appendix,  No.  10. — Ed. 

*  Appendix,  No.  10. 

t  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  310. 

t  If  this  character  of  Charles,  ascribed  to  Mr. 
Henderson,  were  genuine,  "it  would  (as  Ludlow 
observes)  avad  very  little ;  being  the  single  senti- 
ment of  a  stranger,  that  could  not  have  had  much 
experience  of  him." — Truth  brought  to  Light,  p.  6. — 
Ed. 


32 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


a  calumniator,  and  led  by  the  spirit  of  the  ac- 
cuser of  the  brethren."* 

While  the  king  was  debating  the  cause  of 
Episcopacy,  the  Parliament  were  preparing  their 
propositions  for  a  peace,  which  were  ready  for 
the  royal  assent  by  the  11th  of  July.  The  Scots 
commissioners  demurred  to  them  for  some 
time,  for  not  coming  up  fully  to  their  standard, 
but  at  length  acquiescing,  they  were  engrossed, 
and  carried  to  the  king  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
and  Montgomery  and  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  of  the 
House  of  Peers  ;  and  by  Sir  Walter  Erie,  Sir 
John  Hippisly,  Robert  Goodwin,  and  Luke  Rob- 
ertson, Esq.,  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  the 
Earls  of  Argyle  and  Loudon  were  commission- 
ers for  Scotland,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Marshal  was 
ordered  to  attend  as  their  chaplain. t  The  com- 
missioners arrived  at  Newcastle,  July  23  ;  next 
(lay  they  waited  upon  his  majesty,  and  having 
kissed  his  hand,  Mr.  Goodwin  delivered  the  fol- 
lowing propositions : 

Those  relating  to  the  civil  government  were, 

(1.)  That  the  king  should  call  in  all  his  dec- 
larations against  the  Parliament. 

(2.)  That  he  should  put  the  militia  into  their 
liands  for  twenty  years,  with  a  power  to  raise 
money  for  their  maintenance. 

(3.)  That  all  peerages  since  May  21,  1642, 
should  be  made  void. 

(4.)  That  the  delinquents  therein  mentioned 
should  undergo  the  penalties  assigned  in  the 
bill.     And, 

(5.)  That  the  cessation  with  the  Irish  be  dis- 
annulled, and  the  management  of  the  war  left 
to  the  Parliament. 

The  propositions  relating  to  religion  were, 

1.  "That  his  majesty,  according  to  the  laud- 
able example  of  his  father,  would  be  pleased  to 
swear  and  sign  the  late  solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  and  give  his  consent  to  an  act  of 
Parliament  enjoining  the  taking  it  throughout 
the  three  kingdoms,  under  certain  penalties,  to 
be  agreed  upon  in  Parliament. 

2.  "That  a  bill  be  passed  for  the  utter  abol- 
ishing and  taking  away  all  archbishops,  bish- 
ops, their  chancellors,  commissaries,  deans, 
sub-deans,  deans  and  chapters,  archdeacons, 
canons,  and  prebendaries,  and  all  chanters, 
chancellors,  treasurers,  sub-treasurers,  suc- 
centors,  sacrists,  and  all  vicars  and  choristers, 
old  vicars,  and  new  vicars  of  any  cathedral  or 
collegiate  churchy  and  all  other  under-officers, 
out  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  out  of  the 
Church  of  Ireland,  with  such  alterations  as 
shall  agree  with  the  articles  of  the  late  treaty 
of  Edinburgh,  November  29,  1643,  and  the  joint 
declaration  of  both  kingdoms. 

3.  "  That  the  ordinance  for  the  calling  and 
sitting  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  be  con- 
firmed. 

4.  "That  reformation  of  religion,  according 
to  the  Covenant,  be  settled  by  act  of  Parliament 
in  such  manner  as  both  houses  have  agreed,  or 
shall  agree,  after  consultation  with  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines. 

5.  "  Forasmuch  as  both  kingdoms  are  obli- 
ged, by  covenant,  to  endeavour  such  a  uni- 
formity of  religion  as  shall  be  agreed  upon  by 
both  houses  of  Parliament  in  England,  and  by 

*  Vide  Bennet's  Def.  of  his  Mem.,  p.  134. 
t  Rush  worth,  vol.  vi.,  p.  309, 311.    Rapin,  vol.  ii., 
p.  524,  fol.  edit. 


the  Church  and  kingdom  of  Scotland,  after  con- 
sultation had  with  the  divines  of  both  kingdoms 
assembled,  that  this  be  confirmed  by  acts  of 
Parliament  of  both  kingdoms  respectively. 

6.  "That  for -the  more  effectual  disabling 
Jesuits,  priests,  papists,  and  popish  recusants 
from  disturbing  the  state  and  eluding  the  laws, 
an  oath  be  established  by  act  of  Parliament, 
wherein  they  shall  abjure  and  renounce  the 
pope's  supremacy,  the  doctrine  of  transubstan^ 
tiation,  purgatory,  worshipping  of  the  consecra- 
ted host,  crucifixes,  and  images,  and  all  other 
popish  superstitions  and  errors  ;  and  the  refu- 
sal of  the  said  oath,  legally  tendered,  shall  be  a 
sufficient  conviction  of  recusancy. 

7.  "  That  an  act  of  Parliament  be  passed  for 
educating  of  the  children  of  papists  by  Protest- 
ants, in  the  Protestant  religion. 

8.  "  That  an  act  be  passed  for  the  better  levy- 
ing the  penalties  against  papists ;  and  another 
for  the  better  preventing  their  plotting  against 
the  state ;  and  that  a  stricter  course  may  be 
taken  to  prevent  saying  or  hearing  of  mass  in 
the. court,  or  any  other  part  of  the  kingdom; 
the  like  for  Scotland,  if  the  Parliament  of  that 
kingdom  shall  think  fit. 

9.  "  That  his  majesty  give  his  royal  assent 
to  an  act  for  the  due  observation  of  the  Lord's 
Day  ;  to  the  bill  for  the  suppression  of  innova- 
tions in  churches  and  chapels  in  and  about  the 
worship  of  God  ;  to  an  act  for  the  better  ad- 
vancement of  the  preaching  of  God's  holy  Word 
in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  ;  to  the  bill  against 
pluralitiesof  benefices  and  non-residency;  and, 
to  an  act  to  be  framed  for  the  reforming  and 
regulating  both  universities,  and  the  colleges  of 
Westminster,  Winchester,  and  Eton." 

About  sixty  persons  were  by  name  excepted 
out  of  the  general  pardon  ;*  besides, 

(1.)  All  papists  that  had  been  in  the  army. 

(2.)  All  persons  that  had  been  concerned  in 
the  Irish  rebellion. 

(3.)  Such  as  had  deserted  the  two  houses  at 
Westminster  and  went  to  Oxford. 

(4.)  Such  members  of  Parliament  as  had  de- 
serted their  places,  and  borne  arms  against  the 
two  houses.     And, 

(5.)  Such  bishops  or  clergymen,  masters  or 
fellows  of  colleges,  or  masters  of  schools  or 
hospitals,  or  any  ecclesiastical  living,  who 
had  deserted  the  Parliament,  and  adhered  to 
the  enemies  thereof,  were  declared  incapable 
of  any  preferment  or  employment  in  Church  ot 
Commonwealth ;  all  their  places,  preferments, 
and  promotions  were  to  be  utterly  void,  as  ii 
they  were  naturally  dead  ;  nor  might  they  be 
permitted  to  use  their  function  of  the  ministry, 
without  advice  and  consent  of  both  houses  oi 
Parliament ;  provided  that  no  lapse  shall  incur  by 
this  vacancy  till  six  months  after  notice  thereof 

When  Mr.  Goodwin  had  done,  the  king  asked 
the  commissioners  if  they  had  power  to  treat, 
to  which  they  replied,  that  they  were  only  to 
receive  his  majesty's  answer;  then  said  the 
king,  '•  Saving  the  honour  of  the  business,  a 
trumpeter  might  have  done  as  well  ;"t  the  very 
same  language  as  at  the  treaty  of  Oxford  ;  but 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke  told  his  majesty  they 
must  receive  his  peremptory  answer  in  ten 
days,  or  return  without  it.  


*  Remonstrance,  vol.  vi.,  p.  315. 
t  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  223. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


33 


Great  intercessions  were  made  with  the  king 
to  comply  with  these  proposals,*  particularly  in 
the  point  of  religion,  for  without  full  satisfac- 
tion in  that  nothing  would  please  the  Scots  na- 
tion, nor  the  city  of  London,  by  whom  alone  his 
majesty  could  hope  to  be  preserved  ;  but  if  this 
■was  yielded,  they  would  interpose  for  the  moder- 
ating other  demands  ;  the  Scots  general,  at  the 
head  of  one  hundred  officers,  presented  a  peti- 
tion upon  their  knees,  beseeching  his  majesty 
to  give  them  satisfaction  in  the  point  of  religion, 
and  to  take  the  Covenant.  Duke  Hamilton,  and 
the  rest  of  the  Scots  commissioners,  pressed  his 
majesty,  in  the  most  earnest  manner,  to  make 
use  o^the  present  opportunity  for  peace.t  The 
lord-chancellor  for  that  kingdom  spoke  to  this 
effect :  "  The  differences  between  your  majesty 
and  your  Parliament  are  grown  to  such  a  height, 
that  after  many  bloody  battles,  they  have  your 
majesty,  with  all  your  garrisons  and  strong- 
holds, in  their  hands,  and  the  whole  kingdom  at 
their  disposal ;  they  are  now  in  a  capacity  to  do 
what  they  will  in  Church  and  State  ;  and  some 
are  so  afraid,  and  others  so  unwilling,  to  submit 
to  your  majesty's  government,  that  they  desire 
not  you,  nor  any  of  your  race,  longer  to  reign 
over  them  ;  but  they  are  unwilling  to  proceed 
to  extremities,  till  they  know  your  majesty's 
last  resolutions.  Now,  sir,  if  your  majesty  shall 
refuse  to  assent  to  the  propositions,  you  will 
lose  all  your  friends  in  the  houses  and  in  the 
city,  and  all  England  will  join  against  you  as 
one  man  ;  they  will  depose  you,  and  set  up  an- 
other government ;  they  will  charge  us  to  de- 
liver your  majesty  to  them,  and  remove  our  ar- 
mies out  of  England  ;  and,  upon  your  refusal, 
we  shall  be  constrained  to  settle  religion  and 
peace  without  you,  which  will  ruin  your  majes- 
ty and  your  posterity.  We  own  the  proposi- 
tions are  higher  in  some  things  than  we  approve 
of,  but  the  only  way  to  establish  your  majesty's 
throne  is  to  consent  to  them  at  present,  and 
your  majesty  may  recover,  in  a  time  of  peace, 
all  that  you  have  lost  in  this  time  of  tempest 
and  trouble. "t 

This  was  plain  dealing:  the  king's  best  friends 
prayed  his  majesty  to  consider  his  present  cir- 
cumstances, and  not  hazard  his  crown  for  a 
form  of  church  government ;  or,  if  he  had  no 
regard  to  himself,  to  consider  his  royal  posteri- 
ty ;  but  the  king  replied,  his  conscience  was 
dearer  to  him  than  his  crown  ;  that  till  he  had 
received  better  satisfaction  about  the  Divine 
right  of  Episcopacy,  and  the  obhgation  of  his 
coronation  oath,  no  considerations  should  pre- 
vail with  him  ;ij  he  told  the  officers  of  the  army 
he  neither  could  nor  would  take  the  Covenant, 
till  he  had  heard  from  the  queen.  II  Which  was 
only  an  excuse  to  gain  time  to  divide  his  ene- 
mies, for  the  king  had  then  actually  heard  from 
his  queen  by  Monsieur  Bellievre,  the  French 
ambassador,  who  pressed  his  majesty,  pursuant 
to  positive  instructions  given  him  for  that  pur- 

*  The  commissioners  of  both  kingdoms,  on  their 
knees,  begged  of  him  to  do  it. —  Whitetocke's  Memoirs. 
p.  223.— Ed. 

t  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  281,285. 

X  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  524  ;  and  Rushworth,  vol.  vi., 
p.  319.  ()  Duke  of  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  281. 

II  This  clause  is  not  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  duke ; 
and,  as  Mr.  Neal  has  not  particularly  referred  to  his 
authirity  for  it.  Dr.  Grey  expressed  his  fears  that  it 
is  an  interpolation. — Ed. 

Vol.  II.— E 


pose,  as  the  advice  of  the  King  of  France,  of 
the  queen,  and  of  his  own  party,  to  give  the 
Presbyterians  satisfaction  about  the  Church.* 
Bellievre,  not  being  able  to  prevail,  despatched 
an  express  to  France,  with  a  desire  that  some 
person  of  more  weight  with  the  king  might  be 
sent.  Upon  which  Sir  William  Davenant  came 
over,  with  a  letter  of  credit  from  the  queen,  be- 
seeching him  to  part  with  the  Church  for  his 
peace  and  security.  When  Sir  William  had  de- 
livered the  letter,  he  ventured  to  support  it  with 
some  arguments  of  his  own,  and  told  his  maj- 
esty, in  a  most  humble  manner,  that  it  was  the 
advice  of  Lord  Culpeper,  Jermyn,  and  of  all  his 
friends  ;  upon  which  the  king  was  so  transport- 
ed with  indignation,  that  he  forbid  him  his  pres- 
ence. When,  therefore,  the  ten  days  for  con- 
sidering the  propositions  were  expired,  instead 
of  consenting,  his  majesty  gave  the  commis- 
sioners his  answer  in  a  paper,  directed  to  the 
speaker  of  the  House  of  Peers,  to  this  effect : 
"  That  the  propositions  contained  so  great  al- 
terations both  in  Church  and  State,  that  his 
majesty  could  not  give  a  particular  and  positive 
answer  to  them  ;"  but,  after  some  few  conces- 
sions, hereafter  to  be  mentioned,  "  he  proposes 
to  come  to  London,  or  any  of  his  houses  there- 
about, and  enter  upon  a  personal  treaty  with 
both  houses  ;  and  he  conjures  them,  as  Chris- 
tians and  subjects,  and  as  men  that  desire  to 
leave  a  good  name  behind  them,  to  accept  of 
this  proposal,  that  the  unhappy  distractions  of 
the  nation  may  be  peaceably  settled. "t 

When  this  answer  was  reported  to  the  House, 
August  12,  it  was  resolved  to  settle  accounts 
with  the  Scots,  and  to  receive  the  king  into 
their  own  custody ;  but  in  the  mean  time  his 
majesty  attempted  to  bring  that  nation  over  to 
his  interest  by  playing  the  Independents  against 
them,  and  telling  them  the  only  way  to  destroy 
the  sectarians  was  to  join  with  the  Episcopali- 
ans, and  admit  of  the  establishment  of  both  reli- 
gions.t  "I  do  by  no  means  persuade  you," 
says  the  king,  "  to  do  anything  contrary  to  your 
Covenant,  but  I  desire  you  to  consider  whether 
it  be  not  a  great  step  towards  your  reformation 
(which  I  take  to  be  the  chief  end  of  your  Cove- 
nant), that  the  Presbyterial  government  be  le- 
gally settled.  It  is  true,  I  desire  that  the  liber- 
ty of  my  own  conscience,  and  those  who  are  of 
the  same  opinion  with  myself,  may  be  preserv- 
ed, which  I  confess  does  not  as  yet  totally  take 
away  Episcopal  government.  But  then  consid- 
er, withal,  that  this  will  take  away  all  the  su- 
perstitious sects  and  heresies  of  the  papists  and 
Independents,  to  which  you  are  no  less  obliged 
by  your  Covenant  than  to  the  taking  away  ot 
Episcopacy.  And  this  that  I  demand  is  likely 
to  be  but  temporary,  for  if  it  be  so  clear,  as  you 
believe,  that  Episcopacy  is  unlawful,  I  doubt 
not  but  God  will  so  enlighten  my  eyes  that  I 
shall  soon  perceive  it,  and  then  I  promise  to  con- 
cur with  you  fully  in  matters  of  religion  ;  but  I 
am  sure  you  cannot  imagine  that  there  are  any 
hopes  of  converting  or  silencing  the  Independent 
party,  which  undoubtedly  will  get  a  toleration  in 
religion  from  the  Parliament  of  England,  unless 


♦  Clarendon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  29,  31,  32 

t  Dr.  Grey  gives  the  king's  answer  at  length  from 
MS.  collections  of  Dr.  Philip  Williams,  president  of 
Si.  John's  College,  Cambridge. — Ed. 

X  Duke  of  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  286, 287. 


34 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


you  join  with  me  in  that  way  that  I  have  propo- 
sed for  the  estabhshing  of  my  crown ;  or,  at 
least,  that  you  do  not  press  me  to  do  this  (which 
is  yet  against  my  conscience)  till  I  may  do  it 
without  sinning,  which,  as  I  am  confident  none 
of  you  will  persuade  me  to  do,  so  I  hope  you 
have  so  much  charity  as  not  to  put  things  to 
such  a  desperate  issue  as  to  hazard  the  loss  of 
all,  because  for  the  present  you  cannot  have 
full  satisfaction  from  me  in  point  of  religion,  not 
consideringthat,  besides  the  other  mischiefs  that 
may  happen,  it  will  infalhbly  set  up  the  innu- 
merable sects  of  the  Independents,  nothing  be- 
ing more  against  your  Covenant  than  the  suffer- 
ing those  schisms  to  increase."*  His  majesty 
then  added,  "  that  he  should  be  content  to  re- 
strain Episcopal  government  to  the  diocesses  of 
Oxford,  Winchester,  Bath  and  Wells,  and  Ex- 
eter, leaving  all  the  rest  of  England  fully  to  the 
Presbyterial  discipline,  with  the  strictest  claus- 
es that  could  be  thought  of  in  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment against  the  papists  and  Independents." 
But  the  Scots  would  abate  nothing  in  the  arti- 
cles of  religion,  even  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
sectaries.  Duke  Hamilton  left  no  methods  un- 
attempted  to  persuade  his  majesty  to  comply, 
but  without  effect.! 

When  the  king  could  not  gain  the  commis- 
sioners, he  applied  by  his  friends  to  the  Kirk, 
who  laid  his  proposals  before  the  General  As- 
sembly, with  his  offer  to  make  any  declaration 
they  should  desire  against  the  Independents, 
and  that  really,  without  any  reserve  or  equivo- 
cation ;  but  the  Kirk  were  as  peremptory  as  the 
commissioners  ;  they  said  the  king's  heart  was 
not  with  them,  nor  could  they  depend  upon  his 
promises  any  longer  than  it  was  not  in  his  pow- 
er to  set  them  aside.t 

In  the  mean  time,  the  English  Parliament 
were  debating  with  the  Scots  commissioners  at 
London,  the  right  of  disposing  of  the  king's  per- 
son, the  latter  claiming  an  equal  right  to  him 
with  the  former  ;  and  the  Parliament  voted  that 
the  kingdom  of  Scotland  had  no  joint  right  to 
dispose  of  the  person  of  the  king  in  the  kingdom 
of  England.  To  which  the  Scots  would  hardly 
have  submitted  had  it  not  been  for  fear  of  en- 
gaging m  a  new  war,  and  losing  all  their  arrears. 
His  majesty  would  willingly  have  retired  into 
Scotland,  but  the  clergy  of  that  nation  would 
not  receive  him,  as  appears  by  their  solemn 
warning  to  all  estates  and  degrees  of  persons 
throughout  the  land,  dated  December  17,  1646, 
in  which  they  say,  "  So  long  as  his  majesty 
does  not  approve  in  his  heart,  and  seal  with  his 
hand,  the  League  and  Covenant,  we  cannot  but 
apprehend  that,  according  to  his  former  princi- 
ples, he  will  walk  contrary  to  it,  and  study  to 
draw  us  into  the  violation  of  it.  Besides,  our 
receiving  his  majesty  into  Scotland  at  this  time 
will  confirm  the  suspicion  of  the  English  nation 
of  our  underhand  dealing  with  him  before  he 
came  into  our  army.  Nor  do  we  see  how  it  is 
consistent  with  our  Covenant  and  treaties  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  would  involve  us  in  the  guilt 
of  perjury,  and  expose  us  to  the  hazard  of  a 
bloody  war.  We  are  bound  by  our  Covenant  to 
defend  the  king's  person  and  authority,  in  the 
defence  and  preservation  of  the  true  religion. 


*  Rushworth,  p.  328. 

■\  Duke  of  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  288. 

J  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  298.    Rushworth,  p.  380. 


and  the  liberties  of  the  kingdom,  and  so  far  as 
his  majesty  is  for  these  we  will  be  for  him  ;  but 
if  his  majesty  will  not  satisfy  the  just  desires 
of  his  people,  both  nations  are  engaged  to  pur- 
sue the  ends  thereof,  against  all  lets  and  imped- 
iments ;  we  therefore  desire  that  those  who  are 
intrusted  with  the  public  affairs  of  this  kingdom 
would  still  insist  upon  his  majesty's  settling  re- 
ligion according  to  the  Covenant,  as  the  only 
means  of  preserving  himself,  his  crown,  and 
posterity."  Upon  reading  this  admonition  of 
the  Kirk,  the  Scots  Parliament  resolved  that  his 
majesty  be  desired  to  grant  the  whole  proposi- 
tions ;  that  in  case  of  refusal,  the  kingdom  should 
be  secured  without  him.  They  declared,  far- 
ther, that  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  could  not 
lawfully  engage  for  the  king  as  long  as  he  refu- 
sed to  take  the  Covenant,  and  give  them  satis- 
faction in  point  of  religion.*  Nor  would  they 
admit  him  to  come  into  Scotland  unless  he 
gave  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  propositioa 
lately  presented  to  him  in  the  name  of  both 
kingdoms. 

The  resolutions  above  mentioned  were  not 
communicated  in  form  to  the  king  till  the  begin- 
ging  of  January,  when  the  Scots  commissioners 
pressing  him  again  in  the  most  humble  and  im- 
portunate manner  to  give  them  satisfaction,  at 
least  in  the  point  of  religion,  his  majesty  re- 
mained immovable  ;  which  being  reported  back: 
to  Edinburgh,  the  question  was  put  in  that  Par- 
liament, whether  they  should  leave  the  king  in 
England  to  his  two  houses  of  Parliament  1  and 
it  was  carried  in  the  affirmative.  January  16  a 
declaration  was  published  in  the  name  of  the 
whole  kingdom  of  Scotland,  wherein  they  say, 
"  that  when  his  majesty  came  to  their  army  be- 
fore Newark,  he  professed  that  he  absolutely 
resolved  to  comply  with  his  Parliaments  in  ev- 
erything for  settling  of  truth  and  peace  ;  in 
confidence  whereof  the  committees  of  the  king- 
dom of  Scotland  declared  to  himself,  and  to  the 
kingdom  of  England,  that  they  received  him 
into  their  protection  only  upon  these  terms, 
since  which  time  propositions  of  peace  have 
been  presented  to  his  majesty  for  the  royal  as- 
sent, with  earnest  supplications  to  the  same 
purpose,  but  without  effect.  The  Parliament 
of  Scotland  therefore  being  now  to  recall  their 
army  out  of  England,  considering  that  his  maj- 
esty in  several  messages  has  desired  to  be  near 
his  two  houses  of  Parliament,  and  that  the  Par- 
liament has  appointed  his  majesty  to  reside  at 
Holmby  House  with  safety  to  his  royal  person  ; 
and  in  regard  of  his  majesty's  not  giving  a  sat- 
isfactory answer  to  the  propositions  for  peace  ; 
and  from  a  desire  to  preserve  a  right  under- 
standing between  the  two  kingdoms,  and  for 
preventing  new  troubles,  the  States  of  Parlia- 
ment of  the  kingdom  of  Scotland  do  declare 
their  concurrence  for  the  king's  majesty's  going 
to  Holmby  House,  to  remain  there  till  he  give 
satisfaction  about  the  propositions  for  peace  ; 
and  that,  in  the  mean  time,  there  be  no  harm, 
prejudice,  injiiry,  or  violence  done  to  his  royal 
person;  that  there  be  no  change  of  government ; 
and  that  his  posterity  be  no  way  prejudiced  in 
their  lawful  succession  to  the  crown  and  gov- 
ernment of  these  kingdoms."! 

While  the  Parliament  and  Kirk  of  Scotland 
were  debating  the  king's  proposals,  his  majesty 


*  Rushworth,  p.  392, 


t  Ibid.,  p.  396. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


3^ 


wrote  to  the  Parliament  of  England,  in  the  most 
pressing  terms,  for  a  personal  treaty  at  London  : 
"  It  is  your  king,"  says  he  in  his  letter  of  De- 
cember 10,  "  that  desires  to  be  heard,  the  which, 
if  refused  to  a  subject  by  a  king,  he  would  be 
thought  a  tyrant;  wherefore  I  conjure  you,  as 
you  would  show  yourselves  really  what  you 
profess,  good  Christians  and  good  subjects,  that 
you  accept  this  offer."  But  the  houses  were 
afraid  to  trust  his  majesty  in  London,  and  there- 
fore appointed  commissioners  to  receive  him 
from  the  Scots,*  and  convoy  him  to  Holmby 
House  in  Northamptonshire,  where  he  arrived 
February  6,  1 646-7.  t  The  sum  of  £200,000, 
being  half  the  arrears  due  to  the  Scots  army, 
having  been  paid  them  by  agreement  before  they 
marched  out  of  Newcastle,  it  has  been  common- 
ly said.  They  sold  their  king.  An  unjust  and 
malicious  aspersion  !  It  ought  to  be  consider- 
ed, that  the  money  was  their  due  before  the 
king  delivered  himself  into  their  hands  ;  for  that, 
in  settling  the  accounts  between  the  two  na- 
tions, his  majesty's  name  was  not  mentioned  ■,t 
that  it  was  impossible  to  detain  him  without  a 
war  with  England  ;  and  that  the  officers  of  the 
army  durst  not  carry  the  king  to  Edinburgh,  be- 
cause both  Parliament  and  Kirk  had  declared 
against  receiving  him.ij 


*  The  king  happened  to  be  playing  at  chess  when 
he  was  informed  of  the  resolution  of  the  Scots  nation 
to  deliver  him  up  ;  but,  such  command  of  temper  did 
he  enjoy,  he  continued  his  game  without  interruption, 
and  none  of  the  by-standers  could  perceive  that  the 
letter  which  he  perused  had  brought  hun  news  of 
any  consequence.  He  admitted  the  English  commis- 
sioners who,  some  days  after,  came  to  take  him  into 
custody,  to  kiss  his  hands,  and  received  them  with 
the  same  grace  and  cheerfulness  as  if  they  had  trav- 
elled on  no  other  errand  but  to  pay  court  to  him. — 
Hume^s  History  of  England,  vol.  vii.,  8vo,  1763,  p.  81, 
82.— Ed. 

t  Holmby  House  was  one  of  his  nineteen  palaces. 
When  Duke  of  York,  it  had  been  purchased  for  him 
by  his  mother,  Anne  of  Denmark,  who  little  anticipa- 
ted that  it  would  ever  become  the  prison  of  her  fa- 
vourite child.  It  was  soon  after  pulled  down  by  a 
decree  of  the  Parliament. — C. 

%  Vide  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  325,  folio  edition. 

^  Mr.  Neal  is  supported  in  his  account  of  this 
transaction  by  General  Ludlow,  who  farther  says, 
that  the  condition  on  which  the  money  was  paid  was, 
to  deliver  up  (not  the  king,  but)  Berwick,  Newcastle, 
and  Carlisle  to  the  Parliament ;  that  it  was  far  from 
truth  that  this  was  the  price  of  the  king,  for  the  Par- 
liament freely  gi-anted  to  the  Scots  that  they  might 
carry  him,  if  they  pleased,  to  Edinburgh,  but  they  re- 
fused it ;  and  that  it  was  the  king's  desire  to  be  re- 
moved into  the  southeri;  parts  of  England.  The 
Scots  nation,  however,  underwent,  and  still  undergo, 
the  reproach  of  selling  their  king,  and  bargaining 
their  prince  for  money.  It  has  been  argued  that  the 
Parliament  would  never  have  parted  with  so  consid- 
erable a  sum  had  they  not  been  previously  assured 
of  receiving  the  king.  It  is  a  very  evident  fact,  that 
while  the  Scots  were  demanding  the  arrears  due  to 
them,  another  point  of  treaty  between  them  and  the 
Parliament,  if  it  were  not  the  explicit  and  avowed 
condition  of  complying  with  that  requisition,  was  the 
delivering  up  the  king.  The  unhappy  monarch  was 
considered  and  treated  as  the  prisoner  of  those  to 
whom  he  fled  for  protection.  Instead  of  declining  to 
receive  him,  or  afterward  permitting  him  to  take  his 
own  steps,  they  retained  him,  and  disposed  of  him  as 
a  captive,  as  their  interest  or  policy  dictated.  Was 
honour  or  justice  in  this  cass  consulted  ?  Alas !  they 
are  seldom  consulted  by  political  parties. — A  Lcticr 
from  General  Liuilow  to  Dr.  Hollwgworth,Ho,  1662,  p. 


But  how  amazing  was  his  majesty's  conduct  f 
What  cross  and  inconsistent  proposals  did  he 
make  at  this  time  !  While  he  was  treating  witlt 
the  Scots,  and  offering  to  concur  in  the  severest- 
measures  against  the  Independents,  he  was  list-- 
ening  to  the  offers  of  those  very  Independents  to 
set  him  upon  the  throne,  without  taking  the  Cov- 
enant, or  renouncing  the  liturgy  of  the  Church, 
provided  they  might  procure  a  toleration  for 
themselves.  This  agreeing  with  the  king's  in-- 
clinations,  had  too  great  a  hearing  from  him, 
says  Bishop  Burnet,  till  Lauderdale  wrote  from 
London,  "  that  he  was  infallibly  sure  they  de- 
signed the  destruction  of  monarchy,  and  the  ruin 
of  the  king  and  his  posterity  ;  but  that  if  he 
would  consent  to  the  propositions,  all  would  be 
well,  in  spite  of  the  devil  and  the  Independents 
too."*  If  iiis  majesty  had  in  good  earnest  fall- 
en in  with  the  overtures  of  the  army  at  this  time, 
I  am  of  opinion  they  would  have  set  him  upon 
the  throne,  without  the  shackles  of  the  Scots- 
Covenant. 

While  the  king  was  at  Holmby  House,  he  was 
attended  with  great  respect,t  and  suffered  to 
divert  himself  at  bowls  with  gentlemen  in  the 
neighbouring  villages,  under  a  proper  guard. 
The  Parliament  appointed  two  of  their  clergy, 
viz.,  Mr.  Caryl  and  Mr.  Marshal,  to  preach  in  the 
chapel,  morning  and  afternoon,  on  the  Lord's 
Day,  and  perform  the  devotions  of  the  chapel 
on  week-days,  but  his  majesty  never  gave  his 
attendance.!  He  spent  his  Sundays  in  private  ; 
and  though  they  waited  at  table,  he  would  not  so 
much  as  admit  them  to  ask  a  blessing. 

Before  the  king  removed  from  Newcastle,  the 
Parliament  put  the  finishing  hand  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  hierarchy,  by  abolishing  the  very 
names  and  titles  of  archbishops,  bishops,  &c., 
and  alienating  their  revenues  for  payment  of  the 
public  debts.  This  was  done  by  two  ordinan- 
ces, bearing  date  October  9,  and  November  16,. 
1646,  entitled  "  Ordinances  for  abolishing  arch- 
bishops and  bishops,  and  providing  for  the  pay- 
ment of  the  just  and  necessary  debts  of  the  king- 
dom, into  which  the  same  has  been  drawn  by  a 
war,  mainly  promoted  by  and  in  favour  of  the 
said  archbishops,  bishops,  and  other  their  adhe- 
rents and  dependants."  The  ordinance  appoints,. 
"  that  the  name,  title,  style,  and  dignity  of  Arch- 


67.  Mrs.  Macaulay's  History,  vol.  iv.,  p.  271,  8vo. 
Hume's  History  of  England,  vol.  vii.,  8vo,  1763,  p. 
79-81  ;  and  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  240.  Dr.  Grey 
has  bestowed  thirteen  pages  on  this  point,  chiefly  to 
show  that  £400,000  could  not  be  due  as  arrears  to 
the  Scots,  and  to  advance  against  them  the  charge  • 
of  selling  the  king.  He  informs  us,  that  the  X200,OOC  * 
immediately  paid  to  them  was  borrowed  of  the  Gci^A 
smiths'  Company.  To  Mr.  Neal's  reflection  on  the 
imputation  cast  on  the  Scots  of  selling  their  king, 
that  it  is  an  unjust  and  malicious  aspersion,  Bishop- 
Warburton  retorts,  "  The  historian,  before  he  said 
this,  should  have  seen  whether  he  could  answer 
these  two  questions  in  the  affirmative.  Would  the- 
English  have  paid  the  arrears  without  the  person  of 
the  king  ?  Would  the  Scots  have  given  up  the  king 
if  they  could  have  had  the  arrears  without  ?"— Ed. 

*  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  288. 

t  But  his  situation  here,  independently  of  confine- 
ment, was  made  unpleasant  to  him,  as  his  old  ser- 
vants were  dismissed,  and  he  was  not  allowed  the  at- 
tendance of  his  own  chaplains.  His  majesty  remon- 
strated on  this  last  circumstance  in  a  letter  to  the 
House  of  Peers,  but  without  effect.— Clarendon,  vol.. 
iii.,  p.  39.— Ed.  J  Clarendon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  38. 


26 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


l)ishop  of  Canterbury,  Archbishop  of  York,  Bish- 
,<9p  of  Winchester,  Bishop  of  Durham,  and  all 
other  bishops  of  any  bishoprics  within  the  king- 
dom of  England  and  dominion  of  Wales,  be, 
from  and  after  September  5,  1646,  vvlutily  abol- 
ished and  taken  away  ;  and  all  and  every  person 
and  j)ersons  are  to  be  thenceforth  disabled  to 
hold  the  place,  function,  or  style  of  archl)ishop 
or  bishop  of  any  clmrch,  see,  or  dioccss,  now 
established  or  erected  within  the  kingdom  of 
England,  dominion  of  Wales,  or  town  of  Ber- 
wick-on-Tweed  ;  or  to  use,  or  put  in  use,  any 
archiepiscopal  or  episcopal  jurisdiction  or  au- 
thority whatsoever,  any  law.  statute,  usage,  or 
custom  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding."* 

By  the  ordinance  of  November  16,  it  is  far- 
ther ordained,  "  that  all  counties  palatine,  hon- 
ours, manors,  lordships,   styles,   circuits,   pre- 
cincts, castles,  granges,  messuages,  mills,  lands, 
tenements,  meadows,  pastures,  parsonages,  ap- 
propriate tithes,  oblations,  obventions,  pensions, 
portions  of  tithes,  vicarages,   churches,   chap- 
KS/it,  advowsons,  donations,  nominations,  rights 
:«f  patronage  and  presentations,  parks,  woods, 
rents,  reversions,  services,  annuities,  franchises, 
liberties,  privileges,  immunities,  rights  of  action 
and  of  entry,  interests,  titles  of  entry,  condi- 
tions, commons,  court-leets  and  court-barons, 
and   all   other   possessions  and   hereditaments 
■whatsoever,  which  now  are,  or  within  ten  years 
before  the  beginning  of  the  present  Parliament 
were,  belonging  to  the  said  archbishops  and  bish- 
ops, archbishoprics  or  bishoprics,  or  any  of  them, 
together  with   all  chattels,  deeds,   books,  ac- 
.eompts,  rolls,  and  other  writings  and  evidences 
«'.batsoever,  concerning  the  premises,  which  did 
Ijelong  to  any  of  the  said  archbishops,  bishops, 
&c.,t  are  vested  and  settled,  adjudged  and  deem- 
ed to  be,  in  the  real  and  actual  possession  and 
seizin  of  the  twenty-four  trustees  mentioned  in 
the  ordinance,  their  heirs  and  assigns,  upon  trust 
that  they  shall  dispose  of  the  same,  and  the  rents 
and  profits  thereof,  as  both  houses  of  Parliament 
shall  order  and  appoint,  i.  c,  for  payment  of  the 
'public  debts,  and  other  necessary  charges  occa- 
sioned by  the  war,  promoted  chiefly  by  and  in 
favour  of  the  said  hierarchy,  saving  and  except- 
ing all  tithes  appropriate,  oblations,  obventions, 
and  portions  of  tithes,  &c.,  belonging  to  the  said 
archbishops,  bishops,  and  others  of  the  said  hie- 
rarchy ;  all  which,  together  with  £30,000  year- 
ly rent  belonging  to  the  crown,  they  reserve  for 
the  maintenance  of  preaching  ministers.     The 
.trustees  are  not  to  avoid  any  lease  made  for 
(three  lives,  or  twenty-one  years,  provided  the 
said  lease  or  leases  were  not  obtained  since  the 
month  of  December,  1641.     They  are  empow- 
ered to  appoint  proper  officers  to  survey,  and 
take  a  particular  estimate  of  all  the  bishops' 
lands,  to  receive  the  rents  and  profits  of  them, 
and  to  make  a  sufficient  title  to  such  as  shall 
purchase  them,  by  order  of  Parliament."t     By 
virtue  of  this  ordinance,  the  trustees  were  em- 
powered to  pay,  or  cause  to  be  paid,  to  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines,  their  constant  salary  allowed 
them  by  a  former  order  of  Parliament,  with  all 
their  arrears,  out  of  the  rents,  revenues,  and  prof- 
its belonging  to  the  late  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, till  such  time  as  the  said  lands  and  reve- 
nues shall  happen  to  be  sold.     These  church- 


*  Husband's  Collection,  p.  922. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  377.     J  Scobel,  p.  100,  102,  103. 


lands  were  at  first  mortgaged  as  a  security  for 
several  large  sums  of  money,  which  the  Parlia- 
ment borrowed  at  eight  per  cent,  interest.  Sev- 
eral members  of  Parliament,  and  officers  of  the 
army,  afterward  purchased  them  at  low  rates, 
but  the  bargain  proved  dear  enough  in  the  end. 
And  surely  it  was  wrong  to  set  them  to  sale  ; 
the  lands  having  been  originally  given  for  the 
service  of  religion,  ought  to  have  been  contin- 
ued for  such  uses,  and  the  substance  of  the  do- 
nors' intentions  pursued,  unless  it  appeared  that 
too  great  a  proportion  of  the  national  property 
had  been  settled  in  mortmain.  But  herein  they 
followed  the  ill  examples  of  the  kings  and  queens 
of  England  at  the  Reformation. 

The  Presbyterians  were  now  in  the  height  o( 
their  power,  the  hierarchy  being  destroyed,  the 
king  their  prisoner,  and  the  best,  if  not  all,  the 
livings  in  the  kingdom  distributed  among  them  ; 
yet  still  they  were  dissatisfied  for  want  of  the 
top-stone  to  their  new  building,  which  was 
church  power;  the  pulpits  and  conversation  of 
the  city  were  filled  with  invectives  against  the 
men  in  power,  because  they  would  not  leave 
the  Church  independent  on  the  State  ;  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  were  very  troublesome,  the 
Parliament  being  teased  every  week  with  church 
grievances  of  one  kind  or  another  ;  December 
19,  the  lord-mayor  and  his  brethren  went  up  to 
Westminster  with  a  representation  of  some  of 
them,  and  a  petition  for  redress.  The  grievan- 
ces were, 

1.  "  The  contempt  that  began  to  be  put  upon 
the  Covenant,  some  refusing  to  take  it,  and  oth- 
ers declaiming  loudly  against  it ;  they  therefore 
pray  that  it  may  be  imposed  upon  the  whole 
nation,  under  such  penalties  as  the  houses  shall 
think  fit  ;  and  that  such  as  refuse  it  be  disqual- 
ified from  all  places  of  profit  and  trust. 

2.  "  The  growth  of  heresy  and  schism  ;  the 
pulpits  having  been  often  usurped  by  preaching 
soldiers,  who  infected  all  places  where  they 
came  with  dangerous  errors  ;  they  therefore 
pray  that  all  such  persons  may  be  forbid  to 
preach  as  have  not  taken  the  Covenant,  and 
been  regularly  ordained,  and  that  all  separate 
congregations,  the  very  nurseries  of  damnable 
heretics,  may  be  suppressed  ;  that  an  ordinance 
be  made  for  the  exemplary  punishment  of  here- 
tics and  schismatics,  and  that  all  godly  and  or 
thodox  ministers  may  have  a  competent  main- 
tenance, many  pulpits  being  vacant  of  a  settled 
minister  for  want  of  it ;  and  here,"  say  they 
"  we  would  lay  the  stress  of  our  desires,  and  th;i 
urgency  of  our  affections."  They  complain,  far 
ther,  oi"  the  "  undue  practices  of  country  com 
mittees,  of  the  threatening  power  of  the  army, 
and  of  some  breaches  in  the  Constitution  ;  all 
which  they  desire  may  be  redressed,  and  that 
his  majesty's  royal  person  and  authority  may  be 
preserved  and  defended,  together  with  the  lib- 
erties of  the  kingdom,  according  to  the  Cove- 
nant." 

To  satisfy  the  petitioners,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons published  a  declaration,  December  31, 
"  wherein  they  express  their  dislike  of  lay- 
preachers,  and  their  resolution  to  proceed  against 
all  such  as  shall  take  upon  them  to  preach  or 
expound  the  Scriptures  in  any  church  or  chapel, 
or  any  other  public  place,  except  they  be  or- 
dained either  here  or  in  some  other  Reformed 
Churches  ;  likewise  against  all  such  ministers 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


37 


and  others  as  shall  publish,  or  maintain  by 
preaching,  writing,  printing,  or  any  other  way, 
anything  against  or  in  derogation  of  the  church 
government  which  is  now  established  by  author- 
ity of  Parliament ;  and  also  against  all  and 
every  person  or  persons  who  shall  willingly  or 
purposely  interrupt  or  disturb  a  preacher  in  the 
public  exercise  of  his  functions;  and  they  com- 
mand all  officers  of  the  peace,  and  officers  of 
the  army,  to  take  notice  of  this  declaration,  and 
by  all  lawful  means  to  prevent  offences  of  this 
kind,  to  apprehend  offenders,  that  a  course  may 
be  speedily  taken  for  a  due  punishment  to  be 
inflicted  upon  them."  The  House  of  Lords  pub- 
hshed  an  order,  bearing  date  December  22,  re- 
quiring the  headboroughs  and  constables,  in  the 
several  parishes  of  England  and  Wales,  to  arrest 
the  bodies  of  such  persons  as  shall  disturb  any 
minister  in  holy  orders,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
public  calling,  by  speech  or  action,  and  carry 
them  before  some  justice  of  peace,  who  is  re- 
quired to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  them. 
February  4,  they  published  an  ordinance  to  pre- 
vent the  growth  and  spreading  of  errors,  here- 
sies, and  blasphemies ;  but  these  orders  not 
coming  up  to  their  Covenant  uniformity,  the 
lord-mayor  and  common  council  presented  an- 
other petition  to  the  two  houses  March  17,  and 
appointed  a  committee  to  attend  the  Parliament 
from  day  to  day,  tdl  their  grievances  were  re- 
dressed, of  which  we  shall  hear  more  under  the 
next  year. 

We  have  already  accounted  for  the  unhappy 
rise  of  the  sectarians  in  the  army  when  it  was 
new-modelled,  who  were  now  grown  so  extrav- 
agant as  to  call  for  some  proper  restraint,  the 
mischief  being  spread  not  only  over  the  whole 
country,  but  into  the  city  of  London  itself:  it 
was  first  pleaded  in  excuse  for  this  practice, 
that  a  gifted  brother  had  better  preach  and  pray 
to  the  people  than  nobody ;  but  now  learning, 
good  sense,  and  the  rational  interpretation  of 
Scripture,  began  to  be  cried  down,  and  every 
bold  pretender  to  inspiration  was  preferred  to 
the  most  grave  and  sober  divines  of  the  age  ; 
some  advanced  themselves  into  the  rank  of 
prophets,  and  others  uttered  aU  such  crude,  un- 
digested absurdities  as  came  first  into  their 
minds,  calling  them  the  dictates  of  the  Spirit 
within  them  ;  by  which  the  public  peace  was 
frequently  disturbed,  and  great  numbers  of  ig- 
norant people  led  into  the  belief  of  the  most 
dangerous  errors.  The  Assembly  of  Divines 
did  what  they  could  to  stand  in  the  gap,  by  wri- 
ting against  them,  and  publishing  a  Detestation 
of  the  Errors  of  the  Times.  The  Parliament 
also  appointed  a  fast  on  that  account  February 
4,  1645-6,  and  many  books  were  published 
against  the  Antinomians,  Anabaptists,  Seekers, 
&c.,  not  forgetting  the  Independents,  whose  in- 
sisting upon  a  toleration  was  reckoned  the  inlet 
to  all  the  rest. 

The  most  furious  writer  against  the  sectaries 
was  Mr.  Thomas  Edwards,*  minister  of  Christ 

*  He  was  originally  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, but  in  1623  was  incorporaled  at  Oxford.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars  he  joined  the  Parlia- 
ment, embarked  all  that  was  dear  to  him  in  the  cause 
of  the  people,  whom  he  excited  to  prosecute  the  war 
by  the  strain  of  his  prayers  and  sermons,  and  advan- 
ced money  to  carry  it  on. —  Wood's  Athence  Oxonkn- 
ses,  vol.  i.,  p.  846. — Ed. 


Church,  London,  a  zealous  Presbyterian,  who 
became  remarkable  by  a  book  entitled  Gangrae- 
na,  or  a  catalogue  of  many  of  the  errors,  here- 
sies, blasphemies,  and  pernicious  practices  of 
this  time  ;  in  the  epistle  dedicatory  he  calls 
upon  the  higher  powers  to  rain  down  all  their 
vengeance  upon  these  deluded  people,  in  the 
following  language  :  "  You  have  done  worthily 
against  papists,  prelates,  and  scandalous  minis- 
ters, in  casting  down  images,  altars,  crucifixes, 
throwing  out  ceremonies,  &c.,  but  what  have 
you  done,"  says  he,  "  against  heresy,  schism, 
disorder,  against  Seekers,  Anabaptists,  Antino- 
mians, Brownists,  Libertines,  and  other  sects'? 
You  have  made  a  reformation,  but  with  the  ref- 
ormation have  we  not  worse  things  come  upon 
us  than  we  had  before,  as  denying  the  Scrip- 
tures, pleading  for  toleration  of  all  religions  and 
worships ;  yea,  for  blasphemy,  and  denying 
there  is  a  God  !  You  have  put  down  the  Com- 
mon Prayer,  and  there  are  many  among  us  that 
are  for  putting  down  the  Scriptures.  You  have 
broken  down  the  images  of  the  Trinity,  and  we 
have  those  who  oppose  the  Trinity.  You  have- 
cast  out  bishops  and  their  officers,  and  we  have 
many  that  cast  down  to  the  ground  all  minis- 
ters. You  have  cast  out  ceremonies  in  the 
sacraments,  as  the  cross,  kneeling  at  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  many  cast  out  the  sacraments  them- 
selves. You  have  put  down  saints'  days,  and 
many  make  nothing  of  the  Lord's  Day.  You 
have  taken  away  the  superfluous  maintenance 
of  bishops  and  deans,  and  we  have  many  that 
cry  down  the  necessary  maintenance  of  minis- 
ters. In  the  bishops'  days  we  had  singing  of 
psalms  taken  away  in  some  places,  conceived 
prayer,  preaching,  and  in  their  room  anthems, 
stinted  forms,  and  reading  brought  in  ;  and  now- 
singing  of  psalms  is  spoken  against,  publia 
prayer  questioned,  and  all  ministerial  preaching 
denied.  In  the  bishops'  time  popish  innovations 
were  introduced,  as  bowing  at  altars,  &c.,  and- 
now  we  have  anointing  the  sick  with  od  ;  thert 
we  had  bishoping  of  children,  now  we  have  bish- 
oping  of  men  and  women,  by  laying  on  of  hands. 
In  the  bishops'  days  we  had  the  fourth  com- 
mandment taken  away,  and  now  all  ten  are  ta- 
ken away  by  the  Antinomians.  The  worst  of 
the  prelates  held  many  sound  doctrines  and  had 
many  commendable  practices,  but  many  of  our 
sectaries  deny  all  principles  of  religion,  are  en- 
emies to  all  holy  duties,  order,  learning,  over- 
throwing all,  being  whirligig  spirits,  and  the 
great  opinion  of  a  universal  toleration  tends  to 
the  laying  all  waste,  and  dissolution  of  all  reli- 
gion and  good  manners.  Now,"  says  our  au- 
thor, "  a  connivance  at,  and  suffering  without 
punishment,  such  false  doctrines  and  disorders, 
provokes  God  to  send  judgments.  A  toleration 
doth  eclipse  the  glory  of  the  most  excellent 
Reformation,  and  makes  these  sins  to  be  the 
sins  of  the  Legislature  that  countenances  them. 
A  magistrate  should  use  coercive  power  to 
punish  and  suppress  evils,  as  appears  from  the 
example  of  Eli.  Now,  right  honourable,  though 
you  do  not  own  these  heresies,  but  have  put  out 
several  orders  against  them,  yet  there  is  a 
strange,  unheard-of  suffering  of  them,  such  a 
one  as  there  hardly  ever  was  the  like  under  any 
orthodox  Christian  magistrate  and  state.  Many 
sectaries  are  countenanced  and  employed  ia 
places  of  trust :  there  has  not  been  any  exern- 


38 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


plary  restraintof  the  sectaries,  by  virtue  of  any 
of  your  ordinances,  but  they  are  slighted  and 
scorned  ;  preaching  of  laymen  was  never  more 
in  request  than  since  your  ordinance  against  it ; 
Presbyterial  government  never  more  preached 
and  printed  against  than  since  it  was  establish- 
ed, (^ur  dear  brethren  of  Scotland  stand  ama- 
zed, and  are  astonished  at  these  things  ;  the 
orthodox  ministers  and  people  both  in  city  and 
country  are  grieved  and  discouraged,  and  the 
common  enemy  scorns  and  blasphemes  ;  it  is 
high  time,  therefore,  for  your  honours  to  suffer 
no  longer  these  sects  and  schisms,  but  to  do 
something  worthy  of  a  Parliament  against 
(hem,  and  God  will  be  with  you." 

After  this  dedication  tliere  are  one  hundred 
and  seventy-six  erroneous  passages  collected 
from  sundry  pamphlets  printed  about  this  time, 
and  from  the  reports  of  friends  in  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  to  whom  he  sent  for  materials  to  fill 
up  his  book  ;  however,  the  heretics  are  at  length 
reduced  under  sixteen  general  heads. 

1.  Independents.    6.  Arminians.     ll.Perfectists. 

2.  Brownists.         7.  Libertines.     12.  Socinians. 
.3.  Millenaries.       8.  Familists.       1.3.  Arians. 

4.  Antinomians.     0.  Enthusiasts.  14.  Antitrinitarians. 

5.  Anabaptists.     10.  Seekers.         15.  Antiscripturists. 

16.  Skeptics. 

The  industrious  writer  might  have  enlarged 
.his  catalogue  with  papists  and  prelates,  Deists, 
Kanters,  Behemenists,  &.C.,  &c.,  or,  if  he  had 
pleased,  a  less  number  might  have  served  his 
turn,  for  very  few  of  these  sectaries  were  col- 
lected into  societies  ;  but  his  business  was  to 
blacken  the  adversaries  of  Presbyterian  uni- 
formity, that  the  Parliament  might  crush  them 
by  sanguinary  methods.  Among  his  heresies 
there  are  some  which  do  not  deserve  that  name ; 
.and  among  his  errors,  some  that  never  grew 
into  a  sect,  but  fell  occasionally  from  the  pen 
or  lips  of  some  wild  enthusiast,  and  died  with 
the  author.  The  Independents  are  put  at  the 
head  of  the  sectaries,  because  they  were  for 
toleration  of  all  Christians  who  agreed  in  the 
fundamentals  of  religion  ;  to  prove  this,  which 
they  never  denied,  he  has  collected  several  pas- 
sages out  of  their  public  prayers ;  one  Inde- 
pendent minister  (says  he)  prayed  that  Pres- 
bytery might  be  removed  and  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  set  up ;  another  prayed  two  or  three 
times  that  the  Parliament  might  give  liberty  to 
tender  consciences ;  anotlier  thanked  God  for 
the  liberty  of  conscience  granted  in  America  ; 
and  said,  Why,  Lord,  not  in  England!  An- 
other prayed,  Since  God  had  delivered  both 
Presbyterians  and  Independents  from  prelatical 
.bondage,  that  the  former  might  not  be  guilty 
of  bringing  their  brethren  into  bondage.  The 
reader  will  judge  of  the  spirit  of  this  writer  by 
the  foregoing  specimen  of  his  performance, 
which  I  should  not  have  thought  worth  remem- 
bering, if  our  church  writers  had  not  reported 
the  state  of  religion  from  his  writings.  "  I 
Ijnew  Mr.  Edwards  very  well,"  says  Fuller,* 
"  my  contemporary  in  Queen's  College,  who 
often  was  transported  beyond  due  bounds  with 
the  keenness  and  eagerness  of  his  spirit,  and 
therefore  I  have  just  cause  in  some  things  to 
suspect  him."  He  adds,  farther,  "  I  am  most 
credibly  informed,  by  such  who  I  am  confident 
will  not  abuse  me  and  posterity  therein,  that 


Appeal,  p.  58. 


Mr.  Herbert  Palmer  (an  anti-Independent  to  the 
height),  being  convinced  that  Mr.  Edwards  had 
printed  some   falsehoods  in  one   sheet  of  his 
Gangraena,  proffered  to  have  the  sheet  reprinted 
at  his  own  charge,  but  some  accident  obstruct- 
ed it."     However,  our  author  went  on  publish- 
ing a  second  and  third  Gangrajna,  full  of  most 
bitter  invectives  and  reproaches,  till  his  own 
friends  were  nauseated  with  his  performances. 
The  Reverend  Mr.-  Baxter,  who  attended  the 
victorious   army,  mentions   the    Independents, 
Anabaptists,  and  Antinomians,  as  the  chief  sep- 
aratists, to  whom  he  adds  some  other  names,  as 
Seekers,    Ranters,    Behemenists,    Vanists,   all 
which  died  in  their  infancy,  or  united  in  the  peo- 
ple afterward  known  by  the  name  of  Quakers  ; 
but  when  he  went  into  the  army  he  found  "  al- 
most one  half  of  the  religious  party  among  them 
orthodox,  or  but  very  lightly  touched  with  the 
above-mentioned  mistakes,  and  almost  another 
half  honest  men,  that  had  stepped  farther  into 
the  contending  way  than  they  ought,  but  with 
a  little   help  might  be  recovered  ;  a  few  fiery, 
selfconceited  men   among  them,  kindled  the 
rest,  and  made  all  the  noise  and  bustle  ;  for  the 
greatest  part  of  the  common  soldiers  were  igno- 
rant men,  and  of  little  religion  ;  these  would  do 
anything  to  please  their  officers,  and  were  in- 
struments for  the  seducers  in  their  great  work, 
which  was  to  cry  down  the  Covenant,  to  vilify 
parish  ministers,  and  especially  the  Scots  and 
the  Presbyterians."     Mr.  Baxter  observes,*  that 
"  these  fiery,  hot  men  were  hatched  among  the 
old  Separatists ;  that  they  were  fierce  with  pride, 
and  conceit,  and  uncharitableness,  but  many  of 
the  honest  soldiers,  who  were  only  tainted  with 
some  doubts  about  liberty  of  conscience  and  in- 
dependency, would  discourse  of  the  points  of 
sanctification  and  Christian  experience  very  sa- 
vourily  ;  the  seducers  above   mentioned  were 
great  preachers  and  fierce  disputants,  but  of  no 
settled  principles  of  religion  ;  some  were  of  level- 
ling principles  as  to  the  state,  but  all  were  agreed 
that  the  civil  magistrate  had  nothing  to  do  in 
matters  of  religion,  any  farther  than  to  keep  the 
peace,  and  protect  the  Church  liberties."     The 
same  writer  adds,  "  To  speak  impartially,  some 
of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  frightened  the  sec- 
taries into  this  fury,  by  the  unpeaceableness  and 
impatience  of  their  minds  -,  they  ran  from  lib- 
ertinism into  the  other  extreme,  and  were  so 
little  sensible  of  their  own  infirmity,  that  they 
would  not  have  them  tolerated  who  were  not 
only  tolerable,  but  worthy  instruments  and  mem- 
bers in  the  churches."     Lord  Clarendon  says, 
that  Cromwell  and   his  officers  preached   and 
prayed  publicly  with  their  troops,  and  admitted 
few  or  no  chaplains  in  the  army,  except  such  as 
bitterly  inveighed  against  the  Presbyterian  gov- 
ernment, as  more  tyrannical  than  Episcopacy  ; 
and  that  the  common  soldiers,  as  well  as  the 
officers,  did  not  only  pray  and  preach  themselves, 
but  went  up  mto  the  pulpits  in  all  churches,  and 
preached  to  the  people,  who  quickly  became  in- 
spired with  the  same  spirit  ;  women  as  well  as 
men    taking  upon   them   to   pray  and  preach  ; 
which  made  as  great  a  noise  and  confusion  in 
all  opinions  concerning  religion  as  there  was  in 
the  civil  government  of  the  state. 

Bishop  Bramhall,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Arch- 
bishop Usher,  writes,  that  "  the  papists  took 

*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  53. 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


39 


•advantage  of  these  confusions,  and  sent  over 
above  one  hundred  of  their  clergy,  that  had  been 
educated  in  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  by  order 
from  Rome.  In  these  nurseries  the  scholars 
were  taught  several  handicraft  trades  and  call- 
ings, according  to  their  ingenuities,  besides  their 
functions  in  the  Church  ;  they  have  many  yet 
at  Paris,"  says  the  bishop,  "  fitting  up  to  be  sent 
over,  who  twice  in  the  week  oppose  one  the  oth- 
«r  ;  one  pretending  Presbytery,  the  other  In- 
dependency ;  some  Anabaptism,  and  others  con- 
trary tenets.  The  hundred  that  went  over  this 
3'ear,"  according  to  the  bishop,  "  were  most  of 
them  soldiers  in  the  Parliament  army."*  But 
Mr.  Baxter,!  after  a  most  diligent  inquiry,  de- 
clares "  that  he  could  not  find  them  out ;"  which 
renders  the  bishop's  account  suspected.  "  The 
most  that  I  could  suspect  for  papists  among 
Cromwell's  soldiers,"  says  he,  "  were  but  a  few 
that  began  as  strangers  among  the  common  sol- 
diers, and  by  degrees  rose  up  to  some  inferior  of- 
ficers, but  none  of  the  superior  officers  seemed 
such."  The  body  of  the  army  had  a  vast  aver- 
sion to  the  papists,  and  the  Parliament  took  all 
occasions  of  treating  them  with  rigour ;  for, 
June  30,  Morgan,  a  priest,  was  drawn,  hanged, 
and  quartered,  for  going  out  of  the  kingdom  to 
receive  orders  from  Rome,  and  then  returning 
again.  However,  without  all  question,  both 
Church  and  State  were  in  the  utmost  disor- 
der and  confusion  at  the  close  of  this  year 
[1646]. 

Among  the  illustrious  men  of  the  Parlia- 
ment's side  who  died  about  this  time,  was  Rob- 
ert D'Evereux,  earl  of  Essex,  son  of  the  famous 
favourite  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  he  was  educa- 
ted to  arms  in  the  Netherlands,  and  afterward 
served  the  King  and  Queen  of  Bohemia  for  the 
recovery  of  the  Palatinate.  King  Charles  I. 
made  him  lieutenant  of  his  army  in  his  expedi- 
tion against  the  Scots,  and  lord-chamberlain  of 
the  household  ;  but  the  earl,  being  unwilling  to 
go  into  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  court  in 
favour  of  popery  and  slavery,  engaged  on  the 
side  of  the  Parliament,  and  accepted  of  the 
commission  of  captain-general  of  their  forces, 
for  which  the  king  proclaimed  him  a  traitor. 
He  was  a  person  of  great  honour,  and  served 
the  Parliament  with  fidelity  ;  but  being  of  opin- 
ion that  the  war  should  be  ended  rather  i)y 
treaty  than  by  conquest,  did  not  always  push 
his  successes  as  far  as  he  might.  Upon  the 
new  modelling  of  the  army,  the  cautious  gen- 
eral was  dismissed  with  an  honourable  pension 
for  his  past  services ;  after  which  he  retired  to 
his  house  at  Eltham,  in  Kent,  where  he  died  of 
a  lethargy,  occasioned  by  overheating  himself  in 
the  chase  of  a  stag  in  Windsor  Forest,  Sep- 
tember 14,  1646,  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his 
age.J  He  was  buried  with  great  funeral  solem- 
nity in  Westminster  Abbey,  October  22,  at  the 
public  expense,  both  houses  of  Parliament  at- 
tending the  procession.  His  effigy  was  after- 
ward erected  in  Westminster  Hall,  but  some  of 
the  king's  party  found  means  in  the  night  to  cut 
off  the  head,  and  break  the  sword,  arms,  and 
escutcheons.  Mr.  Vines  preached  his  funeral 
sermon,  and  gave  him  a  very  high  encomium, 
though  Lord  Clarendon  has  stained  his  charac- 


*  Parr's  Life  of  Usher,  p.  611. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  p.  78. 

t  Ludlow,  p.  186,  or  4to  edition,  1771,  p.  79. 


ter  for  taking  part  with  the  Parliament,  which 
he  says  was  owing  to  his  pride  and  vanity. 
The  earl's  countenance  appeared  stern  and  sol- 
emn, but  to  his  familiar  acquaintance  his  be- 
haviour was  mild  and  affable.  Upon  the  whole, 
he  was  a  truly  great  and  excellent  person  ;  his 
death  was  an  unspeakable  loss  to  the  king,  for 
he  was  the  only  nobleman,  perhaps,  in  the 
kingdom  who  had  interest  enough  with  both 
parties  to  have  put  an  end  to  the  civil  war,  at 
the  very  time  when  Providence  called  hirn  out 
of  the  world. 

Among  the  remarkable  divines  may  be  reck- 
oned the  reverend  and  learned  Mr.  Thomas 
Colman,  rector  of  St.  Peter's  Church  in  Corn- 
hill  :  he  was  born  at  Oxford,  and  entered  in 
Magdalen  College  in  the  seventeenth  year  of 
his  age  ;  he  afterward  became  so  perfect  a 
master  of  the  Hebrew  language,  that  he  was 
commonly  called  Rabbi  Colman.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  civil  war  he  left  his  rectory  of  Bly- 
ton  in  Lincolnshire,  being  persecuted  from 
thence  by  the  cavaliers.  Upon  his  coming  to 
London,  he  was  preferred  to  the  rectory  of  St. 
Peter's,  Cornhill,  and  made  one  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines.  Mr.  Wood  says  he  behaved 
modestly  and  learnedly  in  the  Assembly ;  and 
Mr.  Fuller  gives  him  the  character  of  a  modest 
and  learned  divine  ;*  he  was  equally  an  enemy 
to  Presbytery  and  prelacy,  being  of  Erastian 
principles  ;  he  fell  sick  while  the  Assembly 
was  debating  the  jus  divinum  of  Presbytery  ; 
and  when  they  sent  some  of  their  members  to 
visit  him,  he  desired  they  would  not  come  to 
an  absolute  determination  till  they  heard  what 
he  had  to  offer  upon  the  question  ;  but  his  dis- 
temper increased,  he  died  in  a  few  days,  and 

*  Colman  preached  a  sermon  before  the  House 
of  Commons,  30th  July,  1645,  on  the  Unity  of  the 
Church  and  how  to  promote  it.  For  this  he  gives 
several  directions,  of  which  the  following  are  the 
chief:  "  1.  Estabhsh  as  few  things  jure  divino  as  can 
well  be.  Hold  out  the  practice,  bat  not  the  ground. 
2.  Let  all  precepts  held  out  as  Divine  institutions  have 
clear  Scriptures ;  an  occasional  practice,  a  phrase 
upon  the  by,  a  thing  named,  are  too  weak  grounds  to 
uphold  such  a  building.  1  could  never  yet  see  how 
two  coordinate  governments,  exempt  ftom  superior- 
ity and  inferiority,  can  be  in  one  state  ;  and  in  Scrip- 
ture no  such  thing  is  found  that  I  know  of  3.  Lay 
no  more  burden  of  government  upon  the  shoulders 
of  ministers  than  Christ  hath  plainly  laid  upon  them  ; 
let  them  have  no  more  hand  therein  than  the  Holy 
Ghost  clearly  gives  them.  The  ministers  will  have 
other  work  to  do,  and  such  as  will  take  up  the  whole 
man.  I  ingenuously  profess  1  have  a  heart  that  knows 
better  how  to  be  governed  than  to  govern  ;  I  fear  an 
ambitious  ensnarement,  and  I  have  cause.  I  sed 
what  raised  prelacy  and  papacy  to  such  height,  and 
what  their  practices  were,  being  so  raised.  Give  us 
doctrine;  talic  you  the  government.  Give  me  leave 
to  make  this  request,  in  the  name  of  the  ministry ; 
give  us  two  things,  and  we  shall  do  well :  give  us 
learning,  and  give  us  a  competency.  4.  A  Christian 
magistrate,  as  a  Christian  magistrate,  is  a  governor 
in  the  Church.  All  magistrates,  it  is  true,  are  not 
Christians;  but  that  is  their  fault :  all  should  be;  and 
when  they  are,  they  are  to  manage  their  office  under 
and  for  Christ.  Christ  hath  placed  governments  in 
his  Church.  Of  other  governments  besides  magis- 
tracy I  find  no  institution ;  of  them  I  do.  I  find  all 
governmenf  given  to  Christ,  and  to  Christ  as  media- 
tor ;  and  Christ,  as  head  of  these,  given  to  the  Church. 
To  rob  the  kingdom  of  Christ  of  the  magistrate  and 
his  governing  power,  I  cannot  excuse,  no,  not  from 
a  kind  of  sacrilege,  if  the  magistrate  be  His." — C. 


40 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


the  whole  Assembly  did  him  the  honour  to  at- 
tend his  funeral  in  a  body,  March  30,  1646.* 

About  the  middle  of  July  died  the  learned 
Doctor  William  Twisse,  vicar  of  Newbury,  and 
prolocutor  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  ;  he  was 
born  at  Speenham-Land,  near  Newbury,  in 
Berkshire  ;  bis  father  was  a  substantial  clothier 
in  that  town,  and  educated  his  son  at  Winches- 
ter School,  from  whence  he  was  translated  to 
New  College,  in  Oxford,  of  which  lie  was  fel- 
low ;  here  he  employed  himself  in  the  study  of 
divinity,  with  the  closest  application,  for  six- 
teen years  together.  In  the  year  1604  he  pro- 
ceeded master  of  arts  ;  about  the  same  time  he 
fntered  into  holy  orders,  and  became  a  diligent 
and  frequent  preacher  ;  he  was  admired  by  the 
universities  for  his  subtle  wit,  exact  judgment, 
exemplary  life  and  conversation,  and  many 
other  valuable  qualities  which  became  a  man 
of  his  function.  In  the  year  1604  he  proceed- 
ed doctor  of  divinity,  after  which  he  travel- 
led into  Germany,  and  became  chaplain  to  the 
princess  palatine,  daughter  of  King  James 
I.  After  his  return  to  England,  he  was  made 
vicar  of  Newbury,  where  he  gained  a  vast  rep- 
utation by  his  useful  preaching  and  exemplary 
living.  His  most  able  adversaries  have  con- 
fessed that  there  was  nothing  then  extant  more 
accurate  and  full,  touching  the  Arminian  con- 
troversy, than  what  he  published  ;  and  hardly 
any  who  have  written  upon  this  argument  since 
the  publishing  of  Dr.  Twisse's  works  but  have 
made  an  honourable  mention  of  him.t  The 
doctor  was  offered  the  prebend  of  Winchester, 
and  several  preferments  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;  the  States  of  Friesland  invited  him  to  the 
professorship  of  divinity  in  their  University  of 
Franeker,  but  he  refused  all.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  civil  war  he  was  forced  from  his  living 
at  Newbury  by  the  cavaliers,  and  upon  conve- 
ning the  Assembly  of  Divines,  was  appointed 
by  Parliament  their  prolocutor,  in  which  station 
he  continued  to  his  death,  which  happened,  af- 
ter a  lingering  indisposition,  about  the  20th  of 
July,  1646,  in  the  seventy-first  year  of  his  age. 
He  died  in  very  necessitous  circumstances, 
having  lost  all  his  substance  by  the  king's  sol- 
diers, insomuch  that,  when  some  of  the  Assem- 
bly were  deputed  to  visit  him  in  his  sickness, 
they  reported  that  he  was  very  sick  and  in  great 
straits.  He  was  allowed  to  be  a  person  of  ex- 
tensive knowledge  in  school  divinity,  a  subtle 
disputant, t  and,  withal,  a  modest,  humble,  and 
religious  person.  He  was  buried,  at  the  request 
of  the  Assembly,  in  the  collegiate  church  of  St. 
Peter's,  Westminster,  near  the  upper  end  of  the 
poor  folks'  table,  next  the  vestry,  July  24,  and 
was  attended  by  the  whole  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines :  there  his  body  rested  till  the  restoration 
of  King  Charles  II.,  when  his  bones  were  dug 
up  by  order  of  council,  September  14,  1661,  and 


*  Church  History,  b.  ix.,  p.  213.  Wood's  Athen. 
Oxen.,  vol.  li.,  p.  62. 

t  Anthense  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  40,  41. 

i  He  distinguished  himself  by  liis  writings  against 
Arminianism.  The  most  learned  of  that  party  con- 
fessed that  there  was  nothnig  more  accurate,  e.xact, 
and  full,  on  that  controversy,  than  his  works.  His 
plain  preaching  was  esteemed  good  ;  his  solid  dispu- 
tations were  accounted,  by  some,  better;  and  his  pi- 
ous way  of  living  was  reckoned  by  others,  especially 
the  Puritans,  best  of  all. —  Wood's  Athena  Oxon.,  vol. 
li.,  p.  40.— Ed. 


thrown,  with  several  others,  info  a  hole  in  the 
churchyard  of  St.  Margaret's,  before  the  back 
door  of  the  lodgings  of  one  of  the  prebendaries. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  year  died  the  rever- 
end and  pious  Mr.  Jeremiah  Burroughs ;  he 
was  educated  in  Cambridge,  but  obliged  to  quit 
the  university  and  kingdom  for  nonconformity 
in  the  late  times.*  Upon  his  leaving  England 
he  was  chosen  minister  of  an  English  congre- 
gation at  Rotterdam,  with  which  he  continued 
till  the  year  1642,  when  he  returned  to  England, 
and  became  preacher  to  two  of  the  largest  and 
most  numerous  congregations  about  London, 
viz..  Stepney  and  Cripplegate.  He  was  one  of 
the  dissenting  brethren  in  the  Assembly,  but 
was  a  divine  of  great  candour,  modesty,  and 
charity.  He  never  gathered  a  separate  con- 
gregation, nor  accepted  of  a  parochial  living, 
exhausting  his  strength  in  continual  preaching, 
and  other  services  of  the  Church.  He  was  an 
excellent  scholar,  a  good  expositor,  a  popular 
preacher  ;  he  published  several  treatises  while 
he  lived,  and  his  friends  have  published  many 
others  since  his  death,  which  have  met  with  a. 
general  acceptance.  It  was  said  the  divisions 
of  the  times  broke  his  heart,  because  one  of  the 
last  subjects  he  preached  upon,  and  printed, 
was  his  Irenicum,  or  an  attempt  to  heal  divis- 
ions among  Christians.  Mr.  Baxter  used  to  say, . 
if  all  the  Presbyterians  had  been  like  Mr.  Mar- 
shal, and  the  Independents  like  Mr.  Burroughs, 
their  differences  might  easily  have  been  com- 
promised. He  died  of  a  consumptive  illness, 
November  14,  1646,  about  the  forty-seventtt 
year  of  his  age. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  ASSEMBLY  UPON  THEIR  CON- 
FESSION OF  F.\ITH  .^ND  C.4.TECHISMS. PROVIN- 
CIAL ASSEMBLIES  OF  LONDON. THE  KING  TAKEN 

OUT  OF  THE  parliament's  CUSTODY,  AND  CON- 
VEYED TO  THE  ARMY. — CONTROVERSY  BETWEEN 
THE    PARLIAMENT     AND     ARMY. — HIS    MAJESTV'S 

CONDUCT. HE   ESCAPES   FROM   HAMPTON  COURT,. 

AND    IS   CONFINED   IN   THE    ISLE    OF    WIGHT. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Charles  Herle  succeeded  to 
the  prolocutor's  chair  by  order  of  Parliament,. 
July  22,  1646,  in  the  room  of  the  late  Dr.  Twisse,. 
when  the  discipline  of  the  Church  being  pretty 
well  settled,  it  was  moved  to  finish  their  coi> 
fession  of  faith.  The  English  divines  would 
have  been  content  with  revising  and  explaining 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, but  the  Scots  insisting  on  a  system  of  theii 
own,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  prepare  ma 
terials  for  this  purpose  May  9,  1645 ;  their 
names  were.  Dr.  Gouge,  Dr.  Hoyle,  Mr.  Herle, 
Gataker,  Tuckney,  Reynolds,  and  Vines,  with 
the  Scots  divines,  who,  having  first  settled  the 
titles  of  the  several  chapters,  as  they  now  stand 
in  their  confession  of  faith,  in  number  thirty- 
two,  distributed  them,  for  greater  expedition, 
among  several  sub-committees,  which  sat  two 


*  He  for  5ome  tune  sheltered  himself  under  the 
hospitable  roof  of"  the  Earl  of  Warwick.— Crra»o-e;-'s 
History  of  Eiif:lnnd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  193,  8vo.  This  noble- 
man was  a  great  patron  of  the  Puritan  divines ;  and 
not  contented  with  hearing  long  sermons  in  their 
congregations  only,  would  have  them  repeated  at  his 
own  house. — Ibid.,  116. — Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


41 


days  every  week,  and  then  reported  what  they 
had  finished  to  the  committee,  and  so  to  the 
Assembly,  where  it  was  debated  paragraph  by 
paragraph.  The  disputes  about  discipline  had 
occasioned  so  many  interruptions,  that  it  was  a 
year  and  a  half  before  this  work  was  finished  ; 
but  on  November  26,  1646,  the  prolocutor  re- 
turned thanks  to  the  several  committees,  in  the 
name  of  the  Assembly,  for  their  great  pains  in 
perfecting  the  work  committed  to  them.  At  the 
same  time.  Dr.  Burges  was  appointed  to  get  it 
transcribed,  in  order  to  its  being  presented  to 
Parliament,  which  was  done  December  II,  by 
the  whole  Assembly  in  a  body,  under  the  title 
of  "  The  Humble  Advice  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines  and  others,  now,  by  the  authority  of 
Parliament,  sitting  at  Westminster,  concerning 
a  Confession  of  Faith."  The  House  of  Com- 
mons having  voted  the  Assembly  thanks,  desi- 
red them  to  insert  the  proofs  of  the  several  arti- 
cles in  their  proper  places,  and  then  to  print  six 
hundred  copies,*  and  no  more,  for  the  perusal 
of  the  houses.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Wilson,  Mr.  By- 
field,  and  Mr.  Gower,  were  appointed,  January 
6,  to  be  a  committee  to  collect  the  Scriptures  for 
confirmation  of  the  several  articles  ;  all  which, 
after  examination  by  the  Assembly,  were  insert- 
ed in  the  margin.  And  then  the  whole  con- 
fession was  committed  once  more  to  a  review 
of  the  three  committees,  who  made  report  to  the 
Assembly  of  such  farther  amendments  as  they 
thought  necessary  ;  which  being  agreed  to  by 
the  House,  it  was  sent  to  the  press.  May  II, 
1647.  Mr.  Byfield,  by  order  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  delivered  to  the  members  the  print- 
ed copies  of  their  confession  of  faith,  with  Scrip- 
ture notes,  signed, 

Charles  Herle,  prolocutor ; 

Corn.  Burges,  Herbert  Palmer,  assessors  ; 

Henry  Roborough,  Adoniram  Byfield,  scribes. 
And  because  no  more  were  to  be  given  out  at 
present,  every  member  subscribed  his  name  to 
the  receipt  thereof 

The  House  of  Commons  began  their  examina- 
tion of  this  confession  May  19,  when  they  con- 
sidered the  whole  first  chapter  article  by  arti- 
cle -,1  but  the  disturbances  which  arose  between 
the  Parliament  and  army  interrupted  their  pro- 
ceeding the  whole  summer  ;  but  when  these 
were  quieted  they  resumed  their  work,  and  Oc- 
tober 2,  ordered  a  chapter  of  the  confession  of 
faith  at  least  to  be  debated  every  Wednesday, 
by  which  means  they  got  through  the  whole  be- 
fore the  end  of  March  following  ;  for  at  a  con- 
ference with  the  House  of  Lords  March  22, 
1647-8,  the  Commons  presented  them  with  the 
confession  of  faith  as  passed  by  their  house, 
with  some  alterations  ;  they  agreed  with  the  As- 
sembly in  the  doctrinal  part  of  the  confession  ; 
and  ordered  it  to  be  published,  June  20,  1648,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  foreign  churches,  under 
the  title  of  "  Articles  of  Religion  approved  and 
passed  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  after  Ad- 
vice had  with  an  Assembly  of  Divines  called  to- 

*  The  MSS.  to  which  Mr.  Neal  refers,  though 
supported  by  the  authority  of  Rushworth,  made  a 
mistake  here ;  for  by  a  copy  of  the  original  order, 
given  by  Dr.  Grey  in  his  Appendi.x',  No.  71,  it  appears 
that  the  order  of  the  House  was  for  printing  five 
hundred  copies,  and  no  more,  of  "  The  Humble  Ad- 
vice," &c. — See,  also,  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  233. 
— Ed.  t  Rushworth,  part  iv.,  vol.  i.,  p.  482. 

Vol.  II.— F 


gether  by  them  for  that  Purpose."*  The  Par- 
liament not  thinking  it  proper  to  call  it  a  con- 
fession of  faith,  because  the  sections  did  not  be- 
gin with  the  words  I  confess  ;t  nor  to  annex 
matters  of  church  government,  about  which 
they  were  not  agreed,  to  doctrinal  articles ; 
those  chapters,  therefore,  which  relate  to  disci- 
pline, as  they  now  stand  in  the  Assembly's  con- 
fession, were  not  printed  by  order  of  the  House, 
but  recommitted,  and  at  last  laid  aside  ;  as  the 
whole  thirtieth  chapter,  of  church  censures,  and- 
of  the  power  of  the  keys  ;  the  thirty-first  chap- 
ter, of  synods  and  councils,  by  whom  to  be  call- 
ed, and  of  what  force  in  their  decrees  and  de- 
terminations ;  a  great  part  of  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter,  of  marriage  and  divorce,  which  they 
referred  to  the  laws  of  the  land  ;  and  the  fourth 
paragraph  of  the  twentieth  chapter,  which  de- 
termines what  opinions  and  parties  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  Church,  and  how  such  disturbers 
ought  to  be  proceeded  against  by  the  censures 
of  the  Church,  and  punished  by  the  civil  magis- 
trate. These  propositions,  in  which  the  very 
life  and  soul  of  Presbytery  consists,  never  were 
approved  by  the  English  Parliament,  nor  had  the 
force  of  a  law  in  this  country  ;  but  the  whole 
confession,  as  it  came  from  the  Assembly,  being 
sent  into  Scotland,  was  immediately  approved 
by  the  General  Assembly  and  Parliament  of 
that  kingdom,  as  the  estabhshed  doctrine  and 
discipline  of  their  kirk  ;t  and  thus  it  has  been 
published  to  the  world  ever  since,  though  the 
chapter  above  mentioned,  relating  to  discipline, 
received  no  parliamentary  sanction  in  England  ; 
nevertheless,  as  the  entire  confession  was  agreed 
to  by  an  assembly  of  English  divines,  I  have 
given  it  a  place  in  the  Appendix.iJ 

Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  confession 
of  faith  itself,  which  determines  so  many  ab- 
struse points  of  divinity,  should  have  the  unani- 
mous and  hearty  assent  of  the  whole  Assembly 
or  Parliament :  for  though  all  the  divines  were  in 
the  anti-Arminian  scheme,  yet  some  had  a  great- 
er latitude  than  others.  I  find  in  my  MS.  the 
dissent  of  several  members  against  some  ex- 
pressions relating  to  reprobation,  to  the  imputa- 
tion of  the  active  as  well  as  passive  obedience 
of  Christ,  and  to  several  passages  in  the  chap- 
ters of  liberty  of  conscience  and  church  disci- 
pline ;  but  the  confession,  as  far  as  related  to 
articles  of  faith,  passed  the  Assembly  and  Par- 
liament by  a  very  great  majority.  II 

Various  censures  have  been  passed  by  learn- 
ed men  upon  this  loboured  performance  ;  some 
have  loaded  it  with  undeserved  reproaches  ;  and 
others,  perhaps,  have  advanced  its  reputation 
too  high.  Mr.  CoUyer  condemns  it  for  deter- 
mining in  favour  of  the  morality  of  the  Sab- 
bath ;  for  pronouncing  the  pope  to  be  antichrist ; 
and  for  maintaining  the  Calvinian  rigours  of  ab- 
solute predestination,  irresistible  grace,  and  the 
impotency  of  man's  will  ;  doctrines,  in  his  opin- 
ion, inconsistent  with  Christianity. IF  But  then, 
he  observes  very  justly,  that  it  falls  very  short 
of  the  Scots  claim  in  points  of  discipline  ;  it 

♦  Rushworth,  part  iv.,  vol..  i.,  p.  1035. 

t  Savoy  Conf ,  Pref ,  p.  18,  19. 

t  Savoy  Conf,  Pref.,  p.  20.      ()  Appendix,  No.  8. 

II  lletherington's  history  of  the  Assembly  may  be 
consulted  advantageously  upon  the  events  connected 
with  the  preparation  and  adoption  of  the  confession 
of  faith.— C.  IT  Eccl.  Hist.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  842, 


42 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


yields  the  magistrate  a  power  of  convening 
church  assemblies,  and  of  superintending  their 
proceedings  ;  it  is  silent  as  to  the  independency 
of  the  Church,  and  the  Divine  right  of  presby- 
tery, &c.  Upon  the  whole,  the  Assembly's  con- 
fession, with  all  its  faults,  has  been  ranked  by 
"very  good  judges  among  the  most  perfect  sys- 
tems of  divinity*  that  have  been  published  upon 
the  Calvinistic  or  anti-Arminian  principles  in 
the  last  age. 

While  the  confession  was  carrying  through 
the  Assembly,  committees  were  appointed  to 
reduce  it  into  the  form  of  catechisms  ;  one  lar- 
ger, for  the  service  of  a  public  exposition  in 
the  pulpit,  according  to  the  custom  of  foreign 
churches  ;  the  other  smaller,  for  the  instruction 
of  children  ;  in  both  which  the  articles  relating 
to  church  disciphne  are  entirely  omitted. t  The 
larger  catechism  is  a  comprehensive  system  of 
■divinity,  and  the  smaller,  a  very  accurate  sum- 
mary, though  it  has  by  some  been  thought  a  lit- 
tle too  long,  and  in  some  particulars  too  abstruse 
for  the  capacities  of  children.  The  shorter  cat- 
echism was  presented  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, November  5,  but  the  larger,  by  reason  of 
the  marginal  references  to  Scripture,  which  the 
houses  desired  might  be  inserted,  was  not  ready 
till  the  14th  of  April,  1648,  when  the  House  or- 
dered six  hundred  copies  to  be  printed  for  the 
service  of  the  members;  and  having  examined 
and  approved  it,  they  allowed  it  to  be  printed  by 
authority,  for  public  use,  September  15,  1648. 
The  king,  after  many  solicitations,  at  the  treaty 
of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  offered  to  license  a  short- 
er catechism  with  a  suitable  preface  ;  but  that 
treaty  proving  unsuccessful,  it  was  not  accom- 
plished.t 

The  chief  affairs  committed  to  the  Assembly 
being  thus  finished,  Mr.  Rutherford,  one  of  the 
Scots  divines,  moved,  October  24,  1647,  that  it 
might  be  recorded  in  the  scribes'  books,  that 
the  Assembly  had  enjoyed  the  assistance  of  the 
honourable,  reverend,  and  learned  commission- 
ers of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  during  all  the 
time  they  had  been  debating  and  perfecting 
these  four  things  mentioned  in  the  Covenant, 
viz.,  their  composing  a  directory  for  public  wor- 
-ship ;  a  uniform  confession  of  faith  ;  a  form  of 
church  government  and  discipline  ;  and  a  pub- 
lic catechism,  some  of  their  number  havmg 
been  present  during  the  whole  of  these  transac- 
tions ;  which  being  done,  about  a  week  after, 
he  and  the  rest  of  the  commissioners  took  their 
leave  and  returned  home ;  upon  which  occasion, 
Mr.  Herle,  the  prolocutor,  rose  up,  and,  in  the 
name  of  the  Assembly,  "  thanked  the  honoura- 
ble and  reverend  commissioners  for  their  as- 
sistance ;  he  excused,  in  the  best  manner  he 
could,  the  Directory's  not  being  so  well  observ- 
ed as  it  ought,  and  lamented  that  the  Assem- 
bly had  not  power  to  call  offenders  to  an  ac- 
count :  he  confesses  that  their  affairs  were  very 
much  embarrassed,  and  that  they  were  still  in 

*  Here  may  be  introduced,  as  it  escaped  our  rec- 
ollection in  the  more  proper  place,  the  remark  made 
by  Mr.  Robinson  on  the  Directory.  "  The  best  state 
instructions  to  preachers  were  given  in  the  Directory 
by  the  Assembly  of  Divines ;  but  even  these,"  he  prop- 
erly adds,  ''  include  the  great,  the  fatal  error,  the  sub- 
jection of  God's  Word  to  human  laws." — Translation 
of  Claude  on  the  Composition  of  a  Serinon,  vol.  ii.,  Pref- 
atory Dissertation,  p.  C3. — Ed. 

+  Rushworth,  p.  888,  1060.         J  Ibid.,  p.  1326. 


a  chaos  of  confusion  [the  king  being  now  taken 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  Parliament,  and  in  cus- 
tody of  the  army] ;  he  takes  notice  of  what 
distresses  the  Parliament  were  in,  while  the 
common  enemy  was  high  and  "strong  ;  and  adds, 
that  their  extraordinary  successes  hitherto 
were  owing  to  the  prayers  of  their  brethren  in 
Scotland,  and  other  Protestants  abroad,  as  well 
as  to  their  own.  He  then  mentions  with  con- 
cern some  other  restraints  the  Assembly  lay 
under,  but  that  this  was  not  a  proper  season  for 
redress." 

The  commissioners  went  home  under  a  very 
heavy  concern  for  the  storm  that  was  gathering 
over  England,  and  for  the  hardships  the  Presby- 
terians lay  under  with  respect  to  their  discipline ; 
and  having  obtained  the  establishment  of  the 
Directory,  the  Confession  of  Faith  and  Cate- 
chisms, the  Presbyterian  Discipline,  and  Rouse's 
Psalms  in  Metre,  for  the  service  of  their  Kirk, 
they  appointed  a  general  fast,  to  lament  their 
own  defection  from  the  solemn  League  and  Cov- 
enant, and  the  distressed  condition  of  their 
brethren  in  England,  who  were  zealous  for  car- 
rying on  the  work  of  God,  but  were  now  op- 
pressed, under  pretence  of  liberty,  when  no 
less  was  aimed  at  than  tyranny  and  arbitrary 
power. 

If  the  Parliament  had  dissolved  the  Assem- 
bly at  this  time,  as  they  ought  to  have  done, 
they  had  broke  up  with  honour  and  reputation, 
for  after  this  they  did  little  more  than  examine 
candidates  for  the  ministry,  and  squabble  about 
the  jus  divinum  of  Presbytery  ;  the  grand  con- 
sultations concerning  public  affairs,  and  practi- 
sing upon  the  new  establishment,  being  trans- 
lated to  the  provincial  assemblies  and  weekly 
meetings  of  the  London  clergy  at  Sion  College.* 

*■  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  297,  note.  That  the  reader 
may  form  a  judgment  of  what  was  intended  to  be  es- 
tablished in  England,  it  may  not  be  improper  to  set 
before  him,  in  one  view,  the  discipline  that  was  then 
settled  in  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  and  subsists  at  this 
time.  "In  Scotland  there  are  eight  hundred  and 
ninety  parishes,  each  of  which  is  divided,  in  propor- 
tion to  its  extent,  into  particular  districts,  and  every 
district  has  its  own  ruling  elders  and  deacons ;  the 
ruling  elders  are  men  of  the  principal  quality  and  in- 
terest in  the  parish,  and  the  deacons  are  persons  of 
a  good  character  for  manners  and  understanding. 
A  consistory  of  ministers,  elders,  and  deacons  is 
called  a  kirk  session,  the  lowest  ecclesiastical  judi- 
catory, which  meets  once  a  week,  to  consider  the 
affairs  of  the  parish.  The  minister  is  always  moder- 
ator, but  without  a  negative  ;  appeals  lie  from  hence 
to  their  own  presbyteries,  which  are  the  next  higher 
judicatories.  Scotland  is  divided  into  sixty-nine 
presbyteries,  each  consisting  of  from  twelve  to  twen- 
ty-four contiguous  parishes.  They  meet  in  the  head 
town  and  choose  their  moderator,  who  must  be  a 
minister,  half-yearly  ;  from  hence  appeals  lie  to  pro- 
vincial synods,  which  are  composed  of  several  adja- 
cent presbyteries;  two,  three,  four,  to  eight — there 
are  fifteen  in  all.  The  members  are  a  minister  and 
a  riding  elder  out  of  every  parish.  These  synods 
meet  twice  a  year  at  the  principal  town  of  their 
bounds.  They  choose  a  moderator,  who  is  their 
prolocutor.  The  acts  of  the  synods  are  subject  to 
the  review  of  the  General  Assembly,  the  dernier  re- 
sort of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland.  It  consists  of  commis- 
sioners from  presbyteries,  royal  burghs,  and  univer- 
sities. A  presbytery  of  twelve  ministers  sends  two 
ministers  and  one  ruling  elder ;  a  presbytery  of  be- 
tween twelve  and  eighteen  sends  three,  and  one  ru- 
ling elder ;  of  between  eighteen  and  twenty-four, 
sends  four,  and  two  ruling  elders;    of  twenty-four, 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


43 


Though  the  city  and  suburbs  of  London  had 
been  formed  into  a  province,  and  divided  into 
twelve  classical  Presbyteries  (as  has  been  re- 
membered under  the  last  year),  new  complaints 
were  still  made  to  the  Parliament  of  certain  ob- 
jstructions  to  their  proceedings  ;  upon  which 
the  houses  published  their  resolutions  of  April 
22d,  1G47,  entitled  "Remedies  for  removing 
some  Obstructions  in  Church  Government  ;"*  in 
which  they  ordered  letters  to  be  sent  from  the 
speakers  of  both  houses  to  the  several  counties 
of  England,  immediately  to  divide  themselves 
into  distinct  presbyteries  and  classes  ;  "  they 
then  appoint  the  elders  and  ministers  of  the 
several  classes  of  the  province  of  London,  to 
hold  their  provincial  assembly  in  the  Convoca- 
tion House  of  St.  Paul's  in  London,  upon  the 
first  Monday  in  May  next  ensuing,  and  to  ad- 
journ their  meetings  dc  die  in  diem,  and  con- 
clude them  with  adjournment  to  the  next  op- 
portunity, according  to  the  ordinance  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  that  no  act  shall  pass  or  be  valid  in 
the  said  province  of  London,  except  it  be  done 
by  the  number  of  thirty-six  present,  or  the  ma- 
jor part  of  them,  whereof  twelve  to  be  minis- 
ters, and  twenty-four  ruling  elders.  That  in 
the  classical  meetings,  that  which  shall  be  done 
by  the  major  part  present  shall  be  esteemed 
the  act  of  the  whole  ;  but  no  act  done  by  any 
classes  shall  be  valid,  unless  it  be  done  by  the 
number  of  fifteen  present,  or  the  major  part  of 
them,  whereof  five  be  ministers  and  ten  ruling 
elders."  So  that  the  number  of  lay-elders  in 
these  assemblies  was  double  to  the  number  of 
ministers. 

According  to  this  appointment,  the  first  Pro- 
vincial Assembly  met  at  the  Convocation  House 
of  St.  Paul's,  May  3,  consisting  of  three  minis- 
ters and  six  ruling  elders  from  the  several  class- 
es, in  all  about  one  hundred  and  eight  persons  ; 
at  their  first  session  they  chose  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Gouge  prolocutor,  who  opened  the  Assembly 
with  a  sermon  at  his  own  church  in  Blackfri- 
.ars  ;  the  Rev.  Mr.  Thomas  Manton,  Mr.  Ralph 
Robinson,  and  Mr.  Cardel,  being  appointed 
scribes.  After  their  return  to  the  Convocation 
House,  a  committee  of  seven  ministers  and  four- 
teen ruling  elders  were  chosen  to  consider  of 
-the  business  of  the  province. 

The  ministers  were, 

Rev.  Mr.  Whitaker,  Rev.  Mr.  Spurstow, 

Dr.  Seaman,  Mr.  Tuckney, 

Mr.  Ed.  Calamy,  Mr.  Proffet, 

Rev.  Mr.  Jackson. 

The  ruling  elders  were, 

Sir  Edward  Popham,         Mr.  Houghton, 

Dr.  Clarke,  Mr.  Eyres, 

Dr.  Bastvvicke,  Mr.  Vaughan, 

Dr.  Brinley,  Mr.  Webbe, 

Mr.  Bence,  Mr.  English, 

Mr.  Russel,  Col.  Sowtonstall, 

Mr.  Bains,  Mr. . 

Any  six   to  be  a  quorum,  provided  there  be 
two  ministers  and  four  ruling  elders.     Their 

sends  five,  and  two  elders ;  every  royal  burgh  sends 
one  elder,  and  Edinburgh  two ;  every  university 
sends  one  commissioner,  usually  a  minister.  The 
■General  Assembly  meets  once  a  year,  in  the  month  of 
May,  and  is  opened  and  adjourned  by  the  king's 
.loyal  commissioner  appointed  for  that  purpose." 
*  Vol.  Pamp.,  No.  4. 


next  meeting  to  be  at  Sion  College,  May  6,  at 
two  in  the  afternoon. 

At  the  second  sessions,  it  was  moved  that 
application  be  made  to  Parliament  for  liberty 
to  remove  the  Assembly  from  the  Convocation 
House  to  some  other  place  ;  and,  accordingly, 
tliey  were  allowed  to  adjourn  to  any  place  with- 
in the  city  or  liberties  of  London,  upon  which 
they  agreed  upon  Sion  College,  where  they  con- 
tinued to  meet  twice  a  week  to  the  end  of  the 
year  1659,  as  appears  by  a  manuscript  of  the 
late  Mr.  Grange,  now  in  Sion  College  library. 

Before  the  adjournment  from  the  Convocation 
House  at  St.  Paul's,  they  came  to  the  following 
resolutions  :  Resolved, 

1.  That  the  Provincial  Assembly  shall  meet 
twice  every  week,  Mondays  and  Thursdays. 

2.  That  the  moderator  for  the  time  being 
shall  begin  and  end  every  session  with  prayer. 

3.  When  a  new  moderator  is  to  be  chosen, 
the  senior  minister  shall  preside. 

4.  The  moderator  shall  be  subject  to  the  cen- 
sure of  the  majority  of  the  Assembly,  in  case 
of  complaint,  and  shall  leave  the  chair  while  the 
complaint  is  debating,  and  the  senior  minister 
shall  preside. 

5.  Every  one  that  speaks  shall  direct  his 
speech  to  the  moderator,  and  be  uncovered. 

6.  No  man  shall  speak  above  three  times  to 
the  same  question  at  one  sessions. 

7.  When  any  business  is  before  the  Assembly 
relating  to  any  particular  member,  he  shall  with- 
draw, if  desired  by  the  majority. 

8.  After  the  Assembly  is  set,  no  member  shall 
withdraw  without  leave. 

9.  The  names  of  the  members  present  shall 
be  recorded  by  the  scribes. 

Every  Provincial  Assembly  was  dissolved  in 
course  at  the  end  of  six  months,  when  notice 
was  given  to  the  several  classes  to  return  new 
representatives ;  but  it  was  an  ill  omen  upon 
them,  that  their  meetings  were  interrupted  al- 
most the  whole  summer,  by  reason  of  the  dis- 
traction of  the  times. 

The  second  Provincial  Assembly  met  Novem- 
ber 8,  Dr.  Seaman  moderator,  and  presented  a 
petition  to  the  Parliament  in  a  body,  January 
11,  in  which  they  humbly  pray, 

1.  "  That  the  number  of  delegates  to  the  Pro- 
vincial Assembly  may  be  enlarged,  because  they 
found  it  difficult  sometimes  to  make  up  the 
number  of  thirty-six. 

2.  "  That  the  houses  would  quicken  the  set- 
tlement of  those  classes  [in  London]  that  were 
not  yet  formed,  which  they  say  were  four. 

3.  "  That  some  more  effectual  encouragement 
may  be  provided  for  a  learned  ministry. 

4.  "That  effectual  provision  may  be  made 
against  clandestine  marriages,  for  the  punish- 
ment of  fornication,  adultery,  and  such  unclean- 
ness  as  is  not  fit  to  be  named. 

5.  "  That  church  censures  may  be  so  estab- 
lished that  scandalous  persons  may  be  effectu- 
ally excluded  from  church  communion." 

The  Parliament  received  them  with  respect, 
and  promised  to  take  the  matter  of  the  petition 
into  consideration,  which  was  all  that  was  done 
in  the  affair. 

But,  besides  the  Provincial  Assembly,  it  has 
been  remembered  that  the  London  clergy  had 
their  weekly  meetings  at  Sion  College,  to  con- 
sult about  church  affairs,  in  one  of  which  they 


44 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


agreed,  since  they  could  do  no  more,  to  bear 
their  public  testimony  against  the  errors  of  the 
times ;  and,  accordmgly,  they  published  a  trea- 
tise, entitled  "  A  Testimony  to  the  Truth  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  to  our  solemn  League  and 
Covenant ;  as  also  against  the  Errors,  Heresies, 
and  Blasphemies  of  these  Times,  and  the  Toler- 
ation of  them  ;  to  which  is  added,  a  Catalogue 
of  the  said  Errors,"  &c.,  dated  from  Sion  Col- 
lege, December  14, 1647,  and  subscribed  by  fifty- 
eight  of  the  most  eminent  pastors  in  London, 
of  whom  seventeen  were  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines.  Some  time  after  the  ministers  of 
Gloucestershire  published  their  concurrence 
with  the  London  ministers,  subscribed  by  sixty- 
four  names  ;  the  ministers  of  the  province  of 
Lancashire,  by  eighty-four ;  the  Devonshire  min- 
isters, by  eighty-three  ;  and  the  Somerset  min- 
isters, by  seventy-one. 

The  London  ministers,  in  their  first  article, 
"  touching  matters  of  doctrine,  declare  their  as- 
sent to  the  Westminster  Assembly's  confession 
of  faith,  and  heartily  desire  it  may  receive  the 
sanction  of  authority,  as  the  joint  confession  of 
faith  of  the  three  kingdoms,  in  pursuance  of  the 
Covenant." 

Touching  heresies  and  errors,  they  declare 
their  detestation  and  abhorrence  of  these  fol- 
lowing, among  others  : 

L  "That  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  not  of  Di- 
vine authority,  and  the  only  rule  of  faith.* 

2.  "That  God  hath  a  bodily  shape  ;  that  God 
is  the  name  of  a  person  ;  and  that  God  is  the 
author  of  sin,  having  a  greater  hand  in  it  than 
men  themselves.! 

3.  "  That  there  is  not  a  trinity  of  persons  in 
the  Godhead  ;  that  the  Son  is  not  coequal  with 
the  Father  ;  and  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  only  a 
ministering  spirit. $ 

4.  "  That  God  has  not  elected  some  to  salva- 
tion from  eternity,  and  rejected  or  reprobated 
others ;  and  that  no  man  shall  perish  in  hell 
for  Adam's  sin.i^ 

5.  "  That  Christ  died  for  the  sins  of  all  man- 
kind ;  that  the  benefits  of  his  death  were  in- 
tended for  all ;  and  that  natural  men  may  do 
such  things  as  whereunto  God  has,  by  way  of 
promise,  annexed  grace  and  acceptation.il 

6.  "  That  man  hath  a  free  will  and  power  in 
himself  to  repent,  to  believe,  to  obey  the  Gos- 
pel, and  do  everything  that  God  requires  to  sal- 
vation.IT 

7.  "That  faith  is  not  a  supernatural  grace, 
and  that  faithful  actions  are  the  only  things  by 
which  a  man  is  justified.** 

8.  "That  the  moral  law  is  not  the  rule  of 
life ;  that  believers  are  as  clean  from  sin  as 
Christ  himself;  that  such  have  no  occasion  to 
pray  for  pardon  of  sin  ;  that  God  sees  no  sin  in 
his  people,  nor  does  he  ever  chastise  them  for 
it.tt 

9.  "  That  there  is  no  church,  nor  sacraments, 
nor  Sabbath — the  opinion  of  the  Seekers,  now 
called  Quakers. H 


*  L.  Clarkson,  Biddle,  p.  C. 

+  Crisp,  Eaton,  Saltrnarsh. 

t  Paul  Best,  Biddle,  p.  8. 

{)  Fulness  of  God's  Love  to  Mankind,  by  L.  S. 

II  Hammond's  Pract.  Cat.,  J.  Goodwin,  p.  149. 

ir  J.  Goodwin.  **  Ham. 

t+  Randal,  John  Simpson. 

it  Saltrnarsh,  Smoak  m  the  Temple,  p.  17. 


10.  "  That  the  children  of  believers  ought  not 
to  be  baptized,  nor  baptism  continued  among 
Christians  ;  that  the  meaning  of  the  Third 
Commandment  is,  Thou  shalt  not  forswear 
thyself* 

11.  "  That  persons  of  the  next  kindred  may 
marry  ;  and  that  indisposition,  unfitness,  or  con- 
trariety of  mind,  arising  from  natural  causes, 
are  a  just  reason  of  divorce.! 

12.  "  That  the  soul  of  man  is  mortal ;  that 
it  sleeps  with  the  body  ;  and  that  there  is  nei- 
ther heaven  nor  hell  till  the  day  of  judgment. "f 

The  last  error  they  witness  against,  and  in 
which  all  agree,  is  called  the  "  error  of  tolera- 
tion,^ patronismg  and  promoting  all  other  errors, 
heresies,  and  blasphemies  whatsoever,  under 
the  grossly  abused  notion  of  liberty  of  con- 
science ;"  and  here  they  complain,  as  a  very 
great  grievance,  "  that  men  should  have  hberty 
to  worship  God  in  that  way  and  manner  as 
shall  appear  to  them  most  agreeable  to  the 
Word  of  God  ;  and  no  man  be  punished  or  dis- 
countenanced by  authority  for  the  same  ;  and 
that  an  enforced  uniformity  of  religion  through- 
out a  nation  or  state  confounds  the  civil  and 
religious,  and  denies  the  very  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity and  civility. "II 

They  then  bear  their  testimony  to  the  Cove- 
nant, and  to  the  Divine  right  of  Presbytery. 
They  lament  the  imperfect  settlement  of  their 
discipline  by  the  Parliament,  and  lay  the  found- 
ation of  all  their  calamities  in  the  countenan- 
cing of  a  public  and  general  toleration,  and  con- 
clude thus  :  "  Upon  all  these  considerations,  we, 
the  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ,  do  hereby  testify 
to  our  flocks,  to  all  the  kingdom,  and  to  the  Re- 
formed world,  our  great  dislike  of  prelacy,  Eras- 
tianism,  Brownism,  and  Independency  ;  and  our 
utter  abhorrence  of  anti-Scripturism,  popery,. 
Arianism,  Socinianism,  Arminianism,  Antino- 
mianism,  Anabaptism,  Libertinism,  and  Fara- 
ilism  ;  and  that  we  detest  the  forementioned 
toleration,  so  much  pursued  and  endeavoured  in 
this  kingdom,  accounting  it  unlawful  and  perni- 
cious." What  sad  work  would  these  divines 
have  made,  had  the  sword  of  the  magistrate 
been  at  their  disposal  !ir 

The  principal  authors  from  whom  these  errors 

*  Tombes.  t  Saltrnarsh,  Ham.  Milton,  p.  19. 

t  P.  20,  Man's  Mortality,  by.  R.  O. 

(j)  Mr.  Emlyn  justly  observes,  "  That  the  principle 
of  the  admired  Assembly's  larger  catechism,  under 
the  second  commandment,  is,  that  it  forbids  tolera- 
tion of  all  false  religion." — Emlyn^s  Works,  vol.  i.,p. 
60,  of  the  narrative  edition  of  1746. — En. 

II  Bloody  Tenet.     Five  Holland  Ministers,  p.  22. 

i[  It  deserves  to  be  mentioned  here,  as  a  fact  re- 
markable in  itself,  and  honourable  to  the  Assembly 
at  Westminster,  that,  notwithstanding  the  zeal  ex- 
pressed against  toleration,  the  confession  of  faith  it 
drew  up  was  not  made  the  legal  standard  of  ortho- 
doxy. It  was  not  subscribed  by  any  member  of  that 
Assembly,  except  by  the  prolocutor,  assessors,  and 
clerks.  Nor  till  forty  years  after  was  a  subscription 
or  assent  to  it  required  of  any  layman  or  minister  as  a 
term  of  Christian  communion.  And  Mr.  Nye,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Assembly,  informs  us,  when  the  Scots  com- 
missioners proposed  that  the  answers  in  tlie  shorter 
catechism  should  be  subscribed  by  all  the  members, 
the  motion  was  rejected,  after  a  considerable  num- 
ber in  the  Assembly  had  shown  it  was  an  unwar- 
rantable imposition.  —  Conscientious  Nonconfurmit y , 
printed  for  Noon,  1737,  p.  77.  The  Religious  Estab- 
lishment in  Scotland  Examined,  1771,  p.  104. — En 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


45 


were  collected  are  mentioned  in  the  margin, 
two  of  whom  determined  to  vindicate  the  cita- 
tions out  of  their  books  :  Dr.  Hammond  pub- 
lished a  vindication  of  three  passages  in  his 
Practical  Catechism,  from  the  censures  of  the 
London  ministers  ;  in  which  he  very  justly  com- 
plains of  the  hard  names  with  which  the  minis- 
ters load  the  opinions  they  reject,  as  "  abomina- 
ble errors,  damnable  heresies,  horrid  blasphe- 
mies, many  of  which  are  destructive  of  the 
fundamentals  of  Christianity,  and  all  of  them 
repugnant  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  scandal 
and  offence  of  the  Reformed  churches  abroad, 
and  the  unparalleled  reproach  of  this  Church 
and  nation ;  and,  in  a  word,  the  dregs  and 
spawn  of  those  old  cursed  heresies  which  have 
been  already  condemned."  The  doctor  then 
recites  his  three  passages  :  the  first,  concerning 
universal  redemption  ;  the  second,  concerning 
faith's  being  the  condition  of  our  justification  ; 
and  the  third,  concerning  the  interpretation  of 
the  third  commandment ;  and  avers  them  all  to 
be  true,  and  agreeable  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  of  England.  In  conclusion,  the  doctor 
desires  this  favour,  that  either  the  first  subscri- 
ber, Mr.  J.  Downham,  who  licensed  his  cate- 
chism for  the  press,  or  else  Dr.  Gouge  or  Mr. 
Gataker,  who  are  foremost  in  the  second  rank, 
or  some  other  persons  of  learning,  Ctiristianity, 
and  candour,  would  afford  him  their  patience, 
personally  and  by  fair  discourse,  or  any  other 
Christian  way,  to  debate  the  truth  of  these  as- 
sertions, for  which  he  will  wait  their  leisure. 
Dated  from  Oxford,  January  24,  1647-8,  but  no- 
body thought  fit  to  accept  the  challenge. 

Mr.  John  Goodwin  was  a  learned  divine,  and 
&  smart  disputant,  but  of  a  peculiar  mould,  be- 
ing a  republican,  an  Independent,  and  a  thorough 
Arminian  ;  he  had  been  Vicar  of  Coleman-street, 
whence  he  was  ejected,  in  the  year  1645,  by  the 
committee  for  plundered  ministers,  because  he 
refused  to  baptize  the  children  of  his  parishion- 
ers promiscuously,  and  to  administer  the  sacra- 
ment to  his  whole  parish.  He  had  published 
several  large  and  learned  books  ;  as,  the  Divine 
Authority  of  the  Scriptures  ;  Redemption  Re- 
deemed ;  A  Treatise  of  Justification ;  and  An 
Exposition  of  the  Ninth  Chapter  to  the  Romans, 
out  of  which  the  above-mentioned  exceptions 
were  taken.  This  divine,  takmg  it  amiss  to  be 
marked  for  a  heretic,  challenged  any  of  the  Lon- 
don clergy  to  a  disputation,  as  thinking  it  a  very 
unrighteous  method  to  condemn  opinions  before 
they  had  been  confuted.  Mr.  William  Jenkins, 
at  that  time  a  warm  and  zealous  Presbyterian, 
though  afterward  softened  into  more  catholic 
principles,  entered  the  lists  with  our  author,  in 
a  pamphlet  entitled  "  The  Busy  Bishop."  To 
which  the  other  replied,  in  a  book  entitled  "The 
Novice  Presbyter  Instructed."  By  some  pas- 
sages in  which,  one  may  discover  the  angry 
spirit  of  the  times. 

Mr.  Jenkins  had  complained  that  the  orthodox 
clergy  had  short  commons,  and  were  under  the 
cross,  whereas  the  sectaries  met  with  the  great- 
est encouragement.  To  which  Mr.  Goodwin 
replies,  "  If  by  orthodox  ministers  he  means 
those  of  the  adored  order  of  Presbytery,  with 
what  face  can  he  say  that  they  are  under  the 
cross  ^  Is  not  the  whole  English  element  of 
church-livings  offered  up  by  the  state  to  their 
service  !     Are  not  all  the  benefices  of  the  king- 


dom appropriated  to  their  order?  And  all  oth- 
ers thrust  out  of  doors  to  make  room  for  them "! 
Must  they  feed  with  hecatombs  every  day,  or 
else  complain  of  short  commons  1  Or  is  Mr. 
Jenkins  of  Mar.  Crassus's  mind,  who  would 
have  no  one  accounted  rich  unless  he  could 
maintain  an  army  with  his  revenue  ?  In  what 
sense  can  he  affirm  the  Presbyterian  clergy  to 
be  under  the  cross?  Are  tbey  under  the  cross 
who  are  scarce  under  the  crown  !  who  are  car- 
ried by  authority  upon  eagles'  wings  :  over 
whom  the  Parliament  itself  rejoices  to  do  good  ; 
heaping  ordinance  upon  ordinance  to  advance 
both  them  and  their  livings  together.  But  cer- 
tainly there  is  something  that  Mr.  Jenkins  calls 
a  cross  which  few  men  know  by  that  name,  but 
those  who  are  baptized  into  the  spirit  of  high 
Presbytery  ;  for  the  cross  he  speaks  of  is  no 
other  than  this,  that  his  orthodox  brethren  have 
not  the  power  to  do  all  the  evil  that  is  in  their 
hearts  against  a  quiet,  peaceable,  harmless  gen- 
eration of  men,  of  whom  they  are  jealous,  lest 
they  should  take  their  kingdom  from  them.  How 
can  this  writer  say  that  the  Independent  preach- 
ers meet  with  encouragement,  and  are  under 
worldly  glory?  Does  he  account  it  matter  of 
worldly  glory  to  be  discountenanced  by  the 
State,  to  be  declared  incapable  of  those  favours 
and  privileges  which  other  ministers  in  the  land 
enjoy ;  .to  be  sequestered  from  their  livings,  and 
to  be  thrust  into  holes  and  corners ;  to  be  rep- 
resented, both  to  the  magistrate  and  people,  as 
sectaries,  schismatics,  erroneous,  heretical,  fac- 
tious, troublesome,  dangerous  to  the  State,  and 
what  not  !  If  this  be  worldly  glory,  then  may 
the  preachers  against  whom  Mr.  Jenkins  writes 
be  truly  said  to  be  under  worldly  glory."  Old 
Mr.  Vicars  and  some  others  carried  on  the  con- 
troversy, but  their  writings  are  not  worth  re- 
membering ;  especially  since  the  English  Pres- 
byterians of  the  present  age  have  openly  re- 
nounced and  disavowed  their  principles. 

To  return  to  more  public  affairs.  Hitherto 
the  army  had  acted  in  perfect  subordination 
to  the  Parliament ;  but  the  war  being  over,  and 
the  king  a  prisoner,  the  great  difficulty  was  to 
settle  the  nation  upon  such  a  foot  as  might  con- 
tent the  several  parties,  or  bring  them  at  least 
to  acquiesce ;  this  was  the  rock  upon  which  they 
split,  and  which  in  the  end  proved  the  ruin  of 
their  cause.  To  give  light  to  this  affair,  it  will 
be  proper  to  consider  the  separate  views  of  the 
king,  the  Parliament,  and  the  army. 

The  royal  party  being  broken,  and  the  king  a 
prisoner,  liis  majesty  had  no  prosi)ect  of  recov- 
ering his  throne  but  by  dividing  his  enemies,  in 
order  to  the  making  the  best  terms  with  therj 
he  could  ;  the  Presbyterians  being  in  league, 
with  the  Scots  nation,  were  most  numerous  and 
powerful ;  but  that  which  rendered  their  agree- 
ment with  the  king  impracticable,  was  his  maj- 
esty's zealous  attachment  to  this  point,  that 
Episcopal  government  was  essential  to  Christi- 
anity, and  that  he  was  bound  by  his  coronation 
oath  to  maintain  it  ;  whereas  the  others  held 
themselves  equally  bound  by  their  solemn  League 
and  Covenant  to  abolish  Episcopacy,  and  estab- 
lish Presbytery  in  its  room.  Both  parties  were 
immovable,  and  therefore  irreconcilable.  His 
majesty's  agreement  with  the  army  was  more 
open  and  practicable,  because  they  would  have 
set  aside  the  Covenant,  and  obliged  the  Parlia- 


46 

ment  to  tolerate  Episcopal  government  as  well 
as  the  sectaries  ;  but  the  king  could  never  for- 
give those  officers  who  had  destroyed  his  ar- 
mies, and  driven  him  out  of  the  field  :  though 
he  dreaded  their  military  valour,  he  had  a  very 
mean  opinion  of  their  politics,  and  therefore  af- 
fected to  play  them. against  the  Parliament,  ho- 
ping to  take  advantage  of  their  divisions  and 
establish  himself  upon  the  ruins  of  both  ;  for  it 
was  his  majesty's  maxim,  which  he  did  not 
scruple  to  avow,  that  neither  party  could  sub- 
sist without  him,  and  that  those  must  be  ruined 
whom  he  abandoned.  By  which  unhappy  prin- 
ciple he  lost  his  interest  both  in  the  Parliament 
and  army,  and  (as  Bishop  Kennet  observes)  laid 
the  foundation  of  his  ruin. 

The  Presbyterians  were  no  less  unhappy  in 
an  imagination,  that  as  the  majority  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  with  the  city  of  London,  and  the 
whole  Scots  nation,  were  firmly  attached  to 
their  interest,  no  opposition  could  stand  before 
them,  and  therefore  would  abate  nothing  of 
their  demands,  nor  hearken  to  any  other  terms 
of  accommodation  with  the  king  than  those  of 
the  Covenant,  which  were  the  entire  abohshing 
of  prelacy,  and  the  establishing  Presbyterian 
uniformity  throughout  both  kingdoms,  with  'an 
absolute  extirpation  of  all  sectaries  whatsoever. 
This  was  not  only  an  effectual  bar  to  their  union 
with  the  king  (as  has  been  observed),  but  awa- 
kened the  jealousy  of  the  army,  who  were  thor- 
oughly convinced  that,  when  the  Presbyterians 
were  in  the  legal  possession  of  their  demands, 
they  would  exercise  equal  tyranny  over  the 
consciences  of  men  with  the  bishops  ;  and,  in- 
deed, nothing  less  was  to  be  expected,  consid- 
ering their  steady  adherence  to  the  Covenant  in 
ail  their  treaties,  their  efforts  in  Parliament  to 
get  the  power  of  the  keys  into  their  own  hands, 
their  frequent  addresses  for  the  suppressing  all 
sectaries  by  the  civil  authority,  and  their  dec- 
larations, both  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press, 
against  toleration  and  liberty  of  conscience.  In 
all  their  treaties  with  the  king,  even  to  that  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight  (except  when  the  army  was 
in  possession  of  the  cities  of  London  and  West- 
minster), this  was  one  article  of  peace,  "  That 
an  effectual  course  be  taken  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  all  other  ways  needful  or  expedient, 
for  suppressing  the  opinions  of  the  Independents, 
and  all  other  sectaries."  To  which  his  majes- 
ty had  agreed  in  his  private  treaty  with  the 
Scots  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  signed  December 
27,  so  that  the  army  was  left  unsatisfied. 

For  although  there  were  some  few  Presbyte- 
rians in  the  army,  the  greatest  part  consisted  of 
Independents,  Anabaptists,  and  men  of  unset- 
tled principles  in  religion,  who,  for  want  of  reg- 
ular chaplains  to  their  regiments,  had  used  their 
own  talents  among  themselves  in  religious  ex- 
ercises. The  Scots  treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight 
says  the  army  was  made  up  of  Anti-Trinitari- 
ans, Arians,  Socinians,  Anti-Scripturists,  Ana- 
baptists, Antinomians,  Arminians,  Familists, 
Brownists,  Separatists,  Independents,  Liber- 
tines, Seekers,  &c. 

Mr.  Rapin,  contrary  to  the  testimony  of  all 
other  writers,  calls  them  all  Independents,  and 
represents  the  controversy  between  the  Parlia- 
ment and  them  as  a  dispute.  Whether  Presby- 
tery or  Independency  should  be  uppermost ; 
whereas  the  grand  controversy  was.  Presbytery 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


with  a  toleration,  or  without  one.  The  army 
consented  that  Presbytery  should  be  the  nation- 
al religion,  but  insisted  upon  a  toleration  of  all 
Christians  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  their  civil 
and  religious  rights.  This,  says  Lord  Claren- 
don, was  their  great  charter,  and  till  they  had 
obtained  it  by  a  legal  settlement,  they  agreed 
not  to  lay  down  their  arms  ;  they  had  fought 
the  Parliament's  battles,  and  therefore  thought 
it  unreasonable  to  be  told  openly,  if  they  could 
not  comply  with  the  Presbyterian  settlement, 
they  must  expect  to  be  punished  as  sectaries, 
and  driven  out  of  the  land.  To  avoid  this,  they 
treated  separately  with  the  king,  both  before 
and  after  they  had  him  in  their  hands ;  and 
when  they  apprehended  he  did  not  deal  sincere- 
ly with  them,  they  made  proposals  to  the  Par- 
liament to  establish  the  Presbyterian  discipline, 
with  a  toleration  to  all  Protestants,  without 
him  ;  but  when  they  found  the  Presbyterians, 
even  in  their  last  treaty  with  the  king,  in  the 
year  1648,  insisted  upon  the  Presbyterian  uni- 
formity, without  making  the  least  provision  for 
that  liberty  of  conscience  they  had  been  con- 
tending for,  they  were  exasperated,  and  grew 
outrageous  ;  they  seized  his  majesty's  person  a 
second  time,  and  having  purged  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  a  most  arbitrary  manner,  of  all 
wlio  were  not  disposed  to  their  desperate  meas- 
ures, they  blew  up  the  whole  Constitution,  and 
buried  king.  Parliament,  and  Presbytery  in  its 
ruins.  This  was  not  in  their  original  intention, 
nor  the  result  of  any  set  of  religious  principles 
they  embraced,  as  Rapin  insinuates,  but  was  a 
violence  resulting  from  despair,  to  which  they 
had  been  driven  by  a  series  of  disappointments, 
and  a  train  of  mistaken  conduct  in  the  Royalists 
and  Presbyterians. 

We  left  the  king,  the  beginning  of  the  spring, 
at  his  house  at  Holmby,  where  he  continued 
under  an  easy  restraint  from  the  16th  of  Febru- 
ary to  the  4th  of  June  following.  The  war  be- 
ing ended,  the  houses  attempted  to  get  rid  of 
the  army,  by  offering  six  months'  pay,  and  six 
weeks'  advance  to  as  many  as  would  go  over 
to  Ireland ;  and  by  voting  that  the  remainder 
should  be  disbanded,  with  an  act  of  indemnity 
for  all  hostilities  committed  by  them,  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  powers  vested  in  them  by  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  the  army,  being  apprehensive  that 
the  Presbyterians  would  make  peace  with  the 
king,  upon  the  foot  of  Covenant  uniformity,  and 
without  a  toleration,  resolved  to  secure  this  as 
a  kind  of  preliminary  point ;  for  which  purpose 
they  chose  a  coimcil  of  officers,  and  a  commit' 
tee  of  agitators,  consisting  of  two  inferior  offi- 
cers out  of  each  regiment,  to  manage  their  af- 
fairs ;  these  met  in  distinct  bodies,  like  the  two 
houses  of  Parliament,  and  came  to  the  follow- 
ing resolutions,  which  they  sent  to  Westmins- 
ter by  three  of  their  number,  who  delivered 
them  in  at  the  bar  of  the  House  :  "  That  they 
would  not  disband  without  their  arrears,  nor 
without  full  provision  for  liberty  of  conscience  ; 
that  they  did  not  look  upon  themselves  as  a 
band  of  janizaries,  but  as  volunteers  that  had 
been  fighting  for  the  liberties  of  the  nation,  of 
which  they  were  a  part,  and  that  they  were  re- 
solved to  see  those  ends  secured."*  It  was 
moved  in  the  House  that  the  messengers  might 


*  Rushworlh,  vol.  vi.,  p  485,  498.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,, 
p.  529,  folio  ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


4T 


be  committed  to  the  Tower  ;  but,  after  a  long 
debate,  they  were  dismissed  only  with  a  repri- 
mand for  meddling  in  affairs  of  state,  and  for 
presuming  to  offer  a  petition  to  Parliament 
without  their  general.  Upon  this,  the  officers 
sent  their  petition  by  the  general  himself,  but 
the  Parliament,  instead  of  taking  it  ii^to  consid- 
eration, ordered,  May  21,  that  all  who  would  not 
list  for  the  Irish  service  should  be  immediately 
paid  off  and  disbanded  ;  upon  which,  the  officers, 
seeing  the  snare  that  was  laid  for  them,  bound 
themselves  and  the  army  by  an  engagement, 
May  29,  not  to  disband  till  the  grievances  above 
mentioned  were  redressed.  Whereupon  the 
two  houses  ordered  Lieutenant-general  Crom- 
well, who  was  then  in  town,  and  suspected  to 
be  at  the  head  of  these  counsels,  to  be  seized  ; 
but  being  advertised  of  the  design,  he  made  his 
escape  to  the  army.  They  then  voted  the  pe- 
tition seditious,  and  all  those  traitors  who  had 
promoted  it ;  and  having  sent  a  message  to  the 
general  to  remove  the  army  farther  from  Lun- 
don,  they  raised  the  city  train-bands,  and  deter- 
mined to  put  an  end  to  the  power  of  the  army  by 
a  speedy  conclusion  of  peace  with  the  king. 

His  majesty's  answer  to  the  propositions  at 
Newcastle  were  read  in  the  House,  May  18,  in 
which  "  he  agrees  to  settle  the  Presbyterian 
government  for  three  years — to  ratify  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines  at  Westminster,  proposing  a 
few  of  his  own  clergy  to  consider  what  govern- 
ment to  settle  afterward — he  yields  the  militia 
for  ten  years — desires  ministers  of  his  own  to 
satisfy  him  about  the  Covenant — consents  to  the 
act  against  papists,  and  to  an  act  of  oblivion — 
and  desired  to  come  to  London,  in  order  to  give 
the  Parliament  satisfaction  upon  the  other  arti- 
cles." Two  days  after,  the  Lords  voted  that 
the  king  be  removed  to  his  house  at  Oatlands, 
and  that  it  be  immediately  fitted  for  his  recep- 
tion. 

Things  being  come  to  this  crisis,  the  agita- 
tors considered  that,  the  king  being  the  prize 
contended  for,  whoever  had  him  in  their  power 
must  be  masters  of  the  peace,  and  make  their 
own  terms  ;  they  therefore  resolved,  by  the  ad- 
vice and  direction  of  Lieutenant-general  Crom- 
well, to  get  possession  of  his  majesty's  person, 
■which  they  accomplished  by  a  bold  stratagem, 
in  the  night  of  June  4,  with  very  little  opposi- 
tion from  his  attendants  or  guards  ;  Cornet 
Joyce,  at  the  head  of  fifty  resolute  horse,  hav- 
ing secured  the  avenues  to  Holmby  House,  en- 
tered with  two  or  three  of  his  company,  and 
going  to  the  king's  chamber,  acquainted  him 
with  his  design  of  carrying  him  to  the  army  at 
Newmarket ;  his  majesty,  being  surprised  at  so 
unexpected  a  visit,  and  so  late  at  night,  asked 
for  his  commission,  who  pointed  to  his  troops 
drawn  up  before  the  gates  ;  his  majesty  an- 
swered, it  was  very  legible ;  and  finding  it  in 
vain  to  resist,  consented  to  go  with  the  cornet 
next  morning,*  on  promise  of  safety  to  his  per- 
son, and  that  he  should  not  be  forced  to  any- 
thing against  his  conscience  ;  the  chief  officers 
of  the  army  met  his  majesty  at  Childerley,  four 
miles  from  Cambridge,  and  were  admitted  to 

*  He  was  attended  in  the  same  coach  by  three  of 
the  commissioners,  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Den- 
bigh and  Lord  Montague,  the  rest  on  horseback,  and, 
according  to  Herbert,  who  was  present,  the  king  was 
the  merriest  person  of  the  party. — Herbert,  p.  26. — C. 


kiss  his  hand  ;  from  thence  he  was  removed  to 
Newmarket,  where  he  took  the  diversion  of  the 
heath,  had  the  liberty  of  four  of  his  own  chap- 
lains to  wait  upon  him,  and  was  attended  with 
all  due  ceremony  and  respect ;  Cromwell  being 
heard  to  say  among  his  friend's,  that  "  now  he 
had  got  the  king  into  his  hands,  he  had  the  Par- 
liament in  his  pocket."* 

The  two  houses  received  the  news  of  the 
king's  being  carried  off  to  the  army  with  the 
utmost  surprise  and  astonishment  ;  the  whole- 
city  was  in  confusion,  and  all  persons  within 
the  lines  of  communication  ordered  to  arras ; 
the  lobby  at  Westminster  was  thronged  with 
the  disbanded  officers  of  the  Earl  of  Essex's 
army  offering  their  service  to  the  Parliament, 
for  every  one  imagined  the  army  would  be  at 
the  gates  of  the  city  in  a  few  hours  ;  when  their 
panic  was  a  little  abated,  commissioners  were 
sent  to  the  general,  not  to  advance  within  forty 
miles  of  London  ;  but  being  already  at  St.  Al- 
ban's,  the  general  promised  not  to  march  his 
army  nearer  without  due  notice,!  and  assured, 
the  two  houses  that  they  would  not  oppose  the 
Presbyterial  government,  nor  set  up  the  Inde- 
pendent ;  but  only  insisted  that  some  effectual 
course  might  be  taken  that  such  who,  upon 
conscientious  grounds,  differed  from  the  estab- 
lishment, might  not  be  debarred  from  the  com- 
mon rights,  liberties,  or  benefits  belonging  equal- 
ly to  all,  while  they  lived  soberly  and  inoffen- 
sively towards  others,  and  peaceably  and  faith- 
fully towards  the  state. t  June  10,  another  let- 
ter was  sent  to  the  lord-mayor,  aldermen,  and 
common  council  of  London,  signed  by  Fairfax,^ 
Cromwell,  and  twelve  other  officers,  assuring 
them  "they  intended  no  alteration  of  the  civil 
government ;  nor  to  interrupt  the  settlement  of 
presbytery  ;  nor  to  introduce  a  licentious  liber- 
ty, under  colour  of  obtaining  ease  for  tender 
consciences,  but  that,  when  the  state  had  made 
a  settlement,  they  would  submit  or  suffer.  They 
wished  that  every  peaceable  subject  might  have 
liberty  and  encouragement,  for  the  obtaining 
which,"  say  they,  "we  are  drawing  near  the 
city.  We  seek  the  good  of  all,  and  shall  wait 
for  a  time  to  see  if  these  things  may  be  settled 
without  us,  and  then  we  will  embark  for  Ire- 
land."II 

The  Commons  took  no  notice  of  these  remon- 
strances, but  declared,  in  print,  that  his  majesty 
was  a  prisoner,  and  barbarously  used,  because 
their  commissioners  could  have  no  access  ta 
him  but  in  the  presence  of  some  officers  ;  the 
army  replied,  "  that  all  suggestions  of  that  na- 


*  Rushworth,  p.  545,  549.  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  530» 
folio  ed.     Echard,  vol.  ii.,  p.  575.— C. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  546,  561,  589,  &c. 

t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  379,  531. 

^  Fairfax  was  ignorant  of  the  design  to  seize  the 
king.  On  being  informed  of  it,  he  sent  Col.  Whalley, 
with  two  regiments  of  horse,  to  recover  him  from  the 
custody  of  Joyce,  and  to  bring  him  back  to  Holmby, 
but  the  king  positively  refused  to  return.  He  was 
glad  to  escape  I'rom  the  strict  vigilance  of  the  parlia- 
mentary commissioners,  and  hoped  to  profit  by  the 
distractions  of  his  enemies.  The  general  summoned 
a  council  of  war,  "  to  proceed  against  Joyce  for  this 
high  offence  and  breach  of  the  articles  of  war ;  but 
the  officers,"  he  tells  us,  "whether  for  fear  of  the 
distempered  soldiers,  or,  rather  (as  I  suspected),  a  se- 
cret allowance  of  what  was  done,  made  all  my  efforts 
ineffectual." — Fair/ax's  Memoirs,  Musere\^  Tracts,  vol. 
ii.,  417,  488.— C.  II  Rushworth,  p.  554. 


48 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


ture  were  absolutely  false,  and  contrary  to  their 
principles,  which  are  most  clearly  for  a  general 
right  and  just  freedom  to  all  men,  and  therefore 
upon  this  occasion  ihey  declare  to  the  world, 
that  they  desire  the  same  for  the  king,  and  oth- 
ers of  his  party,  so  far  as  can  consist  with  com- 
mon right  and  freedom,  and  with  the  security 
of  the  same  for  the  future.  And  we  do  clearly 
profess,"  say  they,  "  that  we  do  not  see  how 
there  can  be  any  peace  to  this  kindom  firm  or 
lasting,  without  a  due  provision  for  the  rights, 
quiet,  and  immunity  of  his  majesty,  his  royal 
family,  and  his  late  partakers  ;  and  herein  we 
think,  that  tender  and  equitable  dealings  (as 
supposing  their  cases  had  been  ours),  and  a 
spirit  of  common  love  and  justice  diffusing  it- 
self to  the  good  and  preservation  of  all,  will 
make  the  most  glorious  conquest  over  their 
hearts,  to  make  them,  and  the  whole  people  of 
the  land,  lasting  friends."* 

The  leading  members  of  the  Presbyterian  par- 
ty in  the  House  of  Commons  could  not  contain 
themselves  within  any  reasonable  bounds  at 
these  proceedings  ;  they  said  it  was  insuffera- 
ble that  the  Parliament,  instead  of  treating  with 
the  king,  should  be  obliged  to  treat  with  their 
own  servants,  and  therefore  advised  raising  a 
new  army,  and  opposing  force  with  force,  till 
those  who  had  the  king  in  their  custody  should 
submit  to  their  superiors,  and  deliver  him  back. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  officers  and  agitators 
resolved  to  get  rid  of  these  resolute  gentlemen, 
and  therefore  impeached  eleven  of  the  members 
of  high  treason,  June  16,  for  obstructing  the 
business  of  Ireland  ;  for  acting  against  the  army 
and  against  the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  sub- 
ject, &.C.,  and  desired  they  might  be  suspended 
from  the  House  till  they  were  legally  acquitted  ;t 
their  names  were  Denzil  Hollis,  Esq.,  Sir  Phil. 
Stapleton,  Sir  William  Lewis,  Sir  John  Clotwor- 
thy.  Sir  William  Waller,  Sir  John  Maynard,  Ma- 
jor-general Massey,  Mr.  Glyn,  recorder,  Colonel 
W^alter  Long,  Colonel  Edward  Hartley,  Anthony 
Nichols,  Esq.  The  Commons  not  only  rejected 
their  impeachment,  but  ordered  the  king  to  be 
brought  to  Richmond,  and  that  four  full  com- 
panies of  the  militia  should  guard  the  two  hous- 
es. This  quickened  the  resentments  of  the 
army,  who  sent  the  following  proposals,  among 
others,  June  23  :  "  That  the  king's  coming  to 
Richmond  be  suspended  ;  that  no  place  be  ap- 
pointed for  his  residence  nearer  London  than 
the  Parliament  will  allow  the  quarters  of  the 
army  ;  that  the  impeached  members  be  seques- 
tered the  Plouse  ;  that  the  multitude  of  soldiers 
that  flock  together  about  the  city  be  dispersed  ; 
a-nd  that  no  new  forces  be  raised,  nor  any  prep- 
arations made  for  a  new  war."t  If  these  par- 
ticulars are  not  complied  with  in  a  week's  time, 
they  declare  they  will  march  to  London,  and  do 
themselves  justice.  The  houses,  being  terrified 
with  the  approach  of  the  army,  agreed  to  con- 
tent them  for  the  present,  in  order  to  gain 
time  ;  and  the  impeached  members  having  de- 
sired leave  to  withdraw,  retired  first  into  the 
city,  and  after  some  time  left  the  kingdom.  The 
other  requests  of  the  army  were  also  complied 
with  ;  whereupon,  after  returning  thanks  to  the 
houses,  they  retreated  to  Wiokham,  and  ap- 

*  Rushworth,  p.  589,  590. 

+  Ibid.,  p.  570,  572.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  531. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  585. 


pointed  commissioners  to  settle  all  remaining 
differences  with  the  Parliament.* 

But  the  city  of  London,  by  the  influence  of 
the  impeached  members,  kindled  into  a  flame  -. 
for  the  Parliament,  by  an  ordinance  of  May  4, 
having  put  the  nomination  of  the  officers  of  the 
militia  into  the  hands  of  the  common  council, 
these  had  tlischarged  the  old  ones,  and  put  in 
such  Eis  they  could  confide  in  for  opposing  the 
army,  and  establishing  uniformity  according  to 
the  Covenant ;  the  officers,  in  order  to  defeat 
their  design,  insisted  that  the  ordinance  of  May 
4  be  repealed,  and  the  militia  put  into  the  hands 
of  those  who  had  conducted  it  during  the  course 
of  the  late  war.t  The  houses,  with  much  re- 
luctance, consented  to  the  repeal  July  23,  which 
alarmed  the  citizens,  and  occasioned  those  tu- 
mults which  brought  upon  them  the  very  mis- 
chiefs they  were  afraid  of  Denzil  Hollis,  with 
the  other  impeached  members  who  were  retired 
into  the  city,  prevailed  with  the  common  coun- 
cil to  oppose  the  repeal,  and  petition  the  House 
that  the  ordinance  of  May  4  might  remain  in  full 
force.  At  the  same  time  some  citizens  met  at 
Skinner's  Hall,  and  subscribed  a  solemn  engage- 
ment to  endeavour,  with  the  hazard  of  their 
lives,  to  procure  a  "  personal  treaty  with  the 
king  ;  that  he  might  return  to  his  two  houses 
with  honour  and  safety ;  that  his  majesty's  con- 
cessions of  May  11  might  be  confirmed,  and  the 
militia  continue  in  the  hands  of  the  present 
committee. "t  How  vam  was  all  this  bustle, 
when  they  knew  the  king  was  in  the  custody  of 
those  who  would  pay  no  regard  to  their  de- 
mands !  The  houses,  indeed,  forbade  the  sign- 
ing of  the  engagement  by  sound  of  trumpet ; 
but  such  was  the  misguided  zeal  of  the  citizens, 
that  they  held  assemblies,  enlisted  soldiers,  and 
gave  them  orders  to  be  ready  on  the  first  notice. 

The  Parliament  was  now  in  great  perplexity, 
considering  the  impossibility  of  contenting  the 
Presbyterians  and  the  army  at  the  same  time; 
while  the  citizens,  resolved  to  carry  their  point 
by  one  method  or  another,  went  up  to  West- 
minster July  26,  with  such  a  number  of  appren- 
tices and  young  men,  as  terrified  the  houses  by 
their  tumultuous  and  insolent  behaviour ;  for 
they  would  scarce  suffer  the  door  to  be  shut ; 
some  thrust  themselves  into  the  House  with 
their  hats  on,  crying  out,  Vote,  vote  ;  and  when 
the  speaker  would  have  left  the  chair  to  put  an 
end  to  the  confusion,  they  obliged  him  to  re- 
turn, till  the  militia  was  settled  to  their  mind, 
and  the  king  voted  to  come  to  London.^  This, 
says  Mr.  Baxter,  looked  like  a  force  upon  the 
Parliament ;  and,  indeed,  both  houses  were  so 
terrified  and  pressed  between  the  city  Presby- 
terians on  one  side,  and  the  army  on  the  other, 
that  they  adjourned  immediately  from  Monday 
to  Friday,  in  which  interval  the  Earl  of  Man- 
chester, speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords,  with 
eight  peers  and  the  speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  with  about  a  hundred  members, Ii 
withdrew  privately  from  the  city,  and  joined  the 
army  ;  a  surprising  event  in  their  favour  !  The 
officers  received  them  with  the  utmost  satisfac- 


*  Whitelocke,  p.  264.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  532. 
+  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  533. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  637.     Rapin,  vol.  ii,,  p.  533,  534. 
<j  Rushworth,  p.  642.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  534. 
II  Dr.  Zach.  Grey  says  there  were  but  fifty-nine, 
but  I  do  not  know  his  authority. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


49 


tion  and  transport,  paying  them  all  imaginable 
honours,  and  assuring  them  that  they  would  re- 
establish them  in  their  full  power,  or  die  in  the 
attempt.  There  must  surely  have  been  some 
very  pressing  reasons  for  this  conduct,*  other- 
wise so  many  zealous  Presbyterians,  as  were 
most  of  the  members  who  quitted  the  Parlia- 
ment House,  would  not  have  had  recourse  to 
the  protection  of  the  army.  Lord  Clarendon 
believes  that  they  apprehended  the  army  design- 
ed to  restore  the  king  to  ail  his  rights  at  this 
time,  and  that  they  were  willing  to  avoid  his 
majesty's  vengeance,  by  concurring  with  them 
in  his  restoration,  which  is  not  unlikely,  if  they 
could  have  brought  him  to  their  terms. 

However,  the  Presbyterian  members  that  re- 
mained in  London  assembled  on  Friday  accord- 
ing to  adjournment,  and  having  chosen  a  new 
speaker,  voted  that  the  king  should  come  to 
London  ;  that  the  eleven  impeached  members 
should  be  restored  ;  that  a  committee  of  safety 
should  join  the  city  militia ;  and  that  forces 
should  be  immediately  raised  under  the  com- 
mand of  Waller,  Massey,  and  Poyntz ;  in  all 
which  they  appeared  so  resolute,  that  no  man 
could  imagine  but  either  that  they  had  the  king 
at  their  disposal,  or  intended  a  brave  and  val- 
iant defence  of  the  cityt  The  common  coun- 
cil gave  orders  for  the  trained-bands  to  repair 
to  the  works,  and  for  all  capable  of  bearing 
arms  to  appear  at  the  places  of  rendezvous. 
Massey,  Waller,  and  Poyntz  were  also  busy  in 
forming  regiments  and  companies ;  and  the 
committee  of  the  militia  were  empowered  to 
punish  such  as  did  not  repair  to  their  colours. 
At  the  same  time,  they  wrote  to  their  brethren 
in  Scotland  to  return  with  their  army  immedi- 
ately to  their  assistance  ;  but,  alas  !  they  were, 
at  too  great  a  distance  ;  however,  they  pub- 
lished a  declaration  in  the  name  of  the  Kirk 
and  whole  kingdom,  August  13,  wherein  they 
engage,  by  a  solemn  oath,  to  establish  the 
Presbyterian  government  in  England ;  to  re- 
deem his  majesty  out  of  the  hands  of  schismat- 
ics, and  place  him  at  the  head  of  his  Parlia- 
ment with  honour ;  to  vindicate  the  honour  of 
the  eleven  impeached  members,  and  to  settle 
the  privileges  of  Parliament  against  the  over- 


*  Rapin,  as  well  as  Mr.  Neal,  expresses  his  sur- 
prise at  this  secession  of  these  members  of  Parlia- 
•inent :  he  supposes  that  it  proceeded  from  a  disap- 
probation of  the  measures  pursued  by  their  brethren 
and  the  Common  Council  of  London,  and  from  an 
apprehension  that  they  would  be  infallibly  oppressed 
by  the  army.  By  joining  the  army,  they  sought  their 
security  from  the  ruin  which  threatened  their  own 
party  ;  and,  says  Mr.  Hume,  "  paid  their  court  in  time 
to  that  authority  which  began  to  predominate  in  the 
nation."  What  Whitelocke  reports  concerning  the 
reason  which  the  Earls  of  Warwick,  Manchester, 
&c.,  assigned  for  their  conduct,  appears  to  have  esca- 
ped the  attention  of  these  writers.  He  says  that  Ihey 
sent  to  the  general  to  acquaint  him  "  that  they  had 
quitted  the  Parliament,  for  that  there  was  no  free- 
sitting  for  them,  and  they  cast  themselves  into  his 
protection." — Memorials,  p.  2G5.  Dr.  Grey,  in  his 
Appendi.x,  No.  72,  has  confirmed  this  account  of  the 
matter,  by  giving  at  length  their  letter  to  Sir  Thom- 
as Fairfax,  signed  by  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Lords  and  eight  peers,  and  by  the  speaker  and  fifty- 
eight  of  the  Commons.  Mr.  Neal,  and  since  him 
Mrs.  Macaulay,  says  a  hundred  Commoners  seceded. 
All,  probably,  did  not  sign  the  letter.  Dr.  Grey  is 
rather  severe  here  upon  our  author. — Ed. 

t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  399,  534.     Rushworth,  p.  737. 

Vol.  II.— G 


awing  power  of  the  army.  A  little  after  they 
declared  against  toleration  and  liberty  of  con- 
science, resolving  to  the  last  man  to  stand  by 
the  Covenant,  whatever  the  English  Parliament 
might  subinit  to. 

Pursuant  to  the  order  of  the  twe  houses,  the 
general  had  removed  his  headquarters  above 
forty  miles  from  the  city,  till,  upon  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  members  who  fled  to  them  for 
protection  from  the  outrageous  violence  of  the 
city  mob,  they  resolved  to  push  their  advantage, 
and  bring  the  mutineers  to  justice  ;  according- 
ly, they  resolved  to  march  to  London,  and  ren- 
dezvous the  whole  army  on  Hounslow  Heath, 
August  3,  to  the  number  of  twenty  thousand 
men,  with  a  suitable  train  of  artillery,  accompa- 
nied with  fourteen  peers,  and  about  one  hun- 
dred members  of  the  House  of  Commons.* 
The  citizens  were  no  sooner  informed  of  this, 
than  their  courage  sunk  at  once,  and,  instead 
of  defending  the  city,  they  ordered  the  militia 
to  retire  from  the  lines,  and  sent  their  submis- 
sion to  the  general,  promising  to  open  their 
passes,  and  give  all  assistance  to  the  replacing 
of  those  Ihembers  who  had  withdrawn  to  the 
army.  August  6,  being  appointed  for  this  ser- 
vice, the  mayor  and  aldermen  met  the  general 
at  Hyde  Park  with  a  present  of  a  gold  cup,  be- 
seeching him  to  excuse  what  had  been  amiss  ; 
but  his  excellency  refused  the  present,  and  hav- 
ing dismissed  them  with  very  little  ceremony, 
conducted  the  members  to  their  seats  in  Parlia- 
ment, who  immediately  voted  all  proceedings 
in  their  absence  void,  and  gave  thanks  to  the 
army  for  their  safe-conduct. t  Next  day  the 
army  marched  through  the  city  without  any 
disorder,  and  constituted  Colonel  Titchburn  lieu- 
tenant of  the  Tower,  contrary  lo  the  request  of 
the  lord-mayor  and  citizens ;  the  militia  was 
changed,  and  put  into  the  hands  of  the  old  offi- 
cers who  had  conducted  it  before ;  the  fortifi- 
cations and  lines  of  circumvallation  about  the 
city  were  levelled,  and  sundry  peers,  who  had 
been  at  the  head  of  the  late  tumults,  M'ere  im- 
peached of  high  treason,  as  the  Earl  of  Suffolk, 
Middlesex,  Lincoln,  Lord  Willoughby  of  Par- 
ham,  Hudson,  &c.  ;  the  lord-mayor  and  some 
of  the  principal  citizens  were  sent  to  the  Tow- 
er ;  and  it  was  resolved  to  purge  the  House  of 
all  who  had  been  active  in  the  late  unhappy 
riot ;  which  put  a  full  period  to  the  Presbyteri- 
an power  for  the  present ;  and  the  army  being 
quartered  near  the  city  all  the  next  winter,  there 
was  a  council  of  officers  at  their  headquarters 
at  Putney,  whose  debates  and  resolutions  had, 
no  doubt,  a  very  powerful  influence  upon  the 
resolutions  of  the  two  houses. 

The  odium  of  this  grand  revolution,  by  which 
the  army  became  masters  of  the  city  of  London, 
and  of  the  Parliament  itself,  fell  chiefly  on  the 
Presbyterians  themselves,  whose  intemperate 
zeal  for  Covenant  uniformity  carried  them  to 
very  impolitic  excesses.  The  sermons  of  their 
ministers  were  filled  with  invective  against  the 
army  while  at  a  distance  ;  in  their  public  prayers 
they  entreated  the  Almighty  to  incline  the  hearts 
of  the  Scots  to  return  to  their  relief;  and  the 
conversation  of  their  people  was  riotous  and  dis- 
orderly ;  however,  lest  the  weight  of  this  rev- 
olution should  fall  too  heavily  on  the  London 


*  Rushworth,  p.  745,  750.      t  Ibid.,  p.  751,  756. 


50 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


ministers,*  as  the  chief  incendiaries  of  the  peo- 
ple, they  wisely  prepared  a  vindication  of  them- 
selves, and  published  it  four  days  before  the 
army  entered  the  city  ;  it  was  dated  from  Sion 
College,  August  2,  1647,  and  is  to  this  purpose  : 
"  We,  the  jiiinisters  of  London,  whose  names 
are  subscribed,  do  profess,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Searcher  of  all  hearts, 

1.  "  That  we  have  never  done  anything  pur- 
posely and  wittingly  to  engage  the  city  against 
the  army,  or  the  army  against  the  city,  but  have 
smcerely  and  faithfully  endeavoured  to  prevent 
it. 

2.  "  That  seeing  both  the  Parliament  and  city 
have  declared  the  necessity  of  putting  the  city 
into  a  present  posture  of  defence,  yet  protest- 
ing against  any  desires  of  a  new  war,  and  there- 
upon have  called  upon  us  to  stir  up  the  people 
to  prepare  for  their  defence  ;  we  accordingly 
have  done  and  shall  do  our  duty  therein,  that 
the  people  may  be  encouraged  to  their  own  just 
and  necessary  preservation. 

3.  "  But  withal,  we  profess  our  abhorrence  of 
the  shedding  any  blood  on  either  side  ;  and  we 
humbly  pray  all  whom  it  may  concern,  that  they 
will  be  very  careful  in  preventing  it  by  a  season- 
able treaty." 

Signed  by  about  twenty  of  the  London  min- 
isters, and  presented  to  a  committee  of  both 
houses,  sitting  at  Guildhall. 

Let  the  reader  now  pause  a  little,  and  judge 
of  the  authors  of  this  grand  revolution,  which 
brought  the  Parliament  under  the  power  of  the 
army,  and  how  far  the  Presbyterian  ministers 
were  concerned  in  it.  Mr.  Baxter,  in  a  very 
angry  style,  lays  all  the  blame  at  the  door  of  the 
Independents.  "  A  few  dissenting  members  of 
the  Westminster  Synod,"  says  he,  "  began  all 
this,  and  carried  it  far  on.  Afterward  they  in- 
creased, and  others  joined  them,  who,  partly  by 
stiffness,  and  partly  by  policy,  increased  our 
flames,  and  kept  open  our  wounds,  as  if  there 
had  been  none  but  they  considerable  in  the 
world  ;  and  having  an  army,  and  city  agents  fit 
to  second  them,  effectually  hindered  all  remedy, 
till  they  had  dashed  all  into  pieces  as  a  broken 
glass.  One  would  have  thought  that,  if  all  their 
opmions  had  been  certainly  true,  and  their 
church  order  good,  yet  the  interests  of  Christ 
and  the  souls  of  men,  and  of  greater  truths, 
should  have  been  so  regarded  by  the  dividers  in 
England,  as  that  the  safety  of  all  these  should 
have  been  preferred,  and  not  all  ruined,  rather 
than  their  way  should  want  its  carnal  arm  and 
liberty  ;  and  that  they  should  not  tear  the  gov- 
ernment of  Christ  all  to  pieces  rather  than  it 
should  want  their  lace."t  I  am  far  from  clear- 
ing the  Independents  from  all  manner  of  blame 
in  their  conduct ;  their  principles  might  be  too 
narrow  and  mistaken  in  some  points,  and  their 
zeal  for  Christian  liberty  betray  them  into  some 
imprudences.  But  on  which  side  was  the  stiff- 
ness 1  on  theirs  who  only  desired  a  peaceable 
toleration  ;  or  on  theirs  who  were  determined 
to  make  the  whole  nation  stoop  to  Presbyterian 
uniformity  1  Were  not  these  the  men  who  kept 
open  the  Church's  wounds'!  Had  their  disci- 
pline been  ever  so  good,  yet  certainly  they  might 


have  had  some  regard  to  men  of  piety  and  vip 

tue,  who  had  not  equal  discernment  with  them- 
selves ;  could  they  nut  be  content  with  being  the 
established  religion,  and  having  most  of  the  liv- 
ings of  the  kingdom  divided  among  them,  with- 
out trampling  on  the  religious  rights  of  mankind,- 
by  enforcing  an  absolute  uniformity,  which  can- 
never  be  maintained  but  on  the  ruins  of  a  good 
conscience,  and,  therefore,  is  no  means  of  pro- 
moting the  true  interest  of  Christ  and  salvation 
of  souls  1  Mr.  Baxter  had  milder  sentiments 
in  his  latter  days  ;  and  it  is  for  the  honour  of 
the  present  generation  of  those  commonly  call- 
ed Presbyterians,  that  they  have  not  only  aban- 
doned and  renounced  these  servile  doctrines,* 
but  have  appeared  in  defence  of  the  civil  and 
religious  liberties  of  mankind,  upon  the  most 
solid  and  generous  principles. 

His  majesty  was  obliged,  all  this  time,  to  at- 
tend the  removes  of  the  army  :  from  Newmar- 
ket he  came  to  Royston,  June  24  ;  from  thence 
to  Hatfield  ;  from  thence  to  Windsor,  and  two 
days  after  to  Caversham,  where  he  had  the 
pleasure  of  conversing  with  his  children.  But 
when  the  city  of  London  threatened  a  new 
war,  his  majesty  was  removed  to  a  greater  dis- 
tance ;  about  the  middle  of  July  he  was  at 
Maidenhead  ;  and  towards  the  end  of  the  month 
at  Latimer's,  in  Buckinghamshire;  when  the 
army  had  got  possession  of  the  city  they  brought 
his  majesty  back  to  Oatlands,  August  14,  and 
two  days  after  to  Hampton  Court,  where  he 
appeared  in  state  and  splendour  about  three 
months,  being  attended  by  the  proper  officers 
of  the  court,  and  a  vast  resort  of  people  both 
from  city  and  country. 

While  the  king  was  with  the  army,  Lieuten- 


■*  The  Assembly  of  Divines  also.  Dr.  Grey  informs 
us,  presented  a  petition  for  peace,  which  he  has  pre- 
served, from  the  MtiS.  of  Dr.  Williams,  No.  74  of  his 
Appendix. — Ed.  t  Abridg.,  p.  97. 


*  "  To  know  whether  the  Presbyterians  have  in- 
deed abandoned  their  persecuting  principles,"  says 
Bishop  Warburton,  "  we  should  see  them  under  an 
establishment.  It  is  no  wonder  that  a  tolerated  sect 
should  espouse  those  principles  of  Christian  liberty 
which  support  their  toleration.  Now  the  Scottish 
Presbyterians  are  established,  and  we  find  they  still 
adhere  to  the  old  principle  of  intolerance."  His  lord- 
ship's reflections  are  too  well  founded  in  fact  and  ex- 
perience. The  recent  persecution  of  Dr.  M'Gill  for 
his  valuable  and  guarded  Essay  on  the  Death  of 
Christ,  may  be  adduced  as  a  new  proof  of  the  intol- 
erance of  Scotch  Presbyterianism.  But,  strictly 
speaking,  Presbyterianism  hath  no  existence  among 
the  English  Dissenters,  who  form  so  many  independ- 
ent societies.  The  name  is,  indeed,  applied  to  one 
part  of  them  ;  but  they  are  invested  with  no  power 
but  what  arises  from  the  management  of  a  fund  for 
the  assistance  of  small  congregations.  This  they 
are  known  to  direct  on  a  truly  liberal  plan,  without 
demanding  subscription  to  any  articles,  or  making 
any  inquisition  into  the  sentiments,  on  doctrine  or 
discipline,  of  the  ministers  or  churches  to  whom  they 
grant  exhibitions.  And  the  writings  of  those  who 
have  been  called  Presbyterians,  the  bishop  could  not 
but  know,  were  most  able  vindications  of  the  princi- 
ples of  liberty.  In  this  cause  did  a  Browne,  an  Ev- 
ans, a  Grosvenor,  a  Chandler,  and  many  others,  argue 
and  plead.  His  lordship's  argument,  I  would  add, 
applies  to  an  extent  to  which  it  is  conceived  he  did 
not  wish  to  have  it  carried  ;  it  more  than  implies, 
that  toleration  and  an  establishment  are  incompati- 
ble ;  that  when  once  the  tolerated  are  possessed  of 
power,  they  of  course  become  intolerant.  If  so,  an 
establishment  cannot  exist  without  being  inimical  to 
the  interests  of  truth  and  the  rights  of  conscience. 
Could  a  severer  reflection  be  passed  on  establish- 
ments than  is  here  conveyed  by  an  Episcopal  pen .' 
—Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


51. 


ant-genefal  Cromwell  and  Ireton  took  sundry 
opportunities  to  confer  with  his  majesty  pri- 
vately about  his  restoration.  They  offered  to 
set  him  upon  the  throne  with  the  freedom  of  his 
conscience  upon  the  point  of  Episcopacy,  or 
lose  their  lives  in  the  attempt,  if  he  would  con- 
sent to  their  proposals  to  the  Parliament,  and 
bestow  some  particular  preferments  on  them- 
selves and  a  few  of  their  friends,  wishing  that 
God  would  deal  with  them  and  their  families 
according  to  their  sincerity.*  Nay,  they  en- 
gaged to  indemnify  his  whole  party  if  they 
would  be  quiet. t  Sir  J.  Berkley,  the  king's 
agent,  entreated  his  majesty  in  the  most  im- 
portunate and  submissive  manner,  considering 
the  state  of  his  affairs,  to  accept  of  the  said 
proposals  ;  but  the  king  treated  them  with  a 
haughty  reserve,  and  said,  if  they  intended  an 
accommodation,  they  would  not  impose  such 
conditions  upon  him.  Sir  J.  Berkley  said,  he 
should  suspect  they  designed  to  abuse  him  if 
they  had  demanded  less ;  and  that  a  crown  so 
near  lost  was  never  recovered  on  easier  terms. 
But  Mr.  Ashburnham,  who  came  with  instruc- 
tions from  France,  fell  in  with  the  king's  hu- 
mour, and  encouraged  him  to  stand  his  ground, 
relying  upon  an  ill-judged  maxim  which  his 
majesty  had  imbibed,  and  which  his  best  friends 
could  not  make  him  depart  from,  viz.,  that  it 
was  in  his  power  to  turn  the  scale,  and  that  the 
party  must  sink  which  he  abandoned.!  This 
sealed  his  ruin,  and  made  him  play  between 
both,  till  neither  would  trust  him.  When  the 
Parliament  brought  their  propositions,  he  put 
them  in  mind  of  the  offers  of  the  army  ;  and 
when  the  proposals  of  the  latter  were  tendered 
in  the  most  respectful  manner,  he  put  on  a 
frown,  and  said,  "  I  shall  see  you  glad,  ere  long, 
to  accept  more  equal  terms  ;  you  cannot  be 
without  me  ;  you  will  fall  to  ruin  if  I  do  not 
sustain  you  ;  no  man  shall  suffer  for  my  sake  ; 
the  Church  must  be  established  according  to 
law."  The  officers  were  confounded  at  this 
language.  "  Sir,"  says  Sir  J.  Berkley,  "  you 
speak  as  if  you  had  some  secret  strength,  which, 
since  you  have  concealed  from  me,  I  wish  you 
had  concealed  from  these  men."ij  After  divers 
conferences  of  this  kind  to  no  purpose,  Crom- 
well told  him  plainly,  "  Sir,  we  perceive  you 
have  a  design  to  be  arbitrator  between  the  Par- 
liament and  us  ;  but  we  now  design  to  be  the 
same  between  your  majesty  and  the  Parlia- 
ment." This  fluctuating  temper  (says  Bishop 
Kennet)  was  the  king's  ruin,  which  he  repented 
of  when  it  was  too  late.  Mr.  Whitelocke  says, 
the  king's  Inshops  persuaded  him  against  what 
he  was  inclined  to  in  his  own  judgment,  and 
thereby  ruined  him  and  themselves.il 

When  the  officers  found  they  could  make  no 
impression  on  the  king,  and  had  discovered  his 
secret  correspondence  with  the  queen,  they 
withdrew  from  court,  which  raised  suspicions 
in  his  majesty's  mind  of  a  secret  design  against 
his  life,  and  put  him  on  attempting  to  escape 


*  Dr.  Grey  fills,  here,  four  pages  with  authorities 
to  prove  the  insincerity  and  hypocrisy  of  Cromwell 
and  Ireton  ;  by  which  nothing  that  Mr.  Neal  had  ad- 
vanced above  IS  invalidated. — Ed. 

t  Dugdale's  Troubles  of  England^  p.  264. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  807,  810. 

6  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  570. 

II  Memorials,  p.  271. 


out  of  their  hands.  It  is  very  certain  that 
Cromwell  withdrew  his  parole  of  honour  for  the 
king's  safety,  and  sent  him  word,  a  few  days 
before  he  left  Hampton  Court,  that  he  would, 
not  be  answerable  any  longer  for  what  might 
befall  him,  which  was  owing  to  a  discovery  he 
had  made  of  the  king's  insincerity  in  treating 
with  him.  Mr.  Coke  says,  there  was  a  report 
at  that  time,  and  he  is  confident  that  in  time  it 
will  appear,  that  in  the  army's  treaty  with  the 
king,  Cromwell  had  made  a  private  article  of 
advantage  for  himself,*  but  his  majesty  not  al- 
lowing himself  to  conclude  anything  without, 
the  queen,  wrote  her  word,  "  that  if  he  con- 
sented to  those  proposals,  it  would  be  easier  to- 
take  off"  Cromwell  afterward,  than  now  he  was 
at  the  head  of  the  army."t  Which  letter  Crom- 
well intercepted. t     Bishop  Kennet  says,  "that. 


+  Detect.,  p.  323.  t  Complete  History,  p.  270.' 
t  This  very  important  point  in  vindication  of  Crom- 
well's conduct  towards  the  false-hearted  Charles  has. 
been  too  much  overlooked,  and  yet  it  is  a  circum- 
stance thoroughly  substantiated.  Mr.  Baron  Mase- 
res,  in  a  note  to  his  publication  of  tracts  relative  to 
these  times,  referring  to  Cromwell's  abandonment  of 
the  treaty  with  the  king,  which,  he  observes,  he  had 
been  carrying  on  for  more  than  five  months  (from  the 
beginning  of  June  to  the  end  of  November,  1647),. 
for  restoring  him  to  the  e.xercise  of  his  royal  authori- 
ty, observes,  that  Sir  John  Berkley's  account  is  so 
clear  and  circumstantial,  and  supported  by  the  testi- 
mony of  so  many  respectable  persons  who  were  con- 
cerned hi  the  management  of  it,  that  it  seems  highly 
deserving  of  credit  without  seeking  any  other  motive- 
for  this  change  of  his  (Cromwell's)  conduct  towards- 
the  king,  besides  the  fear  of  losing  his  influence  over- 
the  army  if  he  should  persist  in  his  endeavour  to  re- 
store him  to  his  authority,  after  a  great  part  of  the 
army  had  resolved  to  act  against  him.  The  baron 
then  gives  the  copy  of  the  supposed  letter  (said  to 
have  been  the  cause  of  the  death  of  the  king),  of 
which  the  writer  he  mentions  gives  the  following  ac- 
count: That  Lord  Bolingbroke  told  them  (Mr.  Pope* 
and  Lord  Marchmont),  June  12,  1742,  that  Lord  Ox- 
ford (the  second  Earl  of  O.xford)  had  often  told  him. 
that  he  had  seen,  and  had  in  his  hands  an  original 
letter  that  the  king  wrote  to  the  queen,  in  answer  ta 
one  of  hers  that  had  been  intercepted,  and  then  forr 
warded  to  him  ;  wherein  she  had  reproached  him  for 
having  made  those  villains  too  great  concessions,, 
viz.,  that  Cromwell  should  be  lord-lieutenant  for  life 
without  account ;  that  that  kingdom  (Ireland)  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  party,  with  an  army  there 
kept  which  should  have  no  head  but  the  lieutenant ; 
and  that  Cromwell  should  have  a  garter,  &c. ;  that 
in  this  letter  of  the  king's  it  was  said,  that  she  shd\^ 
leave  him  to  manage,  who  was  better  informed  ro- 
all  circumstances  than  she  could  be ;  but  that  she  ■ 
might  be  entirely  easy  as  to  whatever  concessions 
he  should  make  them ;  for  that  he  should  know  in 
due  time  how  to  deal  with  the  rogues,  who,  instead 
of  a  silken  garter,  should  be  fitted  with  a  hemperr 
cord  ;  that  so  the  letter  ended ;  which  answer,  as 
they  waited  for,  so  they  intercepted  accordingly  ;  and 
that  it  determined  his  fate ;  and  for  which  letter 
Lord  O.xford  said  he  had  offered  five  hundred  pouads.. 
This  letter  seems  to  be  the  same  as  is  referred  to^ 
in  the  following  passage  from  the  Memoirs  of  Lord 
Broghell,  afterward  £larl  of  Orrery,  written  by  his 
chaplain  :  it  is  related  to  be  the  subject  of  a  conver- 
sation between  his  lordship,  and  Cromwell,  and  Ire- 
ton, respecting  and  after  the  king's  death  ;  in  which 
Cromwell  is  stated  to  have  said,  that  if  the  king  had 
followed  his  own  mind,  and  had  had  trusty  servants 
about  him,  he  had  fooled  them  all;  and  added,  that 
once  they  had  a  mind  to  have  closed  with  him  ;  but 
upon  something  that  happened,  they  fell  off  from  that 
design  ;  that,  in  answer  to  a  question  of  his  lordship, 
why  they  once  would  have  closed  with  the  king,  and. 


52 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


it  was  reported  that  Cromwell  was  to  liave 
j£]0,000  and  a  garter;  and  lliat  the  bargain  had 
certainly  taken  efTect,  if  the  king  had  not  made 
an  apology  to  the  queen,  an'.'  sufficiently  implied 
that  he  did  it  by  constraint,  and  that  when  he 
was  at  liberty,  and  in  power,  he  should  think 
himself  discharged  from  the  obligation.  This 
Jetter  was  sewed  up  in  the  skirt  of  a  saddle  to 
be  sent  to  France  ;  but  Cromwell  and  Ireton, 
having  information  of  it,  went  to  an  inn  in  Hol- 
born,  and  seized  the  letter."  Dr.  Lane,  of  the 
Commons,  frequently  declared.  "  that  he  had 
seen  this  original  letter,  that  he  knew  it  to  be 
the  king's  own  hand,  and  that  the  contents 
were  as  above."  Another  writer  says,  that  the 
letter  mentioned  his  majesty's  being  courted  by 
the  Scots  Presbyterians  as  well  as  the  army, 
and  that  they  that  bid  fairest  for  him  should 
have  him.*  Upon  the  discovery  of  this  letter, 
Cromwell  went  to  Mr.  Ashburnham,  who  at- 
tended the  king's  person,  and  told  him  that  he 
■was  now  satisfied  the  king  could  not  be  trust- 
ed ;  that  he  had  no  confidence  in  the  army,  but 
was  jealous  of  them  and  their  officers  ;  that  he 
had  treaties  with  the  city  Presbyterians,  and 
with  the  Scots  commissioners,  to  engage  the 
nation  again  in  blood,  and  that,  therefore,  he 
could  not  be  answerable  if  anything  fell  out  con- 
trary to  expectation.  Sir  Richard  Baker,  Mr. 
Coke,  and  others,  are  of  opinion  that,  till  this 
time,  Cromwell  and  Ireton  were  hearty  and 
zealous  for  restoring  the  king,  and  opposing  the 
Levellers  who  began  to  arise  in  the  army,  but 
that  after  this  discovery  they  forsook  him,  as 
did  the  rest  of  the  chief  officers,  who  seldom 
came  to  couft :  the  guards  also  changed  their 
language,  and  said  that  God  had  hardened  the 
king's  heart  and  blinded  his  eyes. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  infatuated 
king  left  Hampton  Court,  November  11,  at 
night,  and  having  crossed  the  Thames,  took 
horse  in  company  with  Sir  J.  Berkley,  Mr.  Leg, 
and  Mr.  Ashburnham,  and  next  morning  arrived 
at  Titchfield  House,  where  he  stayed  while  Leg 
went  over  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  to  treat  with 


why  they  did  not,  Cromwell  is  stated  to  have  said, 
that  they  would  have  closed  with  the  king,  because 
they  found  that  the  Scots  and  the  Presbyterians  be- 
gan to  be  more  powerful  than  themselves,  and  that, 
if  they  made  up  matters  with  the  king,  they  (Crom- 
well and  his  party)  wovild  have  been  left  in  the  lurch  ; 
t^t,  therefore,  they  thought  it  best  to  prevent  them, 
by  otfering,  first,  to  come  into  any  reasonable  condi- 
tioB  ;  but  that,  while  they  were  busied  in  these 
thoughts,  there  came  a  letter  from  one  of  their  spies, 
Acquainting  them  that  on  that  day  their  final  doom 
vsss  decreed,  referring  to  a  letter  sent  from  the  king 
to  the  queen,  which  the  spy  described  as  sewed  up 
in  the  skirt  of  a  saddle,  to  be  taken  that  night  to  the 
Blue  Boar  Inn,  in  Holborn,  to  be  taken  from  thence 
to  Dover.  Then  follows  the  particulars  of  finding 
the  letter  in  the  saddle  by  Cromwell  and  Ireton,  who 
attended  there  for  that  purpose  in  the  habits  of  troop- 
ers :  that  by  this  letter  they  found  that  the  king  had 
acquainted  the  queen  that  he  was  then  courted  by  both 
the  factions ;  but  that  he  thought  he  should  close 
with  the  Scotch  sooner  than  the  other;  that  upon 
this,  added  Cromwell,  we  took  horse  and  went  to 
Windsor,  and  finding  we  were  not  likely  to  have  any 
tolerable  terms  from  the  king,  we  immediately,  from 
that  time  forward,  resolved  his  ruin. —  See  Memoirs  of 
Oliver  Cromwell  and  of  his  Sons  Richard  and  Henry,  by 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Esq.,  a  descendant  of  the  family,  2  vols, 
8vo,  London,  1822,  vol.  ii.,  p.  82.— C. 
*  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  390. 


Colonel  Hammond,  the  governor,  about  the 
safety  of  his  person,  who,  without  any  treaty, 
brought  the  governor  to  the  house  where  his 
majesty  was,  upon  which  the  king  said  he  was 
betrayed  ;  as,  indeed,  he  was  in  all  his  affairs.* 
Hammond  carried  him  over  to  the  Isle  Novem- 
ber 13,  and  after  some  time  shut  him  up  in  Car- 
isbrook  Castle,  where  his  majesty  remained  al- 
most a  year  with  one  or  two  servants  only, 
having  little  conversation  with  the  world,  and 
time  sufficient  to  contemplate  on  the  uncertain- 
ty of  all  human  affairs,  and  on  the  miserable 
circumstances  to  which  Divine  Providence  had 
suffered  his  own  imprudent  conduct  to  reduce 
him.f 

Let  us  now  attend  to  the  projects  of  the  sev- 
eral parties  for  restoring  the  public  tranquillity. 
As  soon  as  the  army  had  got  possession  of  the 
city  of  London,  they  made  the  following  propo- 
sals to  the  two  houses.  With  regard  to  reli- 
gion, "  That  an  act  be  passed  to  take  away  all 
coercive  power  and  jurisdiction  of  bishops  ex- 
tending to  any  civil  penalties  upon  any.  That 
there  be  a  repeal  of  all  acts,  or  clauses  of  acts, 
enjoining  the  use  of  the  Common  Prayer,  and 
imposing  any  penalty  for  neglect  thereof,  and. 
for  not  coming  to  church,  or  for  meeting  else- 
where. That  the  taking  of  the  Covenant  be  not 
enforced  upon  any,  but  that  all  orders  and  or- 
dinances tending  to  that  purpose  be  repealed." 
With  regard  to  the  state,  "  That  the  militia  and 
great  officers  be  disposed  of  by  Parliament  for 
ten  years,  and  after  that  the  houses  to  nomi- 
nate three,  out  of  which  the  king  to  choose  one. 
That  there  be  acts  of  indemnity  and  revocation 


*  Rushworth,  p.  920,  960. 

+  A  "  pretty  summer  house"  was  erected  for 
Charles  on  the  ramparts,  whither  he  often  retired 
to  commune  with  his  own  thoughts.  The  bowling 
green  on  the  barbican  at  Carisbrook,  which  was  con- 
structed for  his  amusement,  with  its  turf  steps,  is  as 
perfect  at  the  present  time  as  if  it  had  been  laid 
down  but  yesterday.  When  at  Carisbrook,  Charles 
clothed  his  melancholy  feelings  in  poetry.  The  ver- 
ses in  question,  which  e.xtend  to  a  considerable 
length,  were  omitted  in  the  collection  of  the  king's 
works,  but  were  printed  shortly  afterward  by  his  bi 
ographer,  Perinchief.  Burnet  says,  "  The  mighty 
sense  and  great  piety  of  them  will  be  found  to  be 
beyond  all  the  sublimities  of  poetry,  which  are  not 
yet  wanting  here."  Even  Walpole  condescends  to 
speak  well  of  them  :  he  says,  "  The  poetry  is  uncouth 
and  inharmonious  ;  but  there  are  strong  thoughts  in 
them,  some  good  sense,  and  a  strain  of  majestic  piety." 
It  may  be  doubted  if  too  high  praise  has  not  been 
passed  upon  this  production :  the  following  verses 
are  certainly  far  from  happy  : 

Tyranny  bears  the  title  of  taxation, 
Revenge  and  robbery  are  reformation  , 
Oppression  gains  the  name  of  sequestration 

My  loval  subjects,  who  in  this  bad  season 

Attend  (by  the  law  of  God  and  reason). 

They  dare  impeach  and  pimish  for  high  treason. 

Ne.xt  at  the  clergy  do  their  furies  frown  ; 

Pious  Episcopacy  must  go  down  ; 

They  will  destroy  the  crosier  and  the  crown 

Churchmen  are  chained  and  schismatics  are  freed, 
Mechanics  preach,  and  holy  fathers  bleed; 
The  crown  is  crucified  with  the  Creed. 

The  Church  of  England  doth  all  faction  foster, 
The  pulpit  is  usurped  by  each  impostor  ; 
Extempori'  excludes  the  Paler  Noster. 

Jesse's  Court  of  the  Stuarts,  vol.  ii.,  p.  146.— C. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


of  all  declarations  against  the  proceedings  of 
Parliament.  That  the  present  unequal,  and 
troublesome,  and  contentious  way  of  ministers' 
maintenance  by  tithes  be  considered  of,  and 
some  remedy  applied.  That  none  may  be  obli- 
ged to  accuse  themselves  or  relations  in  crim- 
inal causes  ;  and  no  man's  life  taken  away  un- 
der two  witnesses.  That  consideration  be  had 
of  all  statutes,  laws,  or  customs  of  corporations, 
imposing  any  oaths  tending  to  molest  or  ensnare 
religious  and  peaceable  people  merely  for  non- 
conformity in  religion.  That  the  arbitrary  pow- 
er given  to  committees  and  deputy-lieutenants 
be  recalled."* 

After  several  debates  upon  these  proposals 
with  regard  to  religion,  the  Lords  agreed,  Octo- 
ber -13,  "  that  the  king  be  desired  to  give  his 
consent  to  the  settling  the  Presbyterial  govern- 
ment for  three  years,  with  a  provision,  that  no 
person  shah  be  liable  to  any  penalty  for  noncon- 
formity to  the  said  government,  or  form  of  Di- 
vine service  ;  but  such  persons  shall  have  lib- 
erty to  meet  for  the  service  and  worship  of 
God,  and  for  exercise  of  religious  duties  and 
ordinances  in  any  fit  and  convenient  places,  so 
as  nothing  be  done  by  them  to  the  disturbance 
of  the  peace  of  the  kingdom.  Provided  this 
shall  not  be  construed  to  extend  to  a  toleration 
of  the  popish  religion,  nor  to  exempt  popish  re- 
cusants from  any  penalties  imposed  upon  them 
for  the  exercise  of  the  same.  Nor  shall  it  ex- 
tend to  the  toleration  of  anything  contrary  to 
the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion  contained 
m  the  Apostles'  Creed,  as  it  is  expounded  in 
the  first  fifteen  articles  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, as  they  had  been  cleared  and  vindicated 
by  the  Assembly  of  Divines  now  sitting  at  West- 
minster ;  nor  of  anything  contrary  to  such 
points  of  faith,  for  the  ignorance  whereof  men 
are  to  be  kept  from  the  sacrament,  according  to 
the  ordinance  of  October  20,  1645.  Nor  shall 
it  extend  to  excuse  any  persons  from  the  pen- 
allies  of  1  Elizabeth,  cap.  ii.,  for  not  coming  to 
hear  the  Word  of  God  on  the  Lord's  Day  in  any 
parish  church  or  chapel,  unless  he  can  show  a 
reasonable  cause  for  his  absence,  or  that  he 
was  present  to  hear  the  Word  of  God  preached 
or  expounded  elsewhere. "t 

The  Commons  likewise  agreed,  "  that  Pres- 
bytery be  established  till  the  end  of  the  next 
sessions  of  Parliament,  or  till  the  second  ses- 
sions ;  that  the  tenths,  and  all  other  mainte- 
nance belonging  to  any  church  or  chapel,  shall 
be  only  for  the  use  of  them  who  can  submit  to 
the  Presbyterial  governinent,  and  none  other. 
The  liberty  of  conscience  shall  extend  to  none 
who  shall  print,  preach,  or  publish,  contrary  to 
the  first  fifteen  articles  of  the  thirty-nine,  except 
the  eighth,  relating  to  the  three  creeds.  That 
nothing  contained  in  this  ordinance  shall  ex- 
tend to  popish  recusants. "t  October  14,  they 
agreed  farther,  "  that  such  tender  consciences 
should  be  freed,  by  way  of  indulgence,  from 
the  penalty  of  the  statute  for  the  Presbyterian 
government,  for  their  nonconformity,  who  do 
meet  in  some  other  congregation  for  the  wor- 
ship of  God  on  the  Lord's  Day,  and  do  nothing 
against  the  laws  and  peace  of  the  kingdom,  and 
that  none  others  shall  be  freed  from  the  penalty 
of  the  statute  of  Eliz.,  cap.  ii."     October  16,  the 


*  Rushworth,  p.  736.    Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  538,  539. 
t  Rushworth,  p.  840.  J  Ibid.,  p.  841. 


Commons  voted,  "  that  the  indulgence  granted 
to  tender  consciences  should  not  extend  to  tol- 
erate the  use  of  common  prayer  in  any  part  of 
the  kingdom."*  Which  was  against  the  sense 
of  the  army,  who  were  for  a  general  indulgence, 
as  appears  from  the  declaration  of  the  agita- 
tors, dated  November  I,  m  which  they  say  that 
"  matters  of  religion  and  the  ways  of  God's 
worship  are  not  at  all  intrusted  by  us  to  any 
human  power,  because  therein  we  cannot  omit; 
or  exceed  a  tittle  of  what  our  consciences  dic- 
tate to  be  the  mind  of  God,  without  wilful 
sin  ;  nevertheless,  the  public  way  of  instruct- 
ing the  nation,  so  it  be  not  compulsive,  is  left 
to  their  discretion. "t  Here  was  a  fair  plan  of 
accommodation,  but  no  ordinance  was  brought 
into  the  House  to  confirm  these  resolutions. 
November  8,  both  houses  agreed  to  the  addi- 
tion of  some  new  propositions.     As, 

1.  "For  the  due  observation  of  the  Lord's 
Day. 

2.  "Against  innovations  in  religion. 

3.  "  A  new  oath  for  the  conviction  of  papists. 

4.  "  For  the  education  of  the  children  of  pa- 
pists in  the  Protestant  religion. 

5.  "  Against  pluralities." 

The  proposals  of  the  Presbyterians  were  the 
same  with  those  of  Newcastle  already  mention- 
ed ;  but  whereas  the  king  declined  to  accept 
them  without  a  personal  treaty,  they  determin- 
ed in  the  House  of  Commons  to  reduce  them 
into  four  bills,  which,  if  his  majesty  refused  to 
sign  as  preliminaries,  they  resolved  to  settle  the 
nation  without  him  ;  but  before  they  were  per- 
fected, the  king  withdrew  from  Hampton  Court, 
and  was  secured  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where 
the  commissioners  from  the  two  houses  waited 
on  him,  and  tendered  him  the  following  bills, 
December  24  :  the  first,  was  settling  the  militia, 
as  has  been  related  ;  the  second,  for  calling  ia 
all  his  majesty's  declarations  and  proclamations 
against  the  two  houses,  and  those  that  adhered 
to  them ;  the  third,  to  disqualify  those  peers 
from  sitting  in  the  House  that  had  been  created 
after  the  great  seal  had  been  conveyed  to  Ox- 
ford ;  the  fourth,  to  empower  the  two  houses 
to  adjourn,  as  they  should  think  fit.  In  matters 
of  religion,  they  insisted  peremptorily  on  the 
establishment  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  gov- 
ernment upon  the  ruins  of  the  prelatical ;  upoQ 
the  extirpation  of  all  sectaries  ;  and  upon  Cov- 
enant uniformity  in  both  nations,  as  will  appear 
more  fully  hereafter.  But  the  king,  instead  ot 
signing  the  preliminaries,  insisted  strenuously 
on  a  personal  treaty,  which  it  was  hardly  rea- 
sonable for  him  to  expect,  when  he  had  so  late- 
ly attempted  to  escape  out  of  their  hands,  and 
now  refused  to  yield  anything  in  a  way  of  con- 
descension. 

It  had  not  been  possible  to  unriddle  the  mys- 
tery of  this  escape,  if  it  had  not  appeared,  soon 
after,  that  the  king  was  at  that  very  time  throw- 
ing himself  into  the  hands  of  the  Scots,  who, 
being  offended  with  the  Parliament  (now  under 
the  influence  of  the  army)  for  not  acting  in  con- 
cert with  them  in  the  present  treaty,  according 
to  their  Covenant,  determined  on  a  separate  ne- 
gotiation for  themselves ;  and  accordingly,  by 
the  mediation  of  some  of  their  own  nation,  they 
concluded  a  secret  treaty  with  the  king,  which 
was  begun  before  his  majesty  left  Hampton 


*  Rushworth,  p.  842. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  160. 


54 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


Court,  but  not  signed  till  the  27th  of  December 
following,  three  days  after  his  majesty's  refusal 
of  the  Parliament's  four  bills.  ''  This  alliance," 
says  Lord  Clarendon,*  "  was  most  scandalous, 
and  derogatory  to  the  honour  and  interest  of  tlie 
English  nation,  and  would  have  been  abomina- 
ted if  known  and  understood  by  all  men."  But 
Kapin  thinks  it  not  so  criminal  on  the  part  of 
the  Scots  as  his  lordship  represents,  since  they 
yielded  to  the  establishment  of  their  beloved 
Presbytery  in  England  only  for  three  years ; 
iiowever,  it  laid  the  foundation  of  the  king's 
.ruin  with  the  army. 

In  the  preand)le  his  majesty  gives  "  a  favour- 
able testimony  to  the  solemn  League  and  Cov- 
enant, and  to  the  good  intentions  of  those  that 
entered  into  it."  In  the  treaty  "  he  obliges  him- 
self to  confirm  the  Covenant  by  act  of  Par- 
liament as  soon  as  he  can  do  it  with  honour  and 
-freedom  in  both  kingdoms  ;  with  a  proviso,  that 
none  that  were  unwilling  should  be  obliged  to 
take  it  for  the  future.  He  engages,  farther,  to 
confirm  by  act  of  Parliament  the  Presbyterial 
government  in  England,  the  Directory  for  pub- 
lic worship,  and  the  Assembly  uf  Divines,  for 
three  years  only,  with  liberty  for  himself  and 
his  household  to  use  that  form  of  Divine  service 
they  had  formerly  practised  ;  and  that  during 
the  three  years  there  should  be  a  consultation 
with  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  to  whom  twenty 
of  the  king's  nomination  should  be  added,  and 
some  from  the  Church  of  Scotland,  to  deter- 
mine what  form  of  church  government  should  be 
established  afterward."!  Then  follows  a  scourge 
for  the  army  :  "  That  an  effectual  course  should 
be  taken  to  suppress  the  opinions  of  the  Anti- 
Trinitarians,  Arians,  Socinians,  Arminians,  In- 
dependents, Brownists,  Antinomians,  Anabap- 
tists, Separatists,  Seekers  ;  and,  in  general,  all 
blasphemy,  heresy,  schism,  and  other  doctrines 
contrary  to  the  known  principles  of  Christianity, 
"whether  concerning  faith,  worship,  conversa- 
tion, or  the  power  of  godliness,  or  which  may 
be  destructive  to  order  and  government,  or  to 
the  peace  of  the  Church  and  kingdom." 

In  return  for  these  concessions,  "  the  Scots 
■engaged  to  raise  an  army  to  deliver  his  majesty 
out  of  captivity,  to  assert  his  right  to  the  mili- 
tia, the  great  seal,  the  negative  voice  in  Parlia- 
ment ;  and,  in  a  word,  to  restore  him  to  his 
throne  with  honour  and  freedom  ;"  which  oc- 
casioned a  second  civil  war  the  next  year. 

As  soon  as  his  majesty  arrived  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight  from  Hampton  Court,  he  sent  a  letter  to 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords,  to  be  com- 
municated to  the  Commons,  with  the  following 
concessions  on  his  part,  very  inconsistent  with 
the  treaty  last  mentioned  :  "  For  the  abolishing 
archbishops,  bishops,  &c.,  his  majesty  clearly 
professeth,  that  he  cannot  consent  to  it  either 
as  a  Christian  or  a  king  ;  for  the  first  he  avows, 
that  he  is  satisfied  in  his  judgment  that  this 
•order  was  placed  in  the  Church  by  the  apostles 
themselves,  and  ever  since  their  time  has  con- 
tinued in  all  Christian  churches  throughout  the 
world  till  this  last  century  ;  and  in  this  church, 
in  all  times  of  change  and  reformation,  it  has 
been  upheld,  by  the  wisdom  of  his  ancestors,  as 
the  great  preserver  of  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
order,  in  the  service  of  God.  As  a  king,  at  his 
-coronation  he  not  only  swore  to  maintain  this 

*  Vol.  iii.,  p.  103.        t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  543,  544. 


order,  but  his  majesty  and  his  predecessors,  in 
their  confirmations  of  the  great  charter,  have 
inseparably  woven  the  rights  of  the  Church  into 
the  liberty  of  the  subject ;  and  yet  he  is  willing 
that  it  be  provided,  that  particular  bishops  per- 
form the  several  duties  of  their  callings,  both  by 
their  personal  residence  and  frequent  preach- 
ing ;  that  in  their  personal  exercise  no  act  of 
jurisdiction  or  ordination  be  without  consent  of 
their  presbyters;  and  will  consent,  that  in  all 
things  their  powers  be  so  limited  that  they  may 
not  be  grievous  to  the  tender  consciences  of 
others ;  iiis  majesty  sees  no  reason  why  he 
alone,  and  those  of  his  judgment,  should  be 
pressed  to  a  violation  of  theirs. 

"  Nor  can  his  majesty  consent  to  the  aliena- 
tion of  church  lands,  because  it  cannot  be  de- 
nied to  be  the  sin  of  sacrilege  ;  as,  also,  that  it 
subverts  the  intentions  of  so  many  pious  donors, 
who  have  laid  a  heavy  curse  upon  all  such  pro- 
fane violations.  And,  besides,  his  majesty  be- 
lieves it  to  be  a  prejudice  to  the  public  good, 
many  of  his  subjects  having  the  benefit  of  re- 
newing leases  at  much  easier  rates  than  if  those 
possessions  were  in  the  hands  of  private  men  ; 
not  omitting  the  discouragement  it  will  be  to 
learnmg  and  industry,  when  such  eminent  re- 
wards shall  be  taken  away  ;  yet,  considering 
the  present  distempers  concerning  church  dis- 
cipline, and  that  the  Presbyterian  government 
is  now  in  practice,  his  majesty,  to  avoid  confu- 
sion as  much  as  may  be,  and  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  two  houses,  is  content  that  the 
same  government  be  legally  permitted  to  stand 
in  the  same  condition  it  now  is  for  three  years, 
provided  that  his  majesty,  and  those  of  his  judg- 
ment, or  any  others  who  cannot  in  conscience 
submit  thereunto,  be  not  obliged  to  comply  with 
the  Presbyterial  government,  but  have  free  prac- 
tice of  our  own  profession,  without  any  preju- 
dice thereby  ;  and  that  free  consultation  be  had 
with  the  divines  at  Westminster,  twenty  of  his 
majesty's  nomination  being  added  to  them,  to 
consider  how  to  settle  the  Church  afterward, 
with  full  liberty  to  all  those  who  shall  differ  upon 
conscientious  grounds  from  that  settlement  ; 
always  provided,  that  nothing  aforesaid  be  un- 
derstood to  tolerate  those  of  the  popish  profes- 
sion, or  exempt  them  from  penal  laws,  or  to 
tolerate  the  public  profession  of  atheism  or  blas- 
phemy, contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  the  apostles, 
the  Nicene  and  Athanasian  Creeds ;  they  having 
been  received  by,  and  had  in  reverence  of,  all 
Christian  churches,  and  more  especially  the 
Church  of  England  since  the  Reformation."* 
This  was  inserted  to  cajole  the  army,  and  was 
entirely  reversed  by  the  Scots  treaty  five  weeks 
after. 

From  these  inconsistent  views  of  the  con- 
tending parties,  we  may  easily  discern  the  pre- 
carious situation  of  the  public  tranquillity,  espe- 
cially as  there  was  a  general  distrust  on  all 
sides,  and  each  party  resolved  to  carry  their 
point  without  any  abatements  :  the  king  was 
held  by  ties  of  conscience  and  honour  (as  he 
said)  to  preserve  Episcopacy;  the  Scots  and 
English  Presbyterians,  though  divided  at  pres- 
ent, thought  themselves  equally  bound  to  stand 
by  their  solemn  League  and  Covenant ;  and  the 
army  was  under  a  solemn  engagement  to  agree 
with  neither  without  a  toleration.     If  the  king 


*  Rushworth,  p.  880.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  541. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS^, 


55 


could  have  submitted  to  Covenant  uniformity, 
he  might  have  been  restored  by  the  Presbyte- 
rians, or,  if  either  king  or  Parliament  would 
have  declared  heartily  for  a  toleration,  they 
might  have  established  themselves  by  the  assist- 
ance of  the  military  power  ;  but  his  majesty 
seems  to  have  been  playing  an  unsteady,  if  not 
a  double  game.  The  reader  will  judge  of  the 
equity  of  the  several  proposals,  and  of  the  pru- 
dential conduct  of  each  party,  from  the  respect- 
ive circumstances  in  wliich  they  stood  :  tlie 
king  was  a  prisoner  ;  the  Parliament  in  posses- 
sion of  tlie  whole  legislative  authority  ;  but  the 
sword  was  in  the  hands  of  the  army,  who  were 
determined  not  to  sheath  it  till  they  had  se- 
cured to  themselves  that  liberty  for  which  they 
had  been  fighting  ;  this  they  had  in  vain  soli- 
cited from  the  king,  and  were  next  determined 
to  try  their  interest  with  the  Parliament. 

The  houses  being  informed  of  the  king's  de- 
sign to  make  his  escape  out  of  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
ordered  the  governor  to  put  away  his  servants, 
and  confine  him  a  close  prisoner  in  the  castle, 
so  that  no  person  might  be  admitted  to  speak 
to  him  without  leave.  His  majesty  having  also 
declared,  when  he  rejected  the  Parliament's 
four  bills,  that  nothing  which  could  befall  him 
could  ever  prevail  with  him  to  consent  to  any 
■one  act  till  the  conditions  of  the  whole  peace 
were  concluded,  they  began  to  despair  of  an  ac- 
commodation. In  this  juncture,  the  officers  of 
the  army  sent  a  message  to  the  houses,  assuring 
them  that  they  would  live  and  die  with  them  in 
settling  the  nation,  eitlier  with  or  without  the 
king,  and  leave  all  transactions  of  state  for  the 
future  to  them  alone.* 

However,  after  the  seclusion  of  the  eleven  im- 
peached members,  and  the  quartering  the  army 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city,  the  Parliament, 
either  from  interest  or  fear,  had  a  great  regard 
to  the  opinion  of  those  officers  who  were  mem- 
bers of  the  House.  Upon  a  motion  that  no 
more  addresses  be  made  to  the  king  from  the 
Parliament,  nor  any  messages  received  from 
him,  Ireton  and  Cromwell  opened  themselves 
very  freely :  Ireton  said,  "  Subjection  to  the  king 
was  but  in  lieu  of  protection  from  him,  which 
being  denied,  we  may  settle  the  kingdom  with- 
out him.  Let  us,  then,  show  our  resolution,"  says 
he,  "  and  not  desert  those  valiant  men  who  have 
engaged  for  us  beyond  all  possibility  of  retreat." 
Cromwell  said,  "That  the  Parliament  should 
govern  by  their  own  power,  and  not  teach  the 
people  any  longer  to  expect  safety  from  an  ob- 
stinate man,  whose  heart  God  had  hardened. 
The  army  will  defend  you  against  all  opposition. 
Teach  them  not,  by  neglecting  yours  and  the 
liingdom's  safety,  in  which  their  own  is  involv- 
ed, to  think  themselves  betrayed,  and  left  here- 
after to  the  rage  and  malice  of  an  irreconcila- 
ble enemy,  whom  they  have  subdued  for  your 
sake,  lest  despair  teach  them  to  seek  their  safe- 
ty by  some  other  means  than  adhering  to  you 
[here  he  put  his  hand  to  his  sword]  ;  and  how 
destructive  such  a  resolution  will  be,"  says  he, 
"  I  tremble  to  think,  and  leave  you  to  judge  !" 
The  question  being  then  put,  it  was  carried  by  a 
majority  of  fifty  voices ;  yeas  one  hundred  and  for- 
ty-one, noes  ninety-one.  January  17,  the  Lords 
concurred  with  the  Commons  in  their  votes  of 


*  Rushworth,  p.  951,  953,  962.     Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
545. 


non-addresses.  Till  this  very  time,  says  Lord 
Clarendon,  no  man  mentioned  the  king's  person 
without  duty  and  respect.  But  now  a  new  scene 
was  opened,  and  some  of  their  officers,  at  their 
meetings  at  Windsor,  began  to  talk  of  deposing 
the  king,  or  prosecuting  him  as  a  criminal,  of 
which  his  majesty  was  advertised  by  Watson 
the  quartermaster,  but  it  made  no  impression 
upon  him. 

The  two  houses  having  concurred  in  their 
votes  for  non-addresses,  the  army  agreed  to 
stand  by  the  Parliament  in  settling  the  nation 
without  the  king  ;  and  that  the  people  might  be 
satisfied  with  the  reasons  of  their  proceedings, 
a  remonstrance  was  published  by  order  of  Par- 
liament, February  15,  in  which  they  recapitulate 
all  the  errors  of  his  majesty's  government ;  his 
insincerity  in  the  several  treaties  of  peace  he 
had  entered  into  with  them  ;  and  that  though 
they  had  applied  to  him  seven  times  with  prop- 
ositions, in  all  which  the  Scots  had  concurred 
except  the  last,  yet  he  had  never  complied  with 
any  ;  from  whence  they  conclude,  either  that 
the  nation  must  continue  under  the  present  dis- 
tractions, or  they  must  settle  it  without  him. 
In  the  posthumous  works  of  Lord  Clarendon,* 
there  is  a  large  reply  to  this  remonstrance,  in 
which  his  lordship  endeavours  to  vindicate  the 
king  and  throw  all  the  blame  upon  the  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  though  there  were  ill  instruments  on 
both- sides,  and  there  might  be  no  real  occasion 
to  rip  up  the  misdemeanors  of  the  king's  gov- 
ernment from  the  beginning,  yet  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible for  the  art  of  man  to  justify  his  majesty's 
conduct  before  the  war,  or  to  vindicate  his  pru- 
dence and  sincerity  in  his  treaties  afterward  ; 
the  design  of  commencing  a  new  war  being  ev- 
idently at  this  time  concerted  and  agreed  upon, 
with  his  majesty's  allowance,  in  pursuance  of 
the  Scots  treaty,  while  he  was  amusing  both  the 
Parliament  and  army  with  overtures  of  peace. 

Among  the  ordinances  that  passed  this  year 
for  reformation  of  the  Church,  none  occasion- 
ed so  much  noise  and  disturbance  as  that  of 
June  8,  for  abolishing  the  observation  of  saints' 
days,  and  the  three  grand  festivals  of  Christ- 
mas, Easter,  and  Whitsuntide  ;  the  ordinance 
says,  "  Forasmuch  as  the  feast  of  the  nativi- 
ty of  Christ,  Easter,  Whitsuntide,  and  other  fes- 
tivals, commonly  called  holydays,  have  been 
heretofore  superstitiously  used  and  observed ; 
be  it  ordained,  that  the  said  feasts,  and  all  other 
festivals,  commonly  called  holydays,  be  no  long- 
er observed  as  festivals  ;  any  law,  statute,  cus- 
tom, constitution,  or  canon,  to  the  contrary  in 
anywise  notwithstanding.t 

"  And  that  there  may  be  a  convenient  time 
allotted  for  scholars,  apprentices,  and  other  ser- 
vants, for  their  recreation,  be  it  ordained,  that 
all  scholars,  apprentices,  and  other  servants, 
shall,  with  the  leave  of  their  masters,  have  such 
convenient,  reasonable  recreation,  and  relaxa- 
tion from  labour,  every  second  Tuesday  in  the 
month  throughout  the  year,  as  formerly  they 
used  to  have  upon  the  festivals ;  and  masters 
of  scholars,  apprentices,  and  servants,  shall 
grant  to  them  respectively  such  time  for  their 
recreation,  on  the  aforesaid  second  Tuesday  in 
the  month,  as  they  may  conveniently  spare  from 
their  extraordinary  necessary  service  and  occa- 
sions ;  and  if  any  difference  arise  between  mas- 


*   Vol.  iii.,  p.  92,  93. 


t  Scobel,  p.  128. 


56 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


ters  and  servants  concerning  the  liberty  hereby 
granted,  the  next  justice  of  peace  shall  recon- 
cile it." 

The  king  was  highly  displeased  with  this  or- 
dinance ;  and  therefore,  while  the  affair  was  un- 
der debate,  he  put  this  query  to  the  Parliament 
commissioners  at  Holmby  House,  April,  23, 
1647. 

I  desire  to  be  out-resolved  of  this  question. 
Why  the  new  reformers  discharge  the  keeping 
of  Easter  1  My  reason  for  this  query  is,  "  I  con- 
ceive the  celebration  of  this  feast  was  instituted 
by  the  same  authority  which  changed  the  Jew- 
ish Sabbath  into  the  Lord's  Day  or  Sunday,  for  it 
will  not  be  found  in  Scripture  where  Saturday  is 
discharged  to  be  kept,  or  turned  into  the  Sunday  ; 
wherefore  it  must  be  the  Church's  authority  that 
changed  the  one  and  instituted  the  other  ;  there- 
fore my  opinion  is,  that  those  who  will  not  keep 
this  feast  may  as  well  return  to  the  observation 
of  Saturday,  and  refuse  the  weekly  Sunday. 
"When  anybody  can  show  me  that  herein  I  am 
in  an  error,  I  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  confess 
and  amend  it ;  till  when  you  know  my  mind.* 
C.  R."  , 

Sir  James  Harrmgton  presented  his  majesty 
with  an  answer  to  this  query,  in  which  he  de- 
nies that  the  change  of  the  Sabbath  was  from 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  but  derives  it  from 
the  authority  and  example  of  our  Saviour  and 
his  apostles  in  the  New  Testament ;  he  admits 
that,  if  there  was  the  like  mention  of  the  obser- 
vation of  Easter,  it  would  be  of  Divine  or  apos- 
tolical authority  ;  but  as  the  case  stands,  he  ap- 
prehends, with  great  reason,  that  the  observa- 
tion of  the  Christian  Sabbath,  and  of  Easter, 
stands  upon  a  very  different  footing. 

The  changing  the  festival  of  Christmas  into 
a  fast  last  winter  was  not  so  much  taken  no- 
tice of,  because  all  parties  were  employed  in 
acts  of  devotion  ;  but  when  it  returned  this  year, 
there  appeared  a  strong  propensity  in  the  peo- 
ple to  observe  it ;  the  shops  were  generally 
shut,  many  Presbyterian  ministers  preached  ; 
in  some  places  the  common  prayer  was  read, 
and  one  or  two  of  the  sequestered  clergy  get- 
ting into  pulpits,  prayed  publicly  for  the  bishops ; 
several  of  the  citizens  of  London,  who  opened 
their  shops,  were  abused  ;  in  some  places  there 
were  riots  and  insurrections,  especially  in  Can- 
terbury, where  the  mayor,  endeavouring  to  keep 
the  peace,  had  his  head  broke  by  the  populace, 
and  was  dragged  about  the  streets ;  the  mob 
broke  into  divers  houses  of  the  most  religious 
in  the  town,  broke  their  windows,  abused  their 
persons,  and  threw  their  goods  into  the  streets, 
because  they  exposed  them  to  sale  on  Christ- 
mas Day.t  At  length,  their  numbers  being  in- 
creased to  above  two  thousand,  they  put  them- 
selves into  a  posture  of  defence  against  the 
magistrates,  kept  guard,  stopped  passes,  exam- 
ined passengers,  and  seized  the  magazine  and 
arms  in  the  town-hall,  and  were  not  dispersed 
without  difficulty.  The  like  disorders  were  at 
Ealing,  in  Middlesex,  and  in  several  other  coun- 
ties. The  Parliament  was  alarmed  at  these 
disorders,  and  therefore  commanded  all  papists 
and  delinquent  clergymen  to  retire  without  the 
lines  of  communication,  and  punished  some  of 
the  principal  rioters  as  a  terror  to  the  rest,  it 
being  apparent  that  the  king's  party  took  ad- 

*  Relig.  Car.,  p.  370.  t  Rushworth,  p.  948. 


vantage  of  the  holydays  to  try  the  temper  of  the 
people  in  favour  of  his  release,  for  during  the 
space  of  the  following  twelve  years,  wherein 
the  festivals  were  laid  aside,  there  was  not  the 
least  tumult  on  account  of  the  holydays,  the  ob- 
servation of  Christmas  being  left  as  a  matter  of 
indifference. 

The  war  being  thought  to  be  at  an  end,  many 
of  the  clergy  who  had  followed  the  camp  re- 
turned home,  and  endeavoured  to  repossess 
themselves  of  their  sequestered  livings,  to  the 
prejudice  of  those  whom  the  Parliament  had 
put  into  their  places  ;  they  petitioned  the  king 
while  he  was  with  the  army,  and  in  a  state  of 
honour  and  dignity,  to  take  their  poor  distressed 
condition  into  his  gracious  consideration.  His 
majesty  recommended  them  to  the  general,  at 
the  very  time  when  the  difference  between  the 
Parliament  and  army  was  subsisting,  upon  which 
they  represented  their  grievances  to  him  in  a 
petition,  showing,  that  "  whereas  for  divers 
years  they  had  been  outed  of  their  livings,  con- 
trary to  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  land,  by 
the  arbitrary  power  of  committees,  whose  pro- 
ceedings have  usually  been  by  no  rule  of  law, 
but  by  their  own  wills  ;  most  of  them  having 
been  turned  out  for  refusing  the  Covenant,  or 
adhering  to  the  king,  and  the  religion  establish- 
ed, and  of  those,  divers  never  called  to  answer, 
and  scarce  one  had  articles  proved  by  oath,  or 
other  legal  process  ;  by  which  means  your  peti- 
tioners are  reduced  to  extreme  want  and  mis- 
ery ;  and  whereas,  those  who  are  put  into  our 
places  labour  to  stir  up  the  people  to  involve  the 
kingdom  in  a  new  war,  and  are  generally  men 
ignorant  and  unable  to  instruct  the  people  ;  and 
many  of  them  scandalous  in  their  practices,  if 
impartially  examined,  and  divers  of  them  hold, 
three  or  four  of  the  best  benefices,  while  divers 
other  churches  are  void,  and  without  any  constant 
preacher.  And  forasmuch  as  the  main  profit 
of  our  benefices  consists  in  the  harvest  which 
is  now  at  hand,  which  many  of  the  present  pos- 
sessors, if  they  could  receive,  would  presently 
be  gone,  whereby  the  burden  of  the  cure  will 
lie  upon  your  petitioners,  having  nothing  to  live 
upon  the  next  year.  Your  petitioners  therefore 
pray  that  your  excellency  would  make  stay  of 
the  profits  of  the  harvest,  that  those  of  us  that 
are  charged  with  any  legal  scandal  may  come 
to  a  just  trial,  and  if  we  are  found  innocent,  may 
enjoy  our  rights,  according  to  the  known  laws 
of  the  land."* 

By  this  bold  petition,  it  is  evident  these 
gentlemen  were  encouraged  to  hope  that  the 
army  would  carry  their  resentments  so  far  as 
to  unravel  all  they  had  been  doing  for  five  years  ; 
that  they  would  not  only  renounce  the  Cove- 
nant, but  disclaim  the  proceedings  of  their  com- 
mittees, and  even  countenance  the  clergy's  ad- 
hering to  the  king  ;  and  no  doubt,  if  his  majesty 
had  complied  with  the  proposals  of  the  army,  he 
might  have  made  good  terms  for  them  ;  for  the 
general  received  them  with  respect,  and,  having 
debated  their  address  in  council,  proposed  it  to 
the  Parliament  that  the  estates  of  all  sequester- 
ed persons,  including  the  clergy,  should  remain 
in  the  hands  of  tiie  tenants  till  a  general  peace. 
Upon  which  the  old  incumbents  grew  very 
troublesome,  forbidding  the  parishioners  to  pay 
their  tithes,  and  tiireatening  the  present  pos- 
*  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  140. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


57 


sessors  of  their  livings  with  legal  prosecu- 
tions. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Presbyterian  clergy 
addressed  the  general,  August  12,  a  few  days 
after  the  Parliament  and  army  were  united, 
with  a  complaint  that  "  divers  delinquent  min- 
isters, who  had  been  put  out  of  their  livings,  did 
now  trouble  and  seek  to  turn  out  those  minis- 
ters whom  the  Parliament  had  put  in  ;  and  par- 
ticularly, that  Dr.  Layfield,  by  a  counterfeit  war- 
rant from  the  general,  had  endeavoured  to  re- 
move a  minister  from  his  benefice  in  Surrey." 
The  general  and  his  council  declared  their  dis- 
like of  these  proceedings,  and  promised  to  write 
to  the  Parliament  that  such  offenders  may  be 
brought  to  punishment,  which  he  did  according- 
ly. The  difference  between  the  Parliament  and 
army  being  now  in  a  manner  compromised, 
which  cut  off  the  expectations  of  the  clergy, 
August  19,  the  Lords  and  Commons  acquainted 
the  general  that  they  would  take  care  for  the 
punishment  of  those  delinquent  ministers  and 
others,  by  whose  practices  ministers  put  into 
livings  by  the  Parliament  had  been  disquieted 
and  turned  out ;  and  on  the  23d  of  the  same 
month  they  passed  an  ordinance,  setting  forth 
"  that  whereas  divers  ministers  in  the  several 
counties  had  been  displaced  by  authority  of  Par- 
liament, for  notorious  scandals  and  delinquency, 
and  godly,  learned,  and  orthodox  ministers  had 
been  placed  in  their  room ;  and  whereas  the 
said  scandalous  and  delinquent  ministers,  by 
force  or  otherwise,  had  entered  upon  the  church- 
es, and  gained  possession  of  the  tithes,  &c.,  the 
Lords  and  Commons  did  therefore  ordain,  that 
all  sheriffs,  mayors,  committees,  &c.,  do  forth- 
with apprehend  such  ministers,  and  all  such 
persons  as  have  been  aiding  and  abetting  to 
them,  and  commit  them  to  prison,  there  to  re- 
main till  those  they  have  thus  dispossessed 
and  molested  should  receive  satisfaction  for 
their  damages  ;  and  that  the  said  sheriffs,  &c., 
do  restore  those  molested  ministers  to  the  quiet 
possession  of  their  respective  places,  and  do,  in 
case  of  need,  raise  the  trained-bands  to  put  this 
ordinance  in  execution  ;  and  do  also  take  effec- 
tual course  that  the  tithes,  profits,  &c.,  be  for  the 
future  duly  paid  to  those  ministers  put  in  by 
Parliament,  &,c.  And  if  any  such  disturbance 
should  hereafter  be  given,  the  offender  was  to 
suffer  for  every  such  disturbance  one  month's 
imprisonment." 

However,  some  small  favour  was  shown, 
about  this  time,  to  those  bishops  and  others 
who  had  lived  peaceably,  and  been  little  more 
than  spectators  of  the  distracting  miseries  of 
their  country  ;  the  committee  was  ordered  to 
make  payment  of  the  £800  per  year  granted  to 
the  Bishop  of  Durham ;  the  real  estate  of  the 
pious  Bishop  Hail,  who  had  lately  published  his 
Hard  Measure,  was  discharged  ;  Archbishop 
Usher  had  an  allowance  of  £400  per  annum, 
till  he  could  be  otherwise  provided  for,  and 
was  soon  after  allowed  to  be  preacher  at  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  only  upon  taking  the  negative  oath. 
But  the  bishops  were  not  much  considered  in 
these  donations.  The  commissioners  of  the 
great  seal  were  ordered  to  fill  up  the  vacant 
livings  in  the  gift  of  the  crown,  without  obliging 
the  incumbents  to  take  the  Covenant ;  but  the 
new  disturbances  which  arose  in  favour  of  the 
captive  king  brought  down  new  severities  upon 

Vol.  JI.— H 


the  Episcopal  clergy  before  the  end  of  the  fol- 
lowing year.* 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   VISITATION    OF  THE   UNIVERSITY    OF    OXFORD. 

STATE  OF  RELIGION  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  YEAR 

1647. 

Sad  and  deplorable  was  the  condition  of  the 
University  of  Oxford  when  it  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Parliament ;  the  colleges  and  halls  were 
gone  to  ruin,  five  of  them  perfectly  deserted,, 
and  the  rest  in  a  very  shattered  condition. 
The  public  acts  had  been  discontinued  for  some 
years,  the  schools  were  turned  into  magazines 
for  the  king's  army,  and  the  chambers  filled 
with  officers  and  soldiers,  or  let  out  to  towns- 
men :  there  was  little  or  no  instruction  for 
youth,  nor  hardly  the  face  of  a  university  ;  pov- 
erty, desolation,  and  plunder,  the  sad  effects  of 
war,  were  to  be  seen  in  every  corner  ;  the  bur- 
saries were  emptied  of  the  public  money,  the 
plate  melted  down  for  the  king's  service,  and 
the  colleges  involved  in  debts  which  they  were 
not  able  to  satisfy  ;  there  were  few  heads 
of  colleges  or  scholars  remaining,  except  such 
as  were  strongly  prejudiced  against  the  Par- 
liament, having  employed  their  wits,  during 
the  course  of  the  war,  in  writing  weekly  mer- 
curies and  satirical  pamphlets,  in  which  they 
aspersed  the  proceedings  of  the  two  houses, 
and  treated  their  divines  as  the  most  infamous, 
ignorant,  and  hypocritical  traitors  ;  nor  were 
their  tempers  in  the  least  softened,  though  their 
lives  and  fortunes  were  in  the  hands  of  their 
adversaries.  It  was  therefore  thought  neces- 
sary to  put  the  education  of  youth  into  such 
hands  as  tlie  Parliament  could  confide  in,  a 
power  being  reserved  for  that  purpose  in  the 
articles  of  surrender. 

But  before  they  proceeded  to  extremes,  the 
two  houses,  about  the  beginning  of  September, 
1646,  appointed  seven  of  their  most  popular  di- 
vines to  repair  to  Oxford,  with  authority  to 
preach  in  any  pulpits  of  the  university  for  six 
months,  in  order  to  soften  the  spirits  of  the  peo- 
ple,t  and  give  them  a  better  opinion  of  their 
cause,  viz.,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Robert  Harris,  ot 
Hanwell,  Oxfordshire ;  Mr.  Edward  Reynolds, 
afterward  Bishop  of  Norwich  ;  Mr.  Henry  Wil- 
kinson, of  Magdalen  College  ;  Mr.  Francis  Chey- 
nel,  Mr.  Edward  Corbet,  of  Merton  College  ; 
Mr.  Henry  Cornish,  of  New  Inn,  and  Mr.  Henry 
Langley,  of  Pembroke  College  ;  men  of  reputa- 
tion and  character,^  sober  divines  and  popular 
preachers,  though  A.  Wood,  the  Oxford  histo- 
rian, is  pleased  to  say,  "  Their  sermons  were 
the  contempt  and  scorn  of  the  university,  be- 
cause they  were  too  long  and  had  too  little 
learning ;  because  they  prayed  very  coldly  for 


*  Rushwoith,  p.  831,  937,  948,  958. 

t  Suff.  Cler.,  p.  125. 

t  Dr.  Grey  would  impeach  the  truth  of  this  eulo- 
gi'iin,  and  refers  to  Anthony  Wood  to  support  his 
invidious  reflections  on  these  men.  The  names  and 
characters  of  Mr.  Robert  Harris,  Dr.  Reynolds,  Mr. 
F.  Cheynel,  and  Mr.  Corbet,  will  again  come  before 
the  reader  in  Mr.  Neal's  next  volume ;  and  we  would 
refer  him  to  Dr.  Calainy,  or  Mr.  Palmer's  Noncon- 
formist's Memorial,  for  biography. — Ed. 


58 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


the  king,  but  were  very  earnest  for  a  blessing 
upon  the  councils  and  arms  of  the  Parliament, 
and  did  not  always  conclude  with  the  Lord's 
Prayer ;  because  they  reflected  on  some  of  the 
heads  of  the  university,  calling  them  dumb  dogs, 
having  a  form  of  religion  without  the  power  ; 
and  because  their  manner  of  delivery  was  rath- 
er theatrical  than  serious ;  nevertheless,  their 
auditories  were  crowded,  though  none  of  the 
heads  of  colleges  or  senior  scholars  attended." 

The  ministers  were  very  diligent  in  the  dis- 
charge of  their  trust,  preaching  twice  every 
Lord's  Day ;  and  that  they  might  gain  the  affec- 
tions of  the  people,  set  up  a  weekly  conference 
every  Thursday,  in  which  they  proposed  to  solve 
such  objections  as  should  be  raised  against  their 
new  confession  of  faith  and  discipline,  and  to 
answer  any  other  important  cases  in  divinity  : 
the  question  or  case  was  to  be  propounded  the 
week  before,  that  it  might  be  well  considered ; 
a  moderator  also  was  appointed  to  keep  order, 
who  began  and  concluded  with  a  short  prayer, 
and  the  whole  was  conducted  with  decency  and 
gravity.*  But  several  of  the  scholars  ridiculed 
their  proceedings,  and,  by  way  of  contempt,  call- 
'€d  their  place  of  meeting  the  scruple  shop ; 
-however,  it  was  frequented  by  great  numbers  of 
people,  some  of  whom  were  prevailed  with  to 
renounce  the  Oxford  oath,  and  others  to  take 
the  solemn  League  and  Covenant.  They  met 
with  some  little  disturbance  from  one  Erbury,  a 
■turbulent  Antinomian,  and  chaplain  in  the  gar- 
jison  ;  but  upon  the  whole,  when  the  ministers 
returned  to  London,  they  declared  the  citizens 
showed  them  a  great  deal  cf  respect,  although 
the  university  poured  all  the  contempt  upon 
them  imaginable,  so  that  they  apprehended  them- 
selves to  have  the  same  lot  as  Saint  Paul  had 
-at  Athens,  Acts,  xvii.,  32,34:  "Some  mocked 
them,  others  slighted  them,  but  certain  clave  to 
them,  and  believed. "t 

There  being  no  prospect  of  reforming  the 
university  by  these  methods,  the  two  houses  re- 
solved to  proceed  upon  a  visitation,  which  they 
apprehended  they  might  undertake  without  the 
king,  by  virtue  of  the  fourteenth  article  of  their 
recapitulation,  which  says  "  that  the  chancel- 
lor, masters,  and  scholars  of  the  university,  and 
all  heads,  governors,  masters,  fellows,  and  schol- 
ars of  the  colleges,  halls,  bodies  corporate,  and 
societies  of  the  said  university,  and  the  public 
professors,  readers,  and  orators  thereof,  and  all 
•other  persons  belonging  to  the  said  university, 
shall  and  may,  according  to  their  statutes,  char- 
ters, and  customs,  enjoy  their  ancient  form  of 
government,  subordinate  to  the  immediate  au- 
thority and  power  of  Parliament,  and  that  all 
the  rights,  privileges,  franchises,  lands,  tene- 
ments, houses,  rents,  revenues,  libraries,  debts, 
goods,  and  chattels,  &c.,  belonging  to  the  said 
•university,  shall  be  enjoyed  by  them  respect- 
ively as  aforesaid,  free  from  sequestrations, 
^nes,  taxes,  and  all  other  molestations  whatso- 
ever under  colour  of  anything  relating  to  the 
present  war.  And  if  any  removal  shall  be  made 
-by  the  Parliament  of  any  head  or  other  members 
of  the  university,  that  they  shall  enjoy  their 
profits  for  six  months  after  the  surrendering  of 
Oxon,  and  shall  have  convenient  time  allowed 
them  for  the  removal  of  themselves  and  their 


*  S\iff.  Cler..  p. 
Pamph.,  No.  282. 


125. 


Minist.  Accour.t,  p.  5.    Vol, 
t  Minist.  Account,  p.  52. 


goods  ;  provided  that  this  shall  not  extend  to 
retard  any  reformation  there  intended  by  the 
Parliament,  or  give  them  any  liberty  to  inter- 
meddle with  the  government."*  But  the  heads 
of  colleges  did  not  think  themselves  obliged  hy 
this  capitulation,  nor  anything  contained  in  it, 
because  they  were  not  made  parties,  nor  called 
upon  to  give  their  separate  consent  to  the  arti- 
cles, though  they  took  advantage  of  everything 
that  was  stipulated  in  their  favour.t 

May  1,  1647,  an  ordinance  passed  both  houses 
for  visiting  the  university,  and  nominating  the 
following  gentlemen,  lawyers,  and  divines,  for 
that  service,  viz.  -.t 

Sir  Nath.  Brent.  Mr.  George  Greenwood. 

Sir  William  Cobb.  Mr.  John  Packer. 

William   Prynne,  of  Lin-  Mr.  William  Cope. 

coin's  Inn,  Esq.  Mr.     John     Heling,     of 

John    PuUiston,    of    Lin-      Gray's  Inn. 

coin's  Inn,  Esq.  Rev.  Dr.  John  Wilkinson. 

Earth.  Hall,  of  the  Middle     "     Mr.  Henry  Wilkin- 

Temple,  Esq.  son. 

Tho.  Knight,  of  Lincoln's    "     Mr.  Edw.  Reynolds. 

Inn,  Esq.  "     Mr.  Rob.  Harris. 

Samuel  Dunch,  Esq.  "     Mr.  Edw.  Corbet. 

William   Draper,   of  Lm-     "     Mr.  Fran.  Cheynel. 

coin's  Inn,  Esq.  "     Mr.  John  Wilkinson. 

Gabriel  Beck,  of  Lincoln's     "     Mr.  John  Mills. 

Inn,  Esq.  "      Mr.  Christopher  Ro- 

John  Cartwright,  Esq.  gers. 

Mr.  William  Tripping. 

The  ordinance  empowers  the  visiters,  or  any 
five  of  them,  "  to  hear  and  determine  all  crimes, 
offences,  abuses,  and  disorders  which,  by  the 
laws  and  statutes  of  this  realm,  or  by  the  cus- 
toms and  statutes,  rightly  established,  of  that 
university,  or  by  the  several  statutes  of  the  re- 
spective colleges  or  halls,  may  lawfully  be  in- 
quired of,  heard,  or  determined,  in  the  course 
and  way  of  visitation  of  the  university,  or  of 
the  colleges,  halls,  masters,  scholars,  fellows, 
members,  and  officers,  or  any  of  them,  respect- 
ively. They  are  more  particularly  to  inquire  by 
oath  concerning  those  that  neglect  to  take  the 
solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and  the  negative 
oath,  being  tendered  to  them  by  such  as  are  au- 
thorized by  Parliament ;  and  concerning  those 
who  oppose  the  execution  of  the  ordinance  of 
Parliament,  concerning  the  discipline  and  Direc- 
tory ;  and  those  who  shall  teach  or  write  against 
any  point  of  doctrine,  the  ignorance  whereof 
doth  exclude  from  the  Lord's  Supper.  They  are 
likewise  to  inquire,  upon  oath,  concerning  all 
such  who  have  taken  up  arms  against  the  Par- 
liament. And  they  are  to  certify  to  a  commit- 
tee of  the  House  of  Lords  and  Commons,  men- 
tioned in  the  ordinance,  what  masters,  scholars, 
fellows,  members,  or  officers  have  committed 
any  of  the  offences  above  mentioned,  and  the 
quality  and  condition  of  the  offenders,  that  such 
farther  proceedings  may  be  had  thereupon  as 
the  committee  of  Lords  and  Commons  shall 
think  fit.  The  visiters  are  farther  empowered 
to  examine  and  consider  all  such  oaths  as  are 
enjoined  by  the  statutes  of  the  university,  or 
any  of  the  halls  and  colleges,  as  are  not  fit  to  be 
taken,  and  present  their  opinion  to  the  commit- 
tee above  mentioned  ;  provided,  always,  that  if 
any  of  the  masters,  scholars,  fellows,  &c.,  shall 
find  themselves  aggrieved  by  any  sentence  given 
by  the  visiters,  it  shall  be  lawful  for  them  to  ap- 

*  Rushworth,  p.  283.         f  Fuller's  Appeal,  p.  70 
t  Scobel's  Collect.,  part  i.,  p.  116.     Suff.  Cler.,  p. 
126. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


59 


peal  to  the  committee  of  Lords  and  Commons, 
who  are  authorized  finally  to  hear  and  determine 
every  such  case  brought  before  them." 

Before  the  visitation  could  take  place,  the 
Tice-chancellor,  Dr.  Fell,  summoned  a  convoca- 
tion [June  1],  wherein  it  was  agreed  not  to 
submit  to  the  Parliament  visiters.  A  paper  of 
reasons  against  the  Covenant,*  the  negative 
oath,  and  the  Directory,  drawn  up  chiefly  by  Dr. 
Sanderson,  was  also  consented  to,  and  ordered 
to  be  published  to  the  world  both  in  La^  and 
English,  against  the  time  the  visiters  were  to 
come  down,  under  the  title  of  "  Reasons  of  the 
present  Judgment  of  the  University  of  Oxford, 
concerning  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant, 
the  Negative  Oath,  and  the  Ordinances  concern- 
ing Discipline  and  Worship,  approved  by  general 
consent  in  a  full  Convocation,  June  1,  1647," 
.an  abstract  of  which  I  shall  now  set  before  the 
reader.! 

To  THE  Pref-vce  of  THE  COVENANT  [transcribed 
under  the  year  1643]. $ 

They  declare,  "  We  cannot  say  the  rage, 
power,  and  presumption  of  the  enemies  of  God 
(in  the  sense  there  intended)  are  increased. 
Nor  that  we  have  consented  to  any  supplica- 


*  Dr.  Sanderson  methodized  and  put  into  form 
this  paper,  or  manifesto,  and  added  what  referred  to 
reason  and  conscience.  The  law  part  was  drawn 
Tip  by  Dr.  Zouch,  a  civilian.  But,  on  the  whole, 
twenty  delegates,  by  the  appointment  of  the  univer- 
sity, were  concerned  in  this  composition  ;  among 
whom  were  Dr.  Sheldon,  afterward  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  Dr.  Hammond,  Dr.  Sanderson,  and  Dr. 
Morley,  afterward  Bishop  of  Winchester. —  Watto7i's 
Life  of  Sanderson,  1678,  p.  78,  79. — Ed. 

t  Bp.  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  169. 

X  Clarendon  exults  in  the  intrepidity  of  the  Oxford 
men  on  this  occasion.  "  To  their  eternal  renown," 
he  says,  "being  at  the  same  time  under  a  strict  and 
strong  garrison,  put  over  them  by  the  Parliament — 
the  king  in  prison,  and  all  their  hopes  desperate — 
they  passed  a  public  act  and  declaration  against  the 
Covenant,  with  such  invincible  arguments  of  the  ille- 
gality, wickedness,  and  perjury  entertained  in  it,  that 
no  man  of  the  contrary  opinion,  nor  the  Assembly  of 
Divines,  ever  ventured  to  make  any  answer  to  it ; 
nor  is  it,  indeed,  to  be  answered,  but  must  remain,  to 
the  world's  end,  as  a  monument  of  the  learning, 
courage,  and  loyalty  of  that  excellent  place,  against 
the  highest  malice  and  tyranny  that  was  ever  exer- 
cised ui  or  over  any  nation." — History  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, vol.  v.,  p.  481.  This  language  was  not  unnatu- 
ral from  the  eulogist  of  Charles  and  his  party,  but  it 
is  due  to  historical  fidehty  to  state,  that  there  was 
no  such  heroism  in  the  conduct  of  the  Oxford  divines 
.as  Clarendon  alleges. 

The  influence  of  the  Parliament  was  rapidly  decli- 
ning before  that  of  the  army,  and  its  commissioners 
might  therefore  be  resisted  without  the  alternative 
of  martyrdom  being  chosen.  The  soldiers  within 
sight  of  the  university  openly  resisted  the  visiters, 
and  the  king's  person  was  seized  by  a  detachment 
from  the  army  within  two  days  of  the  Oxford  "  Rea- 
sons" being  drawn  up.  It  is  only  to  suppose  that  the 
heads  of  colleges  participated  in  the  hopes  of  the 
monarch,  and  their  conduct  will  appear  much  less 
maivellous  than  Clarendon  represents. 

When  the  enthusiasm  of  loyalty  was  at  its  height, 
subsequent  to  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  the 
Commons  ordered  a  vote  of  thanks  to  be  given  to  the 
vice-chancellor,  and  other  members  of  the  universi- 
ty, for  their  "  remarkable  loyalty,"  and  "  for  the  il- 
lustrious performance  they  printed"  on  this  occasion. 
— Price's  History  of  Nonconformity,  vol.  ii.,  p.   390. 


tion  or  remonstrance  to  the  purposes  therein 
expressed.  We  do  not  think  the  taking  the 
Covenant  to  be  a  lawful  and  probable  means  to 
preserve  ourselves  and  our  religion  from  ruin  ; 
nor  do  we  believe  it  to  be  according  to  the  com- 
mendable practice  of  these  kingdoms,  or  the  ex- 
ample of  God's  people  in  other  nations." 

To  THE  Covenant  in  general. 

"  We  are  of  opinion  that  a  covenant  ought 
to  be  a  voluntary  contract,  and  not  imposed. 
Now  we  cannot  voluntarily  consent  to  this  Cov- 
enant without  betraying  our  liberties,  one  of 
which  is,  not  to  be  obliged  to  take  any  oath  but 
what  is  establ  shed  by  act  of  Parliament;  and 
without  acknowledging  in  the  imposers  a  great- 
er power  than  has  been  challenged  in  former 
time,  or  can  subsist  with  our  former  protesta- 
tion. But  if  the  Covenant  were  not  imposed, 
but  only  recommended,  we  apprehend  the  ta- 
king it  to  be  inconsistent  with  our  loyalty  to 
the  king,  especially  since  he  has,  by  proclama- 
tion, forbid  it." 

Objections  to  the  several  Articles  of  the 
Covenant. 

To  the  first  Article. 

"We  cannot  swear  to  preserve  the  religion 
of  another  kingdom  (Scotland),  whereof  we 
have  very  little  understanding,  which,  as  far  as 
we  are  acquainted  with  it,  is  much  worse  than 
our  own  in  worship,  discipline,  and  government, 
and  in  doctrine  not  at  all  better ;  wherein  there 
are  some  things  so  far  tending  to  superstition 
and  schism,  that  it  seems  reasonable  to  us  that 
we  should  call  upon  them  to  reform,  rather 
than  we  should  be  bound  to  preserve  it  entire. 

"  Neither  are  we  satisfied  in  the  present  ref- 
ormation of  religion  in  our  own  kingdom,  in 
doctrine,  worship,  and  discipline,  because,  (1.) 
It  gives  a  manifest  scandal  to  the  papist  and 
separatist,  by  giving  up  the  cause  for  which  the 
martyrs  and  bishops  have  contended  since  the 
Reformation  ;  by  justifying  the  papists  in  theit 
recusancy,  who  reproach  us  by  saying,  we 
know  not  what  religion  we  are  of;  nor  where 
to  stop,  since  we  have  left  them ;  and  that  ours 
is  a  Parliamentary  religion.  Besides,  this  would 
be  a  tacit  acknowledgment  that  there  has 
been  something  in  the  Church  of  England  not 
agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  so  justify 
the  separation,  and  condemn  all  the  penal  laws 
that  have  been  made  to  obhge  people  to  con- 
form.* (2.)  By  the  intended  reformation  we 
should  wrong  ourselves,  by  swearing  to  reforn: 
that  which  we  have  formerly  by  our  subscrip- 
tions approved,  and  which  we  do  still  believe  to 
be  more  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God  than 
that  which  by  this  Covenant  we  must  swear  to 
preserve  ;  and  to  which,  by  the  laws  still  in  be- 
ing, every  clerk,  at  his  admission  to  a  benefice, 
is  bound  to  give  his  consent.  (3.)  Besides,  we 
would  be  in  danger  of  perjury,  because  it  is 
contrary  to  our  former  protestation,  which  obli- 
ges us  to  maintain  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
of  England,  which  may  take  in  the  whole  es- 
tablishment ;  and  it  is  contrary  to  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  which  gives  the  sole  power  to  the 
king  in  matters  ecclesiastical." 


Bishop  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  179. 


60 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


Oljeclions  to  the  second  Article. 
"We  are  very  much  grieved  to  see  the  prel- 
acy of  the  Church  of  England  ranked  with  po- 
pery, superstition,  lieresy,  schisrei,  and  profane- 
ness,  with  an  intimation  that  it  is  contrary  to 
sound  doctrine  or  the  power  of  godliness.* 
Nor  can  we  swear  to  the  extirpation  of  it,  be- 
cause, (I.)  We  believe  it  to  be  of  apostolical  in- 
stitution. Or,  (2.)  At  least,  that  Episcopal  ar- 
istocracy hath  a  fairer  claim  to  a  Divine  insti- 
tution than  any  other  form  of  church  govern- 
ment. (3.)  That  Episcopal  government  has  con- 
tinued in  the  Church,  without  interruption,  for 
fifteen  hundred  years  ;  therefore,  to  extirpate  it, 
would  give  advantage  to  the  papists,  who  are 
wont  to  charge  us  with  a  contempt  of  antiquity, 
and  love  of  novelty,  and  it  would  diminish  the 
just  authority  due  to  the  consent  and  practice  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  (4.)  Besides,  we  cannot 
swear  to  the  extirpating  this  government,  be- 
cause we  have  subscribed  the  Thirty-nine  Ar- 
ticles, one  of  which  says,  the  book  contain- 
ing the  form  of  consecration  has  nothing  in  it 
contrary  to  the  Word  of  God.  We  have  been 
ordained  by  bishops  ;  we  have  petitioned  the 
Parliament  for  the  continuance  of  them  ;  and 
some  of  us  hold  our  livelihoods  by  the  titles  of 
deans,  deans  and  chapters,  &c.  (5.)  We  are 
not  satisfied  that  the  inconveniences  of  the  new 
government  will  be  less  than  the  old,  the  House 
of  Commons  having  remonstrated  [December 
15,  1641],  that  it  was  far  from  their  purpose  to 
abolish  this  government,  but  only  to  regulate  it, 
and  that  it  was  a  sign  of  malignancy  to  infuse 
into  the  people  that  they  had  any  other  mean- 
ing. Lastly,  in  respect  of  our  obligation  to  his 
majesty,  having  acknowledged  him  to  be  su- 
preme governor  in  all  causes  ecclesiastical,  we 
cannot  endeavour  to  extirpate  this  government 
without  the  royal  assent,  which  we  are  so  far 
from  desiring,  that  we  are  continually  praying 
that  the  king  may  not  be  prevailed  with  to  do 
an  act  so  prejudicial  to  his  conscience  and  hon- 
our, and  which,  by  his  coronation  oath,  he  is 
bound  to  preserve. t  By  the  laws  of  the  land, 
there  are  sundry  privileges  and  emoluments 
arising  to  the  crown  from  the  ecclesiastical  es- 
tate, which  are  a  considerable  part  of  the  rev- 
enue, which,  by  the  extirpation  of  prelacy,  will 
be  cut  off;  whereas  we  are  bound  by  the  oath 
of  allegiance  to  maintain  the  king's  honour  and 
estate.  And,  after  all,  the  prelatical  govern- 
ment is  best  suited  to  monarchy,  insomuch  that 
King  James  used  to  say,  No  bishop,  no  king." 

Objections  to  the  third  Article. 
"  We  are  dissatisfied  with  the  limitation  of 
our  loyalty  in  these  words,  '  in  the  preservation 
and  defence  of  the  true  religion  and  liberties  of 
the  kingdom  ;'  because  no  such  limitation  is  to 
be  found  in  the. oath  of  allegiance,  nor  in  the 
Word  of  God  ;  because  it  leaves  the  duty  of 
the  subject  loose,  and  the  safety  of  the  king  un- 
certain. The  conscience  of  a  papist  or  sectary 
may  swallow  an  oath  with  such  a  limitation, 
but  the  conscience  of  a  good  Protestant  cannot 
but  strain  at  it.''t 

Objections  to  the  fourth  Article. 
They  reply,  "  That  the  imposing  the  Cove- 

*  Bishop  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  184. 
■f  Ibid.,  p.  197.  t  Ibid.,  p.  201. 


nant  in  this  article  may  lay  a  necessity  upon  the 
son  to  accuse  the  father,  in  case  he  be  a  malig- 
nant, which  is  contrary  to  religion,  nature,  and 
humanity  ;  or  it  may  open  a  way  for  children 
that  are  sick  of  their  fathers,  to  effect  their  un- 
lawful intentions,  by  accusing  them  of  malig- 
nancy ;  besides,  the  subjecting  ourselves  to  an 
arbitrary  punishment,  at  the  sole  pleasure  of 
such  uncertain  judges  as  may  be  deputed  for 
that  effect,  is  betraying  the  liberty  of  the  sub- 
ject."* 
• 

Objections  to  the  fifth  Article. 

"We  cannot  acknowledge  the  happiness  of 
such  a  peace  as  in  the  article  is  mentioned,  for 
no  peace  can  be  firm  and  well  grounded,  unless 
the  respective  authority,  power,  and  liberty  of 
king,  Parliament,  and  subject,  be  preserved  full 
and  entire,  according  to  the  known  laws  and 
respective  customs  of  the  kingdom  before  the 
beginning  of  these  distractions. "t 

Objections  to  the  sixth  Article. 

They  say,  "  We  are  not  satisfied  that  the- 
cause  of  our  joining  in  covenant  for  the  prose- 
cution of  the  late  war  was  the  cause  of  religion, 
liberty,  and  peace  of  the  kingdom,  or  that  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  honour  of  the  king  were 
concerned  in  it.  And  if  it  was,  we  are  not  sat- 
isfied that  it  ought  to  be  supported  and  carried 
on  by  such  means  as  are  destitute  of  all  war- 
rant from  the  Word  of  God,  or  the  laws  of  the 
realm. "t 

In  conclusion,  say  they,  "  Our  hearts  tremble 
to  think  that  we  should  be  required  to  pray  that 
other  Christian  churches  may  be  encouraged  by 
our  example  to  join  in  the  like  covenant  to  free 
themselves  from  the  antichristian  yoke,  for  we 
do  not  know  any  antichristian  yoke  we  were 
under  ;  nor  do  we  yet  see  such  good  fruits  of 
this  Covenant  among  ourselves  as  to  invite  us 
to  pray  that  other  churches  should  follow  our 
example ;  it  is  as  if  we  should  pray  that  the 
God  of  love  and  peace  would  take  away  all  love 
and  peace,  and  set  the  Christian  world  in  a 
combustion  ;  that  he  would  render  the  Reform- 
ed religion  odious  to  the  world  ;  that  Christiaa 
princes  might  be  provoked  to  use  more  severity 
towards  those  of  the  Reformed  religion,  if  not  to 
root  it  out  of  their  dominions  ;  for  the  yoke  of 
antichrist,  if  laid  upon  subjects  by  their  lawful 
sovereigns,  is  to  be  thrown  off  by  Christian 
boldness  in  confessing  the  truth,  and  suffering 
for  it,  not  by  taking  up  arms,  or  violent  resist- 
ing of  the  higher  powers." 

After  these  remarks  upon  the  several  articles,, 
they  take  notice, 

(1.)  Of  the  following  seeming  contradictions 
in  that  Covenant ;  as,  "  The  preserving  and  yet 
reforming  one  and  the  same  reformed  religion. 
The  reforming  church  government  according 
to  the  Word  of  God,  and  yet  extirpating  that 
government  which  we  apprehend  agreeable  to 
it.  The  extirpating  heresy  and  schism,  and 
yet  dissolving  that  government  in  the  Church, 
the  want  of  the  due  exercise  of  which  has  been 
the  occasion  of  the  growth  of  these  evils.  The 
preserving  the  liberties  of  the  kingdom,  and  yet 
submitting  to  a  covenant  and  oath  not  estab- 
lished by  law. "(J 


*  Bishop  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  203. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  206.       t  Ibid.,  p.  207.       ^  Ibid.,  p.  243- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


61 


(2.)  They  observe  some  dark  and  doubtful 
expressions  which  they  do  not  well  understand  ; 
as,  "  Who  are  the  common  enemies  1  Which 
are  the  best  Reformed  churches  1  Who  are 
malignants  1  How  far  the  hindering  reforma- 
tion may  be  extended,  &c."* 

<;}.)  By  the  use  that  has  been  made  of  the 
Covenant,  they  apprehend  "  the  conduct  of  the 
Parliament  to  be  contrary  to  the  meaning  of  it, 
for  instead  of  reforming  the  worship  and  ser- 
vice of  the  Church,  they  have  quite  abolished  ft ; 
instead  of  reforming  the  discipline  of  the  Church, 
it  is  quite  destroyed,  or  put  upon  such  a  foot  as 
is  not  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  or  the  ex- 
ample of  any  church  since  the  creation.  In- 
stead of  extirpating  heresy  and  profaneness,  lit- 
tle or  nothing  has  been  done  towards  it,  but  only 
the  extirpation  of  prelacy,  and  something  else 
that  looks  so  like  sacrilege  (say  they)  that  we 
do  not  venture  upon  it.  And  as  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  king's  honour  and  estate  in  de- 
fence of  the  true  religion  and  liberties  of  the 
iingdom,  though  we  apprehend  all  other  things 
should  be  subordinate  to  it,  yet  by  some  bold 
speeches  that  have  been  made  we  are  afraid  no- 
thing less  is  intended." 

Of  the  Salvoes  for  taking  the  Covenant. 

(1.)  "It  has  been  said  that  we  may  take  it 
in  our  own  sense.  But  this  we  apprehend  con- 
trary to  the  nature  and  end  of  an  oath  ;  con- 
trary to  the  end  of  speech  ;  contrary  to  the  de- 
sign of  the  Covenant,  and  contrary  to  the  sol- 
emn profession  at  the  conclusion  of  it,  viz., 
That  we  shall  take  it  with  a  true  intention  to 
perform  the  same,  as  we  shall  answer  it  to  the 
Searcher  of  all  hearts  at  the  great  day.  Be- 
sides, this  would  be  Jesuitical ;  it  would  be  ta- 
king the  name  of  God  in  vain ;  and  it  would 
strengthen  the  objection  of  those  who  say. 
There  is  no  faith  to  be  given  to  Protestants. t 

(2.)  "  It  has  been  said,  we  may  take  the  Cov- 
enant with  these  salvoes  expressed.  So  far  as 
lawfully  I  may,  so  far  as  it  is  agreeable  to  the 
Word  of  God,  and  the  laws  of  the  land,  saving 
all  oaths  by  me  formerly  taken,  dec,  which  is 
no  better  than  vile  hypocrisy  ;  for  by  the  same 
Tule  one  might  subscribe  to  the  Council  of  Trent, 
or  the  Turkish  Alcoran. 

(3.)  "  It  is  said  that  we  may  take  the  Cove- 
nant in  our  present  circumstances,  notwith- 
standing our  allegiance  to  the  king,  because 
protection  and  subjection  are  relatives,  and  the 
king,  being  unable  to  protect  us  any  longer,  we 
are  free  from  subjection  to  him.  But  we  an- 
swer, that  the  king's  inability  to  perform  his 
duty  does  not  discharge  the  subject  from  his, 
as  long  as  he  is  able  ;  much  less  when  the  non- 
protection  on  the  king's  part  is  not  from  want 
of  will,  but  of  power. 

(4.)  "  It  is  said  that  the  Parliament  being  the 
supreme  judicatory  of  the  kingdom,  whereso- 
ever the  king  is  in  person  he  is  always  present 
"ivith  his  Parliament  in  power  ;  as  what  is  done 
in  courts  of  justice  is  not  done  without  the 
king,  but  by  him,  though  not  personally  present. 
But  we  deny  the  king  to  be  always  present  with 
his  Parliament  in  power,  for  then  his  actual  roy- 
al assent  would  not  be  necessary  to  the  making 
of  laws,  but  only  a  virtual  assent  included  in 

*  Sanderson's  Life,  Aopendix,  p.  213. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  231,  &c. 


the  votes  of  both  houses  :  the  houses  need  not, 
then,  desire  the  royal  assent,  nor  can  the  king 
be  supposed  to  have  a  negative  voice.  Besides, 
the  statute  which  provides  that  the  king's  as- 
sent to  any  bill  signified  under  his  great  seal 
shall  be  as  valid  as  if  he  were  personally  pres- 
ent, imports  that  the  king's  power  is  not  pres- 
ent with  his  two  houses,  otherwise  than  it  ap- 
pears in  his  person,  or  under  his  great  seal. 
As  to  the  analogy  of  other  courts,  we  conceive 
it  of  no  consequence  ;  in  other  courts  the  judg- 
es are  the  king's  servants,  and  do  all  in  his 
name,  and  by  his  authority ;  they  sit  there  not 
by  any  proper  interest  of  their  own,  but  in  right 
of  the  king,  whose  judges  they  are;  but  the 
Parliament  is  the  king's  council,  and  have  their 
several  proper  rights  and  interests  distinct  from 
the  king's,  by  virtue  of  which  they  are  distinct  or- 
ders and  conservators  of  their  several  interests. 
Besides,  the  judges  of  other  courts  are  bounded 
by  the  laws  in  being,  and  therefore  the  king's  per- 
sonal presence  is  not  necessary  ;  but  the  case  is 
quite  different  in  making  new  laws,  for  the  ma- 
king new  laws  is  the  exercise  of  a  legislative 
rather  than  a  judicial  power ;  now  no  act  of 
legislative  power  can  be  valid,  unless  it  be  con- 
firmed by  such  person  or  persons  as  the  sover- 
eignty of  that  community  resideth  in.  Upon 
the  whole,  since  all  judicial  power  is  radically 
in  the  king,  who  is  therefore  called  the  fountain 
of  justice,  it  seems  to  us,  that  neither  the  judg- 
es in  inferior  courts,  nor  the  Lords  and'  Com- 
mons assembled  in  Parliament,  may  exercise 
any  other  power  over  the  subjects  of  this  realm 
than  such  as  by  their  respective  patents  and 
writs  issued  from  the  king,  or  by  the  established 
laws  of  the  land,  formerly  assented  to  by  the 
kings  of  this  realm,  does  appear  to  be  derived 
from  them  ;  by  which  writs,  patents,  and  laws, 
it  does  not  appear  that  the  two  houses  of  Par- 
liament have  any  power  without  tiie  king  to  or- 
der, command,  or  transact ;  but  only  with  him 
to  treat,  consult,  and  advise  concerning  the 
great  affairs  of  the  kingdom." 

Concerning  the  Negative  Oath. 
They  say,  "  We  cannot  take  it  without  givmg 
up  our  liberties,  without  abusing  our  natural  al- 
legiance, and  without  diminution  of  his  majes- 
ty's just  power  and  greatness."* 

Concerning  the  Discipline  and  Directory. 

"  We  are  not  satisfied  to  submit  to  the  ordi- 
nance for  establishing  the  Directory,  because  it 
has  not  the  royal  assent,  and  yet  abrogates  acts 
of  Parliament  made  by  the  joint  consent  of  king. 
Lords,  and  Commons,  especially  one  which  an- 
nexes the  whole  power  of  ordering  all  ecclesi- 
astical matters  forever  to  the  imperial  crown  of 
this  realm  ;  now  we  are  not  satisfied  that  a 
less  power  can  have  a  just  right  to  abrogate  a 
greater. 

"  If  under  the  title  of  discipline  be  compre- 
hended the  government  of  the  Church  also,  we 
declare  we  cannot  consent  to  the  eradication  of 
a  government  of  such  reverend  antiquity,  which 
has  from  time  to  time  been  confirmed  by  the 
laws  of  the  kingdom,  and  which  the  kings,  at 
their  successive  coronations,  have  sworn  to 
preserve.  If  the  word  discipline  be  distinguish- 
ed from  government,  as  in  the  first  article  of 

*  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  243. 


62 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS, 


the  Covenant,  yet  are  we  not  satisfied  to  place 
so  much  power  in  the  hands  of  persons  (many 
of  whom  may  be  of  mean  quality)  for  the  keep- 
ing back  thousands  of  well-meaning  Christians 
from  the  blessed  Sacrament,  when  St.  Paul,  in 
a  church  abounding  with  sundry  errors  and  cor- 
ruptions in  faith  and  manners,  satisfies  himself 
with  a  general  declaration  of  the  danger  of  un- 
worthy communicating,  and  enjoins  every  par- 
ticular person  a  self-examination,  without  em- 
powering either  ministers  or  lay-elders  to  ex- 
clude any  from  the  communion  upon  their  ex- 
amination. 

"  As  to  the  Directory  itself,  we  cannot,  with- 
out regret  of  conscience,  and  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  present  laws,  consent  to  the 
taking  away  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which 
we  have  subscribed,  and  solemnly  promised  to 
use  no  other  ;  which  we  believe  contains  in  it 
nothing  but  what  is  justly  defensible ;  and  which 
we  think  ourselves  able  to  justify  against  all 
papists  and  sectaries.  Besides,  we  look  upon 
the  statute  enjoining  the  use  of  the  Common 
Prayer  to  be  still  in  force,  and  will  always  re- 
main so,  till  it  shall  be  repealed  by  the  same 
good  and  full  authority  by  which  it  was  made  ; 
that  is,  by  the  free  consent  of  king.  Lords,  and 
Commons."* 

By  comparing  these  reasons  with  those  of  the 
Parliament  divines  for  taking  the  Covenant, 
the  reader  will  be  capable  of  judging  how  far 
they  are  conclusive.  Many  of  them  are  unques- 
tionably good,  and  had  the  Constitution  remain- 
ed entire,  and  the  laws  had  their  free  and  ordi- 
nary course,  as  in  times  of  peace,  most  of  them 
would  have  been  conclusive  ;  but  how  far  the 
necessity  of  the  war,  and  the  right  of  self- 
defence,  will  vindicate  the  extraordmary  pro- 
ceedings of  Parliament,  I  shall  not  take  upon 
me  to  determine  for  others.  /  am  no  advocate 
for  the  particulars  of  the  Covenant,  any  more  than 
for  the  high  aiid  arbitrary  principles  of  government 
contained  in  the  university''s  reasons.  The  con- 
sciences of  men  are  not  under  the  direction  of 
their  wills,  but  of  their  judgments,  and  there- 
fore ought  not  to  be  constrained  by  oaths,  prot- 
estations, or  covenants,  to  attempt  those  things 
in  matters  of  religion  for  which  their  own  hearts 
must  condemn  them.  Religion  and  civil  gov- 
ernment stand  upon  a  distinct  foundation,  and 
are  designed  for  very  different  ends  ;  the  magis- 
trate may  demand  security  for  men's  peaceable 
submission  to  the  civil  government,  but  ought 
not  to  force  them  to  be  active  against  the  light 
of  their  consciences  in  matters  of  religion.  The 
university's  reasons  are  not  built  upon  these 
principles  ;  for  those  gentlemen  were  as  much 
for  the  coercive  power  of  the  magistrate  in  ca- 
ses of  conscience  as  the  Puritans  ;  and  where- 
as they  say,  the  allegiance  of  the  subject,  and 
the  protection  of  the  king,  are  not  relatives  ; 
and  that  the  king's  inability  to  discharge  his 
duty  does  not  absolve  the  subject  from  his,  I 
shall  only  observe,  that  upon  these  principles 
the  crown  can  never  be  forfeited  ;  a  coronation 
oath  is  of  very  little  significance  ;  nor  may  a 
nation  submit  to  a  conqueror  even  when  they 
can  resist  no  longer.  Inability  alone  in  the 
prince,  I  grant,  may  not  in  all  cases  absolve  us  | 
from  our  allegiance  ;  but  tyranny,  oppression,  j 

*  Bishop  Sanderson's  Life,  Appendix,  p.  244.        | 


and  open  attempts  to  subvert  the  whole  Consti- 
tution and  laws  of  the  country,  certainly  may  ; 
upon  what  other  ground  can  we  justify  the  late 
revolution,  and  the  present  happy  establishment 
of  the  Protestant  succession  1  When  the  Ox- 
ford divines,  at  the  period  of  the  revolution,  had 
taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  King  James  MT, 
and  the  corporation  oath,  which  says,  "  It  is  not 
lawful  to  resist  or  take  up  arms  against  the  king 
upon  any  pretence  whatsoever ;"  what  could 
absolve  them  from  these  engagements,  or  justify 
their  joining  the  Prince  of  Orange  with  a  for- 
eign force  against  a  king  upon  the  throne  T 
However,  the  stand  now  made  by  the  universi- 
ty was  a  bold  and  adventurous  attempt,  for 
which  they  received  the  applause  of  the  Oxford 
Parliament  in  the  year  1665,  when  it  was  re- 
solved, "  that  the  thanks  of  the  House  of  Com- 
inons  be  returned  to  the  chancellor,  masters, 
and  scholars  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  for 
their  bold  opposition  to  the  rebellious  visiters  ;. 
for  refusing  to  submit  to  their  League  and  Cov- 
enant ;  and,  lastly,  for  the  illustrious  perform- 
ance they  printed,  entitled  '  The  Judgment  of 
the  University,'  &,c.,  in  which  they  have  learn- 
edly maintained  the  king's  cause."  This  was 
the  fashionable  doctrine  of  King  Charles  II. 's 
reign,  when  the  laws  were  suspended  and  in- 
fringed, and  arbitrary  power  in  the  prince  rose- 
to  such  a  height  as  in  the  next  reign  issued  in 
a  revolution  of  government.  The  University  of 
Oxford  did  all  they  could  to  countenance  the 
triumphs  of  the  prerogative ;  for  in  the  year 
1663  they  passed  a  decree  in  full  convocation, 
affirming  the  necessity  of  passive  obedience 
and  non-resistance  in  the  strongest  terms;  but 
how  soon  were  the  tables  turned  !  when  within 
five  years  these  very  gentlemen  thought  fit  to 
enter  into  an  association  to  adhere  to  the  Prince 
of  Orange  against  the  king  upon  the  throne,  and 
have  since  had  the  mortification  to  see  that  same 
decree  burned  by  the  hands  of  the  common 
hangman. 

To  return  to  the  visitation.  May  15,  a  cita- 
tion was  issued  in  the  names  often  of  the  visit- 
ers then  in  London,  to  the  proctors  and  heads 
of  houses,  or  their  vice-principals,  requiring 
them  and  all  the  officers,  scholars,  &c.,  to  ap- 
pear in  the  Convocation  House,  on  Friday,  June 
4,  between  the  hours  of  nine  and  eleven  in  the 
morning,  and  to  bring  with  them  a  list  of  the 
several  names  of  those  who  were  absent,  and 
of  the  colleges  to  which  they  belonged.  At  the 
time  appointed  the  Reverend  Mr.  Harris,  Mr. 
Reynolds,  Mr.  Rogers,  Mr.  Henry  Wilkinson, 
Mr.  Cheynel,  Mr.  John  Wilkinson,  Mr.  Dunce, 
and  Mr.  Draper,  &c.,  opened  the  visitation  with 
prayers  and  a  sermon  at  St.  Mary's  Church, 
from  whence  they  proceeded  to  the  Convoca- 
tion House,  where  the  vice-chancellor  [Dr.  Fell] 
and  a  few  of  the  scholars  had  been  waiting  a 
considerable  time  ;  but  perceiving  the  visiters 
were  like  to  outstay  the  precise  hour  of  sum- 
mons, he  ordered  the  sexton  to  set  the  clock 
exactly  with  the  sun,  and  as  soon  as  it  struck 
eleven  he  dismissed  the  scholars,  marching 
away  with  the  beadles  before  him  ;  the  visiters 
met  them  in  their  return  at  the  proscholium, 
where  the  passage  being  narrow,  the  beadle 
cried  out,  "  Make  way  for  Mr.  Vice-chancellor,'' 
which  the  visiters  did.  And  the  vice-chancel- 
lor having  moved  his  hat  as  he  passed  by,  said, 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


63- 


"  How  do  ye,  gentlemen  1  it  is  past  eleven 
o'clock."  But  the  visiters  went  forward,  and 
having  consulted  about  an  hour  upon  the  vice- 
chancellor's  behaviour,  resolved  to  adjourn  till 
Michaelmas,  and  return  to  London,  in  order  to 
obtain  farther  powers  from  the  Parliament..  In 
the  mean  time.  Dr.  Fell  summoned  a  committee 
of  the  heads  of  the  several  colleges,  who  came 
to  the  following  resolutions  : 

1.  That  no  man  should  appear  before  the  vis- 
iters unless  the  summons  had  five  names. 

2.  That  no  one  should  appear  upon  a  holy- 
day. 

3.  That  he  should  demand  by  what  authority 
he  was  summoned  ;  and,  if  denied  an  answer, 
should  presently  depart. 

4.  That  if  they  declared  their  authority,  he 
should  answer  with  a  salvis  juribus  regm,  aca- 
demic et  coUegii,  &c. 

5.  That  he  should  demand  his  accusation  in 
writing,  as  also  time  to  put  in  his  answer,  and 
should  return  it  in  writing,  and  no  otherwise. 
Lastly,  That  he  should  utterly  refuse  to  an- 
swer on  oath,  because  that  would  be  to  accuse 
himself,  and  would  plainly  revive  the  oath  ex 
officio. 

Such  was  the  stout  behaviour  of  these  few 
academics,  "  who  (according  to  Dr.  Walker) 
poured  upon  the  visiters  all  manner  of  contempt 
and  scorn,  though  they  knew  their  very  lives 
and  fortunes  were  at  their  disposal.  The  uni- 
versity," says  he,  "held  out  a  siege  of  more  than 
a  year  and  a  half ;  the  Convocation  House  pro- 
ved a  citadel,  and  each  single  college  a  fort  not 
easy  to  be  reduced  ;"*  a  clear  evidence  of  the 
humanity  of  the  visiters,  and  an  unanswerable 
demonstration  of  the  necessity  of  the  Parlia- 
ment's acting  with  greater  vigour. 

The  two  houses  having  resolved  to  support 
their  visiters,  and  enable  them  to  go  through 
their  work,  passed  an  ordinance,  August  26,  em- 
powering them  "  to  administer  the  Covenant 
and  the  negative  oath ;  to  demand  the  perusal 
of  the  statutes,  registers,  accompts,  &c.,  and 
of  all  other  papers  of  the  university,  and  of  the 
respective  colleges  and  halls  ;  and  to  seize  and 
detain  in  custody  any  person  who,  after  a  per- 
sonal citation,  refused  to  appear  and  produce 
their  books  and  papers  after  a  second  citation  : 
a  jury  was  also  to  be  empannelled,  of  members 
of  the  university,  above  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
to  inquire  by  oath  on  the  articles  contained  in 
the  ordinance  of  visitation  ;"+  and  a  new  com- 
mission was  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Attorney-gener- 
al St.  John,  with  the  great  seal  affixed  to  it, 
September  27,  authorizing  the  persons  above 
named  to  visit  the  university  without  any  far- 
ther warrant ;  the  commission  began  in  the 
usual  form,  "  Charles,  by  the  grace  of  God,  &,c., 
to  our  trusty  and  well-beloved  Sir  Nath.  Brent, 
&c.  Know  ye  that  we,  intending  the  regulation 
and  reformation  of  our  University  of  Oxford, 
&c.,"  which  was  a  very  strange  style  consider- 
ing the  king  was  never  consulted  about  the  vis- 
itation, much  less  gave  any  consent ;  but  the 
houses  affected  this  form,  from  a  mistaken  sup- 
position that  the  king  was  always  present  with 
his  Parliament,  in  his  legislative  capacity  ; 
though  it  served  no  other  purpose  than  giving 
the  adversary  an  opportunity  to  expose  their 


-^  Sufferiigs  of  the  Clergy,  p.  122,  123,  128,  &c. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  128. 


proceedings,  and  charge  them  with  assuming, 
and  acting  under  a  forged  authority. 

Furnished  with  these  new  powers,  the  visit' 
ers  returned  to  Oxford  the  latter  end  of  Sep- 
tember, the  mayor,  sheriffs,  and  other  magis- 
trates being  commanded  to  aid  and  assist  them 
as  there  should  be  occasion.  On  Michaelmas 
Day  a  paper  was  fixed  to  the  door  of  University 
Church,  giving  notice  that  the  visitation  would, 
now  proceed  de  die  in  diem*  Next  day  a  cita- 
tion was  issued  to  all  the  heads  of  houses,  re- 
quiring them  to  bring  in  their  statutes,  regis- 
ters, accompts,  and  all  their  public  writings,  to 
the  warden's  lodgings  at  Merton  College.  The 
vice-chancellor  was  ordered  to  appear  at  the 
same  time,  to  answer  to  such  questions  as 
should  be  demanded  of  him,  and  to  send  by  the 
hands  of  the  persons  who  served  those  orders 
all  the  books  and  acts  belonging  to  the  univer- 
sity. The  proctors  were  likewise  enjoined  to 
bring  in  their  books,  keys,  and  other  public 
things  in  their  custody.  But  it  is  not  enough  to 
say,  says  the  Oxford  antiquary,  that  every  one 
of  these  orders  was  disobeyed  ;  they  were  also 
despised  and  contemned.  However,  the  vice- 
chancellor  and  heads  of  colleges  condescended 
to  appear  at  the  second  summons,  October  6, 
when,  instead  of  bringing  their  books  and  pa- 
pers, they  demanded  to  know  by  what  authority 
they  were  summoned  ;  upon  which  the  visiters 
produced  their  coimnission  under  the  broad  seal, 
at  the  same  time  serving  them  with  a  third  ci- 
tation to  appear  four  days  after  with  their  books 
and  papers,  or  with  their  reasons  in  writing  why 
they  refused  so  to  do.  Next  day  they  sent  for 
the  keys  of  the  Convocation  House  and  school, 
and  for  the  beadles'  staves,  but  they  were  deni- 
ed. The  day  following  the  proctors  appeared, 
and  delivered  a  protestation,  attested  by  a  pub- 
lic notary,  in  the  name  of  the  vice-chancellor, 
delegates,  and  all  the  scholars,  to  this  pur- 
pose, that  "  they  could  not  own  any  visiter  but 
the  king,  and  that,  having  sworn  to  maintain 
his  right,  they  could  not,  without  perjury,  sub- 
mit themselves  to  acquaint  the  Parliament."t 
Hereupon  Dr.  Fell,  the  vice-chancellor,  the  very 
same  day,  was  deprived  of  his  vice-chancellor- 
ship, and  public  notice  was  given  to  the  proc- 
tors and  other  officers  of  the  university,  not  to 
obey  him  any  longer  under  that  character  ;  but 
the  doctor,  without  regard  to  his  deprivation,  or 
to  the  prorogation  of  the  term,  which  the  visit- 
ers had  adjourned  from  the  10th  to  the  15th 
instant,  proceeding  on  the  Uth  to  hold  a  con- 
gregation, and  open  the  term  as  usual,  was  ta- 
ken into  custody,  and  some  time  after,  by  order 
of  Parliament,  brought  to  London  ;  immediate 
ly  upon  which,  Dr.  Potter,  president  of  Trinity 
College,  ordered  the  beadles  with  their  staves 
to  attend  him  as  pro-vice-chancellor.  Novem- 
ber 2  and  4,  the  several  heads  of  colleges  then 
present  appeared  before  the  visiters,  but  without 
their  statute-books  and  papers,  and  being  called 
in  severally,  were  asked  in  their  turns.  Whether 
they  approved  of  the  judicium  universitatis,  or 
the  reasons  of  the  university  above  mentioned  T 
Whether  they  owned  the  power  of  the  visiters? 
Or  whether  they  approved  of  the  answer  of  the 
proctors  in  the  name  of  the  whole  university  If 
And   refusing  to  give   a  direct   answer,  were 


*  Wood's  Antiq.  Oxon.,  p.  388.     t  Ibid.,  p.  389, 390. 
t  Suff.  Cler.,  p.  130. 


64 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


served  with  a  citation  to  appear  before  the  Com- 
mittee for  the  Reformation  of  the  University 
at  Westminster  the  Utli  instant,  which  they  did 
accordingly  ;  and  having  owned  their  approba- 
tion of  the  answer  of  llie  proctors  in  the  name 
of  the  university,  they  tendered  a  paper  to  the 
committee  in  the  name  of  all  wlio  had  been 
cited,  setting  forth,  "  that  what  they  had  done 
was  not  out  of  obstinacy,  but  from  conscience; 
and  praying  that  in  an  affair  of  so  much  conse- 
quence they  might  be  allowed  time  to  advise 
with  counsel."  Their  request  being  readily 
granted,  two  gentlemen  of  the  long  robe  of  their 
own  nomination,  viz.,  Mr.  Hale  and  Mr.  Chute, 
were  appointed  their  counsel.  The  day  of  hear- 
ing was  December  9  ;  the  position  they  offered 
to  maintain  was,  that  it  was  one  of  the  privi- 
leges of  the  university  to  be  subject  only  to  a 
royal  visitation  :  the  counsel  for  the  university 
made  a  learned  argument  upon  this  head  ;  but, 
as  Mr.  Collyer  observes,  this  question  had  been 
debated  before  the  king  in  council  in  the  year 
1637,  when  Archbishop  Laud  claimed  a  right  of 
visiting  the  two  universities  jure  melripolitico* 
It  was  then  admitted  that  the  king  might  visit 
when  he  pleased  ;  yet,  after  a  full  hearing,  his 
majesty,  with  the  advice  of  his  council,  declared 
and  adjudged  the  right  of  visiting  both  univer- 
sities, as  universities,  to  belong  to  the  archbish- 
op and  metropolitan  church  of  Canterbury,  by 
themselves  or  commissaries,  and  that  the  uni- 
versities should  from  time  to  time  be  obedient 
thereunto.  Which  determination  of  his  majes- 
ty the  archbishop  moved  might  be  drawn  up  by 
counsel  learned  in  the  law,  and  put  under  the 
broad  seal,  to  prevent  disputes  for  the  future. 
And  the  same  was  accordingly  done  ;  the  uni- 
versity, therefore,  lost  their  question  in  the  com- 
mittee. The  counsel  for  the  visiters  were  far- 
ther of  opinion,  that  the  kingly  power  was  al- 
ways virtually  present  with  his  great  council  of 
Parliament,  and  that  therefore  they  might  visit ; 
but  supposing  this  to  be  a  mistake,  they  affirm- 
ed that  the  Parliament  had  an  undoubted  right 
to  reform  the  university  by  the  articles  of  ca- 
pitulation, in  which  they  had  expressly  reserved 
this  power  to  themselves.  After  a  full  hearing 
on  both  sides,  the  committee  voted  that  the  an- 
swer of  the  several  heads  of  houses,  and  of  oth- 
ers of  the  university,  was  derogatory  to  the  au- 
thority of  Parliament. 

The  Oxford  divines,  not  satisfied  with  this 
determination,  appealed  soon  after  to  the  public 
in  a  letter  to  the  learned  Mr.  Selden,  represent- 
ative for  the  university,  entitled  "  The  Case  of 
the  University  of  Oxford  ;  or,  the  Sad  Dilemma 
that  all  the  Members  thereof  are  put  to,  to  be 
perjured  or  destroyed. "t  The  letter  says,  "that 
the  only  question  proposed  by  the  visiters  to 
every  single  person  in  the  university  is.  Wheth- 
er he  will  submit  to  the  power  of  the  Parliament 
in  this  visitation  1  To  which  they  reply,  that 
unless  they  have  the  personal  consent  of  the 
king,  they  cannot  submit  to  any  visitation  with- 
out danger  or  perjury,  as  appears  by  the  words 
of  the  oath,  which  are,  '  You  shall  swear  to  ob- 
serve all  the  statutes,  liberties,  privileges,  and 
customs  of  the  university;'  to  which  the  schol- 
ar answers,  '  I  swear.'     Now  it  being  one  of  our 


*  Ecclesiastical  History,  p.  76G. 
t  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  133.     Vol.  Pamp., 
No.  34. 


privileges  to  be  visited  by  none  but  the  king,  or 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  archbish- 
op being  dead,  it  follows  we  can  be  visited  by 
none  but  the  king ;  to  submit,  therefore,  to  anoth- 
er visitation,  must  be  a  breach  of  our  liberties, 
and,-  consequently,  downright  perjury.  They 
urged,  farther,  the  statutes  of  their  several  col- 
leges, which  bind  them  to  certain  rules  in  their 
electing  of  proctors,  in  the  calling  and  meeting 
of  convocations,  in  the  choice  of  several  officers 
in  case  of  a  vacancy,  all  which,  instead  of  being 
referred  to  the  members  of  the  university,  is 
now  done  by  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  visiters. 
Nothing,"  say  they,  "  can  be  alleged  in  answer 
to  this,  but  the  pr-etended  sovereign  power  of  the 
two  houses  to  make  and  abolish  laws,  which 
we  absolutely  disbelieve.  Upon  the  whole,  they 
appeal  to  any  divine  whether  they  ought  to  sub- 
mit to  the  visitation  as  long  as  they  believe  their 
oaths  to  be  in  full  force,  and  are  confident  that 
the  two  houses  cannot  dispense  with  them  '\ 
And,  consequently,  whether  they  ought  to  be 
turned  out  of  their  freeholds  on  this  account  1" 
The  committee  at  London,  having  waited  till 
the  end  of  the  month  of  December  to  see  if  any 
of  the  heads  of  colleges  would  submit,  voted 
Dr.  Fell  out  of  his  deanery  of  Christ  Church  for 
contumacy  ;*  and  passed  the  same  sentence 
upon 

Dr.  Oliver,  President  of  Magdalen  College. 

Dr.  Potter,         "  Trinity. 

Dr.  Bayly,         "  St.  John's. 

Dr.  Radcliffe,  Principal  of  Brazen  Nose. 

Dr.  Gardner,  i 

Dr.  lies,  [■  Canons  of  Christ  Church. 

Dr.  Morley,    ) 

When  these  resolutions  were  sent  to  Oxford, 
the  proper  officers  refused  to  publish  them,  and 
when  they  were  pasted  upon  the  walls  of  the 
colleges,  they  were  torn  down,  and  trampled 
under  foot ;  upon  which  the  pro-vice-chancel- 
lor and  the  two  pi'octors  were  ordered  into  cus- 
tody ;  but  they  absconded,  and  Dr.  Oliver  as- 
sumed the  office  of  pro-vice-chancellor.  The 
Parliament,  provoked  at  this  usage,  passed  an 
ordinance,  January  22,  1647-8,  constituting  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  chancellor  of  Oxford,  and 
March  8,  they  ordered  him  to  repair  thither  in 
person,  to  support  the  visiters,  and  place  the 
several  persons  whom  the  committee  had  cho- 
sen in  the  respective  chairs  of  those  they  had 
ejected,  t 

April  11,  the  chancellor  made  his  public  en- 
trance into  the  city,  attended  with  a  great  num- 
ber of  clergy  and  gentlemen  of  the  country, 
and  about  one  hundred  horse  out  of  Oxford  it- 
self; the  mayor  welcomed  him  at  his  entrance 
into  the  city  with  a  congratulatory  speech  ;  and 
when  he  came  to  his  lodgings,  Mr.  Button,  one 
of  the  new  proctors,  made  a  speech  to  him  in 
Latin,  but  not  one  of  the  heads  of  colleges  came 
near  him  ;  the  insignia  of  the  university  were 
not  to  be  found,  and  the  scholars  treated  the 
chancellor  and  his  retinue  with  all  that  rude- 
ness they  had  been  taught  to  express  towards 
all  who  adhered  to  the  Parliament. 

Next  morning,  the  earl,  attended  with  a 
guard  of  soldiers,  went  to  Christ  Church,  and 
having  in  vain   desired  Mrs.  Fell,  the  dean's 

*  Surterings  of  the  Clergj',  p.  131. 
t  Whitelocke,  p.  290. 


HISTORY  OF    THE    PURITANS. 


65 


wife,  to  quit  the  lodgings  peaceably,  he  com- 
manded the  soldiers  to  break  open  the  doors, 
and  carry  her  out  into  a  chair  in  the  middle  of 
the  quadrangle;*  he  then  put  the  new-elected 
dean,  Mr.  Reynolds,  afterward  Bishop  of  Nor- 
wich, into  possession  ;  from  thence  his  lord- 
ship, with  the  visiters,  went  to  the  hall,  and 
having  got  the  Buttery  Book,  struck  out  Dr. 
Pell's  name,  and  inserted  that  of  Mr.  Reynolds  ; 
the  like  they  did  by  Dr.  Hammond,  sub-dean 
and  public  orator ;  by  Dr.  Gardner,  Dr.  Rayne, 
Dr.  lies,  and  Dr.  Morley,t  placing  in  their  stead 
Mr.  Corbet,  who  was  made  public  orator  ;  Mr. 
Rogers,  Mr.  Mills,  Mr.  Cornish,  Mr.  Henry  Wil- 
kinson, Sen.,  and  Mr.  Langley  ;  Dr.  Sanderson 
being  spared,  because  he  was  out  of  town  when 
the  last  summons  was  issued. 

In  the  afternoon  they  held  a  convocation, 
which  was  opened  with  an  elegant  Latin  ora- 
tion, pronounced  by  Mr.  Corbet,  their  new  ora- 
tor.t  When  the  chancellor  had  taken  the  chair 
in  the  Convocation  House,  he  declared  Mr. 
Reynolds  vice-chancellor,  to  whom  an  oath 
was  administered  that  he  would  observe  the 
statutes  and  privileges  of  the  university,  subject 
to  the  authority  of  Parliament.  Mr.  Button  and 
Mr.  Cross  were  declared  proctors,  and  all  three 
returned  their  thanks  to  the  chancellor  in  Latin 
speeches.  On  this  occasion,  degrees  were  con- 
ferred upon  divers  learned  men.  Mr.  Cham- 
bers, Mr.  Gallicott,  and  Mr.  Harris,  were  made 
doctors  of  divinity  ;  Mr.  Palmer,  doctor  of  phys- 
ic ;  Mr.  J.  Wilkins  [afterward  bishop],  Mr. 
Langley,  Mr.  Cornish,  and  Mr.  Cheynel,  bach- 
elors of  divinity  ;  the  young  Earl  of  Carnarvon, 
the  chancellor's  two  youngest  sons,  and  sever- 
al other  gentlemen,  masters  of  arts. (J 

Next  morning,  April  13,  the  chancellor  and 
visiters,  with  a  guard  of  musketeers,  went  to 
Magdalen  College,  and  having  broke  open  the 
doors  of  the  president's  lodgings  [Dr.  Oliver], 
who  was  out  of  the  way,  they  gave  Dr.  Wilkin- 
son possession.  In  the  afternoon  they  went 
to  All-Souls,  where  Dr.  Sheldon,  the  warden, 
appearing,  and  refusing  to  submit,  returned  to 
his  lodgings,  and  locked  the  doors  ;  which  be- 
ing broke  open,  the  doctor  was  taken  into  cus- 
tody for  contempt,  and  Dr.  Palmer  put  in  his 
place  ;  from  thence  they  went  to  Trinity  Col- 
lege, and  having  broke  open  the  lodgings.  Dr. 
Harris  was  put  into  possession  in  the  room  of 
Dr.  Potter.  In  like  manner,  Dr.  Cheynel  had 
possession  given  him  of  St.  John's,  in  the 
room  of  Dr.  Bayly  ;  Mr.  Wilkins  was  appoint- 
ed President  of  Wadham  College,  in  the  room 


*  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  133. 

+  Dr.  Grey,  on  the  authority  of  Bishop  Sander- 
son's biographer  and  Mr.  Wood,  says  that  Dr.  Mor- 
ley  was  not  turned  out.  But  Dr.  Richardson  says 
that,  being  deprived  of  all  his  ecclesiastical  benefices 
ill  1648,  he  withdrew  from  the  kingdom,  first  to  the 
Hague,  and  then  to  Antwerp. — Dc  Friesulilms  Anglice 
Commentarius,  p.  214.  Dr.  Grey  appears  to  have  mis- 
taken the  passage  in  Sanderson's  Lil'e,  which  relates 
only  the  s'eps  that  a  friend  would  have  taken  to  se- 
cure Dr.  Morley's  continuance  in  the  university,  and 
concludes  with  his  memorable  and  generous  reply, 
which  shows  that  he  declined  availing  himself  of  his 
friend's  kindness,  saying,  "that  when  all  the  rest  of 
the  college  were  turned  out  except  Dr.  Wall,  he 
should  take  it  to  be,  if  not  a  sin,  yet  a  shauie,  to  be 
left  alive  with  him  only." — Ed. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  1364. 

i  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  133,  134. 

Vol.  II.— 1 


of  Dr.  Pit ;  and  Mr.  Greenwood  was  put  into 
possession  of  Brazen  Nose  College,  in  the 
room  of  Dr.  Radclifte,  allowing  those  they  dis- 
placed a  month's  time  to  remove  their  effects. 
But  some  of  the  students  of  Christ  Church 
having  got  the  Buttery  Book,  impudently  cut 
out  the  names  of  those  whom  the  visiters  had 
inserted  ;  so  that  they  were  forced  to  return 
the  next  day,  and  write  over  again  the  names 
of  their  new  deans  and  canons.*  The  heads 
of  colleges  being  thus  fixed  in  their  several  sta- 
tions, the  chancellor  took  leave  of  the  univer- 
sity and  departed  for  London  ;  and  having  re- 
ported his  conduct,  April  21,  received  the 
thanks  of  the  two  houses. 

But  Dr.  Wilkinson,  Sen.,  and  Mr.  Cheynel, 
who  returned  with  the  chancellor,  having  rep- 
resented to  the  Parliament  that  the  fellows, 
scholars,  and  under  officers  still  refused  to  sub- 
mit to  their  orders,  it  was  resolved  "  that  the 
visiters  should  cite  all  the  officers,  fellows,  and 
scholars  before  them,  and  that  such  as  refused 
to  appear,  or  upon  appearance  did  not  submit, 
should  be  suspended  from  their  places,  and  their 
names  returned  to  the  committee,  who  were  au- 
thorized to  expel  them  from  the  university ; 
and  the  new  heads  (on  signification  of  such  sen- 
tence from  the  committee),  in  conjunction  with 
the  visiters,  were  empowered  to  put  others  in 
their  places.  They  resolved,  farther,  that  the 
bursars  should  make  no  dividend  of  money  till 
they  had  orders  from  the  committee  ;  and  that 
the  tenants  should  pay  their  rents  to  none  but 
the  heads  appointed  by  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment."! But  the  bursars  absconded,  and  were 
not  to  be  found. 

By  virtue  of  these  orders,  the  visiters  cited 
the  fellows,  scholars  of  houses,  gentlemen-com- 
moners, and  servitors  to  appear  before  them  at 
several  times ;  the  only  question  demanded  of 
them  was.  Will  you  submit  to  the  power  of  the 
Parliament  in  this  visitation  !  To  which  they 
were  to  give  their  answer  in  writing,  and  ac- 
cording to  it  were  confirmed  or  displaced. 
Great  numbers  were  absent  from  the  university, 
and  did  not  appear ;  others,  who  disowned  the 
power  of  the  Parliament  at  first,  afterward  sub- 
mitted, but  the  main  body  stood  it  out  to  the 
last :  Dr.  Walker  says  that  one  hundred  and 
eighty  withdrew  ;t  that  of  about  six  hundred 
and  seventy-six  who  appeared,  five  hundred  and 
forty-eight  refused  at  first  to  own  the  authority 
of  the  visitation,  but  that  afterward  many  sub- 
mitted and  made  their  peace. ^  In  another  place 
he  supposes  one  fourth  submitted,  and  makes 
the  whole  number  of  fellows  and  scholars  de- 
prived three  hundred  and  seventy-five ;  and 
then,  by  a  hst  of  new  elections  in  some  follow- 
ing years,  reduces  them  to  three  hundred  and 
fifty-six  ;  but  considering  that  some  may  have 
been  omitted,  he  guesses  the  whole  to  be  about 
four  hundred.  The  Oxford  historian,  Mr.  Wood, 
says  the  number  of  those  that  refused  to  sub- 
mit was  about  three  hundred  and  thirty-four, 
but  that  they  were  not  presently  expelled  ;  for 
though  the  visiters  were  obliged  to  return  their 
names  to  the  committee,  and  were  empowered 
to  expel  them,  yet  they  deferred  the  execution 


«■  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  134. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  134.       %  Life  of  Mr.  Phil.  Henry,  p.  12. 
()  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  part  i.,  p.  135 ;  and  part 
.,  p.  138,  139. 


66 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


of  their  power,  in  hopes  that  time  might  bring 
them  to  a  compliance  ;  which  it  is  very  likely  it 
did,  because  it  appears  by  the  register,  that  in  the 
eight  succeeding  years,  i.  e.,  between  the  years 
1648  and  1656,  there  were  no  more  than  three 
hundred  and  n  nety-six  new  elections,  which, 
allowing  for  deaths  and  removals,  must  infer 
the  deprivations  at  this  time  could  not  be  very 
considerable  ;  however,  had  their  numbers  been 
much  greater  than  they  really  were,  the  Parlia- 
ment were  obliged,  in  their  own  defence,  to  dis- 
possess them.* 

The  few  scholars  that  remained  in  the  uni- 
versity treated  the  visiters  with  insufferable 
rudeness ;  scurrilous  and  invective  satires, 
equal  if  not  superior  in  raillery  and  ill  language 
to  Martin  Mar-Prelate,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Brownistical  pamphlets  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  were  dispersed  in  the  most  public 
places  of  the  city  every  week  ;  as  Mercurius 
Academicus ;  Pegasus,  or  the  Flying  Horse 
from  Oxon  ;  Pegasus  taught  to  dance  to  the 
Tune  of  Lachrymae  ;  News  from  Pembroke  and 
Montgomery,  or  Oxford  Manchestered  ;  the  Owl 
at  Athens,  or  the  Entrance  of  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke into  Oxford,  April  11  ;  the  Oxford  Tragi- 
comedy, in  heroic  Latin  verse  ;  Lord  have  mer- 
cy upon  us  ! — which  is  the  inscription  put  upon 
houses  that  have  the  plague  ;  and  many  others, 
which  the  visiters  took  no  farther  notice  of  than 
to  forbid  the  booksellers  to  print  or  sell  the  like 
for  the  future. t  If  the  Puritans  had  published 
such  pamphlets  against  the  exorbitances  of  the 
High  Commission  Court  in  the  late  times,  the 
authors  or  publishers  must  have  lost  their  ears, 
as  the  Brownists  did  their  lives  towards  the  lat- 
ter end  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  and  surely  the  uni- 
versity might  have  evinced  their  loyalty  with- 
out offering  such  unmannerly  provocations  to 
gentlemen,  who  were  disposed  to  behave  to- 
wards them  with  all  gentleness  and  moderation. 

The  visiters  being  informed  that  an  insurrec- 
tion was  designed  among  the  scholars  in  favour 
of  the  king,  and  in  concert  with  the  loyalists  in 
other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  acquainted  the  com- 
manding officers  of  the  garrison,  who  gave  im- 


*  Some  of  the  Episcopal  clergy  were  men  of  learn- 
ing, and  of  estimable  character,  and  the  sufferings 
consequent  upon  their  expulsion  were  deeply  to  be 
deplored.  But  the  majority  of  those  whom  the  com- 
missioners drove  from  the  university  were  distin- 
guished only  by  their  reckless  loyalty,  and  a  con- 
tumelious resistance  to  the  will  of  Parliament.  To 
have  permitted  such  to  retain  stations  of  authority 
and  influence,  would  have  been  to  arm  their  enemies 
against  themselves,  and  to  have  perpetuated  in  the 
rising  generation  the  same  spirit  and  principles  as 
actuated  the  men  of  their  day.  The  Parliament 
was  perfectly  right  in  demanding  from  the  university 
submission  to  its  authority  ;  but  was  wrong  in  ma- 
king a  religious  creed  the  test  of  obedience,  and  the 
badge  of  patriotism.  Having  established  its  own 
supremacy,  it  was  entitled  to  require  submission 
from  all  corporate  bodies,  and  to  eject  from  places  of 
honour  and  emolument  those  who  refused  it.  So 
far  its  proceedings  coincided  with  the  obvious  neces- 
sities of  the  case,  and  required  no  apology  ;  but  when 
the  Covenant  was  enforced  as  the  pledge  of  civil  obe- 
dience, a  course  was  ad  pted  which,  however  analo- 
gous to  that  of  the  bishops,  admits  of  no  extenuation 
or  defence.  The  rights  of  conscience  were  invaded 
by  the  exercise  of  an  authority  unsanctioned  by  the 
Christian  system. — Price's  History  of  Nonconformity, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  30. 

t  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  135. 


mediate  orders  to  search  the  colleges  for  arms ; . 
and  on  the  26th  of  May,  1648,  the  visiters  or- 
dered all  the  members  of  the  university  to  de- 
liver a  peremptory  answer  in  writing  within 
seven  days,  whether  they  would  submit  to  the 
authority  of  the  Parliament  in  this  visitation  or 
not ;  and  that  none  should  depart  the  universi- 
ty without  leave  from  the  pro-vice-chancellor. 
The  day  following  both  houses  of  Parliament 
passed  an  order,  "  that  forasmuch  as  many  doc- 
tors, and  other  members  of  the  university,  not- 
withstanding the  example  that  had  been  made 
of  some  of  them,  did  still  persist  in  their  con- 
tempt of  the  authority  of  Parliament,  which 
might  be  of  dangerous  consequence  ;  therefore 
the  committee  for  reforming  the  university 
should  have  power  to  send  for  them  under 
the  custody  of  a  guard,  and  commit  them  to 
prison."  When  this  order  came  to  Oxford,  the 
visiters  declared  that  whosoever  should  not 
plainly,  and  without  reserve,  declare  his  sub- 
mission to  the  visitation,  should  be  deemed  as 
flatly  denying  its  authority,  and  be  taken  into 
custody;  and  that  whosoever  laid  claim  to  any 
place  in  the  university,  should  within  fifteea 
days  declare  his  submission,  or  be  deprived  ; 
accordingly,  at  the  expiration  of  the  time,  such 
as  did  not  appear  were  deprived  of  their  fellow- 
ships, and  expelled  the  university  :  but  still  the 
scholars  would  not  remove,  being  too  stubborn 
to  be  evicted  by  votes  at  London,  or  papers  and 
programmes  at  Oxford.  The  visiters,  therefore, 
after  having  waited  above  six  months,  were 
obliged  to  proceed  to  the  last  extremity  ;  and 
July  5,  1649,  ordered  a  sergeant,  attended  with 
some  tiles  of  musketeers,  to  publish  by  beat  of 
drum  before  the  gates  of  the  several  colleges, 
that  "  if  any  of  those  who  had  been  expelled  by 
the  visiters  should  presume  to  continue  any 
longer  in  the  university,  they  should  be  taken 
into  custody,  and  be  made  prisoners  by  the  gov- 
ernor." This  not  answering  the  proposed  end, 
the  Oxford  historian  adds,  that  four  days  after 
they  published  a  farther  order  by  beat  of  drum 
before  the  gate  of  every  college,  "  that  if  any 
one  who  had  been  expelled  did  presume  to  tar- 
ry in  the  town,  or  was  taken  within  five  miles 
of  it,  he  should  be  deemed  as  a  spy,  and  pun- 
ished with  death."  And  to  enforce  this  order,. 
General  Fairfax,  who  was  then  in  the  field,  gave 
pulilic  notice  that  he  would  proceed  according- 
ly with  such  as  did  not  depart  in  four  days,  un- 
less they  obtained  leave  from  the  vice-chancel- 
lor and  visiters  to  continue  longer.  At  length 
their  courage  cooled,  and  the  young  gentlemen 
were  prevailed  on  to  retire.  Thus  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford  was  cleared  of  the  Royalists,  and 
the  visiters  at  liberty  to  fill  up  their  vacancies 
in  the  best  manner  they  could  ;  in  all  which 
one  cannot  tell  which  most  to  admire,  the  un- 
paralleled patience  and  forbearance  of  a  vic- 
torious Parliament  for  almost  two  years,  or 
the  stubborn  perverseness  and  provoking  beha- 
viour of  a  few  academics,  against  a  power  that 
could  have  battered  their  colleges  about  their 
ears,  and  buried  them  in  their  ruins  in  a  few- 
days. 

About  ten  of  the  old  heads  of  colleges  and 
professors  of  sciences  submitted  to  the  visiters, 
and  kept  their  places,  and  about  nineteen  or 
twenty  were  expelled.  Those  who  submitted 
were. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


67 


Dr.  Langbain,  provost  of  Queen's  '^ 

Dr.  Hood,  rector  of  Lincoln 

Dr.  Saunders,  provost  of  Oriel  | 

Dr.  Hakewell,  rector  of  Exeter        )>College. 

Sir  Nath.  Brent,  warden  of  Merton  I 

Dr.  Zouch,  principal  of  Alban  Hall  | 

Dr.  Lawrence,  master  of  Baliol       J 

Dr.  Pocock,  Arabic  professor. 

Dr.  Clayton,  anatomy  professor. 

Mr.  Philips,  music  professor. 

The  following  characters  of  these  gentlemen, 
with  those  of  their  predecessors  and  successors, 
I  have  taken,  for  the  most  part,  from  writers 
not  to  be  suspected  of  partiality  in  favour  of  the 
Puritans. 

Dr.  Gerard  Langbain,  provost  of  Queen's  Col- 
lege, was  a  great  ornament  to  his  college  ;  he 
was  elected  keeper  of  the  archives  or  records 
of  the  university,  being  in  general  esteem  for 
his  great  learning  and  honesty.  He  was  an  ex- 
cellent linguist,  an  able  philosopher  and  divine, 
a  good  common  lawyer,  a  public-spirited  man, 
a  lover  of  learning  and  learned  men,  beloved  of 
Archbishop  Usher,  Selden,  and  the  great  Goliahts 
of  literature.  He  was  also  an  excellent  anti- 
quary, indefatigable  in  his  studies,  and  of  im- 
mense undertakings.  He  died  February  10, 
1657-8,  and  was  buried  in  the  inner  chapel  of 
Queen's  College.* 

Dr.  Paul  Hood,  rector  of  Lincoln  College,  had 
been  many  years  governor  of  this  house,  and 
continued  in  it  through  all  changes  till  his  death ; 
he  was  vice-chancellor  of  the  university  in  the 
year  1G60,  when  he  conformed  to  the  Establish- 
ed Church,  and  died  in  the  year  1668. t 

Dr.  John  Saunders,  provost  of  Oriel  College, 
disowned  the  authority  of  the  visiters  at  first, 
but  afterward  complied  ;  for,  as  Dr.  Walker  ob- 
serves, there  was  no  other  provost  till  after  his 
death,  which  was  in  .the  year  1652.1 

Dr.  George  Hakewell,  rector  of  Exeter  Col- 
lege, had  been  chaplain  to  Prince  Charles  and 
Archdeacon  of  Surrey  ;  upon  the  promotion  of 
Dr.  Prideaux  to  the  See  of  Worcester,  he  was 
chosen  rector  of  this  college,  but  resided  little 
there,  retiring  during  the  war  to  his  Rectory  of 
Heanton,  in  Devon,  where  he  led  a  recluse  life, 
and  died  in  April,  1649.  He  was,  according  to 
Dr.  Walker,  a  great  divine,  a  very  good  philos- 
opher, and  a  noted  preacher.*^ 

Sir  Nathaniel  Brent,  warden  of  Merton  Col- 
lege, was  probationer  fellow  in  the  year  1594, 
and  proctor  of  the  university  in  1607  ;  he  after- 
ward travelled  into  several  parts  of  the  learned 
world,  and  underwent  dangerous  adventures  in 
Italy  to  procure  the  history  of  the  Council  of 
Trent,  which  he  translated  into  English,  and 
therefore,  says  Mr.  Wood, II  deserves  an  honour- 
able mention.  By  the  favour  of  Archbishop  Ab- 
bot he  was  made  commissary  of  the  Diocess  of 
Canterbury,  and  vicar-general  to  the  archbishop, 
being  doctor  of  laws,  and  at  length  judge  of  the 
prerogative.  In  1629  he  was  knighted  at  Wood- 
stock, and  at  the  commencement  of  the  civil 
war  took  part  with  the  Parliament,  for  which  rea- 
son he  was  ejected  his  wardenship  of  this  col- 
lege, but  restored  again  when  it  came  into  the 
Parliament's  hands  m  1646.     He  was  one  of  the 

*  Wood's  Athen.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  140. 

t  Wood's  Fasti,  p.  127.  J  Walker,  p.  131. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  114.  II  Athen.  O.'con.,  vol.  h.,  p.  92. 


visiters  of  the  university,  and  esteemed  a  very 
learned  and  judicious  civilian.  He  resigned  his 
wardenship  in  the  year  1650,  and  died  in  Lon- 
don in  1652,  after  he  had  hved  seventy-nine 
years. 

Richard  Zouch,  LL.D.,  principal  of  Alban 
Hall,  was  of  noble  birth,  and  sei-ved  in  Parlia- 
ment for  the  borough  of  Hythe,  in  Kent.  He 
was  chancellor  of  the  Diocess  of  Oxon,  princi- 
pal of  St.  Alban  Hall  in  1625,  and  at  length 
judge  of  the  High  Court  of  Admiralty  ;  he  was 
very  able  and  eminent  in  his  own  profession,  a 
subtle  logician,  an  expert  historian,  and  for  the 
knowledge  and  practice  of  the  civil  law  the  chief 
person  of  his  time.  As  his  birth  was  noble, 
says  Mr.  Wood,*  so  was  his  behaviour  and  dis- 
course ;  and  as  he  was  personable  and  hand- 
some, so  naturally  sweet,  pleasing,  and  affable, 
he  kept  his  principalship  af\d  professorship  till 
his  death,  which  happened  March  1,  1660-1. 

Dr.  Thomas  Lawrence,  master  of  Baliol  Col- 
lege, and  Margaret  professor  of  divinity,  had 
been  chaplain  to  King  Charles  I.  and  prebenda- 
ry of  Litchfield,  and  by  the  interest  of  Arch- 
bishop Laud,  preferred  to  the  mastership  of  this 
college  in  1637.  He  submitted  to  the  authori- 
ty of  the  visiters,  and  had  a  certificate  under 
their  hands,  dated  August  3,  1648,  wherein  they 
attest,  that  he  had  engaged  to  observe  the  Di- 
rectory in  all  ecclesiastical  administrations,  to 
preach  practical  divinity  to  the  people,  and  to 
forbear  preaching  any  of  those  opinions  that  the 
Reformed  church  had  condemned. t  Dr.  Walk- 
er says  he  resigned  all  his  preferments  in  the 
university  in  the  year  1650,  but  does  not  say 
upon  what  occasion  ;  only  that  he  grew  care- 
less, and  did  much  degenerate  in  his  life  and 
manners  ;  that  he  died  in  the  year  1657,  but  that 
if  he  had  lived  three  years  longer,  he  would, 
notwithstanding,  have  been  consecrated  an  Irish 
bishop. t 

The  professors  of  sciences  who  submitted  to 
the  visiters,  and  were  continued,  were, 

Dr.  Edward  Pocock,  professor  of  the  Hebrew 
and  Arabic  languages  ;  one  of  the  most  learned 
men  of  his  age,  and  justly  celebrated  at  home  and 
abroad  for  his  great  skill  in  the  Oriental  langua- 
ges, and  for  many  works  that  he  published.  He 
was  afterward  ejected  from  his  canonry  of 
Christ  Church  for  refusing  the  engagement, 
1651, (Ji  but  was  suffered  to  enjoy  his  professor- 
ship of  Arabic  and  Hebrew  ;  he  conformed  in 
the  year  1660,  and  lived  in  great  reputation  till 
the  year  1691.11 

Thomas  Clayton,  M.D.,  king's  professor  of 
anatomy,  which  professorship  he  resigned  to  Dr. 


*  Athen.  O.xon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  166.         t  Ibid.,  p.  135. 

X  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  100. 

(}  He  was  very  near  being  ejected  from  his  living  of 
Childrey  "  for  ignorance  and  insufficiency  ;"  but  I^. 
Owen,  the  learned  Independent,  interested  himself 
in  his  behalf,  and  prevented  his  ejectment.  When. 
he  was  in  the  East,  into  which  he  made  two  voyages, 
the  Mufti  of  Aleppo  laid  his  hand  upon  his  head,  and 
said,  "  This  young  man  speaks  and  understands  Ara- 
bic as  well  as  the  Mufti  of  Aleppo."  He  was  the  first 
Laudean  professor  of  Arabic. — Granger's  History  of 
England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  270, 8vo. — Ed.  This  "  ignorance 
and  insufficiency"  sounds  strangely,  after  reading  that 
he  was  "  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  his  age  ;"^  if 
his  ignorance  had  been  that  of  theology,  that  good 
man.  Dr.  Owen,  would  hardly  have  been  his  advo- 
cate.—C.  II  Athen.  Oxon.,  p.  868. 


66 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


William  Petty  in  January,  1650.  He  was  made 
warden  of  Merlon  College  upon  the  resignation 
of  Dr.  Reynolds,  March  26,  1661,  and  the  next 
day  was  knighted  by  the  interest  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  Sir  Charles  Cotterel. 


Mr.  Arthur  Philips,  professor  of  music,  of 
whom  I  have  met  with  no  account. 

The  heads  of  colleges  ejected  by  the  visiters, 
with  their  successors,  may  be  seen  in  the  fol- 
lowing table  : 


Colleges. 
Deanery  of  Christ  Church, 

Wadham  College, 

University  College, 
Brazen  Nose  College, 
All-Souls  College, 
Corpus  Christi  College, 
St.  John's  College, 
Magdalen  College, 
Trinity  College, 
Jesus  College, 
Pembroke  College, 

New  College, 


Heads  of  Colleges  turned  out. 
Dr.  Fell,  vice-chancellor,  from 

Dr.  Pit,  warden  of 

Dr.  Walker. 

Dr.  Radclifle, 

Dr.  Sheldon, 

Dr.  Newlin, 

Dr.  Bayly, 

Dr.  Oliver, 

Dr.  Han.  Potter, 

Dr.  Mansell, 

Mr.  Wightwick,  B.D., 

Dr.  Stringer,  Prof.  Gr.  Lang. 

Professors  of  Sciences  turned  out.         Professorships. 

Dr.  Robt.  Sanderson,  Reg.  Pr.  of  Div., 

Mr.  Birkenhead,  A.M.,  M.  Philos.  Prof, 

Mr.  Rob.  Warin,  Camd.  Hist.  Prof, 

Dr.  Jn.  Edwards,  Nat.  Phil.  Prof, 

Dr.  Turner,  M.D.,  Savil.  Prof  Geo., 

Mr.  J.  Greaves,  A.M.,  Profess.  Astron., 

Dr.  Henry  Hammond,  University  Orator, 

Dr.  Gilbert  Sheldon,  warden  of  All-Souls  Col- 
lege, was  ejected  April  3,  1648,  and  lived  re- 
tired with  his  friends  in  Staffordshire  till  1659, 
■when  he  was  restored  to  his  wardenship  upon 
the  death  of  Dr.  Palmer.  After  the  Restoration 
he  was  successively  Bishop  of  London,  Chan- 
cellor of  Oxford,  and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury ; 
he  built  the  noble  theatre  at  Oxford,  and  did  a 
great  many  other  works  of  charity,*  but  never 
gave  any  great  specimens  of  his  piety  or  learn- 
ing to  the  world. t 

Dr.  Samuel  Fell,  vice-chancellor  of  the  uni- 
versity, and  dean  of  Christ  Church,  dispossess- 
ed of  his  deanery  April  12,  1648. t  He  gave 
the  visiters  all  the  disturbance  he  could,  and 
■was  therefore  taken  into  custody  for  a  time,  but 
being  quickly  released,  he  retired  to  his  rectory 
at  Sunningwell,  in  Berkshire,  where  he  died 
February  1,  1648-9.  He  had  been  a  Calvinist, 
but  changed  his  sentiments,  and  after  great 
creepings  and  cringings  to  Archbishop  Laud, 
says  Mr.  Wood,<J  he  became  his  creature,  and  if 
the  rebellion  had  not  broke  out,  would  no  doubt 
have  been  made  a  bishop.  He  left  no  remarka- 
ble traces  of  his  learning  behind  him. 

Dr.  Samuel  RadclifTe,  principal  of  Brazen 
Nose  CmlSge,  was  felected  to  his  headship  1614, 
and  was  in  an  infirm  condition  when  he  was 
ejected  for  disowning  the  authority  of  the  vis- 
iters, April  13,  1648,  and  died  the  June  follow- 
ing.II  Neither  Mr.  Wood  nor  Walker  says  any- 
thing of  his  learning,  nor  are  his  works  extant. 

Dr.    Robert    Newlin,    president    of   Corpus 

*  His  benefactions,  public  and  private,  amounted 
to  £66,000.  Much  of  this  money  was  appropriated 
to  the  relief  of  the  necessitous  in  the  time  of  the 
plague,  and  to  the  redemption  of  Christian  slaves. 
The  building  only  of  the  theatre  in  O.xford  cost  him 
£16,000. —  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
231,  8vo.— Ed. 

t  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  p.  98. 

X  Walker,  p.  102.      ()  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  94. 

II  Walker,  p.  101. 


Succeeded  by. 
I  Dr.  Reynolds,  afterward  Bishop  of 
;      Norwich. 

I  Dr.  J.  Wilkins,  afterward  Bishop  of 
I      Cnester. 

Dr.  Joshua  Hoyle. 

Dr.  D.  Greenwood. 

Dr.  Palmer,  M.D. 

Dr.  Ed.  Staunton. 

Dr.  Cheynel. 

Dr.  John  Wilkinson. 

Dr.  Robert  Harris. 

Dr.  Mic.  Roberts. 

Dr.  H.  Langley. 

Mr.  Geo.  Marshall. 

Mr.  Harmar,  Prof  Gr.  Lang. 


Succeeded  by. 

Dr.  Crosse. 

Dr.  Hen.  Wilkinson,  Jun. 

Dr.  L.  du  Moulin. 

Dr.  Joshua  Crosse. 

Dr.  John  Waliis. 
{  Dr.  Ward,  afterward  Bishop  of  Sal- 
(      isbury. 
\  Mr.  Burtoii,  A.M. 
(  Mr.  Corbet,  who  quitted. 

Christi  College,  and  pro-vice-chancellor  in  the 
year  1648.  He  was  restored  to  his  president- 
ship again  in  the  year  1660,  and  died  in  it  1687. 
But  neither  Wood  nor  Walker  has  given  him 
any  character.* 

Dr.  Richard  Bayly,  president  of  St.  John's 
College,  a  kinsman  of  Archbishop  Land,  and 
one  of  his  executors  ;  he  had  been  president  of 
this  college  twenty  years  when  he  was  ejected  ; 
but  was  restored  in  1660,  and  died  at  Salisbury 
1667. t  He  was  hospitable  and  charitable,  but 
very  faulty,  says  Mr.  Wood,  in  using  some  kind 
of  oaths  in  common  conversation.!  I  do  not 
know  that  he  published  anything. 

Dr.  John  Oliver,  president  of  Magdalen  Col- 
lege, had  been  domestic  chaplain  to  Archbishop 
Laud,  and  was  a  man,  says  Dr.  Walker,^  of 
great  learning  and  sound  principles  in  religion 
(that  is,  of  the  principles  of  the  archbishop) ;  he 
was  restored  to  his  preferments  1660,  but  died 
soon  after,  October  27,  1661. 

Dr.  Hannibal  Potter,  president  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege, elected  1643,  and  turned  out  with  the  rest 
who  disowned  the  authority  of  the  visiters, 
April  13,  1648.  He  afterward  accepted  of  a  cu- 
racy in  Somersetshire,  and  was  ejected  for  in- 
sufficiency ;  but  Dr.  Walker  saysji  it  was  be- 
cause he  used  part  of  the  church  service.  He 
was  restored  in  1660.  and  died  in  1664. 

Dr.  John  Pit,  warden  of  Wadham  College, 
elected  April  16,  1644,  after  that  city  was  gar- 
risoned for  the  king;  he  behaved  very  refrac- 
torily towards  the  visiters,  and  died  soon  after 
his  ejectment. IT 

Dr.  Francis  Mansell,  principal  of  Jesus  Col- 
lege, elected  to  this  principalship  in  the  year 
1630,  and  ejected  May  22,  1648.     He  was  re- 


♦  Walker,  p.  111.  t  Ibid.,  p.  116. 

X  Dr.  Grey  a.sks,  "  Where  does  Wood  say  this  ? 
Nowhere  that  I  can  meet  with."  Nor  can  I  find 
the  passage.— Ed.  ()  Walker,  p.  122. 

II  Ibid.,  p.  133.  H  Ibid.,  p.  136. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


69 


stored  again  in  1660,  and  died  1665,  having  been 
an  eminent  benefactor  to  his  college. 

Dr.  Thomas  Walker,  master  of  University 
College,  elected  1633,  and  dispossessed  by  the 
visiters  July  10,  1C48.  He  was  restored  in  the 
year  1660,  and  died  in  1665.  He  was  related  to 
Archbishop  Laud,  and  was  one  of  his  executors, 
and,  according  to  Lloyd,  a  deserving,  modest 
man,  and  a  great  sufferer.* 

Mr.  Henry  Wightwick,  B.D.,  elected  to  the 
mastership  of  Pembroke  College  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  the  order  of  Parliament,  July  13,  1647, 
for  which  reason  he  was  soon  after  removed. 
In  the  year  1660  he  was  restored,  but  turned 
out  again  in  1664,  for  what  reasons  Dr.  Walker 
says  he  does  not  know.  He  died  in  Lincolnshire 
1671. t 

Dr.  Henry  Stringer,  elected  to  the  wardenship 
of  New  College,  after  the  same  manner,  in  di- 
rect opposition  to  the  visiters,  November  18, 
1647,  for  which  reason  he  was  deprived  August 
1,  1648.  He  was  professor  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, but  resigned,  and  died  at  London  1657.$ 
The  professors  ejected  by  the  visiters  were. 
Dr.  Robert  Sanderson,  regius  professor  of 
divinity  ;  a  very  learned  man,  and  an  excellent 
casuist  ■,(}  he  was  nominated  one  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  but  did  not  sit  among  them.  He 
had  a  very  considerable  hand  in  drawing  up  the 
reasons  of  the  university  against  the  Covenant 
and  the  negative  oath.  After  his  ejectment  he 
retired  to  his  living  at  Boothby,  where  he  con- 
tinued preaching,  though  not  without  some  dif- 
ficulties, till  the  Restoration,  when  he  was  pre- 
ferred to  the  Bishopric  of  Lincoln,  and  died 
1662-3.11 

Mr.  John  Birkenhead,  A.M.,  moral  philosophy 
reader  ;  he  was  employed  by  the  court  to  write 
the  Mercurius  Aulicus,  a  paper  filled  with  most 
bitter  invectives  against  the  Parliament,  for 
which  he  was  rewarded  with  this  lectureship. 
After  his  ejectment  he  lived  privately  till  the 
Restoration,  when  he  was  knighted,  and  chosen 
burgess  in  Parliament  for  the  borough  of  Wilton. 
He  was  also  created  LL.D.  and  master  of  the 
faculties,  and  died  in  1679,  leaving  behind  him, 
according  to  Wood,  a  very  sorry  character. IT 

Mr.  Robert  Waring,  Camden  history  profes- 
sor ;  he  bore  arms  for  the  king  in  the  garrison 
at  Oxford,  and  was  not  elected  to  this  professor- 
ship till  after  the  visitation  began.  He  was 
reckoned,  says  Wood,  among  the  wits  of  the 
university,  and  was  a  good  poet  and  orator. 
He  died  1658.** 

John  Edwards,  M.D.,  natural  philosophy  Icc- 


*  Walker,  p.  114.     t  Ibid.,  p.  132.     t  Ibid.,p.  127. 

()  "  He  was,  especially  in  the  former  part  of  his 
life,  remarkable  for  his  excessive  modesty  ;  an  in- 
firmity," observes  my  author,  "  oftener  seen  in  men 
of  the  quickest  sensibility,  and  of  the  best  under- 
standing, than  in  the  half-witted,  the  stupid,  and  the 
ignorant." — Granger's  History  of  Eni^land,  vol.  ui.,  p. 
238,239,  8vo.  He  disapproved  of  and  wrote  against 
the  usual  mode  of  lending  money  on  interest.  But 
he  adopted  another  way  of  advancing  it  more  advan- 
tageous to  the  lender,  and  sometimes  to  the  borrow- 
er. He  would  give  £100  for  £20,  for  seven  years. — 
Calamy's  Church  and  Dissenters  compared  as  to  Perse- 
cution, p.  30. — En.  Bishop  Sanderson's  most  cele- 
brated work  is  entitled  "  A  Preservative  against 
Schism  and  Rebellion,"  &c.,  3  vols.  8vo,  1722.— C. 

II  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  376.  %  Ibid. 

♦♦  Walker,  p.  106.    Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  143. 


turer,  who  behaved  rudely  towards  the  visiters, 
and  was  therefore  not  only  dispossessed  of  his 
preferment,  but  expelled  the  university  ;*  but  nei- 
ther Wood  nor  Walker  gives  any  character  of 
him. 

Peter  Turner,  M.D.,  Savilian  professor  of 
geometry  ;  he  served  his  majesty  as  a  volunteer 
under  the  command  of  Sir  J.  Byron,  and  being 
a  zealous  Loyalist,  was  expelled  the  university 
by  the  visiters,  after  which  he  retired  to  Lon- 
don, and  died  1650.  He  was  a  good  mathema- 
tician, well  read  in  the  fathers,  an  excellent 
linguist,  and  highly  esteemed  by  Archbishop 
Laud.t 

John  Greaves,  A.M.,  professor  of  astronomy^ 
was  sent  by  Archbishop  Laud  to  travel  into  the 
eastern  parts  of  the  world  to  make  a  collectioa 
of  books  in  those  languages. t  After  his  return 
he  was  preferred  to  this  professorship,  but  was 
ejected  by  the  visiters,  and  November  9,  1648, 
expelled  the  university,  for  sending  the  college 
treasure  to  the  king,  and  other  offences  of  the 
like  nature.  He  died  at  London  1652,  with  the 
reputation  of  a  good  scholar,  having  been  well 
respected  by  Mr.  Selden  and  others. ij 

Dr.  Henry  Hammond,  imiversity  orator,  was 
a  very  learned  man  and  a  great  divine,  highly 
esteemed  by  King  Charles  I.  He  assisted  at 
the  Treaty  of  Uxbridge,  and  attended  the  king 
as  his  chaplain  when  he  was  permitted.  After 
his  ejectment  he  retired  to  the  house  of  Sir  Joha 
Packington,  of  Worcestershire,  where  he  em- 
ployed his  time  in  writing  several  valuable  and 
learned  treatises  in  defence  of  the  hierarchy  of 
the  Church  of  England,  and  in  the  study  of  the 
New  Testament.     He  died  April  25,  1660.11 

The  heads  of  colleges  who  succeeded  those 
that  were  ejected  by  authority  of  Parliament 
were, 

Dr.  Edward  Reynolds,  vice-chancellor  of  the 
university,  and  dean  of  Christ  Church  in  the 
place  of  Dr.  Fell ;  he  was  probationer-fellow  of 
Merton  College  in  the  year  1620,  which  he  ob- 
tained by  his  uncommon  skill  in  the  Greek, 
tongue  ;  he  was  a  good  disputant  and  orator,  a 
popular  divine,  and  in  great  esteem  in  the  city 
of  London,  being  preacher  to  the  honourable  so- 
ciety of  Lincoln's  Inn.  Mr.  Wood  confessesIF 
he  was  a  person  of  excellent  parts  and  endow- 
ments, of  a  very  good  wit,  fancy,  and  judgment, 
and  much  esteemed  by  all  parties  for  his  llorid 
style.  Sir  Thomas  Brown  adds,  that  he  was  a 
divine  of  singular  affability,  meekness,  and  hu- 
mility ;  of  great  learning,  a  frequent  preacher, 
and  a  constant  resident.  He  conformed  at  the 
Restoration,  and  was  made  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
and  died  1676. 

Dr.  John  Wilkins,  promoted  to  the  warden- 


*  Walker,  p.  118.  t  Wood,  vol.  ii.,  p.  84. 

X  This  he  did  with  indefatigable  industry,  and  at 
the  peril  of  his  life.  He  also  collected  for  Archbish- 
op Laud  many  Oriental  gems  and  coins.  He  took  a 
more  accurate  survey  of  the  pyramids  than  any  trav- 
eller who  went  before  him.  During  his  stay  at 
Rome,  on  his  return  from  the  East,  he  made  a  par- 
ticular inquiry  into  the  true  state  of  the  ancient 
weights  and  measures.  He  was  a  great  man. — Gran- 
ger's History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  119,  120,  Svo. — 
Ed.  (j  Walker,  p.  125. 

II  This  is  the  divine  whose  discourses  were  sa 
highly  admired  by  Dr.  Johnson  that  he  often  gave 
them  to  young  clergymen.— C. 

^  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  421. 


70 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


shipof  Wadham  College  in  the  place  of  Dr.  Pit. 
He  was  educated  in  Magdalen  Hall,  and  was 
chaplain  to  Chailes.  counl-palatine  oftlie  llhine. 
A  little  before  the  Restoration  he  came  to  Lon- 
don, and  was  minister  of  St.  Lawrence  Jewry, 
and  preacher  to  the  society  at  Lincoln's  Inn. 
Mr.  Wood  admits*  that  he  was  a  person  of  rare 
gifts,  a  noted  theologist  and  preacher,  a  curious 
critic,  an  excellent  mathematician,  and  as  well 
seen  in  mechanism  and  the  new  philosophy  as 
any  in  his  time.  In  the  year  1656  he  married 
the  sister  of  O.  Cromwell,  then  lord-protector 
of  England,  and  had  the  headship  of  Trinity 
College  in  Cambridge  conferred  upon  him, 
which  is  the  best  preferment  in  that  university. 
He  was  afterward  a  member  of  the  Royal  Soci- 
ety, to  which  he  was  a  considerable  benefactor. 
Dr.  Burnet  says  that  Bishop  Wilkins  was  a 
man  of  as  great  a  mind,  as  true  a  judgment,  of 
as  eminent  virtue,  and  as  good  a  soul,  as  any 
he  ever  knew.  Archbishop  Tillotson  gives  him 
an  equal  character  ;  and  several  members  of 
the  Royal  Society  acknowledge  him  to  have 
been  an  ornament  to  the  university  and  the 
English  nation.  He  was  created  Bishop  of 
Chester  in  the  year  1668,  and  died  of  the  stone, 
in  the  house  of  Dr.  Tillotson,  1672. t 

Dr.  Joshua  Hoyle,  preferred  to  the  headship 
of  University  College  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Walk- 
er ;  he  was  educated  at  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxford, 
but  being  invited  into  Ireland,  became  fellow  of 
Trinity  College,  and  professor  of  divinity  in  the 
University  of  Dublin.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
Irish  rebellion  he  came  over  to  England,  and 
was  made  vicar  of  Stepney,  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  and  at  length  master  of 
this  college,  and  king's  professor  of  divinity  in 
the  room  of  Dr.  Sanderson.  Mr.  Wood  sayst 
he  was  a  person  of  great  reading  and  memory, 
but  of  less  judgment.  He  was  exactly  acquaint- 
ed with  the  schoolmen,  and  so  much  devoted 
to  his  book  that  he  was  in  a  manner  a  stranger 
to  the  world  ;  he  was  indefatigably  industrious, 


*  Athen.  Oxen.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  371. 

+  To  Mr.  Neal's  character  of  Bishop  Wilkins  it 
may  be  added,  that  he  was  a  man  of  an  enlarged  and 
liberal  mind,  which  showed  itself  in  his  great  moder- 
ation on  the  points  agitated  beween  the  Conformists 
and  Nonconformists,  and  in  his  free,  generous  way 
of  philosophizing.  He  disdained  to  tread  in  the  beat- 
en track,  but  struck  out  into  the  new  road  pointed 
out  by  the  great  Lord  Bacon,  He  formed  institu- 
tions for  the  encouragement  of  experimental  philos- 
ophy, and  the  application  of  it  to  affairs  of  human 
life,  at  each  university ;  and  was  the  chief  means  of 
establishing  the  Royal  Society.  His  chimeras  were 
those  of  a  man  of  genius.  Such  was  his  attempt  to 
show  the  possibility  of  a  voyage  to  the  moon  ;  to 
which  the  Duchess  of  Newcastle  made  this  objec- 
tion :  "  Doctor,  where  am  I  to  find  a  place  for  baiting 
at  in  the  way  up  to  that  planet?"  "  Madam,"  said 
he,  "  of  all  the  people  in  the  world  I  never  expected 
that  question  from  you,  who  have  built  so  many  cas- 
tles in  the  air,  you  that  may  lie  every  night  at  one  of 
your  own." — Granger,  ut  supra,  the  note.  His  char- 
acter was  truly  exemplary  as  well  as  extraordinary. 
His  great  prudence  never  failed  in  any  undertaking. 
Sincerity  was  natural  to  him.  With  a  greatness  of 
mind,  he  looked  down  upon  wealth  as  much  as  others 
admire  it.  What  he  yearly  received  from  the  Church 
he  bestowed  in  its  services ;  and  made  no  savings 
from  his  temporal  estate,  acting  up  to  his  frequent 
declaration,  "  I  will  be  no  richer." — Birch's  Life  of 
Tillotson,  p.  405,  406.  Granger's  History  of  England, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  247, 248,  8vo;  and  Lloyd's  Funeral  Sermon, 
p.  41-43.— Ed.  t  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  113. 


and  as  well  qualified  for  an  academic  as  any 
person  of  his  time.     He  died  16.54. 

Dr.  Daniel  Greenwood,  principal  of  Brazen 
Nose  College,  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Radcliffe  ;  he 
had  been  fellow  of  the  college  for  a  considerable 
time,  and  had  the  reputation  of  a  profound 
scholar  and  divine.  Mr.  Wood  says*  he  was 
a  severe  and  good  governor,  as  well  in  his  vice- 
chancellorship  as  in  his  principalship  ;  he  con- 
tinued in  his  college  with  an  unspotted  charac- 
ter till  the  Restoration,  when  he  was  ejected  by 
the  king's  commissioners,  after  which  he  lived 
privately  till  1673,  when  he  died. 

Dr.  John  Wilkinson  had  been  principal  of 
Magdalen  Hall  before  the  civil  wars,  but  when 
that  university  was  garrisoned  by  the  king  he 
fled  into  the  Parliament's  quarters,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Dr.  Thomas  Read,  who  was  ad- 
mitted by  the  king's  mandate,  October  16,  1643, 
but  in  1646  Dr.  Wilkinson  was  restored.  The 
year  following  (1647)  he  was  made  president  of 
Magdalen  College  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Oliver ;  he 
was  a  learned  and  pious  man,  died  January  2, 
1649,  and  was  buried  in  the  church  of  Great 
Milton,  Oxfordshire. 

Dr.  Henry  Wilkinson,  Junior,  commonly  called 
Dean  Harry,  principal  of  Magdalen  Hall  ;  he 
was  a  noted  tutor  and  moderator  in  his  college 
before  the  commencement  of  the  civil  wars, 
upon  the  breaking  out  of  which  he  left  Oxford 
and  came  to  London,  but  when  that  city  was 
surrendered  to  the  Parliament  he  returned  to 
the  university,  and  was  created  D.D.,  made 
principal  of  his  hall,  and  moral  philosophy  pro- 
fessor in  the  room  of  Mr.  Birkenhead.  Mr. 
Wood  sayst  that  he  took  all  ways  imaginable 
to  make  his  house  flourish  with  young  students  ; 
that  he  was  a  frequent  and  active  preacher,  and 
a  good  disciplinarian ;  for  which  reason  the  heads 
of  the  university  persuaded  him  earnestly  to 
conform  at  the  Restoration,  that  they  might 
keep  him  among  them,  but  he  refused.  After 
his  ejectment,  he  suffered  for  his  nonconformi- 
ty, by  imprisonments,  mulcts,  and  the  loss  of 
his  goods  and  books  ;  though,  according  to  the 
same  author,  he  was  very  courteous  in  speech 
and  carriage,  communicative  of  his  knowledge, 
generous,  charitable  to  the  poor,  and  so  public- 
spirited  that  he  always  regarded  the  common 
good  more  than  his  own  private  concerns.  He 
published  several  learned  works,  and  died  1690, 
aged  74. 

Dr.  Robert  Harris,  president  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege in  the  room  of  Dr.  Potter,  was  educated  in 
Magdalen  Hall,  and  had  been  a  famous  preacher 
in  Oxfordshire  for  about  forty  years  ;  upon  the 
breaking  out  of  the  war  he  came  to  London, 
where  he  continued  till  appointed  one  of  the 
visiters  of  the  university,  and  head  of  this  col- 
lege, over  which  he  presided  ten  years,  though 
he  was  now  seventy.  He  was  a  person  of  great 
piety  and  gravity,  an  exact  master  of  the  He- 
brew language,  and  well  versed  in  chronology, 
church  history,  the  councils,  and  fathers.  He 
governed  his  college  with  great  prudence,  and 
gained  the  aflfections  of  all  the  students,  who 
reverenced  him  as  a  father,  though  he  had  been 
stigmatized  by  the  Royalists  as  a  notorious  plu- 
ralist. To  which  the  writer  of  his  life  replies, 
that  whatever  benefices  he  might  have  been 


*  Wood's  Fasti,  vol.  iii.,  p.  770. 
t  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  646. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


71 


nominated  to,  he  declared  he  did  not  receive 
the  profits  of  them.  The  inscription  upon  his 
tombstone  says  that  he  was  "  praeses  Eeternum 
celebrandus  ;  perspicacissimus  indolum  scruta- 
tor, potestatis  arbiter  mitissimus,  merentium 
fautor  integerrimus,"  &c.     He  died  1658.* 

Dr.  Henry  Langley,  master  of  Pembroke  Col- 
lege in  the  room  of  Mr.  Wightwick,  was  origi- 
nally fellow  of  his  college,  and  made  master  of  it 
in  1647.  He  kept  his  place  till  the  Restoration, 
after  which  he  set  up  a  private  academy  among 
the  Dissenters;  having  the  character  of  a  solid 
and  judicious  divine,  and  being  a  frequent 
preacher.     He  died  1679. t 

Dr.  Francis  Cheynel,  president  of  St.  John's 
College  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Bayly,  was  proba- 
tioner-fellow ofMerton  College  in  the  year  1629, 
and  afterward  rector  of  Petworth,  a  member  of 
the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  this  year  made 
president  of  that  college,  and  Margaret  profes- 
sor in  the  room  of  Dr.  Lawrence,  both  which 
he  quitted  after  some  time  for  refusing  the  en- 
gagement, and  retired  to  his  living  at  Petworth, 
from  whence  he  was  ejected  at  the  Restoration. 
He  was  a  person  of  a  great  deal  of  indiscreet 
zeal,  as  appears  by  his  behaviour  at  the  funeral 
of  the  great  Mr.  Chillingworth,  already  mention- 
ed. Bishop  Hoadly  says  he  was  exactly  ortho- 
dox, and  as  pious,  honest,  and  charitable  as  his 
bigotry  would  permit ;  and  Mr.  Echard  adds, 
that  he  was  of  considerable  learning  and  great 
abilities. t 

Dr.  Michael  Robens,  principal  of  Jesus  Col- 
lege in  the  room  of  Dr.  Mansell,  was  a  good 
scholar,  and  would,  no  doubt,  have  conformed 
at  the  Restoration,  had  he  been  inclined  to  have 
accepted  any  preferment ;  but  he  had  resigned 
his  principalship  into  the  hands  of  the  protector, 
1657,  and,  being  rich,  chose  a  private  life.ij  He 
published  a  Latin  elegy  upon  General  Monk, 
duke  of  Albemarle,  and  died  in  Oxford,  1679. 

Dr.  Edmund  Staunton,  president  of  Corpus- 
Christi  College  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Newlin,  was 
admitted  fellow  of  this  college  1616,  and  after- 
ward minister  of  Kingston-upon-Thames.  He 
took  the  degrees  in  divinity  1634,  and  was  after- 
ward one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  He  kept 
his  principalship  till  he  was  ejected  by  the  king's 
commissioners  at  the  Restoration  ;  he  was  a 
diligent,  popular  preacher,  a  good  scholar,  and 
continued  his  labours  among  the  Nonconform- 
ists till  his  death,  which  happened  1671.11 

John  Palmer,  M.D.,  warden  of  All-Souls  in 
the  room  of  Dr.  Sheldon,  had  been  bachelor  of 
physic  of  Queen's  College,  and  was  now  created 
M.D.  in  presence  of  the  chancellor ;  he  was  a 
learned  man,  and  held  his  preferment  till  his 
death,  which  happened  March  4,  1659  ;  at  which 
time,  there  being  a  near  prospect  of  the  Restora- 
tion, Dr.  Sheldon  was  restored  to  his  warden- 
ship.lT 

Upon  the  death  of  Dr.  Pink,  the  visiters  nom- 
inated old  Mr.  White,  of  Dorchester,  to  succeed 


*  Clarke's  Live.s,  p.  314.  His  works  are  very  val- 
uable :  they  are  chiefly  sermons  in  one  volume  folio. 
He  must  have  been  one  of  the  best  preachers  of  the 
age.— 0. 

t  Wood's  Fasti,  vol.  ii.,  p.  747,  771. 

t  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  245. 

^  Fasti,  vol.  ii.,  p.  752. 

II  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  352,  353. 

IT  Fasti,  vol.  ii.,  p.  747. 


him,  but  I  think  he  refused  it,  being  very  much 
advanced  in  years.* 

The  professors  of  sciences  who  succeeded 
the  ejected  ones  were. 

Dr.  Seth  Ward,  professor  of  astronomy  in  the 
place  of  Dr.  Greaves,  and,  according  to  Mr. 
Wood,  the  most  noted  mathematiciant  and  as- 
tronomer of  his  time  ;  he  was  educated  in  Sid- 
ney College,  Cambridge,  and  in  the  year  1643 
ejected  for  adhering  to  the  king,  but  having  af- 
terward changed  his  mind,  he  made  friends  to 
the  committee  for  reforming  the  University  of 
Oxford,  and  was  nominated  to  this  preferment  ; 
he  was  afterward  master  of  Trinity  College,  and 
upon  his  majesty's  restoration  preferred,  first  to 
the  bishopric  of  Exeter,  and  then  to  that  of 
Salisbury,  where  he  died  1668.$ 

Dr.  John  Wallis,  Savilian  professor  of  geome- 
try in  the  room  of  Dr.  Turner  :  the  fame  of  this 
gentleman's  learning  is  well  known  to  the  world; 
he  was  of  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge,  and  af- 
terward fellow  of  Queen's  College,  in  the  same 
university,  then  minister  of  St.  Martin's,  Iron- 
monger Lane,  London,  one  of  the  scribes  in  the 
Assembly  of  Divines,  and  now,  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  committee,  geometry  professor  ;ij 
he  conformed  at  the  Restoration,  and  maintain- 
ed his  post,  and  was  an  ornament  to  the  univer- 
sity to  a  very  advanced  age.  II 

Lewis  du  Moulin,  M.D.,  of  the  University  of 
Leyden,  Camden  professor  of  history  in  the 
place  of  Mr.  Robert  Waring,  was  incorporated 
in  the  same  degree  at  Cambridge,  1634  ;  he  was 
son  of  the  famous  Peter  du  Moulin,  the  French 
Protestant,  and  kept  his  preferment  till  the  Res- 
toration, when  he  was  turned  out  by  his  majes- 
ty's commissioners,  and  persisted  in  his  non- 
conformity till  his  death.  He  was  a  valuable 
and  learned  man,  as  appears  by  his  writings  ; 
but  Mr.  Wood  observesIT  he  was  a  violent  In- 
dependent, and  ill-natured  ;  he  died  in  London 
1680. 

Joshua  Crosse,  LL.D.,  natural  philosophy 
reader  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Edwards,  and  one  of 
the  proctors  of  the  university  ;  he  was  fellow  of 


*  Wood's  Fasti,  p.  68. 

t  He  was  the  first  who  brought  mathematical 
learning  into  vogue  in  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
He  was  a  close  reasoner  and  an  admirable  speaker, 
having  in  the  House  of  Lords  been  esteemed  equal, 
at  least,  to  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  He  was  a  great 
benefactor  to  both  his  bishoprics ;  as  by  his  interest 
the  deanery  of  Berien,  in  Cornwall,  was  anne-xed  to 
the  former,  though  it  has  been  since  separated  from 
it,  and  the  chancellorship  of  the  garter  to  the  latter. 
He  was  polite,  hospitable,  and  generous.  He  found- 
ed in  his  lifetime  the  College  of  Salisbury,  for  the  re- 
ception and  support  of  ministers'  widows ;  and  the 
sumptuous  hospital  at  Buntingford,  in  Hertfordshire, 
the  place  of  his  nativity. — Granger's  History  of  Eng- 
land, vol.  iii ,  p.  244,  245,  8vo.— Ed. 

t  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  627,  628. 

()  Wood's  Fasti,  p.  72,  106. 

II  Mathematical  science  is  greatly  indebted  to  Dr. 
Wallis  for  several  important  improvements  and  inven- 
tions. The  modern  art  of  deciphering  was  his  discov- 
ery; and  he  was  the  author  of  the  method  of  teaching 
deaf  and  dumb  persons  to  speak,  and  to  understand 
a  language.  His  English  grammar,  in  which  many 
things  were  entirely  his  own,  showed  at  once  the 
grammarian  and  the  philosopher. —  Granger's  History 
of  En<rlavd,  vol.  iii.,  p.  286,  8vo.  He  is  said  to  have 
applied  his  art  of  deciphering  to  the  king's  letters  ta- 
ken at  Naseby. — Ed. 

%  Wood's  Fasti,  vol.  ii.,  p.  753,  754. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


Magdalen  College,  and  kept  his  reader's  place 
till  the  Restoration,  after  which  he  lived  private- 
ly in  Oxford  till  his  death,  which  happened  in 
1676.  He  was  a  gentleman  much  honoured  for 
his  becoming  conversation.* 

Ralph  Button,  A.M.,  university  orator  in  the 
room  of  Dr.  Hammond,  and  one  of  the  proctors 
of  the  university  ;  he  was  originally  of  Exeter 
College,  where  he  made  so  great  a  progress  in 
philosophy,  and  other  literature,  that  when  he 
was  only  bachelor  of  arts  he  was  recommended 
by  Dr.  Prideaux  to  stand  for  a  fellowship  in 
Merton  College,  and  was  accordingly  chosen 
1633.  He  was  afterward  a  celebrated  tutor  in 
his  house,  but  was  obliged  to  quit  Oxford  in  the 
beginning  of  the  civil  wars,  because  he  would 
not  bear  arms  for  the  king.  When  the  war  was 
over  he  resumed  his  employment  as  tutor,  and 
upon  the  refusal  of  Edward  Corbet  was  made 
canon  of  Christ  Church,  and  university  orator; 
he  was  ejected  at  the  Restoration,  and  after- 
ward taught  academical  learning  at  Islington, 
near  London,  till  1680,  when  he  died.  He  was 
an  excellent  scholar,  a  most  humble,  upright 
man,  and  a  great  sufferer  for  nonconformity.! 

Mr.  John  Harmon,  A.M.,  professor  of  the 
Greek  language  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Stringer,  was 
educated  in  Magdalen  College,  and  took  his  de- 
grees 1617  ;  he  was  afterward  master  of  the 
free  school  at  St.  Alban's,  and  one  of  the  mas- 
ters of  Westminster  school ;  from  thence  he  was 
removed  to  the  Greek  professorship  in  this  uni- 
versity. He  was,  says  Mr.  Wood, J  a  great  phi- 
lologist, a  tolerable  Latin  poet,  and  one  of  the 
most  excellent  Grecians  of  his  time,  but  other- 
wise an  honest,  weak  man.  He  was  turned 
out  at  the  Restoration,  and  afterward  lived  pri- 
vately at  Steventon,  in  Hampshire,  till  the  year 
1670,  when  he  died. 

These  were  all  the  changes  that  were  made 
among  the  heads  of  colleges  and  professors  at  this 
time ;  and,  upon  the  whole,  though  it  must  be 
allowed  that  many  of  the  ejected  Loyalists  were 
men  of  learning  and  great  merit,  it  is  certain 
those  that  kept  their  places,  and  the  successors  of 
such  as  were  ejected,  were  men  of  equal  probity 
and  virtue,  and  no  less  eminent  in  their  several 
professions,  as  appears  by  the  monuments  of 
their  learning,  some  of  which  are  remaining  to 
this  day. 

The  very  enemies  of  the  new  heads  of  col- 
leges have  confessed  that  they  were  strict  in 
the  government  of  their  several  houses,  that 
they  kept  a  more  than  common  watch  over  the 
morals  of  the  students,  and  obliged  them  to  an 
exact  compliance  with  their  statutes.  The  pro- 
fessors were  indefatigable  in  instructing  their 
pupils  both  in  public  and  private  ;  drunkenness, 
oaths,  and  profanation  of^  the  Lord's  Day  were 
banished  ;  strict  piety,  and  a  profession  of  reli- 
gion, were  in  fashion  ;  the  scholars  often  met 
together  for  prayer  and  religious  conference ; 
so  that,  as  Mr.  Philip  Henry,  who  lived  then  in 
the  university,  observes,  "  If  those  of  the  old 
spirit  and  way  were  at  first  the  better  scholars, 
these  were  the  better  men." 

Let  the  reader  now  judge  of  the  spirit  and 
candour  of  those  writers  who  insinuate  "  that 
the  new  professors  could  neither  pronounce  Lat- 
in nor  write  English  ;  that  in  the  room  of  the 


*  Calainy's  Abridg.,  p.  58.  f  Ibid.,  p.  60. 

t  Athen.  Oxen.,  vol.  li.,  p,  347,  348. 


ejected  Loyalists  there  succeeded  an  illiterate 
rabble,  swept  up  from  the  plough-tail,  from 
shops,  and  grammar-schools,  and  the  dregs  of 
the  neighbouring  university;  that  the  muses 
were  driven  from  their  ancient  seats  ;  that  all 
loyalty,  learning,  and  good  sense  were  banished  ; 
and  that  there  succeeded  in  their  room  nothing 
but  barlrarismi  enthusiasm,  and  ignorance,  till 
the  dawn  of  the  Restoration."*  Lord  Claren- 
don was  a  declared  enemy  to  these  changes, 
and  has  painted  them  in  the  most  odious  col- 
ours, yet  the  force  of  truth  has  obliged  him  to 
confess  that,  "  though  it  might  have  been  rea- 
sonably expected  that  this  wild  and  barbarous 
depopulation,"  as  he  calls  it,  "  would  have  ex- 
tirpated all  the  learning,  religion,  and  loyalty 
which  had  flourished  there,  and  that  the  suc- 
ceeding ill  husbandry  and  unskilful  cultivation 
would  have  made  it  fruitful  only  in  ignorance, 
profaneness,  atheism,  and  rebellion;  yet,  by  God's 
wonderful  providence,  that  fruitful  soil  could  not 
be  made  barren  by  all  that  stupidity  and  negli- 
gence ;  it  choked  the  weeds,  and  would  not  suf- 
fer the  poisonous  seeds,  that  were  sown  with 
industry  enough,  to  spring  up,  but  after  several 
tyrannical  governors  mutually  succeeding  each 
other,  and  with  the  same  malice  and  perverse- 
ness  endeavouring  to  extinguish  all  good  litera- 
ture and  allegiance,  it  yielded  a  harvest  of  ex- 
traordinary good  knowledge  in  all  parts  of  learn- 
ing ;  and  many  who  were  wickedly  introduced 
applied  themselves  to  the  study  of  good  learn- 
ing, and  the  practice  of  virtue,  and  had  inclina- 
tions to  that  duty  and  obedience  they  had  never 
been  taught,  that  when  it  pleased  God  to  bring 
King  Charles  II.  back  to  his  throne  he  found 
the  university  abounding  in  excellent  learning, 
and  devoted  to  duty  and  obedience  little  inferior 
to  what  it  was  before  its  desolation."  Consid- 
ering the  ill-nature  that  runs  through  this  para- 
graph, it  must  be  acknowledged  to  be  an  unan' 
swcrablc  testimony  to  the  learning  and  application 
of  the  new  professors,  and  with  equal  justice  it 
may  be  added,  that  the  university  was  in  a  much 
better  state  for  learning,  religion,  and  good  sense 
at  the  Restoration  than  before  the  civil  wars, 
as  all  the  eminent  philosophers  and  divines  of 
the  establishment,  who  did  so  much  honour  to 
their  country  in  the  three  succeeding  reigns, 
owed  their  education  to  these  professors,  viz., 
the  Tillotsons,  Stillingfleets,  Patricks,  Souths, 
Caves,  Sprats,  Kidders,  Whitbys,  Bulls,  Boyles, 
Newtons,  Lockes,  and  others.  The  university 
was  in  high  reputation  in  foreign  parts,  and  pro- 
duced as  many  learned  performances  as  in  any 
former  period.  So  that,  admitting  the  new  pro- 
fessors were  not  introduced  into  their  places  in 
a  legal  way,  according  to  the  statutes,  because  of 
the  necessity  of  the  times,  yet  it  is  certain  they 
proved  wise  and  watchful  governors,  strict  ob- 
servers of  their  statutes,  and  industrious  pro- 
moters of  piety  and  the  liberal  arts  ;  and  were 
far  from  deserving  the  brand  of  "  ignorant,  illit- 
erate, hypocritical  blockheads,  enemies  to  the 
legal  Constitution  of  their  country,"  or  of  being 
pronounced  unworthy  the  high  preferments  they 
enjoyed. 

There  were,  no  doubt,  at  first,  very  consider^ 
able  vacancies  in  the  several  colleges  ;  many  of 
the  fellows  and  scholars  being  dead,  or  killed  in 
the  king's  service,  and  others  having  resigned 


Walker's  Suff.  Cler.,  p.  140. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


73 


their  places  in  the  university  for  benefices  in 
the  Church,  besides  those  who  were  expelled  by 
the  visiters  as  already  mentioned  ;  but  to  sup- 
ply the  deficiency  of  fellows  and  tutors,  the 
committee  encouraged  several  learned  gradu- 
ates in  the  University  of  Cambridge  to  translate 
themselves  to  Oxford,  and  accept  of  prefer- 
ments according  to  their  merits.  Many  who 
had  deserted  the  university  when  it  became  a 
garrison  for  the  king  returned  to  their  colleges, 
and  were  promoted  according  to  their  seniority. 
Great  numbers  of  youths,  who  had  been  kept  at 
home  because  of  the  public  commotions,  were 
now  sent  to  Oxford  by  their  parents  to  perfect 
their  education  ;  and  if  it  be  considered,  farther, 
that  there  had  been  no  admissions  from  West- 
minster, Eton,  St.  Paul's,  Merchant  Tailors', 
and  other  public  schools,  for  five  or  six  years 
past,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  there  was  an 
unusual  flow  of  youth  to  the  university  at  this 
time,  so  that  the  damage  occasioned  by  this 
revolution  of  affairs  was  quickly  repaired,  and 
the  muses  returned  to  their  ancient  seats. 

The  long  interruption  of  education  in  the 
university  produced  a  very  great  scarcity  of  or- 
thodox and  learned  ministers  in  the  counties, 
some  being  silenced  for  refusing  the  Covenant, 
and  others  dispersed  or  killed  in  the  wars. 
Many  pulpits,  also,  were  vacant  by  reason  of  the 
scandal  or  insufficiency  of  the  incumbents, 
which  was  one  occasion  of  the  increase  of  lay- 
preachers,  for  the  country  people  would  go  to 
hear  anybody  rather  than  have  no  sermons  ; 
besides,  the  Presbyterian  clergy  would  author- 
ize none  to  preach  except  such  as  would  take 
the  Covenant,  and  consent  to  their  discipline. 
To  remedy  these  evils,  the  northern  counties 
petitioned  the  houses  to  erect  a  new  university 
in  the  city  of  York,  but  the  confusion  of  the 
times  prevented  their  prosecuting  the  design. 
The  Independents,  who  were  less  zealous  about 
clerical  orders,  encouraged,  or,  at  least,  con- 
nived at  the  lay-preachers,  apprehending  that,  in 
cases  of  necessity,  pious  men  of  good  natural 
parts  might  exercise  their  gifts  publicly  to  the 
edification  of  the  Church  ;  till,  under  this  cov- 
er, they  saw  every  bold  enthusiast  almost  be- 
gin to  usurp  the  office  of  a  teacher.  To  bring 
things,  therefore,  into  a  little  better  order,  the 
following  petition  was  presented  to  both  houses 
of  Parliament,  October  6,  under  the  title  of 
"  The  humble  Petition  of  many  Citizens  of  Lon- 
don, and  others." 

"  Your  petitioners  are  deeply  sensible  of  the 
extreme  want  of  preaching  the  Gospel  through- 
out this  kingdom,  there  bemg  many  hundreds 
of  towns  and  villages  altogether  destitute  of  any 
preaching  ministers,  and  many  others  are  not 
well  supplied  ;  by  reason  whereof  ignorance, 
drunkenness,  profaneness,  disaffection  to  the 
Parliament,  and  to  others  in  authority,  every- 
where abound,  there  being  scarce  so  much  as 
the  face  of  religion  in  many  places.  There  is 
a  great  cry  of  people,  from  several  counties  of 
the  kingdom,  for  men  to  preach  to  them  the 
word  of  eternal  life  ;  and  there  are  many  men 
of  competent  gifts  and  abilities,  of  good  life  and 
honest  conversation,  who,  being  willing  to  em- 
ploy their  talents  in  the  Lord's  work,  and  to 
submit  themselves  for  approbation  to  moderate 
and  judicious  men,  are  yet,  by  occasion  of  some 
scruples  about  ordination,  discouraged  from  en- 
VoL.  n.-*^K 


gaging  in  this  work  of  publishing  the  Gospel, 
wherein  they  might  be  helpful  to  many.  And 
seeing  that  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
upon  occasion  of  people's  necessities,  many 
such  men  were  sent  forth  to  publish  the  Gos- 
pel who  had  no  formal  act  of  ministerial  ordi- 
nation passed  upon  them,  whose  endeavours 
the  Lord  blessed  to  the  good  of  many  souls,  and 
the  furthering  of  the  kingdom's  peace  ;  and 
since  also  we  nothing  doubt  but  the  propagation 
of  the  Gospel  throughout  this  kingdom,  and  the 
information  of  men  in  the  things  of  their  peace, 
and  the  peace  and  safety  of  the  kingdom,  are 
worthy  of  your  greatest  zeal,  and  are  not  the 
least  of  your  care  : 

"  Therefore  your  petitioners  humbly  pray, 
that  those  who  shall  be  approved  of  as  men 
meet  to  dispense  the  mysteries  of  the  Gospel, 
by  such  judicious,  moderate,  and  able  men, 
whom  you  in  wisdom  shall  appoint  thereunto, 
may  receive  from  this  honourable  House  eir- 
couragement  and  protection  in  preaching  the 
Gospel  in  any  place  in  this  kingdom,  or  domin- 
ion of  Wales,  where  need  requires,  that  so  the 
Word  of  the  Lord  may  have  free  course  and  be 
glorified ;  ignorant  men  may  be  instructed ; 
drunkenness,  profaneness,  and  disaffection  to 
the  Parliament,  and  to  others  in  authority,  may 
be  abandoned  ;  and  both  the  temporal  and  spir- 
itual peace  and  prosperity  of  all  sorts  of  men  be 
the  more  advanced."* 

The  houses  thanked  the  petitioners  for  their 
good  affection,  but  did  nothing  upon  it. 

By  an  ordinance  of  February  11,  this  year, 
"  all  stage-players  were  declared  to  be  rogues, 
punishable  by  the  acts  of  the  39th  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  7th  of  King  James,  notwithstand- 
ing any  license  they  might  have  from  the  king 
or  any  other  person.  All  stage  galleries,  seats, 
and  boxes,  are  ordered  to  be  pulled  down  by 
warrant  of  two  justices  of  peace  ;  all  actors  in 
plays  for  time  to  come  being  convicted  shall  be 
publicly  whipped,  and  find  sureties  for  their  not 
offending  m  like  manner  for  the  future  ;  and  all 
spectators  of  plays  for  every  offence  are  to  pay 
five  shillings."! 

The  controversies  about  church  government, 
and  liberty  of  conscience,  ran  still  as  high  as 
ever  ;  the  Presbyterians,  who  had  the  govern- 
ment of  the  city  of  London  in  their  hands,  were 
for  pressing  Covenant  uniformity  in  their  ser- 
mons, which  the  Independents,  and  others  of 
more  catholic  principles,  endeavoured  to  oppose 
with  all  their  might.  Lord  Clarendon  is  pleased 
to  represent  this  in  a  ludicrous  manner :  "  The 
pulpit  skirmishes,"  says  his  lordship,  "  were 
now  higher  than  ever,  the  Presbyterians  in 
those  fields  losing  nothing  of  their  courage ; 
having  a  notorious  power  in  the  city,  notwith- 
standing the  emulation  of  the  Independents, 
who  were  more  learned  and  rational,  who, 
though  they  had  not  so  great  congregations  of 
the  common  people,  yet  infected  and  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  most  substantial  citizens,  and  by 
others  of  better  condition.  To  these  men  Crom- 
well and  most  of  the  officers  of  the  army  ad- 
hered ;  but  the  divinity  of  the  times  was  not  to 
be  judged  by  the  preaching  and  congregations* 
in  churches,  which  were  now  thought  not  to  be 
the  fit  and  proper  places  of  devotion  and  reli- 
gious exercises,  where  the  bishops  had  exer- 


*  Rushworth,  p.  834. 


t  Scobel,  p.  143.. 


•74 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


'Cised  such  unlimited  tyranny,  and  which  had 
been  polluted  by  their  consecrations.  Liberty 
of  conscience  w'as  now  become  the  great  char- 
ter, and  men  who  were  inspired  preached  and 
prayed  when  and  where  they  would.  Anabap- 
tists grew  very  numerous,  with  whom  the  In- 
dependents concurred,  so  far  as  to  join  with 
them  for  the  abolishing  of  tithes,  as  of  Judaical 
institution.  If  any  honest  man  could  have  been 
at  so  much  ease  as  to  have  beheld  the  prospect 
with  delight,  never  was  such  a  scene  of  confu- 
sion as  had  spread  itself  at  this  time  over  the 
•whole  kingdom."*  And  yet  it  is  certain  that 
the  laws  against  vice  and  immorality  were 
strictly  executed,  the  Lord's  Day  was  duly  ob- 
served, the  churches  were  crowded  with  atten- 
tive hearers,  family  devotion  was  in  repute,  nei- 
ther servants  nor  children  being  allowed  to  walk 
in  the  fields  or  frequent  the  public-houses.  In 
a  word,  notwithstanding  the  difference  of  men's 
opinions  and  political  views,  there  was  a  zeal 
for  God,  and  a  much  greater  appearance  of  so- 
briety, virtue,  and  true  religion,  than  before  the 
civil  war,  or  after  the  blessed  Restoration. 

Among  the  Puritan  divines  who  died  this 
year,  was  the  Reverend  Mr.  Herbert  Palmer, 
B.D.,  of  whom  mention  has  been  made  among 
the  Cambridge  professors ;  his  father  was  Sir 
Thomas  Palmer,  of  Wingham,  in  Kent ;  his 
mother,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Herbert  Pelham, 
of  Sussex,  Esq.t  Our  divine  was  born  at  Wmg- 
ham,  and  baptized  there  March  29,  1601  ;  he 
had  a  polite  education  in  his  father's  house,  and 
learned  the  French  language  almost  as  soon  as 
he  could  speak.  In  the  year  1615  he  was  ad- 
tnitted  fellow-commoner  in  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge.  In  1622he  took  the  degree  of  M.  A. 
In  1623  he  was  chosen  fellow  of  Queen's  College 
in  that  university ;  the  year  following  he  was 
ordained  to  the  ministry,  to  which  he  had  devo- 
ted himself  from  his  infancy  :  his  first  exercise 
•was  at  a  lecture  in  the  city  of  Canterbury,  where 
he  preached  once  a  week,  till  it  was  put  down 
■with  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  sermons.  In  the 
year  1632  he  was  presented  by  Archbishop  Laud 
to  the  vicarage  of  Ashwell,  in  Hertfordshire, 
where  he  preached  twice  every  Lord's  Day,  and 
catechized  the  children  of  his  parishioners.  The 
same  year  he  was  chosen  one  of  the  university 
preachers  of  Cambridge,  by  which  he  had  au- 
thority to  preach,  as  he  should  have  occasion, 
in  any  part  of  England.  In  the  year  1640,  he 
and  Dr.  Tuckney  were  chosen  clerks  of  the  con- 
vocation for  the  diocess  of  Lincoln.  In  the 
year  1643  he  was  called  to  be  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster,  and  after 
some  time  chosen  one  of  their  assessors,  in 
which  place  he  behaved  with  great  wisdom  and 
integrity.  April  11,  1644,  he  was  constituted 
master  of  Queen's  College,  Cambridge,  by  the 
Earl  of  Manchester;  here  he  set  himself  industri- 
ously to  the  promoting  of  religion  and  learning, 
being  very  solicitous  that  none  should  be  admit- 
ted to  a  scholarship  or  fellowship  in  his  college 
but  such  as  were  qualified  in  both  these  respects, 
the  good  effects  of  which  appeared  in  the  repu- 
tation and  credit  of  that  society,  beyond  most 
others  of  the  university  in  his  time.  Mr.  Palm- 
er was  a  gentleman  of  a  low  stature,  and  a 
weakly  constitution,  but  indefatigable  in  busi- 


*  Clarendon,  vol.  v.,  p.  115,  )16. 

t  Clarke's  Lives  in  his  Martyrology,  p.  183. 


ness  ;  his  leisure  was  employed  in  works  of  de- 
votion and  charity,  and  as  he  had  a  competent 
estate,  and  chose  a  single  life,  he  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  a  great  deal  of  good  ;  he  main- 
tained several  poor  scholars  at  his  own  expense 
in  the  college,  and  when  he  died  left  a  consid- 
erable benefaction  to  the  same  purpose.  His 
last  sickness  was  not  long,  his  constitution  be- 
ing spent,  but  his  behaviour  was  uncommon  : 
he  looked  the  king  of  terrors  in  the  face  with  an 
unshaken  resolution,  and  resigned  his  life  this 
summer  with  a  firm  expectation  of  the  mercy  of 
God  to  eternal  life,  in  the  forty -sixth  year  of  his 
age,  and  was  buried  at  the  new  church  at  West- 
minster. 

Mr.  Henry  Wilkinson,  B.D.,was  born  in  York- 
shire, and  educated  at  Merton  College,  Oxford. 
In  the  year  1586  he  was  chosen  probationer-fel- 
low, and  proceeded  in  arts ;  after  some  time  he 
was  made  B.D.,  and  in  the  year  1601  became 
pastor  of  Waddesdon,  in  Bucks.  He  was  a  per- 
son of  considerable  learning  and  piety,  and  be- 
ing an  old  Puritan,  says  Mr.  Wood,*  was  elect- 
ed one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  in  1643,  but 
he  spent  the  chief  of  his  time  and  labours  among 
his  parishioners  at  Waddesdon,  by  whom  he 
was  greatly  beloved  :  here  he  died  in  a  very 
advanced  age,  March  19, 1647-8,  and  lies  buried 
in  his  own  church. 

Mr.  John  Saltmarsh,  descendant  of  an  ancient 
family  in  Yorkshire,  was  educated  in  Magdalen 
College,  Cambridge,  and  graduated  there ;  he 
was  esteemed  a  person  of  a  fine,  active  fancy, 
no  contemptible  poet,  and  a  good  preacher  ;  he 
was  first  minister  at  Northampton,  afterward 
at  Braisted,  in  Kent,  and  at  length  chaplain  in 
Sir  Thomas  Fairfax's  army,  where  he  always 
preached  up  love  and  unity  ;  he  meddled  not 
with  Presbytery  or  Independency,  but  laboured 
to  draw  souls  from  sin  to  Christ.  He  published 
some  treatises,  by  which  it  appears  he  was  of 
Antinomian  principles.  The  manner  of  his  death 
was  extraordinary  :  December  4th,  1647,  being 
at  his  house  at  Ilford,  in  Essex,  he  told  his  wife 
he  had  been  in  a  trance,  and  received  a  mes- 
sage from  God  which  he  must  immediately  de- 
liver to  the  army.  He  went  that  night  to  Lon- 
don, and  next  day  to  Windsor  ;  being  come  to 
the  council  of  officers,  he  told  them  that  the  Lord 
had  left  them  ;  that  he  would  not  prosper  their 
consultations,  but  destroy  them  by  divisions 
among  themselves,  because  they  had  sought  to 
destroy  the  people  of  God,  those  who  had  stood 
by  them  in  their  greatest  difficulties.  He  then 
went  to  the  general,  and  without  moving  his 
hat,  told  him  that  God  was  highly  displeased 
with  him  for  committing  of  saints  to  prison. 
The  like  message  he  delivered  to  Cromwell,  re- 
quiring him  to  take  effectual  means  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  members  of  the  army,  who 
were  committed  for  not  complying  with  the  gen- 
eral council.  He  then  took  his  leave  of  the  of- 
ficers, telling  them  he  had  now  done  his  errand, 
and  must  never  see  them  any  more.  After 
which  he  went  to  London,  and  took  leave  of  his 
friends  there,  telling  them  his  work  was  done, 
and  desiring  some  of  them  to  be  careful  of  his 
wife.  Thursday,  December  9,  he  returned  to 
Ilford  in  perfect  health ;  next  day  he  told  his 
wife  that  he  had  now  finished  his  work,  and 
must  go  to  his  Father.     Saturday  morning,  De- 


*  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  59. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


75 


eember  11,  he  was  taken  speechless,  and  about 
four  in  the  afternoon  he  died.* 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    SECOND    CIVIL    WAR.  —  THE    CONCLUSION    OF 

THE    ASSEMBLY    OF    DIVINES.  THE    PROGRESS 

OF    PRESBYTERY. THE    TREATY     OF    THE    ISLE 

OF    WIGHT. DEATH    AND    CHARACTER    OF    KING 

CHARLES  I. HIS    WORKS,  AND  THE  AUTHORS  OF 

HIS    UNHAPPY    SUFFERINGS. — ANNO    1648. 

The  king  was  all  last  winter  a  clcse  prisoner 
in  Carisbrook  Castle,  attended  only  by  two  ser- 
vants of  his  own,  and  debarred  of  all  other  con- 
versation, without  the  knowledge  of  the  gov- 
ernor ;  nevertheless,  by  the  assistance  of  some 
particular  friends,  he  sent  and  received  several 
letters  from  the  queen,  though  his  correspond- 
ence was  discovered  oftener  than  he  was  aware. 
His  majesty  made  several  attempts  to  escape, 
but  was  always  prevented  ;  Captain  Burley  at- 
tempted to  raise  the  island  for  him,  but  was  ap- 
prehended and  executed.  However,  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  secret  treaty  with  the  Scots,  already 
mentioned,  an  army  was  raising  in  that  king- 
dom, to  be  commanded  by  Duke  Hamilton  ;  but 
the  English  cavaliers,  impatient  of  delay,  with- 
out concerting  proper  measures  among  them- 
selves, or  with  the  Presbyterians,  took  up  arms 
in  several  counties,  to  deliver  the  king  from  his 
confinement,  and  to  restore  him  without  any 
treaty  with  his  Parliament.  The  Welsh  appear- 
ed first,  under  Major-general  Langhorn,  Colonel 
Poyer,  and  Powel.  three  officers  in  the  Parlia- 
ment army,  who  had  privately  accepted  com- 
missions from  the  Prince  of  Wales!  These 
were  followed  by  others  in  Dorsetshire,  Devon- 
shire, Sussex,  Surrey,  Lincolnshire,  Norfolk, 
Kent,  Northamptonshire,  Essex,  and  in  the  city 
of  London  itself  The  insurrection  in  the  city 
began  on  Sunday,  April  9,  in  Moorfields,  by  a 
company  of  young  fellows  with  clubs  and  staves 
crying  out  for  God  and  King  Charles.  But  af- 
ter they  had  done  some  mischief  in  the  night, 
and  frighted  the  mayor  into  the  Tower,  they 
were  dispersed  next  morning  by  the  general  at 
the  head  of  two  regiments.  The  Kentish  men, 
under  the  Earl  of  Norwich,  having  plundered 
some  houses,  were  defeated  near  Maidstone, 
and  having  a  promise  of  pardon,  the  main  body 
laid  down  their  arms  ;  notwithstanding  which, 
the  earl,  with  five  hundred  resolute  men,  crossed 
the  Thames  at  the  Isle  of  Dogs,  and  came  as 
far  as  Mile  End  Green,  expecting  assistance 
from  the  city  ;  but  being  disappointed,  he  joined 
the  Essex  cavaliers  under  Sir  Charles  Lucas 
and  Lord  Capel,  who  surprised  the  Parliament's 
committee  at  Chelmsford,  and  then  shut  them- 
selves up  in  Colchester,  where  they  maintained 
themselves  against  General  Fairfax  for  ten 
weeks,  till,  being  reduced  to  the  last  extremity, 
they  were  forced  to  surrender  at  discretion, 
August  28  ;t  after  which  the  general  marched 


*  Rushworth,  p.  944.  f  Ibid.,  p.  1007. 

%  Dr.  Grey  is  displeased  with  Mr.  Neal  that  he 
does  not  inform  his  readers  what  use  General  Fairfax 
made  of  the  power  with  which  this  unconditional 
surrender  invested  him.  He  seized  Sir  Charles  Lu- 
cas and  Sir  George  Lisle,  and  made  them  instant 
sacrifices  to  military  justice.    All  the  prisoners  ex- 


round  about  the  country,  and  having  quieted  all 
insurrections  in  those  parts,  returned  to  his 
headquarters  at  St.  Alban's  about  Michaelmas. 
While  Fairfax  was  in  Kent  and  Essex,  Lieu- 
tenant-general Cromwell  reduced  the  Welsh 
about  the  end  of  June.  At  the  same  time,  the 
Earl  of  Holland  and  Duke  of  Buckingham  ap- 
peared at  the  head  of  five  hundred  horse  and 
some  foot  near  Kingston-upon-Thames,  but  they 
were  soon  dispersed  ;  the  earl  was  taken  pris- 
oner at  St.  Neot's,  in  Huntingdonshire,  by  Col- 
onel Scroop,  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  with 
great  difficulty,  escaped  into  the  Low  Coun- 
tries. About  the  same  time,  several  of  the  Par- 
liament's ships  revolted  to  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
then  in  Holland,  who  went  on  board,  and  with 
Prince  Rupert,  Lord  Hopton,  and  others,  sailed 
to  the  coast  of  England,  with  a  design  to  relieve 
Colchester;  but,  although  disappointed,  he  land- 
ed five  hundred  men  about  Deal  and  Sandwich, 
and  blocked  up  the  Thames'  mouth  ;  but  when 
the  Earl  of  Warwick  came  up  with  the  Parlia- 
ment's fleet,  he  sailed  back  to  Holland,  and  most 
of  the  ships  returned  to  the  obedience  of  the 
Parliament. 

It  was  not  without  great  difficulty  that  the 
king's  friends  in  Scotland  prevailed  with  the 
Parliament  of  that  kingdom  to  consent  to  the 
raising  an  army  against  England,  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  Kirk  and  the  whole  body  of  their 
ministers  being  vehemently  against  it ;  and 
when  it  was  put  to  the  vote,  eighteen  lords  and 
forty  commoners  entered  their  protests,  from 
a  strong  suspicion  that,  by  the  vast  resort  of 
Loyalists  to  Edinburgh,  there  was  a  private 
agreement  between  Hamilton  and  that  party  to 
lay  aside  the  Covenant,  and  restore  the  king 
without  any  conditions;  to  prevent  which,  the 
Scots  Parliament  gave  express  orders  that  none 
should  be  received  into  their  army,  or  join  with 
them  at  their  entrance  into  England,  except  such 
as  should  take  the  Covenant ;  but  Hamilton,  who 
betrayed  their  cause,  found  means  to  evade  the 
order,  by  which  means  he  ruined  himself,  and 
the  party  he  intended  to  serve.* 


claimed  against  this  as  an  unusual  piece  of  severity ; 
and  some  historians  have  censured  it  as  a  bloody  step. 
Mrs.  Macaulay  represents  it  as  an  instance  of  the  hu- 
manity of  the  general,  that,  though  he  had  been  pro- 
voked by  many  irritating  circumstances  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  besieged,  he  selected  the  two  chief  com- 
manders only,  to  avenge  the  innocent  blood  they  had 
caused  to  be  spilt.  The  fact  was,  that  these  two  gen- 
tlemen had  shown  themselves  most  implacable  ;  had 
prevented  the  soldiers  from  accepting  terms  of  indem- 
nity offered  by  the  Parliament  in  the  beginning  ;  that 
the  besieged  had  been  exposed  to  the  utmost  extrem- 
ities of  famine;  and  that  the  Independents  regarded 
the  engaging  the  kingdom  in  a  second  war  as  an  un 
pardonable  crime.  When  Sir  Charles  Lucas  urged 
that  the  sentence  of  the  general  was  unprecedented, 
a  Parliament  soldier  standing  by  told  him,  "  that  he 
had  put  to  death  with  his  own  hand  some  of  the  Par- 
liament's soldiers  in  cold  blood."  At  which  he  was 
dismayed.  A  few  days  after,  a  gentleman  in  mourn- 
ing for  Sii  Charles  Lucas  appearing  in  his  presence, 
the  king  wept. — Mrs.  Macaulay's  History,  vol.  iv.,  p. 
302,  M3.—  WhttKlocki.'s  Mnnor'ials,  p.  328-330.— Ed. 
*  Kapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  550,  553,  folio.  Hamilton's 
Memoirs,  p.  339.  Bishop  Burnet  endeavours  to  ex- 
culpate the  duke  from  such  a  charge,  and  imputes 
the  miscarriage  of  the  expedition,  in  which  he  was 
leader,  to  his  yielding  to  the  counsels  of  others.  The 
bishop  sets  against  the  report  of  his  betraying  the 
army  several  instances  of  his  generous  and  disinter- 


76 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


The  Scots  army  entered  England,  July  llth, 
to  the  number  of  twenty  thousand  foot*  and  six 
thousand  horse,  under  the  command  of  Duke 
Hamilton,  and  were  afterward  joined  by  Sir 
Marmaduke  Langdale  at  the  head  of  four  thou- 
sand foot  and  seven  or  eight  hundred  horse ; 
but  these  being  Englishmen  and  cavaliers  who 
had  not  taken  the  Covenant,  were  not  incorpo- 
rated with  the  Scots  forces,  but  were  obliged  to 
march  a  day  before  them,  which  was  Hamilton's 
contrivance  to  evade  his  orders  ;  nevertheless, 
they  composed  one  army,  Langdale  being  to  re- 
ceive all  his  orders  from  Hamilton,  and  to  act 
only  by  his  directions.  But  though  there  was 
a  private  understanding  between  the  generals, 
the  subalterns  and  soldiers  of  both  parties  were 
not  acquainted  with  it,  and  had  the  same  incu- 
rable jealousy  of  each  other  as  formerly  ;  from 
the  same  motive  the  Presbyterians  in  the  Par- 
liament at  Westminster  commissioned  their 
army  to  oppose  the  Scots,  though  they  came 
into  England  with  an  avowed  intention  of  re- 
storing the  king  upon  the  terms  of  the  Cove- 
nant, which  was  the  supreme  object  of  their 
■wishes. 

It  may  seem  surprising,  however,  that  there 
was  no  good  understanding  between  the  two 
Parliaments,  when  those  of  England  sent  com- 
missioners to  Edinburgh  to  accomplish  it ;  but 
the  Scots,  being  strongly  persuaded  that  the  Par- 
liament at  Westminster  was  still  governed  by 
an  army  of  Independents,  all  that  Mr.  Marshall 
and  the  rest  could  say  was  not  sufficient  to  di- 
vert them  from  their  enterprise,  which  is  the 
easier  accounted  for,  when  the  strength  of  the 
Hamiltonian  faction,  and  their  obligations  to  the 
king  by  their  secret  treaty,  are  considered. 
This  engagement  appears  from  the  duke's  letter 
to  Lambert,  in  which  he  acquaints  him,  that  he 
was  commanded  to  enter  England  with  an  army, 
for  maintaining  the  solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant ;  for  settling  religion  ;  for  delivering  the 
king  from  his  base  imprisonment ;  and  freeing 
the  Parliament  from  the  constraint  put  upon 
them.t  The  state  of  affairs  had  undergone  a 
considerable  change  by  the  rising  of  the  English 
cavaliers  ;  the  army  was  in  the  field,  and  divi- 
ded into  several  distant  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
and  the  Presbyterians  in  as  full  possession  of 
the  government  as  ever ;  they  were  renewing 
the  treaty  with  the  king,  and  sending  proposi- 
tions to  the  Scots  to  join  w  ith  them ;  but  the  good 
understanding  between  the  two  nations  having 
been  interrupted  last  winter,  by  the  growing  in- 
fluence of  the  army,  who  were  no  friends  to 
Covenant  uniformity,  the  Scots  would  not  be 
satisfied  with  the  present  diminution  of  their 
power,  unless  they  were  entirely  disbanded,  and 


ested  conduct,  in  his  care  to  preserve  the  army  and 
to  act  for  the  king's  advantage,  at  the  risk  of  his  own 
liberty  and  safety. — Memoirs  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton, 
p.  365.— Ed. 

*  Dr.  Grey  here  censures  Mr.  Neal  for  often  speak- 
ing at  random :  because  Bishop  Burnet,  on  the  au- 
thority of  Turner,  the  adjutant-general,  says  that 
"  the  forces  of  the  Scots  amounted  only  to  ten  thou- 
sand foot  and  four  thousand  horse." — Memoirs  of 
Hamilton,  p.  356.  But  it  may  afford  a  sanction  to 
Mr.  Neal's  representation,  that  since  he  wrote,  Mrs. 
Macaulay  ana  Mr.  Hume  have  given  the  same  esti- 
mate of  the  army  led  by  Duke  Hamilton  into  Eng- 
land. With  these  agrees  Whitelocke,  Memoirs,  p. 
327.— Ed.  t  Rushworth,  p.  1194. 


therefore  had  not  changed  the  instructions  t« 
their  general.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Parlia- 
ment Qould  not  with  safety  disband  their  army 
while  The  cavaliers  were  in  the  field  ;  nor  could 
they  forbid  their  opposing  the  Scots,  who  had 
joined  the  common  enemy,  and  were  marching 
into  England  with  an  armed  force,  to  deliver 
the  king  from  his  imprisonment,  althou.'^h  they 
had  concerted  no  measures  with  the  two  houses, 
or  communicated  their  secret  treaty  with  his 
majesty  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  Thus  the  two- 
Parliaments  of  England  and  Scotland  opposed 
each  other,  when  both  had  the  same  views,  and 
were  actuated  by  the  same  principles.  If  the 
Scots  army  had  been  commanded  by  a  general 
the  Presbyterians  could  have  confided  in,  and 
had  marched  directly  for  London  without  join- 
ing the  cavaliers,  the  Parliament  of  England 
would  have  gladly  received  them,  and  the  citi- 
zens of  London  have  opened  their  gates ;  for 
the  English  Presbyterians  wished  them  well  ;. 
but  by  joining  the  common  enemy,  who  were  in 
arms  all  over  the  kingdom,  they  were  staggered  ; 
and  Duke  Hamilton,  who  betrayed  their  cause 
by  trifling  away  a  whole  month  in  the  north, 
gave  the  English  army,  which  was  distributed 
mto  various  parts,  time  to  reunite  and  defeat  all 
their  enterprises.* 

The  Scots,  invading  England  in  this  hostile 
manner,  and  in  the  midst  of  so  many  insurrec- 
tions, awakened  men's  fears,  and  made  them 
apprehend  the  cause  was  to  be  fought  over 
again.  And  while  the  Parliament  was  alarmed 
on  every  side,  the  English  army  gave  them 
strong  assurances  they  would  stand  by  them,, 
and  march  wheresoever  the  committee  of  the 
two  houses  (appointed  to  manage  their  motions) 
should  direct.  However,  General  Fairfax,  who 
engaged  heartily  against  the  cavaliers,  refusing 
to  march  against  the  Scots,  because  they  had 
openly  declared  for  the  Covenant,  Colonel  Lam- 
bert was  ordered  into  the  north,  with  a  flying 
squadron,  to  harass  them,  till  Lieutenant-general 
Cromwell  could  come  out  of  Wales  to  his  as- 
sistance. The  Scots  having  been  joined  by  Sic 
Marmaduke  Langdale,  who  had  seized  the  im- 
portant town  of  Berwick,  marched  through  Cum- 
berland and  Westmoreland  into  Lancashire, 
without  opposition  ;  but  upon  the  17th  of  Au- 
gust, Cromwell,  having  joined  Lambert,  and  re- 
freshed his  troops,  faced  them  near  Preston  with 
eight  or  ten  thousand  men,  and  after  a  sharp 
engagement  with  the  cavaliers  under  Sir  Mar- 
maduke Langdale,  who  were  almost  a  day's 
march  before  the  duke,  routed  the  whole  Scots 
army,  and  took  eight  or  nine  thousand  prisoners, 
with  all  their  artillery  and  baggage  ;  Hamilton 
fled  with  three  thousand  horse,  but  was  so  close- 
ly pursued  by  Lambert,  that  he  surrendered 
without  striking  another  stroke,  and  all  his  men 
were  dispersed  or  made  prisoners.  Cromwell 
after  this  action  pursued  his  victory,  marching 
directly  for  Edinburgh,  which  opened  its  gates  ; 
and  having  entered  the  city  and  changed  the 
magistracy  to  his  mind,  he  left  three  regiments 
of  horse  to  keep  the  country  quiet,  and  returned 
into  England  October  11,  laden  with  martial 
glory  and  renown. t 


*  Hamilton's  Memoirs,  p.  337,  345,  353,  &c. 

t  "  So  he  did,''  says  Dr.  Grey,  "  but  it  was  in  the 
same  sense  that  a  company  of  highwaymen  or  ban- 
ditti would  return  laden  with  martial  glory  and  hon- 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


77 


Before  the  army  left  London,  and  while  their 
influence  over  the  Parliament  continued,  the 
Commons,  having  taken  into  consideration  the 
affair  of  settling  the  government,  voted  unani- 
mously, that  the  government  of  the  kingdom 
should  be  still  by  king.  Lords,  and  Commons, 
and  that  the  propositions  at  Hampton  Court 
should  be  the  ground-work  for  a  settlement, 
which  shows  that  there  was  no  design,  as  yet 
formed,  of  changing  the  government  into  a  com- 
monwealth ;  at  least  nothing  appeared,  though 
the  agitators,  who  were  the  chief  managers  of 
the  army,  began  to  mutter,  that  if  the  king  could 
not  be  brought  to  reason  he  must  be  set  aside, 
and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  or  one  of  his  young- 
er children,  placed  on  the  throne.* 

The  army  had  no  sooner  left  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  city  but  the  Presbyterians  resumed  the 
management  of  public  affairs.  May  5,  the  Par- 
liament resolved  to  maintain  the  solemn  League 
and  Covenant,  and  to  unite  with  the  kingdom 
of  Scotland  upon  the  propositions  of  Hampton 
Court. +  The  militia  of  the  city  of  London  was 
restored  to  the  lord-mayor  and  common  coun- 
cil ;  the  eleven  impeached  members,  and  the 
seven  peers,  were  discharged  ;  and,  in  short,  all 
that  had  been  done  against  the  Presbyterian 
greatness  by  the  influence  of  the  army  last  win- 
ter was  reversed  ;  so  that,  as  from  August  6, 
1647,  to  the  beginning  of  May,  1648,  the  Par- 
liament may  be  supposed  to  have  lain  under 
some  restraint  from  the  army  ;  from  that  time 
to  the  end  of  the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  it 
was  at  full  liberty,  and  entirely  under  Presby- 
terian direction. t  Petitions  came  now  from  di- 
vers counties,  and  from  the  city  of  London  it- 
self, for  a  personal  treaty  with  the  king ;  upon 
which  the  Commons  set  aside  their  votes  of  non- 
addresses,  and,  at  the  request  of  the  Lords,  con- 
sented to  treat  with  the  king,  without  his  sign- 
ing any  preliminary  propositions,  hoping,  as  mat- 
ters then  stood,  his  majesty  would  not  delay  a 
moment  to  grant  their  demands,  that  he  might 
be  released  from  his  confinement,  and  placed 
upon  his  throne,  before  the  army  should  be  at 
leisure  to  throw  farther  obstacles  in  the  way  ; 
but  here  was  the  fatal  oversight :  the  king  and 
his  friends  would  not  condescend,  nor  the  Pres- 
byterians relax,  till  both  were  driven  out  of  the 
field,  and  the  army  became  irresistible. 

Let  the  reader  pause  a  little,  and  reflect  with 
grief  upon  the  miserable  distractions  of  this  un- 
happy kingdom  ;  in  this  crisis  were  three  or 
four  powerful  parties  with  separate  views  stri- 
ving for  mastery.  The  king,  a  close  prisoner 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  was  the  prize  contended 
for;  he  had  little  or  no  weight  to  throw  into 
either  scale,  though,  by  signing  the  Scots  treaty, 
he  was  reputed  the  author  of  that  invasion,  and 
of  the  second  civil  war;  the  cavaliers  were  in 
arms  to  preserve  the  Episcopal  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;  but  having  concerted  no  measures  among 
ttiemseives,  were  easily  dispersed.  The  Scots 
came  into  England  in  pursuance  of  the  Cove- 

our,  after  obtaining  a  good  booty  from  the  lawful 
owners  of  it."  This  remark  shows  the  strain  and 
spirit  of  Dr.  Grey's  Examination  of  Mr.  Neal.  Lord 
Clarendon,  speaking  of  this  transaction,  with  more 
truth  and  candour  calls  it  "  this  great  victory." — Ed. 

*  Rushworth,  p.  1074 

t  Rapin.  p.  504,508,  511,  518. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  1127. 


nant,  and  the  secret  treaty  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
but  two  mistakes  ruined  their  enterprise  ;  one 
was,  their  not  communicating  the  contents  of 
that  treaty  to  the  English  Presbyterians,  which 
they  might  have  done  by  their  commissioners 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  English  army, 
before  they  had  marched  into  England ;  the 
other  was,  Duke  Hamilton's  acting  in  concert 
with  the  English  cavaliers,  allowing  them  to 
march  in  the  van,  which  gave  their  enemies  in 
the  Parhament  at  Westminster  a  fair  opportu- 
nity of  engaging  the  whole  military  power  of 
England  against  them ;  for,  without  all  doubt, 
if  the  duke  had  prevailed,  not  only  the  Inde- 
pendent, but  the  Presbyterian  cause  had  been 
betrayed  into  the  hands  of  the  cavaliers,  which 
must,  in  the  end,  have  been  equally  fatal  to  both 
parties,  and  lost  them  all  the  advantages  of  the 
war.  This  fatal  conjunction  broke  the  strength 
of  the  English  Presbyterians,  and  played  the 
game  into  the  hands  of  a  third  party,  who  de- 
stroyed the  other  two.  The  army,  with  whom 
were  the  Independents,  Anabaptists,  and  other 
sectaries,  was  governed  by  the  agitators,  who 
had  given  up  the  king,  and  had  an  incurable 
aversion  to  the  cavaliers,  and  all  who  adhered  to 
them,  as  their  most  determined  enemies  ;  nor 
could  they  confide  in  the  Presbyterians,  because 
in  all  their  past  treaties  they  had  seen  them- 
selves made  a  sacrifice  to  Covenant  uniformity. 
Upon  the  whole,  all  parties  were  stiff  in  their 
demands,  disunited  in  their  councils,  and  infi- 
nitely jealous  of  each  other.  Among  the  Pres- 
byterians, some  were  for  fighting  only  with  the 
cavaliers,  and  others  for  opposing  the  Scots  as 
invaders.  Some  of  the  cavaliers  were  for  re- 
storing the  king  by  their  own  valour,  and  others 
for  availing  themselves  of  the  assistance  of  the 
Scots.  The  army  was  no  less  distracted  ;  those 
who  served  under  General  Fairfax  were  unwill- 
ing to  march  against  the  Scots  Presbyterians  ; 
those  under  Cromwell  were  for  encountering 
every  power  that  would  not  secure  them  that 
liberty  of  conscience  for  which  they  had  been 
contending ;  and  despairing  of  this,  not  only 
from  the  king,  but  from  the  Scots  and  English 
Presbyterians,  they  unhappily  ran  upon  those 
extravagant  measures  which  ended  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  king  and  overthrow  of  the 
whole  Constitution. 

Tantum  religio  potuit  suadere  malorum  ! 

But  to  return  :  the  Assembly  of  Divines  hav- 
ing finished  their  main  business,  was  reduced 
to  a  small  number,  most  of  the  country  minis- 
ters having  returned  home,  and  those  who  re- 
mained about  London  were  employed  chiefly  in 
the  examination  of  such  ministers  as  presented 
themselves  for  ordination,  or  induction  into 
livings  ;  thus  they  subsisted  till  February  22, 
1648-9,  about  three  weeks  after  the  king's  death, 
having  sat  five  years,  six  months,  and  twenty- 
two  days,  in  which  time  they  had  one  thousand 
one  hundred  and  sixty-three  sessions.  They 
were  afterward  changed  into  a  committee  for 
the  purposes  last  mentioned,  and  met  every 
Thursday  morning  till  March  25,  1652,  when 
the  Long  Parliament  being  turned  out  of  the 
House  by  Oliver  Cromwell,  tliey  broke  up  with- 
out any  formal  dissolution.* 

The  works   of  the  Assembly,  besides  some 

*  MS.,  penes  me. 


78 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


letters  to  foreign  churches,  and  occasional  ad- 
monitions, were, 

1.  Their  humble  Advice  to  the  Parliament 
for  Ordination  of  Ministers  and  Settling  the 
Presbyterian  Government. 

2.  A  Directory  for  Public  Worship. 

3.  A  Confession  of  Faith. 

4.  A  Larger  and  Shorter  Catechism. 

5.  A  Review  of  some  of  the  Thirty-nine  Ar- 
ticles. 

The  annotations  on  the  Bible,  which  go  un- 
der their  name,  were  neither  undertaken  nor 
revised  by  them,  but  by  a  committee  of  Parlia- 
ment, who  named  the  commentators,  and  fur- 
nished them  with  books  ;  nor  were  they  all 
members  of  the  Assembly,  as  appears  by  the 
following  list. 

Those  with  asterisks  were  not  of  the  Assem- 
bly. 

WAS    WRITTEN    BV 

The  Commentary  on  the  five  )  Rev.   Mr.  Ley,  subdean  of 

Books  of  Moses,  (      Chester. 

The  two  Books  of  Kings,  ~i 
The  two  Books  of  Chronicles, 

Ezra,  yDi-  Gouge. 

Nehemiah,  I 

Esther,  J 

The  Psalms,  *Mr.  Meric  Casaubon. 

Proverbs,  Mr.  Francis  Taylor. 

Ecclesiastes,  Dr.  Reynolds, 

c,  ,  ,    c,  (  *Mr.Smalwood,  recommend- 

Solomon's  Song,  J      ed  by  Archbishop  Usher. 

Isaiah,  \ 

Jeremiah,  >Mr.  Gataker. 

Lamentations,  ) 

T,     ,  ■  ,  C  *Mr.  Pemberton  in  the  first 

fizekiel,  I         I 

Daniel,  and  the  smaller  Pro- .;^  ^a'shop'Richardson  m  the 

"      ^'  l     second. 

Matthew.  "] 

Lut:   '  \^^-^^y 

John,  J 

fDr.     D.    Featly;     but    his 

I      notes  are  broken  and  im- 
St.  Paul's  Epistles,  \      perfect,  the  author  dying 

I      before     he     hud    revised 

I     them. 

There  were  two  other  persons  concerned  in 
this  work,  who  might  probably  have  the  other 
parts  of  Scripture  allotted  them,  not  here  men- 
tioned, viz.,  Mr.  Downham  and  Mr.  Reading. 

When  posterity  shall  impartially  review  the  la- 
bours of  this  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  consider 
the  times  in  which  they  sat,  they  will  have  a 
just  veneration  for  their  memory ;  for  though 
their  sentiments  in  divinity  were  in  many  in- 
stances too  narrow  and  contracted,  yet  with  all 
their  faults,  among  which  their  persecuting  zeal 
for  religion  was  not  the  least,  they  were  cer- 
tainly men  of  real  piety  and  virtue,  who  meant 
well,  and  had  the  interest  of  religion  at  heart ; 
and  most  of  them  possessed  as  much  learning 
as  any  of  their  contemporaries  ;  the  names  of 
Lightfoot,  Selden,*  Gatal^er,  Greenhill,  Arrow- 
smith,  Twisse,  Bishop  Reynolds,  Wallis,  &c., 
will  always  meet  with  esteem  from  the  learned 
world  ;  and  had  they  not  grasped  at  coercive 
power,  or  jurisdiction  over  the  consciences  of 
men,  their  characters  would  have  been  unblem- 
ished. Mr.  Baxter,  who  knew  most  of  them, 
says,  "They  were  men  of  eminent  learning, 
godliness,  ministerial  abilities,  and  fidelity ;  antl 
being  not  worthy  to  he  one  of  them  myself," 


*  Bishop  Warburton  here  asks,  with  a  sneer, 
"  What  had  Selden  here  to  do  with  ministers,  Puri- 
tans, and  persecutors  ?"  The  answer  is,  he  was  one 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly. — Ed. 


says  he,  "  I  may  more  fully  speak  the  truth 
which  I  know,  even  in  the  face  of  malice  and 
envy,  that,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge  by  the 
information  of  history,  and  by  any  other  eviden- 
ces, the  Christian  world.,  since  the  days  of  the  apos- 
tles, had  never  a  synod  of  more  excellent  divines 
than  this  synod,  and  the  Sy7tod  of  Dort."*  The 
Divine  right  of  the  Presbyterian  government 
first  threw  them  into  heats,  and  then  divided 
them,  engaging  them  first  with  the  Parliament, 
and  then  with  the  Independents  and  Erastians ; 
their  opposing  a  toleration  raised  them  a  great 
many  enemies,  and  caused  a  secesion  in  their 
own  body  :  for  after  they  had  carried  the  ques- 
tion of  Divine  right,  the  Independents  and  Eras- 
tians deserted  them,  after  which  they  found  it 
very  difficult  to  muster  as  many  as  would  make 
a  house.  Had  the  Parliament  dissolved  them 
at  that  juncture,  they  had  separated  with  honour, 
but  they  dwindled  by  degrees,  as  has  been  re- 
lated, the  business  of  the  Church  being  now- 
translated  to  the  Provincial  Assemblies. 

We  have  already  remembered  the  two  former 
of  these  assemblies  ;  the  third  met  May  3,  this 
year,  and  chose  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whitaker  moder- 
ator. In  the  fourth  session  they  agreed  to  pre- 
sent a  second  petition  to  the  Parliament  in  the 
name  of  the  province,  humbly  to  desire,  "  1. 
That  they  would  renew  the  consideration  of 
their  former  petition.  2.  That  they  would  es- 
tablish the  two  catechisms  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines,  and  appoint  them  to  be  publicly  taught 
throughout  the  kingdom.  3.  That  they  would 
add  their  civil  sanction  to  the  new  confession 
of  faith.  4.  That  the  Directory  for  public  wor- 
ship may  be  better  observed  ;  and  that  better 
care  may  be  taken  for  the  observation  of  the 
Lord's  Day."  In  their  twelfth  session,  October 
6,  they  agreed  to  the  report  of  their  commit- 
tee concerning  the  cause  of  the  decay  of  reli- 
gion, and  of  the  increase  of  wickedness,  which 
they  say  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  want  of  able 
and  settled  ministers,  there  being  above  forty 
parish  churches  and  congregations  within  the 
province  which  had  no  ministers  settled  among 
them  by  allowance  of  authority,  a  catalogue  of 
which  churches  were  subjoined.  The  reason 
of  this  defect  being  chiefly  want  of  maintenance, 
they  pray  the  houses  "to  agree  upon  some 
method  that  the  dean  and  chapter  lands,  and  the 
impropriations  belonging  to  bishops,  lying  with- 
in this  province,  may  be  applied  for  the  augment- 
ation of  the  clergy's  maintenance  ;  and  that 
there  may  be  a  fixed  maintenance  in  every  par- 
ish recoverable  by  the  incumbent." 

The  fourth  Provincial  Assembly  met  Novem- 
ber 3,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Edmund  Calamy  moderator. 
In  their  third  session,  November  23,  they  or- 
dered that  the  several  ministers  of  the  province 
of  London  do  begin  the  work  of  catechising ; 
that  they  use  the  Assembly's  catechism,  and  no 
other  ;  that  the  persons  to  be  catechised  be  chil- 
dren and  servants  not  admitted  to  the  Lord's 
Table  ;  that  the  time  be  in  the  afternoon  before 
sermon  ;  and  that  they  exhort  their  parishion- 
ers to  encourage  it.  In  their  fourth  session, 
November  30,  they  resolved  that  the  twelve 
classes  of  the  province  of  London  observe  their 
course  for  ordination  of  ministers  ;  and  that  at. 
the  close  of  every  public  ordination  notice  be 
given  which  classis  is  to  ordain  next.     But  the 


Baxter's  Life,  p.  73. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


nation  being  in  confusion,  and  the  clouds  gath- 
ering thick  over  their  heads,  they  did  little  more 
this  winter  than  keep  a  weekly  fast*  among 
themselves,  to  avert  the  judgment  of  God,  which 
threatened  the  life  of  the  king,  and  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  whole  government. 

The  county  of  Lancaster  being  formed  into 
another  Presbyterian  province  this  year,  assem- 
bled at  Preston,  February  7,  IG48,  and  publish- 
ed a  kind  of  pastoral  letter,  or  solemn  exhorta- 
tion to  the  several  churches  within  their  prov- 
ince, to  the  practice  of  those  duties  that  were 
requisite  to  the  supporting  and  carrying  on  the 
Presbyterian  discipline,  subscribed  by  the  rev- 
erend 

Mr.  James  Hyatt,  Moderator. 

Mr.  Thomas  Johnson,  Assessor. 

Mr.  Edward  Gee,  Scribe.f 

They  likewise  appointed  a  committee  to  ex- 
amine the  paper  called  The  Agreement  of  the 
People  [hereafter  to  be  mentioned],  and  ten- 
dered to  the  consideration  of  the  nation  by  the 
officers  of  the  army,  with  a  desire  that  they 
would  by  subscription  declare  their  concurrence 
to  it ;  but  it  was  carried  in  the  negative.t  The 
design  of  this  paper  was,  to  change  the  form  of 
government  into  a  kind  of  commonwealth,  with- 
out a  king  or  House  of  Lords.  It  was  publish- 
ed by  way  of  probation,  that  they  might  learn 
the  sense  of  the  nation  ;  but  the  article  relating 
to  religion  being  peculiar,  and  giving  great  of- 
fence to  the  Presbyterian  clergy,  shall  be  tran- 
scribed entire  :  "  We  do  not  empower  our  rep- 
resentatives," say  they,  "  to  continue  in  force, 
or  make  any  laws,  oaths,  or  covenants,  whereby 
to  compel  by  penalties,  or  otherwise,  any  person 
to  anything,  in  or  about  matters  of  faith,  reli- 
gion, or  God's  worship  ;  or  restrain  any  person 
from  professing  his  faith,  or  exercise  of  his  reli- 
gion according  to  his  conscience,  in  any  house 
or  place,  except  such  as  are  or  shall  be  set  apart 
for  the  public  worship.  Nevertheless,  the  in- 
struction or  direction  of  the  nation  in  a  public 
way,  for  matters  of  faith,  worship,  or  discipline, 
so  it  be  not  compulsive,  or  express  popery,  is 
referred  to  their  discretion."  The  Agreement 
adds,  '•  It  is  intended  that  the  Christian  reli- 
gion be  held  forth  and  recommended  as  the 
public  profession  in  this  nation,  which  we  desire 
may,  by  the  grace  of  God,  be  reformed  to  the 
greatest  purity  in  doctrine,  worship,  and  disci- 
pline, according  to  the  Word  of  God.  The  in- 
structing the  people  thereunto  in  a  public  way, 
provided  it  be  not  compulsive  ;  as,  also,  the 
maintaining  of  able  teachers  for  that  end,  and 
for  the  confutation  and  discovery  of  heresy,  er- 
ror, and  whatsoever  is  contrary  to  sound  doc- 
trine, is  allowed  to  be  provided  by  our  repre- 
sentatives ;  the  maintenance  of  teachers  may 
be  out  of  a  treasury,  and  we  desire  not  by 
tithes."     But,  besides  these,  "  all  who  profess 

*  Bishop  Warburton's  remark  on  this  is:  "These 
were  glorious  saints,  that  fought  and  preached  for  the 
king's  destruction ;  and  then  fasted  and  prayed  for 
his  preservation,  when  they  had  brought  Idni  to  the 
foot  of  the  scaffold  !"  This  remark  goes  on  the  sup- 
position that,  to  oppose  the  king's  arbitrary  views  and 
measures,  was  to  fight  and  preach  for  his  destruction. 
If  it  eventually  proved  so,  from  whence  could  it  arise 
but  from  his  adherence  to  his  designs,  till  concessions 
came  too  late? — Ed.  t  Vol.  Pamph.,  No.  73. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  1258. 


faith  in  God  by  Jesus  Christ,  however  differing 
in  judgment  from  the  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
worship,  publicly  held  forth,  shall  be  protected 
in  the  profession  of  their  faith,  and  exercise  of 
their  religion  according  to  their  consciences,  so 
as  they  abuse  not  this  liberty  to  the  civil  injury 
of  others,  or  the  disturbance  of  the  public  peace." 
These  were  just  and  generous  sentiments  ;  how- 
ever, the  synod  forbade  their  people  to  subscribe 
them,  not  only  because  the  Agreement  imported 
a  change  in  the  civil  government,  but  because 
of  the  mischiefs  that  would  attend  a  toleration  ; 
their  reasons  for  which  they  published  to  the 
world  March  6,  1648,  subscribed  by  fifty-nine 
ministers. 

The  Provincial  Assemblies  of  London  met 
regularly  every  half  year,  to  the  year  1655,  when, 
finding  themselves  without  power,  and  not  be- 
ing willing  to  apply*  to  the  protector  and  his 
Parliament  for  support,  they  desisted  ;  but  there 
were  none  legally  formed  in  any  other  counties 
of  England.  However,  the  country  ministers 
entered  into  voluntary  associations,  and  erected 
a  sort  of  classes  for  ordination  of  ministers,  and 
promoting  friendship  and  peace  among  them- 
selves, many  of  the  Independent  ministers  join- 
ing with  them  ;  the  associations  met  once  a. 
month,  at  one  or  other  church  in  the  county,  and 
after  prayers  and  a  sermon,  conferred  upon  the 
state  of  religion,  and  gave  their  advice  upon 
such  cases  as  were  brought  before  them  in  a 
neighbourly  and  friendly  manner. 

To  return  to  the  Parliament,  which  was  now 
recruited  with  such  Presbyterian  members  as 
had  absconded,  or  deserted  their  stations,  while 
the  army  was  quartered  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  city  ;  these  gentlemen,  finding  they  had  the 
superiority  in  the  House,  resumed  their  courage, 
and  took  the  opportunity  of  discovering  their 
principles  and  spirit,  in  passing  such  a  law 
against  heretics  as  is  hardly  to  be  paralleled 
among  Protestants.!  It  had  been  laid  aside  by 
the  influence  of  the  army  for  above  nine  months, 
tdl  May  1,  when  it  was  voted  that  all  ordinances 
concerning  church  government  referred  to  com- 
mittees be  brought  in  and  debated  ;  and  that 
the  ordinance  concerning  blasphemy  and  heresy 
be  now  determined,  which  was  done  according- 
ly. This  was  one  of  the  most  shocking  laws  I 
have  met  with  in  restraint  of  religious  liberty, 
and  shows  that  the  governing  Presbyterians 
would  have  made  a  terrible  use  of  their  power, 
had  they  been  supported  by  the  sword  of  the 
civil  magistrate. t     The  ordinance  is  dated  May 


*  Bishop  Warburton  says  that  they  did  apply  to  the 
protector,  "  and  received  such  an  answer  as  they  de- 
served." A  deputation  of  the  London  ministers  went 
to  him  to  complain  that  the  cavalier  Episcopal  cler- 
gy got  their  congregations  from  them,  and  debauched 
the  faithful  from  their  ministers.  "  Have  they  so?" 
said  the  protector :  "  I  will  take  an  order  with  them  ^^ 
and  made  a  motion,  as  if  he  was  going  to  say  some- 
thing to  the  captain  of  the  guards ;  when  turning 
short,  "  But,  hold !"  said  he,  "  after  what  manner  do 
the  cavaliers  debauch  your  people?"  "By  preach- 
ing," replied  the  ministers.  "  Then  preach  back 
again,"  said  this  able  statesman ;  and  left  them  ta 
their  own  reflections. — Ed. 

t  Scobel's  Collect.,  cap.  114,  p.  149. 

J  Mr.  Neal  has  done  himself  honour  by  the  stiong' 
terms  of  reprobation  in  which  he  speaks  of  this  in- 
tolerant, iniquitous,  and  cruel  ordinance.  It  cannot 
be  condemned  in  too  severe  terms :  though  Dr.  Grey 
insinuates  that   there  was  occasion  for  it  in  the 


80 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


2, 1648,  and  ordains,  "  that  all  persons  who  shall 
willingly  maintain,  publish,  or  defend,  by  preach- 
ing or  writing,  the  following  heresies  with  ob- 
stinacy, shall,  upon  complaint,  and  proof,  by  the 
oaths  of  two  witnesses,  before  two  justices  of 
the  peace,  or  confession  of  the  party,  be  com- 
mitted to  prison,  without  bail  or  mainprize,  till 
the  next  jail  delivery  ;  and  in  case  the  indict- 
ment shall  then  be  found,  and  the  party  upon 
his  trial  shall  not  abjure  his  said  error,  and  his 
defence  and  maintenance  of  the  same,  he  shall 
suffer  the  pains  of  death,*  as  in  case  of  felony, 
ivithout  benefit  of  clergy  ;  and  if  he  recant  or 
abjure,  he  shall  remain  in  prison  till  he  find 
sureties  that  he  will  not  maintain  the  same  her- 
esies or  errors  any  more  ;  but  if  he  relapse,  and 
is  convicted  a  second  time,  he  shall  suffer  death 
as  before.  The  heresies,  or  errors,  are  these  fol- 
lowing : 

1.  "That  there  is  no  God. 

2.  "  That  God  is  not  omnipresent,  omni- 
scient, almighty,  eternal,  and  perfectly  holy. 

3.  "  That  the  Father  is  not  God,  that  the  Son 
is  not  God,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  not  God,  or 
that  these  three  are  not  one  eternal  God  ;  or, 
that  Christ  is  not  God  equal  with  the  Father. 

4.  "  The  denial  of  the  manhood  of  Christ,  or 
that  the  Godhead  and  manhood  are  distinct  na- 
tures ;  or  that  the  humanity  of  Christ  is  pure 
and  unspotted  of  all  sin. 

5.  '•  The  maintaining  that  Christ  did  not  die, 
nor  rise  again,  nor  ascend  into  heaven  bodily. 

6.  "  The  denying  that  the  death  of  Christ  is 
meritorious  on  the  behalf  of  believers,  or  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God. 

7.  ''  The  denying  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  the  Word  of 
God. 

8.  "  The  denying  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  and  a  future  judgment." 

The  ordinance  proceeds  to  specify  some  oth- 
er errors  of  less  demerit,  and  says,  "  that  who- 
soever shall  maintain  or  defend  them,  shall, 
upon  conviction  by  the  oaths  of  two  witnesses, 
or  by  his  own  confession  before  two  justices  of 
peace,  be  ordered  to  renounce  the  said  error  or 
errors  in  the  public  congregation  of  the  parish 
from  whence  the  complaint  comes,  or  where  the 
offence  was  committed  ;  and  in  case  of  refusal, 
he  shall  be  committed  to  prison  till  he  find  sure- 
ties that  he  shall  not  publish  or  maintain  the 


"monstrous  opinions,"  as  he  calls  them,  which  pre- 
vailed in  those  times  ;  and  for  which  he  refers  to  Ed- 
wards's Gangrsena.  "  Besides  the  severity  of  the 
penalties  which  this  ordinance  denounced,  the  mode 
of  process  which  it  appointed,"  as  I  have  observed  in 
another  place,  "  was  arbitrary  and  repugnant  to  the 
Constitution  of  this  country  in  particular,  as  well  as 
oppoeite  to  the  general  principles  of  equity  and  jus- 
tice ;  for  it  allowed  neither  the  privilege  of  a  jury,  nor 
the  liberty  of  an  appeal.  Such  is  the  operation  of  re- 
ligious bigotry." — See  a  Review  of  the  Life,  Character, 
and  Writings  of  the  Rev.  John  Biddte,  p.  52.  The  na- 
ture of  this  ordinance  is  fully  considered  from  p.  48 
to  56.— Ed. 

*  Death,  under  Constantius,  the  son  of  Constan- 
tine,  was  made  the  punishment  of  idolatry  :  the  like 
sentence  is  here  inflicted  upon  the  worshippers  of  the 
only  living  and  true  God,  the  creator  and  governor  of 
the  world.  "  How  fluctuating  and  convertible,"  ob- 
serves an  excellent  writer,  "  are  all  penal  laws  in  re- 
ligion!"—Dr.  Disney's  Life  of  Dr.  Jorliii,  p.  136,  137. 
— Ed. 


said  error  or  errors  any  more.     The  errors  are 
these  following : 

1.  "  That  all  men  shall  be  saved. 

2.  "That  man  by  nature  hath  free  will  to 
turn  to  God. 

3.  '•  That  God  may  be  worshipped  in  or  by 
pictures  or  images. 

4.  "  That  the  soul  dies  with  the  body,  or  af- 
ter death  goes  neither  to  heaven  nor  hell,  but  to 
purgatory. 

5.  "  That  the  soul  of  man  sleeps  when  the 
body  is  dead. 

6.  "  That  the  revelations  or  workings  of  the 
Spirit  are  a  rule  of  faith,  or  Christian  life,  though 
diverse  from  or  contrary  to  the  written  Word  of 
God. 

7.  "  That  man  is  bound  to  believe  no  more 
than  by  his  reason  he  can  comprehend. 

8.  "  That  the  moral  law  contained  in  the  Ten 
Commandments  is  no  rule  of  the  Christian  life. 

9.  "  That  a  believer  need  not  repent  or  pray 
for  pardon  of  sin. 

10.  "  That  the  two  sacraments,  of  baptism 
and  the  Lord's  Supper,  are  not  ordinances  com- 
manded by  the  Word  of  God. 

11.  "  That  the  baptism  of  infants  is  unlawful 
and  void  ;  and  that  such  persons  ought  to  be 
baptized  again. 

12.  "  That  the  observation  of  the  Lord's  Day, 
as  enjoined  by  the  ordinances  and  laws  of  this 
realm,  is  not  according,  or  is  contrary  to  the 
Word  of  God. 

13.  "  That  it  is  not  lawful  to  join  in  public  or 
family  prayer,  or  to  teach  children  to  pray. 

14.  "  That  the  churches  of  England  are  no 
true  churches,  nor  their  ministers  and  ordinan- 
ces true  ministers  and  true  ordinances  ;  or, 
that  the  church  government  by  presbyters  is 
antichristian  or  unlawful. 

15.  "That  magistracy,  or  the  power  of  the 
civil  magistrate,  by  law  established  in  England, 
is  unlawful. 

16.  "That  all  use  of  arms,  though  for  the 
public  defence  (and  be  the  cause  never  so  just), 
is  unlawful." 

This  black  list  of  heresies  was  taken  from 
the  speeches  or  writings  of  the  papists,  Armin- 
ians,  Antinomians,  Arians,  Baptists,  and  Qua- 
kers, &c.,  of  these  times.  The  ordinance  was 
a  comprehensive  engine  of  cruelty,*  and  would 
have  tortured  great  numbers  of  good  Christians 
and  good  subjects.  The  Presbyterians  of  the 
present  age  are  not  only  thankful  that  the  con- 
fusion of  the  times  did  not  permit  their  prede- 
cessors to  put  this  law  into  execution,  but  wish 
also  that  it  could  be  blotted  out  of  the  records 
of  time,  as  it  is  impossible  to  brand  it  with  the 
censure  equal  to  its  demerits. 

June  21,  the  army  being  still  in  the  field,  and 
the  Parliament  at  liberty,  the  ordinance  for  the 
more  efTeclual  settling  the  Presbyterian  govern- 
ment, without  limitation  of  time,  was  read  the 
second  time  and  committed,  and  on  the  29th  of 
August  it  was  perfected,  and  received  the  sanc- 
tion of  both  houses,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Form 
of  Church  Government  to  be  used  in  the  Church- 


*  The  inihgnation  which  the  liberal  mind  feels  at 
the  principles  and  spirit  of  those  who,  themselves 
recently  suffering  under  the  hard  hand  of  intolerance, 
could  frame  and  pass  such  a  law,  is  somewhat  re- 
lieved by  finding  that  it  did  not  pass  without  much 
opposition. —  Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  302. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


81 


€S  England  and  Ireland."*  It  is  a  collection 
of  the  several  ordinances  for  establishing  the 
'  branches  of  Presbyterial  government  already 
mentioned,  and  ordains  that  "  all  parishes  and 
places  whatsoever  within  England  and  Wales 
shall  be  under  the  government  of  congregation- 
al, classical,  provincial,  and  national  assemblies, 
except  the  houses  or  chapels  of  the  king  and 
his  children,  and  of  the  peers  of  the  realm, 
which  are  to  continue  free  for  the  exercise  of 
•divine  duties,  according  to  the  Directory,  and 
not  otherwise  ;  it  gives  directions  for  the  choice 
of  ruling  elders  in  every  parish,  and  for  proper 
persons  to  be  judges  of  the  qualifications  of  the 
persons  chosen  ;  it  appoints  commissioners  to 
divide  the  whole  kingdom  into  distinct  classical 
presbyteries ;  it  gives  direction  about  the  con 
stituting  of  provincial  and  national  synods,  with 
the  extent  of  their  several  powers  ;  it  deter- 
mines the  method  of  ordination  of  ministers, 
of  dispensing  church  censures,  and  suspension 
from  the  sacrament ;  and,  last  of  all,  it  gives  di- 
Tection  for  excommunication  and  absolution," 
but  lays  no  penalty  upon  recusants  or  such-  as 
do  not  come  to  the  sacrament,  or  submit  to  their 
discipline ;  which  was  the  utmost  length  that 
Presbytery  obtained  in  this  kingdom. 

The  Parliament  having  agreed  to  treat  with 
the  king  without  any  preliminary  conditions, 
sent  the  Earl  of  Middlesex,  Sir  John  Hippisly, 
and  Mr.  Bulkely,  to  acquaint  his  majesty  with 
their  resolutions,  and  to  desire  him  to  appoint 
■what  place  he  pleased  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  for 
the  congress  ;  his  majesty  seemed  pleased  with 
the  message,  and  sent  a  letter  to  the  two  houses 
August  10,  desiring  them  to  recall  their  votes, 
which  forbade  the  access  of  his  friends,  and  to 
direct  that  men  of  necessary  use  in  this  affair 
may  be  permitted  to  assist  him,  and  that  the 
Scots  be  parties  in  the  treaty. t  His  majesty 
then  appointed  Newport,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
for  the  place  of  conference.  To  all  which  the 
Lords  agreed  without  any  restriction  ;  but  the 
Commons  insisted  that  no  person  lately  in  arms 
against  the  Parliament  be  of  the  number  ;  that 
the  Scots  be  not  included  ;  and  that  if  his  maj- 
esty be  at  liberty  as  at  Hampton  Court,  he  pass 
his  royal  word  not  to  go  out  of  the  island  du- 
ring the  treaty,  nor  twenty-eight  days  after, 
without  consent  of  Parliament. 

Upon  these  conditions  his  majesty  was  con- 
ducted to  Newport,  and  left  at  liberty  upon  his 
parole  of  honour.  Several  noblemen,  gentle- 
men, divines,  and  lawyers  were  appointed  to 
assist  him  in  the  treaty,  who  were  to  stand  be- 
hind his  majesty's  chair  and  hear  the  debates, 
but  not  to  speak,  except  when  the  king  with- 
drew into  another  room  for  their  advice  ;  the 
names  of  his  divines  were,t  Dr.  Juxon,  bishop 


*  Scobel,  cap.  117,  p.  175. 

t  Rushworth,  vol.  ii.,  p.  1236. 

%  According  to  Dr.  P.  Williams's  MS.  collections, 
to  which  Dr.  Grey  pays  great  deference,  the  order 
was  limited  to  Dr.  .luxon  and  Dr.  Diippa;  and  Dr. 
Sheldon,  Dr.  Hammond,  and  Dr.  Oldsworth  were 
not  permitted  to  go  to  the  king,  being  under  restraint. 
But  Mr.  Neal's  list,  except  as  to  these  three,  is  con-, 
firmed  by  Whitelocke,  with  this  difference,  that  Dr. 
Usher,  Bambridge,  Prideaux,  Warner,  Feme,  and 
Merely  were  not  included  in  the  first  appomtment, 
but  were  allowed  to  attend  the  king  in  consequence 
of  a  message  from  him  on  the  3d  of  November. — 
Memor.,  p.  341.— Ed. 
Vol.  II.— L 


of  London,  Dr.  Duppa,  bishop  of  Salisbury,  Dr. 
Sheldon,  Dr.  Hammond,  Dr.  Oldisworth,  Dr. 
Sanderson,  Dr.  Turner,  Dr.  Haywood  ;  and  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  treaty.  Dr.  Usher,  archbish- 
op of  Armagh,  Dr.  Bramhall,  Dr.  Prideaux,  Dr. 
Warner,  Dr.  Feme,  and  Dr.  Merely ;  Dr.  Brown- 
rigge,  bishop  of  Exter,  was  also  sent  for,  but  he 
was  under  restraint;  and  Dr.  Sheldon,  Dr.  Ham- 
mond, and  Dr.  Oldisworth,  being  also  under  re- 
straint, were  not  permitted  to  stand. 

The  Parliament  appointed^ve  noblemen  and 
ten  commoners,  with  four  divines,  to  assist 
them  in  their  debates  touching  religion,  viz.,  Mr. 
Vines,  Mr.  Caryl,  Dr.  Seaman,  and  Mr.  Mar- 
shall. The  treaty  was  to  continue  forty  days, 
and  to  proceed  upon  the  propositions  of  Hamp- 
ton Court.*  September  12,  the  Parliament  ob- 
served a  day  of  public  fasting  and  prayer,  for  a 
blessing  ;  and  some  days  after  the  king  and  his 
household  did  the  like,  when,  after  the  public 
service,  the  following  prayer  was  read,  drawn  up 
by  his  majesty's  direction  : 

"  O  most  merciful  Father,  Lord  God  of  peace 
and  truth,  we,  a  people  sorely  afflicted  by  the 
scourge  of  an  unnatural  war,  do  earnestly  be- 
seech thee  to  command  a  blessing  from  heaven 
upon  this  present  treaty,  begging  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  happy  peace.  Soften  the  most 
obdurate  hearts  with  a  true  Christian  desire  of 
saving  those  men's  blood  for  whom  Christ  him- 
self hath  shed  his  ;  or  if  the  guilt  of  our  great 
sins  cause  this  treaty  to  break  off  in  vain,  Lord, 
let  the  truth  clearly  appear  who  those  men  are 
who,  under  pretence  of  the  public  good,  do  pur- 
sue their  own  private  ends  ;  that  this  people 
may  be  no  longer  so  blindly  miserable  as  not  to 
see,  at  least  in  this  their  day,  the  things  that  be- 
long to  their  peace.  Grant  this,  gracious  God, 
for  his  sake,  who  is  our  peace  itself,  even  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.     Amen." 

The  conferences  opened  on  Monday,  Septem- 
ber 18,  about  nine  in  the  morning,  at  the  house 
of  Sir  William  Hodges.  The  first  day  the  com- 
missioners presented  the  king  with  a  draught  of 
three  bills  :  the  first  to  establish  the  Presbyte- 
rian governmentt  forever  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;  the  second  to  relinquish  the  militia  to  the 
two  houses  for  thirty  years  ;  and  the  third  to 
recall  all  his  majesty's  declarations  against  the 
Parliament.  To  the  last  of  these  the  king 
readily  consented,  but  excepted  to  the  preamble, 
in  which  were  these  words :  "  that  the  two  hous- 
es of  Parliament  had  been  necessitated  to  enter 
into  a  war  in  their  just  and  lawful  defence."!: 
Instead  of  which,  the  king  proposed  an  act  of 
indemnity ;  but  the  commissioners  insisting  per- 
emptorily upon   the   words  as   those   without 


*  Rapin,  vol.  li.,  p.  559. 

t  "  The  utter  extinction  of  Episcopacy,  and  their 
setting  up  their  own  idol  in  its  stead,  vs'as  the  supe- 
rior consideration  for  which,  it  is  plain,  the  Presby- 
terians had  entered  into  the  hazard  of  war  :  this 
was  the  chief  cause  of  their  quarrel  with  their  old 
associates,  the  Independents  ;  and  the  not  being  fully 
gratified  on  this  article  by  the  king  was,  in  their  eyes, 
losing  the  best  fruits  of  their  success.  The  Parlia- 
ment's commissioners  with  earnestness,  and  even 
tears,  assured  the  king  that  all  his  concessions 
would  be  useless,  unless  he  gave  up  the  point  of  Epis- 
copacy :  he  absolutely  refused  farther  yielding  on  this 
article,  and  the  Parliament  voted  his  concessions  un- 
satisfactory."— Macaulay's  History  of  England,  8vo, 
vol.  iv.,  p.  365,  366.— Ed. 

X  Rushworth,  p.  1263. 


82 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


which  they  could  not  be  safe,  his  majesty  with 
great  reluctance  consented,  having  first  protest- 
ed in  writing,  that  no  concession  of  his  should 
be  binding  if  the  treaty  broke  off  without  effect. 
His  majesty  yielded  the  militia  to  the  Parlia- 
ment for  twenty  years,  and  the  management  of 
the  Irish  war.*  He  conceded  to  vacate  those 
titles  of  honour  that  had  been  conferred  since 
the  carrying  away  the  great  seal,  and  to  confirm 
the  Parliament's  great  seal.  He  agreed  to  the 
payment  of  the  piblic  debts,  provided  they  were 
stated  within  two  years  ;  to  confirm  the  charter 
of  the  city  of  London  ;  to  empower  the  Parlia- 
ment to  confer  offices,  and  constitute  magis- 
trates for  twenty  years ;  and  to  take  away 
the  Court  of  Wards,  provided  he  might  have 
£50,000  a  year  in  lieu  of  it.t  His  majesty 
consented,  farther,  that  those  of  his  party  whom 
they  call  delinquentst  should  submit  to  a  fine 
or  be  proscribed  the  court,  if  the  Parliament 
saw  fit ;  but  he  abhorred  the  thought  of  char- 
ging them  with  treason  who  had  acted  by  his 
commission,  and  therefore  absolutely  refused  to 
consent  to  it. 

With  regard  to  religion,  his  majesty  agreed, 
October  2d,  that  "  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at 
Westminster  be  confirmed  for  three  years  ;  that 
the  Directory  and  Presbyterian  government  be 
confirmed  for  the  same  time,  provided  that 
neither  himself  nor  those  of  his  judgment  be 
obliged  to  comply  with  it ;  that  a  consultation, 
in  the  mean  time,  be  had  with  the  Assembly, 
and  twenty  divines  of  his  majesty's  nomination, 
as  to  what  form  of  church  government  shall  be 
established   afterward,  with  a  clause  for  the 

*  The  utter  faithlessness  of  Charles  destroyed  all 
confidence  in  his  promises.  It  was  the  one  quality 
which  was  perpetually  evinced  in  all  seasons,  and 
under  all  circumstances.  The  day  on  which  he  as- 
sented to  the  Parliament's  proposition  respecting  the 
mihtary  power,  he  wrote  thus  to  Sir  W.  Hopkins  : 
"  To  deal  freely  with  you,  the  great  concession  I 
made  this  day  was  merely  in  order  to  my  escape,  of 
which  if  I  had  not  hope,  I  would  not  have  done  it. 
For  then  1  could  have  returned  to  my  state  prison 
without  reluctance  ;  but  now  I  confess  it  would  break 
my  heart,  having  done  that  which  only  an  escape 
can  justify."  Next  day  he  wrote  to  Ormond,  then 
in  Ireland,  "  Wherefore  I  must  command  you  two 
things:  first, to  obey  all  my  wife's  commands;  then, 
not  to  obey  any  public  conunands  of  mine,  until  1 
send  you  word  I  am  free  from  restraint.  Lastly,  be 
not  alarmed  at  my  great  concessions  concerning  Ire- 
land, for  they  will  come  to  nothing."  Towards  the 
end  of  the  month  he  again  wrote  to  Ormond,  "Though 
you  will  hear  that  this  treaty  is  near,  or  at  least  most 
likely  to  be,  concluded,  yet  believe  it  not,  but  pursue 
the  way  you  are  in  with  all  possible  vigour.  Deliver 
also  that  my  command  to  all  your  friends,  but  not  in 
a  public  way." — Godwin's  Hist,  of  the  Commonwealth, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  615,  616. — C. 

t  It  appears,  by  Dr.  Grey's  authority,  Williams's 
MS.  collection,  whose  account  is  confirmed  by  the 
representations  which  Mr.  Hume  and  Mrs.  Macaulay 
give  of  this  matter,  that  Mr.  Neal  is  mistaken  about 
the  sum  granted  in  lieu  of  the  Wards ;  which  was 
not  £50,000,  but  £100,000.  Since  this  was  written,  I 
find  the  matter  put  out  of  all  doubt  by  Whilelocke, 
p.  341,  who  says  that  £100,000  was  the  sum. — En. 

J  Dr.  Grey  has  given  at  length  the  act  proposed  by 
the  Parliament's  commissioners  relative  to  delin- 
quents, whom  the  king  absolutely  refused  to  give 
up.  "  The  severe  repentance  which  he  had  under- 
gone for  abandoning  Strafford,  had  no  doubt,"  re- 
marks Mr.  Hume,  "confirmed  him  in  the  resolution 
never  again  to  be  guilty  of  the  like  error." — Ed. 


ease  of  tender  consciences.  His  majesty  con- 
sented, farther,  that  legal  estates  for  lives,  or 
for  a  term  of  years  not  exceeding  ninety-nine, 
should  be  made  out  of  the  bishop's  lands  and 
revenues,  for  the  satisfaction  of  them  that  have 
purchased  them,  provided  that  the  inheritance 
may  still  remain  to  the  Church,  and  the  rest  be 
preserved  for  their  maintenance.  His  majesty 
will  consent,  farther,  to  an  act  for  the  better  ob- 
servation of  the  Lord's  Day  ;  for  suppressing  in- 
novations in  churches  and  chapels ;  for  the  bet- 
ter advancing  of  preaching  God's  Holy  Word  ; 
and  against  pluralities  and  nonresidence.  To 
an  act  for  regulating  and  reforming  the  univer- 
sities and  the  colleges  of  Westminster,  Win- 
chester, and  Eton  ;  for  the  better  discovery  of 
papists,  and  for  the  educating  their  children  in 
the  Protestant  religion.  To  an  act  for  better 
putting  the  laws  in  execution  against  papists,. 
and  to  prevent  the  hearing  and  saying  mass  ; 
but  as  to  the  Covenant,  his  majesty  is  not  as 
yet  satisfied  to  sign  or  swear  to  it,  or  consent  to 
impose  it  on  the  consciences  of  others."* 

These  concessions  about  church  government 
being  declared  not  satisfactory,  as  amounting 
only  to  a  sort  of  interim,  his  majesty  desired  to 
confer  with  the  Parliament  divines  for  the  sat- 
isfaction of  his  conscience,  having  been  bred 
and  instructed  (as  he  said)  in  the  way  he  stands 
for,  by  his  father,  the  wisest  king  and  best  man 
in  the  world,  and  therefore  could  not  easily 
yield.  There  is  hardly  anything  to  be  met  with 
in  this  conference  but  what  has  been  already 
taken  notice  of  in  his  majesty's  debate  with 
Mr.  Henderson,  and  in  the  answer  of  the  Smec- 
tymnuan  divines  to  Bishop  Hall,  in  the  first 
volume  of  this  history  ;  and  therefore  it  will  be 
the  less  necessary  to  enter  into  the  particulars 
of  the  debate.  His  majesty  proposed  some 
scruples  in  law  about  the  obligation  of  his  cor- 
onation oath,  which  the  commissioners  under- 
took to  answer  themselves ;  but  the  papers  re- 
lating to  the  unalterable  institution  of  Episco- 
pacy were  referred  to  the  divines  on  both  sides, 
and  were  as  follow  : 

The  King's  first  Paper. 

"Newport,  October  2,  1648. 
"  Charles  Rex  : 

"  I  conceive  that  Episcopal  government  is 
most  consonant  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  of  an 
apostolical  institution,  as  it  appears  by  the 
Scripture  to  have  been  practised  by  the  apos- 
tles themselves,  and  by  them  committed  and 
derived  to  particular  persons  as  their  substi- 
tutes or  successors  therein  (as  for  ordaining 
presbyters  and  deacons,  giving  rules  concern- 
ing Christian  discipline,  and  exercising  cen- 
sures over  presbyters  and  others),!  and  has 
ever  since,  till  these  last  times,  been  exercised 
by  bishops  in  all  the  churches  of  Christ  ;  and, 
therefore,  I  cannot  in  conscience  consent  to 
abolish  the  said  government. 

"Notwithstanding  this  my  persuasion,  I  will 
be  glad  to  be  informed  if  our  Saviour  and  his 
apostles  did  so  leave  the  Church  at  liberty,  as 
they  might  totally  alter  or  change  the  church 
government  at  their  pleasure,  which  if  you  can 
make  appear  to  me,  then  I  will  confess  that  one 

*  Rushwortb,  p.  1281.  ' 

t  Acts,  vi ,  6 ;  xiv.,  23.     1  Cor.,  v.,  3 ;  xiv.  and 

xvi.,  1.    3  John,  ix.,  10.    1  Tim.,  v.,  19,  22.    Titus, 

i.,  5  ;  iii.,  10.     Rev.,  ii.,  3. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


8^: 


of  my  great  scruples  is  clean  taken  away,  and 
then  there  only  remains, 

"  That  being  by  my  coronation  oath  obliged 
to  maintain  Episcopal  government,  as  1  found 
it  settled  to  my  hands,  whether  I  may  consent 
to  the  abolishing  thereof  until  the  same  shall  be 
evidenced  to  me  to  be  contrary  to  the  Word  of 
God."* 

The  Parliament  divines,  in  answer  to  the 
first  part  of  his  majesty's  paper,  admit  that  the 
apostles  did  exercise  the  extraordinary  powers 
his  majesty  mentions  ;  but  deny  that  they  con- 
ferred them  upon  any  particular  persons  as  their 
substitutes  or  successors,  and  msist  that  in 
Scripture  there  are  only  two  orders  of  officers, 
viz.,  bishops  and  deacons  :  Phil.,  i.,  1,  " 'I'o  the 
saints  at  Philippi  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  with 
the  bishops  and  deacons  ;"'  and  that  the  name, 
office,  and  work  of  a  bishop  and  presbyter  are 
the  same,  as  in  Titus,  i.,  5  and  7  ;  "  For  this 
cause  I  left  thee  in  Crete — that  thou  shouldst 
ordain  presbyters  in  every  city ;  for  a  bishop 
must  be  blameless."  Acts,  xx.,  27,  28,  Paul 
called  the  presbyters  together,  and  charged 
them  to  "take  heed  to  the  flock  over  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  had  made  them  bishops. "t  I  Pet., 
v.,  1,2:  "  The  presbyters  among  you,  I  exhort, 
who  also  am  a  presbyter,  feed  the  flock  of  God 
among  you,  performing  the  office  of  bishops. "t 
As  the  apostles  were  extraordinary  officers,  so 
were  Timothy  and  Titus,  viz.,  evangelists,  but 
neither  of  them  are  called  bishops  in  Scripture, 
much  less  were  they  fixed  to  Ephesus  or  Crete, 
but  travelled  up  and  down  to  settle  churches  in 
several  countries.  They  observe,  farther,  that 
in  the  same  order  of  officers  there  was  not  any 
one  superior  to  another  ;  no  apostle  above  an 
apostle,  no  presbyter  above  a  presbyter,  nor  one 
deacon  above  another.  They  add,  that  the  an- 
gels of  the  churches  in  the  Revelation  are  never 
called  bishops,  nor  is  the  word  used  in  any  of 
St.  John's  writings,  who  calls  himself  a  presby- 
ter ;  from  whence  they  argue  the  identity  of 
these  offices  in  Scripture,  and  the  equality  of 
the  officers.  They  admit  that,  not  long  after  the 
apostles'  times,  bishops  are  reported  to  have 
some  superiority  above  presbyters,  but  this  was 
not  a  Divuie,  but  an  ecclesiastical  institution,  as 
is  evident  from  the  testimony  of  the  most  an- 
cient fathers,  and  the  most  considerable  writers 
m  the  Romish  Church  ;  to  which  they  add  the 
suffrage  of  the  first  Reformers  in  King  Henry 
VIII. 's  reign.  The  Erudition  of  a  Christian 
Man,  printed  1643,  says  expressly,  that  the 
Scripture  mentions  but  two  orders,  i.  e.,  bish- 
ops <jr  priests,  and  deacons.  They  conclude 
with  observing  that  the  modern  Episcopacy  is 
very  diflferent  from  that  which  began  to  obtain 
in  the  second  and  third  ages  of  the  Church,  in- 
somuch that  the  present  hierarchy,  being  a  hu- 
man institution,  might  be  abolished,  and  the 
other  remain. 

After  three  days,  his  majesty,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  his  learned  divines,  replied  to  the  fore- 
going paper,  and  acknowledges,  "that  the 
words  bishop  and  presbyter  are  sometimes  con- 
founded in  Scripture  ;  he  admits  that  presbyters 
are  cpiscopi  gregis,  bishops  of  tht  flock ;  but 
that  IJisliops  are  cpiscopi  gregis  el  paslorum  with- 
in their  several  precincts,  i.  c,  bishops  of  the 


*■  Rel.  Carol.,  vol.  u.,  p.  245. 
X  EtruKOTT-oiivrej. 


t   'EfflffKOTTOUJ. 


flock  and  of  the  pastors  too ;  and  that,  soon  a<^- 
ter,  common  usage  appropriated  bishop  to  the' 
ecclesiastical  governor,  leaving  presbyter  to- 
signify  the  ordinary  minister  or  priest,  as  ap- 
pears from  the  ancient  fathers  and  councils. 
He  admits  the  calling  of  the  apostles  and  their 
gifts  to  be  extraordinary,  but  adds,  that  their 
mission  to  govern  and  teach  was  ordinary  and 
perpetual ;  that  the  bishop  succeeded  them  in  the 
former,  and  presbyters  in  the  latter  function.* 

His  majesty  still  insists  "  that  Timothy  and 
Titus  were  bishops,  as  appears  from  antiquity, 
and  by  a  catalogue  of  twenty-seven  bishops  of 
Ephesus  lineally  descending  from  Timothy,  as 
is  avouched  by  Dr.  Reynolds  against  Hart ;  and 
therefore  the  distinction  between  an  evangelist 
and  a  bishop  is  without  foundation,  the  work  of 
an  evangelist  being  no  more  than  diligence  in 
preaching  the  Word,  notwithstanding  all  im- 
pediments, according  to  the  apostle,  2  Tim.,  ii., 
4,  5.  His  majesty  observes,  that  the  Parlia- 
ment divines  had  said  nothing  to  prove  that  the 
'  angels  of  the  churches'  were  not  personcB  sin- 
gulares,  and  such  as  had  a  prelacy  over  pastors, 
I.  €.,  bishops,  but  that  thjey  dealt  only  in  gener- 
als, and  seemed  unwilling  to  speak  their  opin- 
ions about  them." 

His  majesty  affirms  "  that  bishops  are  the 
successors  of  the  apostles  in  all  things  not  ex- 
traordinary, such  as  teaching  and  governing ; 
and  the  reasons  why  they  are  not  mentioned 
as  a  distinct  order  in  the  New  Testament,  are, 
1.  Because  the  apostles  reserved  to  themselves 
the  government  of  those  churches  where  they 
appointed  presbyters,  and  so  it  is  probable  the 
Philippians  had  no  bishop  when  Paul  wrote  to 
them.  2.  Because,  in  the  Epistles  to  Timothy 
and  Titus,  the  persons  to  whom  he  wrote,  be- 
ing themselves  bishops,  there  was  no  need  to  - 
write  about  the  qualifications  of  any  other  offi- 
cers than  those  they  wanted,  which  were  pres- 
byters and  deacons  only." 

His  majesty  admits,  concerning  the  ages  af- 
ter the  apostles,  "  that  they  are  but  a  human 
testimony,  and  yet  may  be  infallible  in  matter 
of  fact,  as  we  infallibly  know  that  Aristotle  was 
a  Greek  philosopher,  &e.  ;  he  avers  the  genu- 
ineness of  those  epistles  of  Ignatius,  which 
gave  testimony  to  the  superiority  of  a  bishop 
above  a  presbyter ;  and  though  his  majesty's 
royal  progenitors  had  enlarged  the  power  and 
privileges  of  bishops,  he  conceives  the  govern- 
ment to  be  substantially  the  same." 

Eleven  days  after  the  Parliament  divines  re- 
plied to  the  king's  second  paper,  in  which  they 
say  that  they  can  find  no  such  partition  of  the 
apostolical  office  in  Scripture  as  his  majesty 
mentions,  viz.,  that  the  governing  part  should 
be  committed  to  bishops,  the  teaching  and  ad- 
ministering the  sacraments  to  presbyters  ;  but 
that  the  whole  work,  per  omnia,  belongs  to  pres- 
byters, as  appears  from  the  two  words  used  ins 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  St.  Peter's  Epis- 
tle, Tvocfiaivetv,  and  eTTiaKondv,  under  the  force 
of  which  words  the  bishops  claim  their  whole 
right  of  government  and  jurisdiction  ;  and  when^ 
the  Apostle  Paul  was  taking  leave  of  the  Ephe- 
sian  presbyters  and  bishops,  he  commits  the- 
government  of  the  church  not  to  Timothy,  who. 
was  then  at  his  elbow,  but  to  the  presbyters,-, 
under  the  name  of  bishops  made  by  the  Holy 


*  Rel,  Carol.,  p.  260. 


84 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


Ghost :  from  whence  they  conchide  that  bish- 
ops and  presbyters  must  be  only  two  names  of 
the  same  order.*  They  observe,  that  the  ob- 
scurity of  church  liistory  in  the  times  succeed- 
ing the  apostles  made  the  catalogue-makers 
take  up  their  succession  upon  report ;  and  it  is 
a  blemish  to  their  evidence,  that  the  nearer  they 
come  to  the  days  of  the  apostles,  they  are  the 
more  doubtful  and  contradictory.  These  di- 
vines are  therefore  of  opinion  that  human  tes- 
timony on  both  sides  ought  to  be  discharged, 
and  the  point  in  debate  be  determined  only  by 
Scripture.  And  here  they  take  hold  of  las  maj- 
esty's concession,  that  in  Scripture  the  names 
of  bishops  and  presbyters  are  not  distinguished  ; 
and  that  there  is  no  mention  but  of  two  orders, 
bishops  and  deacons.  They  desire  his  majesty 
to  show  them  where  the  Scripture  has  assigned 
any  particular  work  or  duty  to  a  bishop  that  is 
not  common  to  a  presbyter,  for  they  apprehend 
his  majesty's  asserting  that  a  bishop  is  an  ec- 
clesiastical governor,  and  a  presbyter  an  ordi- 
nary minister,  is  without  any  demonstration  or 
evidence  ;  a  few  clear  passages  of  Scripture  for 
the  proof  of  this  (they  say)  would  bring  the 
point  to  an  issue.  They  deny  his  majesty's 
distinction  of  episcopi  grcgis  ct  ■paslorum,  bish- 
ops of  sheep  and  shepherds,  as  being  the  point 
in  question,  and  affirmed  without  any  evidence. 
That  the  office  of  teaching  and  governing  was 
ordinary  in  the  apostles,  because  continued  in 
the  Church,  we  crave  leave  to  say,  is  that  great 
mistake  which  runs  through  the  whole  file  of 
your  majesty's  discourse  ;  for  though  there  be 
a  succession  in  the  work  of  teaching  and  gov- 
erning, there  is  no  succession  in  the  commis- 
sion or  office,  by  which  the  apostles  performed 
them  ;  a  succession  may  be  to  the  same  work, 
but  not  to  the  same  commission  ;  and  since 
your  majesty  cannot  produce  any  record  from 
Scripture  warranting  the  division  of  the  office 
of  teaching  and  governing  into  two  hands,  we 
must  look  upon  it  as  an  invention  of  men  to  get 
the  power  into  their  hands. 

These  divines  go  on  with  a  long  proof  that 
Timothy  and  Titus  were  evangelists ;  that  is, 
not  fixed  to  one  place,  but  travelling  with  the 
apostles  from  one  country  to  another  to  plant 
churches,  and  accordingly  have  drawn  out  an 
account  of  their  travels  from  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  and  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  They  observe 
the  weakness  of  his  majesty's  reasons,  why 
bishops  are  not  mentioned  as  a  distinct  order 
in  Scripture,  and  add  a  third  of  their  own,  viz., 
because  really  they  were  not.  As  for  the  apos- 
Tflcs  reserving  in  their  own  hands  the  power  of 
governing,  they  admit  that  they  could  no  more 
part  with°  it  than  with  their  apostleship.  Had 
they  set  up  bishops  in  all  churches,  they  had  no 
more  parted  with  their  power  of  governing  than 
in  setting  up  presbyters  ;  presbyters  being  call- 
ed rulers,  governors,  and  bishops  ;  nor  could 
the  apostles  reasonably  be  supposed  to  commit 
the  government  of  the  Church  of  Ephesus  to  the 
presbyters,  when  he  was  taking  his  last  farewell 
of  them,  and  yet  reserve  the  power  of  governing, 
in  ordinary,  to  himself  His  majesty's  other 
reason,  they  say,  is  inconclusive,  and,  in  short, 
begging  the  question.  They  add,  that  it  is  very 
unaccountable,  that  if  there  had  been  two  sorts 
of  bishops,  one  over  presbyters  and  the  other 


*  Rel.  Carol.,  p.  277. 


over  the  flock,  that  there  should  be  no  mention, 
no  markof  ditl'erence,  no  distinct  method  of  or- 
dination, by  which  they  might  be  distinguished, 
tliroughout  the  whole  New  Testament. 

As  to  the  ages  after  the  apostles,  they  admit 
there  were  presbyter-bishops,  but  not  of  Divine 
institution  ;  that  the  catalogues  of  succession 
are  undoubtedly  defective,  but  if  they  were  not, 
it  remains  still  to  be  proved  that  the  bishops  in 
the  catalogue  were  vested  with  the  jurisdiction 
wiiich  the  modern  bishops  claim. 

These  divines  profess  to  honour  the  pious  in- 
tentions of  his  majesty's  ancestors,  and  admit 
that  ornamental  accessions  to  the  person  make 
no  substantial  change  in  the  office,  but  that  the 
primitive  episcopacy,  and  the  present  hierarchy, 
are  essentially  different.  They  acknowledge  a 
subordination  of  the  exercise  of  jurisdiction  to 
the  civil  power  and  the  laws  of  the  land  ;  and 
conclude  with  thanks  to  his  majesty's  conde- 
scension, in  allowing  them  to  examine  his  learn- 
ed reply,  clothed  in  such  excellence  of  style, 
and  pray  that  a  pen  in  the  hand  of  such  abilities 
may  ever  be  employed  on  a  subject  worthy  of  it. 

Some  days  after  his  majesty  offered  his  last 
paper,  wherein  "  he  acknowledges  the  great 
pains  of  these  divines  to  inform  his  judgment, 
and  takes  particular  notice  of  the  decency  of 
their  manner,  and  of  their  respectful  address  to 
him  upon  this  occasion,  but  says  they  mistook 
him  when  they  spoke  of  a  writ  of  partition  of 
the  episcopal  office  ;  whereas  his  meaning  was, 
that  the  office  of  teaching  was  common  both  to 
the  bishop  and  presbyter,  but  that  government 
was  peculiar  to  the  bishop."*  His  majesty  de- 
clines answering  to  all  the  particulars,  because 
he  would  not  draw  out  the  dispute  into  a  great- 
er length,  but  seems  unconvinced  by  anything 
that  had  been  offered  ;  he  affirms  that  Timothy 
and  Titus  were  episcopi  pastorum,  bishops  over 
presbyters  ;  and  that  Timothy  had  a  distinct 
work  from  presbyters,  that  is,  that  he  might 
know  how  to  behave  himself  in  the  exercise  of 
his  episcopal  office.  His  majesty  relies  on  the 
numerous  testimonies  of  ancient  and  modern 
writers  for  the  Scripture  original  of  bishops, 
and  adds,  that  the  testimonies  of  an  equal  num- 
ber of  equal  credit  to  the  contrary  will  signify 
nothing,  because  one  witness  for  tlie  affirmative 
ought  to  be  of  more  value  than  ten  for  the  neg- 
ative, in  conclusion,  his  majesty  put  them 
upon  evidencing  one  of  these  three  things  :  (1.) 
Either  that  there  is  no  form  of  church  govern- 
ment prescribed  in  Scripture.  Or,  (2.)  If  there 
be,  that  the  civil  power  may  change  it  as  they 
see  cause.  Or,  (3.)  If  it  be  unchangeable,  that 
it  was  not  episcopal,  but  some  other  that  they 
will  name,  for  till  this  is  done  he  shall  think  him- 
self excusable  for  not  consenting  to  the  abolish- 
ing that  government  which  he  found  settled  at 
his  coronation ;  which  is  so  ancient,  has  been 
so  universally  received  in  the  Christian  world, 
has  been  confirmed  by  so  many  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  subscribed  by  all  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England.  But  the  ministers  declined 
entering  into  so  large  a  field,  which  must  have 
brought  on  a  debate  concerning  the  whole  eccle- 
siastical polity  of  the  Church. 

Tliese  were  all  the  papers  which  passed  on 
both  sides,  and  deserve  the  notice  of  those 
who  would  enter  into  this  controversy.     His 

*  Rel.  Carol.,  p.  324. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


85 


majesty  saying  that  one  witness  for  the  affirm- 
ative that  Episcopacy  is  of  Divine  institution 
ought  to  be  of  more  value  than  ten  for  the  nega- 
tive, is,  I  apprehend,  one  of  tlie  weakest  and 
most  frivolous  arguments  of  his  letter  ;  for  it  is 
only  changing  the  form  of  the  question,  and 
making  the  Presbyterians  say  that  Presbytery  is 
of  Divine  institution,  and  then  asking  his  maj- 
esty, or  any  Episcopal  divine,  whether  one  af- 
firmative testimony  ought  not  to  be  of  more 
value  than  ten  negative  ones  of  equal  merit. 
His  majesty's  style  is  strong  and  masculine,  and 
that  of  the  Parliament  divines  decent  and  re- 
spectful. Sir  Philip  Warwick  read  the  king's 
papers  before  the  commissioners,  and  Mr.  Vines 
those  of  the  ministers ;  all  was  managed  with 
the  greatest  propriety,  which  makes  it  hard  to 
excuse  Lord  Clarendon's  account  of  the  behav- 
iour of  these  divines,  who  says,*  "  They  all  be- 
haved with  that  rudeness,  as  if  they  meant  to 
be  no  longer  subject  to  a  king  any  more  than  to 
a  bishop ;  that  they  inveighed  bitterly  against 
the  pride  and  lustre  of  lord-bishops  ;  that  two 
of  them  very  plainly  and  fiercely  told  the  king, 
that  if  he  did  not  consent  to  the  utter  abolishing 
of  bishops,  he  would  be  damned ;  these  men 
were  Spurstow  and  Jenkins,  who,  after  the  re- 
turn of  King  Charles  II.,  according  to  the  mod- 
esty of  that  race  of  people,  came  to  kiss  his 
majesty's  hand."  And  yet  neither  of  the  divines 
above  mentioned  was  nominated  to  assist  at  the 
treaty,  nor  had  any  share  in  the  debates.  Mr. 
Baxter  says,  all  the  Parliament  divines  came  off 
with  great  honour.  But  such  is  his  lordship's, 
or  his  editor's,  candour  towards  anything  that 
looks  like  a  Presbyterian  I 

The  king's  second  difficulty,  relating  to  his 
coronation  oath,  by  which  he  apprehended  him- 
self bound  to  maintain  Episcopal  government 
as  he  found  it  settled  when  he  received  the 
crown,  the  commissioners  did  not  think  so  prop- 
er for  the  discussion  of  divines,  because  it  de- 
pended upon  the  law  of  the  land,  and  therefore 
took  this  part  of  the  debate  upon  themselves. 
The  king  conceived  that  the  consent  of  the 
clergy  themselves,  in  convocation  assembled, 
was  necessary,  before  they  could  be  deprived  of 
those  possessions  and  privileges  of  which  they 
were  legally  possessed.  But  the  commission- 
ers maintained  that  the  Legislature  alone  was 
to  determine  in  this  case,  as  it  had  done  at  the 
Reformation  ;  that  it  was  not  to  be  supposed 
that  any  body  of  men  would  consent  to  part 
with  their  possessions  if  they  could  keep  them  ; 
but  if  the  Legislature  judged  any  part  of  the 
king's  coronation  oath  hurtful  to  the  public,  it 
was  certainly  in  their  power,  with  the  consent 
of  the  king,  to  alter  or  annul  it.  One  may  just- 
ly ask  how  this  branch  of  the  coronation  oath 
should  stick  so  much  with  the  king,  when  it 
was  notorious  that  his  government,  for  almost 
fifteen  years,  had  been  one  continued  breach  of 
Magna  Charta,  and  an  encroachment  upon  tlie 
civil  liberties  of  his  subjects. 

But  neither  party  would  accede  to  the  other, 
though  the  article  of  religicm  was  almost  the 
only  point  that  hindered  the  conclusion  of  the 
treaty  ;  his  majesty  wondered  at  the  shyness 
and  reluctance  of  the  Parliament  divines  to  de- 
bate his  three  questions,  and  told  them  plainly, 
that  their  endeavours  to  give  him  satisfaction 


Vol.  lii.,  p.  21C. 


in  them  would  have  added  to  the  reputation  of 
their  ingenuity  in  the  whole  undertaking,  it  not 
being  probable  that  they  should  work  much 
upon  his  judgment,  while  they  were  fearful  to 
declare  their  own  ;  or  possible  to  relieve  his 
conscience  but  by  a  free  declaring  of  theirs.* 
But  what  was  all  this  to  the  point  1  the  only 
question  before  them  was,  whether  diocesan 
Episcopacy  was  of  Divine  institution  1  if  they 
had  satisfied  his  majesty  in  that,  they  had  dis- 
charged their  duty  ;  to  launch  out  farther  was 
to  lose  time,  and  protract  the  treaty  beyond  its 
limits.  If  diocesan  Episcopacy  was  not  scrip- 
tural, it  might  be  abolished,  which  was  all  the 
Parliament  contended  for  at  present.t  But  the 
king's  divines  encouraged  him  to  dispute  every 
inch  of  ground,  and  instead  of  yielding  any  one 
point  to  the  ministers,  to  start  new  difficulties, 
till  his  ruin  was  inevitable.  However,  towards 
the  close  of  the  treaty,  when  the  victorious  ar- 
my was  returning  towards  London,  and  things 
almost  come  to  an  extremity,  his  majesty  told 
the  commissioners,  "  that  though  he  could  not 
with  a  good  conscience  consent  to  the  abolish- 
ing of  Episcopacy,  because  he  believed  the  sub- 
stance of  it  to  be  of  apostolical  institution,  he 
was  willing  to  reduce  it  to  the  primitive  usage  ; 
and  if  his  two  houses  should  so  advise,  he  would, 
be  content  to  lessen  the  extent  and  multiply  the 
number  of  diocesses.  He  still  apprehended  the 
entire  alienation  of  the  bishop's  lands  by  sale  to 
be  sacrilege.  He  was  willing  to  assent  to  the 
calling  and  sitting  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines, 
as  desired.  He  would  also  confirm  the  public 
use  of  the  Directory  in  all  churches  and  chapels, 
and  would  repeal  so  much  of  all  statutes  as  con- 
cerned the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  only  ;  pro- 
vided the  use  thereof  might  be  continued  in  his 
majesty's  chapel  for  himself  and  his  household  ; 
and  that  the  same  [i.  e.,  the  Directory]  should 
be  confirmed  by  act  of  Parliament  for  three 
years,  provided  a  consultation  be  had  in  the 
mean  time  with  the  Assembly  of  Divines  as 
before  mentioned.  Touching  the  articles  of  re- 
ligion [the  Assembly's  confession],  his  majesty 
desired  farther  time  to  examine  them  before  he 
bound  up  himself  and  his  subjects  in  matters  of 
faith  and  doctrine.  His  majesty  will  consent 
to  an  act  for  better  observation  of  the  Lord's 
Day,  and  to  prevent  saying  of  mass.  But  as  to 
the  Covenant,  his  majesty  was  not  satisfied  to 
take  it,  nor  to  impose  it  on  others." 

These  concessions  being  voted  unsatisfactory 
by  the  two  houses  at  Westminster,  his  majesty 
consented  farther,  October  21.  "  1.  That  arch- 
bishops, chancellors,  deans,  and  the  whole  hie- 
rarchy, be  abolislied  except  bishops.  2.  That 
none  but  the  Presbyterian  government  be  exer- 
cised for  three  years.  3.  That  in  case  no  set- 
tlement should  be  agreed  upon  within  that  time, 
that  then  for  the  future  the  power  of  ordination 
should  not  be  exercised  by  bishops  without  the 
counsel  and  assistance  of  presbyters  ;  that  no 
other  Episcopal  jurisdiction  should  be  exerci- 
sed but  such  as  should  be  agreed  upon  in  Par- 
liament ;  and  if  within  that  time  his  majesty 
should  be  convinced  that  Episcopacy  is  not 
agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  or  that  Christ 
commanded  any  other  government,  he  will  em- 
brace it,  and  take  Episcopacy  quite  away."  The 
houses  being  still  dissatisfied  with  these  con- 


Rushworth,  p.  129L        f  Ibid.,  p.  1301, 1302. 


86 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


•cessions,  his  majesty  added,  November  4,  "  that 
he  would  make  no  new  b  shops  for  three  years  ; 
and  for  the  farther  satisfaction  of  the  Parlia- 
jnent,  he  would  not  insist  upon  the  use  of  the 
"Common  Prayer  in  his  own  chapel  for  that  time, 
■fcut  would  make  use  of  some  other  form  of  Di- 
■vine  service  for  himself,  and  forbid  mass  to  be 
said  in  the  queen's  chapel."  This  was  his  maj- 
esty's final  answer,  which  the  Commons  voted 
imsatisfactory,  and  ordered  the  commissioners 
to  acquaint  him  with  their  votes. 

The  treaty  was  prolonged  three  weeks  after 
this,  in  which  time  the  commissioners  did  all 
that  was  in  their  power  to  obtain  his  majesty's 
•consent,  beseeching  him  with  tears  upon  their 
bended  knees,  since  matters  were  brought  to  so 
narrow  a  compass,  to  yield  up  the  point  of  re- 
ligion. In  their  last  paper  of  November  20, 
they  beseech  him  to  consider,  "  that  it  is  not  the 
apostolical  bishops  which  the  Parliament  desire 
.him  to  abolish,  but  that  Episcopacy  which  was 
'formerly  established  by  law  in  this  kingdom,  and 
has  been  found  by  experience  to  be  a  hinder- 
atice  to  piety,  a  grievance  to  the  subject,  an  en- 
croachment upon  the  power  of  the  civil  magis- 
trate, and  so  a  burden  to  the  persons,  purses, 
and  consciences  of  men.  They  do  not  meddle 
■with  the  apostolical  bishop,  nor  determine  what 
that  bishop  was  whom  the  apostles  mention  in 
the  Scripture ;  but  they  are  for  putting  him  down 
by  a  law  who  was  set  up  by  a  law  ;  and  certain- 
Jy  nothing  can  be  more  proper  for  parliaments 
than  to  alter,  repeal,  or  make  laws,  which  ap- 
pear to  them  for  the  good  of  the  commonwealth. 

"  But  admitting  apostolical  bishops  were  with- 
in the  purport  of  this  bill,  we  humbly  conceive 
it  does  not  follow  that  therefore  in  conscience 
it  must  not  be  pa.ssed,  for  we  may  not  grant 
that  no  occasion  can  make  that  alterable  which 
has  foundation  only  in  the  practice  of  the  apos- 
tles, and  not  in  a  precept.*  Some  things  have 
certainly  been  altered  which  the  apostles  prac- 
tised.;  circumstances  many  times  change  the 
nature  of  moral  actions  ;  for  the  attaining  a 
great  good,  or  the  avoiding  a  great  evil,  that 
■which  singly  considered  is  not  fit  to  be  done, 
and  perhaps  would  be  a  fault  if  it  were,  may 
become  a  duty,  and  a  man  may  be  bound  in  con- 
science to  do  it.  And  if  ever  circumstances 
could  have  a  more  powerful  and  considerable 
influence  than  in  this  juncture,  we  leave  to  your 
majesty's  consideration.  But  this  is  said  only 
for  argument's  sake,  adinitting,  but  not  granting 
the  grounds  on  which  your  majesty  is  pleased 
to  go,  in  refusing  to  pass  this  bill."}  The 
strength  of  the  commissioners'  reasoning  upon 
this  head  may  be  seen  at  once  in  this  short  syllo- 
gism :  Whatsoever  is  not  of  Divine  institution 
may  be  very  lawfully  altered,  changed,  or  re- 
versed. But  the  Episcopacy  which  is  establish- 
ed in  the  Church  of  England  is  not  that  Epis- 
copacy mentioned  in  Scripture  ;  therefore  the 
laws  which  established  it  may  take  it  away. 

The  commissioners  go  on,  "As  for  the  sale 
-of  bishops'  lands,  which  your  majesty  conceives 
to  be  sacrilege,  we  humbly  offer  that,  bishoprics 
■being  dissolved,  their  lands  revert  to  the  crown, 
■which  is  their  foundation  and  patron,  and  here- 
tofore held  it  no  sacrilege  to  dispose  of  bishops' 


•*  For  the  king's  answer,  see  Dr.  Grey'a  Examina- 
tion, p.  342,  &c.— Ed. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  1335.    Whitelocke,  p.  351. 


lands  to  its  c^n  or  other  uses  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, which  was  an  ordinary  parctice  in  your 
majesty's  predecessors,  kings  and  queens  of 
this  nation.  Besides,  in  all  ages,  even  under 
the  ceremonial  law,  imminent  and  urgent  ne- 
cessity has  dispensed  with  the  alienation  of  con- 
secrated things  * 

"  Your  majesty  is  pleased  to  say,  '  You  can- 
not communicate  in  a  public  form  of  Divine  ser- 
vice, where  it  is  uncertain  what  the  minister 
will  offer  to  God.'  But  we  beseech  your  maj- 
esty to  be  informed  that  the  Directory  sets 
down  the  matter  of  the  prayer  which  the  minis- 
ter is  to  use,  words  and  expressions  for  enlarge- 
ment being  left  to  his  discretion.  But  give  us 
leave  to  add,  that  this  ought  to  be  no  objection 
with  your  majesty,  for  then  one  must  not  hear 
any  prayer  before  sermon,  for  every  minister 
has  a  several  form,  which  he  varies  according 
to  occasion. 

.  "  Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  we  humbly  hope 
that  your  majesty,  after  a  most  serious  consid- 
eration, will  discern  the  just  cause  which  the 
two  houses  have  for  remaining  unsatisfied  with 
your  majesty's  concessions  with  relation  to  the 
Church,  for  they  are  apprehensive  that,  after  the 
expiration  of  the  three  years  in  which  Episcopal 
government  is  to  be  suspended,  a  bishop  so 
qualified  as  your  majesty  expresses  will  rise 
again  ;  for  if  you  should  not,  in  the  mean  time, 
agree  with  your  Parliament  upon  any  other  form 
of  government,  which  depends  wholly  upon  your 
majesty's  pleasure,  no  other  government  can  be 
set  up  ;  and  then  this  Episcopacy  will  return 
with  so  great  power,  that  the  bishop  may  choose 
whether  any  minister  at  all  shall  be  made  in  the 
Church  of  England,  and  those  that  shall  inust 
be  at  his  devotion,  he  having  the  negative  voice 
in  ordination,  which  we  humbly  conceive  is  no- 
where declared  in  Scripture  to  be  the  preroga- 
tive of  an  apostolical  bishop. 

"  We  humbly  say,  farther,  that  the  charging 
bishops'  lands  %vith  leases  for  ninety-nine  years 
is  not  sufficient,  because  there  is  a  rent  reserved 
to  the  bishop,  and  the  property  will  continue  as 
before  ;  so  that  it  cannot  be  expected  that  the 
Presbyterian  government  should  be  complied 
with,  and  exercised  with  profit  or  comfort  to 
the  Church,  as  long  as  a  door  is  left  open  for 
the  return  of  a  superior  power  upon  the  first  op- 
portunity. 

"  We  hope  your  majesty  will  pardon  our 
pressing  in  this  manner  ;  our  intention  is  not  to 
offer  violence  to  your  majesty's  conscience,  but 
to  endeavour  to  inform  it  in  a  matter  that  ap- 
pears to  the  two  houses  of  so  great  conse- 
quence. We  again  humbly  beseech  your  maj- 
esty to  review  our  former  papers  ;  call  to  mind 
those  reasons  and  arguments  which  in  debate 
have  been  used  upon  this  subject,  with  such 
others  as  your  own  wisdom  shall  suggest,  and 
then  be  pleased  to  give  your  royal  consent  to 
the  particulars  above  specified,  that  both  your- 
self and  your  people  may  have  cause  to  re- 
joice." 

The  committee  of  states  in  Scotland  joined 
with  the  Parliament  commissioners  in  beseech- 
ing his  majesty  to  accede  to  the  proposition 
about  religion,  which  they  understood  to  be  the 
point  his   majesty  most  stuck  at,  and  which 


Ed. 


Dr.  Grey,  p.  345,  has  given  his  majesty's  reply.- 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


87 


they  in  honour  and  interest  were  obliged  most 
to  insist  upon,  and  without  which,  they  add,  his 
throne  cannot  be  established  in  righteousness.* 
They  also  wrote  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  me- 
■diate  with  his  iather.  The  General  Assembly, 
and  the  commissioners  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland, 
sent  at  the  same  time  two  angry  letters,  for  it 
•was  said  they  would  speak  more  plainly  in  the 
same  of  their  master  than  the  commissioners  of 
estates  would  venture  to  do  in  their  own.  But 
his  majesty  was  deaf  to  all  remonstrances  and 
persuasions,  being  determined,  if  his  two  houses 
did  not  think  fit  to  recede  from  the  rigour  of 
their  demands  in  these  particulars,  to  cast  him- 
self, as  he  said,  on  his  Saviour's  goodness  to 
support  and  defend  him  from  all  afflictions,  how 
great  soever,  which  might  befall  him,  rather 
than,  upon  politic  considerations,  deprive  him- 
self of  the  tranquillity  of  his  mind  ;  and  there- 
fore, excepting  his  majesty's  consent  to  license 
the  Assembly's  lesser  catechism  with  a  proper 
preface,  in  all  other  matters  in  difTerence  he  re- 
solved to  abide  by  his  former  answers.! 

At  the  close  of  the  treaty  the  king  made  a 
short  speech  to  the  commissioners,  in  which  he 
reminds  them  how  far  he  had  condescended  for 
the  sake  of  peace.  He  desired  them  to  put  a 
good  interpretation  on  his  vehement  expres- 
sions in  some  part  of  the  debates,  there  being 
nothing  in  his  intentions  but  kindness  ;  and  that, 
as  they  had  used  a  great  deal  of  freedom,  and 
showed  great  abilities  in  their  debates,  which 
had  taken  him  ofT  from  some  of  his  opinions, 
that  they  would  use  the  same  freedom  with  his 
two  houses,  to  press  them  to  an  abatement  of 
those  things  in  which  his  conscience  was  not 
yet  satislied,  which  more  time  might  do,  his 
opinions  not  being,  like  the  laws  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians,  unalterable  or  infallible;  adding 
his  very  hearty  thanks  for  the  pains  they  had 
taken  to  satisfy  him,  professing  that  he  wanted 
eloquence  to  commend  their  abilities. +  He  de- 
sired them  candidly  to  represent  all  the  transac- 
tions of  the  treaty  to  his  two  houses,  that  they 
might  see  nothing  of  his  own  interest,  how  near 
or  dear  soever  (but  that  wherein  his  conscience 
is  not  satisfied),  can  hinder,  on  his  part,  a  hap- 
py conclusion  of  the  treaty. 

The  king's  concessions  were  certainly  a  suf- 
ficient foundation  for  peace  with  the  Presbyte- 
Tians,  if  they  could  have  been  relied  upon,  and 
"were  so  voted  by  the  Parliament  when  it  was 
too  late.  His  majesty  had  given  up  the  main 
pillars  of  the  hierarchy,  by  consenting  to  abol- 
ish archbishops,  deans,  and  chapters,  and  that 
a  bishop  should  not  act  without  his  presbyters  ; 
which  was  Archbishop  Usher's  scheme,  and  all 
that  the  Puritans  at  first  contended  for;  but  the 
Scots  and  the  English  Presbyterians,  grown 
lofty  in  power,  and  being  less  apprehensive  of 
danger  from  the  army  than  they  ought,  conclu- 
ded they  could  not  fail  of  their  whole  establish- 
ment in  a  few  weeks,  though  there  was  not  the 
least  provision  for  liberty  of  conscience  for  dis- 
senters, which  they  might  have  been  sensible 
■would  occasion  high  discontents  in  the  army. 
The  commissioners  were  disposed  to  an  accom- 
modation, and  took  all  opportunities  to  assure 
his  majesty  that,  if  he  would  but  yield  for  a 


♦  Rushworth,  p.  1301. 

+  Clarendon,  p.  224.     Rushworth,  p.  1326,  1334. 

t  Vol.  Pam.,  No.  83. 


time,  things  should  be  made  easy  to  him  after- 
ward. But  the  truth  is,  as  the  king  would  not 
trust  the  Parliament,  so  neither  would  they  the 
king,  because  they  observed,  (1.)  His  dilatori- 
ness  in  the  treaty,  as  if  he  waited  for- some  ad- 
vantageous turn  of  affairs  to  revoke  his  conces- 
sions. (2.)  His  resolute  disputing  every  inch 
of  ground  without  yieldmg  a  single  proposition, 
or  none  of  any  considerable  moment.  (3.)  His 
majesty's  maxim,  that  what  was  yielded  out  of 
necessity  was  not  binding  when  the  restraint 
was  taken  off.  (4.)  They  suspected  his  sincer- 
ity, because  the  Duke  of  Ormond  was  at  this 
very  time  treating  with  the  Irish  rebels  by  his 
majesty's  commission,  which  he  would  not  re- 
call.*     (5.)    They  remembered  his  majesty's 

*  The  preceding  assertions  of  Mr.  Neal  much  dis- 
please Dr.  Grey  ;  he  contradicts  them,  and  endeav- 
ours to  confront  them  with  facts.  He  challenges 
Mr.  Neal  to  produce  one  single  well-attested  fact  to 
support  his  reflection  on  the  king's  sincerity.  The 
appeal  for  the  truth  of  the  charge  may  be  made  to 
the  reader,  who  has  accompanied  Charles  through 
his  reign,  and  observed  his  conduct  on  various  occa- 
sions. The  appeal  may  be  made  to  the  facts  that 
have  been  collected  in  Dr.  Harris's  Historical  and 
Critical  Account  of  Charles  I.,  p.  72-83,  and  in  An 
Essay  towards  a  True  Idea  of  the  Character  of  King 
Charles  I.,  p.  93^102.  We  may  also  refer  to  what 
has  before  been  advanced  on  this  point.  It  suffices 
to  add  here  the  authority  of  Ludlow  only,  who  says 
"  that  the  duplicity  of  the  king's  dealings  with  the 
Parliament  manifestly  appeared  in  his  own  papers, 
taken  at  the  battle  of  Naseby  and  elsewhere." — Lud- 
low's  Memoirs,  4to,  I77J,  p.  114.  Dr.  Grey  asserts 
against  Mr.  Neal,  that  "from  the  MS.  treaty  it  is 
manifest  that  there  was  not  the  least  delay  on  the 
king's  part."  But  he  forgets  the  duration  of  the  trea- 
ty, which  was  to  continue  forty  days  only  ;  and,  com- 
mencing on  the  18th  of  September,  did  not  close  till 
towards  the  end  of  November  ;  and  would  not  have 
ended  then,  if  the  army  had  not  seized  his  majesty; 
for  the  answers  of  the  king  were  voted  "  to  be  a 
ground  only  for  the  House  to  proceed  on  to  settle 
the  peace  of  the  kmgAom.''—Whitelockes  Memoirs, 
p.  353.  But  the  length  of  the  treaty  could  arise  only 
from  the  king's  not  at  first  yielding  to  the  proposi- 
tions made  by  the  commissioners.  Mr.  Neal's  next 
assertion,  that  the  king  "disputed  every  inch  of 
ground"  is  implied  in  the  duration  of  the  treaty,  and 
It  is  proved  by  the  quotation  which  Mr.  Neal,  a  little 
farther  on,  makes  from  Whitelocke.  But  Dr.  Grey 
attempts  to  disprove  it,  by  bringing  forward  three 
concessions  made  in  one  day,  the  21st  of  October,  by 
the  king.  The  reader  will  determine  whether  an  ex- 
ception drawn  from  the  transactions  of  one  day  can 
disprove  an  assertion  which  applies  to  a  treaty  de- 
pending more  than  seventy  days ;  and  those  conces- 
sions, he  will  consider,  were  not  yielded  till  the  forty 
days  originally  appointed  for  the  continuance  of  the 
treaty  were  drawing  to  an  end.  In  opposition  to  our 
author's  fourth  reason,  Dr.  Grey  produces  from  Will- 
iams's MS.  collections  a  letter  of  the  king,  25th  of 
November,  to  the  commissioners,  in  which  he  in- 
forms them  (sending,  at  the  same  time,  the  letter  it- 
self for  their  perusal)  that  he  had  written  to  the  Mar- 
quis of  Ormond,  "  acquainting  him  with  such  infor- 
mations as  he  had  received  from  the  two  houses  con- 
cerning his  proceedings  in  that  kingdom,  and  requi- 
ring him  to  desist  from  any  farther  prosecution  of  the 
same.  And  in  case  he  shall  refuse,  his  majesty  will 
then  make  such  public  declaration  against  his  pow- 
ers and  proceedings  as  is  desired."  Notwithstand- 
ing this,  Mr.  Neal  spoke  on  authority;  for  on  the 
21st  of  November,  the  House  received  letters  from 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  "that  the  king  refused  to  pass 
anything  against  the  Marquis  of  Ormond,  until  the 
treaty  be  wholly  ended." —  Whitelocke's  Mem.,  p.  350. 
See  also  Lord  Clarendon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  222. — Ed. 


88 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


artful  manner  of  interpreting  away  his  conces- 
sions. (6.)  They  gave  out  that  he  was  not  his 
own  master,  but  that  his  conscience  was  under 
the  direction  of  iiis  divines,  who  would  put  him 
upon  all  extremes  for  their  support.  (7.)  They 
were  incensed  at  the  murders  and  depredations 
of  the  cavalier  soldiers,  even  after  they  were 
beaten  out  of  the  field,  and  were  afraid  of  their 
recovering  the  management  of  public  affairs. 
And,  lastly,  They  were  as  firmly  persuaded  of 
the  Divine  institution  of  Presbytery,  aud  the  ob- 
ligation of  the  Covenant,  as  the  king  and  his 
divines  were  of  the  jus  divmum  of  Episcopacy. 
Yet,  under  all  these  propossessions,  Lord  Cla- 
rendon* observes,  some  of  the  commissioners 
found  means  to  advertise  the  king  in  private, 
"  that  they  were  of  his  majesty's  judgment 
about  church  government,  which  they  hoped 
might  be  preserved,  but  not  by  the  method  his 
majesty  pursued  ;  that  all  the  reasonable  hope 
of  preserving  the  crown  was  in  dividing  the 
Parliament  and  the  army,  which  could  be  done 
no  other  way  than  by  giving  satisfaction  with 
reference  to  the  Church.  This  might  probably 
unite  the  Parliament  and  the  city  of  London, 
and  enable  them  to  bring  his  majesty  to  Lon- 
don with  honour,  where  he  might  have  an  op- 
portunity of  gaining  more  abatements  than  he 
cot]ld  ever  expect  by  refusing  to  sign  the  pre- 
liminaries. Many  advertisements  came  from 
his  majesty's  friends  in  London,  and  other  pla- 
ces, that  it  was  high  time  the  treaty  was  at  an 
end,  before  the  army  drew  nearer  London, 
which  it  would  shortly  do,  as  soon  as  those  in 
the  north  had  finished  their  works."  Sir  J. 
Browning  entreated  his  majesty,  in  his  closet, 
to  make  all  his  concessions  in  one  declaration, 
at  one  instant,  and  in  one  day.  The  Parlia- 
ment commissioners  were  no  less  importunate 
with  the  king,  but  he  was  inflexible,  and  usual- 
ly out  of  humour.  Remarkable  are  the  words 
of  Mr.  Whitelocke,  speaking  of  the  above-men- 
tioned concessions  :  "  More  than  this  could  not 
be  obtained,  though  most  earnestly  begged  of 
his  majesty  by  some  of  the  commissioners 
(great  persons)  with  tears,  and  upon  their 
knees,  particularly  as  to  the  proposition  con- 
cerning religion,  wherein  church  government, 
public  worship,  and  chiefly  the  revenues  of  the 
Church,  swayed  more  with  the  king's  chaplains 
then  about  him  ;  and  tliey  more  with  his  maj- 
esty (continually  whispering  matters  of  con- 
science to  him)  than  the  Parliament,  and  all 
their  commissioners,  could  prevail  with  him  for 
an  agreement,  though  possibly  his  own  judg- 
ment (which  was  above  all  theirs)  might  not 
be  so  fully  convinced  by  his  eager  divines  about 
him."t  But  these  had  possession  of  his  maj- 
esty's conscience,  and  directed  his  answers  ;t 
and  though  they  abhorred  the  thoughts  of  de- 
posing the  king,  or  putting  him   to  dealh,  it 


*  Book  XI.,  p.  217.   t  Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  325. 

t  Dr.  Grey  is  displeased  with  this  representation, 
and  impeaches  the  truth  of  it.  He  says,  that  when 
Mr.  Vines  took  the  freedom  to  observe  "  that  possi- 
bly his  majesty's  scruples  were  not  so  much  his  own 
as  other  men's,"  the  king  a  little  warmly  replied, 
'that  It  was  a  mistake  ;  for  his  scruples  were  really 
his  own,  and  contained  in  his  first  paper."  The 
doctor  did  not  reflect  that  few  men  are  willing  to 
have  It  supposed,  and  more  unwilling  to  own,  that 
they  are  led.  But  however  this  was,  Mr  Neal  is 
supported  by  the  authority  of  Whitelocke  —Ed 


ought  to  be  considered  whether  their  stiff  and 
imprudent  behaviour  did  not  manifestly  con- 
tribute to  that  catastrophe. 

His  majesty  being  thus  entangled,  was  pleas- 
ed, before  the  breaking  up  of  the  treaty,  to  send 
for  Archbishop  Usher,  and  asked  him  this  ques- 
tion, "Whether  he  found,  in  all  antiquity,  that 
presbyters  alone  ordained  anyl"  To  which 
the  archbishop  replied  frankly,  that  "  he  coiUi 
shoio  his  majesty  more  than  that,  even  that  presby- 
ters alone  had  successively  ordained  bishops,'"  and 
instanced  in  St.  Jerome's  words,  in  his  Epist. 
ad  Evagrium,  where  he  says  the  presbyters  of 
Alexandria  chose  and  made  their  own  bishops 
from  the  days  of  Mark  the  apostle  till  Heraclus 
and  Dionysius.*  At  the  same  time  the  arch- 
bishop offered  his  own  scheme  for  the  reduction 
of  Episcopacy  to  the  form  of  Presbytery,  which 
his  majesty  had  formerly  rejected,  but  was  now 
at  length  willing  to  accept,  as  the  archbishop 
himself  told  Mr.  Baxter;  but  the  Scots  and 
English  Presbyterians  were  grown  so  stubbora 
that  they  would  not  acquiesce. 

Though  the  commissioners  had  no  power  to 
recede  from  their  instructions,  the  treaty  was 
prolonged  from  time  to  time,  in  hopes  that 
something  or  other  might  gain  upon  the  king  ; 
but  his  majesty  was  frequently  out  of  temper, 
and  treated  the  commissioners  with  no  degree 
of  confidence.  The  forty  days  to  which  the 
treaty  was  limited  being  ended  October  28,  it 
was  enlarged  for  fourteen  days,  and  then  for 
seven,  and  so  on  to  the  28tb  of  November,  for 
which,  says  Lord  Clarendon,!  his  majesty  was 
nothing  glad;  nor  did  liis  friends  in  the  House 
desire  the  prolongation,  it  lieing  moved  by  those 
that  wished  the  treaty  might  have  no  good  ef- 
fect, to  give  the  army  time  to  finish  their  sum- 
mer's work,  and  return  to  London.  On  the  last 
day  of  the  treaty,  when  the  commissioners 
pressed  his  majesty  to  consider  that  there  was 
not  one  whole  day  to  determine  the  fate  of  the 
kingdom,  and  that  nothing  could  save  his  maj- 
esty from  the  growing  power  of  the  army  but 
giving  his  two  houses  satisfaction  in  the  partic- 
ular of  the  Church,  "then,"  says  Lord  Claren- 
don,j;  "  his  majesty's  own  council,  and  the  di- 
vines, besought  him  to  consider  the  safety  of 
his  person,  even  for  the  Church's  sake,  which 
had  no  prospect  of  being  preserved  but  by  his 
life,  that  the  unavoidable  necessity  that  lay  upoa 
him  obliged  him  to  do  anything  that  was  not 
sin."  And  why  did  they  not  do  this  sooner? 
However,  it  seems  they  could  only  prevail  for  a 
suspension  of  the  Epi.scopal  power  in  point  of 
ordination  and  jurisdiction,  till  he  and  the  two 
houses  should  agree  what  government  should  be 
established  for  the  future.  Which  was  the  sub- 
stance of  all  his  majesty  intended  by  his  con- 
cessions. Aftersupper  the  commissioners  took 
their  leave,  and  having  kissed  his  majesty's 
hand,  began  their  journey  next  morning  towards 
London.  It  is  intrepid  language  that  Mr.  War- 
wick puts  into  the  king's  mouth  on  this  occa- 
sion :  his  majesty  said  to  him  one  night,  "  I  am 
like  a  captain  that  has  defended  a  place  well, 
and  his  superiors  not  being  able  to  relieve  him, 
he  had  leave  to  surrender  it ;  but  though  they 
cannot  relieve  me  in  the  time,  let  them  relieve 
me  when  they  can,  else,"  says  he,  "  I  will  hold 


*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  206. 

X  Book  xi.,  or  vol.  in.,  p.  227. 


t  Vol.  iii.,  p.  322; 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


8» 


it  out  till  I  make  some  stone  in  this  building 
my  tombstone  ;  and  so  I  will  do  by  the  Church 
of  England." 

Lord  Clarendon  is  of  opinion  "  that  the  major 
part  of  both  houses,  as  well  as  the  commission- 
ers, were  at  this  time  so  far  from  desiring  the 
execution  of  all  their  concessions,  that  if  they 
had  been  able  to  have  resisted  the  wild  fury  of 
the  army,  they  would  themselves  have  been 
suiters  to  have  declined  the  greatest  part  of 
them."  And  were  not  the  king's  counsellors 
and  divines  sensible  of  this?  Why,  then,  did 
they  trifle  away  a  month  in  fruitless  debates, 
when  it  was  evident  to  all  men  that  the  king's 
condition  became  more  desperate  every  day  1 

Thus  ended  the  famous  treaty  at  Newport, 
which,  like  all  the  former,  proved  unsuccessful, 
chiefly  from  an  incurable  jealousy  between  the 
contending  parties,  which,  how  reasonable  it  was 
on  either  side,  must  be  left  with  the  reader. 

The  noble  historian  observes,*  that  the  king 
sent  the  Prince  of  Wales  a  journal  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  treaty,  and  an  exact  copy  of  all 
the  papers  that  had  passed  to  the  29th  of  No- 
vember, together  with  a  letter  of  six  sheets  of 
paper  written  with  his  majesty's  own  hand,  con- 
taining the  reasons  and  motives  of  all  his  con- 
cessions. The  conclusion  of  the  letter,  his  lord- 
ship says,  deserves  to  be  preserved  in  letters  of 
gold,  as  it  gives  the  best  character  of  that  ex- 
cellent prince  ;  but  the  copy  does  not,  in  my 
opinion,  resemble  the  original.  Some  passages 
of  it  are  these  :  "  We  have  laboured  long  in 
search  of  peace,  do  not  you  be  disheartened  to 
tread  in  the  same  steps.  Prefer  the  way  of 
peace — conquer  your  enemies  by  pardoning  rath- 
er than  by  punishing— never  affect  more  great- 
ness, or  prerogative,  than  that  which  is  really 
and  intrinsically  for  the  good  of  your  subjects, 
not  the  satisfaction  of  favourites.  You  may 
perceive  that  all  men  intrust  their  treasure 
where  it  returns  them  interest.  If  princes,  like 
the  sea,  receive,  and  repay  all  the  fresh  streams 
the  rivers  intrust  them  with,  they  will  not 
grudge,  but  pride  themselves  to  make  them  up 
an  ocean  :  if  God  restore  you  to  your  right, 
whatever  you  promise  keep:  don't  think  any- 
thing in  this  world  worth  obtaining  by  false  and 
unjust  means.''  These  are  excellent  maxims 
of  government ;  and  if  his  majesty  had  conduct- 
ed himself  by  them,  he  could  not  have  been  re- 
duced to  such  a  low  and  destitute  condition,  as 
to  have  hardly  a  place  in  the  world  to  hide  him- 
self in  ;  "  for,"  says  Lord  Clarendon,!  "  there 
was  at  that  time  no  court  in  Christendom  so 
honourably  or  generously  constituted,  that  it 
would  have  been  glad  to  have  seen  him,  and 
they  who  wished  him  well  did  not  wish  his  es- 
cape, because  they  imagined  imprisonment  was 
the  worst  that  could  befall  him." 

I  am  unwilUng  to  suspect  the  genuineness  of 
this  letter,  though  there  were  so  many  forgeries 
obtruded  upon  the  world  about  this  tune  to  ad- 
vance his  majesty's  piety  and  virtue,  that  one 
can  hardly  feel  the  ground  he  treads  on.  If 
such  a  letter  was  sent  to  the  prince,  it  is  very 
strange  he  should  never  see  it ;  or  that  his  lord- 
ship, who  lived  in  the  prince's  family,  and  ex- 
tracted his  account  of  the  treaty  of  Newport 
from  these  papers,  as  he  declares,  should  nev- 
er show  it  his  master  ;  and  yet  these  are  the 


*  Book  xi.,  or  vol.  lii.,  p.  229. 
Vol.  II.— M 


tVol.  iu.,p.  231. 


words  of  Bishop  Burnet,  in  the  History  of  his 
Life  and  Times  :  "  The  Duke  of  York  suffered 
me  to  talk  very  freely  to  him  about  religion,  and 
he  told  me,  among  other  things,  that  the  letter 
to  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  never  brought  to 
him." 

The  army  had  been  six  months  in  the  field 
this  summer,  engaged  against  the  cavaliers  and 
Scots,  who,  being  now  reduced  and  subdued, 
they  began  to  express  a  high  dissatisfaction 
with  the  present  treaty,  because  no  provision 
had  been  made  for  their  darling  point,  liberty  of 
conscience.  Here  they  had  just  reason  of  com- 
plaint, but  ought  not  to  have  relieved  themselves 
by  the  methods  and  at  the  expense  they  did. 
They  were  thoroughly  incensed  against  the  king 
and  his  cavaliers  on  one  hand,  and  the  high 
Presbyterians  on  the  other.  It  appeared  to  them 
that  the  king's  sentiments  in  religion  and  poli- 
tics were  not  changed  ;  that  he  would  alwayss 
be  raising  new  commotions  till  things  returned 
to  their  former  channel ;  and  in  the  present 
treaty,  he  had  yielded  nothing  but  through  con- 
straint ;  and  that  when  he  was  restored  to  his 
throne,  after  all  the  blood  that  had  been  shed, 
they  should  be  safe  neither  in  their  lives  nor  for- 
tunes. On  the  other  hand,  if  Presbyterian  uni- 
formity should  take  place  by  virtue  of  the  pres- 
ent treaty,  their  condition  would  be  little  mend- 
ed ;  for,  said  they,  if  the  king  himself  cannot 
obtain  liberty  to  have  the  Common  Prayer  read 
privately  in  his  own  family,  what  must  the  In- 
dependents and  sectaries  expect !  What  have 
we  been  contending  for,  if,  after  all  the  hazards 
we  have  run.  Presbytery  is  to  be  exalted,  and 
we  are  to  be  banished  our  country  or  driven 
into  corners  ! 

While  the  resentments  of  the  army  were  thus- 
inflamed,  their  officers,  who  were  high  enthusi- 
asts, though  men  of  unblemished  morals,*  ob- 
served several  days  of  fasting  and  prayer  at 
their  headquarters  at  St.  Alban's,  till  at  length,, 
in  a  kind  of  despair,  and  under  the  influence  of 
a  religious  phrensy,  they  entered  upon  the  most 
desperate  measures,  resolving  to  assume  the 
sovereign  power  into  their  own  hands,  to  bring 
the  king  to  justice,  to  set  aside  the  Covenant,, 
and  change  the  government  into  a  common- 
wealth. To  accomplish  these  monstrous  reso- 
lutions, which  were  founded,  as  they  alleged, 
upon  self-preservation,  though  prosecuted  by 
measures  subversive  not  only  of  the  rights  of 
Parliament,  but  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  so- 
ciety, the  officers  agreed  upon  a  remonstrance, 
which  was  presented  to  the  Parliament  by  six  of 
their  council,  November  20,  eight  days  before 
the  expiration  of  the  treaty  with  the  king,  to- 
gether with  a  letter  from  General  Fairfax  to  the 
House,  desiring  it  might  have  a  present  reading. 

The  remonstrance  sets  forth  the  miscarriages 
of  the  king's  government,!  and  his  double  and 


*  The  character  of  virtuous  morals.  Bishop  War- 
burton  considers  as  inconsistent  with  their  being,  as 
Mr.  Neal  says,  "  high  enthusiasts ;  when,"  his  lord- 
ship adds,  "  they  all  acted,  as  almost  all  enthusiasts 
do,  on  this  maxim,  that  the  end  sanctifies  the  means, 
and  that  the  elect,  of  which  number  they  reckoned 
them.selves  chief,  are  above  ordinances."  Mr.  Neal, 
I  presume,  is  to  be  understood  as  speaking  of  their 
personal  virtue,  with  regard  to  sensual  indulgences, 
in  opposition  to  drunkenness  and  debauchery. — Ed. 

t  Lieutenant-general  Ludlow  a|)prehended  that 
the  dispute  between  the  kmg's  party  and  the  Parlia- 


50 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


dilatory  proceedings  in  treaties,  particularly  in 
that  now  on  foot,  and  then  desires  the  House 
to  return  to  their  votes  of  non-addresses ;  to 
lay  aside  that  bargaining  proposition  of  com- 
pounding with  delinquents,  and  bring  them  to 
punishment  ;  and  among  these  offenders,  they 
propose,  "(1.)  That  the  king  be  brought  to  jus- 
tice, as  the  capital  cause  of  all.  (2.)  That  a 
day  be  set  for  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the 
Duke  of  York  to  surrender  themselves,  or  be 
declared  incapable  of  the  government ;  and  that, 
for  the  future,  no  king  be  admitted  but  by  the 
free  election  of  the  people."* 

The  Commons,  upon  reading  this  remon- 
strance, were  struck  with  surprise,  and,  being 
in  the  utmost  consternation,  deferred  the  de- 
bate for  ten  days,  i.  c,  to  the  end  of  the  treaty. 
But  the  officers,  being  apprehensive  of  what 
might  happen  in  that  time,  sent  Colonel  Ewer 
to  the  Isle  of  Wight  with  a  party  of  horse  to  se- 
cure the  person  of  the  king,  and  ordered  Col- 
onel Hammond  to  leave  the  island,  and  attend 
the  council  of  officers  at  their  headquarters  at 
Windsor  ;  the  king  was  secured  the  very  day 
after  the  expiration  of  the  treaty,  and  next 
morning  [November  30]  conveyed  by  a  party 
of  horse  to  Hurst  Castle,  where  he  continued 
till  he  was  conducted  by  Colonel  Harrison  to 
Windsor,  in  order  to  his  trial.  The  same  day 
the  officers  sent  a  declaration  to  the  House  to 
enforce  their  late  remonstrance,  complaining 
that  they  were  wholly  neglected,  and  desiring 
the  majority  of  the  House  to  exclude  from  their 
councils  such  as  would  obstruct  justice,  or  else 
withdraw  from  them.t  This  occasioned  warm 
debates  among  the  members,  and  a  motion  that 
the  principal  officers  who  had  a  share  in  the  re- 
monstrance might  be  impeached  of  high  trea- 
son.t  Upon  which  the  army  marched  directly 
to  London,  with  General  Fairfax  at  their  head, 
"Who  wrote  to  the  lord-mayor  and  common 
council  that  he  was  marching  to  Westminster 
in  pursuance  of  the  late  remonstrance,  and  de- 
sired £40.000  of  the  city,  in  part  of  their  ar- 
rears. December  2,  he  quartered  his  troops 
about  Whitehall,  the  Mews,  Covent  Garden,  and 
■St.  James's,  assuring  the  citizens  that  they 
should  disturb  no  man  in  his  property. 

Though  the  houses  were  now  environed  with 
an  armed  force,  they  had  the  courage  to  vote 
that  the  seizing  of  the  person  of  the  king,  and 
carrying  him  prisoner  to  Hurst  Castle,  was 
■without  their  advice  and  consent ;  and  next 
day,  after  having  sat  all  night  [December  5],  it 
v.'as  carried,  without  a  division,  that  the  king's 
concessions  to  the  Parliament's  propositions 
were  a  sufficient  ground  for  the  houses  to  pro- 
ceed upon  for  settling  the  peace  of  the  king- 
dom, two  hundred  and  forty-four  members  be- 


ment  turned  upon  this  simple  question,  "  Whether 
the  king  should  govern  as  a  god  by  his  will,  and  the 
nation  be  governed  by  force  like  beasts ;  or  whether 
the  people  should  be  governed  by  laws  made  by 
themselves,  and  live  under  a  government  derived 
from  their  own  consent  ?" — Ltidlow's  Memoirs,  4lo, 
1771,  p.  114.  On  this  point  rests  the  difference  be- 
tween free  and  despotic  governments,  and  in  the  de- 
gree in  which  a  government  deviates  from  the  for- 
mer, it  approximates  to  the  latter  state.— Ed. 

*  Clarendon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  236.  Rapin,  vol.  li.,  p. 
564,  folio. 

t  Rushworth,  p.  1341.    Rapin,  vol.ii.,  p.  565,  folio. 

j  Clarendon,  vol.  lii.,  p.  237. 


ing  present.  But  the  officers  being  determined 
to  carry  their  point,  discharged  the  city  trained- 
bands,  and  placed  a  regiment  of  horse  and  an- 
otiier  of  foot,  the  very  next  day,  at  the  door  of 
the  Parliament  House,  and  Colonel  Pride,  hav- 
ing a  list  of  the  disaffected  members  in  his  hand, 
took  about  forty  of  them  into  custody,  and  de- 
nied entrance  to  about  a  hundred  more,  which 
determined  several  others  to  withdraw,  inso- 
much that  the  House  of  Commons  was  left  in 
the  possession  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  or 
two  hundred  persons,  most  of  them  officers  of 
the  army,  who  conducted  everything  according 
to  the  plan  concerted  in  their  council  at  St.  Al- 
ban's.  Oliver  Cromwell  was  not  yet  come  to 
London  from  his  northern  expedition,  but  wrote 
from  Knottingsley,  November  20,  that  the  offi- 
cers of  his  regiments  were  deeply  sensible  of 
the  miseries  of  the  kingdom,  and  had  a  great 
zeal  for  impartial  justice  to  be  done  on  offend- 
ers, with  whom  he  concurred.  December  6,  he 
came  to  London,  and  next  day  had  the  thanks 
of  the  House  thus  garbled  for  his  faithful  servi- 
ces to  the  public*  December  11,  a  paper  call- 
ed the  Agreement  of  the  People  was  presented 
to  the  general  and  council  of  officers,  as  a  rule 
for  future  government.  It  was  supposed  to  be 
drawn  up  by  Ireton,  and  proposed  a  dissolution 
of  the  present  Parliament,  and  a  new  one  to  be 
chosen,  consisting  of  three  hundred  members,! 
who  were  to  elect  a  council  of  state  from 
among  themselves,  for  the  management  of  all 
public  affairs,  under  certain  restrictions  ;  one  of 
whicli  is,  that  they  do  not  lay  any  restraints  on 
the  consciences  of  men  for  religious  differences 
(as  has  been  mentioned),  but  no  proceedings 
were  had  upon  it,  nor  did  it  ever  take  place. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  House  of  Commons  (if 
they  now  deserved  that  name)  voted  his  maj- 
esty's concessions  at  the  Isle  of  Wight  not  sat- 
isfactory,! and  "  that  no  member  who  had  been 
absent  when  that  vote  was  passed  should  sit 
again  in  the  House  till  he  had  subscribed  it;ij 
that  no  more  addresses  be  made  to  the  king  for 
the  future  ;ll  that  no  malignant,  who  had  assist- 
ed against  the  Parliament  in  the  first  or  second 
civil  war,  or  that  had  abetted  the  late  tumults, 
should  be  capable  of  being  chosen  lord-mayor 
or  alderman  of  the  city  of  London,  or  be  capa- 
ble of  any  place  of  profit  or  trust,  or  so  much 
as  of  giving  his  vote  for  choosing  persons  into 
such  offices,  for  the  space  of  one  year. "IT  The 
secluded   members  published  a  protestation** 


*  Dugdale,  p.  363. 

+  According  to  the  authority,  Williams's  MS.  Col- 
lections, on  which  Dr.  Grey  relies,  it  was  proposed 
that  the  representatives  should  be  four  hundred ; 
and  the  ground  of  the  motion  was,  that  the  people  of 
England  (being  very  unequally  distributed  by  bor- 
oughs for  election  of  their  representatives)  were  in- 
diderently  proportioned. — Ed. 

X  They  also  reversed  the  vote  of  the  5th  of  De- 
cember, viz.,  "  that  the  king's  answer  was  a  ground 
on  which  to  proceed  upon  for  the  settlement  of  the 
peace  of  the  kingdom,"  as  dishonourable  to  Parlia- 
ment, destructive  to  the  peace  of  the  kingdon,  and 
tending  to  the  breach  of  the  public  faith  of  the  king- 
dom.—/>r.  Grey,  p,  357.— Ed. 

^  Rushworth,  p.  1300.  II  Ibid.,  1365. 

^  Clarendon,  p.  240. 

**  Hishop  Warburton  observes,  "  that  these  very 
secluded  members  had  voted  the  bishops  guilty  of 
high  treason,  for  protesting  in  the  same  manner,  when 
under  the  like  force."    The  reader  will  turn  back  to 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


91 


against  all  these  proceedings  as  null  and  void 
till  they  were  restored  to  their  places  ;  but  the 
lords  and  commons  who  remained  in  the  hous- 
es voted  their  protestation  false,  scandalous,  and 
seditious. 

The  army,  having  vanquished  all  opposition, 
went  on  with  irresistible  violence  to  change  the 
whole  frame  of  government ;  *  and,  to  make  way 
for  it,  determined  to  impeach  the  king  of  high 
treason,  as  having  been  the  cause  of  all  the 
blood  that  had  been  spilt  in  the  late  war.t  This 
unheard-of  motion  met  with  some  opposition 
even  in  that  packed  assembly  ;t  Oliver  Crom- 
well was  in  doubt,  and  said,  "  If  any  man  moved 
this  of  choice  or  design,  he  should  think  him  the 
greatest  traitor  in  the  world  ;  but  since  Provi- 
dence or  necessity  had  cast  them  upon  it,  he 
Should  pray  God  to  bless  their  councils,  though 
he  was  not  provided  on  the  sudden  to  give  them 
advice."  Some  said  there  was  no  need  to  bring 
the  king  to  a  trial ;  others,  that  there  was  no  law 
to  try  him,  nor  any  judicatory  to  call  him  to  ac- 
count ;  but  all  this  was  overruled  ;  and  because 
the  Lords  rejected  the  ordinance  for  the  king's 
trial.  Lord  Clarendon  tells  us,  they  shut  up  their 
doors ;  but  Mr.  Whilelocke  says,  they  entered 
their  house,  and  although  several  ordinances 
passed,  the  Commons  would  not  own  them  any 
longer.  Thus  the  Constitution  was  dissolved, 
and  all  that  ensued  must  be  considered  as  effect- 
ed by  the  military  power,  iji 

Though  some  few  petitions  had  been  procured 
from  divers  counties,  and  even  from  the  com- 
mon council  of  London,  that  justice  might  be 
done  upon  the  authors  of  our  troubles  and  blood- 
shed, in  an  exemplary  way,  and  without  respect 
to  persons,  yet  the  general  voice  of  the  nation 
was  against  such  violence,  as  appears  by  the 
petitions  and  protestations  of  all  orders  of  peo- 
ple. 

The  prelatical  clergy  lay  still,  either  because 
they  could  not  assemble  in  a  body,  or  because 
they  apprehended  they  could  do  no  service  by 
appearing ;  but  Dr.  Gauden,  afterward  Bishop  of 
Exter,  published  "  A  Protestation  against  the 
declared  Purposes  and  Proceedings  of  the  Army, 
and  others,  about  trying  and  destroying  our  Sov- 
ereign Lord  the  King,"  dated  January  5,  and 
sent  it  to  a  colonel  to  be  presented  to  Lord  Fair- 
fax at  the  council  of  war.  Dr.  Hammond  sent 
an  humble  address  to  the  general  and  council 
of  war,  to  prevent  the  horrid  design  of  putting 
the  king  to  death,  dated  January  15.  Both  these 
papers  insisted  on  the  Divine  right  of  kingly  gov- 
ernment, and  that  to  call  the  king  before  the 
tribunal  of  the  people  was  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  the  land.  The  famous  Mr.  Prynne,  one  of 
the  secluded  members,  published  "  A  brief  Me- 
mento to  the  preteiit  unparliamentary  Junto, 
touching  their  present  Intentions  and  Proceed- 
ings to  depose  and  execute  Charles  Stuart,  their 
lawful  King  of  England,"  dated  from  the  King's 
Head  in  the  Strand,  January  1,  1648. 

The  officers  of  the  army  attempted  by  their 
creatures  to  gain  over  the  London  ministers  to 


vol.  ii.,  p.  404-407,  compare  the  two  cases,  and  de- 
cide whether  they  were  entirely  similar.  Not  but  it 
is  too  common  for  men  not  to  discern  the  nature  of 
oppression  till  they  come  to  feel  it ;  and  to  condemn 
in  others  what  they  allow  m  themselves. — Ed. 

*  Rushworth,  p.  1363.        t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  567. 

t  Dugdale,  p.  366.  ^  Memor.,  p.  361. 


their  measures,  or  at  least  to  persuade  them  to 
a  neutrality.  Hugh  Peters,  one  of  their  chap- 
lains, was  sent  to  the  remains  of  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  at  Westminster  for  this  purpose,  but 
they  declared  unanimously  for  the  release  of 
the  king.  He  then  invited  several  of  the  Lon- 
don ministers,  as  Mr.  Marshal,  Calamy,  Whit- 
aker,  Sedgwick,  Ash,  &c.,  to  a  conference  with 
some  officers  of  the  army,  upon  the  subject  of 
the  coercive  power  of  the  magistrate  in  matters 
of  religion,  which  was  foreign  to  the  present 
purpose ;  but  instead  of  meeting  them,  these 
divines  assembled  with  their  brethren  at  Sion 
College,  and  published  a  paper  entitled  "A  se- 
rious and  faithful  Representation  of  the  Jugd- 
ment  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  within  the 
Province  of  London,  whose  Names  are  sub- 
scribed, contained  in  a  Letter  to  the  General, 
and  his  Council  of  War,  dehvered  to  his  Excel- 
lency by  some  of  the  Subscribers,"  January  18, 
1648. 

In  this  address,  after  assigning  reasons  why 
they  would  not  consult  with  the  officers  upon 
matters  of  religion,  they  complain  of  their  im- 
prisoning the  members  of  Parliament:  "We 
remember,"  say  they,*  "  that  whe-n  the  king 
with  a  multitude  of  armed  men  demanded  but 
a  small  number  of  the  members  of  Parliament,  it 
was  deemed  an  unparalleled  breach  of  the  priv- 
ilege of  Parliament,  and  was  one  reason  that 
an  army  was  raised  by  their  authority,  and  for 
their  preservation  ;  but  that  this  very  army 
should  so  far  exceed  that  act,  which  was  thea 
esteemed  without  parallel,  is  what  we  could 
not  believe,  had  not  our  eyes  been  witnesses  of 
it! 

"  And  though  both  houses  of  Parliament  saw 
reason  to  take  up  arms  in  their  own  defence, 
and  in  defence  of  the  Protestant  religion,  and 
the  fundamental  laws  of  their  country,  yet  this 
cannot  be  pleaded  in  justification  of  your  usurp- 
ing an  authority  over  king  and  Parliament,  who 
are  but  so  many  private  persons,  and  no  part  of 
the  Legislature. 

"  Moreover,  though  the  Parliament  took  up 
arms  in  defence  of  the  laws,  it  was  never  their 
intention  to  do  violence  to  the  person  of  the 
king,  or  divest  him  of  his  royal  authority,  much 
less  to  overthrow  the  whole  Constitution. 

"  We  therefore  think  ourselves  bound  by  our 
protestation,  and  by  our  solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  to  appear  for  our  excellent  Constitu- 
tion against  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  power  in 
the  king,  on  the  one  hand,  and  against  the  ille- 
gal proceedings  of  private  persons,  tending  to 
subvert  the  Constitution  and  introduce  anarchy 
and  confusion,  on  the  other. 

"  Instead,  therefore,  of  consulting  with  you, 
we  earnestly  entreat  you,  as  the  ambassadors 
of  Christ,  that  you  would  consider  ji  the  evil 
of  your  present  ways,  and  turn  from  them. 
You  cannot  but  know  that  the  Word  of  God 
commands  obedience  to  magistrates,  and  con- 
sonant to  this  Scripture  has  been  the  judgment 
of  Protestant  divines  at  home  and  abroad,  with 
whom  we  concur  ;  disclaiming,  detesting,  and 
abhorring  the  practices  of  Jesuits,  concerning 
the  opposing  of  lawful  magistrates  by  any  pri- 
vate persons,  and  the  murdering  of  kings  by 
any,  though  under  the  most  specious  and  col- 
ourable, pretences.    Examine  your  consciences, 


Vol.  Pamph.,  No.  52. 


92 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


if  any  number  of  persons  of  different  principles 
from  yourselves  had  invaded  the  rights  of  Par- 
liament, imprisoned  the  king,  and  carried  him 
about  from  place  to  place,  and  attempted  the 
dissolution  of  the  whole  government,  whether 
you  would  not  have  charged  them  with  the 
highest  crimes. 

"  We  desire  you  not  to  infer  the  justice  of 
your  proceedings  from  the  success,  but  to  dis- 
tinguish between  God's  permission  and  appro- 
bation, and  that  God's  suffering  men  to  prosper 
in  their  evil  courses  is  one  of  the  severest  judg- 
ments ;  the  providence  of  God,  therefore,  which 
is  so  often  pleaded  in  justification  of  your  ac- 
tions, is  no  safe  rule  to  walk  by,  in  such  actions 
which  the  Word  of  God  condemns. 

"  Nor  is  it  safe  to  be  guided  by  the  impulses 
of  the  spirit,  when  they  are  contrary  to  the 
written  Word  of  God  ;  we  are  to  try  the  spirits, 
and  to  have  recourse  to  the  law  and  the  testi- 
mony ;  if  they  speak  not  according  to  them, 
there  is  no  light  in  them. 

"  If  you  plead  necessity  for  doing  that  which 
yourselves  confess  to  be  irregular,  we  answer, 
no  necessity  can  oblige  men  to  sin  ;  besides,  it 
is  apparent  you  were  under  no  necessity,  the 
Parliament  (till  forced  by  you)  being  full  and 
free ;  besides,  you  have  engaged  by  oath  to 
preserve  his  majesty's  person,  and  the  privile- 
ges of  Parliament,  and  no  necessity  can  justi- 
fy perjury,  or  dispense  with  lawful  oaths. 

"  We  therefore  beseech  you  to  recede  from 
this  your  evil  way,  and  learn  John  Baptist's 
lesson  to  soldiers.  Do  violence  to  no  man,  nei- 
ther accuse  any  man  falsely,  and  be  content 
with  your  wages.  But  if  you  persist  in  this 
way,  be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out.  If  our 
exhortation  prevail  not,  we  have  discharged 
our  duty,  and  we  hope  delivered  our  own  souls. 
If  it  be  our  portion  to  suffer,  as  we  are  told,  we 
trust  we  shall  suffer  as  Christians  ;  but  we 
hope  better  things  of  you,  and  subscribe  our- 
selves your  servants  in  the  Lord, 

James  Nalton,  pastor,  Foster  Lane. 

Thomas  Cavvton,  St.  Bartholomew  Exchange. 

John  Fuller,  Bishopsgate. 

Francis  Roberts,  St.  Austin. 

William  Jenkins,  Christ  Church. 

Elidad  Blackwell,  Alhallows  Undershaft. 

William  Harrison,  Grace  Church. 

John  Sheffield,  St.  Swithin's. 

Matthew  Havijand,  Trinity. 

George  Smalwood,  Poultry. 

William  Taylor,  Coleman-street. 

Christopher  Love,  Aldersgate. 

Robert  Mercer,  St.  Bride's. 

Thomas  Gataker,  Rotherhithe. 

George  Walker,  St.  John  Evangelist. 

Arthur  Jackson,  M.  Wood-street. 

Charles  Offspring,  St.  Antholin's. 

Henry  Rodborough,  Eastcheap. 

Is[icholas  Profet,  Foster  Lane. 

Thomas  Case,  Milk-street. 

Stanly  Gower,  Ludgate. 

Andrew  Janevvay,  Alhallovvs-on-the-Wall. 

Samuel  Clark,  St.  Bene't  Fink. 

Thomas  Clenden,  Alhallows  Barking. 

John  Wale,  St.  M.  Cornhill. 

James  Crawford,  St.  Christopher. 

Ralph  Robinson,  pastor,  St.  Mary  Woolnoth. 

William  Biackmore,  St.  Peter,  CornhiU. 

Francis  Peck,  St.  Nicholas  Acorns. 

Stephen  Watkins,  St.  Saviour,  Southwark. 

William  Wickers,  St.  Andrew  Hubbard. 

John  Wallis,  Ironmonger  Lane. 


Thomas  Manton,  Stoke  Newington. 

Thomas  Gouge,  St.  Sepulchre's. 

Thomas  Watson,  Walbrook. 

Nathaniel  Stanitbrth,  St.  Mary  Bothaw 

John  Halk,  Aihallows-on-the-Wall. 

John  Glascock,  St.  Andrew  Undershaft. 

Thomas  Whately,  St.  Mary  Woolchurch. 

Jacob  Tice,  Billingsgate. 

Jonathan  Lloyd,  Garlickhithe. 

John  Morton,  Newington  Butts. 

Joshua  Kirby.  2 

Arther  Barham,  St.  Helen's. 

Benjamin  Needier,  St.  Margaret  Moses. 

John  Wells,  St.  Olave  Jury. 

Robert  Matthew,  St.  Andrew  Wardrobe." 

Notwithstanding  their  seasonable  and  explicit 
remonstrance,  the  Episcopal  divines,  in  order  to 
throw  off  the  guilt  of  the  king^s  misfortunes  from 
themselves,  who,  hy  their  obstinate  behaviour,  had 
in  reality  reduced  him  to  the  last  extremity,  re- 
solved to  fix  it  upon  the  Presbyterians  ;  as  their 
successors  have  done  even  till  this  day.  It  was 
therefore  given  out  among  the  people,  that  the 
Presbyterians  had  brought  the  king  to  the  block, 
and  that  the  Independents  would  cut  off  his 
head.*     To  wipe  away  this  calumny,  the  Pres- 


*  The  e.xecution  of  Charles  has  generally  been  at- 
tributed by  Royalist  writers  to  the  malecontent  reli- 
gionists of  the  day.  Court  divines  and  mercenary 
scribblers  sought,  after  the  Restoration,  to  inflame- 
the  worst  passions  of  a  licentious  court  by  loading 
the  Nonconformists  with  the  guilt  of  the  king's 
death  :  and  their  representations  have  been  handed, 
down  to  the  present  day.  The  persecutions  of  the 
son  were  stimulated  and  justified  by  the  alleged  mur- 
der of  the  father.  In  that  age  of  reckless  profligacy 
and  fierce  intolerance,  the  most  virtuous  class  of  Eng- 
lish subjects  were  exposed  to  cruel  exactions  and 
protracted  imprisonments  as  the  representatives  of 
a  set  of  tyrannicides.  Their  personal  virtues,  their 
ministerial  diligence,  their  services  at  the  Restora- 
tion, and  their  peaceful  submission  to  the  new  order 
of  things,  pleaded  ineffectually  on  their  behalf  They 
were  condemned  without  a  hearing,  and  pined  in  soli- 
tude and  penury,  the  victims  of  a  revengeful  and  self- 
ish faction.  The  calmer  judgment  of  posterity  is 
now  doing  them  justice,  and  their  faults  are,  in  con- 
sequence, partially  forgotten  in  the  recollection  of 
their  many  virtues. 

The  death  of  Charles  was  not  the  work  of  any  re- 
ligious party.  It  was  brought  about  by  a  rare  con- 
currence of  circumstances,  and  was  effected  by  a; 
combination  of  men  of  every  variety  and  shade  of 
religious  faith.  It  is  a  palpable  violation  of  the  rules^ 
of  historic  evidence,  to  attribute  it  either  to  the  Pres- 
byterians or  to  the  Independents.  Rapin  affirms  that 
the  Rump  Parliament,  which  passed  the  ordinance 
for  the  king's  trial,  was  composed  exclusively  of  In- 
dependents ;  but  no  evidence  of  the  fact  is  adduced. 
No  one  sect  possessed  the  power,  or  were  animated 
with  the  resolution  of  perpetrating  the  deed.  Indi- 
viduals belonging  to  each  afforded  their  sanction,  but 
the  several  parties,  so  far  as  their  sentiments  could 
be  ascertained,  were  thoroughly  hostile  to  it.  This 
was  emphatically  the  case  with  the  Presbyterians, 
whose  infatuated  loyalty  towards  the  House  of  Stu- 
art was  subsequently  evinced  at  the  sacrifice  of 
themselves,  and  of  the  kingdom's  liberty.  So  soon 
as  the  purpose  of  the  army  to  bring  the  king  to  trial 
was  ascertained,  the  London  ministers,  to  the  num- 
ber of  forty-seven,  drew  up  and  published  an  address, 
entitled  '-  A  serious  and  faithful  Representation  of 
the  Judgment  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Gospel  within 
the  Province  of  London,"  in  which  they  strongly 
condemned  the  jiroceedings  of  the  officers,  and  plead 
the  cause  of  the  king,  contending  that  they  were 
bound  by  their  solemn  League  and  Covenant  to  ap- 
pear "  against  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  power  in  the 
king,  on  the  one  hand,  and  against  the  illegal  pro- 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


93 


byterian  clergy  published  another  paper,  entitled 
"A  Vindication  of  the  London  Ministers  from 
the  unjust  Aspersions  cast  upon  their  former 
1  Actings  for  the  Parliament,  as  if  they  had  pro- 
moted the  bringing  of  the  King  to  Capital  Pun- 
ishment "  It  was  addressed  to  the  people,  ;md 
after  they  had  repeatedly  declared  their  dislike 
of  the  proceedings  at  Westaiinster  against  the 
king,  they  conclude  in  words  to  this  purpose: 
"  Therefore,  according  to  our  Covenant,  we  do, 
in  the  name  of  the  great  God,  warn  and  exhort 
all  that  belong  to  our  respective  charges,  or  to 
"whom  we  have  administered  the  said  Covenant, 
to  abide  by  their  vow,  and  not  suffer  themselves 
to  be  persuaded  to  subscribe  the  Agreement  of 
the  People,  which  is  subversive  of  the  present 
Constitution,  and  makes  way  for  the  toleration 
of  all  heresies  and  blasphemies,  and  will  effectu- 
ally divide  the  two  kingdoms  of  England  and 
Scotland.  We  earnestly  beseech  them  to  mourn 
for  the  sins  of  the  Parliament  and  city,  and  for 
the  miscarriages  of  the  king  himself  in  his  gov- 
ernment, which  have  cast  him  down  from  his 
excellency  into  a  horrid  pit  of  misery,  almost 
beyond  example  ;  and  to  pray  that  God  would 
give  him  effectual  repentance,  and  sanctify  the 
bitter  cup  of  Divine  displeasure  which  Divine 
Providence  has  put  into  his  hands;  and  that  God 
would  restrain  the  violence  of  men,  that  they 
may  not  dare  to  draw  upon  themselves  and  the 
kingdom  the  blood  of  their  sovereign." 

This  was  signed  by  fifty-seven  ministers, 
among  whom  were  the  following  nineteen, 
whose  names  were  not  to  the  above-mentioned 
representation : 

Cornelius  Burges,  D.D.,  at  St.  Paul's. 
William  Gouge,  D.D.,  Blackfriars. 
Edmund  Stanton,  D.D.,  Kingston. 
Thomas  Temple,  D.D.,  Battersea, 
Edmund  Calamy,  B.D.,  Aldermanbury. 


ceedings  of  private  individuals,  tending  to  subvert  the 
Constitution  and  introduce  anarchy  and  confusion,  on 
the  other."  The  document  thus  published  breathes 
the  free  spirit  which  had  formerly  struggled  against 
the  usurpations  of  Charles,  and  should  have  served 
to  screen  its  authors  from  the  charge  which  has  been 
preferred  against  them.  "  Examine  your  conscien- 
ces," say  the  ministers,  addressing  the  men  before 
whom  Parbament  had  quailed,  "  if  any  number  of 
persons,  of  dit!"eient  principles  from  yourselves,  had 
invaded  the  rights  of  Parliament,  imprisoned  the 
king,  and  carried  him  about  from  place  to  place,  and 
attempted  the  dissolution  of  the  whole  government, 
whether  you  would  not  have  charged  them  with  the 
highest  crimes." 

Another  paper  was  subsequently  drawn  up  by  the 
Presbyterian  ministers,  and  signed  by  fifty  seven,  in- 
cluding nineteen  who  had  not  subscribed  the  former, 
in  which  the  members  of  their  respective  congrega- 
tions were  entreated,  among  other  things,  to  pray 
"that  God  would  restrain  the  violence  of  men,  that 
they  may  not  dare  to  draw  upon  themselves  and  tlie 
kingdom  the  blood  of  their  king."  Burnet  expressly 
excepts  the  Presbyterians  from  any  share  in  the 
king's  death,  declaring  "  that  they  Mid  the  body  of  the 
city  were  much  against  it,  and  were  cveryirhire  fasting 
and  praying  for  the  king's  preservation.'' — History  of  his 
«i('/i  Times,  i.,  p.  85.  Baxter  bears  a  similar  testimo- 
ny. He  says,  "  They  preached  and  prayed  against 
disloyalty;  they  drew  up  a  writing  to  the  lord-gener- 
al, declaring  their  abhorrence  of  all  violence  against 
the  person  of  the  king,  and  urging  him  and  his  army 
to  take  heed  of  such  an  unlawful  act ;  they  present- 
ed it  to  the  general  when  they  saw  the  king  in  dan- 
ger, but  pride  prevailed  against  their  counsels." — 
Sylvester's  Baxter,  pt.  i.,  p.  64. — C. 


Jeremiah  Whitaker,  St.  Mary  Magdalen,  Bermond- 

sey. 
Daniel  Cawdrey,  St.  Martin  in  the  Fields. 
William  Spurstow,  D.D.,  Hackney. 
Lazarus  Seaman,  Bread-street. 
Simeon  Ash,  Bassishaw. 
Thomas  Thoroughgood,  of  Crayford. 
Edward  Corbet,  Croydon. 
John  Viner,  Aklgate. 
John  Crosse,  Friday-street. 
Peter  Witham,  St.  Alban,  Wood-street. 
John  Stileman,  Rotherhithe. 
Josias  Ball,  North  Grey. 

Jonathan  Devereux,  late  of  St.  Andrew,  Holborn. 
Paul  Russel,  Hackney. 

It  was  not  possible  for  the  few  Independent 
ministers  in  London  to  join  the  Presbyterians 
in  these  addresses,  (1.)  Because  they  w^ere  not 
possessed  of  parochial  livings,  nor  members  of 
the  Provincial  Assembly  of  London,  nor  admitted 
to  their  weekly  consultations  at  Sion  College, 
but  were  a  sort  of  dissenters  from  the  public 
establishment.  (2.)  Because  they  did  not  be- 
lieve themselves  so  far  bound  by  the  Covenant 
as  to  oppose  a  toleration,  nor  to  support  any 
constitution  that  was  not  consistent  with  Chris- 
tian liberty,  which  the  Presbyterians  would  not 
admit.  None  of  their  ministers  that  I  know  of 
declared  their  approbation  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  council  of  officers  in  the  trial  of  the  king, 
except  Mr.  Hugh  Peters  and  Mr.  John  Good- 
win. Some  of  the  Independent  ministers  in  the 
country  joined  the  Presbyterians  in  protesting 
against  it ;  those  of  Oxford  and  Northampton 
of  both  denominations  published  their  humble 
advice  and  earnest  desire,  presented  to  General 
Fairfax  and  the  council  of  war,  January  25, 
subscribed  by  nineteen  or  twenty  names,  in 
which  they  declare  their  utter  disapprobation  of 
all  proceedings  against  his  majesty's  crown  and 
life,  as  contrary  to  Scripture,  to  the  laws  of  the 
land,  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and 
tending  to  destroy  the  Constitution,  and  involve 
the  nation  in  a  war  with  their  neighbours.  They 
declare  their  dissent  from  the  late  violence  upon 
the  Parliament ;  but  with  reference  to  religion 
they  say,  "Though  our  souls  abhor  that  grand 
design  of  the  devil  and  his  agents  to  decry  all 
religious  and  zealous  professors  under  the  names 
of  sectaries  and  Independents,  we  willingly 
grant,  and  heartily  desire,  that  the  interest  of 
all  godly  and  honest  men  may  be  carefully  pro- 
vided for,  as  far  as  is  consistent  with  the  Word 
of  God,  our  Covenant,  and  the  public  peace  ; 
and  that  men  of  different  apprehensions  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  may  not  be  utterly  incapable  of 
all  offices  of  power  and  trust,  though  we  can- 
not agree  to  a  universal  toleration."  They  con- 
clude with  beseeching  the  general  to  suspend 
all  farther  prosecutions  against  the  king,  and  to 
endeavour  a  right  understanding  between  the 
king.  Parliament,  and  army  ;  but  if  they  cannot 
prevail,  they  desire  to  wash  their  hands  of  the 
blood  of  their  dread  sovereign,  and  to  approve 
themselves  innocent  of  all  that  confusion  and 
misery  in  which  the  deposing  and  taking  away 
his  majesty's  life  will  involve  them,  their  pos- 
terity, and  all  men  professing  godliness  in  the 
three  kingdoms.* 

It  must  be  confessed  the  Independents  were 
a  sort  of  malccontents,  and  had  reason  to  be 
dissatisfied  with  the  treaty  of  Newport,  because 


*  Vol.  Pamph.,  109. 


94 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


they  were  not  only  excluded  the  new  establish- 
ment, but  debarred  of  a  toleration  ;  and  yet,  as 
Mr.  Echard  and  Dr.  Bates  the  physician  ob- 
serve, several  of  them  joined  with  their  breth- 
ren in  declaring  against  the  design  of  putting 
the  king  to  death,  in  their  sermons  from  the 
pulpit,  in  conferences,  monitory  letters,  peti- 
tions, protestations,  and  public  remonstrances.* 

The  Scots  Kirk,  by  their  commissioners,  de- 
clared and  protested  against  the  putting  the 
king  to  death,  as  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
their  solemn  League  and  Covenant.  They  pub- 
lished a  protestation,  directed  to  the  ministers 
of  the  province  of  London  meeting  at  Sion  Col- 
lege, January  25,  1648-9,  witli  a  letter,  exhort- 
ing them  to  courage  and  constancy  in  their  op- 
position to  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  to  a  universal  toleration. 

Sundry  foreign  princes  and  states,  by  their 
ambassadors,  interceded  for  the  king;  some 
from  their  respect  to  his  person,  and  others 
from  a  regard  to  the  honour  that  was  due  to 
crowned  heads.  But  it  was  impossible  to  stop 
the  impetuous  wildtire  of  the  army,  who,  hav- 
ing brought  the  king  from  Hurst  Castle  to  Wind- 
sor, obtained  a  vote  in  the  Parliament  (if  we 
may  so  call  it)  that  all  ceremonies  due  to  a 
crowned  head  be  laid  aside  ;  and  then  came  to 
the  following  resolutions,  January  4 ;  "  First, 
that  the  people,  under  God,  are  the  original  of 
all  just  power.  Secondly,  that  the  House  of 
Commons  are  the  supreme  power  of  the  nation. 
Thirdly,  that  whatever  is  declared  for  law  by 
the  Commons  in  Parliament  is  valid,  though 
the  consent  of  the  king  and  the  House  of  Peers 
be  not  had  thereto."!  The  House  of  Lords, 
which  was  reduced  to. sixteen  peers,  having 
unanimously  rejected  the  ordinance  of  the  Com- 
mons for  the  king's  trial,  and  adjourned  for  a 
fortnight,  the  Conmions  resolved  to  act  without 
them,  and,  having  named  a  committee  of  thirty- 
eight  persons  to  receive  informations,  and  draw 
up  a  charge  against  the  king,  they  constituted 
a  high  court  of  justice  for  his  trial, t  consisting 
of  one  hundred  and  forty-five  persons,  of  whom 
twenty  or  more  might  proceed  to  business ;  but 

*  Ech.,  Hist.,  p.  654,  Elench.  Cot.  Nar.,  l>"a.,  p. 
118.  t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  568,  foho. 

t  The  reader  may  be  amused  by  the  relation  of  an 
accident  which  befell  the  king  at  Oxford,  which  ap- 
peared to  affect  his  spirits,  and  may  be  deemed,  by 
superstition,  a  prognostic  of  the  calamities  thnt  befell 
him,  and  were  now  thickening  on  him.  On  visiting 
'the  public  library,  he  was  showed,  among  other 
books,  a  Virgil,  nobly  printed  .".nd  exquisitely  bound. 
Lord  Falkland,  to  divert  him,  would  have  his  majes- 
ty make  trial  of  his  fortune  by  the  Surtes  Virgiliana, 
a  kind  of  augury  in  use  for  some  ages.  On  the  king's 
opening  the  book,  the  period  which  presented  itself 
was  Dido's  imprecation  on  .iEneas,  thus  translated 
by  Mr.  Dryden : 

"  Yet  let  a  race  untamed  and  haughty  foes 
His  peaceful  entrance  with  dire  arms  oppose ; 
Oppress'd  with  numbers  in  th'  unequal  field, 
His  men  discouraged,  and  himself  expell'd. 
Let  him  for  succour  sue  from  place  to  place. 
Torn  from  his  subjects,  and  his  son's  embrace. 
First  let  him  see  his  friends  in  battle  slain, 
And  their  untimely  fate  lament  in  vain  ; 
And  when  at  length  the  cruel  war  shall  cease, 
On  hard  conditions  may  he  buy  his  peace. 
Nor  let  him  then  enjoy  supreme  command, 
But  fall  untimely  by  some  hostile  hand, 
And  lie  unburied  on  the  barren  land." 

Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  90,  01.— E-D. 


not  above  one  half  would  act  under  this  author- 
ity :  Mr.  Sergeant  Bradshaw  was  president  ; 
Mr.  Cook,  solicitor-general :  and  Mr.  Steel,  Mr. 
Dorislaus,  and  Mr.  Aske  were  to  support  the 
charge.  The  form  of  process  being  settled  by 
the  commissioners,  the  king,  who  had  been 
conducted  to  St.  James's,  January  15,  appeared 
before  his  judges  in  Westminster  Hall  the  first 
time  on  Saturday,  January  30,  1648,  when,  be- 
ing seated  at  the  bar  in  a  chair  of  crimson  vel- 
vet, and  covered,  as  were  all  his  judges,  Mr. 
Cook,  the  solicitor,  exhibited  a  charge  of  high 
treason  against  him  ;  which  being  read,  the 
king,  instead  of  pleading  to  the  charge,  except- 
ed to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  which  was 
overruled,  the  president  replying  that  they 
would  not  sutler  their  authority  to  be  disputed, 
and  therefore  required  the  king  to  think  better 
of  it  against  Monday  ;  but  his  majesty  persist- 
ing in  his  refusal  to  plead  both  on  Monday  and 
Tuesday,  the  clerk  was  ordered  to  record  the 
default ;  Wednesday  the  court  sat  in  the  Paint- 
ed (Chamber,  and  examined  witnesses  against 
the  king  ;*  Thursday  and  Friday  they  consult- 
ed how  to  proceed  ;  and  on  Saturday  his  maj- 
esty was  brought  the  last  time  to  the  bar,  when, 
persisting  to  disown  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
court,  he  desired  to  be  heard  in  the  Painted 
Chamber  by  the  Lords  and  Commons,  but  his 
request  was  denied,  and  the  president  pronoun- 
ced sentence  of  death  against  him  as  a  traitor, 
fifty-nine  being  present,  and  signifying  their 
concurrence  by  standing  up,  as  had  been  agreed. 
Sundry  indignities  and  insults  were  offered  to 
the  king  by  the  soldiers  as  he  passed  along 
Westminster  Hall,  but  the  far  greater  number 
of  people  deplored  his  unhappy  condition.  Tues- 
day, January  30,  being  appointed  for  his  execu- 
tion, his  majesty  was  offered  the  assistance  of 
Mr.  Calamy,  Vines,  Caryl,  Dell,  and  Goodwin, 
but  he  refused  them,  and  chose  Dr.  Juxon,  bish- 
op of  London,  who,  according  to  Bishop  Bur- 
net, performed  his  office  with  such  a  dry  cold- 
ness as  could  not  raise  the  king's  devotion. f 
On  the  fatal  day  he  was  conducted  on  foot  by 
a  strong  guard  through  St.  James's  Park,  to  a 
scaffold  erected  in  the  open  street  before  the 
banqueting  house  at  Whitehall,  where  he  made 


*  The  evidence  of  Henry  Goode,  on  the  examina- 
tion, proved  the  king's  insincerity  in  the  treaty  of 
Newport ;  for  he  deposed  that,  on  observing  to  hia 
majesty,  to  whom  he  had  access,  that  he  had  justi- 
fied the  Parliament's  taking  up  arms,  the  king  replied, 
that  though  he  was  contented  to  give  the  Parlia- 
ment leave  to  call  their  own  war  what  they  pleased, 
yet  he  neither  did  then,  nor  should,  decline  the  jus- 
tice of  his  own  cause. — Riishworth  in  Macaulay's  His- 
tory, vol.  iv.,  p.  388,  note. — Ed. 

t  It  ought  to  be  mentioned  that  Hugh  Peters  ob- 
tained for  the  king  the  attendance  of  Bishop  Juxon. 
"  What  a  contrast  to  the  treatment  of  his  grandmoth- 
er, the  unfortunate  Queen  of  Scots,  by  Burleigh  and 
Walsingham,  whose  cruel  bigotry,  or  policy,  if  possi- 
ble, more  inhuman,  deprived  her  of  an  auxihary  so 
consoling  to  human  infirmity  in  the  agony  of  the  last 
moments,  religious  communion ;  by  Fletcher,  dean 
of  Peterborough,  who  outraged  her  feelings,  and  as- 
sailed her  fortitude  with  all  the  terrors  which  the 
imagination  of  a  bigot  could  supply  to  the  hatred  of 
a  theologian.  But  Burleigh  and  Walsingham  are 
canonized  politicians  ;  Fletcher  was  an  orthodox  di- 
vine —  censure  must  not  approach  them  ;  while 
Cromwell,  Ireton,  Harrison,  and  Peters  are  to  be 
named  only  with  reprobation  and  reviling." — Contin, 
of  Mackintosh's  History,  vol.  vi.,  p.  122. — C. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


95 


a  short  speech  to  the  people,  in  which  he  made 
no  acknowledgment  of  the  mistakes  of  his  gov- 
ernment, but  declared  himself  a  martyr  for  the 
laws  and  liberties  of  the  people  ;  after  which 
he  laid  down  his  head  on  the  block,  which  was 
severed  from  his  body  at  one  blow*  by  some 
bold  executioner  in  a  mask,  in  the  forty-ninth 
year  of  his  age,  and  twenty-fourth  of  his  reign. 
His  body  was  interred  privately  at  Windsor, 
February  28  following,  without  ceremony,  and 
with  no  other  inscription  on  the  coffin  than 
"  King  Charles,  IC48."t 

*  Mr.  Philip  Henry  was  a  spectator  of  this  event, 
and  noticed  two  remarkable  circumstances  which 
attended  it.  One  was,  that  at  the  instant  when  the 
blow  was  given,  there  was  such  a  dismal,  universal 
groan  among  the  thousands  of  people  that  were  with- 
in sight  of  It  (as  it  were  with  one  consent)  as  he  nev- 
er heard  before,  and  desired  he  might  never  hear  the 
like  again.  The  other  was,  that  immediately  after 
the  stroke  was  struck,  there  was,  according  to  order, 
one  troop  marching  •  from  Charing  Cross  towards 
King-street,  and  another  from  King-street  towards 
Charing  Cross,  purposely  to  disperse  and  scatter  the 
people,  and  to  divert  the  dismal  thoughts  which  they 
could  not  but  be  tilled  with,  by  driving  them  to  shift 
every  one  for  his  own  safety. — P.  Henry's  Life,  p. 
]6.— Ed. 

+  Had  he  died  a  martyr,  he  could  not  have  main- 
tained a  more  composed  or  betitting  aspect ;  so  anom- 
alous are  the  exhibilions  of  human  character,  so  com- 
plex and  ill-assorted  the  attributes  which  may  per- 
tain to  the  same  man.  It  is  not  the  province  of  the 
historian  to  pronounce  on  the  future,  or  to  limit  the 
range  of  Divine  mercy.  Charity  will  hope  that  the 
closing  hours  of  a  life  distinguished  by  falsehood, 
tyranny,  and  other  crimes,  was  visited  by  that  be- 
nign and  purifying  power  which  alone  can  renovate 
the  heart,  and  prepare  for  everlasting  peace.  It 
would  be  beside  the  province  of  this  work  to  enter 
on  the  several  questions  to  which  the  execution  of 
Charles  has  given  rise.  It  was,  undoubtedly,  an  un- 
constitutional and  disastrous  event,  in  which  the  ge- 
nius of  the  commonwealth's  men  was  signally  at 
fault.  No  provision  has  been  made  by  English  law 
for  the  punishment  of  a  king  convicted  of  an  attempt 
to  subvert  the  Constitution  and  annihilate  the  liber- 
ties of  the  people.  Of  this  crime,  however,  Charles 
was  guilty  ;  and  the  men  whom  he  had  sought  to 
crush  appealed,  in  justification  of  his  death,  to  the 
first  principles  of  justice,  and  the  acknowledgd  pur- 
poses of  human  society. 

"  Whatever  the  matter  was,"  says  Milton,  "wheth- 
er we  consider  the  magistrates  or  the  body  of  the 
people,  no  men  ever  undertook  with  more  courage, 
and,  which  our  adversaries  themselves  confess,  in  a 
more  sedate  temper  of  mind,  so  brave  an  action — 
an  action  which  might  have  become  those  famous 
heroes  of  whom  we  read  in  former  ages ;  an  action 
by  which  they  ennobled  not  only  laws  and  their 
execution,  which  seems  for  the  future  equally  resto- 
red to  high  and  low  against  one  another,  but  even 
justice,  and  to  have  rendered  it,  after  so  signal  a 
judgment,  more  illustrious  and  greater  than  in  its 
own  self"  That  the  transaction  was  illegal,  is  uni- 
versally admitted  ;  but  it  was  an  act  of  substantial  jus- 
tice due — if  death  can  ever  be  so — to  the  crimes  which 
had  been  perpetrated,  and  demanded,  apparently,  by  the 
necessities  of  the  state.  "  It  is  much  to  be  doubted," 
says  Mr.  Fox,  "  whether  this  singular  proceeding 
has  not,  as  much  as  any  other  circumstance,  served 
to  raise  the  character  of  the  English  nation  in  the 
opinion  of  Europe  in  general.  He  who  has  read,  and, 
still  more,  he  who  has  heard  in  conversation  discus- 
sions upon  this  subject  by  foreigners,  must  have  per- 
ceived that,  even  in  the  minds  of  those  who  condemn 
the  act,  the  impression  made  by  it  has  been  far  more 
that  of  respect  and  admiration  than  that  of  disgust 
and  horror.  The  truth  is,  that  the  guilt  of  the  ac- 
tion, that  is  to  say,  the  taking  away  the  life  of  the 


The  reader  will  collect  the  character  of  this 
unfortunate  prince  rather  from  the  preceding 
facts,  than  from  the  keen  reflections  of  his  de- 
termined enemies,  or  the  flattering  encomiums 
of  his  friends  and  admirers,  which  latter,  in  their 
anniversary  sermons,*  have  almost  equalled 
his  suflJerings  with  those  of  our  blessed  Saviour. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  King  Charles  1.  was 
sober,  temperate,  chaste,  an  enemy  to  debauch- 
ery and  lewdness,  and  very  regular  in  his  devo- 
tions. But  these  excellent  qualities  were  bal- 
anced with  some  of  a  very  different  nature  ;  his 
temper  was  distant  and  reserved  to  a  fault ;  he 
was  far  from  being  generous,  and  when  he  be- 
stowed any  favour,  did  it  in  a  very  disagreeable 
and  uncourtly  manner;  his  judgment  in  affairs  of 
government  was  weak  and  unsteady,  and  gen- 
erally under  the  direction  of  a  favourite.  In  his 
treaties  with  the  Parliament,  he  was  chargeable 
with  great  insincerity,  making  use  of  evasive 
and  ambiguous  terms,  the  explication  of  which 
he  reserved  for  a  proper  place  and  season.  He 
had  lofty  notions  of  the  absolute  power  of  prin- 
ces, and  the  unlimited  obedience  of  subjects  ; 
and  though  he  was  very  scrupulous  about  his 
coronation  oath  in  regard  to  the  Church,  he 
seems  to  have  paid  little  attention  to  it  as  it 
respected  the  laws  and  liberties  of  his  subjects, 
which  he  lived  in  the  constant  violation  of  for 
fifteen  years. t  He  was  a  perfect  dupe  to  his 
queen,  who  had  too  much  the  direction  of  pub- 
lic affairs  both  in  Church  and  Stale  ;  no  won- 
der, therefore,  that  he  had  a  determined  aver- 
sion to  the  Puritans,  and  leaned  so  much  to  the 
pomp  and  ceremony  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
that  though  a  Protestant  in  judgment,  he  was 
for  meeting  the  papists  half  way,  and  for 
establishing  one  motley  religion  throughout 
Great  Britain,  in  which  both  parties  might 
unite.  He  told  Dr.  Sanderson,  that  if  God  ever 
restored  him  to  his  crown,  he  would  go  bare- 
foot from  the  Tower  of  London,  or  Whitehall, 
to  St.  Paul's,  by  way  of  penance  for  consenting 
to  the  Earl  of  Strafford's  death,  and  to  the  ab(d- 
ishing  of  Episcopacy  in  Scotland,  and  desire  the 
people  to  intercede  with  God  for  his  pardon. t 
Such  was  his  majesty's  superstition  !  Upon 
the  whole,  though  King  Charles  I.  had  virtues 
that  might  have  rendered  him  amiable  as  a  pri- 
vate gentleman,  his  foibles  were  so  many  as  en*- 


king,  is  what  most  men  in  the  place  of  Cromwell  and 
his  associates  would  have  incurred  ;  what  there  is  of 
splendour  and  of  magnanimity  in  it,  I  mean  the  pub- 
licity and  solemnity  of  the  act,  is  what  few  would  bo 
capable  of  displaying.  It  is  a  degrading  fact  to  hu- 
man nature,  that  the  sending  away  of  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester  was  an  instance  of  generosity  almost  un- 
exampled in  the  history  of  transactions  of  this  na- 
ture."— Fox's  Hist,  of  James  II.,  p.  16.  Price's  Hist. 
of  Nonconformity,  vol.  u.,  p.  429-30.  Milton's  De- 
fence of  the  People  of  England. — C. 

*  It  is  the  remark  of  Bishop  Warburton,  that 
'■  blackened  characters  on  the  one  hand,  and  impious 
comparisons  on  the  other,  equally  offensive  to  charity 
and  religion,  in  the  early  days  of  this  returning  solem- 
nity, turned  an  act  of  worship  into  a  day  of  contention. 
But  these,"  he  adds,  "  were  the  unruly  workings  of  a 
storm  just  then  subsided.  Tune,  which  so  common- 
ly corrupts  other  religious  institutions,  hath  given  a 
sobriety  and  a  purity  to  the  returning  celebrations  of 
this." — Sermon  on  the  30th  of  January,  1760,  to  the 
Ho-u.te  of  Lords,  p.  7,  8. — Ed. 

t  Clarendon's  Hist.,  p.  430. 

J  Life  of  Sanderson,  p.  79. 


96 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS, 


title  him  to  the  character  of  a  very  weak  and 
impolitic  prince  ;  far  from  appearing  truly  great 
in  any  one  scene  ol"  his  whole  life  exce|)t  the 
last.  Mr.  Coke  says,*  he  was  wilful  and  im- 
patient of  contradiction  ;  his  actions  sudden 
and  inconsiderate,  and  his  councils  without  se- 
crecy. He  would  never  confess  any  of  his  ir- 
regularities in  government,  but  justified  them 
all  to  his  death.  If  any  gave  him  advice  con- 
trary to  his  inclination,  he  would  never  be 
friends  with  him  again.  He  was  unaffable  and 
difficult  of  address,  requiring  such  strained  sub- 
missions as  were  not  usual  to  his  predecessors. 
The  sincerity  of  his  promises  and  declarations 
■was  suspected  by  his  friends  as  well  as  ene- 
mies,! so  that  he  fell  a  sacrifice  to  his  arbitrary 
principles,  the  best  friends  of  the  Constitution 
"being  afraid  to  trust  him.  Bishop  Burnett 
adds,  "that  he  affected,  in  his  behaviour,  the 
solemn  gravity  of  the  court  of  Spain,  which  was 
sullen  even  to  moroseness  ;  this  led  him  to  a 
grave,  reserved  deportment,  in  which  he  forgot 
the  civilities  and  affabilities  which  the  nation 
naturally  loved  ;  nor  did  he,  in  his  outward  de- 
portment, take  any  pains  to  oblige  any  persons 
whatsoever.  He  had  such  an  ungracious  way 
of  showing  a  favour,  that  the  manner  of  be- 
stowing it  wa  salmost  as  mortifying  as  the  fa- 
vour was  obliging.  He  loved  high  and  rough 
measures,  but  had  neither  skill  to  conduct  them, 
nor  height  of  genius  to  manage  them.  He  ha- 
ted all  that  offered  prudent  and  moderate  coun- 
sels, and  even  when  it  was  necessary  to  follow 
such  advices,  he  hated  those  that  gave  them. 
His  whole  reign,  both  in  peace  and  war,  was  a 
continued  series  of  errors,  so  that  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  had  a  true  judgment  of  things. 
He  was  out  of  measure  set  upon  following  his 
humour,  but  unreasonably  feeble  to  those  whom 
he  trusted,  chiefly  to  the  queen,  and  (it  may  be 
added  also)  to  the  clergy.  He  had  a  high  no- 
tion of  the  regal  power,  and  thought  that  every 
opposition  to  it  was  rebellion.  He  minded  lit- 
tle things  too  much,  and  was  more  concerned 
in  drawing  up  a  paper  than  in  fighting  a  battle. 
He  had  a  firm  aversion  to  popery,  but  was  much 
inclined  to  a  middle  way  between  Protestants 
and  papists,  by  which  he  lost  one  without  gain- 
ing the  other.  At  his  death  he  showed  a  calm 
and  composed  firmness  which  amazed  all  peo- 
ple, and  so  much  the  more,  because  it  was  not 
natural  to  him,  and  was,  therefore,  by  his 
friends,  imputed  to  an  extraordinary  measure 
of  supernatural  assistance." 

After  his  majesty's  death,  the  Episcopal  cler- 
gy did  all  they  could  to  canonize  him  for  a  mar- 
tyr ;  they  printed  his  sayings,  his  prayers,  his 
meditations,  and  forms  of  devotion  under  his 
sufferings,  and  drew  his  portrait  in  the  most  de- 
vout and  heavenly  attitude.  His  works,  con- 
sisting of  sundry  declarations,  remonstrances, 
and  other  papers,  have  been  published  in  a  most 
pompous  and  elegant  form  ;  among  which  one 
is  of  very  suspected  authority,  if  not  absolutely 
spurious,  I  mean  his  'Elkuv  BaoiliKi/,  i.  e.,  "  Ei- 


*  Detect.,  p.  336. 

+  Bishop  Warburton  grants  that  "  the  king  made 
his  concessions  with  so  ill  a  grace,  that  they  only 
served  to  remind  the  public  of  his  former  breaches 
of  faith,  and  to  revive  their  diffidence  in  the  royal 
word." — Sermon  before  the  House  of  Lords,  30th  of 
January,  1760,  p.  16. — Ed. 

t  His  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  23,  64,  Edin.  ed.— Ed. 


koon  Basilike,  or  the  Portraiture  of  his  sacred 
Majesty  in  his  Solitude  and  Sufferings,"  said  to 
be  written  with  the  king's  own  hand  ;  it  was 
first  printed  in  the  year  1649,  and  passed  through 
fifty  editions  in  divers  languages  within  twelve 
months.*  No  book  ever  raised  the  king's  rep- 
utation so  high  as  this,  which  obliged  the  new 
council  of  state  to  employ  the  celebrated  Milton 
to  destroy  its  credit,  which  he  attempted  in  a 
treatise  under  the  title  of  'Eikuvo  KTidaTT]^  [Ei- 
kono  Clastese],  or  an  answer  to  a  book  entitled 
Eikoon  Basilike,  printed  by  Du  Garde,  1652; 
but  the  fraud  was  not  fully  detected  till  some 
years  after. 

The  grounds  and  evidences  of  the  spurious- 
ness  of  this  book  are  these :  1.  That  Lord  Claren- 
don, in  his  history  of  the  grand  rebellion,  makes 
no  mention  of  it. t  2.  Bishop  Burnet  says,t  the 
Duke  of  York,  afterward  King  James  II.,  told 
him  in  the  year  1673,  that  the  book  called  Ei- 
koon Basilike  was  not  of  his  father's  writing, 
but  that  Dr.  Gauden  wrote  it  ;  that  after  the 
Restoration,  the  doctor  brought  the  Duke  of 
Somerset  to  the  king  and  to  the  Duke  of  York, 
who  both  affirmed  they  knew  it  to  be  his  [the 
doctor's]  writing,  and  that  it  was  carried  down 
by  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  showed  the 
king  during  the  treaty  of  Newport,  who  read 
and  approved  it.  3.  The  Earl  of  Anglesey  gave 
it  under  his  hand,  that  King  Charles  II.  and 
the  Duke  of  York  declared  to  him,  in  the  year 
1675,  that  they  were  very  sure  the  said  book 
was  not  written  by  the  king  their  father,  but  by 
Dr.  Gauden,  bishop  of  Exeter.  4.  Dr.  Gauden 
himself,  after  the  Restoration,  pleaded  the  merit 
of  this  performance  in  a  letter  to  Lord-chancel- 
lor Hyde,  who  returned  for  answer  that  the  par- 
ticular he  mentioned  \_i.  c,  of  his  being  the  au- 
thor of  that  book]  was  communicated  to  him  as 
a  secret ;  I  am  sorry,  says  his  lordship,  that  it 
was  told  me,  for  when  it  ceases  to  be  a  secret,  it 
will  please  nobody  but  Mr.  Milton. iji  5.  Dr.  Walk- 
er, a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  after 
invoking  the  great  God,  the  searcher  of  hearts,  to 
witness  to  tbe  truth  of  what  he  declares,  says,  in 
his  treatise  entitled  "  A  True  Account  of  the  Au- 
thor of  Eikoon  Basilike,"  "  I  know  and  believe 
the  book  was  written  by  Dr.  Gauden.  except 
chap.  xvi.  and  xxiv.,  by  Dr.  Duppa.  Dr.  Gau- 
den," says  he,  "  acquainted  me  with  this  design, 
and  showed  me  the  heads  of  several  chapters, 

*  It  has  gone  through  forty-seven  impressions  in 
England.  The  number  of  copies  are  said  to  have 
been  forty-eight  thousand  five  hundred.  It  produced, 
at  home  and  abroad,  the  most  favourable  impressions 
for  the  king's  piety  and  memory.  Lord  Shaftesbury 
supposed  that  it  contributed,  in  a  great  measure,  to 
his  glorious  and  never-fading  titles  of  saint  and  mar- 
tyr. Dr.  Grey  is  displeased  with  Mr.  Neal  for  sus- 
pecting the  authenticity  of  the  book,  and  has  bestow- 
ed ten  pages  to  establish  the  king's  right  to  be  con- 
sidered as  its  author.  Since  Dr.  Grey  and  Mr.  Neal 
wrote,  the  evidence  for  and  against  its  spuriousness 
has  been  fully  stated  by  Dr.  Harris,  in  his  Critical 
History,  p.  106,  116.  Mr.  Hume's  remark  with  re- 
gard to  the  genuineness  of  that  production  is,  that 
'■  it  is  not  easy  for  an  historian  to  fix  any  opinion 
which  will  be  entirely  to  his  own  satisfaction."  He 
afterward  adtls,  "  Many  have  not  scrupled  to  ascribe 
to  that  book  the  subsequent  restoration  of  the  royal 
{amWy."— History  of  Great  Britain,  vol.  vii.,  8vo,  1763, 
p.  159,  160.— Ed. 

t  Vide  Bayle's  Diet.,  title  Milton. 

t  His  Life,  p.  51.  ^  Grit.  Hist.,  p.  191. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


97 


and  some  of  the  discourses.  Some  time  after 
the  king's  death,  I  asked  him  whether  his  maj- 
esty had  ever  seen  the  book!  He  rephed,  I 
know  it  certainly  no  more  than  you  ;  but  I  used 
my  best  endeavours  that  he  might,  for  I  deliver- 
ed a  copy  of  it  to  the  Marquis  of  Hertford  when 
he  went  to  the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight."*  Dr. 
Gauden  dehvered  the  MS.  to  this  Walker,  and 
Walker  carried  it  to  the  press  ;  it  was  copied  by 
Mr.  Gifford,  and  both  the  doctor's  son  and  his 
wife  affirm  that  they  believe  it  was  written  in 
the  house  where  they  lived. 

Notwithstanding  all  this  evidence,  Mr.  Arch- 
deacon Echard  says,  the  book  is  incontestably 
the  king's  ;  and  Bishop  Kennet  adds,  that  those 
■who  pretend  Eikoon  I3asilike  was  a  sham  put 
upon  the  world,  are  a  set  of  men  that  delight  to 
judge  and  execute  the  royal  martyr  over  again 
by  murdering  his  name.  Dr.  Hohingworth,  Dug- 
dale,  WagstafT,  and  others,  have  endeavoured  to 
invalidate  the  above-mentioned  authorities,  by 
showing  that  Dr.  Gauden  was  not  capable  of 
writing  such  a  book  ;  but  surely  the  evidence 
already  procured  is  as  strong  and  convincing  as 
anything  of  this  nature  can  possibly  be.t 

The  king's  trial  and  execution,  in  such  an 
illegal  and  unheard-of  manner,  struck  the  whole 
Christian  world  with  astonishment.  The  Prince 
of  Wales,  then  in  Holland,  encouraged  the  learn- 
ed Salmasius  to  write  a  Latin  treatise,  entitled 
Defensio  Regis,  or  a  Defence  of  King  Charles  I., 
dedicated  to  his  son,  Charles  II.,  which  was  an- 
swered by  Milton,  in  a  book  entitled  Defensio 
pro  Populo  Anglicano ;  or,  A  Defence  of  the  Peo- 
ple of  England,  written  in  an  elegant,  but  severe 
style.  This  book,  says  Mr.  Bayle,  made  the  au- 
thor's name  famous  over  all  the  learned  world. 
Another  performance  appeared  about  the  same 
time,  entitled.  Clamor  Regii  Sanguinis  ad  Coe- 
Jum  ;  or.  The  Cry  of  the  King's  Blood  to  Heav- 
en. It  was  written  in  Latin  by  Peter  du  Mou- 
lin, Junior,  and  answered  by  Milton  in  the  same 
language.  But  to  satisfy  the  English  reader, 
Mr.  John  Goodwin  published  a  small-  treatise, 
which  he  called  "  A  Defence  of  the  Sentence 
passed  upon  the  late  King  by  the  High  Court  of 
Justice  ;  wherein  the  Justice  and  Equity  of  the 
said  Sentence  are  demonstratively  asserted,  as 
well  from  clear  Texts  of  Scripture  as  Principles 
of  Reason,  Grounds  of  Law,  Authorities  and  Pre- 
cedents, as  well  Foreign  as  Domestic  ;"  a  very 
weak  and  inconclusive  performance !  for,  ad- 
mitting our  author's  principles,  that  the  original 
of  government  is  from  the  people,  and  that  ma- 
gistrates are  accountable  to  them  for  adminis- 
tration, they  are  not  applicable  to  the  present 
case,  because  the  officers  of  the  army  had  nei- 

*  Crit.  Hist,  p.  189.    Hist.  Stuarts,  p.  28.3. 

+  "  There  is  full  as  strong  evidence  on  the  other 
side,"  says  Bishop  Warburton,"  all  of  which  this  hon- 
est historian  conceals ;  evidence  of  the  king's  bed- 
chamber, who  swear  they  saw  the  progress  of  it ;  saw 
the  king  write  it ;  heard  him  speak  of  it  as  his  ;  and 
transcribed  parts  of  it  for  him."  It  seems  that  Mr. 
Neal  considered  the  evidences  of  its  spu  piousness  to 
be  so  strong,  as  to  supersede  entering  into  a  detail  of 
the  evidences  for  its  authenticity.  The  bishop,  it  is 
to  be  remarked,  though  he  judges  the  strongest  and 
most  unexceptionable  evidence  is  on  that  side  which 
gives  it  to  the  king,  yet  owns  that  the  question  "  is 
the  most  uncertain  matter  he  ever  took  the  pains  to 
examine."  No  such  great  blame,  then,  can  lie  on  Mr. 
JNeal  for  taking  the  other  side  of  the  question. — Ed. 

Vol.  II.— N 


ther  the  voice  of  the  people,  nor  of  their  repre- 
sentatives in  a  free  Parliament ;  the  House  of 
Commons  was  purged,  and  the  House  of  Peers 
dispersed,  in  order  to  make  way  for  this  outrage 
upon  the  Constitution.  Our  author  was  so  sen- 
sible of  this  objection,  that,  in  order  to  evade  it, 
he  advances  this  ridiculous  conclusion,^  that 
"  though  the  erecting  a  high  court  of  justice  by 
the  House  of  Commons  alone  be  contrary  to 
the  letter,  yet,  it  being  for  the  people's  good,  it 
is  sufficient  that  it  is  agreeable  to  the  spirit  of 
the  law."*  But  who  gave  a  few  officers  of  the 
army  authority  to  judge  what  was  for  the  peo- 
ple's good,  or  to  act  according  to  the  spirit  of  a 
law  in  contradiction  to  the  letter  1  This  would 
expose  every  man's  life  and  estate  to  the  will 
and  pleasure  of  an  arbitrary  tyrant,  and  intro- 
duce a  rule  of  government,  so  justly  complained 
of  in  the  former  part  of  this  reign,  in  opposition 
to  a  rule  of  law.  The  President  Bradshaw,  in 
his  speech  at  pronouncing  sentence,  goes  upon 
the  same  general  topics,  that  the  people  are  the 
origin  of  civil  power,  which  they  transfer  to 
their  magistrates  under  what  limitations  they 
think  fit,  and  that  the  king  himself  is  accounta- 
ble to  them  for  the  abuse  of  it ;  but  if  this  were 
true,  it  is  not  to  the  present  purpose,  because, 
as  has  been  observed,  the  king's  judges  had  not 
the  consent  of  the  people  of  England  in  their 
diffusive  or  collective  capacity.  His  majesty's 
own  reasons  against  this  high  court  of  justice, 
which  he  would  have  given  in  court  if  he  might 
have  been  heard,  are,  in  my  opinion,  a  sufficient 
answer  to  all  that  can  be  said  on  the  other  side. 

"  Admitting,  but  not  granting,"  says  his  maj- 
esty, "  that  the  people  of  England's  commission 
could  grant  your  pretended  power,  I  see  nothing 
you  can  show  for  that,  for  certainly  you  never 
asked  the  question  of  the  tenth  man  of  the  king- 
dom; and  in  this  way  you  manifestly  wrong  even 
the  poorest  ploughman,  if  you  demand  not  his 
free  consent ;  nor  can  you  pretend  any  colour  for 
this,  your  pretended  commission,  without  con- 
sent, at  least,  of  the  major  part  of  the  people  of 
England,  of  whatsoever  quality  or  condition, 
which  I  am  sure  you  never  went  about  to  seek, 
so  far  are  you  from  having  it.  Nor  must  I  for- 
get the  privileges  of  both  houses  of  Parliament, 
which  this  day's  proceedings  do  not  only  violate, 
but  likewise  occasion  the  greatest  breach  of  the 
public  faith  that  I  believe  ever  was  heard  of, 
with  which  I  am  far  from  charging  the  two  hous- 
es. Then,  for  anything  I  can  see,  the  higher 
house  is  totally  excluded  ;  and  for  the  House  of 
Commons,  it  is  too  well  known  that  the  major 
part  of  them  are  detained,  or  deterred  from  sit- 
ting. And,  after  all,  how  the  House  of  Com- 
mons can  erect  a  court  of  judicature,  which 
was  never  one  itself,  as  is  well  known  to  all 
lawyers,  I  leave  to  God  and  the  world  to  judge." 

King  Charles,  therefore,  died  by  the  hands  of 
violence,  or  by  the  military  sword,  assumed  and 
managed  in  an  arbitrary  manner  by  a  few  des- 
perate officers  of  the  army  and  their  depend- 
ants,! of  sundry  denominations  as  to  religion, 


*  P.  20.  r 

t  They  have  been  described  as  "  a  third  party  ri-  '^. 
sing  out  of  the  ferment  of  the  self-denying  ordinance ;  ^ 
a  swarm  of  armed  enthusiasts,  who  outwitted  the[* 
patriots,  outprayed  the  Puritans,  and  outfought  the- 
cavaliers."  —  Bishop    Warburton^s   Sermon  brf ore   the 
House  of  Lords,  30th  of  January,  1760,  p.  22.— Ed. 


98 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


without  any  regard  to  the  ancient  Constitution 
of  their  country,  or  the  fundamental  laws  of  so- 
ciety ;  for,  by  the  former,  the  king  cannot  be 
tried  for  his  life  before  any  inferior  court  of  jus- 
tice ;  nor  could  they  feign  any  pretence  for  the 
latter,  without  the  express  consent  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  nation,  in  their  personal  or  repre- 
sentative capacities,  which  these  gentlemen 
never  pretended.  But  since  all  parties  have 
endeavoured  to  throw  off  the  odium  of  this  fatal 
event  from  themselves,  it  may  not  be  improper 
to  set  before  the  reader  the  sentiments  of  our 
best  historians  upon  this  head,  leaving  every 
one  to  draw  what  conclusion  from  them  he 
pleases. 

Not  to  insist  upon  the  king's  servile  fondness 
for  his  queen  and  her  friends  ;  his  resolute  stiff- 
ness for  his  old  principles  of  government  in 
Church  and  State  ;  his  untimely  and  ungracious 
manner  of  yielding  to  what  he  could  not  avoid  ; 
his  distant  and  reserved  behaviour  towards 
those  who  only  were  capable  of  serving  him  ; 
and  his  manifest  doubling  between  the  Parlia- 
ment and  army,  which  some  very  reasonably 
apprehend  were  the  principal  causes  of  all 
his  misfortunes,  Mr.  Whitelocke  and  Mr.  Coke 
lay  a  good  deal  of  blame  upon  his  majesty's 
chaplains  :  the  latter  reproaches  them  with  in- 
sisting peremptorily  to  the  last  upon  the  Divine 
right  of  Episcopacy;  and  the  former  for  contin- 
ual whispering  in  the  king's  ears  the  importance 
of  preserving  the  revenues  of  the  Church,  to 
the  hazard  of  his  person  and  kingdom  ;  and, 
surely,  if  these  warm  and  eager  divines  could 
have  disentangled  his  majesty's  conscience 
(which  Mr.  Whitelocke  apprehends  was  not  ful- 
ly satisfied),  as  soon  as  the  cavaliers  had  been 
dispersed,  and  the  Scots  beaten  out  of  the  field, 
the  mischief  that  followed  might  have  been  pre- 
vented. I  will  not  take  upon  me  to  say  how 
far  their  influence  might  reach,  though  his  maj- 
esty's profound  deference  to  their  judgment  was 
notorious ;  but  the  conviction  does  not  seem 
impracticable,  when  it  is  remembered  the  king 
was  of  opinion  that  what  he  yielded  through  the 
necessity  of  his  affairs  was  not  binding  when  he 
should  be  at  liberty  ;  but  neithei  his  majesty  nor 
his  clergy  foresaw  the  issue.* 

Most  of  the  writers  on  the  king's  side,  as  well 
as  the  preachers  since  the  Restoration,  in  their 
anniversary  sermons,  have  with  great  injustice 
charged  the  Presbyterians  with  bringing  the 
king  to  the  block,  contrary  to  the  strongest  and 
most  convincing  evidence ;  for  though  their  stiff- 
ness for  the  Divine  right  of  Presbytery,  and  their 
antipathy  to  liberty  of  conscience,  are  not  to  be 
vindicated,  yet  I  apprehend  enough  has  been 
said  in  the  foregoing  pages  to  clear  them  from 
this   unrighteous   charge  ;t  if  the  zeal   of  the 

*  Whitelocke's  Mem.,  p.  335.  Coke's  Detect.,  p. 
331,  332. 

t  Bishop  Warburton,  with  Mr.  Neal,  acquits  the 
Presbyterians  from  being  parties  in  the  execution  of 
the  king  ;  but  then  he  will  not  allow  them  merit  or 
virtue  in  this  instance,  but  would  ascribe  it  to  their 
not  uniting  with  the  Independents  in  other  matters, 
and  the  opposition  which  that  party  made  to  their  two 
darling  points,  the  Divine  right  of  Presbytery,  and  the 
use  of  force  in  religious  matters.  The  reader  will 
judge  how  far  this  is  a  candid  construction  of  the 
conduct  and  motives  of  the  Presbyterians  ;  and,  at 
the  same  time,  he  will  lament  that  there  should  have 
been  any  ground  for  the  severe  reflection  which  the 


Presbyterians  for  their  discipline  and  Covenant 
were  culpable,  the  behaviour  of  the  king  and 
his  divines  in  the  opposition  was  no  less  so, 
considering  he  was  a  prisoner,  and  in  the  hands 
of  a  victorious  Parliament  ;  neither  side  were 
sensible  of  the  danger  till  it  was  too  late,  but 
when  the  storm  was  ready  to  burst  on  their 
heads,  I  do  not  see  what  men  could  do  more  in 
their  circumstances  to  divert  it  than  the  Pres- 
byterians did  ;  they  preached  and  prayed,  and 
protested  against  it  in  the  most  public  manner  ; 
many  of  them  resigned  their  preferments  be- 
cause they  would  not  take  the  engagement  to 
the  new  commonwealth  ;  they  groaned  under  all 
the  preceding  changes  of  government,  and  had 
a  principal  share  in  the  restoration  of  the  royal 
family  in  the  year  1660,  without  which  these 
anniversary  declaimers  would  never  have  had 
an  opportunity  of  pelting  them  with  their  eccle- 
siastical artillery,  in  the  unwarrantable  manner- 
they  have  done. 

The  forementioned  writers,  together  with  Mr. 
Ra;.in,  in  his  late  History  of  England,  load  the 
Independents,  as  a  religious  sect,  with  all  the 
guilt  of  cutting  off  the  king's  head  ;  and  with, 
being  in  a  plot,  from  the  commencement  of  the 
civil  war,  to  destroy  equally  king,  monarchy, 
Episcopacy,  and  Presbyterianism  ;  but  this  last- 
named  writer,  not  being  acquainted  with  their 
religious  principles,  constantly  confounds  the 
Independents  with  the  army,  which  was  com- 
pounded of  a  number  of  sectaries,  the  majority 
of  whom  were  not  of  that  denomination.  There 
were  no  doubt  among  the  Independents,  as  well 
as  among  other  parties,  men  of  republican  prin- 
ciples, who  had  a  large  share  in  the  reproach  of 
this  day  ;  but  besides  what  has  been  observed, 
of  some  of  their  number  joining  with  the  Pres- 
byterians in  protesting  against  the  king's  exe- 
cution, the  divines  of  this  persuasion  had  no 
difference  with  the  Presbyterians  or  moderate 
Episcopalians  about  forms  of  civil  government ; 
the  leading  officers  would  have  contributed  their 
part  towards  restoring  his  majesty  to  his  throne, 
when  he  was  with  the  army,  upon  more  equal 
terms  than  some  other  of  his  adversaries,  had 
they  not  discovered  his  designs  to  sacrifice  them 
when  it  should  be  in  his  power.  In  their  last 
propositions  they  consented  to  the  restoring  the 
king,  upon  the  foot  of  a  toleration  for  them- 
selves and  the  Episcopal  party,  leaving  the 
Presbyterians  in  possession  of  the  establish- 
ment. Both  Whitelocke*  and  Wei  wood  t  ob- 
serve, that  at  the  very  time  of  the  king's  trial, 
the  prevailing  party  were  not  determined  what 
form  of  government  to  set  up,  "many  having 
thoughts  of  making  the  Duke  of  Gloucester 
king;"  which  his  majesty  being  informed  of,, 
forbade  the  duke,  in  his  last  interview,  to  accept 
the  crown  while  his  elder  brothers  were  living. 
And  though  Mr.  Rapin  says,  that  after  the  force 
put  upon  the  members  of  Parliament  on  the  6tU 
and  7th  of  December,  the  House  consisted  of 
none  but  Independent  members,  it  is  certain  to  a 
demonstration,  that  there  were  then  remaining 
in  the  House  men  of  all  parties,  Episcopahans, 
Presbyterians,  Independents,  Anabaptists,  and 


bishop  subjoins:  "Those  who  were  capable  of  pun- 
ishing Arians  with  death,  were  capable  of  doing  any 
wickedness  for  the  cause  of  God." — Ed. 

*  Memor.,  p.  358. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  90  ;  vol.  ii.,  p.  367,  folio. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


99 


others  :  so  little  foundation  is  there  for  this  wri- 
ter's conclusion,  that  the  Independents,  and 
these  only,  put  the  king  to  death. 

Dr.  Lewis  du  Moulin,  history  professor  in  Ox- 
ford, who  lived  through  these  times,  says  that 
"  no  parly  of  men,  as  a  religious  body,  were  the 
actors  of  this  tragedy,  but  that  it  was  the  con- 
trivance of  an  army,  which,  like  that  of  King 
David's  in  the  wilderness,  was  a  medley  or  col- 
lection of  all  parties  that  were  discontented; 
some  courtiers,  some  Presbyterians,  some  Epis- 
copalians ;  few  of  any  sect,  but  most  of  none, 
or  else  of  the  religion  of  Thomas  Hobbes  and 
Dr.  Scarborough  ;  not  to  mention  the  papists, 
who  had  the  greatest  hand  in  it  of  all."*  The 
same  learned  professor,  in  his  book  entitled 
"The  Conformity  of  the  Independent  Discipline 
with  that  of  the  Primitive  Christians',"'  published 
in  1680,  had  a  chapter  entitled  "An  Answer  to 
those  who  accuse  the  Independents  for  having 
an  immediate  hand  in  the  Death  of  King  Charles 
I."  But  the  tunes  were  such  that  the  author 
was  advised  not  to  publish  it.f 

Mr.  Baxter  says,  "  Many  that  minded  no  side 
in  religion  thought  it  was  no  policy  to  trust  a 
conquered  king,  aid  therefore  were  wholly  for 
a  parliamentary  government  without  a  king  ;  of 
these,"  says  he,  "  some  were  for  an  aristocra- 
cy, and  others  for  a  Democracy,  and  some 
thought  they  ought  to  judge  the  king  for  all  the 
blood  that  had  been  shed  ;  the  Vanists,  the  In- 
dependents, and  other  sects,  with  the  Democrat- 
ical  party,  being  left  by  Cromwell  to  do  the 
business  under  the  name  of  the  Parliament  of 
England."! 

Bishop  Burnet  says,  that  "  Ireton  was  the  per- 
son that  drove  it  on,  for  Cromwell  was  all  the 
while  in  suspense  about  it ;  Ireton  had  the  prin- 
ciples and  temper  of  a  Cassius  ;  he  stuck  at  no- 
thing that  might  turn  England  into  a  common- 
wealth ;  Fairfax  was  much  distracted  in  his 
mind,  and  changed  purposes  every  day  ;  the 
Presbyterians  and  the  body  of  the  city  were 
much  against  it,  and  were  every  day  fasting  and 
praying  for  the  king's  preservation.  There  were 
not  above  eight  thousand  of  the  army  about  the 
town,  but  those  were  the  most  engaged  in  en- 
thusiasm, and  were  kept  at  prayer  in  their  w-ay 
almost  day  and  night,  except  when  they  were 
upon  duty,  so  that  they  were  wrought  up  to  a 
pitch  of  fury  which  struck  terror  into  all  peo- 
ple."ij 

Mr.  Echard  and  some  others  are  of  opinion 
that  great  numbers  of  papists,  under  hopes  of 
liberty  of  conscience,  or  of  destroying  Episco- 
pacy, jomed  with  foreign  priests  and  Jesuits 
against  the  king.  The  celebrated  author  of 
Foxes  and  Firebrands  has  this  remarkable  pas- 
sage :||  "  Let  all  true  Protestants,  who  desire 
sincerely  to  have  a  happy  union,  recollect  what 
a  blemish  the  emissaries  of  Rome  have  cast 
upon  those  Protestants  named  Presbyterian  and 

*  "  There  is  doubtless,"  says  Bishop  Warburton, 
"  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  all  this.  No  party  of  men, 
as  a  religions  body,  farther  than  as  they  were  united  by 
one  common  enthusiasm,  were  the  actors  in  this  tra- 
gedy." See  what  Burnet  says :  "  But  who  prepared 
the  entertainment,  and  was  at  the  expense  of  the  ex- 
hibition, is  another  question." — Ed. 

■f-  Vind.  Prot.  Relig.,  p.  53,  59. 

X  Baxter's  Life,  p.  63. 

i)  Hist.  Life  and  Times,  vol.  i.,p.  63,  Edin.  edition. 

II  Part  iii.,  p.  188. 


Independent,  Rome  saying  the  Presbyterians 
brought  Charles  the  First's  head  to  the  block, 
and  the  Independents  cut  it  off;  whereas  it  is 
certain  that  the  members  and  clergy  of  Rome, 
under  dissenting  shapes,  contrived  this  murder. 
Nay,  the  good  king  himself  was  informed  that 
the  Jesuits  in  France,  at  a  general  meeting,  re- 
solved to  bring  him  to  justice,  and  to  take  ofT 
his  head  by  the  power  of  their  friends  in  the 
army."*  Bishop  Bramhall,  in  a  letter  to  Arch- 
bishop Usher,  dated  July  20,  1654,  adds,  "Thus 
much  to  my  knowledge  have  I  seen  and  heard 
since  my  leaving  your  lordship,  which  I  myself 
could  hardly  have  credited,  had  not  mine  eyes 
seen  sure  evidence  of  the  same,  viz.,  that  when 
the  Romish  orders,  which  were  in  disguise  in 
the  Parliament  army,  wrote  to  their  several  con- 
vents, and  especially  to  the  Sorbonists,  about 
the  lawfulness  of  taking  away  the  king's  life,  it 
was  returned  by  the  Sorbonists,  that  it  was 
lawful  for  any  Roman  Catholic  to  work  a  change 
in  governments  for  the  mother-church's  ad- 
vancement, and  chiefly  in  an  heretical  kingdom, 
and,  so  lawful  to  make  way  with  the  king."t 
Mr.  Prynne  adds,  "  that  Mr.  Henry  Spotswood 
saw  the  queen's  confessor  on  horseback  among 
the  crowd  in  the  habit  of  a  trooper,  with  his 
drawn  sword,  flourishing  it  over  his  head  in  tri- 
umph, as  others  did,  when  the  king's  head  was 
just  cut  off;  and  being  asked  how  he  could  be 
present  at  so  sad  a  spectacle,  answered,  there 
were  aiiove  forty  more  priests  and  Jesuits  there 
besides  himself^,  and  when  the  fatal  blow  was 
given,  he  flourished  his  sword  and  said,  Now 
the  greatest  enemy  we  have  in  the  world  is 
dead."  But  this  story  does  not  seem  to  me 
very  probable,  nor  is  it  easy  to  believe  that 
the  papists  should  triumph  in  the  death  of  a 
king  who  was  their  friend  and  protector  in  pros- 
perity, and  whose  sufferings  are,  in  a  great 
measure,  chargeable  upon  his  too  great  attach- 
ment to  their  interests. t 

But  the  strongest  and  most  unexceptionable 
testimony  is  the  act  of  attainder  of  the  king's 
judges  passed  upon  the  restoration  of  King 
Charles  II.,  the  preamble  to  which  sets  forth, 
that  the  "  execrable  murder  of  his  royal  father 
was  committed  by  a  party  of  wretched  men, 
desperately  wicked,  and  hardened  in  their  im- 
piety, who,  having  first  plotted  and  contrived 
the  ruin  of  this  excellent  monarchy,  and  with  it 
of  the  true  Protestant  religion,  which  had  long: 
flourished  under  it,  found  it  necessary,  in  order 
to  carry  on  their  pernicious  and  traitorous  de- 
signs, to  throw  down  all  the  bulwarks  and  fen- 
ces of  law,  and  to  subvert  the  very  being  and 
constitution  of  Parliament.  And  for  the  more 
easy  effecting  their  attempts  on  the  person  of.' 
the  king  himself,  they  first  seduced  some  partf 
of  the  then  army  into  a  compliance,  and  then 
kept  the  rest  in  subjection,  partly  for  hopes  oS 
preferment,  and  chiefly  for  fear  of  losing  their 
employments  and  arrears,  till  by  these,  and  other 
more  odious  arts  and  devices,  they  had  fully 
strengthened  themselves  in  power  and  faction  ;; 
which  being  done,  they  declared  against  all 
manner  of  treaties  with  the  person  of  the  king^ 
while  a  treaty  with  him  was  subsisting ;  they 
remonstrated  against  the  Parliament  for  their 
proceedings  ;  they  seized  upon  his  royal  person 


*  Part  iii.,  p.  168,  169.         t  Necess.  Vind.,  p.  45. 
t  Foxes  and  Firebrands,  part  ii.,  p.  86. 


100 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


■while  the  commissioners  were  returned  to  Lon- 
don with  his  answers,  which  were  voted  a  suf- 
ficient foundation  for  peace  ;  they  then  secluded 
and  iiDprisoned  several  members  of  the  House 
of  fjommons,  and  then,  there  being  left  but  a 
small  number  of  their  own  creatures  (not  a  tenth 
part  of  the  whole),  they  sheltered  themselves 
under  the  name  and  authority  of  a  Parliament, 
and  in  that  name  prepared  an  ordinance  for  the 
trial  of  his  majesty ;  which,  being  rejected  by 
the  Lords,  they  passed  alone  in  the  name  of  the 
Commons  of  England,  and  pursued  it  with  all 
possible  force  and  cruelty  till  they  murdered  the 
king  before  the  gates  of  his  own  palace.  Thus," 
say  they,  "  the  fanatic  rage  of  a  few  miscreants, 
who  were  neither  true  Protestants  nor  good 
subjects,  stands  imputed  by  our  adversaries  to 
the  whole  nation ;  we  therefore  renounce,  abom- 
inate, and  protest  against  it."* 

If  this  be  a  true  state  of  the  case,  it  is  evident, 
from  the  highest  authority  in  this  kingdom,  that 
the  king's  death  was  not  chargeable  upon  any 
*  12  Cor.  IF.,  cap.  xxx. 


religious  party  or  sect  of  Christians  ;  nor  upon 
tlie  people  of  England  assembled  in  a  free  Par- 
liament, but  upon  the  council  of  officers  and 
agitators,  who,  having  become  desperate  by  the 
restless  behaviour  of  the  cavaliers,  and  ill  con- 
duct of  the  several  parties  concerned  in  the 
treaty  of  Newport,  plotted  the  overthrow  of  the 
king  and  Constitution,  and  accomplished  it  by 
an  act  of  lawless  violence  ;  that  it  was  only  a 
small  part  of  the  army  who  were  seduced  into 
a  compliance,  and  these  kept  the  rest  in  sub- 
jection till  the  others  had  executed  their  des- 
perate purposes;  so  that,  though  the  wisdom  of 
the  nation  has  thought  fit  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  this  fatal  day  by  an  anniversary  fast, 
as  that  which  may  be  instructive  both  to  prin- 
ces and  subjects,  yet,  if  we  may  believe  the 
declaration  of  his  majesty  at  his  trial,  or  of  the 
act  of  Parliament  which  restored  his  family,  the 
king's  murder  was  not  the  act  of  the  people  of 
England,  nor  of  their  legal  representatives,  and 
thCiefore  ought  not  to  be  lamented  as  a  nation- 
al sin. 


i'i* 


PREFACE 

TO   VOL.   IV.    OF    THE    ORIGINAL   EDITION. 


This  volume  brings  the  History  of  the  Sufferings  of  the  Puritans  down  to  its  pe- 
riod ;*  for  though  the  Protestant  Dissenters  have  since  complained  of  several  diffi- 
culties and  discouragements,  yet  most  of  the  penal  laws  have  been  suspended ;  the 
prosecutions  of  the  spiritual  courts  have  been  considerably  restrained  by  the  kind  in- 
terposition of  the  civil  powers,  and  liberty  of  conscience  enjoyed  without  the  hazard 
of  fines,  imprisonments,  and  other  terrors  of  this  world. 

The  times  now  in  review  were  stormy  and  boisterous  :  upon  the  death  of  King 
Charles  I.,  the  Constitution  was  dissolved :  the  men  at  the  helm  had  no  legal  author- 
ity to  change  the  government  into  a  commonwealth,  the  protectorship  of  Cromwell 
was  a  usurpation,  because  grafted  only  on  the  military  power,  and  so  were  all  the 
misshapen  forms  into  which  the  administration  was  cast  till  the  restoration  of  the  king. 
In  order  to  pass  a  right  judgment  upon  these  extraordinary  revolutions,  the  temper 
and  circumstances  of  the  nation  are  to  be  duly  considered ;  for  those  actions  which 
in  some  circumstances  are  highly  criminal,  may,  in  a  different  situation  of  affairs, 
become  necessary.  The  parties  engaged  in  the  civil  wars  were  yet  living,  and  their 
resentments  against  each  other  so  much  inflamed  as  to  cut  off  all  hopes  of  a  recon- 
ciliation ;  each  dreaded  the  other's  success,  well  knowing  they  must  fall  a  sacrifice 
to  those  who  should  prevail.  All  present  views  of  the  king's  recovering  his  father's 
throne  were  defeated  at  the  battle  of  Worcester,  the  Loyalists  being  then  entirely" 
broken  and  dispersed  ;  so  that  if  some  such  extraordinary  genius  as  Cromwell's  had 
not  undertaken  to  steer  the  nation  through  the  storm,  it  had  not  been  possible  to  hold 
the  government  together  till  Providence  should  open  a  way  for  restoring  the  Consti- 
tution, and  settling  it  on  its  legal  basis. 

The  various  forms  of  government  (if  they  deserve  that  name)  which  the  officers? 
of  the  army  introduced  alter  the  death  of  Cromwell,  made  the  nation  sick  of  their 
phrensies,  and  turned  their  eyes  towards  their  banished  sovereign,  whose  restoration, 
after  all,  could  not  be  accomplished  without  great  imprudence  on  one  part,  and  the 
most  artful  dissimulation  on  the  other.  The  Presbyterians,  like  weak  politicians, 
surrendered  at  discretion,  and  parted  with  their  power  on  no  other  security  than  the 
royal  word,  for  which  they  have  been  sufficiently  reproached ;  though  I  am  of  opin^ 
ion,  that  if  the  king  had  been  brought  in  by  a  treaty,  the  succeeding  Parliament 
would  have  set  it  aside.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  can  be  more  notorious  than  the 
deep  hypocrisy  of  General  Monk,  and  the  solemn  assurances  given  by  the  bishops 
and  other  Loyalists,  and  even  by  the  king  himself,  of  burying  all  past  offences  under 
the  foundation  of  the  Restoration ;  but  when  they  were  lifted  into  the  saddle,  the 
haste  they  made  to  show  how  little  they  meant  by  their  promises  exceeded  the  rules 
of  decency  as  well  as  honour.  Nothing  would  satisfy  till  their  adversaries  were  dis- 
armed, and  in  a  manner  deprived  of  the  protection  of  the  government :  the  terms  of 
conformity  were  made  narrower  and  more  exceptionable  than  before  the  civil  wars, 
the  penal  laws  were  rigorously  executed,  and  new  ones  framed  almost  every  ses- 
sions of  Parliament  for  several  successive  years,  the  Nonconformist  ministers  were 
banished  five  mil^  from  all  the  corporations  in  England,  and  their  people  sold  for 
sums  of  money  to  carry  on  the  king's  unlawful  pleasures,  and  to  bribe  the  nation  into 
popery  and  slavery,  till  the  House  of  Commons,  awakened  at  last  with  a  sense  of  the 

*  The  reader  will  observe  that  the  period  here  referred  to  is  the  passing  the  Act  of  Toleration,  with 
which  Mr.  Neal's  fourth  volume  concludes.  But  the  additions  to  the  original  work,  by  notes  and  supple- 
ments in  this  edition,  have  necessarily  extended  it  to  a  fifth  volume,  which  comprehends  the  author's  last 
two  chapters,  the  papers  that  form  the  Appendix  to  each  of  his  volumes,  and  other  papers. — Ed. 


102  PREFACE. 

threatening  danger,  grew  intractable,  and  was  therefore  dissolved.  His  majesty, 
having  in  vain  attempted  several  other  representatives  of  the  people,  determined,  some 
time  before  liis  death,  to  change  the  Constitution,  and  govern  by  his  sovereign  will 
and  pleasure,  that  the  mischiefs  which  could  not  be  brought  upon  the  nation  by  con- 
sent of  Parliament,  might  be  introduced  under  the  wing  of  the  prerogative  ;  but  the 
Roman  Catholics,  not  satisfied  with  the  slow  proceedings  of  a  disguised  Protestant, 
or  apprehending  that  the  discontents  of  the  people  and  his  own  love  of  ease  might 
induce  him  some  time  or  other  to  change  measures,  resolved  to  have  a  prince  of  their 
own  religion  and  more  sanguine  principles  on  the  throne,  which  hastened  the  cri- 
sis of  the  nation,  and  brought  forward  that  glorious  revolution  of  King  William  and 
Queen  Mary,  which  put  a  final  period  to  all  their  projects. 

The  nature  of  my  design  does  not  admit  of  a  large  and  particular  relation  of  all 
the  civil  transactions  of  these  times,  but  only  of  such  a  summary  as  may  give  light 
to  the  affairs  of  religion  ;  and  I.  could  have  wished  that  the  memory  of  both  had  been 
entirely  blotted  out  of  the  records  of  time,  if  the  animosities  of  the  several  parties 
and  their  unchristian  principles  had  been  buried  with  them  ;  but  as  the  remembering 
them  may  be  a  warning  to  posterity,  it  ought  to  give  no  offence  to  any  denomination 
of  Christians  in  the  present  age,  who  are  noways  answerable  for  the  conduct  of 
their  ancestors,  nor  can  otherwise  share  in  a  censure  of  it,  than  as  they  maintain  the 
same  principles,  and  imitate  the  same  unchristian  behaviour.  At  the  end  of  each 
j'ear  I  have  added  the  characters  of  the  principal  Nonconformist  ministers  as  they 
died,  partly  from  the  historians  of  those  times,  but  chiefly  from  the  writings  of  the 
late  Reverend  Dr.  Calamy,  whose  integrity,  moderation,  and  industry  deserve  a  pe- 
culiar commendation.  My  design  was  to  preserve  the  memory  of  the  reverend  as- 
sembly of  divines  at  Westminster,  as  well  as  the  little  army  of  confessors,  who  after- 
ward sufl'ered  so  deeply  in  the  cause  of  nonconformity. 

In  passing  a  judgment  on  the  several  parties  in  Church  and  State,  I  have  carefully 
distinguished  between  those  who  went  into  all  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  court, 
and  such  as  stood  firm  by  the  Protestant  religion  and  the  liberties  of  their  country  ; 
for  it  must  be  allowed,  that  in  the  reign  of  King  Charles  II.  there  were  even  among 
the  clergy  some  of  the  worst  as  well  as  best  of  men,  as  will  appear  to  a  demon- 
stration in  the  course  of  this  history  ;  but  I  desire  no  greater  stress  may  be  laid  upon 
facts  or  characters  than  the  quality  of  the  vouchers  in  the  margin  will  support. 
Where  these  have  been  differently  related,  I  have  relied  on  the  best  authorities,  and 
sometimes  reported  from  both  sides,  leaving  the  reader  to  choose  for  himself;  for  if 
facts  are  fairly  represented,  the  historian  is  discharged.  I  am  not  so  vain  as  to  ima- 
gine this  history  free  from  errors  ;  but  if  any  mistakes  of  consequence  are  made  to 
appear,  they  shall  be  acknowledged  with  thankfulness  to  those  who  shall  point  them 
out  in  a  civil  and  friendly  manner ;  and  as  I  aim  at  nothing  but  truth,  I  see  no  reason 
to  engage  in  a  warm  defence  of  any  parties  of  Christians  who  pass  before  us  in  re- 
view, but  leave  their  conduct  to  the  censure  of  the  world.  Some  few  remarks  of  my 
own  are  here  and  there  interspersed,  which  the  reader  will  receive  according  as  he 
apprehends  them  to  follow  from  the  premises  ;  but  I  flatter  myself,  that  when  he  has 
carefully  perused  the  several  volumes  of  this  history,  he  will  agree  with  me  in  the 
following  conclusions  : 

1st.  That  uniformity  of  sentiments  in  religion  is  not  to  be  attained  among  Chris- 
tians ;  nor  will  a  comprehension  within  an  establishment  be  of  service  to  the  cause 
of  truth  and  liberty,  without  a  toleration  of  all  other  dutiful  subjects.  Wise  and  good 
men,  after  their  most  diligent  searches  after  truth,  have  seen  things  in  a  difl^erent 
light,  which  is  not  to  be  avoided  as  long  as  they  have  liberty  to  judge  for  themselves. 
If  Christ  had  appointed  an  infallible  judge  upon  earth,  or  men  were  to  be  determined 
by  an  implicit  faith  in  their  superiors,  there  would  be  an  end  of  such  differences  ;  but 
all  the  engines  of  human  policy  that  have  been  set  at  work  to  obtain  it  have  hitherto 
failed  of  success.  Subscriptions,  and  a  variety  of  oaths  and  other  tests,  have  occa- 
sioned great  mischiefs  to  the  Church  :  by  these  means  men  of  weak  morals  and  am- 
bitious views  have  been  raised  to  the  highest  preferments,  while  others  of  stricter 
virtue  and  superior  talents  have  been  neglected  and  laid  aside  ;  and  power  has  beea 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  used  it  in  an  unchristian  manner,  to  force  men 
to  an  agreement  in  sounds  and  outward  appearances,  contrary  to  the  true  conviction 


PREFACE.  103 

and  sense  of  their  minds,  and  thus  a  lasting  reproach  has  been  brought  on  the  Chris- 
tian name,  and  on  the  genuine  principles  of  a  Protestant  Church. 

2dly.  All  parties  of  Christians,  when  in  power,  have  been  guilty  of  persecution  for 
conscience'  sake.  The  annals  of  the  Church  are  a  most  melancholy  demonstration 
of  this  truth.  Let  the  reader  call  to  mind  the  bloody  proceedings  of  the  popish 
bishops  in  Queen  Mary's  reign,  and  the  account  that  has  been  given  of  the  Star 
Chamber  and  High  Commission  Court  in  later  times  ;  what  numbers  of  useful  ministers 
have  been  sequestered,  imprisoned,  and  their  families  reduced  to  poverty  and  dis- 
grace, for  refusing  to  wear  a  white  surplice,  or  to  comply  with  a  few  indiflerent  cer- 
emonies !  What  havoc  did  the  Presbyterians  make  with  their  covenant  uniformity, 
their  JMre  divino  discipline,  and  their  rigid  prohibition  of  reading  the  old  service-book  ! 
And  though  the  Independents  had  a  better  notion  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  how 
defective  was  their  instrument  of  government  under  Cromwell !  how  arbitrary  the 
proceedings  of  their  triers  !  how  narrow  their  list  of  fundamentals  !  and  how  severe 
their  restraints  of  the  press  !  And  though  the  rigorous  proceedings  of  the  Puritans 
of  this  age  did  by  no  means  rival  those  of  the  prelates  before  and  after  the  civil  wars, 
yet  they  are  so  many  species  of  persecution,  and  not  to  be  justified  even  by  the  con- 
fusion of  the  times  in  which  they  were  acted. 

3dly.  It  is  unsafe  and  dangerous  to  intrust  any  sort  of  clergy  with  the  power  of  the 
sword  :  for  our  Saviour's  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  ;  "  if  it  were,"  says  he,  "  then 
would  my  servants  fight,  but  now  is  my  kingdom  not  from  hence."  The  Church  and 
State  should  stand  on  a  distinct  basis,  and  their  jurisdiction  be  agreeable  to  the  na- 
ture of  their  crimes  ;  those  of  the  Church  purely  spiritual,  and  those  of  the  State  purely 
civil ;  as  the  king  is  supreme  in  the  State,  he  is  also  head,  or  guardian,  of  the  Church 
in  those  spiritual  rights  that  Christ  has  intrusted  it  with.  When  the  Church  in  former 
ages  first  assumed  the  secular  power,  it  not  only  rivalled  the  State,  but  in  a  little  time 
lifted  up  its  head  above  emperors  and  kings,  and  all  the  potentates  of  the  earth :  the 
thunder  of  its  anathemas  was  heard  in  all  nations,  and  in  her  skirts  was  found 
the  blood  of  the  prophets  and  saints,  and  of  all  that  were  slain  upon  the  earth.  And 
whenever  it  recovers  the  wound  that  was  given  it  at  the  Reformation,  it  will  un- 
doubtedly resume  the  same  absolute  coercive  dominion.  It  is  therefore  the  interest 
of  all  sovereign  princes  to  keep  their  clergy  within  the  limits  that  Christ  has  pre- 
scribed for  them  in  the  New  Testament,  and  not  to  trust  them  with  the  power  of  in- 
flicting corporeal  pains  or  penalties  on  their  subjects,  which  have  no  relation  to  the 
Christian  methods  of  conversion. 

4thly.  Reformation  of  religion,  or  a  redress  of  grievances  in  the  Church,  has  not, 
in  fact,  arisen  from  the  clergy.  I  would  not  be  thought  to  reflect  upon  that  venerable 
order,  which  is  of  great  usefulness  and  deserved  honour,  when  the  ends  of  its  insti- 
tution are  pursued  ;  but  so  strange  has  been  the  infatuation,  so  enchanting  the  lust 
of  dominion  and  the  charms  of  riches  and  honour,  that  the  propagation  of  piety  and 
virtue  has  been  very  much  neglected,  and  little  else  thought  of  but  how  they  might 
rise  higher  in  the  authority  and  grandeur  of  this  world,  and  fortify  their  strongholds 
against  all  that  should  attack  them.  In  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation  the  clergy 
maintained  the  pope's  supremacy  against  the  king,  till  they  were  cast  in  a  praemunire. 
In  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  there  was  but  one  of  the  whole  bench  who  would 
join  in  the  consecration  of  a  Protestant  bishop  ;  and  when  the  Reformation  was 
established,  how  cruelly  did  those  Protestant  bishops,  who  themselves  had  suffered 
for  religion,  vex  the  Puritans,  because  they  could  not  come  up  to  their  standard ! 
How  unfriendly  did  tliey  behave  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  !  At  the  restora- 
tion of  King  Charles  II.,  and  at  the  late  revolution  of  King  William  and  Queen  Mary  ! 
when  the  most  solemn  promises  were  broken,  and  the  most  hopeful  opportunity  of 
accommodating  diflerences  among  Protestants  lost,  by  the  perverseness  of  the  clergy 
towards  those  very  men  who  had  saved  them  from  ruin.  So  little  ground  is  there  to 
hope  for  a  union  among  Christians,  or  the  propagation  of  truth,  peace,  and  charity, 
from  councils,  synods,  general  assemblies,  or  convocations  of  the  clergy  of  any  sort 
whatsoever. 

5thly.  Upon  these  principles,  it  is  evident  that  freedom  of  religion,  in  subordina- 
tion to  the  civil  power,  is  for  the  benefit  of  society,  and  noways  inconsistent  with  a 
public  establishment.     The  king  may  create  dignitaries,  and  give  sufficient  encour- 


104  PREFACE. 

agement  to  those  of  the  public  religion,  without  invading  the  liberties  of  his  dissent- 
ing subjects.  If  religious  establishments  were  stripped  of  their  judicial  processes 
and  civil  jurisdiction,  no  harm  could  be  feared  from  them.  And  as  his  majesty  is 
defender  of  the  faith  in  Scotland  as  well  as  England,  and  equally  the  guardian  of  both 
churches,  he  will  no  doubt  hold  the  balance,  and  prevent  either  from  rising  to  such 
a  pitch  of  greatness  as  to  act  independently  on  the  State,  or  become  formidable  and 
oppressive  to  their  neighbours  :  the  former  would  create  imperium  in  imperio ;  and 
there  is  but  one  step  between  the  Church's  being  independent  on  the  State,  and  th& 
State  becoming  dependant  on  the  Church.  Besides,  as  freedom  of  religion  is  for  the: 
true  honour  and  dignity  of  the  crown,  it  is  no  less  for  the  service  of  the  community ; 
for  the  example  of  the  neighbouring  nations  may  convince  us,  that  uniformity  in  the 
Church  will  always  be  attended  with  absolute  and  despotic  power  in  the  State.  The 
meetings  of  dissenting  Protestants  were  formerly  called  seditious,  because  the  peace 
of  the  public  was  falsely  supposed  to  consist  in  uniformity  of  worship  ;  but  long  ex- 
perience has  taught  us  the  contrary ;  for  though  the  Nonconformists,  in  those  times^ 
gave  no  disturbance  to  the  administration,  the  nation  was  far  from  being  at  peace  ; 
but  when  things  came  to  a  crisis,  their  joining  with  the  Church,  against  a  corrupt 
court  and  ministry,  saved  the  religion  and  liberties  of  the  nation.  It  must  therefore 
be  the  interest  of  a  free  people  to  support  and  encourage  liberty  of  conscience,  and 
not  to  suffer  any  one  great  and  powerful  religious  body  to  oppress,  devour,  and  swal- 
low up  the  rest. 

Finally.  When  Protestant  Dissenters  recollect  the  sufferings  of  their  fathers  in  the 
last  age  for  the  freedom  of  their  consciences,  let  them  be  thankful  that  their  lot  is- 
cast  in  more  settled  times.  The  liberties  of  England  are  the  price  of  a  great  deal  of 
blood  and  treasure  ;  wide  breaches  were  made  in  the  Constitution  in  the  four  reigns 
of  the  male  line  of  the  Stuarts  ;  persecution  and  arbitrary  power  went  hand  in  hand  ^ 
the  Constitution  was  often  in  convulsive  agonies,  when  the  patrons  of  liberty  appear- 
ed boldly  in  the  noble  cause,  and  sacrificed  their  estates  and  lives  in  its  defence,. 
The  Puritans  stood  firm  by  the  Protestant  religion,  and  by  the  liberties  of  their  coun- 
try, in  the  reigns  of  King  Charles  II.  and  King  James  II.,  and  received  the  fire  of 
the  enemy  from  all  their  batteries,  without  moving  sedition,  or  taking  advantage  of 
their  persecutors,  when  it  was  afterward  in  their  power.  Some  amendments,  in  my 
humble  opinion,  are  still  wanting  to  settle  the  cause  of  liberty  on  a  more  equal  basis, 
and  to  deliver  wise  and  good  men  from  the  fetters  of  oaths,  subscriptions,  and  reli- 
gious tests  of  all  sorts.  But  whether  such  desirable  blessings  are  in  reserve  for  this 
nation,  must  be  left  to  the  determination  of  an  all-wise  Providence.  In  the  mean 
time,  may  Protestant  Dissenters  express  their  gratitude  for  the  protection  and  ease 
they  enjoy  at  present,  by  an  undissembled  piety  towards  God !  by  a  firm  and  un- 
shaken loyalty  to  his  majesty's  person  and  wise  administration  !  by  avoiding  every- 
thing that  tends  to  persecution  or  censoriousness  for  mere  differences  in  religion  ! 
and  by  the  integrity  of  their  own  lives  and  manners  !  And  while  they  think  it  their 
duty  to  separate  from  the  national  establishment,  may  they  distinguish  themselves  by 
the  exercise  of  all  social  virtues,  and  stand  fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith  the  provi- 
dence of  God  has  made  them  free  !  By  such  a  conduct  they  will  preserve  their 
characters  with  all  sober  persons,  and  will  transmit  the  blessings  of  the  present 
age  to  their  latest  posterity. 

Daniel  Neal. 

London,  March  1,  1737-8. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

TO    VOL.    IV.    OF    DR.    TOULMIN'S    EDITION. 


The  volume  of  Mr.  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans  now  presented  to  the  public,, 
besides  the  additions  made  to  it  in  the  form  of  notes,  is  considerably  enlarged  by 
supplemental  chapters.  These  comprise  the  continued  history  of  the  English  Bap- 
tists and  Quakers,  and  furnish  the  reader  with  the  substance  of  Mr.  Crosby's  history 
of  the  former,  and  a  full  abstract  of  Mr.  Gough's  work  concerning  the  latter  sect. 
The  editor  hopes  that  in  this  part  of  his  undertaking  he  has  not  only  done  justice 
and  showed  respect  to  two  denominations  who,  in  the  last  century,  were  treated 
neither  with  humanity  nor  equity,  but  afforded  the  reader  information  and  enter- 
tainment. 

Where  he  has  seen  reason  to  animadvert  on  and  correct  Mr.  Neal,  it  were  suffi- 
cient to  rest  his  justification  on  the  plea  of  impartiality  and  the  love  of  truth.  But 
to  the  honour  of  his  author  he  can  add,  he  has  only  done  what  was  wished  by  him, 
who,  in  his  preface  to  the  first  volume,  has  said,*  "  I  shall  be  always  thankful  to  any 
that  will  convince  me  of  my  mistakes  in  a  friendly  manner ;"  and  in  that  to  the  third 
volume  he  has  more  fully  expressed  himself  in  this  manner  :  "  In  historical  debates 
nothing  is  to  be  received  upon  trust ;  but  facts  are  to  be  examined,  and  a  judgment 
formed  upon  the  authority  by  which  those  facts  are  supported  ;  by  this  method  we 
shall  arrive  at  truth  ;  and  if  it  shall  appear  that,  in  the  course  of  this  long  history, 
there  are  any  considerable  mistakes,  the  world  may  be  assured  I  will  take  the  first 
opportunity  to  retract  or  amend  them."f 

The  editor  can  declare,  that  it  has  been  his  own  aim  to  do  full  justice  to  the  sects 
and  characters  of  those  who  have,  in  this  work,  come  before  him  in  review,  and  he 
can  boldly  appeal  to  his  pen  itself  to  prove  the  sincerity  of  his  declaration.  He 
scarcely  would  have  thought  of  making  this  appeal,  if,  in  an  early  stage  of  his  under- 
taking, it  had  not  been  insinuated  that  it  was  his  design  to  make  this  work  a  vehicle 
for  conveying  particular  opinions  in  theology,  and  that  his  own  sentiments  made  him 
an  unfit  person  for  the  task.  He  has,  indeed,  sentiments  of  his  own,  but  he  can  es- 
timate goodness  and  worth  wherever  they  are  found.  He  has  sentiments  of  his  own, 
but  he  rejoices  in  the  consciousness  of  a  disposition  to  grant  to  others  a  full  liberty 
to  avow,  defend,  and  disseminate  their  sentiments,  though  opposite  to  his  own,  and 
can  give  them  the  praise  due  to  their  abilities  and  characters. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  him,  that  the  examination  of  the  writers  who  have  censured  Mr.. 
Neal  with  severity  has  eventually  established  the  authenticity  of  the  history,  and  the 
candour  and  impartiality  of  the  author  in  all  the  main  parts  of  his  work.  It  reflects 
high  and  lasting  honour  on  this  ecclesiastical  history,  that  if  the  author  were  con- 
victed by  a  Warburton,  a  Maddox,  and  a  Grey,  of  partiality,  it  could  be  only  such  a 
partiality  as  might  arise  from  a  zeal  against  tyrants  and  oppressors.  The  work  has, 
on  the  whole,  a  liberal  cast ;  it  is  on  the  side  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  ;  it  is  in 
favour  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  against  unconstitutional  prerogative  ;  it  is  in  fa- 
vour of  the  rights  of  conscience,  against  an  imperious  and  persecuting  hierarchy, 
whether  Episcopal  or  Presbyterian  ;  it  is  in  favour  of  the  great  interests  of  mankind, 
and,  to  adopt  the  words  of  a  most  able  and  liberal  writer,^  "  A  history  that  is  written 
without  any  regard  to  the  chief  privileges  of  human  nature,  and  without  feelings, 
especially  of  the  moral  kind,  must  lose  a  considerable  part  of  its  instruction  and 
energy." 

*  P.  X.  t  P.  xxiv. 

t  Dr.  Kippis :  Preface  to  the  first  volume  of  the  second  edition  of  the  Biographia  Britannica,  p.  21. 


PART   IV. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  KING  CHARLES  I.  TO  THE 
CORONATION  OF  KING  CHARLES  II.  IN  SCOT- 
LAND  1648. 

Upon  the  death  of  the  late  king,  the  legal 
Constitution  was  dissolved,  and  all  that  follow- 
ed till  the  restoration  of  King  Charles  If.  was 
no  better  than  a  usurpation,  under  different 
shapes  ;  the  House  of  Commons,  if  it  may  de- 
serve that  name,  after  it  had  been  purged  of  a 
third  part  of  its  members,*  relying  on  the  i.\ct 
of  Continuation,  called  themselves  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  nation,  and  began  with  an  act 
to  disinherit  the  Prince  of  Wales,  forbidding  all 
persons  to  proclaim  him  King  of  England,  on 
pain  of  high  treason.  The  House  of  Lords  was 
■voted  useless;  and  the  office  of  a  king  unneces- 
sary, burdensome,  and  dangerous.  The  form 
of  government  for  the  future  was  declared  to  be 
a  free  commonwealth  ;  the  executive  power 
Jodged  in  the  hands  of  a  council  of  state  of  forty 
persons, t  with  full  powers  to  take  care  of  the 
whole  administration  for  one  year ;  new  keep- 
ers of  the  great  seal  were  appointed,  from  whom 
the  judges  received  their  commissions,  with  the 
name,  style,  and  title  of  custodcs  libcrtahs  An- 
glicB  aulhoritate  Parliamenti,  i.  e.,  keepers  of  the 
liberties  of  England  by  authority  of  Parliament. 
The  coin  was  stamped  on  one  side  with  the 
.arms  of  England  between  a  laurel  and  a  palm, 
with  this  inscription,  "  The  Commonwealth  of 
England  ;"  and  on  the  other,  a  cross  and  harp, 
-with  this  motto,  *'  God  with  us."t  The  oaths 
of  allegiance  and  supremacy  were  abolished, 
and  a  new  one  appointed,  called  the  Engage- 
ment, which  was,  to  be  true  and  faithful  to  the 
government  established,  without  king  or  House 
of  Peers.  Such  as  refused  the  oath  were  de- 
clared incapable  of  holding  any  place  or  office  of 
trust  in  the  commonwealth  ;  but  as  many  of  the 
excluded  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
as  would  take  it  resumed  their  places. iji 


*  According  to  Echard,  not  above  a  fifth  part  of 
the  Commons  were  left.  On  account  of  the  reduced 
and  mutilated  state  of  the  House,  they  were  called 
the  Kump  Parliament.  This  name  was  first  given  to 
them  by  Walker,  the  author  of  the  History  of  Inde- 
pendency, by  way  of  derision,  in  allusion  to  a  fowl, 
all  devoured  but  the  rump ;  and  they  were  compared 
to  a  man  "  who  would  never  cease  to  whet  and  whet 
his  knife,  till  there  was  no  steel  left  to  make  it  use- 
ful."— Dr.  Grey,  and  Rapin.—Eo. 

t  According  to  Whitelocke,  who  gives  theirnames, 
the  council  consisted  of  thirty-eight  persons  only. 
— Ed. 

t  On  which  a  man  of  wit  observed,  "That  God 
and  the  commonwealth  were  not  both  on  a  side." — 
Dr.  Grey. — Ed. 

()  In  one  respect  the  superiority  of  the  new  rulers 
over  those  whom  they  displaced  was  very  apparent. 
A  new  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  commonwealth  was  de- 
■vised,  and  ordered  to  be  taken  by  the  public  func- 
tionaries of  government,  and   subsequently  by  all 


Such  was  the  foundation  of  this  new  Consti- 
tution, which  had  neither  the  consent  of  the  peo- 
ple of  England,  nor  of  their  representatives  in  a 
free  Parliament.  "  And  if  ever  there  was  an 
usurped  government  mutilated,  and  founded 
only  in  violence,"  says  Rapin,*  "  it  was  that  of 
this  Parliament."  But  though  it  was  unsupport- 
ed by  any  other  power  than  that  of  the  army,  it 
was  carried  on  with  the  most  consummate  wis- 
dom, resolution,  and  success,  till  the  same  mil- 
itary power  that  set  it  up  was  permitted,  by 
Divine  Providence,  with  equal  violence  to  pull 
it  down. 

The  new  commonwealth  in  its  infant  state 
met  with  opposition  from  divers  quarters :  the 
Levellers  in  the  army  gave  out  that  the  people 
had  only  changed  their  yoke,  not  shaken  it  off; 
and  that  the  Rump's  little  finger  (for  so  the 
House  of  Commons  was  now  called)  would  be 
heavier  than  the  king's  loins.  The  agitators 
therefore  petitioned  the  House  to  dissolve  them- 
selves, that  new  representatives  might  be  cho- 
sen. The  Commons,  alarmed  at  these  proceed- 
ings, ordered  their  general  officers  to  cashier 
the  petitioners,  and  break  their  swords  over 
their  heads,  which  was  done  accordingly.  But 
when  the  forces  passed  under  a  general  review 
at  Ware,  their  friends  in  the  army  agreed  to 
distinguish  themselves  by  wearing  something 
white  in  their  hats  ;+  which  Cromwell  having 
some  intelligence  of  beforehand,  commanded 
two  regiments  of  horse,  who  were  not  in  the 
secret,  to  surround  one  of  the  regiments  of 
foot ;  and  having  condemned  four  of  the  ring- 
leaders in  a  council  of  war,  he  commanded  two 
of  them  to  be  shot  to  death  by  their  other  two 
associates,  in  sight  of  the  whole  army  ;  and  to 
break  the  combination,  eleven  regiments  were 
ordered  for  Ireland  ;  upon  which  great  numbers 
deserted,  and  marched  into  Oxfordshire ;  but 
Generals  Fairfax  and  Cromwell,  having  over- 
taken them  at  Abingdon,  held  them  in  treaty 
till  Colonel  Reynolds  came  up,  and  after  some 
few  skirmishes  dispersed  them. 

The  Scots  threatened  the  commonwealth 
with  a  formidable  invasion,  for  upon  the  death 


members  of  Parliament,  magistrates,  military  officers, 
and  clergymen.  It  was  framed  in  a  spirit  of  liberali- 
ty hitherto  unknown  to  English  statesmen,  and  pre- 
sented no  bar  to  the  occupation  of  office  by  religionists  of 
all  complexions  and  parties.  It  provided  simply  for  the 
civil  obedience  of  the  subject— ovienng  110  violence  to 
conscience,  and  presenting  no  temptation  to  hypocri- 
sy. It  imposed  no  religious  test  as  a  qualification 
for  civil  office,  but  left  unimpaired  the  natural  right 
of  every  human  being  to  adopt  whatever  form  of  re- 
ligious faith  he  pleased.  Dr.  Walker  calls  this  oath 
the  "  Independent  Covenant,"  but  fails  to  establish 
the  analogy  which  his  language  suggests. — Claren- 
don, \o\.  vi.,  p.  21.  Parliamentary  Hist.,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
1334.    Price's  Hist.  Nonconformity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  440. — C 

♦  Vol.  ii.,  p.  573,  folio. 

t  Whitelocke,  p.  387,  389. 


108 


HISTORY   OF   THE  PURITANS. 


of  King  Charles  I.  they  proclaimed  the  Prince 
of  Wales  king  of  Scotland,  and  sent  comniis- 
sioners  to  the  Hague  to  invite  him  into  that 
kingdom,  provided  he  would  renounce  popery 
and  prelacy,  and  take  the  solemn  League  and 
Covenant.  To  prevent  the  effects  of  this  trea- 
ty, and  cultivate  a  good  understanding.wilh  the 
Dutch,  the  Parliament  sent  Dr.  Dorislaus,*  an 
eminent  civilian,  concerned  in  the  late'  king's 
trial,  agent  to  the- States-General ;  but  the  very 
first  night  after  his  arrival,  May  3,  1649,  he  was 
murdered  in  his  own  chamber  by  twelve  des- 
perate cavaliers  in  disguise,  who  rushed  in  upon 
him  while  he  was  at  supper,  and  with  their 
drawn  swords  killed  him  on  the  spot.t  Both 
the  Parliament  and  States  of  Holland  resented 
this  base  actiont  so  highly,  that  the  young  king 
thought  proper  to  remove  into  France,  from 
whence  he  went  to  the  Isle  of  Jersey,  and 
towards  the  latter  end  of  the  year  fixed  at 
Breda,  where  the  Scots  commissioners  conclu- 
ded a  treaty  with  him,  upon  the  foot  of  which 
he  ventured  his  royal  person  into  that  kingdom 
the  ensuing  year. 

But,  to  strike  terror  into  the  cavaliers,  the 
Parliament  erected  another  high  court  of  jus- 
tice, and  sentenced  to  death  three  illustrious 
noblemen,  for  the  part  they  had  acted  in  the 
last  civil  war  :  Duke  Hamilton,  the  Earl  of  Hol- 
land, and  Lord  Capel,  who  were  all  executed 
March  9,  in  the  Palace-yard  at  Westminster  : 
Duke  Hamilton  declared  himself  a  Presbyteri- 
an, and  the  Earl  of  Holland  was  attended  by 
two  ministers  of  the  same  persuasion  ;  but 
Lord  Capel  was  a  thorough  Loyalist,  and  went 
off  the  stage  with  the  courage  and  bravery  of 
a  Roman. 

But  the  chief  scene  of  great  exploits  this  year 
was  in  Ireland,  which  Cromwell,  a  bold  and 
enterprising  commander,  had  been  appointed  to 
reduce  ;  for  this  purpose  he  was  made  lord- 
lieutenant  for  three  years,  and  having  taken 


*  This  person  was  a  native  of  Holland,  and  doctor 
of  the  civil  law  at  Leyden.  On  his  coining  to  Eng- 
land he  was  patronised  by  Fulk,  Lord  Brook,  who 
appointed  him  to  read  lectures  on  liistory  in  Cam- 
bridge. But  as,  in  the  opening  of  his  course,  he  de- 
cried monarchy,  he  was  silenced  ;  he  then  resided 
some  time  near  to  Maldon,  in  Essex,  where  he  had 
married  an  English  woman.  He  was  afterward  a 
judge-advocate,  first  in  the  king's  army,  and  then  in 
the  army  of  the  Parliament,  and,  at  length,  one  of 
the  judge's  of  the  Court  of  Admiralty.  The  Parlia- 
ment ordered  X250  for  his  funeral ;  settled  on  his  son 
£200  per  annum  for  his  life,  and  gave  £500  apiece 
to  his  daughters. —  Wood's  Athena  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
228  ;  and  Whitelocke's  Mtmoriah,  p.  390.— Ed. 

t  Whitelocke,  p.  386. 

i  Dr.  Grey  cannot  easily  believe  that  the  murder 
of  Dr.  Dorislaus  was  resented  by  the  States  of  Hol- 
land, because  they  had  bravely  remonstrated,  by 
their  two  ambassadors,  against  the  king's  death  ;  he 
cannot,  therefore,  be  easily  induced  to  think  that, 
after  this,  they  could  resent  the  death  of  one  of  his 
execrable  murderers.  But  Dr.  Grey  does  not  con- 
sider what  was  due  in  this  case  to  the  honour  of 
their  own  police,  and  to  the  reputation  and  weight 
of  their  own  laws.  Mr.  Neal  is  justified  in  his  rep- 
resentations by  Whitelocke,  who  says,  "  that  letters 
from  the  Hague  reported  that  the  States  caused 
earnest  inquisition  to  be  made  after  the  murderers  of 
Dr.  Dorislaus ;  promised  one  thousand  guilders  to 
him  who  should  bring  any  of  them  ;  and  published 
it  death  to  any  who  should  harbour  any  one  of  them." 
— Memorials,  p.  390. — Eo. 


leave  of  the  Parliament,  sailed  from  Milford-Ha- 
ven*  about  the  middle  of  August,  with  an  army 
of  fourteen  thousand  men  of  resolute  princi- 
ples, who  before  the  embarcation  observed  a 
day  of  fasting  and  prayer  ;  in  which,  Mr.  White- 
locke remarks,  after  three  ministers  had  prayed. 
Lieutenant-general  Cromwell  himself,  and  the 
Colonels  Gough  and  Harrison,  expounded  some 
parts  of  Scripture  excellently  well,  and  perti- 
nently to  the  occasion.  The  army  was  under 
a  severe  discipline  ;  not  an  oath  was  to  be 
heard  throughout  the  whole  camp,  the  soldiers 
spending  their  leisure  hours  in  reading  their 
Bibles,  in  singing  psalms,  and  religious  confer- 
ences. 

Almost  all  Ireland  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Royalists  and  Roman  Catholics,  except  Dublin 
and  Londonderry  ;  the  former  of  these  places 
had  been  lately  besieged  by  the  Duke  of  Or- 
mond  with  twenty  thousand  men,t  but  the  gar- 
rison being  recruited  with  three  regiments  fronrj 
England,  the  governor.  Colonel  Jones,  surprised 
the  besiegers,  and  after  a  vigorous  sally  stormed 
their  camp,  and  routed  the  whole  army,  which 
dispersed  itself  into  Drogheda,  and  other  forti- 
fied places.     Cromwell,  upon  his  arrival,  was 


*  Neal  is  at  fault,  I  imagine,  both  in  fact  and  date, 
in  stating  that  Cromwell  sailed  from  Milford-Haven. 
Jesse  says  "his  departure,  and  the  stateliness  of  his 
cavalcade,"  are  announced  in  the  Moderate  Intelli- 
gencer, July  10,  1649  :  "  This  evening,  about  five  of 
the  clock,  the  Lord-heutenant  of  Ireland  began  his 
journey  by  the  way  of  Windsor,  and  so  to  Bristol'. 
He  went  forth  in  that  state  and  equipage  as  the  like 
hath  hardly  been  seen;  himself  in  a  coach  with  si.t 
gallant  Flanders  mares,  whitish  gray,  divers  coaches 
accompanying  him,  and  very  many  ofliicers  of  the 
army :  his  life-guard  consisting  of  eighty  gallant 
men,  the  meanest  whereof  a  commander  or  esquire, 
in  stately  habit,  with  trumpets  sounding  almost  tO' 
the  shaking  of  Charing  Cross,  had  it  been  now  stand- 
ing; of  his  life-guard  many  are  colonels,  and  I  be- 
lieve it  is  such  a  guard  as  is  hardly  to  be  paralleled 
in  the  world."  And  I  find  in  the  city  records  of 
Bristol  the  following  entry  :  "July,  1649,  Lieut. -gen. 
Oliver  Cromwel  Icame  to  Bristol,  and  thence  passed 
to  Ireland."  Cromwell  entered  Dublin  the  15th  of 
August. ^Seyer's  Meynoirs  of  Bristol,  quarto,  vol.  ii., 
p.  4G9.— C. 

t  Dr.  Grey  controverts  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  the 
number  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond's  army,  on  the  au- 
thority of  Lord  Clarendon  and  Mr.  Carte  ;  the  former 
says  that  Jones  sallied  out  with  a  body  of  six  thousand 
foot  and  one  thousand  nine  hundred  horse,  and  that 
the  army  encamped  at  Rathmines  was  not  so  strong 
in  horse  and  foot ;  the  latter,  that  Jones's  forces 
amounted  to  only  four  thousand  foot  and  one  thou- 
sand two  hundred  horse,  which  was  a  body  nearly 
equal  to  the  whole  Irish  army,  if  it  had  been  all  en- 
gaged. These  authorities  are  set  against  Mr.  Neal. 
On  the  other  hand,  Whitelocke  informs  us  that,  pre- 
viously to  this  defeat,  letters  from  Ireland  represent- 
ed the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  approaching  Dublin  with 
twelve  thousand  foot  and  two  thousand  four  hun- 
dred horse;  and  letters  from  Chester  reported  him 
forty  thousand  strong  before  Dublin.  Ludlow  says 
that  his  forces  were  double  in  number  to  those  of 
Jones.  Borlase  says  that  Jones,  with  very  few  for- 
ces, comparatively,  fell  on  the  besiegers,  killed  four 
thousand,  and  took  two  thousand  five  hundred  and 
seventeen  prisoners.  The  plunder  of  the  field,  wo 
are  told,  was  so  rich,  that  the  camp  was  like  a  fair, 
presenting  for  sale  cloth,  silk,  and  all  manner  of 
clothes.  The  Parliament  settled  £1000  per  annum 
in  land  on  Jones  for  his  services. —  Whitelocke'sMe- 
morials,  p.  393,  401,  404.  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  p.  101, 
4to  ed. ;  and  Harris's  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  228. — Ed«. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


109 


received  with  the  acclamations  of  a  vast  con- 
course of  people,  to  whom  he  addressed  him- 
self from  a  rising  ground,  with  hat  in  hand,  in 
a  soldierlike  manner,  telling  them  "  he  was 
come  to  cut  down  and  destroy  the  barbarous 
and  bloodthirsty  Irish,  with  all  their  adherents  ;* 
but  that  all  who  were  for  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion, and  the  liberties  of  their  country,  should 
find  suitable  encouragement  from  the  Parlia- 
ment of  England  and  himself,  in  proportion  to 
their  merits."  Having  refreshed  his  forces, 
he  marched  directly  to  Drogheda,  which  was 
garrisoned  with  two  thousand  five  hundred  foot 
and  three  hundred  horse,  and  was  therefore 
thought  capable  of  holding  out  a  month  ;  but 
the  general,  neglecting  the  common  forms  of 
approach,  battered  the  walls  with  his  cannon, 
and  having  made  two  accessible  breaches,  like 
an  impetuous  conqueror  entered  the  town  in 
person,  at  the  head  of  Colonel  Ewer's  regiment 
of  foot,  and  put  all  the  garrison  to  the  sword. 
From  thence  he  marched  to  Wexford,  which  he 
took  likewise  by  storm,  and,  after  the  example 
of  Drogheda,  put  the  garrison  to  the  sword  ; 
the  general  declaring  that  he  would  sacrifice 
all  the  Irish  papists  to  the  ghosts  of  the  Eng- 
lish Protestants  whom  they  had  massacred  in 
«old  blood. t      The   conquest   of  these  places 

*  Dr.  Grey  spends  here  more  than  ten  pages  in 
detailing,  from  Lord  Clarendon,  various  acts  of  op- 
pression, cruelty,  and  murder  perpetrated  by  indi- 
viduals of  Cromwell's  army,  to  show  that  they  were 
not  less  barbarous  and  bloodthirsty  than  the  inhu- 
man wretches  concerned  in  the  Irish  massacre. 
Such  deeds,  undoubtedly,  shock  humanity,  and 
ought  to  shock  every  party.  But  the  guilt  lieth  ori- 
ginally at  the  door  of  those  who  were  the  first  ag- 
gressors, whose  conduct  furnished  the  precedent,  and 
provoked  retaliation. — En. 

t  Great  reproach,  on  this  account,  has  fallen  on 
the  name  of  Cromwell.  He  reconciled  himself  to 
the  execution  of  such  severe  orders,  for  putting  to 
the  sword  and  giving  no  quarter,  by  considering 
them  as  necessary  to  prevent  the  effusion  of  blood 
for  the  future,  and  as  the  instrument  of  the  righteous 
judgment  of  God  upon  those  barbarous  wretches 
who  had  imbrued  their  hands  in  so  much  innocent 
blood.  If  ever  such  measures  are  justifiable,  "  it  is 
in  such  a  case  as  this,"  observes  Dr.  Harris,  "  where 
the  known  disposition  and  behaviour  of  the  sufferers 
are  remarkably  barbarous,  inhuman,  and  cruel." 
Such  horror,  we  are  told,  had  the  barbarities  com- 
mitted by  the  Irish,  in  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion 
and  during  the  course  of  the  war,  impressed  on  ev- 
ery English  breast,  that  even  the  humane  and  gen- 
tle Fairfax  expressed  in  warm  and  severe  terms  his 
disapprobation  of  granting  them  quarter. — Harris's 
Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  229  ;  and  Macaulay's  History  of 
England,  vol.  v.,  p.  15,  note,  8vo  ed. — Ed. 

"  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  not  a  voice  was  heard 
against  this  tremendous  act  of  oppression,  such  hor- 
ror had  the  Irish  massacre  excited,  and  so  irreclaim- 
able, in  the  judgment  of  all  men,  was  the  nature  of 
the  inhabitants  ;  even  when  new  settlers  established 
themselves  there,  'through  what  virtues  of  the  soil,' 
says  Harrington,  '  or  vice  of  the  air  soever  it  be, 
they  came  still  to  degenerate  ;'  and  of  the  descend- 
ants of  English  colonists  there  it  was  said,  in  Eliz- 
abeth's time,  that  they  were  Hibemis  ipsis  Hibemiores. 
So  little  were  their  rights,  or  even  their  existence, 
taken  into  the  account,  that  Harrington  thought  the 
best  thing  the  commonwealth  coulil  do  with  Ireland 
was  to  farm  it  to  the  Jews  forever,  for  the  pay  of  an 
army  to  protect  them  during  the  first  seven  years, 
and  two  millions  a  year  from  that  time  forward  ! 
"What  was  to  be  done  with  the  Irish,  whether  they 
were  to  be  made  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of 


struck  such  a  terror  into  the  rest,  that  they  sur- 
rendered upon  the  first  summons  ;  the  name  of 
Cromwell  carrying  victory  on  its  wings  before 
himself  appeared,  the  whole  country  was  re- 
duced by  the  middle  of  May,  except  Limerick, 
Galvvay,  and  one  or  two  other  places,  which 
Ireton  took  the  following  summer.  Lord  Inche- 
quin  deserted  the  remains  of  the  royal  army, 
and  Ormond  fled  into  France.  Lieutenant-gen- 
eral Cromwell  being  called  home  to  march 
against  the  Scots,  arrived  at  London  about  the 
middle  of  May,  and  was  received  by  the  Parlia- 
ment and  city  with  distinguished  respect  and 
honour,  as  a  soldier  who  had  gained  more  lau- 
rels, and  done  more  wonders,  in  nine  months, 
than  any  age  or  history  could  parallel. 

It  is  a  remarkable  account  the  lieutenant- 
general  gives  in  one  of  his  letters,  of  the  be- 
haviour of  the  army  after  their  arrival  in  Ire- 
land :  "  Their  diligence,  courage,  and  behaviour 
are  such,"  says  he,  "through  the  providence  of 
God,  and  strict  care  of  the  chief  officers,  that 
never  men  did  obey  orders  more  cheerfully,  nor 
go  upon  duty  more  courageously.  Never  did 
greater  harmony  and  resolution  appear  to  prose- 
cute this  cause  of  God,  than  in  this  army. 
Such  a  consent  of  hearts  and  hands  ;  such  a 
sympathy  of  affections,  not  only  in  carnal,  but 
in  spiritual  bonds,  which  tie  faster  than  chains 
of  adamant  !  I  have  often  observed  a  wonder- 
ful consent  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  upon  the 
grounds  of  doing  service  to  God,  and  how  mi- 
raculously they  have  succeeded.  The  mind  of 
man  being  satisfied,  and  fixed  on  God,  and  that 
his  undertaking  is  for  God's  glory,  it  gives  the 
greatest  courage  to  those  men,  and  prosperity 
to  their  actions."* 

To  put  the  afl^airs  of  Ireland  together  :  The 
Roman  Catholics  charged  the  ill  success  of 
their  affairs  upon  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  and 
sent  him  word  "  that  they  were  determined  not 
to  submit  any  longer  to  his  commands,  it  not 
being  fit  that  a  Catholic  army  should  be  under 
the  direction  of  a  Protestant  general ;  but  that 
if  he  would  depart  the  kingdom,  they  would 
undertake  of  themselves  to  drive  Ireton  out  of 
Dublin."  After  this  they  offered  the  kingdom 
to  the  Duke  of  Lorrain,  a  bigoted  papist,  who 
was  wise  enough  to  decline  the  offer,!  and  then 
quarrelling  among  themselves,  they  were  soon 
driven  out  of  all  the  strongholds  of  the  king- 
dom, and  forced  to  submit  to  the  mercy  of  the 
conqueror.  All  who  had  borne  arms  in  the  late 
insurrection  were  shipped  away  into  France, 
Spain,  or  Flanders,  never  to  return  on  pain  of 
death.  Those  who  had  a  hand  in  murdering 
the  Protestants  at  the  time  of  the  massacre 


water,  or  to  become  Jews  by  compulsion,  he  has  not 
explained.  For  the  sufferings  of  the  Irish,  however, 
Cromwell  is  not  responsible,  and  under  the  order  which 
he  established,  if  it  had  continued  for  another  generation, 
the  island  would  have  been  in  a  better  state  than  any 
which  its  authentic  history  has  yet  recorded ;  for  there,  as 
in  Scotland,  a  more  equitable  administration  xuas  intro- 
duced than  that  which  had  been  destroyed." — London 
Qiiartcrh/,  vol.  XXV.,  p.  341.— C. 

*  Whitclocke,  p.  434. 

t  Dr.  Grey  insinuates  here  a  reflection  on  Mr. 
Neal's  veracity,  by  remarking  that  he  produces  no 
authority  for  the  assertion.  But  that  Ireland  was  of- 
fered to  the  guardianship  of  the  Duke  of  Lorrain  has 
been  since  mentioned,  as  an  incontrovertible  fact,  by 
Dr.  Harris  and  Mrs.  Macaulay. — Ed. 


no 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


■were  brought  from  several  parts  of  the  country, 
and  after  conviction  upon  a  fair  trial  wer(!  exe- 
cuted. The  rest  of  the  natives,  who  were  call- 
ed Tories,  were  shut  up  in  the  most  inland 
counties,  and  tlieir  lands  given  partly  in  pay- 
ment to  the  soldiers  who  settled  there,  and  the 
rest  to  the  first  adventurers.*  Lord  Clarendon 
relates  it  thus  :  "  Near  one  hundred  thousand  of 
them  were  transported  into  foreign  parts,  for 
the  service  of  the  Kings  of  France  and  Spain  ; 
double  that  number  were  consumed  by  the 
plague,  famine,  and  other  severities  exercised 
upon  them  in  their  own  country ;  the  remain- 
der were  by  Cromwell  transplanted  into  the 
most  inland,  barren,  desolate,  and  mountainous 
part  of  the  province  of  Connaught,  and  it  was 
lawful  for  any  man  to  kill  any  of  the  Irish  that 
were  found  out  of  the  bounds  appointed  them 
within  that  circuit.  Such  a  proportion  of  land 
was  allotted  to  every  man  as  the  Protector 
thought  competent  for  them  ;  upon  which  they 
were  to  give  formal  releases  of  all  their  titles 
to  their  lands  in  any  other  provinces  ;  if  they 
refused  to  give  such  releases,  they  were  still 
deprived,  and  left  to  starve  within  the  limits 
prescribed  them,  out  of  which  they  durst  not 
withdraw  ;  so  that  very  few  refused  to  sign 
those  releases,  or  other  acts,  which  were  de- 
manded. It  was  a  considerable  time  before 
these  Irish  could  raise  anything  out  of  their 
lands  to  support  their  lives  ;  but  necessity  was 
the  spring  of  industry."  Thus  they  lived  under 
all  the  infamy  of  a  conquered  nation  till  the 
restoration  of  King  Charles  II.,  a  just  judgment 
of  God  for  their  barbarous  and  unheard-of  cru- 
elties to  the  Irish  Protestants  ! 

To  return  to  England  :  The  body  of  the  Pres- 
byterians acted  in  concert  with  the  Scots,  for 
restoring  the  king's  family  upon  the  foot  of  the 
Covenant ;  several  of  their  ministers  carried  on 
a  private  correspondence  with  the  chiefs  of  that 
nation,  and  instead  of  taking  the  engagement  to 
the  present  powers,  called  them  usurpers,  and 
declined  praying  for  them  in  their  churches  ; 
they  also  declared  against  a  general  toleration, 
for  which  the  army  and  Parliament  contended. 

When  Lieutenant-general  Cromwell  was  em- 
barking for  Ireland,  he  sent  letters  to  the  Par- 
liament, recommending  the  removal  of  all  the 
penal  laws  relating  to  religion  ;  upon  which  the 
House  ordered  a  committee  to  make  report  con- 
cerning a  method  for  the  ease  of  tender  con- 
sciences, and  an  act  to  be  brought  in  to  appoint 
commissioners  in  every  county,  for  the  approba- 
tion of  able  and  well-qualified  persons  to  be  made 
ministers,  who  cannot  comply  with  the  present 
ordinance  for  ordination  of  ministers. t 

August  16,  General  Fairfax  and  his  council  of 
officers  presented  a  petition  to  the  same  purpose, 
praying  "  that  all  penal  statutes  formerly  made, 
and  ordinances  lately  made,  whereby  many  con- 
scientious people  were  molested,  and  the  prop- 
agation of  the  Gospel  hindered,  might  be  re- 
moved. Not  that  they  desired  this  liberty  should 
extend  to  the  setting  up  popery,  or  the  late  hi- 
erarchy ;  or  to  the  countenancing  any  sort  of 
immorality  or  profaneness ;  for  they  earnestly 
desired  that  drunkenness,  swearing,  unclean- 
ness,  and  all  acts  of  profaneness,  might  be  vig- 

*  Carrington's  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  155.  Claren- 
don, p.  153.  t  Whitelocke,  p.  405. 


orously  prosecuted  in  all  persons  whatsoever."* 
The  House  promised  to  take  the  petition  into 
speedy  consideration,  and  after  some  time  pass- 
ed it  into  a  law. 

But  to  bring  the  Presbyterian  clergy  to  the 
test,  the  Engagement,  which  had  been  appointed 
to  be  taken  by  all  civil  and  military  officers  with- 
in a  limited  time,  on  pain  of  forfeiting  their  pla- 
ces, was  now  required  to  be  sworn  and  subscri- 
bed by  all  ministers,  heads  of  colleges  and  halls, 
fellows  of  houses,  graduates,  and  all  officers  in 
the  universities  ;  and  by  the  masters,  fellows, 
schoolmasters,  and  scholars  of  Eton  College, 
Westminster,  and  Winchester  schools ;  no  min- 
ister was  to  be  admitted  to  any  ecclesiastical 
living,  no  clergyman  to  sit  as  member  of  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines,  nor  be  capable  of  enjoying 
any  preferment  in  the  Church,  unless  he  quali- 
fied himself  by  taking  the  Engagement  within 
six  months,  publicly  in  the  face  of  the  congre- 
gation.t 

November  9,  it  was  referred  to  a  committee, 
to  consider  how  the  Engagement  might  be  sub- 
scribed by  all  the  people  of  the  nation,  of  eigh- 
teen years  of  age  and  upward.  Pursuant  to 
which  a  bill  was  brought  in,  and  passed,  Jan- 
uary 2,  to  debar  all  who  should  refuse  to  take  and 
subscribe  it  from  the  benefit  of  the  law  ;  and  to 
disable  them  from  suing  in  any  court  of  law  or 
equity. 

This  was  a  severe  test  on  the  Presbyterians, 
occasioned  by  the  apprehended  rupture  with  the 
Scots  ;  but  their  clergy  inveighed  bitterly  against 
it  in  their  sermons,  and  refused  to  observe  the- 
days  of  humiliation  appointed  by  authority  for  a 
blessing  upon  their  arms.  Mr.  Baxter  saysj 
that  he  wrote  several  letters  to  the  soldiers,  to 
convince  them  of  the  unlawfulness  of  the  pres- 
ent expedition  ;  and  in  his  sermons  declared  it 
a  sin  to  force  ministers  to  pray  for  the  success  of 
those  who  had  violated  the  Covenant,  and  were 
going  to  destroy  their  brethren.  That  he  both 
spoke  and  preached  against  the  Engagement,  and 
dissuaded  men  from  taking  it.  At  Exeter,  says 
Mr.  Whitelocke,  the  ministers  went  out  of  town 
on  the  fast-day,  and  shut  up  the  church  doors ; 
and  all  the  magistrates  refused  the  Engagement. 
At  Taunton,  the  fast  was  not  kept  by  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  ;  and  at  Chester  they  con- 
demned the  Engagementto  the  pit  of  hell ;  as  did 
many  of  the  London  ministers,  who  kept  days 
of  private  fasting  and  prayer,  against  the  pres- 
ent government.  Some  of  them  (says  White- 
locke) joined  the  Royalists,  and  refused  to  read 
the  ordinances  of  Parliament  in  their  pulpits,  as 
was  usual  in  those  times  ;  nay,  when  the  Scots 
were  beaten,  they  refused  to  observe  the  day  of 
thanksgiving,<J  but  shut  up  their  churches  and 
went  out  of  town ;  for  which  they  were  sum- 
moned before  the  committee  and  reprimanded  ; 
but  the  times  being  unsettled,  no  farther  notice 
was  taken  of  them  at  present. 


*  Whitelocke,  p.  404.  f  Walker,  p.  146. 

t  Life,  p.  64,  66. 

<j)  Lord  Grey,  at  the  desire  of  some  who  were  zeal- 
ously attached  to  the  Parliament,  complained,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Lord-president  of  the  Council  of  State, 
of  the  neglect  of  the  ministers,  in  Leicestershire  and 
another  county,  in  this  instance ;  and  urged  the  im- 
portance of  noticing  their  contempt  of  the  thanksgiv- 
ing-day, expressed  by  their  non-observance  of  it. — 
Dr.  Grey's  Appendix,  No.  8. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


iir 


Most  of  the  sectarian  party,  says  Mr.  Baxter,* 
swallowed  the  Engagement  ;  and  so  did  the 
king's  old  cavaliers,  very  few  of  them  being  sick 
of  the  disease  of  a  scrupulous  conscience :  some 
wrote  for  it,  but  the  moderate  Episcopal  men 
and  Presbyterians  generally  refused  it.  Those 
of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire  published  the  fol- 
lowing reasons  against  it  : 

(1.)  "  Because  they  apprehended  the  Oath  of 
Allegiance,  and  the  solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant, were  still  binding. 

(2.)  "Because  the  present  powers  were  no 
better  than  usurpers. 

(3.)  "  Because  the  taking  of  it  was  a  preju- 
dice to  the  right  heir  of  the  crown,  and  of  the 
ancient  legal  Constitution." 

To  which  it  was  answered,  '-that  it  was  ab- 
surd to  suppose  the  Oath  of  Allegiance,  or  the 
solemn  League  and  Covenant,  to  be  in  force 
after  the  king's  death  ;  for  how  could  they  be 
obliged  to  preserve  the  king's  person,  when  the 
king's  person  was  destroyed,  and  the  kingly  of- 
fice abolished!  and  as  to  his  successor,  his 
right  had  been  forfeited  and  taken  away  by  Par- 
liament." With  regard  to  the  present  powers, 
it  was  said,  "  that  it  was  not  for  private  persons 
to  dispute  the  rights  and  titles  of  their  supreme 
governors.  Here  was  a  government  de  facto, 
under  which  they  lived  ;  as  long,  tlierefore,  as 
they  enjoyed  the  protection  of  the  government, 
it  was  their  duty  to  give  all  reasonable  security 
that  they  would  not  disturb  it,  or  else  to  re- 
move." Tlie  body  of  the  common  people,  be- 
ing weary  of  war,  and  willing  to  live  quiet,  un- 
der any  administration,  submitted  to  the  Engage- 
ment, as  being  little  more  than  a  promise  noi  to 
attempt  the  subversion  of  the  present  govern- 
ment, but  many  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  chose 
rather  to  quit  their  preferments  in  the  Church 
and  university  than  comply  ;  which  made  way 
for  the  promotion  of  several  Independent  di- 
vines, and  among  others,  of  Dr.  Thomas  Good- 
win, one  of  the  dissenting  brethren  in  the  As- 
sembly, who,  by  order  of  Parliament,  January 
8,  1649-50,  was  appointed  president  of  Magda- 
len College,  Oxford,  with  the  privilege  of  nomi- 
nating fellows  and  demies  in  such  places  as 
should  become  vacant  by  death,  or  by  the  pos- 
sessors refusing  to  take  the  Engagement  t 

The  Parliament  tried  several  methods  to  rec- 
oncile the  Presbyterians  to  the  present  admin- 
istration ;  persons  were  appointed  to  treat  with 
them,  and  assure  them  of  the  protection  of 
the  government,  and  of  the  full  enjoyment  of 
their  ecclesiastical  preferments  according  to 
law  ;  when  this  could  not  prevail,  an  order  was 
published,  that  ministers  in  their  pulpits  should 
not  meddle  with  state  affairs.  After  this  the 
celebrated  Milton  was  appointed  to  write  for  the 
government,  who  rallied  the  seditious  preachers 
with  his  satirical  pen  in  a  severe  manner;  at 
length,  when  all  other  methods  failed,  a  com- 
mittee was  chosen  to  receive  informations 
against  such  ministers  as  in  their  pulpits  vilified 
and  aspersed  the  authority  of  Parliament,  and  an 
act  was  passed  that  all  such  should  be  seques- 
tered from  their  ecclesiastical  preferments.J 

The  Presbyterians  supported  themselves  un- 
der these  hardships  by  their  alliance  with  the 
Scots,  and  their  hope  of  a  speedy  alteration  of 


*  Life,  p.  64,  65. 

t  Wliitelocke,  p.  387. 


t  Whitelocke,  p.  453. 


affairs  by  their  assistance ;  for,  in  the  remon- 
strance of  the  General  Assembly  of  that  Kirk, 
dated  July  27,  they  declare  that  "  the  spirit 
which  has  acted  in  the  councils  of  those  who 
have  obstructed  the  work  of  God,  despised  the 
Covenant,  corrupted  the  truth,  forced  the  Par- 
liament, murdered  the  king,  changed  the  gov- 
ernment, and  established  such  an  unlimited  tol- 
eration in  religion,  cannot  be  the  spirit  of  righ- 
teousness and  holiness.  They  therefore  warn 
the  subjects  of  Scotland  against  joining  with 
them,  and  in  case  of  an  invasion,  to  stand  up  ia 
their  own  defence.  The  English  have  no  con- 
troversy with  us,"  say  they,  "  but  because  the 
Kirk  and  State  have  declared  against  their  un- 
lawful Engagement ;  because  we  still  adhere  to 
our  Covenant,  and  have  borne  our  testimony 
against  their  toleration,  and  taking  away  the 
king's  life."*  But  they  then  warn  their  people 
also  against  malignants,  "  who  value  themselves 
upon  their  attachment  to  the  young  king  ;  and 
if  any  from  that  quarter  should  invade  the  king- 
dom before  his  majesty  has  given  satisfactioa^ 
to  the  Parliament  and  Kirk,  they  exhort  their 
people  to  resist  them,  as  abetters  of  an  absolute 
and  arbitrary  government." 

About  two  months  after  this  the  Parliament 
of  England  published  a  declaration  on  their  part, 
wherein  they  complain  of  the  revolt  of  the  Eng- 
lish and  Scots  Presbyterians,  and  of  their  taking, 
part  with  the  enemy,  because  their  discipline 
was  not  the  exact  standard  of  reformation. 
"  But  we  are  still  determined,"  say  they,t  "  not 
to  be  discouraged  in  our  endeavours  to  promote 
the  purity  of  religion,  and  the  liberty  of  the 
commonwealth  ;  and  for  the  satisfaction  of  our 
Presbyterian  brethren,  we  declare  that  we  will 
continue  all  those  ordinances  which  ha%'e  beea 
made  for  the  promoting  a  reformation  of  reli- 
gion, in  doctrine,  worship,  and  discipline,  in  their 
full  force  ;  and  will  uphold  the  same  in  order  to 
suppress  popery,  superstition,  blasphemy,  and 
all  kinds  of  profaneness.  Only  we  conceive 
ourselves  obliged  to  take  away  all  such  acts  and 
ordinances  as  are  penal,  and  coercive  in  matters 
of  conscience.  And  because  this  has  given  so 
great  offence,  we  declare,  as  in  the  presence  of 
God,  that  by  whomsoever  this  liberty  shall  be 
abused,  we  will  be  ready  to  testify  our  displeas- 
ure against  them  by  an  effectual  prosecution  of 
such  offenders." 

The  Scots  commissioners  were  all  this  while 
treating  with  the  king  in  Holland,  and  insisting 
on  his  subscribing  the  solemn  League  and  Cov- 
enant ;  his  establishing  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession, the  Directory,  and  the  Presbyterian 
government  in  both  kingdoms.  The  king,  being 
under  discouraging  circumstances,  consented 
to  all  their  demands  with  regard  to  Scotland, 
and  as  to  England,  referred  himself  to  a  free 
Parliament  ;  but  the  Scots,  not  satisfied  with 
his  majesty's  exceptions  as  to  England,  replied, 
that  "  such  an  answer  as  this  would  grieve  the 
whole  Kirk  of  Scotland,  and  all  their  covenant- 
ing brethren  in  England  and  Ireland  who,  under 
pain  of  the  most  solemn  perjury,  stand  bound  to 
God  and  one  another,  to  live  and  die  by  their 
Covenant,  as  the  chief  security  of  their  religion 
and  liberties  against  popish  and  prelatical  ma- 
lignants. Your  majesty's  father,"  say  they, 
"  in  his  last  message  to  our  Kirk,  offered  to  rat- 


*  Vol.  Paniph.,  No.  34,  p.  6. 


t  Ibid.,  No.  34. 


J 12 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


•ify  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant.  He  of- 
fered, likewise,  at  the  Isle  of  Wight,  to  confirm 
the  Directory,  and  the  Prcsbyterial  government 
in  England  and  Ireland  till  he  and  his  Parlia- 
ment should  agree  upon  a  settled  order  of  the 
Church.  Besides,  your  majesty  having  offered 
to  confirm  the  abolishing  of  Episcopacy,  and  the 
service-book  in  Scotland,  it  cannot  certainly  be 
against  your  conscience  to  do  it  in  England." 
But  the  king  would  advance  no  farther  till  he 
had  heard  from  the  queen-mother,  who  sent  him 
word  that  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  council  of 
France  that  he  should  agree  with  the  Scots 
upon  the  best  terms  he  was  able,  which  he  did 
accordingly,  as  will  be  related  the  next  year. 

The  fifth  Provincial  Assembly  of  London  met 
the  beginning  of  May  [1649]  at  Sion  College, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Jackson,  of  St.  Michael  Wood- 
street,  moderator.  A  committee  was  appointed 
to  prepare  materials  for  proof  of  the  Divine 
right  of  Presbyterial  church  government.  The 
proofs  were  examined  and  approved  by  this,  and 
the  Assembly  that  met  in  November  following,  of 
which  Mr.  Walker  was  moderator,  Mr.  Calamy 
and  Mr.  Jackson  assessors,  and  Mr.  Blackwell 
scribe.  The  treatise  was  printed,  and  asserts, 
(1.)  That  there  is  a  church  government  of 
Divine  institution. 

(2.)  That  the  civil  magistrate  is  not  the  ori- 
gin or  head  of  church  government.     And, 

(3.)  That  the  government  of  the  Church  by 
synods  and  classes  is  the  government  that 
Christ  appointed.  It  maintains  separation  from 
their  churches  to  be  schism  ;  that  ministers 
formerly  ordained  by  bishops  need  not  be  re- 
ordained  ;  and  for  private  Christians  in  partic- 
ular churches  to  assume  a  right  of  sending  per- 
sons forth  to  preach,  and  to  administer  the  sac- 
,  raments,  is,  in  their  opinion,  insufferable. 

The  Parliament  did  all  they  could  to  satisfy 
the  malecontent  Presbyterians,  by  securing  them 
in  their  livings,  and  by  ordering  the  dean  and 
chapter  lands  to  be  sold,*  and  their  names  to  be 
extinct,  except  the  deanery  of  Christ  Church, 
and  the  foundations  of  Westminster,  Winches- 
ter, and  Eton  schools.  The  bishops'  lands, 
which  had  been  sequestered  since  the  year  1646, 
were  now,  by  an  ordinance  of  June  8,  1649, 
vested  in  the  hands  of  new  trustees,  and  ap- 
propriated to  the  augmentation  of  poor  livings 
in  the  Church.  +  The  first-fruits  and  tenths  of 
all  ecclesiastical  livings,  formerly  payable  to  the 
crown,  were  vested  in  the  same  hands,  free 
from  all  encumbrances,  on  trust,  that  they 
should  pay  yearly  all  such  salaries,  stipends,  al- 
lowances, and  provisions,  as  have  been  settled 
and  confirmed  by  Parliament,  for  preaching 
ministers,  schoolmasters,  or  professors  in  the 
universities ;  provided  the  assignment  to  any  one 
do  not  exceed  £100.  It  is  farther  provided  that 
the  maintenance  of  all  incumbents  shall  not  be 
less  than  £100  a  year,  and  the  commissioners 
of  the  great  seal  are  empowered  to  inquire  into 
the  yearly  value  of  all  ecclesiastical  livings  to 


^  The  money  raised  by  the  sale  of  those  lands 
amounted  to  a  very  considerable  sum.  The  return 
of  the  value  of  the  lands,  contracted  for  the  29th  of 
August,  1650,  made  to  the  committee  for  the  sale  of 
them,  fixed  it  at  the  sum  of  £948,409  18s.  2id.,  of 
which,  on  the  31st  of  August,  the  total  of  the  pur- 
chasers' acquittances  amounted  to  £658,501  2s.  9d. 
— Dr.  Grey,  vol.  iii.,  Appendix,  p.  18. — Ed. 

t  Scobel,  p.  41,  113. 


which  any  cure  of  souls  is  annexed  ;  and  to  cer- 
tify into  the  Court  of  Chancery  the  names  of 
the  present  incumbents  who  supply  the  cure, 
with  their  respective  salaries  ;  how  many  chap- 
els belong  to  parish  churches,  and  how  the  sev- 
eral churches  and  chapels  are  supplied  with 
preaching  ministers  ;  that  so  some  course  may 
be  taken  for  providing  for  a  better  maintenance 
where  it  is  wanting.  Dr.  Walker  says,*  the 
value  of  bishops'  lands  forfeited  and  sold  amount- 
ed to  a  million  of  money  ;  but  though  they  sold 
very  cheap,  they  that  bought  them  had  a  very 
dear  bargain  in  the  end. 

Upon  debate  of  an  ordinance  concerning  pub- 
lic worship  and  church  government,  the  House 
declared  that  the  Presbyterial  government 
should  be  the  established  government.  And 
upon  the  question  whether  tithes  should  be  con- 
tinued, it  was  resolved  that  they  should  not  be 
taken  away  till  another  maintenance  equally 
large  and  honourable  should  be  substituted  in 
its  room. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  principality  of  Wales 
were  destitute  of  the  means  of  Christian  knowl- 
edge, the  language  was  little  understood,  their 
clergy  were  ignorant  and  idle  ;  so  that  they  had 
hardly  a  sermon  from  one  quarter  of  a  year 
to  another.  The  people  had  neither  Bibles  nor 
catechisms  ;  nor  was  there  a  sufficient  main- 
tenance for  such  as  were  capable  of  instructing 
them.  The  Parliament  taking  the  case  of  these 
people  into  consideration,  passed  an  act,  Febru- 
ary 22,  1649,  for  the  better  propagation  and 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  Wales,  for  the  eject- 
ing scandalous  ministers  and  schoolmasters,  and 
redress  of  some  grievances  ;  to  continue  in  force 
for  three  years.  What  was  done  in  pursuance 
of  this  ordinance  will  be  related  hereafter  ;  but 
the  Parliament  were  so  intent  upon  the  affair  of 
religion  at  this  time,  that,  Mr.  Whitelocke  says, 
they  devoted  Friday  in  every  week  to  consult 
ways  and  means  for  promoting  it. 

Nor  did  they  confine  themselves  to  England, 
but  as  soon  as  Lieutenant-general  Cromwell  had 
reduced  Ireland,  the  Parliament  passed  an  ordi- 
nance, March  8,  1649,  for  the  encouragement  of 
religion  and  learning  in  that  country  ;  "  they 
invested  all  the  manors  and  lands  late  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  of  the  dean  and 
chapter  of  St.  Patrick,  together  with  the  par- 
sonage of  Trym,  belonging  to  the  bishopric  of 
Meath,  in  the  hands  of  trustees,  for  the  main- 
tenance and  support  of  Trinity  College,  in  Dub- 
lin ;  and  for  the  creating,  settling,  and  main- 
taining another  college  in  the  said  city,  and  of 
a  master,  fellows,  scholars,  and  public  profes- 
sors ;  and  also  for  erecting  a  free-school,  with 
a  master,  usher,  scholars,  and  officers,  in  such 
manner  as  any  five  of  the  trustees,  with  the 
consent  of  the  lord-lieutenant,  shall  direct  and 
appoint.  The  lord-lieutenant  to  nominate  the 
governor,  masters,  &c.,  and  to  appoint  them 
their  salaries  ;  and  the  trustees,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  lord -lieutenant,  shall  draw  up  statutes 
and  ordinances,  to  be  confirmed  by  the  Parlia- 
ment of  England." 

The  University  of  Dublin  being  thus  revived, 
and  put  upon  a  new  foot,  the  Parliament  sent 
over  six  of  their  most  acceptable  preachers  to 
give  it  reputatiop,  appointed  them  _t200  a  year 
out  of  the  bishops'  lands  ;  and  till  that  could  be 


*  P.  14. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


113 


duly  raised,  to  be  paid  out  of  the  public  reve- 
nues ;  and  for  their  farther  encouragement,  if 
they  died  in  that  service,  their  families  were  to 
be  provided  for.  By  these  methods  learning  be- 
gan to  revive,  and  in  a  few  years  religion  ap- 
peared with  a  better  face  than  it  had  ever  done 
before  in  that  kingdom. 

A  prospect  being  opened  for  spreading  the 
Christian  religion  among  the  Indians,  upon  the 
borders  of  New-England,  the  Parliament  allow- 
ed a  general  collection  throughout  England,  and 
erected  a  corporation  for  this  service,  who  pur- 
chased an  estate  in  land  of  between  5  and  £600 
a  year  ;  but  on  the  restoration  of  King  Charles 
II.  the  charter  became  void,  and  Colonel  Bed- 
ingfield,  a  Roman  Catholic  officer  in  the  king's 
army,  of  whom  a  considerable  part  of  the  land 
"was  purchased,  seized  it  for  his  own  use,  pre- 
tending he  had  sold  it  under  the  real  value,  in 
hopes  of  recovering  it  upon  the  king's  return. 
In  order  to  defeat  the  colonel's  design,  the  so- 
ciety solicited  the  king  for  a  new  charter,  which 
they  obtained  by  the  interest  of  the  lord-chan- 
cellor. It  bears  date  February  7,  in  the  four- 
teenth year  of  his  majesty's  reign,  and  differs 
but  little  from  the  old  one.  The  honourable 
Robert  Boyle,  Esq.,  was  the  first  governor. 
They  afterward  recovered  Colonel  Bedingfield's 
estate,  and  are  at  this  time  in  possession  of 
about  £500  a  year,  which  they  employ  for  the 
conversion  of  the  Indians  in  America. 

But  all  that  Parliament  could  do  was  not  suf- 
ficient to  stop  the  mouths  of  the  Loyalists  and 
discontented  Presbyterians ;  the  pulpit  and  press 
sounded  to  sedition  ;  the  latter  brought  forth  in- 
vectives every  week  against  the  government  ; 
it  was  therefore  resolved  to  lay  a  severe  fine 
upon  offenders  of  this  kind,  by  an  ordinance 
bearing  date  September  20,  1649,  the  preamble 
to  which  sets  forth,  that  "  Whereas  divers  scan- 
dalous and  seditious  pamphlets  are  daily  print- 
ed, and  dispersed  with  officious  industry,  by  the 
malignant  party  both  at  home  and  abroad,  with 
a  design  to  subvert  the  present  government,  and 
to  take  off  the  affections  of  the  people  from  it, 
it  is  therefore  ordained, 

"  That  the  author  of  every  seditious  libel  or 
pamphlet  shall  be  fined  ten  pounds,  or  suffer  for- 
ty days'  imprisonment.  The  printer  five  pounds, 
and  his  printing-press  to  be  broken.  The  book- 
seller forty  shillings ;  the  buyer  twenty  shillings, 
if  he  conceals  it,  and  does  not  deliver  it  up  to 
a  justice  of  peace.  It  is  farther  ordained,  that 
no  newspaper  shall  be  printed  or  sold  without 
license,  under  the  hand  of  the  clerk  of  the  Par- 
liament, or  the  secretary  of  the  army,  or  such 
other  person  as  the  Council  of  State  shall  ap- 
point. No  printing-presses  are  to  be  allowed 
i)Ut  in  London  and  in  the  two  universities.  All 
printers  are  to  enter  into  bonds  of  three  hundred 
pounds,  not  to  print  any  pamphlet  against  the 
state  without  license,  as  aforesaid,  unless  the 
author's  or  licenser's  name,  with  the  place  of 
his  abode,  be  prefixed.  .\11  importers  of  sedi- 
tious pamphlets  are  to  forfeit  five  pounds  for 
every  such  book  or  pamphlet.  No  books  are  to 
be  landed  in  any  other  port  but  that  of  London, 
and  to  be  viewed  by  the  master  and  wardens  of 
the  Company  of  Stationers.  This  act  to  con- 
tinue in  force  for  two  years."* 

But  the  pulpit  was  no  less  dangerous  than  the 


Vol.  II.— P 


Scobel,  p.  88,  cap.  60. 


press  ;  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  in  their  pub- 
lic prayers  and  sermons,  especially  on  fast-days, 
keeping  alive  the  discontents  of  the  people. 
The  government,  therefore,  by  an  ordinance, 
abolished  the  monthly  fast,  which  had  subsisted 
for  about  seven  years,  and  had  been  in  a  great 
measure  a  fast  for  strife  and  debate  ;  but  de- 
clared, at  the  same  time,  that  they  should  ap- 
point occasional  fasts,  from  time  to  time,  for  the 
future,  as  the  providences  of  God  should  re- 
quire.* 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  disorders,  there  was  a 
very  great  appearance  of  sobriety  both  in  city 
and  country ;  the  indefatigable  pains  of  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  in  catechising,  instructing, 
and  visiting  their  parishioners,  can  never  be 
sufficiently  commended.  The  whole  nation  was 
civilized,  and  considerably  improved  in  sound 
knowledge,  though  Bishop  Kennet  and  Mr.  Ech- 
ard  are  pleased  to  say  that  heresies  and  blas- 
phemies against  Heaven  were  swelled  up  to  a 
most  prodigious  height.  "I  know,"  says  Mr. 
Baxt,er,t  "you  may  meet  with  men  who  will 
confidently  affirm,  that  in  these  times  all  re- 
ligion was  trodden  under  foot,  and  that  heresy 
and  schism  were  the  only  piety ;  but  I  give  warn- 
ing to  all  ages,  that  they  take  heed  how  they  be- 
lieve any,  while  they  are  speaking  for  the  inter- 
est of  their  factions  and  opinions  against  their 
real  or  supposed  adversaries."  However,  the 
Parliament  did  what  they  could  to  suppress  and 
discountenance  all  such  extravagances ;  and 
even  the  officers  of  the  army,  having  convicted 
one  of  their  quartermasters  of  blasphemy  in  a 
council  of  war,  sentenced  him  to  have  his  tongue 
bored  through  with  a  hot  iron,  his  sword  broken 
over  his  head,  and  to  be  cashiered  the  army. 

But  Bishop  Kennet  says,  even  the  Turkish 
Alcoran  was  coming  in  ;  that  it  was  translated 
into  English,  and  said  to  be  licensed  by  one  of 
the  ministers  of  London  !  Sad  times  !  Was 
his  lordship,  then,  afraid  that  the  Alcoran  should 
prevail  against  the  Bible  1  or  that  the  doctrines 
of  Christ  could  not  support  themselves  against 
the  extravagant  follies  of  an  impostor!  But 
the  book  did  no  harm,  though  the  Commons 
immediately  published  an  order  for  suppressing 
it ;  and  since  the  restitution  of  monarchy  and 
Episcopacy,  we  have  lived  to  see  the  life  of 
Mohammed  and  his  Koran  published  without 
mischief  ()r  offence. 

His  lordship  adds,  that  the  papists  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  liberty  of  the  times,  who  were 
never  more  numerous  and  busy  ;  which  is  not 
very  probable,  because  the  Parliament  had  ban- 
ished all  papists  twenty  miles  from  the  city  oi 
London,  and  excepted  them  out  of  their  acts  ot 
indulgence  and  toleration  ;  the  spirit  of  the 
people  against  popery  was  kept  up  to  the  height ; 
the  mob  carried  the  pope's  effigy  in  triumph, 
and  burned  it  publicly  on  Queen  Elizabeth's 
birthday  ;  and  the  ministers  in  their  pulpits  pro- 
nounced him  antichrist;  but  such  is  the  zeal 
of  this  right  reverend  historian  !{ 


*  Whitelocke,  p.  333.  t  Life,  p.  86. 

i  In  this  place  we  may  notice  that  Colonel  Lilburne, 
who  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  felt  the  severe  effects 
of  regal  and  episcopal  anger,  now  incurred  the  dis- 
pleasure of  a  republican  government.  On  October 
26, 1646,  he  was  tried  for  transgressing  the  new  stat- 
ute of  treasons  enacted  by  the  commonwealth.  He 
was  acquitted  by  the  jury,  and  Westminster  Hall,  on 
the  verdict  being  given,  resounded  with  the  accla- 


114 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


The  beginning  of  this  year,  the  Marquis  of 
Montrose  was  taken  in  the  north  of  Scotland  by 
Colonel  Straughan*  with  a  small  body  of  troops, 
and  hanged  at  Edinburgh  on  a  gallows  thirty 
feet  high  ;  his  body  was  buried  under  the  gal- 
lows, and  his  quarters  set  upon  the  gates  of  the 
principal  towns  in  Scotland  ;  but  his  behaviour 
was  great  and  firm  to  the  last.  The  marquis 
appeared  openly  for  the  king  in  the  year  1643, 
and  having  routed  a  small  party  of  Covenanters 
in  Perthshire,  acquired  considerable  renown  ; 
but  his  little  successes  were  very  mischievous 
to  the  king's  affairs,  being  always  magnified  be- 
yond what  they  really  were  ;t  his  vanity  was 
the  occasion  of  breaking  off  the  treaty  of  Ux- 
bridge,  and  his  fears  lest  King  Charles  II. 
should  agree  with  the  Scots,  and  revoke  his 
commission  before  he  had  executed  it,  now  hur- 
ried him  to  his  own  ruin. 

The  young  king  being  in  treaty  with  the  Scots 
Covenanters  at  Breda,  was  forced  to  stifle  his 

mations  of  the  people.  A  print  was  struck  on  the 
occasion  representing  him  standing  at  the  bar  on  his 
trial ;  at  the  top  of  it  was  a  medal  of  his  head,  with 
this  inscription,  "  John  Lilburne,  saved  by  the  pow- 
er of  the  Lord,  and  the  integrity  of  his  jury,  who  are 
judges  of  law  as  well  as  fact,  October  6,  1646."  On 
the  reverse  were  the  names  of  the  jury.  He  was  a 
very  popular  character,  as  appears  from  the  many 
petitions  presented  to  the  House  in  his  favour  during 
his  imprisonment,  one  of  which  came  from  a  num- 
ber of  women.  When  some  were  sent  to  seize  his 
books,  he  persuaded  them  "  to  look  to  their  own  lib- 
erties, and  let  his  books  alone  ;"  and  on  his  trial  he 
behaved  with  singular  intrepidity.  After  he  was  dis- 
charged by  the  jury,  he  was,  by  the  order  of  Parlia- 
ment, committed  to  the  Tower.  He  seems  to  have 
been  a  bold  and  consistent  oppugner  of  tyranny,  un- 
der whatever  form  of  gov('>iiinent  it  was  practised. 
He  died  a  Quaker,  at  Elthain,  August  28, 1658.  The 
following  character  was  given  of  him  by  SirThomas 
Wortley,  in  a  song,  at  a  feast  kept  by  the  prisoners 
in  the  Tower,  in  August,  1647  : 

John  Lilburne  is  a  stirring  blade. 

And  understands  the  matter  ; 
He  neither  will  king,  bishops,  lords, 

Nor  th'  House  of  Commons  flatter. 
John  loves  no  power  prerogative, 

But  that  derived  from  Sion  ; 
As  for  the  mitre  and  the  crown. 

Those  two  he  looks  awry  on. 

—  Granger's  History  of  England,  voi.  iii.,  p.  78,  8vo. 
Whitelocke's  Mem.,  p.  383,  384,  and  405.  Dr.  Grey, 
vol.  i.,  p.  167,  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  17. — Ed. 

*  This  is  not  accurate.  Colonel  Straughan's  for- 
ces, in  conjunction  with  others,  fell  on  Lord  Mon- 
trose's party,  routed  them,  ;ind  took  six  hundred 
prisoners  ;  but  the  marquis  himself  escaped,  though 
with  difficulty,  for  his  horse,  pistols,  belt,  and  scab- 
bard were  seized;  and  two  or  three  days  after  the 
fight  he  was  taken,  sixteen  miles  from  the  place  of 
engagement,  in  a  disguise,  and  sorely  wounded,  hav- 
ing been  betrayed,  some  say,  by  Lord  Aston,  but,  ac- 
cording to  Bishop  Burnet,  by  Mackland,  of  Assin. 
— Dr.  Grey,  and  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  438,  439. 
—Ed. 

t  If  his  successes  were  magnified  beyond  the 
truth,  bis  character  has  also  been  handed  down  with 
the  highest  eulogiums.  The  Marquis  of  Montrose 
(says  .Mr.  Granger)  was  comparable  to  the  great- 
est heroes  of  antiquity.  We  meet  with  many  in- 
stances of  valour  in  this  active  reign,  but  Montrose 
is  the  only  instance  of  heroism.  Among  other  cir- 
cumstances of  indignity  which  accompanied  his  ex- 
ecution, the  book  of  his  exploits,  a  small  octavo  writ- 
ten in  elegant  Latin,  which  is  now  very  scarce,  was 
tied  appendant  to  bis  neck. — Dr.  Grey,  and  Granger's 
History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  245,  246,  8vo. — Ed. 


resentments  for  the  death  of  the  marquis,  and. 

submit  to  the  following  hard  conditions  : 

(1.)  "That  all  persons  excommunicated  by 
the  Kirk  should  be  fiirbid  the  court. 

(2.)  "  That  the  king  by  his  solemn  oath,  and 
under  his  hand  and  seal,  declare  his  allowance- 
of  the  Covenant. 

(3.)  "That  he  confirm  those  acts  of  Parlia 
ment  which  enjoin  the  Covenant.     That  he  es- 
tablish the  Presbyterian  worship  and  discipline, 
and  swear  never  to  oppose  or  endeavour  to  al 
ter  them. 

(4.)  "  That  all  civil  matters  be  determined  by 
Parliament ;  and  all  ecclesiastical  affairs  by  the 
Kirk. 

(5.)  "That  his  majesty  ratify  all  that  has 
been  done  in  the  Parliament  of  Scotland  in' 
some  late  sessions,  and  sign  the  Covenant  upon 
his  arrival  in  that  kingdom,  if  the  Kirk  desired 
it."* 

The  king  arrived  in  Scotland  June  23 ;  but 
before  his  landing,  the  commissioners  insisted 
on  his  signing  the  Covenant,  and  upon  parting 
with  all  his  old  councillors,  which  he  did,  and 
was  then  conducted  by  the  way  of  Aberdeen 
and  St.  Andrew's  to  his  house  at  Faulkland. 
July  11,  his  majesty  was  proclaimed  at  the 
Cross  at  Edinburgh,  but  the  ceremony  of  his 
coronation  was  deferred  to  the  beginning  of  the 
next  year.  In  the  mean  time,  the  English  com- 
monwealth was  providing  for  a  war  which  they 
saw  was  unavoidable  ;  and  General  Fairfax  re- 
fusing to  act  against  the  Scots,  his  commission 
was  immediately  given  to  Cromwell,  with  the 
title  of  captain-general  in  chief  of  all  the  forces 
raised  and  to  be  raised  by  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment within  the  commonwealth  of  England. 
Three  days  after,  viz  ,  June  29,  he  marched 
with  eleven  thousand  foot  and  five  thousand 
horse  towards  the  borders  of  Scotland,  being 
resolved  not  to  wait  for  the  Scots  invading 
England,  but  to  carry  the  war  into  their  coun- 
try. The  Scots  complained  to  the  English  Par- 
liament of  this  conduct,  as  a  breach  of  the  Act 
of  Pacification,  and  of  the  Covenant ;  but  were- 
answered  that  they  had  already  broken  the 
peace  by  their  treaty  with  Charles  Stuart,  whom 
they  had  not  only  received  as  their  king,  but 
promised  to  assist  in  recovering  the  crown  of, 
England.  Their  receiving  the  king  was  cer- 
tainly their  right  as  an  independent  nation  ;  but 
whether  their  engaging  to  assist  him  in  recov- 
ering the  crown  of  England  was  not  declaring 
war,  must  be  left  to  the  reader. 

July  22,  the  general  crossed  the  Tweed,  and 
marched  his  army  almost  as  far  as  Edinburgh 
without  much  opposition,  the  country  being  de- 
serted by  reason  of  the  terror  of  the  name  of 
Cromwell,  and  the  reports  that  were  spread  of 


*  Besides  taking  the  Covenant,  it  was  exacted  of 
the  king  also  to  acknowledge  twelve  articles  of  re- 
pentance, in  which  were  enumerated  the  sins  of  his 
father  and  grandfather,  and  idolatry  of  his  mother ; 
and  in  which  were  declarations,  that  he  sought  the 
restitution  of  his  rights  for  the  sole  advantage  of  re- 
ligion, and  in  subordination  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 
— Mrs.  Macaula.y's  History  of  England,  vol.  v.,  p.  62, 
8vo. — Ed.  It  is  asserted  by  Jesse,  in  his  "  Court  of 
England  under  the  Stuarts,"  that  the  Scotch  had  the 
brutality  to  afKix  to  the  house  in  which  Charles 
was  lodged  in  Edinburgh  one  of  the  quarters  of  his 
adherent,  the  palkuit  Montrose.  —  Vol  iii.,  p.  227. 
— C. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


115 


his  cruelty  in  Ireland.  Not  a  Scotsman  ap- 
peared under  sixty,  nor  a  youth  above  six  years 
old,  to  interrupt  his  inarch.  All  provisions  were 
destroyed  or  removed  to  prevent  the  subsist- 
ence of  the  army,  which  was  supplied  from 
time  to  time  by  sea ;  but  the  general  having 
made  proclamation  that  no  man  should  be  in- 
jured in  his  person  or  goods  who  was  not  found 
in  arms,  the  people  took  heart,  and  returned  to 
their  dwellings. 

The  Scots  army,  under  the  command  of  Gen- 
eral Lesley,  stood  on  the  defensive,  and  watch- 
ed the  motions  of  the  English  all  the  month  of 
August ;  the  main  body  being  intrenched  with- 
in six  miles  of  Edinburgh,  to  the  number  of 
thirty  thousand  of  the  best  men  that  ever  Scot- 
land saw  ;  General  Cromwell  did  everything 
he  could  to  draw  them  to  a  battle,  till,  by  the 
fall  of  rain  and  bad  weather,  he  was  obliged  to 
retreat  to  Musselborough,  and  from  thence  to 
Dunbar,  where  he  was  reduced  to  the  utmost 
straits,  having  no  way  left  but  to  conquer  or 
die.*  In  this  extremity  he  summoned  the  offi- 
cers to  prayer  ;  after  which  he  bid  all  about  him 
take  heart,  for  God  had  heard  them  ;  then  walk- 
ing in  the  Earl  of  Roxborough's  gardens,  that 
lay  under  the  hill  upon  which  the  Scots  army 
was  encamped,  and  discovering  by  perspective 
glasses  that  they  were  coming  down  to  attack 
him,  he  said  God  was  delivering  them  into  his 
hands.  That  night  proving  very  rainy,  the  gen- 
eral refreshed  his  men  in  the  town,  and  ordered 
them  to  take  particular  care  of  their  firelocks, 
which  the  Scots  neglected,  who  were  all  the 
night  coming  down  the  hill.  Early  next  morn- 
ing, September  3,  the  general,  with  a  strong 
party  of  horse,  beat  their  guards,  and  then  ad- 
vancing with  his  whole  army,  after  about  an 
hour's  dispute,  entered  their  camp  and  carried 
all  before  him  :  about  four  thousand  Scots  fell  in 
battle,  ten  thousand  were  made  prisoners,  with 
fifteen  hundred  arms,  and  all  their  artillery  and 
ammunition  ;  the  loss  of  the  English  amounting 
to  no  more  than  about  three  hundred  men. 

It  is  an  odd  reflection  Lord  Clarendont  makes 
upon  this  victory  :  "  Never  was  victory  obtain- 
ed," says  his  lordship,  "  with  less  lamentation  ; 
for  as  Cromwell  had  great  argument  of  triumph, 
so  the  king  was  glad  of  it,  as  the  greatest  hap- 
piness that  could  befall  him,  in  the  loss  of  so 
strong  a  body  of  his  enemies."t  Such  was  the 
encouragement  the  Scots  had  to  fight  for  their 
king! 

Immediately  after  this  action,  the  general 
took  possession  of  Edinburgh,  which  was,  in  a 
manner,  deserted  by  the  clergy  :  some  having 
shut  themselves  up  in  the  castle,  and  others 
fled  with  their  effects  to  Stirling ;  the  general, 
to  deliver  them  from  their  fright,  sent  a  trum- 
pet to  the  castle,  to  assure  the  governor  that 
the  ministers  might  return  to  their  churches, 


*  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  178.  Burnet's  Hist.,  vol. 
i.,  p.  74,  Edinb.  edit.  +  Vol.  iii.,  p.  377. 

i  Dr.  Grey  adds  the  reason  which  Lord  Claren- 
don assigns  for  the  king's  rejoicing  in  this  victory ; 
which  was,  his  apprehension  that  if  the  Scots  had 
prevailed,  they  would  have  shut  him  up  in  prison  the 
next  day :  whereas,  after  this  defeat,  they  looked 
upon  the  king  as  one  they  might  stand  in  need  of, 
gave  him  more  liberty  than  they  had  before  allowed, 
permitted  his  servants  to  wait  on  him,  and  began  to 
talk  of  a  Parliament  and  of  a  time  for  his  coronation. 
—Ed. 


and  preach  without  any  disturbance  from  him, 
for  he  had  no  quarrel  with  the  Scots  nation  on 
the  score  of  religion.*  But  the  ministers  re- 
plied that,  having  no  security  for  their  persons, 
they  thought  it  their  duty  to  reserve  them- 
selves for  better  times.  Upon  which  the  gen- 
eral wrote  to  the  governor, 

"  That  his  kindness  offered  to  the  ministers 
in  the  castle  was  without  any  fraudulent  re- 
serve ;  that  if  their  Master's  service  was  their 
principal  concern,  they  would  not  be  so  exces- 
sively afraid  of  suffering  for  it.  That  those  di- 
vines had  misreported  the  conduct  of  his  party, 
when  they  charged  them  with  persecuting  the 
ministers  of  Christ  in  England  ;  for  the  minis- 
ters in  England  (says  he)  are  supported,  and 
have  liberty  to  preach  the  Gospel,  though  not 
to  rail  at  their  superiors  at  discretion  ;  nor,  un- 
der a  pretended  privilege  of  character,  to  overtop 
the  civil  powers,  or  debase  them  as  they  please. 
No  man  has  been  disturbed  in  England  or  Ire- 
land for  preaching  the  Gospel ;  nor  has  any 
minister  been  molested  in  Scotland  since  the 
coming  of  the  army  hither  ;  speaking  truth  be- 
comes the  ministers  of  Christ  ;  but  when  min- 
isters pretend  to  a  glorious  reformation,  and 
lay  the  foundation  thereof  in  getting  to  them- 
selves power,  and  can  make  worldly  mixtures 
to  accomplish  the  same,  such  as  the  late  agree- 
ment with  their  king,  they  may  know  that  the 
Sion  promised  is  not  to  be  built  with  such  un- 
tempered  mortar.  And  for  the  unjust  invasion 
they  [the  ministers]  mention,  time  was  when 
an  army  out  of  Scotland  came  into  England,  not 
called  by  the  supreme  authority  :  we  have  said 
in  our  papers  with  what  hearts  and  upon  what 
account  we  came,  and  the  Lord  has  heard  us, 
though  you  would  not,  upon  as  solemn  an  ap- 
peal as  any  experience  can  parallel.  I  have 
nothing  to  say  to  you  but  that  I  am, 

"  Sir,  your  humble  servant, 

"O.  Cromwell. "t 

The  Scots  ministers,  in  their  reply  to  this 
letter,  objected  to  the  general  his  opening  the 
pnlpit-doors  to  all  intruders,  by  which  means  a 
flood  of  errors  was  broke  in  upon  the  nation.^ 
To  which  the  general  replied,  "  We  look  on 
ministers  as  helpers  of,  not  lords  over,  the  faith 
of  God's  people  :  I  appeal  to  their  consciences, 
whether  any  denying  of  their  doctrines,  or  dis- 
senting from  them,  will  not  incur  the  censure  of 


*  It  is  a  proof  of  this,  that  while  Oliver  Cromwell 
was  at  Edinburgh,  he  attended  Divine  worship  in 
the  great  church  there,  when  Mr.  William  Derham 
preached,  and  called  Oliver  a  usurper  to  his  face. 
He  was  so  far  from  resenting  this,  that  he  invited 
Mr.  Derham  to  visit  him  in  the  evening,  when  they 
supped  together  in  great  harmony.  Oliver  observed, 
however,  "  that  it  was  well  known  to  him  how  much 
he  and  his  brethren  disliked  him;  but  they  might 
assure  themselves  that,  if  any  of  the  Stuart  line  came 
to  the  throne,  they  w-ould  find  their  little  fingers 
greater  than  his  Inins." — Dr.  Gibbons  Account  of  the 
Cromwell  Family,  annexed  to  his  Funeral  Sermon  for 
\\  itliani  Cromwell,  Esq.,  p.  47. — Ed. 

t  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  182. 

t  The  Scotch  clergy  protested  against  the  preach- 
ing of  laymen,  which  was  allowed  by  the  English 
general ;  and  claimed  for  their  own  order  the  exclu- 
sive right  of  ordaining  to  the  ministry.  This  was 
assailing  the  stronghold  of  Cromwell's  tolerant  poli- 
cy, and  he  met  it  with  an  indignant  refutation. — 
Price's  Hist,  of  Nonconformity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  454. — C. 


116 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


a  sectary ;  and  what  is  this  but  to  deny  Chris- 
tians their  liberty,  and  assume  the  infallible 
chair!  Where  do  you  find  in  Scripture  that 
preaching  is  included  within  your  function! 
Though  an  approbation  from  men  has  order  in 
it,  and  may  be  well,  yet  he  that  hath  not  a  bet- 
ter than  that,  hath  none  at  all. 

"I  hope  He  that  ascended  up  on  high  may 
give  his  gifts  to  whom  he  pleases  ;  and  if  those 
gifts  he  the  seal  of  mission,  are  not  you  envious, 
though  Eldad  and  Me('ad  prophesy  ?  You  know 
who  has  bid  us  covet  carneslly  the  best  gifts, 
but  chiefly,  that  we  may  prophesy  ;  which  the 
apostle  explains  to  be  a  speaking  to  instruction, 
edification,  and  comfort,  which  the  instructed, 
edified,  and  "comforted  can  best  tell  the  energy 
and  effect  of 

"  Now,  if  this  be  evidence,  take  heed  you  envy 
not  for  your  own  sakes,  lest  you  be  guilty  of  a 
greater  fault  than  Moses  reproved  in  Joshua, 
•when  he  envied  for  his  sake.  Indeed,  you  err 
through  mistake  of  the  Scriptures.  Approba- 
tion is  an  act  of  convenience  in  respect  of  or- 
der, not  of  necessity,  to  give  faculty  to  preach 
the  Gospel. 

"  Your  pretended  fear  lest  error  should  step 
in,  is  like  the  man  that  would  keep  all  the  wine 
out  of  the  country,  lest  men  should  be  drunk. 
It  will  be  found  an  unjust  and  unwise  jealousy 
to  deny  a  man  the  liberty  he  hath  by  nature, 
upon  a  supposition  he  may  abuse  it.  When  he 
^oth  abuse  it,  then  judge."* 

The  governor  complained  to  the  general  that 
ihe  Parliament  at  Westminster  had  fallen  from 
their  principles,-  not  being  true  to  the  ends  of 
the  Covenant.  And  then  adds,  with  the  minis- 
ters, that  men  of  secular  employments  had 
.usurped  the  office  of  the  ministry,  to  the  scan- 
dal of  the  Reformed  churches. 

In  answer  to  the  first  part  of  this  expostula- 
tion, General  Cromwell  desired  to  know  wheth- 
er their  bearing  witness  to  themselves  was  a 
good  evidence  of  their  having  prosecuted  the 
ends  of  the  Covenant!  "To  infer  this,"  says 
he,  "  is  to  have  too  favourable  an  opinion  of  your 
own  judgment  and  impartiality.  Your  doctrines 
and  practice  ought  to  be  tried  by  the  Word  of 
God,  and  other  people  must  have  a  liberty  of 
examining  them  upon  these  heads,  and  of  giving 
sentence."! 

As  to  the  charge  of  indulging  the  use  of  the 
pulpit  to  the  laity,  the  general  admits  it,  and 
adds,  "  Are  ye  troubled  that  Christ  is  preached  ■! 
•does  it  scandalize  the  Reformed  churches,  and 
■.rScotland  in  particular !  is  it  against  the  Cove- 
nant 1  away  with  the  Covenant,  if  it  be  so.  I 
thought  the  Covenant  and  these  men  would 
have  been  willing  that  any  should  speak  good 
of  the  name  of  Christ ;  if  not,  it  is  no  Covenant 
of  God's  approving  ;  nor  the  kirk  you  mention 
so  much  the  spouse  of  Christ." 

The  general,  in  one  of  his  letters,  lays  con- 
siderable stress  upon  the  success  of  their  arms, 
after  a  most  solemn  appeal  to  God  on  both 
sides.  To  which  the  Scots  governor  replied, 
"  We  have  not  so  learned  Christ,  as  to  hang 
the  equity  of  a  cause  upon  events."  To  which 
Cromwell  answers,  "  We  could  wish  that  blind- 
ness had  not  been  upon  your  eyes  to  those  mar- 
vellous  dispensations   which   God   has   lately 


*  Whitelocke,  p.   458.     Collyer's  Ecclesiastical 
History,  p.  863.  t  Ibid.,  p.  864. 


wrought  in  England.  But  did  you  not  solemnly 
appeal  and  pray  !  Did  not  we  do  so  too !  And 
ought  not  we  and  you  to  think  with  fear  and 
trembling  on  the  hand  of  the  great  God  in  this 
mighty  and  strange  appearance  of  his,  and  not 
slightly  call  it  an  event!  Wore  not  your  ex- 
pectations and  ours  renewed  from  time  to  time, 
while  wo  waited  on  God  to  see  how  he  would 
manifest  himself  upon  our  appeals?  And  shall 
we,  after  all  these  our  prayers,  fastings,  tears, 
expectations,  and  solemn  appeals,  call  these 
bare  events  !     The  Lord  pity  you." 

From  this  correspondence  the  reader  may 
form  a  judgment  of  the  governing  principles  of 
the  Scots  and  English  at  this  time  ;  the  former 
were  so  inviolably  attached  to  their  Covenant, 
that  they  would  depart  from  nothing  that  was 
inconsistent  with  it.  The  English,  after  seek- 
ing God  in  prayer,  judged  of  the  goodness  of 
their  cause  by  the  appearance  of  Providence  in 
its  favour;  most  of  the  officers  and  soldiers 
were  men  of  strict  devotion,  but  went  upon  this 
mistaken  principle,  that  God  would  never  ap- 
pear for  a  bad  cause  after  a  solemn  appeal  to 
him  for  decision.  However,  the  Scots  lost 
their  courage,  and  surrendered  the  impregnable 
Castle  of  Edinburgh  into  the  hands  of  the  con- 
queror, December  24,  the  garrison  having  liber- 
ty to  march  out  with  their  baggage  to  Burnt 
Island  in  Fife  ;  and  soon  after  the  whole  king- 
dom was  subdued. 

The  Provincial  Assembly  of  London  met  this 
year,  as  usual,  in  the  months  of  May  and  No- 
vember, but  did  nothing  remarkable  ;  the  Par- 
liament waited  to  reconcile  them  to  the  Engage- 
ment, and  prolonged  the  time  limited  for  taking 
it ;  but  when  they  continued  inflexible,  and  in- 
stead of  submitting  to  the  present  powers,  were 
plotting  with  the  Scots,  it  was  resolved  to  clip 
their  wings,  and  make  some  examples,  as  a  ter- 
ror to  the  rest.  June  21,  the  committee  for  reg- 
ulating the  universities  was  ordered  to  tender 
the  Engagement  to  all  such  officers,  masters,  and 
fellows  as  had  neglected  to  take  it,  and  upon 
their  refusal,  to  displace  them.  Accordingly,  in 
the  University  of  Cambridge,  Mr.  Vines,  Dr. 
Rainbow,  and  some  others,  were  displaced,  and 
succeeded  by  Mr.  Sydrach  Sympson,  Mr.  .To. 
Sadler,  and  Mr.  Dell.  In  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford, Dr.  Reynolds,  the  vice-chancellor,  refused 
the  Engagement,  but  after  some  time  offered  to 
take  it,  in  hopes  of  saving  his  deanery  of  Christ 
Church  ;  but  the  Parliament  resenting  the  ex- 
ample, took  advantage  of  his  forfeiture,  and 
gave  the  deanery  to  Dr.  John  Owen,  an  Inde- 
pendent divine,  who  took  possession  of  it  March 
18,  1650-1.* 

Upon  the  resignation  of  the  vice-chancellor. 
Dr.  Daniel  Greenwood,  principal  of  Brazen  Nose 
College,  and  a  Presbyterian  divine,  was  appoint- 
ed his  successor,  October  12,  and  on  the  Ifjth  of 
January  following,  Oliver  Cromwell,  now  in 
Scotland,  was  chosen  unanimously,  in  full  con- 
vocation, chancellor  of  the  university,  in  the 
room  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  lately  deceased.! 
When  the  doctor  and  masters  who  were  sent  to 
Edinburgh  acquainted  him  with  the  choice,  he 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  university,  in  which,  after 
a  modest  refusal  of  their  favour,  he  adds,  "  If 


*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  64. 

t  Wood's  Fasti,  p.  92 ;  or  Athen.  Oxen.,  vol.  ii., 

772. 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


117 


these  arguments  prevail  not,  and  that  I  must 
continue  this  honour  till  I  can  personally  serve 
you,  you  shall  not  want  my  prayers  that  piety 
and  learning  may  flourish  among  you,  and  be 
rendered  useful  and  subservient  to  that  great 
and  glorious  kingdom  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
of  the  approach  of  which  so  plentiful  an  effusion 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  those  hopeful  plants 
among  you  is  one  of  the  best  presages."  When 
the  general's  letter  was  read  in  convocation, 
the  House  resounded  with  cheerful  acclama- 
tions. Dr.  Greenwood  continued  vice-chancel- 
lor two  years,  but  was  then  displaced  for  his 
disaffer.iion  to  the  government,  and  the  honour  was 
conferred  on  Dr.  Owen.  Thus  by  degrees  the 
Presbyterians  lost  their  influence  in  the  univer- 
sities, and  delivered  them  up  into  the  hands  of 
ihe  Independents. 

To  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  government  yet 
farther,  the  Parliament,  by  an  ordinance  bear- 
ing date  September  20,  took  away  all  the  penal 
statutes  for  religion.*  The  preamble  sets  forth, 
"that  divers  religious  and  peaceable  people, 
well-affected  to  the  commonwealth,  having  not 
only  been  molested  and  imprisoned,  but  brought 
into  danger  of  abjuring  their  country,  or,  in  case 
of  return,  to  suffer  death  as  felons,  by  sundry 
acts  made  in  the  times  of  former  kings  and 
queens  of  this  nation,  against  recusants  not 
coming  to  chuich,  &c.,  they  therefore  enact  and 
ordain, 

"  That  all  the  clauses,  articles,  and  provisoes 
in  the  ensuing  acts  of  Parliament,  viz.,  I  Eliz., 
23  Eliz.,  35  Eliz.,  and  all  and  every  branch, 
clause,  article,  or  proviso,  in  any  other  act  or 
ordinance  of  Parliament,  whereby  any  penalty 
or  punishment  is  imposed,  or  meant  to  be  im- 
posed on  any  person  whatsoever,  for  not  re- 
pairing to  their  respective  parish  churches,  or 
for  not  keeping  of  holydays,  or  for  not  hearing 
Common  Prayer,  &,c.,  shall  be,  and  are  hereby 
wholly  repealed  and  made  void. 

"  And  to  the  end  that  no  profane  or  licentious 
persons  may  take  occasion,  by  the  repeal  of  the 
said  laws,  to  neglect  the  performance  of  reli- 
gious duties,  it  is  farther  ordained  that  all  per- 
sons not  having  a  reasonable  excuse,  shall,  on 
every  Lord's  Day,  and  day  of  public  thanksgiv- 
ing or  humiliation,  resort  to  some  place  of  pub- 
lic worship  ;  or  be  present  at  some  other  place, 
in  the  practice  of  some  religious  duty,  either  of 
prayer  or  preaching,  reading  or  expounding  the 
Scriptures." 

By  this  law  the  doors  were  set  open,  and  the 
state  was  at  liberty  to  employ  all  such  in  their 
service  as  would  take  the  oaths  to  the  civil  gov- 
ernment, without  any  regard  to  their  religious 
principles 

Sundry  severe  ordinances  were  made  for  sup- 
pressing of  vice,  error,  and  all  sorts  of  profane- 
ness  and  impiety.t     May  10,  it  was  ordained 


*  Scobel,  p.  131. 

t  The  present  rulers  of  the  nation  were  engaged 
in  an  enterprise  of  unparalleled  dilliculty,  and  could 
only  hope  to  succeed  as  they  invigorated  and  raised 
the  tone  of  public  feehug.  Having  demolished  the 
ancient  landmarks  of  English  sympathy  and  action, 
they  were  concerned  to  generate  a  new  order  of  sen- 
timents, nobler  in  its  character,  and  more  ample  in 
its  range.  For  this  purpose,  they  sought  to  banish 
vice  from  t  le  walks  of  public  life — to  brand  it  with 
infamy — to  coerce  it  from  society,  as  its  weakness, 
no  less  than  its  disgrace.    In  pursuhig  tlus  object, 


"  that  incest  and  adultery  should  he  made  felo- 
ny ;  and  that  fornication  should  be  punished 
with  three  months'  imprisonment  for  the  first 
offence ;  and  the  second  offence  should  be 
felony  without  benefit  of  clergy.  Commoa 
bawds,  or  persons  who  keep  lewd  houses,  are  to 
be  set  in  the  pillory  ;  to  be  whipped,  and  mark- 
ed in  the  forehead  with  the  letter  B,  and  then 
committed  to  the  House  of  Correction  for  three 
years  for  the  first  offence  ;  and,  for  the  second, 
to  suffer  death,  provided  the  prosecution  be 
within  twelve  months."* 

June  28,  it  was  ordained  "  that  every  noble- 
man who  shall  be  convicted  of  profane  cursing 
and  swearing,  by  the  oath  of  one  or  more  wit- 
nesses, or  by  his  own  confession,  shall  pay  for 
the  first  offence  thirty  shillings  to  the  poor  of 
the  parish  ;  a  baronet  or  knight,  twenty  shil- 
lings ;  an  esquire,  ten  shillings ;  a  gentleman, 
six  shillings  and  eightpence ;  and  all  inferior 
persons,  three  shillings  and  fourpence.  For 
the  second  offence  they  are  to  pay  double,  ac- 
cording to  their  qualities  above  mentioned.  And 
for  the  tenth  offence  they  are  to  be  judged  com- 
mon swearers  and  cursers,  and  to  be  bound  over 
to  their  good  behaviour  for  three  years.  The 
like  punishment  for  women,  whose  fines  are  to 
be  determined  according  to  their  own  or  their 
husbands'  quality."t 

August  9,  an  ordinance  was  passed  for  pun- 
ishing blasphemous  and  execrable  opinions. 
The  preamble  takes  notice  that,  "  though  sever- 
al laws  had  been  made  for  promoting  reforma- 
tion in  doctrines  and  manners,  yet  there  were 
divers  men  and  women  who  had  lately  discov- 
ered monstrous  opinions,  even  such  as  tended 
to  the  dissolution  of  human  society  ;  the  Par- 
liament, therefore,  according  to  their  declara- 
tion of  September  27,  1649,  in  which  they  said 
they  should  be  ready  to  testify  their  displeasure 
against  such  offenders,  by  strict  and  effectual 
proceedings  against  them  who  should  abuse  and 
turn  into  licentiousness  the  liberty  given  in 
matters  of  religion,  do  therefore  ordain  and 
enact, 

"  That  any  persons  not  distempered  in  their 

they  were  not  sufliciently  mindful  of  the  delicate  na- 
ture of  their  task.  Their  vocation  was  high  and  holy, 
but  the  mode  in  which  they  sought  to  accomplish 
their  object  frequently  tended  to  its  defeat,  rather 
than  its  furtherance.  Men  are  not  to  be  drilled  into 
morality — they  cannot  be  made  virtuous  by  laws. 
Vice  may  be  driven  from  the  walks  of  public  life,  but 
unless  the  sentiments  of  a  community  be  improved — 
unless  its  moral  judgments  be  rectified,  the  same 
propensities  will  be  indulged  under  other  forms — 
forms  less  obtrusive,  but  not  less  fatal.  The  unnat- 
ural restraint  under  which  the  people  were  held  du- 
ring the  ascendency  of  the  Parliament,  formed  an  ar- 
tificial character,  and  reacted  with  fearful  energy 
at  the  Restoration.  At  the  same  time,  it  should  in 
fairness  be  remembered,  that  the  men  who  now  ruled 
the  nation  combined,  with  laws  against  specific  vices, 
a  vigorous  and  effective  course  of  religious  training. 
The  result  of  the  two  processes  was  a  mhxed  state  of 
things.  There  was  much  of  good,  and  much  of  evil 
in  the  e.visting  condition  of  society.  The  elements 
of  light  and  darkness  were  strangely  blended ;  reh- 
gious  principles  were  gathering  strength  for  the  con- 
flict they  subsequently  sustained  ;  while  hypocrisy- 
was  preparing  a  large  portion  of  the  people'  for  the 
infidelity  and  licentiousness  which  flourished  under 
Ihe  patronage  of  the  Second  Charles.— Z>r.  Price's 
Hist.  Nonconformity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  459. — C. 
*  Scobel,  p.  121.  t  Ibid.,  p.  123. 


118 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


brains,  who  shall  maintain  any  mere  creature 
to  be  God,  or  to  he  infinite,  almighty,  &c.,  or 
that  shall  deny  the  holiness  of  God  ;  or  shall 
maintain  that  all  acts  of  wickedness  and  un- 
righteousness are  not  forbidden  in  Holy  Scrip- 
ture ;  or  that  God  approves  them  :  any  one  who 
shall  maintain  that  acts  of  drunkenness,  adul- 
tery, swearing,  &c.,  are  not  in  themselves 
shamefiil,  wicked,  sinful,  and  impious  ;  or  that 
there  is  not  any  real  difference  between  moral 
good  and  evil,  &c.,  all  such  persons  shall  suffer 
six  months'  imprisonment  for  the  first  offence  ; 
and  for  the  second  shall  be  banished  ;  and  if 
they  return  without  license,  shall  be  treated  as 
felons."* 

Though  several  ordinances  had  been  made 
heretofore  for  the  strict  observation  of  the 
Lord's  Day,  the  present  House  of  Commons 
thought  fit  to  enforce  them  by  another,  dated 
April  19,  1650,  in  which  they  ordain  "that  all 
goods  cried  or  put  to  sale  on  the  Lord's  Day, 
or  other  days  of  humiliation  and  thanksgiving 
appointed  by  authority,  shall  be  seized.  No 
wagoner  or  drover  shall  travel  on  the  Lord's 
Day,  on  penalty  of  10s.  for  every  offence.  No 
persons  shall  travel  in  boats,  coaches,  or  on 
horses,  except  to  church,  on  penalty  of  10s. 
The  like  penalty  for  being  in  a  tavern.  And 
where  distress  is  not  to  be  made,  the  offender 
is  to  be  put  into  the  stocks  six  hours.  All  peace- 
officers  are  required  to  make  diligent  search  for 
discovering  olTenders  ;  and  in  case  of  neglect, 
the  justice  of  peace  is  fined  £5,  and  every  con- 
stable 20s."  Such  was  the  severity  of  these 
times. t 

The  Parliament  having  ordered  the  sale  of 
bishops'  lands,  and  the  lands  of  deans  and  chap- 
ters, and  vested  the  money  in  the  hands  of  trus- 
tees, as  has  been  related,  appointed  this  year, 
April  5,  part  of  the  money  to  be  appropriated 
for  the  support  and  maintenance  of  such  late 
bishops,  deans,  prebendaries,  singing-men,  chor- 
isters, and  other  members,  officers,  and  persons 
destitute  of  maintenance,  whose  respective  of- 
fices, places,  and  livelihoods  were  taken  away 
and  abolished,  distributing  and  proportioning 
the  same  according  to  their  necessities.  How 
well  this  was  executed  I  cannot  determine ;  but 
it  was  a  generous  act  of  compassion,  and  more 
than  the  Church  of  England  would  do  for  the 
Nonconformists  at  the  Restoration. t 

A  motion  being  made  in  the  House  about 
translating  all  law-books  into  the  English  lan- 
guage, Mr.  Whitelocke  made  a  learned  speech 
on  the  argument,  wherein  he  observes,  that 
"  Moses  read  the  law  to  the  Jews  in  the  He- 
brew language  ;  that  the  laws  of  all  the  Eastern 
nations  were  in  their  mother  tongue  ;  the  laws 
of  Constantinople  were  in  Greek  :  at  Rome  they 
were  in  Latin  ;  in  France,  Spain,  Germany, 
Sweden,  Denmark,  and  other  places,  their  laws 
afe  published  in  their  native  language.  As  for 
our  own  country,"  says  he,  "  those  who  can 
read  the  Saxon  character  may  find  the  laws  of 
our  ancestors  in  that  language.  Pursuant  to 
this  regulation,  William,  duke  of  Normandy, 
commonly  called  the  Conqueror,  commanded 
the  laws  to  be  published  in  English,  that  none 
might  pretend  ignorance.  He  observes  farther, 
that  by  36  Eliz.,  cap.  iii.,  it  was  ordered  that  all 

*  Scobel,  p.  124.     t  Ibid.,  p.  119.    f  Ibid.,  p.  111. 


pleadings  should  be  in  English  ;  and  even  in  the 
reigns  of  those  princes,  wherein  our  statutes 
were  enrolled  in  French,  the  sheriffs  were  obli- 
ged to  proclaim  them  in  English,  because  the 
people  were  deeply  concerned  to  know  the  laws 
of  their  country,  and  not  to  be  kept  in  ignorance 
of  the  rule  by  which  their  interests  and  duty 
were  directed."* 

The  arguments  in  this  speech  were  so  forci- 
ble that  the  House  agreed  unanimously  to  a  bill, 
wherein  they  ordain,  "that  all  books  of  law  be 
translated  into  English  ;  and  all  proceedings  in 
any  court  of  justice,  except  the  Court  of  Admi- 
ralty, after  Easter  term,  1651,  shall  be  in  Eng- 
lish only  ;  and  all  writs,  &c.,  shall  be  in  a  legi- 
ble hand,  and  not  in  court-hand,  on  forfeiture  of 
£20  for  the  first  offence,  half  to  the  common- 
wealth, and  the  other  half  to  them  that  will  sue 
for  the  same."t  And  though  this  regulation 
ceased  at  the  Restoration,  as  all  other  ordinan- 
ces did  that  were  made  in  these  times,  the  late 
Parliament  has  thought  fit  to  revive  it. 

From  this  time  we  may  date  the  rise  of  the 
people  called  Quakers,  in  whom  most  of  the  en- 
thusiasts of  these  times  centred  ;  their  first 
leader  was  George  Fox.  born  at  Drayton  in 
Lancashire,  1024 ;  his  father,  being  a  poor  weav- 
er,t  put  him  apprentice  to  a  country  shoemaker, 
but  having  a  peculiar  turn  of  mind  for  religion, 
he  went  away  from  his  master,  and  wandered 
up  and  down  the  country  like  a  hermit,  in  a 
leathern  doublet ;  at  length  his  friends,  hearing 
he  was  at  London,  persuaded  him  to  return 
home,  and  settle  in  some  regular  course  of  em- 
ployment ;  but  after  he  had  been  some  months 
in  the  country,  he  went  from  his  friends  a  sec- 
ond time,  in  the  year  1646,  and  threw  off  all 
farther  attendance  on  the  public  service  in  the 
churches  :  the  reasons  he  gave  for  his  conduct 
were,  because  it  was  revealed  to  him  that  a 


+  Whitelocke,  p.  460.  t  Scobel,  p.  155. 

t  It  is  to  be  wished  that  Mr.  Neal  had  not  used 
this  epithet,  poor.  It  is  not  in  the  author  whom  he 
quotes,  was  needless,  and  has  the  appearance  of  con- 
tempt. The  parents  of  Fox  were  truly  respectable ; 
his  father,  Christopher  Fox,  of  such  a  virtuous  lifie, 
that  his  neighbours  called  him  righteous  Christer ; 
his  mother,  of  the  stock  of  martyrs,  and  a  woman  of 
qualifications  superior  to  the  generality  of  hei  cir- 
cumstances in  life  ;  they  were  both  members  of  the 
National  Church,  distinguished  by  piety,  and  cherish- 
ed the  religious  turn  of  mind  which  their  son  discov- 
ered in  his  earliest  years.  Virtuous  and  sober  man- 
ners, a  peculiar  staidness  of  mind,  and  gravity  of  de- 
meanour, marked  his  youth.  His  chief  employment 
under  his  master,  who  also  dealt  m  wool  and  cattle, 
was  to  keep  sheep,  which  was  well  suited  to  his  dis- 
position both  for  innocence  and  solitude.  He  ac- 
quitted himself  with  a  fidelity  and  diligence  that  con- 
duced much  to  the  success  of  his  master's  affairs. 
It  was  a  custom  with  him  to  ratify  his  dealing  with 
the  word  rfr;7!/>  to  which  he  so  firmly  and  conscien- 
tiously adhered,  that  those  who  knew  him  would  re- 
mark, '-If  George  says  verih/,  there  is  no  altering." 
Mr.  Neal's  expression,  "  he  went  away  from  his 
master,"  may  be  understood  as  intimating  a  clandes- 
tine and  dishonourable  leaving  his  master's  service, 
which  was  not  the  case.  He  did  not  begin  his  soli- 
tary travels  till  after  his  apprenticeship  was  finished, 
and  he  had  returned  home  to  his  parents.  The 
leathern  dress  was  adopted  by  him  on  account  of  its 
simplicity  and  its  durableness,  as  it  required  little  re- 
pairing, which  was  convenient  to  him  in  his  wander- 
ing and  unsettled  course  of  life. — SewePs  Hist.,  p. 
6-12 ;  and  Gough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p 
60.— Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


119 


learned  education  at  the  university  was  no  qual- 
ification for  a  minister,  but  that  all  depended  on 
the  anointing  of  the  Spirit,  and  that  God,  who 
made  the  world,  did  not  dwell  in  temples  made 
with  hands.  In  the  year  1647  he  travelled 
into  Derbyshire  and  Nottinghamshire,  walking 
through  divers  towns  and  villages,  which  way 
soever  his  mind  turned,  in  a  solitary  manner. 
He  fasted  much  (says  my  author),  and  walked 
often  abroad  in  retired  places,  with  no  other 
companion  but  his  Bible.  He  would  sometimes 
sit  in  a  hollow  tree  all  day,  and  frequently  walk- 
ed about  the  fields  in  the  night,  like  a  man  pos- 
sessed with  deep  melancholy  :  which  the  wri- 
ter of  his  life  calls  the  "  time  of  the  first  work- 
ing of  the  Lord  upon  him."*  Towards  the  lat- 
ter end  of  this  year  he  began  first  to  set  up  for 
a  teacher  of  others,  about  Duckinfield  and  Man- 
chester; the  principal  argument  of  his  discourse 
being,  that  people  should  receive  the  inward  Di- 
vine teachings  of  the  Lord,  and  take  that  for 
their  rule. 

In  the  year  1648,  there  being  a  dissolution  of 
all  government,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical, 
George  Fox  waxed  bold,t  and  travelled  through 
the  counties  of  Leicester,  Northampton,  and 
Derby,  speaking  to  the  people  in  market-places, 
&c.,  about  the  inward  light  of  Christ  within 
■them.t  At  this  time,  says  my  author,*^  he  ap- 
prehended the  Lord  had  forbid  him  to  put  off 
his  hat  to  any  one,  high  or  low  ;  he  was  requi- 
red also  to  speak  to  the  people,  without  dis- 
tinction, in  the  language  of  thou  and  thee.  He 
was  not  to  bid  people  good-morrow  or  good- 
night ;  neither  might  he  bend  his  knee  to  the 
chief  magistrate  in  the  nation  ;  the  womenll 
that  followed  him  would  not  make  a  courtesy  to 
their  superiors,  nor  comply  with  the  common 
forms  of  speech.  Both  men  and  women  affect- 
ed a  plain  and  simple  dress,  distinct  from  the 
fashion  of  the  times.  They  neither  gave  nor 
accepted  any  titles  of  respect  or  honour,  nor 
would  they  call  any  man  master  on  earth.  They 
refused  to  take  an  oath  on  the  most  solemn  oc- 
casion.    These,  and   the   like  peculiarities,  he 


*  Sewel's  History  of  the  Quakers,  p.  6-12. 

t  The  circumstances  of  this  period,  as  stated  by 
Gough,  will  show  the  propriety  of  our  author's  lan- 
guage here,  and  preclude  the  suspicion  that  has  fall- 
en on  him,  of  intending  to  insinuate  that  the  boldness 
of  George  Fo.t  was  criminal,  and  that  the  dissolution 
of  government  had  rendered  him  licentious.  At  this 
time  the  Independents  and  Republicans  had  accom- 
plished their  purpose;  regal  dominion,  the  peculiar 
privileges  of  the  nobilty,  and  the  office  of  bishops 
were  abolished.  Their  professed  principles  were  in 
favour  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  places  of 
public  worship  seem,  for  a  season,  to  have  been  open 
to  teachers  of  different  denominations,  and  not  un- 
commonly appropriated  to  theological  discussion  and 
disputation  between  the  teachers  or  members  of  va- 
rious sects.  These  propitious  circumstances  fur- 
nished Fox  and  others  with  opportunities  of  dissem- 
inating their  opinions,  and  a  fair  opportunity  natu- 
rally inspirits  and  imboldens  to  any  undertaking. — 
Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  72. — Eo. 

t  The  words  of  Sewel  are,  "  that  every  man  was 
enlightened  by  the  divine  light  of  Christ."  The  term 
used  by  this  historian  for  the  followers  of  Fox  is 
fellow-believers,  without  any  reference  to  their  sex; 
nor  does  his  narrative  show  that  they  consisted 
more  of  women  than  men,  which  Mr.  Neal's  expres- 
sion seems  to  intimate. — Ed. 

§  History  of  the  Quakers,  p.  18. 

II  See  note  J  of  this  page. 


supported  by  such  passages  of  Scripture  as 
these  :  "  Swear  not  all ;"  "  How  can  ye  believe 
who  receive  honour  one  of  another,  and  seek 
not  the  honour  which  comes  from  God  only?" 
But  these  marks  of  distinction  which  George 
Fox  and  his  followers  were  so  tenacious  of,  un- 
happily brought  them  into  a  great  deal  of  trouble 
when  they  were  called  to  appear  before  the  civil 
magistrate. 

In  the  year  1649  he  grew  more  troublesome, 
and  began  to  interrupt  the  public  ministers  in 
time  of  Divine  service  :  his  first  essay  of  this 
kind  was  at  Nottingham,  where  the  minister, 
preaching  from  these  words  of  St.  Peter,  "  We 
have  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy,"  &c  ,  told 
the  people  that  they  were  to  try  all  doctrines, 
opinions,  and  religions  by  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
Upon  which,  George  Fox  stood  up  in  the  middle 
of  the  congregation  and  said,  "  Oh  no  !  it  is  not 
the  Scripture,  but  it  is  the  Holy  Spirit  by  which  • 
opinions  and  religions  are  to  be  tried  ;  for  it  was 
the  Spirit  that  led  people  into  all  truth,  and  gave 
them  the  knowledge  of  it."  And  continuing 
his  speech  to  the  disturbance  of  the  congrega- 
tion, the  officers  were  obliged  to  turn  him  out 
of  the  church,  and  carry  him  to  the  sheriff's 
house  ;  next  day  he  was  committed  to  the  cas- 
tle, but  was  quickly  released  without  any  other 
punishment.*  After  this  he  disturbed  the  min- 
ister of  Mansfield  in  time  of  Divine  service,  for 
which  he  was  set  in  the  stocks,  and  turned  out 
of  the  town.t     The  like  treatment  he  met  with 


*  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  this  imprisonment  of 
George  Fox  is  censured  by  a  late  historian  as  not  f 
strictly  true,  nor  supported  by  his  authority,  Sewel, 
and,  through  a  partial  bias,  a  very  palliative  narration. 
The  fact,  more  exactly  and  fully  stared,  is  this : 
That  Fox  was  not  taken  immediately  from  the  church 
to  the  shcrifi"'s  house,  but  to  prison,  and  put  into  a 
place  so  filthy  and  intolerably  noisome,  that  the 
smell  thereof  was  very  grievous  to  be  endured.  At 
night  he  was  carried  before  the  mayor,  aldermen, 
and  sheriffs  of  the  town,  and  after  examination 
was  recommitted.  But  one  of  the  sheriffs,  whose 
name  was  Reckless,  being  much  affected  with  the 
sentiments  he  had  advanced,  removed  him  to  his 
own  house.  During  his  residence  there  Mr.  Fox 
was  visited  by  persons  of  considerable  condition ;  ^ 
the  sheriff,  as  well  as  his  wife  and  familyj,were 
greatly  affected  with  his  doctrine,  insomuch  that  he 
and  several  others  exhorted  the  people  and  the  ma- 
gistrates to  repentance.  This  provoked  the  latter  to 
remove  Fox  back  to  the  common  prison,  where  he  lay 
till  the  assizes.  When  he  was  to  have  been  brought 
before- the  judge,  the  officer  was  so  dilatory  in  the 
execution  of  his  business  that  the  court  was  broken 
up  before  he  was  conducted  to  it.  He  was,  on  this, 
again  ordered  into  the  common  jail,  and  detained 
there  some  time  longer.  As  far  as  appears,  he  was 
imprisoned,  detained  in  prison,  and  released,  at  the 
mere  will  and  pleasure  of  the  magistrates  of  Not- 
tingham, without  any  legal  cause  assigned.  "  Such 
arbitrary  exertion  of  power,"  well  observes  my  au- 
thor, "  ill  agrees  with  a  regard  for  chartered  privi- 
leges and  equal  liberty." — Gonsh's  Hist,  of  the  Qua- 
kers, vol.  i..  p.  83,  84.     Sewel's  Hist.,  p.  21,  22.— Ed. 

i  Mr.  Neal  is  considered  as  passing  over  this 
treatment  of  Fox  in  loo  "cursory  a  manner;"  and  is 
blamed  for  placing  his  conduct  in  the  most  invidious 
light  it  would  bear,  disturbing  the  minister.  But, 
surely,  if  Mr.  Vox  spoke  while  the  minister  was 
preaching,  without  waiting  till  he  had  finished  his 
discourse,  it  was  disturbing  him  by  an  unseasonable 
interruption.  But  this  circumstance  is  not  to  be 
clearly  ascertained  by  Sewel.  The  treatment  which 
Fox  met  with  was  iniquitous  and  violent  to  an  ex- 


120 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


at  Market  Bosworth,  and  several  other  towns.* 
At  length  the  magistrates  of  Derby  confined  him 
six  months  in  prison,  for  uttering  divers  blas- 
phemous opinions,!  pursuant  to  a  late  act  of 

trerae  degree.  The  hearers  of  the  minister  "  con- 
verted the  place  of  Divine  worship  into  a  scene  of 
lawless  not,  and  the  time  set  apart  for  the  service  of 
God  into  an  enormous  abuse  of  a  fellow-creature; 
manifesting  their  religion  to  be  such,"  observes  Mr. 
Gough,  with  great  propriety,  "  at  the  time  when  it 
should  most  affect  their  minds,  as  admitted  of  inju- 
ry, revenge,  and  violating  the  peace  and  order  of  so- 
ciety. For  they  assaulted  Mr.  Fox  in  a  furious  man- 
ner, stiTJck  him  down,  and  beat  him  cruelly  with 
their  hands,  Bibles,  and  sticks,  whereby  he  was 
grievously  bruised.  After  they  had  thus  vented  their 
rage,  they  haled  him  out,  and  put  him  into  the  stocks, 
where  he  sat  some  hours  ;  and  then  they  took  him 
before  a  magistrate,  who,  seeing  how  grossly  he  had 
been  abused,  after  much  threatening,  set  him  at  lib- 
erty. But  still  the  rude  multitude,  insatiate  in  abuse, 
*  stoned  him  out  of  the  town,  though  hardly  able  to 
go,  or  well  to  stand,  by  reason  of  their  violent  usage." 
It  should  be  remarked  here,  that  the  magistrate's 
conduct  was  extremely  culpable  in  not  inflicting  a 
punishment  on  these  disturbers  of  the  peace,  for  this 
unjust  and  violent  attack  on  a  man  who  had  done 
them  no  harm,  but  meant  to  do  them  good,  and  in 
not  affording  to  him  his  protection. — Gough' s  History, 
vol.  i.,  p.  84-8G.— Ed.  *  Sewel,  p.  22. 

t  This  was  the  language  of  the  mittimus  by  which 
Fox  and  another  were  committed  to  the  House  of 
Correction;  we  regret  that  Mr.  Neal  should  have 
adopted  it  without  giving  his  reader  the  grounds  on 
which  the  severe  epithet  was  applied  to  their  opin- 
ions. After  the  service  of  a  lecture,  at  which  Mr. 
Fox  had  attended,  was  finished,  he  spoke  what  was 
on  his  mind,  and  was  heard  without  molestation  ; 
d^  when  he  had  done,  an  officer  took  him  by  the  hand 
**  nnd  carried  him  before  the  magistrates.  Being  ask- 
ed, "  Why  he  came  thither '.'"  he  answered,  that 
"  God  had  moved  him  to  it ;"  and  added,  "  that  God 
did  not  dwell  in  temples  made  with  hands ;  and  that 
all  their  preaching,  baptism,  and  sacrifices,  would 
never  sanctify  them  ;  but  that  they  ought  to  look  unto 
Christ  in  them,  and  not  unto  men,  for  it  is  Christ 
that  sanctifies."  As  they  were  very  full  of  words, 
sometimes  disputing  and  sometimes  deriding,  he  told 
them  "  they  were  not  to  dispute  of  God  and  Christ, 
but  to  obey  him."  At  last  they  asked  him  "  if  he 
was  sanctified?"  he  replied,  "  Yes  :"  "  if  he  had  no 
sin?"  his  answer  was,  "Christ,  my  Saviour,  hath 
taken  away  my  sin,  and  in  him  there  is  no  sin."  To 
the  next  question,  "  How  he  and  his  friends  knew 
Christ  was  in  them?"  he  replied,  "By  his  Spirit, 
which  he  hath  given  us."  Then  they  were  asked  "  if 
any  of  them  were  Christ  ?"  to  which  insidious  query 
he  answered,  "Nay,  we  are  nothing;  Christ  is  all." 
He  was  next  interrogated,  "  If  a  man  steal,  is  it  no 
sin?"  to  which  his  reply  was,  "All  unrighteousness 
is  sin."  With  what  candour,  with  what  propriety, 
with  what  truth,  could  the  charge  of  blasphemy  be 
grounded  on  these  declarations,  especially  by  the 
magistrates  who  examined  and  committed  him  ? 
The  names  to  the  mittimus  were  Ger.  Bennet  and 
Nath.  Barton  ;  both  of  them  were  Independents,  the 
latter  an  officer  and  preacher;  men  whose  tenets 
implied  a  supernatural  influence,  and  admitted  no 
interference  of  the  civil  magistrate  in  spiritual  con- 
cerns, but  were  pointed  in  favour  of  universal  toler- 
ation ;  one  of  whom  could  himself  have  no  commis- 
sion to  preach  but  on  the  ground  of  God's  moving 
him  to  it.  These  were  the  men  who  accused  Fox 
of  blasphemy,  and  imprisoned  him;  "  a  remarkable 
instance,"  observes  Mr.  Gough,  "  of  the  inconsisten- 
cy of  men  with  themselves  in  different  stations  of 
life  ;"  a  remarkable  instance,  it  may  be  added,  how 
the  law  may  be  wrested,  and  justice  perverted  by 
passion  and  prejudice.  Mr.  Neal's  manner  of  rela- 
ting this  transaction  unhappily  conceals  the  criminal 
conduct  of  these  magistrates,  and  is  too  much  calcu- 


Parliament  for  that  purpose.  By  this  time  there 
began  to  appear  some  other  visionaries,  of  the 
same  make  and  complexion  with  George  Fox, 
who  spoke  in  places  of  pul)!ic  res(jrt,  being 
moved,  as  they  said,  by  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and 
even  some  women,  contrary  to  the  modesty  of 
their  sex,  went  about  streets,  and  entered  into 
churches,  crying  down  the  teaching  of  men,  and 
exhorting  people  to  attend  to  the  light  within 
themselves. 

It  was  in  the  year  1650  that  these  wandering 
lights  first  received  the  denomination  of  Qua- 
kers, upon  this  ground,  that  their  speaking  to 
the  people  was  usually  attended  with  convulsive 
agitations  and  shakings  of  the  body.  All  their 
speakers  had  these  tremblings,  which  they  glo- 
ried in,  asserting  it  to  be  the  character  of  a 
good  man  to  tremble  before  God.  When  George 
Fox  appeared  before  Gervas  Bennet,  Esq.,  one 
of  the  justices  of  Derby,  October  30,  1650,  he 
had  one  of  his  agitations,  or  fits  of  trembling, 
upon  him,  and  with  a  loud  voice  and  vehement 
emotion  of  body,  bid  the  justice  and  those  about 
him  tremble  at  the  Word  of  the  Lord ;  where- 
upon the  justice  gave  him  and  his  friends  the 
name  of  Quakers,  which  being  agreeable  to  their 
common  behaviour,  quickly  becaine  the  distin- 
guishing denomination  of  this  people.* 

At  length  they  disturbed  the  public  worship 
by  appearing  in  ridiculous  habits,  with  emble- 
matical ar  typical  representations  of  some  im- 
pending calamity  ;.  they  also  took  the  liberty  of 
giving  ministers  the  reproachful  names  of  hire- 


lated  to  perpetuate  the  prejudice  which  misled  and 
governed  them. — Sewers  Histury,  p.  24,  and  Gough' s 
Histori/,  vol.  i.,  p.  90-94. — En. 

*  The  above  paragraph  has  given  great  offence, 
and  is  severely  censured  by  Mr.  Gough,  as  "an  op- 
probrious description,  approaching  to  scurrility." 
I'he  plain  fact,  as  it  stands  in  Sewel,  has  none  of 
those  circumstances  of  agitations,  a  loud  voice,  and 
vehement  emotions,  with  which  Mr.  Neal  has  de- 
scribed it,  and  for  which  he  has  quoted  no  authority. 
Fox,  according  to  Sewel,  having  bid  the  justice  and 
those  about  him  to  "  tremble  at  the  Word  of  the 
Loiil,"  Mr.  Bennet  took  hold  of  this  weighty  saying 
with  such  an  airy  mind,  that  from  thence  he  took 
occasion  to  call  him  and  his  friends,  scornfully,  Qua- 
kers. This  name  was  eagerly  taken  up  and  spread 
among  the  people.  As  to  the  convulsive  emotioris 
with  which  it  is  said  the  preaching  of  these  Chris- 
tians was  accompanied,  it  is  but  fair  to  hear  their 
advocate.  "We  readily  admit,"  says  Mr.  Gough, 
"  these  promulgators  of  primitive  Christianity  had 
no  university  education,  were  not  trained  in  schools 
of  oratory.  It  was  plain  truth  and  righteousness 
they  sought  to  follow  and  recommend  in  a  plain, 
simple  way,  without  the  studied  decorations  of  fine 
language,  or  the  engaging  attractions  of  a  graceful 
motion  ;  they  spoke  not  to  the  head  or  to  the  eye, 
but  to  the  hearts  of  their  auditors.  Being  them- 
selves animated,  and  deeply  affected  in  spirit  with 
the  inward  feeling  of  the  power  of  that  truth,  to  the 
knowledge  of  which  they  aimed  to  bring  others,  that 
thereby  they  might  be  saved  ;  an  unaffected  warmth 
of  zcai  in  recommending  righteousness,  and  testify- 
ing against  vice  and  wickedness,  might  produce  a 
warmth  of  expression,  and  action  also,  which  to  an. 
invidious  eye  might  appear  convulsive ;  but  their 
convulsions  did  not  bereave  them  of  understanding  ; 
they  spake  with  the  spirit  and  with  the  understand- 
ing also,  of  things  which  they  knew,  and  testified  of 
things  which  they  had  seen.  And  their  doctrine 
was  often  eflfectnal  to  open  the  understanding  of 
their  hearers,  to  see  clearly  the  state  of  their  minds, 
both  what  they  were  and  what  they  ought  to  be."— 
Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  9G,  note. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


121 


lings,  deceivers  of  the  people,  false  prophets, 
&c.  Some  of  them  went  through  divers  towns 
and  villages  naked,  denouncing  judgments  and 
calamities  upon  the  nation.  Some  have  famish- 
ed and  destroyed  themselves  hy  deep  melan- 
choly ;  and  others  have  undertaken  to  raise  their 
friends  from  the  dead.  Mr.  Baxter  says*  many 
Franciscan  friars  and  other  papists  have  been 
disguised  speakers  in  their  assemblies  ;  but  lit- 
tle credit  is  to  be  given  to  such  reports. t 

It  cannot  be  expected  that  such  an  unsettled 
people  should  have  a  uniform  system  of  rational 
principles.  Their  first  and  chief  design,  if  they 
had  any,  was  to  reduce  all  revealed  religion  to 
allegory  ;  and  because  some  had  laid  too  great 
stress  upon  rites  and  ceremonies,  these  would 
have  neither  order  nor  regularity,  nor  stated 
seasons  of  worship,  but  all  must  arise  from  the 
inward  impulse  of  their  spirits.  Agreeably  to 
this  rule,  they  declared  against  all  sorts  of  cler- 
gy or  settled  ministers ;  against  people's  as- 
sembling in  steeple-houses ;  against  fixed  timest 
of  public  devotion,  and,  consequently,  against 
the  observation  of  the  Sabbath.  Their  own 
meetings  were  occasional,  and  when  they  met, 
one  or  another  spake  as  they  were  moved  from 
within,  and  sometimes  they  departed  without 
any  one's  being  moved  to  speak  at  all. 

The  doctrines  they  delivered  were  as  vague 
and  uncertainly  as  the  principles  from  which 


*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  77. 

t  If  but  little  credit  is  to  be  given  to  such  reports, 
it  may  be  asked,  Why  are  they  introduced,  when,  if 
not  refuted,  they  tend  to  mislead  the  reader,  and  to 
fix  a  reproach  on  an  mnocent  people  ?  Is  it  becom- 
ing the  candour  and  dignity  of  an  historian,  by  re- 
cording, to  appear  to  give  them  a  sanction  ?  As  to 
the  case  in  hand,  Mr.  Baxter,  on  whose  authority 
Mr.  Neal  speaks,  though  he  was  a  great  and  excel- 
lent man,  was  not  entirely  exempt  from  the  influ- 
ence of  prejudice  and  credulity.  In  general,  stories 
to  the  discredit  of  a  new,  despised,  and  hated  sect, 
are  often  eagerly  adopted  and  spread  with  circum- 
stances of  aggravation.  So  it  happened  to  the  first 
Christians.  This  has  befallen  the  Methodists  in  our 
times.  And  the  Quakers,  being  particular  objects 
of  priestly  indignation,  had  reason  to  complain  of 
this.  They  were  often  confounded  with  an  epheme- 
ron  sect,  whose  principles  were  totally  incompatible 
with  theirs,  called  Ranters,  and  whose  practices  out- 
raged all  decency  and  order.  An  active  preacher 
among  the  Quakers,  Mr.  Edward  Burroughs,  and 
the  celebrated  Barclay,  wrote  against  the  practices 
of  these  people. —  Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  128, 129, 
note  ;  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  15. — Ed. 

t  This  is  not  accurate,  or  is  appUcable  only  to  the 
infancy  of  the  sect.  For,  though  they  did  not  esteem 
one  house  more  holy  than  another,  and  believed  all 
times  equally  the  Lord's,  and  that  all  days  should  be 
Sabbaths,  or  times  of  continual  rest  and  abstinence 
from  evil,  yet,  as  soon  as  their  numbers  were  suffi- 
cient for  the  purpose,  tliey  held  fixed  and  regular 
meetings  for  worship,  particularly  on  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  which  they  chose  as  more  convenient,  be- 
cause more  generally  accepted  than  any  other.  In 
1654,  meetings  were  settled  in  many  places  in  the 
north,  and  also  in  the  city  o(  London,  which  were 
held  in  private  houses,  till  the  body  growing  too 
large  to  be  accommodated  in  them,  a  house  known 
by  the  name  of  Bull-and-Mouth,  in  Martin's-le- 
Grand.  near  Aldersgatestreet,  was  hired  for  a  meet- 
ing-house. And  no  body  of  Christians  were  more 
open,  steady,  and  regular,  than  they  have  been  in 
their  public  associations  for  worship  or  discipline. 
— Sewel's  History,  p.  80,  84.  Gough's  History ,  vol.  i., 
p.  144  and  50!).— En. 

^  The  account  which  Mr.  Neal  gives  of  the  senti- 

VoL.  II.— Q 


they  acted.  They  denied  the  Holy  Scriptures 
to  be  the  only  rule  of  their  faith,  calling  it  a 
dead  letter,  and  maintaining  that  every  man 
had  a  light  within  himself,  which  was  a  suffi- 
cient rule.  They  denied  the  received  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  and  incarnation.  They  disown- 
ed the  sacraments  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper  ;  nay,  some  of  them  prxiceeded  so  far  as 
to  deny  a  Christ  without  them  ;  or,  at  least,  to 
place  more  of  their  dependance  upon  a  Christ 
within.  They  spake  little  or  nothing,  says 
Mr.  Baxter,*  about  the  depravity  of  nature  i 
about  the  covenant  of  grace ;  about  pardon  of 
sin,  and  reconciliation  with  God  ;  or  about  mor- 
al duties. t  But  the  disturbance  they  gave  to 
the  public  religion  for  a  course  of  years  was  so 
insufferable,  that  the  magistrates  could  not  avoid 
punishing  them  as  disturbers  of  the  peace; 
though  of  late  they  are  become  a  more  sober 
and  inoffensive  people  ;  and  by  the  wisdom  of 
their  managers,  have  formed  themselves  into  a 


ments  and  practices  of  the  Quakers,  in  this  and  the 
preceding  paragraph,  is  not  drawn  up  with  the  accu- 
racy and  precision,  not  to  say  candour,  which  should 
mark  the  historic  page.  It  has  too  much  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  loose,  desultory  representation  which, 
those  who  had  not  investigated  their  principles,  nor 
looked  into  their  writings,  would  exhibit  of  this 
sect.  It  is,  I  think,  introduced  at  an  improper 
place,  in  too  early  a  period  of  their  history,  when 
Mr.  Neal  himself  has  related  only  what  concerned 
George  Fox,  and  before  his  followers  were  formed 
into  a  body.  At  that  time  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  their  principles  should  be  made  into  a  system ; 
and  their  doctrines  being  delivered  as  the  assertions 
of  individuals  only,  and  deriving  their  complexion, 
from  their  different  tastes,  capacities,  and  views, 
would,  to  the  public  eye,  wear  the  aspect  of  variety 
and  uncertainty.  But  long  before  Mr.  Neal  wrote, 
their  principles  had  assumed  a  systematic  form. 
Penn  had  published  his  Key,  and  Robert  Barclay 
his  Catechism  and  Confession  of  Faith,  and  that 
elaborate  work,  his  Apology.  The  propositions  illus- 
trated and  defended  in  this  treatise  exhibit  a  concise 
view  of  the  chief  principles  of  the  Quakers,  and,  that 
they  may  speak  for  themselves,  we  will  give  them  in 
the  Appendix,  No.  12. — Ed.  »  Baxter,  p.  77. 

t  This  quotation  is  not  correct.  Mr.  Baxter's 
words,  concerning  the  strain  of  their  preaching,  are 
these  :  "  They  speak  much  for  the  dwelling  and  work- 
ing of  the  Spirit  in  us,  but  little  of  justification  and 
the  pardon  of  sin,  and  our  reconciliation  with  God 
through  Jesus  Christ."  Here  is  nothing  said  about 
their  neglecting  to  insist  on  "  moral  duties."  The 
great  object  of  Fox's  zeal,  we  are  told,  was  a  heav- 
enly temper  and  a  life  of  righteousness,  and  his  en-' 
deavours  to  propagate  true  religion  and  righteous- 
ness were  not  confined  to  public  or  private  meetings, 
but  exerted  in  other  places,  as  occasion  offered  ;  par- 
ticularly in  courts  of  judicature,  to  admonish  to  jus- 
tice, and  caution  against  oppression ;  in  markets,  to 
recommend  truth,  candour,  and  fair  dealings,  and  to 
bear  his  testimony  against  fraud  and  deceitful  mer- 
chandise :  at  pihlic-houses  of  entertainment,  to 
warn  against  indulging  intemperance,  by  supplying* 
their  guests  with  more  liquor  than  would  do  them 
good  ;  at  schools  and  in  private  families,  to  exhort 
to  the  training  up  of  children  and  servants  to  sobri- 
ety, in  the  fear  of  their  Maker;  to  testify  against 
vain  sports,  plays,  and  shows,  as  tending  to  draw 
people  into  vanity  and  libertinism,  and  from  that  state 
of  circumspecl  ion  and  attentive  consideration  where- 
in our  salvation  is  to  be  wrought  out,  forewarning^ 
all  of  the  great  day  of  account  for  all  the  deeds  done 
in  the  body.  This  was  certainly  insisting  on  moral' 
duties,  and  bringing  home  the  principles  of  righteous- 
ness  to  the  various  circumstances  of  human  life  with 
much  propriety  and  energy. —  Gough's  History,  vol.  i.^ 
p.  67,  75.— Ed. 


122 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


sort  of  body  politic,  and  are  in  general  very  wor- 
thy members  of  society. 


CHAPTER  II. 

J-ROM  THE  CORONATION  OF  KING  CHARLES  II.  IN 
SCOTLAND,  TO  THE  PROTECTORSHIP  OF  OLIVER 
CROMWELL. 1651. 

The  coronation  of  King  Charles  by  the  Scots, 
which  had  been  deferred  hitherto,  being  now 
thought  necessary  to  give  life  to  their  cause, 
was  solemnized  at  Scone  on  New- Year's  day, 
1651,  with  as  much  magnificence  as  their  cir- 
■cumstances  would  admit,*  when  his  majesty 
took  the  following  oath:  "I,  Charles,  king  of 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  Ireland,  do  assure 
and  declare,  by  my  solemn  oath,  in  the  presence 
of  Almighty  God,  the  searcher  of  all  hearts,  my 
allowance  and  approbation  of  the  national  Cov- 
enant, and  of  the  solenm  League  and  Covenant ; 
and  faithfully  oblige  myself  to  prosecute  the 
ends  thereof  in  my  station  and  calling;  and 
that  I  myself  and  successors  shall  consent  and 
agree  to  all  the  acts  of  Parliament  enjoining  the 
national  Covenant,  and  the  solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  and  fully  establish  Presbyterian  gov- 
ernment, the  Directoryof  Worship,  Confession  of 
Faith,  and  Catechisms,  in  the  kingdom  of  Scot- 
land, as  they  are  approved  by  the  General  As- 
sembly of  this  Kirk,  and  Parliament  of  this  king- 
dom ;  and  that  I  will  give  my  royal  word  and 
assent  to  all  acts  of  Parliament  passed,  or  to  be 
passed,  enjoining  the  same  in  my  other  domin- 
ions ;  and  that  I  shall  observe  these  in  my  own 
practice  and  family,  and  shall  never  make  oppo- 
sition to  any  of  these,  or  endeavour  any  change 
thereof  "t  This  oath  was  annexed  to  the  Cov- 
enant itself,  drawn  up  on  a  fair  roll  of  parch- 
ment, and  subscribed  by  him  in  the  pfesence  of 
the  nobility  and  gentry.| 

His  majesty  also  signed  a  declaration,  in 
which  he  acknowledged  the  sin  of  his  father  in 
marrying  into  an  idolatrous  family  ;  and  that  the 
blood  shed  in  the  late  wars  lay  at  his  father's 
door.ij  He  expressed  a  deep  sense  of  his  own 
ill  education,  and  of  the  prejudices  he  had  drunk 
in  against  the  cause  of  God,  of  which  he  was 
now  very  sensible.  He  confessed  all  the  former 
parts  of  his  life  to  have  been  a  course  of  enmity 
to  the  Word  of  God.  He  repented  of  his  com- 
mission to  Montrose.  He  acknowledged  his 
own  sins,  and  the  sins  of  his  father's  house, 
and  says  he  will  account  them  his  enemies 
who  oppose  the  covenants,  both  which  he  had 

*  The  ceremonial  of  this  coronation  is  given  at 
length  by  Dr.  Grey,  vol.  iii.,  p.  121-124. — Eo. 

t  Jesse  says  his  "coronation  at  Scone,  though 
conflucted  with  some  magnificence,  was,  after  all, 
little  belter  than  an  insult."  Dr.  Price,  with  his  usu- 
al discrimination,  observes,  "  The  scene  enacted  on 
this  occasion  was  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  whole 
course  of  the  young  prince  in  Scotland,  and  was  the 
most  disgracefully  hypocritical  ever  exhibited  on  the 
theatre  of  human  action.  *  *  *  *  It  is  needless  to 
comment  on  such  a  farce.  It  was  a  worthy  com- 
mencement of  one  of  the  most  inglorious  careers  ever 
run  by  human  prince.  Had  Cromwell  been  the  actor 
on  this  occasion,  volumes  would  have  been  written 
■on  the  depth  of  his  dissimulation  and  treachery."— C. 

J.OIdmixon's  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  391. 

()  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  387.  Burnet,  vol.  i ,  p. 
r78,  Edinb.  edit. 


taken  without  any  sinister  intention  of  attain- 
ing his  own  ends.  He  declares  his  detesta- 
tion and  abhorrence  of  all  popery,  superstition, 
idolatry,  and  prelacy,  and  resolves  not  to  toler- 
ate them  in  any  part  of  his  dominions.  He  ac- 
knowledges his  great  sin  in  making  peace  with 
the  Irish  rebels,  and  allowing  them  the  liberty 
of  their  religion,  which  he  makes  void,  resolving 
for  the  future  rather  to  choose  affliction  than 
sin  ;  and  though  he  judges  charitably  of  those 
who  have  acted  against  the  Covenant,  yet  he 
promises  not  to  employ  them  for  the  future  till 
they  have  taken  it.  In  the  conclusion,  his  maj- 
esty confesses  over  again  his  own  guilt ;  and 
tells  the  world  the  state  of  the  question  was  not 
altered,  inasmuch  as  he  had  obtained  mercy  to  be 
on  God's  side,  and  therefore  hopes  the  Lord  will 
be  gracious,  and  countenance  his  own  cause, 
since  he  is  determined  to  do  nothing  but  with 
advice  of  the  Kirk. 

Our  historians,  who  complain  of  the  prevari 
cation  of  Cromwell,  would  do  well  to  find  a  par 
allel  to  this  in  all  history  ;  the  king  took  the 
Covenant  three  times  with  this  tremendous 
oath,  "  By  the  Eternal  and  Almighty  God,  who 
liveth  and  reigneth  forever,  I  will  observe  and 
keep  all  that  is  contained  herein."  Mr.  Baxter 
admits*  that  the  Scots  were  in  the  wrong  ia 
tempting  the  young  king  to  speak  and  publish 
that  which  they  might  easily  know  was  contrary 
to  the  thoughts  of  his  heart ;  but  surely  his  maj- 
esty was  no  less  to  blame,  to  trample  upon  the 
most  sacred  bonds  of  religion  and  society.  He 
complied  with  the  rigours  of  the  Scots  discipline 
and  worship  :  he  heard  many  prayers  and  ser- 
mons of  great  length.  "  I  remember,"  says 
Bishop  Burnet, +  "in  one  fast-day,  there  were  six 
sermons  preached  without  intermission.  He 
was  not  allowed  to  walk  abroad  on  Sundays ; 
and  if  at  any  time  there  had  been  any  gayety  at 
court,  as  dancing  or  playing  at  cards,  he  was 
severely  reproved  for  it,  which  contributed  not 
a  little  to  beget  in  him  an  aversion  to  all  strict- 
ness in  religion."  And  the  Scots  were  so  jeal- 
ous that  all  this  vvas  from  necessity,  that  they 
would  suffer  none  of  his  old  friends  to  come 
into  his  presence  and  councils,  nor  so  much  as 
to  serve  in  the  army. 

W^hile  the  Scots  were  raising  forces  for  the 
king's  service,  a  private  correspondence  was 
carried  on  with  the  English  Presbyterians  ;  let- 
ters were  also  written,  and  messengers  sent, 
from  London  to  the  king  and  queen-mother  in 
France,  to  hasten  an  accommodation  with  the 
Scots,  assuring  them  that  the  English  Presby- 
terians would  then  declare  for  him  the  first  op- 
portunity. Considerable  sums  of  money  were 
collected  privately  to  forward  an  expedition  into 
England  ;  but  the  vigdance  of  the  common- 
wealth discovered  and  defeated  their  designs. 
The  principal  gentlemen  and  ministers  concern- 
ed in  the  correspondence  M-ere  some  disbanded 
officers  who  had  served  the  Parliament  in  the 


*  "  It  seemed  to  me  and  many  others,"  says  Mr. 
Baxter,  "that  the  Scots  miscarried  divers  ways:  1. 
In  imposing  laws  upon  their  king,  for  which  they  had 
no  authority  :  2.  In  forcing  him  to  dishonour  the  mem- 
ory of  his  father  by  such  confessions  :  3.  In  tempting 
him  to  speak  and  publish  that  which  they  might  ea- 
sily know  was  contrary  to  his  heart,  and  so  to  take 
God's  name  in  vain  :  4.  And  in  giving  Cromwell  oc- 
casion to  charge  them  all  with  dissimulation." — 
Baxter's  Life,  p.  66.— Ed.  t  P.  73. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


123 


late  wars,  as  Major  Adams,  Alford,  and  Hunt- 
ington ;  Colonel  Vaughan,  Sowton,  Titus,  Jack- 
son, Bains,  Barton  ;  Captain  Adams,  Potter,  Far, 
Massey,  Starks  ;  and  Mr.  Gibbons.  The  min- 
isters were,  Dr.  Drake,  Mr.  Case,  Watson,  Hey- 
rick,  Jenkins,  Jackson,  Jacquel,  Robinson,  Caw- 
ton,  Nalson,  Haviiand,  Blackmore,  and  Mr.  Love. 
These  had  their  private  assemblies  at  Major 
Adams's,  Colonel  Barton's,  and  at  Mr.  Love's 
house,  and  held  a  correspondence  with  the  king, 
who  desired  them  to  send  commissioners  to  Bre- 
da to  moderate  the  Scots  demands,  which  ser- 
vice he  would  reward  when  God  should  restore 
him  to  his  kingdoms. 

But  so  numerous  a  confederacy  was  hardly 
to  be  concealed  from  the  watchful  eyes  of  the 
new  government,  who  had  their  spies  in  all 
places.  Major  Adams,  being  apprehended  on 
suspicion,  was  the  first  who  discovered  the 
conspiracy  to  the  Council  of  State.  On  his  in- 
formation, warrants  were  issued  out  for  appre- 
heading  most  of  the  gentlemen  and  ministers 
above  mentioned  ;  but  several  absconded,  and 
withdrew  from  the  storm.  The  ministers  who 
were  apprehended  were  Dr.  Drake,  Mr.  Jenkins, 
Jackson,  Robinson,  Watson,  Blackmore,  and 
Haviiand,  who  after  some  time  were  released 
•on  their  petition  for  mercy,  and  promising  sub- 
mission to  the  government  for  the  I'uture ;  but 
Mr.  Love  and  Gibbons  were  made  examples, 
as  a  terror  to  others.  Mr.  Jenkins's  petition 
being  expressed  in  very  strong  terms,*  was  or- 
dered to  be  printed  ;  it  was  entitled,  "  The  hum- 
ble Petition  of  William  Jenkins,  Prisoner,  de- 
claring his  unfeigned  Sorrow  for  all  his  late  Mis- 
carriages, and  promising  to  be  true  and  faithful 
to  the  present  Government ;  with  three  Queries, 
being  the  Ground  of  his  late  Petition,  and  Sub- 
mission to  the  present  Powers." 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Love  was  brought  before 
a  new  high  court  of  justice  erected  for  this  pur- 
pose, as  was  the  custom  of  these  times  for  state 
criminals,  when  Mr.  Attorney-general  Prideaux, 
June  20,  exhibited  against  him  the  following 
charge  of  high  treason  :  "  That  at  several  times 
in  the  years  1649,  1650,  and  1651,  and  in  sev- 
eral places,  he,  with  the  persons  above  men- 
tioned, had  maliciously  combined  and  contrived 
to  raise  forces  against  the  present  government ; 
that  they  had  declared  and  published  Charles 
Stuart,  eldest  son  of  the  late  king,  to  be  King  of 
England,  without  consent  of  Parliament ;  that 
they  had  aided  the  Scots  to  invade  this  com- 
monwealth ;  that  the  said  Christopher  Love,  at 
divers  times  between  the  29th  of  March,  1650, 
and  the  first  of  June,  1651,  at  London  and  oth- 
er places,  had  traitorously  and  maliciously  main- 
tained correspondence  and  intelligence  by  let- 


*  The  most  remarkable  positions  in  this  petition 
were  :  That  the  Parliament,  without  the  king,  were 
the  supreme  authority  of  the  nation ;  that  God's 
providences  are  antecedent  declarations  of  his  will 
and  approbation,  and  appeared  as  evidently  in  re- 
moving the  king  and  investing  their  honours  with 
the  government,  as  in  taking  away  and  bestowing 
any  government  in  any  history  of  any  age  of  the 
world ;  that  the  refusal  of  subjection  to  tlieir  author- 
ity was  such  an  opposing  the  government  set  up 
by  the  sovereign  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  as  none 
can  have  peace  either  in  acting  or  sutfering  for ;  and 
that  it  was  a  duty  to  yield  to  this  authority  all  active 
and  cheerful  obedience,  in  the  Lord,  for  conscience' 
sake. — Dr.  Grey's  Remarks,  vol.  iii.,  p.  127. — Ed. 


ters  and  messages  with  Charles  Stuart,  son  of 
the  late  king,  and  with  the  queen  his  mother, 
and  with  sundry  of  his  council ;  that  he  did 
likewise  hold  correspondence  with  divers  of 
the  Scots  nation,  and  had  assisted  them  with 
money,  arms,  and  other  supplies,  in  the  present 
war,  as  well  as  Colonel  Titus  and  others  of  the 
English  nation,  in  confederacy  with  them,  to 
the  hazard  of  the  public  peace,  and  in  breach 
of  the  laws  of  the  land." 

To  this  charge  Mr.  Love,  after  having  de- 
murred to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  pleaded 
not  guilty.  The  witnesses  against  him  were 
eight  of  the  above-mentioned  gentlemen.  The 
Reverend  Mr.  Jackson  was  summoned,  but  re- 
fused to  be  sworn  or  give  evidence,  because  he 
looked  on  Mr.  Love  to  be  a  good  man  ;  saying, 
he  should  have  a  hell  in  his  conscience  to  his 
dying  day  if  he  should  speak  anything  that 
should  be  circumstantially  prejudicial  to  Mr. 
Love's  life.  The  court  put  him  in  mind  of  his 
obligation  to  the  public,  and  that  the  very  safe- 
ty of  ail  government  depended  upon  it.  But  he 
refused  to  be  sworn,  for  which  the  court  sent 
him  to  the  Fleet,  aud  fined  him  £500. 

But  it  appeared  by  the  other  witnesses  that 
Mr.  Love  had  carried  on  a  criminal  correspond- 
ence both  with  the  king  and  the  Scots.  With 
regard  to  the  king,  it  was  sworn,  that  about  a 
month  after  his  late  majesty's  death,  several  ol 
them  met  at  a  tavern  at  Dowgate,  and  other 
places,  to  concert  measures  to  forward  the 
king's  agreement  with  the  Scots,  for  which  pur- 
pose they  applied  by  letters  to  the  queen,  and 
sent  over  Colonel  Titus  with  £100  to  defray 
his  expenses.  The  colonel,  having  delivered 
his  message,  sent  back  letters  by  Colonel  Als- 
ford,  which  were  read  in  Mr.  Love's  house  ; 
with  the  copy  of  a  letter  from  the  king  himself, 
Mr.  Love  being  present.  Upon  these  and  such 
like  facts,  the  council  for  the  commonwealth 
insisted,  that  here  was  a  criminal  correspond- 
ence to  restore  the  king,  contrary  to  the  ordi- 
nance of  January  30,  1648,  which  says,  "that 
whosoever  shall  proclaim,  declare,  publish,  or 
any  ways  promote  Charles  Stuart,  or  any  other 
person,  to  be  King  of  England,  without  consent 
of  Parliament,  shall  be  adjudged  a  traitor,  and 
suffer  the  pains  of  death  as  a  traitor." 

The  other  branch  of  the  charge  against  Mr. 
Love  was  his  correspondence  with  the  Scots, 
and  assisting  them  in  the  war  against  the  Par- 
liament. To  support  this  article,  Captain  Pot 
ter,  Adams,  and  Mr.  Jacquel  swore,  that  letters 
came  from  Scotland  to  Colonel  Bamfield  with 
the  letter  L  upon  them,  giving  a  large  narrative 
of  the  fight  at  Dunbar,  and  of  the  Scots  affairs 
for  three  months  after  till  Christmas.  There 
came  also  letters  from  the  Earl  of  Argyle,  Lo- 
thian, and  Loudon,  who  proposed  the  raising 
£10,000  to  buy  arms  and  to  hire  shipping,  in 
order  to  land  five  thousand  men  in  England. 
The  letters  were  read  at  Mr.  Love's  house  ;  but 
the  proposal  being  disliked,  only  £40  was  raised 
for  the  expenses  of  the  messenger.  At  anoth- 
er time  a  letter  was  read  from  General  Massey, 
in  which  he  desires  them  to  provide  arms,  and 
mentions  his  own  and  Colonel  Titus's  necessi- 
ties ;  upon  which  it  was  agreed  to  raise  2  or 
£300  by  way  of  contribution,  and  every  one 
present  wrote  down  what  he  would  lend,  among 
whom  was  Mr.  Love,  who  not  only  contributed 


124 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


himself,  but  carried  about  the  paper  to  encour- 
age others.  This  was  construed,  by  the  coun- 
cil for  the  commonweahh,  sufficient  to  bring 
Mr.  Love  within  the  ordinance  of  July  1,  1649, 
which  says,  "that  if  any  shall  procure,  invite, 
aid,  or  assist  any  foreigners  or  strangers  to  in- 
vade England  or  Ireland,  or  shall  adhere  to  any 
forces  raised  by  the  enemies  of  the  Parliament, 
or  commonwealth,  or  keepers  of  the  liberties  of 
England,  all  such  persons  shall  be  deemed  and 
adjudged  guilty  of  high  treason." 

Mr.  Love,  in  his  defence,  behaved  with  a  little 
too  much  freedom  and  boldness  ;  he  set  too 
high  a  value  upon  his  sacred  character,  which 
the  court  was  inclined  to  treat  with  neglect. 
He  objected  to  the  witnesses,  as  being  forced 
into  the  service  to  save  their  lives.  He  ob- 
served, that  to  several  of  the  facts  there  was 
only  one  witness  ;  and  that  some  of  them  had 
sworn  falsely,  or.  at  least,  their  memories  had 
failed  them  in  some  things  ;  which  might  easi- 
ly happen  at  so  great  a  distance  of  time.  He 
called  no  witnesses  to  confront  the  evidence, 
but  at  the  close  of  his  defence  confessed  ingen- 
uously that  there  had  been  several  meetings 
of  the  above-named  persons  at  his  house,  that 
a  commission  was  read,  but  that  he  had  dissent- 
ed from  it.  He  acknowledged,  farther,  that  he 
was  present  at  the  reading  of  the  letters,  or  of 
some  part  of  them,  "  but  I  was  ignorant,"  says 
he,  "  of  the  danger  that  I  now  see  I  am  in.  The 
act  of  August  2,  1650,  makes  it  treason  to  hold 
any  correspondence  with  Scotland,  or  to  send 
letters  thither,  though  but  in  a  way  of  commerce, 
the  two  nations  being  at  war  ;  now  here  my 
council  acquaints  me  with  my  danger,  that  I, 
being  present  when  letters  were  read  in  my 
house,  am  guilty  of  a  concealment,  and  there- 
fore as  to  that,  I  humbly  lay  myself  at  your 
feet  and  mercy." 

And  to  move  the  court  to  show  mercy  to 
him,  he  endeavoured  to  set  out  his  own  charac- 
ter in  the  most  favourable  light :  "  I  have  been 
called  a  malignant  and  apostate,"  says  he,  "but, 
God  is  my  witness,  I  never  carried  on  a  malig- 
nant interest ;  I  shall  retain  my  covenanting 
principles,  from  which,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I 
■will  never  depart ;  neither  am  I  an  incendiary 
between  the  two  nations  of  England  and  Scot- 
land, but  I  am  grieved  for  their  divisions ;  and 
if  I  had  as  much  blood  in  my  veins  as  there  is 
water  in  the  sea,  I  could  account  it  well  spent 
to  quench  the  fire  that  our  sins  have  kindled 
between  them.  I  have  all  along  engaged  rny 
life  and  estate  in  the  Parliament's  quarrel, 
against  the  forces  raised  by  the  late  king,  not 
from  a  prospect  of  advantage,  but  from  con- 
science and  duty  ;  and  I  am  so  far  from  repent- 
ing, that  were  it  to  do  again,  upon  the  same  un- 
questionable authority,  and  for  the  same  de- 
clared ends,  I  should  as  readily  engage  in  it  as 
ever ;  though  I  wish  from  my  soul  that  the 
ends  of  that  just  war  had  been  better  accom- 
plished. 

"Nor  have  my  sufferings  in  this  cause  been 
inconsiderable  ;  when  I  was  a  scholar  in  Oxford 
and  M.A.,  I  was  the  first  who  publicly  refused 
to  subscribe  the  canons  imposed  by  the  late 
archbishop,  for  which  I  was  expelled  the  Convo- 
cation House.  When  I  first  came  to  London, 
which  was  about  twelve  years  ago,  I  was  op- 
posed by  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  it  was 


about  three  years  before  I  could  obtain  so  muck 
as  a  lecture.  In  the  year  1G40,  or  1641,  I  was 
imprisoned  in  Newcastle,  for  preaching  against 
the  Service  Book,  from  whence  I  was  removed 
hither  by  habeas  corpus,  and  acquitted.  In  the 
beginning  of  the  war  between  the  late  king  and 
Parliament,  I  was  accused  for  preaching  treason 
and  rebellion,  merely  because  I  maintained,  in 
a  sermon  at  Tenderton,  in  Kent,  the  lawfulness 
of  a  defensive  war.  I  was  again  complained 
of  by  the  commissioners  at  Uxbridge  for  preach- 
ing a  sermon,  which  I  hear  is  lately  reprinted  •, 
and  if  it  be  printed  according  to  the  first  copy, 
I  will  own  every  line  of  it.  After  all  this,  I 
have  been  three  times  in  trouble  since  the  late 
change  of  government.  Once  I  was  committed 
to  custody,  and  twice  cited  before  the  Commit- 
tee for  plundered  ministers,  but  for  want  of 
proof  was  discharged.  And  now,  last  of  all, 
this  great  trial  has  come  upon  me  ;  I  have  been 
kept  several  weeks  in  close  prison,  and  am  now 
arraigned  for  my  life,  and  like  to  suffer  from 
the  hands  of  those  for  whom  I  have  done  and 
suffered  so  much,  and  who  have  lift  up  their 
hands  with  me  in  the  same  covenant ;  and 
yet  I  am  not  conscious  of  any  personal  act 
proved  against  me,  that  brings  me  withm  any 
of  your  laws  as  to  treason. 

"  Upon  the  whole,  though  I  never  wrote  nor 
sent  letters  into  Scotland,  yet  I  confess  their 
proceedings  with  the  king  are  agreeable  to  my 
judgment,  and  for  the  good  of  the  nation  ;  and 
though  I  disown  the  commission  and  instruc- 
tions mentioned  in  the  indictment,  yet  I  have 
desired  an  agreement  between  the  king  and  the 
Scots,  agreeably  to  the  Covenant ;  for  they  hav- 
ing declared  him  to  be  their  king,  I  have  desired 
and  prayed,  as  a  private  man,  that  they  might 
accomplish  their  ends  upon  such  terms  as  were 
consistent  with  the  safety  of  religion  and  the 
Covenant." 

He  concludes  with  beseeching  the  court  that 
he  may  not  be  put  to  death  for  state  reasons. 
He  owns  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  concealment, 
and  begs  the  mercy  of  the  court  for  it,  prom- 
ising for  the  future  to  lead  a  quiet  and  peacea- 
ble life.  He  puts  them  in  mind,  that  when 
Abiathar  the  priest  had  done  an  unjustifiable 
action.  King  Solomon  said  he  would  not  put 
him  to  death  at  that  time,  because  he  bore  the 
ark  of  the  Lord  God  before  David  his  father  ; 
and  because  he  had  been  afflicted  in  all  wherein 
his  father  had  been  afflicted.  "  Thus,"  says  he, 
"  I  commit  myself  and  my  all  to  God,  and  to 
your  judgments  and  consciences,  with  the  words 
of  Jeremiah  to  the  rulers  of  Israel,  '  As  for  me, 
behold  I  am  in  your  hands,  do  with  me  as 
seemeth  good  and  meet  to  you ;  but  know  ye 
for  certain,  that  if  ye  put  me  to  death,  ye  shall 
surely  bring  innocent  blood  upon  yourselves.' 
But  I  hope  better  things  of  you,  though  I  thus 
speak." 

The  court  allowed  Mr.  Love  the  benefit  of 
counsel  learned  in  the  law.  to  argue  some  ex- 
ceptions against  the  indictment ;  but  after  all 
that  Mr.  Hales  could  say  for  the  prisoner,  the 
court,  after  six  days'  hearing,  on  the  5th  of  July 
pronounced  sentence  of  death  against  him  as  a 
traitor. 

Great  intercessions*  were  made  for  the  life 


*  Not  only  by  his  wife  and  friends,  says  Mr.  Gran- 
ger, but  by  several  parishes  in  London,  and  by  fifty- 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


125 


of  this  reverend  person  by  the  chief  of  the  Pres- 
byterian party  in  London  ;  his  wife  presented 
several  moving  petitions  ;  and  two  were  pre- 
sented from  himself,  in  one  of  which  he  ac- 
knowledges the  justice  of  his  sentence  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  the  commonwealth  ;  in  the 
other,  he  petitions  that,  if  he  may  not  be  pardon- 
ed, his  sentence  may  be  changed  into  banish- 
ment ;  and  that  he  might  do  something  to  de- 
serve his  life,  he  presented  with  his  last  petition 
a  narration  of  all  that  he  knew  relating  to  the 
plot,  which  admits  almost  all  that  had  been  ob- 
jected to  him  at  his  trial. 

But  the  affairs  of  the  commonwealth  were 
now  at  a  crisis,  and  King  Charles  II.  having 
entered  England  at  the  head  of  sixteen  thousand 
Scots,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  strike  some 
terror  into  the  Presbyterian  party,  by  making 
an  example  of  one  of  their  favourite  clergymen. 
Mr.  Whitelocke  says*  that  Colonel  Fortescue 
was  sent  to  General  Cromwell  with  a  petition 
on  behalf  of  Mr.  Love,  but  that  both  the  general 
and  the  rest  of  the  officers  declined  meddling 
in  the  affair ;  Bishop  Kennet  and  Mr.  Echard 
say  the  general  sent  word  in  a  private  letter  to 
one  of  his  confidants,  that  he  was  content  that 
Mr.  Love  should  be  reprieved,  and  upon  giving 
security  for  his  future  good  behaviour,  pardoned  ; 
but  that  the  post-boy  being  stopped  upon  the 
road  by  some  cavaliers  belonging  to  the  late 
king's  army,  they  searched  his  packet,  and  find- 
ing this  letter  of  reprieve  for  Mr.  Love,  they  tore 
it  with  indignation,  as  thinking  him  not  worthy 
to  live,  who  had  been  such  a  firebrand  at  the 
treaty  of  Uxbridge.t  If  this  story  be  true,  Mr. 
Love  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  ungovernable  rage  of 
the  cavaliers,  as  Dr.  Dorislaus  and  Mr.  Ascham 
had  done  before. 

The  mail  arriving  from  Scotland,  and  no  let- 
ter from  Cromwell  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Love,  he 
was  ordered  to  be  executed  upon  Tower  Hill, 
August  22,  the  very  day  the  king  entered  Wor- 
cester at  the  head  of  his  Scots  army.  Mr.  Love 
mounted  the  scaffold  with  great  intrepidity  and 
resolution,  and  taking  off  his  hat  two  several 
times  to  the  people,  made  a  long  speech,  where- 
in he  declares  the  satisfaction  of  his  mind  in  the 
cause  for  which  he  suffered  ;  and  then  adds,  "  I 
am  for  a  regulated,  mixed  monarchy,  which  I 
judge  to  be  one  of  the  best  governments  in  the 
world.  I  opposed  in  my  place  the  forces  of  the 
late  king,  because  I  am  agamst  screwing  up 
monarchy  into  tyranny  as  much  as  against 
those  who  would  pull  it  down  into  anarchy.  I 
was  never  for  putting  the  king  to  death,  whoi5e 
person  I  did  promise  in  my  covenant  to  pre- 
serve ;  and  I  judge  it  an  ill  way  of  curing  the 
body  politic  by  cutting  off  the  political  head.  I 
die  with  my  judgment  against  the  Engagement ; 
I  pray  God  forgive  them  that  impose  it,  and 
them  that  take  it,  and  preserve  thein  that  refuse 
it.  Neither  would  I  be  looked  upon  as  owning 
this  present  government;  I  die  with  my  judg- 
ment against  it.  And  lastly,  I  die  cleaving  to 
all  those  oaths,  vows,  covenants,  and  itrotesta- 
tions  that  were  imposed  by  the  two  lunises  of 
Parliament.  I  bless  God  I  have  not  the  least 
trouble  on  my  spirit,  but  I  die  with  as  much 

four  ministers. — History  of  Englatid,  vol.  iii.,  p.  43, 
8vo. — Ed.  *  Memorials,  p.  474. 

t  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  202.  Echard,  vol.  ii.,  p.  700. 
Kennet's  Hist,  of  Eng.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  185. — C. 


quietness  of  mind  as  if  I  was  going  to  lie  down 
upon  my  bed  to  rest.  I  see  men  thirst  after  my 
blood,  which  will  but  hasten  my  happiness  and 
their  ruin ;  for  though  I  am  but  of  mean  pa- 
rentage, yet  my  blood  is  the  blood  of  a  Chris- 
tian, of  a  minister,  of  an  innocent  man,  and  (I 
speak  it  without  vanity)  of  a  martyr.  I  con- 
clude with  the  speech  of  the  apostle  :  '  I  am 
now  ready  to  be  offered  up,  and  the  time  of  my 
departure  is  at  hand,  but  I  have  finished  my 
course,  I  have  kept  the  faith  ;  henceforth  there 
is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness  ; 
and  not  for  me  only,  but  for  all  them  that  love  the 
appearance  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,'  through 
whose  blood  I  expect  salvation  and  remission 
of  sins.     And  so  the  Lord  bless  you  all." 

After  this  he  prayed  with  an  audible  voice  for 
himself  and  his  fellow-sufferer  Mr.  Gibbon,  for 
the  prosperity  of  England,  for  his  covenanting 
brethren  in  Scotland,  and  for  a  happy  union  be- 
tween the  two  nations,  making  no  mention  of 
the  king.  He  then  rose  from  his  knees,  and 
having  taken  leave  of  the  ministers,  and  others 
who  attended  him,  he  laid  his  head  upon  the 
block,  which  the  executioner  took  off  at  one 
blow,  before  he  had  attained  the  age  of  forty 
years.*  Mr.  Love  was  a  zealous  Presbyterian, 
a  popular  preacher,  and  highly  esteemed  by  his 
brethren.  His  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by 
Dr.  Manton,  and  published  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Saint's  Triumph  over  Death  ;"  but  his 
memory  has  suffered  very  much  by  Lord  Clar- 
endon's character,!  who  represents  him  as 
guUty  of  as  much  "  treason  against  the  late 
king  as  the  pulpit  could  contain  ;  and  delighting 
himself  with  the  recital  of  it  to  the  last,  as  dy- 
ing with  false  courage,  or  (as  he  calls  it)  in  a 
raving  fit  of  satisfaction,  for  having  pursued  the 
ends  of  the  sanctified  obligation,  the  Covenant, 
without  praying  for  the  king,  any  farther  than 
he  propagated  the  Covenant. "t 


*  Mr.  Love  was  born  at  Cardiff,  in  Glamorganshire ; 
became  a  servitor  of  JN'ew  Inn,  Oxford,  1635.  aged 
seventeen.  In  1G42  he  proceeded  master  of  arts. 
He  was,  at  the  beginning  of  his  ministry,  preacher  to 
the  garrison  of  Windsor,  then  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  John  Venn,  and  was  called  by  the  Royal- 
ists Venn's  principal  fireman  at  Windsor.  He  was 
afterward  successively  minister  of  St.  Ann's,  near 
Aldersgate,  and  St.  Lawrence  Jewry,  in  London. 
He  was  the  author  of  sermons  and  some  pieces  of 
practical  divinity,  which  gained  him  a  considerable 
repntation.  He  was  buried  with  great  lamentation 
on  the  north  side  of  the  chancel  of  St.  Lawrence 
Jewry. —  Wood's  Athen.  Oion.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  74;  and 
Granger's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  48,  8vo.— Ed.  Mr. 
Love  was  an  accomplished  divine;  his  most  valuable 
productions  are,  "  The  Combat  between  the  Flesh 
and  Spirit;"  "The  Christian's  Directory;"  "A 
Treatise  on  Effectual  Calling;"  "Heaven's  Glory;" 
"  Hell's  Terror."  These  are  well  worthy  of  careful 
study.— C.  t  Vol.  hi.,  p.  434. 

t  These  are  heavy  charges.  But  if  Mr.  Love  was 
guilty  of  so  "much  treason,"  it  was  m  behalf  of  the 
kins:,  and  with  a  view  to  promote  the  royal  cause. 
If  Clarendon  refers  to  his  preaching  at  Uxbridge,  the 
charge  is  asserted  without  an  atom  of  evidence. 
With  respect  to  Mr.  Love's  "speaking  with  bitter- 
ness and  animosity  against  both  the  king  and  the 
bishops"  when  ho  was  on  the  scaffold,  this  charge 
is  entirely  without  foundation,  and  stands  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  matter  o1  fact,  as  appears  from  Love's 
speech  at  length.  And  as  to  liis  laying  his  head  on 
the  block  "  in  a  raving  fit,"  we  are  at  a  loss  to  under- 
stand his  lordship's  meaning,  uniess  he  undesignedly 
insinuates  that  Mr.  Love  died  in  the  enjoyment  of 


126 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


To  return  to  more  public  affairs.  "  After  the 
battle  of  Dunhar.  General  Cromwell,  through 
the  inclemency  of  the  weather,  and  his  great 
fatigues,  was  seized  with  an  ague  which  hung 
upon  him  all  the  spring,  hut  as  the  summer  ad- 
vanced he  recovered,  and  in  the  month  of  July 
inarched  his  army  towards  the  king's  at  Stirling ; 
but  not  thinking  it  advisable  to  attempt  his  camp, 
he  transported  part  of  his  forces  over  the  frith 
into  Fife,  who,  upon  their  landing,  defeated  the 
Scots,  killing  two  thousand,  and  taking  twelve 
hundred  prisoners.  After  that,  without  waiting 
any  longer  on  the  king,  he  reduced  Johnstown, 
and  almost  all  the  garrisons  in  the  north." 

While  the  general  was  employed  in  these 
parts,  the  Scots  committee,  that  directed  the 
marches  of  their  army,  fearing  the  storm  would 
quickly  fall  upon  themselves,  resolved  to  march 
their  army  into  England,  and  try  the  loyalty  of 
the  English  Presbyterians ;  for  this  purpose  Col- 
onel Massey  was  sent  before  into  Lancashire,  to 
prepare  them  for  a  revolt ;  and  the  king  himself 
entered  England  by  the  way  of  Carlisle,  August 
6,  at  the  head  of  sixteen  thousand  men  ;  but 
when  the  committee  of  ministers  that  attended 
the  army  observed  that  the  king  and  his  friends, 
upon  their  entering  England,  were  for  droppmg 
the  Covenant,  they  sent  an  express  to  Massey 
without  the  king's  knowledge  (says  Lord  Clar- 
endon*), requiring  him  to  publish  a  declaration, 
to  assure  the  people  of  their  resolution  to  prose- 
cute the  ends  of  the  Covenant.  The  king  had 
no  sooner  notice  of  this,  but  he  sent  to  Massey, 
forbidding  him  to  publish  the  declaration,  and  to 
behave  with  equal  civility  towards  all  men  who 
were  forward  to  serve  him  ;  "  but  before  this 
inhibition,"  says  his  lordship,  "the  matter  had 
taken  air  in  all  places,  and  was  spread  over  the 
whole  kingdom,  which  made  all  men  fly  from 
the  houses,  or  conceal  themselves,  who  wished 
the  king  well."  But  his  lordship  is  surely  mis- 
taken, for  the  king's  chief  hopes  under  Massey 
were  from  the  Presbyterians,  who  were  so  far 
from  being  displeased  with  his  majesty's  decla- 
ring for  the  Covenant,  that  it  gave  them  all  the 
spirit  he  could  wish  for  ;  but  when  it  was  known 
that  the  Covenant  was  to  be  laid  aside,  Massey's 
measures  were  broken,  many  of  the  Scots  de- 
serted and  returned  home  ;  and  not  one  in  ten 
of  the  English  would  hazard  his  life  in  the 
quarrel. t  Mr.  Baxter,^  who  was  a  much  better 
judge  of  the  temper  of  the  people  than  his  lord- 
ship, says,  "  the  English  knew  that  the  Scots 
coming  into  England  was  rather  a  flight  than  a 
march.  They  considered,  likewise,  that  the  im- 
placable cavaliers  had  made  no  preparation  of 
the  people's  minds,  by  proposing  any  terms  of  a 
future  reconciliation  ;  that  the  prelatical  di- 
vines were  gone  farther  from  the  Presbyterians 
by  Dr.  Hammond's  new  way  than  their  prede- 


the  most  happy  and  e.xquisite  religious  feelings.  Dr. 
Calamy  assures  us  "that  he  died  neither  timorous- 
ly nor  proudly,  but  witii  great  alacrity  and  cheer- 
fulness, as  if  he  had  been  going  to  bed."  Dr.  Man- 
ton,  who  attended  Mr.  Love  upon  the  scaffold,  and 
who  knew  him  better  than  the  historians  who  have 
traduced  his  character,  says  "he  was  a  man  eminent 
in  grace,  of  a  singular  life  and  conversation,  and  a 
pattern  of  piety  most  worthy  of  imitation."" — Claren- 
don and  Whildncke  compared,  p.  303.  Dr.  Mantoii's  Fu- 
neral Serrnon  for  Mr.  Love.  Brooks's  Lives  of  the  Pu- 
ritans, p.  137.— C.  *  Vol.  iii.,  p.  400,  406. 
t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  585,  folio.  J  Life,  p.  08. 


cessors  ;  and  that  the  cause  they  contended  for 
being  not  concord,  but  government,  they  had  giv- 
en the  Presbyterian  clergy  and  people  no  hopes 
of  finding  any  abatement  of  their  former  bur- 
dens ;  and  it  is  hard  to  persuade  men  to  venture 
their  lives  in  order  to  bring  themselves  into  a 
prison  or  banishment."  However,  these  were 
the  true  reasons,  says  Mr.  Baxter,  that  no  more 
came  in  to  the  king  at  present ;  and  had  the 
Presbyterians  observed  them  at  the  Restoration, 
they  had  made  better  terms  for  themselves  thaa 
they  did. 

The  Parliament  at  Westminster  were  quickly 
advised  of  the  king's  march,  and  by  way  of  pre- 
caution, expelled  all  delinquents  out  of  the  city  ; 
they  raised  the  militia  ;  they  mustered  the  train- 
ed-bands, to  the  number  of  fourteen  thousand  ; 
and  in  a  few  weeks  had  got  together  an  army  of 
near  sixty  thousand  brave  soldiers.  Mr.  Ech- 
ard*  represents  the  Parliament  as  in  a  terrible 
panic,  and  projecting  means  to  escape  out  of 
the  land  ;  whereas,  in  reality,  the  unhappy  king 
was  the  pity  of  his  friends,  and  the  contempt  ol 
his  enemies.  General  Cromwell  sent  an  ex- 
press to  the  Parliament  to  have  a  watchful  eye 
over  the  Presbyterians,  who  were  in  confeder- 
acy with  the  Scots,  and  told  them  that  the  rea- 
son of  his  not  interposing  between  the  enemy 
and  England  was,  because  he  was  resolved  to 
reduce  Scotland  effectually  before  winter.  He 
desired  the  House  to  collect  their  forces  togeth- 
er, and  make  the  best  stand  they  could  till  he 
could  come  up  with  the  enemy,  when  he  doubt- 
ed not  but  to  give  a  good  account  of  them.  At 
the  same  time  he  sent  Major-general  Lambert 
with  a  strong  body  of  horse  to  harass  the  king's 
forces,  while  himself  with  the  body  of  the  army 
hastened  after,  leaving  Lieutenant-general  Monk 
with  a  sufficient  force  to  secure  his  conquests, 
and  reduce  the  rest  of  the  country,  which  he 
quickly  accomplished.  Bishop  Burnet  saysf 
there  was  an  order  and  discipline  among  the  Eng- 
lish, and  a  face  of  gravity  and  piety,  that  ama- 
zed all  people  ;  most  of  them  were  Independ- 
ents and  Baptists,  but  all  gifted  men,  and  preach- 
ed as  they  were  moved,  but  never  above  once 
disturbed  the  public  worship. 

The  Earl  of  Derby  was  the  only  nobleman  in 
England  who  raised  fifteen  hundred  men  for 
the  young  king,  who,  before  he  could  join  the 
royal  army,  was  defeated  by  Colonel  Lilburn, 
near  Wigan,  in  Lancashire,  and  his  forces  en- 
tirely dispersed.  The  earl,  being  wounded,  re- 
tired into  Cheshire,  and  from  thence  got  to  the 
king,  who  had  marched  his  army  as  far  as  Wor- 
cester, which  opened  its  gates,  and  gave  him 
an  honourable  reception  ;  from  thence  his  maj- 
esty sent  letters  to  London,  commanding  all 
his  subjects  between  the  age  of  sixteen  and 
sixty  to  repair  to  his  royal  standard  ;  but  few 
had  the  courage  to  appear,  the  Parliament  hav- 
ing declared  all  such  rebels,  and  burned  the 
king's  summons  by  the  hands  of  the  common 
hangman.  His  majesty's  affairs  were  now  at 
a  crisis.  Lambert  was  in  his  rear  with  a  great 
body  of  horse,  and  Cromwell  followed  with  ten 
thousand  foot,  which,  together  with  the  forces 
that  joined  him  by  order  of  Parliament,  made 
an  army  of  thirty  thousand  men.  The  king, 
being  unable  to  keep  the  field,  fortified  the  city 
of  Worcester,  and  encamped  almost  under  the 


*  P.  689. 


t  P. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


127 


walls.  September  3,  Cromwell  attacked  Po- 
wick  Bridge,  within  two  miles  of  the  city, 
which  drew  out  the  king's  forces  and  occasion- 
ed a  general  battle,  in  which  his  majesty's 
army  was  entirely  destroyed  ;  four  thousand 
bemg  slain,  seven  thousand  taken  prisoners, 
with  the  king"s  standard,  and  one  hundred  and 
fifty-eight  colours.  Never  was  a  greater  route 
and  dispersion,  nor  a  more  fatal  blow  to  the 
royal  cause.  The  account  which  the  general 
gave  to  the  Parliament  was,  "  that  the  battle 
was  fought  with  various  success  for  some  hours, 
but  still  hopeful  on  our  part,  and  in  the  end  be- 
came an  absolute  victory,  the  enemy's  army  be- 
ing totally  defeated,  and  the  town  in  our  pos- 
session, our  men  entering  at  the  enemy's  heels, 
and  fighting  with  them  in  the  streets,  took 
all  their  baggage  and  artdlery.  The  dispute 
was  long,  and  very  often  at  push  of  pike  from 
one  defence  to  another.  There  are  about  six 
or  seven  thousand  prisoners,  among  whom  are 
many  officers  and  persons  of  quality.  This,  for 
aught  I  know,  may  be  a  crowning  mercy."  All 
possible  diligence  was  used  to  seize  the  person 
of  the  king ;  it  was  declared  high  treason  to 
conceal  him,  and  a  reward  of  £1000  was  set 
upon  his  head  ;  but  Providence  ordained  his 
escape,*  for  after  he  had  travelled  up  and  down 
the  country  six  or  seven  weeks,  under  various 
disguises,  in  company  with  one  or  two  confi- 
dants, and  escaped  a  thousand  dangers,  he  got 
a  passage  across  the  Channel  at  Brighthelm- 
stone,  in  Sussex,  and  landed  at  Dieppe,  in  Nor- 
mandy, October  21,  the  morning  after  he  em- 
barked ;  from  whence  he  travelled  by  land  to 
Paris,  where  his  mother  maintained  him  out  of 
her  small  pension!  from  the  court  of  France.^ 

*  Hobbes,  of  Malinesbury,in  his  '■  Behemoth,"  at- 
tributes Charles's  escape  to  there  being  none  of  the 
enemy's  horse  in  Worcester  to  follow  hmi :  "  The 
plundering  foot,"  he  says,  "  kept  the  gates  shut,  lest 
the  horse  should  enter  and  have  a  share  of  the  booty." 
— Masere's  Tracts,  part  i).,  p.  G20. — C. 

t  This  must  be  understood  only  of  the  king's  first 
arrival :  for  her  pension  was  so  small  and  so  ill  paid, 
that  when  Cardinal  de  Retz  visited  her  on  a  time  in 
the  month  of  January,  the  Princess  Henrietta  could 
not  rise  for  want  of  fire.  When  her  son  arrived, 
she  had  not  money  enough  to  buy  him  a  change  of 
linen  for  the  next  day.  The  French  court  was  obli- 
ged to  provide  for  his  necessities,  and  settled  on  him 
a  pension  of  six  thousand  livres  per  month.  —  Dr. 
Grey,  vol.  hi.,  p.  134,  135.  Clarendon's  History,  vol. 
in.,  p.  441. — Ed. 

X  The  story  of  the  wanderings  of  the  young  king, 
after  the  fatal  battle  of  Worcester,  his  hairbreadth 
escapes,  and,  fventually,  his  almost  miraculous  de- 
liverance, are  perhaps  unexampled  for  their  stirring 
interest  in  the  annals  of  real  romance.  Attributing 
to  Charles  the  credit  of  some  slight  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  of  others  ;  admitting  that  he  could  not 
have  reflected  without  some  feelings  of  pity  on  the 
scene  of  slaughter  and  devastation  which  he  had  just 
quitted,  or  have  heard  without  a  sigh  of  the  death 
and  captivity  of  his  most  faithful  adherents  ;  allow- 
ing, even,  that  he  was  alive  to  the  common  im- 
pressions of  fear,  suspense,  and  hunger,  and  we  can 
imagine  nothing  more  distressing  than  the  condition 
of  the  hunted  and  houseless  Charles.  Miracles 
have  not  been  wrought  openly  in  our  time,  nor  in 
that  of  our  immediate  forefathers  ;  besides,  we  are 
unwilling  to  reconcile  with  the  fortunes  of  a  profli- 
gate an  especial  departure  of  Providence  from  its 
settled  rules;  nevertheless,  in  reviewing  the  circum- 
stances of  the  king's  wonderful  deliverance,  we  can 
scarcely  doubt  that  Providence  was  about  his  path 


The  hopes  of  the  Royalists  were  now  expi- 
ring, for  the  islands  of  Guernsey  and  Jersey,, 
with  all  the  British  plantations  in  America,  were 
reduced  this  summer  to  the  obedience  of  the 
Parliament,  insomuch  that  his  majesty  had 
neither  fort  nor  castle,  nor  a  foot  of  land  in  all 
his  dominions.  The  liturgy  of  the  Church  of 
England  was  also  under  a  total  eclipse,  the  use 
of  it  being  forbid,  not  only  in  England,  but  evea 
to  the  royal  family  in  France,  which  had  hith- 
erto an  apartment  in  the  Louvre  separated  to 
that  purpose  ;  but  after  the  battle  of  Worcester, 
an  order  was  sent  from  the  queen-regent  to 
shut  up  the  chapel,  it  being  the  king's  pleasure 
not  to  permit  the  exercise  of  any  religion  but 
the  Roman  Catholic  in  any  of  his  houses ;  nor 
could  Chancellor  Hyde  obtain  more  than  a  bare 
promise  that  the  Queen  of  England  would  use 
her  endeavours  that  the  Protestants  of  the 
family  should  have  liberty  to  exercise  their  de- 
votions in  some  private  room  belonging  to  the 
lodgings. 

Upon  the  king's  arrival  in  France,  he  imme- 
diately threw  off  the  mask  of  a  Presbyterian, 
and  never  went  once  to  the  Protestant  church 
at  Charenton,  though  they  invited  him  in  the 
most  respectful  manner ;  but  Lord  Clarendoa 
dissuaded  him,  because  the  Huguenots  had  not 
been  hearty  in  his  interest,  and  because  it 
might  look  disrespectful  to  the  old  Church  of 
England.  In  truth,  there  being  no  farther  pros- 
pect of  the  king's  restoration  by  the  Presbyteri- 
ans, the  eyes  of  the  court  were  turned  to  the 
Roman  Catholics,  and  many  of  his  majesty's 
retinue  changed  their  religion,  as  appears  by  the 
Legenda  Lignea,  published  about  this  time,  with 
a  list  of  fifty-three  new  converts,  among  whom 
were  the  following  names  in  red  capitals  :  the 
Countess  of  Derby,  Lady  Kilmichin,  Lord  Cot- 
tington,  Sir  Marm.  Langdale,  Sir  Fr.  Dodding- 
ton.  Sir  Theoph.  Gilby,  Captain  Tho.  Cook, 
Tho.  Vane,  D.D.,  De  Cressy,  prebendary  of 
Windsor,  Dr.  Bayley,  Dr.  Cosins,  Junior,  D. 
GofTe,  and  many  others,  not  to  mention  the 
king  himself,  of  whom  Father  Huddleston,  his 
confessor,  writes,  in  his  treatise  entitled  "A 
short  and  plain  Way  to  the  Faith  of  the  Church," 
published  1685,  that  he  put  it  into  the  king's 
hands  in  his  retirement,  and  that  when  his  maj- 
esty had  read  it,  he  declared  he  could  not  see 
how  it  could  be  answered.*  Thus  early,  says 
a  learned  prelate  of  the  Church  of  England, 
was  the  king's  advance  towards  popery,  of 
which  we  shall  meet  with  a  fuller  demonstra- 
tion hereafter.! 

General  Monk,  whom  Cromwell  left  in  Scot- 
land with  six  thousand  men,  quickly  reduced 
that  kingdom,  which  was  soon  after  united  to 
the  commonwealth  of  England,  the  deputies  of 
the  several  counties  consenting  to  be  governed 
by  authority  of  Parliament,  without  a  king  or 
House  of  Lordsi  The  power  of  the  Kirk  was 
likewise  restrained  within  a  narrow  compass  ; 
for  though  they  had  liberty  to  excommunicate 
offenders,  or  debar  them  the  communion,  they 

and  around  his  bed  ;  that  it  led  him  forth  from  the 
land  of  captivity,  and  sheltered  and  preserved  him 
for  the  furtherance  of  its  ends. — See  Jesse's  Court  of 
England,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  235. — C. 

*  Clarendon,  vol.  iii..  p.  444. 

t  Kennet,  p  200, 210.     Rapin,  vol.  ii,,  p,  586,  foho. 

t  Whitelocke,  p.  498,  503,  504, 


i28 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


might  not  seize  their  estates,  or  deprive  them 
of  their  civil  rights  and  privileges.  No  oaths  or 
covenants  were  to  be  imposed  but  i>y  direction 
from  Westminster  ;  and  as  all  fitting  encourage- 
ment was  to  be  given  to  the  ministers  of  tlie 
established  Kirk,  so  others,  not  satisfied  with 
their  form  of  church  government,  had  liberty  to 
serve  God  after  their  own  manner  ;  and  all  who 
would  live  peaceably,  and  yield  obedience  to  the 
commonwealth,  were  protected  in  their  several 
persuasions.  This  occasioned  a  great  commo- 
tion among  the  clergy,  who  complained  of  the 
loss  of  their  Covenant  and  church  discipline ; 
and  exclaimed  against  the  toleration,  as  opening 
a  door  to  all  kinds  of  error  and  heresy  ;  but  the 
English  supported  their  friends  against  all  oppo- 
jsition. 

The  Laird  of  Drum,  being  threatened  with  ex- 
communication for  speaking  against  the  Kirk, 
and  for  refusing  to  swear  that  its  discipline  was 
ef  Divine  authority,  fled  to  the  English  for  pro- 
tection, and  then  wrote  the  Assembly  word  that 
their  oppression  was  equal  to  that  of  the  late 
bishops,  but  that  the  commonwealth  of  England 
■would  not  permit  them  to  enslave  the  conscien- 
ces of  men  any  longer.  The  Presbytery  would 
have  proceeded  to  extremities  with  him,  but 
Monk  brandished  his  sword  over  their  heads, 
and  threatened  to  treat  them  as  enemies  to  the 
state,  upon  which  they  desisted  for  the  present.* 
Soon  after  this,  commissioners,  chiefly  of  the 
Independent  persuasion,  were  sent  into  Scot- 
land, to  visit  the  universities,  and  to  settle  lib- 
erty of  conscience  in  that  kingdom,  against  the 
coercive  claim  of  the  Kirk,  by  whose  influence 
a  declaration  was  presented  to  the  Assembly  at 
Edinburgh,  July  26,  in  favour  of  the  Congrega- 
tional discipline,  and  for  liberty  of  conscience  ; 
but  the  stubborn  assemblymen,  instead  of  yield- 
ing to  the  declaration,  published  a  paper  called 
a  "  Testimony  against  the  present  Encroach- 
ments of  the  Civil  Power  upon  the  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Jurisdiction,"  occasioned  by  a  proclamation 
of  the  English  commissioners  appointing  a  com- 
mittee for  visiting  their  universities,  which  they 
take  to  be  a  special  flower  of  the  Kirk  preroga- 
tive. The  Synod  of  Fife  also  protested  against 
the  public  resolutions  of  the  civil  power  ;  but 
the  sword  of  the  English  kept  them  in  awe  ; 
for  when  the  Synod  of  Perth  cited  before  them 
several  persons  for  slighting  the  admonitions  of 
the  Kirk,  Mr.  Whitelocke  sayst  that,  upon  the 
day  of  appearance,  their  wives,  to  the  number 
of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty,  with  clubs 
in  their  hands,  came  and  besieged  the  church 
where  the  synod  sat ;  that  they  abused  one  of 
the  ministers  who  was  sent  out  to  treat  with 
them,  and  threatened  to  excommunicate  them  ; 
and  that  they  beat  the  clerk  and  dispersed  the 
assembly ;  upon  which  thirteen  of  the  ministers 
met  at  a  village  about  four  miles  distant,  and 
having  agreed  that  no  more  synods  should  be 
held  in  that  place,  they  pronounced  the  village 
accursed.  When  the  General  Assembly  met 
again  at  Edinburgh  next  summer,  and  were  just 
entering  upon  business,  Lieutenant-colonel  Cot- 
terel  went  into  the  church,  and  standing  up 
upon  one  of  the  benches,,  told  them  that  no 
ecclesiastical  judicatories  were  to  sit  there  but 
by  authority  of  the  Parliament  of  England  ;  and 


Whitelocke,  p.  500,  505,  515.         t  P.  511,  512. 


without  giving  them  leave  to  reply,  he  com- 
manded them  to  retire,  and  conducted  them  out 
of  the  west  gate  of  the  city  with  a  troop  of  horse 
and  a  company  of  foot ;  and  having  taken  away 
the  commissioners  from  then-  several  classes, 
enjoined  them  not  to  assemble  any  more  above 
three  in  a  company. 

But  with  all  these  commotions,  Bishop  Burnet 
observes,*  that  the  country  was  kept  in  great 
order;  the  garrisons  in  the  Highlands  observed 
an  exact  discipline,  and  were  well  paid,  which 
brought  so  much  money  into  the  kingdom,  that 
it  continued  all  the  time  of  the  usurpation  in  a 
flourishing  condition  ;  justice  was  carefully  ad- 
ministered, and  vice  was  suppressed  and  pun- 
ished ;  there  was  a  great  appearance  of  devo- 
tion ;  the  Sabbath  was  observed  with  uncommon 
strictness  ;  none  might  walk  the  streets  in  time 
of  Divine  service,  nor  frequent  public-houses; 
the  evenings  of  the  Lord's  Days  were  spent  in 
catechising  their  children,  smging  psalms,  and 
other  acts  of  family  devotion,  insomuch  that  an 
acquaintance  with  the  principles  of  religion,  and 
the  gift  of  prayer,  increased  prodigiously  among 
the  common  people.! 

The  war  being  now  ended,  the  Parliament 
published  an  act  of  indemnity  fi)r  all  crimes  com- 
mitted before  June  30,  1648,  except  pirates,  Irish 
rebels,  the  murderers  of  Dr.  Dorislaus  and  Mr. 
Ascham,  and  some  others,  provided  they  laid 
hold  of  it  and  took  the  Engagement  before  Feb- 
ruary 1,  1652.  In  the  course  of  the  year  they 
chose  a  new  council  of  state  out  of  their  own 
body  for  the  next  year,  and  continued  them- 
selves, instead  of  dissolving  and  giving  way  to 
a  new  Parliament ;  the  neglect  of  which  was 
their  ruin. 

On  the  26th  of  September  Lieutenant-general 
Ireton  died  at  Limerick  in  Ireland,  after  he  had 
reduced  that  city  to  the  obedience  of  the  com- 
monwealth. He  was  bred  to  the  law,  and  was 
a  person  of  great  integrity,  bold  and  intrepid  in 
all  his  enterprises,  and  never  to  be  diverted  from 
what  he  thought  just  and  right  by  any  argu- 
ments or  persuasions.  He  was  a  thorough  com- 
monwealth's man.  Bishop  Burnet  says  he  had 
the  principles  and  temper  of  a  Cassius,t  and 
was  most  liberal  in  employing  his  purse  and 
hazarding  his  person  in  the  service  of  the  pub- 
lic. He  died  in  the  midst  of  life,  of  a  burning 
fever,ij  after  ten  days'  sickness.     His  body  be- 


*  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  84,  Edin.  edition. 

■f  Speaking  of  Scotland  at  this  time,  an  historian 
writes,  "  /  verily  believe  that  there  were  more  souls  con- 
verted to  Christ  in  that  short  period  of  time  than  in  any 
season  since  the  Reformation,  though  of  triple  its  duration. 
Nor  was  there  ever  greater  purity  and  plenty  of  the 
means  of  grace  than  was  in  their  time.  Ministers 
were  powerful,  people  were  diligent ;  and  if  a  man 
had  seen  one  of  their  solemn  communions,  where 
many  congregations  met  in  great  multitudes — some 
dozens  of  ministers  used  to  preach,  and  the  people 
continued,  as  it  were,  in  a  kind  of  trance  (so  se- 
rious were  they  in  spiritual  exercises)  for  three  days 
at  least — he  would  have  thought  it  a  solemnity  un- 
known to  the  rest  of  the  world.  At  the  king's  re- 
turn every  parish  had  a  minister,  every  village  a 
school,  every  family  almost  a  Bible,  for  in  most  of 
the  country  all  the  children  could  read  the  Scrip- 
tures."— Kirkton's  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
p.  54. — C.  t  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  63,  Edin.  ed. 

(j  Lord  Clarendon  ascribes  the  death  of  Ireton  to 
the  infection  of  the  plague,  which  was  gotten  into 
his  army.    He  was  of  Trinity  College  in  Oxford,  and 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


1V!9 


JRg  brought  over  into  England,  was  laid  in  state 
at  Somerset  House,  and  buried  in  Westminster 
Abbey  with  a  pomp  and  magnificence  suited  to 
the  dignity  of  his  station  ;  but  after  the  Resto- 
ration of  tlie  royal  family,  his  body  was  taken 
out  of  the  grave  with  Cromwell's,  and  buried 
under  the  gallows. 

About  the  same  time  died  Mr.  Francis  Wood- 
cock, born  in  Chester,  1613,  and  educated  in 
Brazen  Nose  College,  Oxford,  where  he  took  a 
degree  in  arts,  entered  into  orders,  and  had  a 
cure  of  souls  bestowed  upon  him.*  In  the  be- 
ginning of  the  civil  wars  he  sided  with  the  Par- 
liament, and  was  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines, 
being  then  lecturer  of  St.  Lawrence  Jewry.  He 
was  afterward,  by  ordinance  of  Parliament  da- 
ted July  10,  1646,  made  parson  of  St.  Olave's, 
Southwark,  having  the  esteem  of  being  a  good 
scholar  and  an  excellent  preacher.  He  died  in 
the  midst  of  his  days  and  usefulness,  atatis 
thirty-eight. 

Mr.  George  Walker  proceeded  B.D.  in  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge.  He  was  famous  for 
his  skill  in  the  Oriental  languages,  and  was  an 
excellent  logician  and  theologist;  being  very 
jmuch  noted  for  his  disputations  with  the  Jesuit 
Fisher,  and  others  of  the  Romish  Church,  and 
afterward  for  his  strict  Sabbatarian  principles. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines, 
where  he  gained  great  reputation  by  his  munifi- 
cent and  generous  behaviour.! 

on  leaving  the  university  he  studied  at  the  Middle 
Temple.  He  and  Lambert  distinguished  themselves 
at  the  battle  of  Naseby,  and  were  both  concerned  in 
<Jrawing  up  the  remonstrance  of  the  army  to  the  Par- 
liament. Ireton  had  the  greatest  hand  in  preparing  the 
ordinance  for  the  king's  trial,  and  the  precept  for  pro- 
clainnng  the  High  Court  of  Justice,  in  which  he  sat 
as  a  judge.  His  authority  was  so  great,  that  he  was 
entirely  submitted  to  in  all  the  civil  as  well  as  mar- 
tial affairs  ;  though  his  parts  were  considered  by  some 
as  more  fitted  for  modelling  a  government  than  for 
ttie  conduct  of  an  army.  The  Oxford  historian  de- 
scribes him  as  of  a  turbulent  and  saucy  disposition, 
nurtured  to  mischief,  and  a  profound,  thorough-paced 
dissembler  under  the  mask  of  religion.  His  corpse 
was  carried  from  the  ship  in  which  it  was  brought 
to  Bristol  in  a  hearse  of  velvet,  attended  by  the  may- 
or, aldermen,  and  council,  hi  their  formalities,  and 
the  governor  and  officers,  to  the  castle,  from  whence 
it  was  removed  to  London  with  great  pomp.  The 
Parliament  settled  on  his  widow  and  children  £2000 
per  annum,  out  of  the  lands  belonging  to  George,  duke 
of  Bucks.  His  daughter,  who  married  Thomas  Ben- 
dish,  Esq.,  of  Gray's  Inn,  was  a  most  singular  char- 
acter, and  bore  a  greater  resemblance,  in  countenance 
and  dispositions,  to  her  grandfather,  Oliver  Crom- 
well, than  did  any  of  his  descendants.  A  curious 
sketch  of  her  character,  drawn  by  the  Rev.  Samuel 
Say,  is  preserved  in  the  second  volume  of  "  Letters" 
published  by  Mr.  Duncombe. — Dr.  Grey,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
141,  &C.  Lord  Clarendon's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  467. 
Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  p.  81,  82.  Whitelocke's  Mem., 
p.  4'Jl,  494  ;  and  Granger's  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  259, 
and  vol.  iii.,  p.  16,  17. — Ed. 

*  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  81,  82.  Mr.  Woodcock 
was  proctor  to  the  University  of  Cambridge.  His 
principal  works  were  upon  "The  Two  Witnesses," 
Rev.,  ii ,  and  "  Lex  talionis,"  or  "  God  paying  every 
Man  in  his  own  Coin  :"  this  last  was  a  fast  sermon 
fcefore  the  House  of  Commons. — C. 

t  Mr.  VV.ilker  was  born  in  Lancashire,  1581.  In 
1014  he  became  Rector  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist 
in  Watling  St.,  London,  where  he  continued  40  years, 
refusing  all  preferments  offered  him.  At  this  time 
he  was  chaplain  to  Dr.  Felton,  bishop  of  Ely.  He 
was  often  engaged  in  controversy  with  the  Romish 
Vol.  II.— R 


Mr.  Thomas  Wilson  was  born  in  Cumberland, 
1601,  and  educated  in  Christ's  College,  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  proceeded  in  arts.  He  was 
first  minister  of  Capel  in  Surrey,  and  after  sever- 
al other  removes,  fixed  at  Maidstone  in  Kent, 
where  he  was  suspended  for  refusing  to  read 
the  Book  of  Sports,  and  not  absolved  till  the 
Scots  troubles  in  1639.  In  1643  he  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  at 
Westminster,  being  reputed  a  good  linguist, 
and  well  read  in  ancient  and  modern  authors. 
He  was  of  a  robust  constitution,  and  took  vast 
pains  in  preaching  and  catechising ;  he  had  a 
great  deal  of  natural  courage,  and  was  in  every 
respect  a  cheerful  and  active  Christian,  but  he 
trespassed  too  much  upon  his  constitution, 
which  wore  him  out  when  he  was  little  more 
than  fifty  years  old.  He  died  comfortably  and 
cheerfully,  towards  the  end  of  the  year  1651. 
Sir  Edward  Deering  gave  him  this  character  in 
the  House  of  Commons  :  "  Mr.  Wilson  is  as 
orthodox  in  doctrine,  and  laborious  in  preach- 
ing, as  any  we  have,  and  of  an  unblemished 
life."* 

The  terms  of  conformity  in  England  were 
now  lower  than  they  had  been  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  civil  wars  ;  the  Covenant  was  laid 
aside,  and  no  other  civil  qualification  for  a  living 
required  but  the  Engagement,  so  that  many 
Episcopal  divines  complied  with  the  govern- 
ment ;  for  though  they  might  not  read  the  litur- 
gy in  form,  they  might  frame  their  prayers  as 
near  it  as  they  pleased.  Many  Episcopal  as- 
semblies were  connived  at,  where  the  liturgy 
was  read,  till  they  were  found  plotting  against 
the  government ;  nor  would  they  have  been  de- 
nied an  open  toleration,  if  they  would  have  given 
security  for  their  peaceable  behaviour,  and  not 
meddling  with  politics. 

The  Parliament  having  voted,  in  the  year 
1649,  that  tithes  should  be  taken  away  as  soon 
as  another  maintenance  for  the  clergy  could  be 
agreed  upon,  several  petitions  came  out  of  the 
country,  praying  the  House  to  bring  this  affair 
to  an  issue  :  one  advised  that  all  the  tithes  over 
the  whole  kingdom  might  be  collected  into  a 
treasury,  and  that  the  ministers  might  be  paid 
their  salaries  out  of  it.  Others,  looking  upon 
tithes  as  unlawful,  would  have  the  livings  valued, 
and  the  parish  engaged  to  pay  the  minister. 
This  was  suspected  to  come  from  the  sectaries, 
and  awakened  the  fears  of  the  established  cler- 
gy. Mr.  Baxter  printed  the  Worcester  petition 
on  the  behalf  of  the  ministers,!  which  was  pre- 
sented to  the  House  by  Colonel  Bridges  and  Mr. 
Foley ;  and  Mr.  Boreman,  B.D.,  and  fellow  oi 
Trinity   College,  Cambridge,   published    "  The 


clergy ;  his  dispute  with  Smith  was  published.  In 
1638  he  was  prosecuted  in  the  infamous  Star  Cham- 
ber, before  which  he  was  cited  by  Laud  for  the  strict- 
ness of  his  opinions  in  favour  of  the  Sabbath,  and  his 
declaring  Christ's  authority  to  be  above  that  of  the 
temporal  monarch.  His  punishment  was  fine  and 
imprisonment ;  after  two  years,  he  was  liberated  by 
an  order  of  Parliament.  Mr.  Walker  was  a  witness 
in  the  trial  of  Laud.  All  his  writings  are  valuable, 
especially  his  controversial  works,  and  his  treatise 
upon  "The  Holy  Weekly  Sabbath,"  I6il.— Brooks's 
Lives,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  140. — C. 

*  Mr.  Wilson  was  a  Baptist,  and  in  1638  joined 
Mr.  Spilsbury's  church.  He  was  author  of  a  ser- 
mon entitled  "  Jerichoe's  Downfall,"  16-13. — C. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  p.  115. 


130 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


Conntryman's  Catechism,  or  the  Church's  Plea 
for  Tithes,"  dedicated  to  the  nobility,  gentry, 
and  commons  of  the  realm,  in  which  he  insists 
upon  their  Divine  right.  But  the  clergy  were 
more  afraid  than  hurt ;  for  though  the  Commons 
were  of  opinion,  with  Mr.  Selden,  that  tithes 
were  abolished  with  the  old  law,  yet  the  com- 
mittee not  agreeing  upon  an  expedient  to  satis- 
fy the  lay-impropriators,  the  affair  was  dropped 
for  the  present. 

Upon  complaint  of  the  expense  and  tedious- 
ness  of  lawsuits,  it  was  moved  in  the  House 
that  courts  of  justice  might  be  settled  in  every 
county,  and  maintained  at  the  public  charge  ; 
and  that  all  controversies  between  man  and  man" 
might  be  heard  and  determined  free,  according 
to  the  laws  of  the  land  ;  and  that  clerks  of  all 
courts  and  committees  might  do  their  duty  with- 
out delay,  or  taking  anything  more  than  their 
settled  fees.  Accordingly,  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed to  consider  of  the  inconveniences  and 
delays  of  lawsuits,  and  how  they  might  be  rem- 
edied. The  committee  came  to  several  resolu- 
tions upon  this  head  ;  but  the  dissolution  of  the 
Parliament,  which  happened  the  next  year,  pre- 
vented their  bringing  it  to  perfection. 

An  act  had  passed,  in  the  year  1649,  for  prop- 
agating the  Gospel  in  Wales  ;  and  commission- 
ers were  appointed  for  ejecting  ignorant  and 
scandalous  ministers,  and  placing  others  in  their 
room  ;  pursuant  to  which,  Mr.  Whitelocke 
writes,*  "  that  by  this  time  there  were  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  good  preachers  in  the  thirteen 
Welsh  counties,  most  of  whom  preached  three 
or  four  times  a  week;  that  in  every  market 
town  there  was  placed  one,  and  in  most  towns 
two  schoolmasters,  able,  learned,  and  university 
men  ;  that  the  tithes  were  all  employed  to  the 
uses  directed  by  act  of  Parliament ;  that  is,  to 
the  maintenance  of  godly  ministers  ;  to  the  pay- 
ment of  taxes  and  officers  ;  to  schoolmasters  ; 
and  the  fifths  to  the  wives  and  children  of  the 
ejected  clergy  :"  of  which  we  shall  meet  with 
a  more  particular  relation  in  its  proper  place. 

The  commonwealth  was  now  very  powerful, 
and  the  nation  in  as  flourishing  a  condition,  says 
Mr.  Rapin,i  as  under  Queen  Elizabeth.  The 
form  of  government,  indeed,  was  altered  contra- 
ry to  law,  and  without  consent  of  the  people, 
the  majority  of  whom  were  disaffected,  prefer- 
ring a  mixed  monarchy  to  an  absolute  common- 
wealth ;  but  the  administration  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  ablest  men  England  had  beheld  for  many 
years  ;  all  their  enemies  were  in  a  manner  sub- 
dued, and  the  two  kingdoms  incorporated  into 
one  commonwealth  ;  but  still  there  were  two 
things  that  gave  them  uneasiness  :  one  was  the 
growing  power  of  the  army,  who  were  now  at 
leisure,  and  expected  rewards  suitable  to  their 
successes  ;  the  other,  the  necessity  they  were 
under  to  dissolve  themselves  in  a  little  time,  and 
put  the  power  into  other  hands. 

With  regard  to  the  army,  it  was  resolved  to 
reduce  the  land-forces,  and  augment  the  fleet 
with  ihem,  in  order  to  secure  the  nation  against 
the  Dutch  ;  for  the  Parliament  having  a  desire 
to  strengthen  their  hands,  by  uniting  with  the 
commonwealth  of  Holland,  sent  over  Oliver  St. 
John  and  Sir  Walter  Strickland  with  proposals 
for  this  purpose ;  hut  the  Dutch  treated  them 


*  Memoirs,  p.  518. 

t  Vol.  ii.,  p.  586,  folio  edition. 


with  neglect,*  as  their  younger  sister,  which  the 
Parliament  resenting,  demanded  satisfaction  for'- 
the  damages  the  English  had  sustained  at  Am- 
boyna,  and  other  parts  of  the  East  Indies  ;  and 
to  cramp  them  in  their  trade,  passed  the  famous 
Act  of  Navigation,  prohibiting  the  importing 
goods  of  foreign  growth  in  any  but  English  bot- 
toms, or  such  as  were  of  the  country  from 
whence  they  came.  Upon  this  the  Dutch  sent 
over  ambassadors,  desiring  a  clause  of  excep- 
tion for  themselves,  who  were  the  carriers  of 
Europe ;  but  the  Parliament,  in  their  turn,  treat- 
ed them  coldly,  and  put  them  in  mind  of  the 
murder  of  their  envoy.  Dr.  Dorislaus.  Both 
commonwealths  being  dissatisfied  with  each 
other,  prepared  for  war;  and  Van  Trump,  the 
Dutch  admiral,  with  a  convoy  of  merchantmen,, 
meeting  Admiral  Blake  in  the  Channel,  and  re- 
fusing him  the  flag,  an  engagement  ensued  May 
17,  which  continued  four  hours,  till  the  night 
parted  them.  The  Dutch  excused  the  accident, 
as  done  without  their  knowledge  ;  but  the  Par- 
liament was  so  enraged,  that  they  resolved  to 
humble  them.  In  these  circumstances,  it  was 
thought  reasonable  to  augment  the  fleet  out  of 
the  land-forces,  who  had  nothing  to  do,  and 
would  in  a  little  time  be  a  burden  to  the  nation. 
Cromwell,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  army, 
quickly  discovered  that  the  continuance  of  the 
war  must  be  his  ruin,  by  disarming  him  of  his 
piiwer,  and  reducing  him  from  a  great  general 
to  the  condition  of  a  private  gentleman.  Be- 
sides, Mr.  Rapin  observes,  that  he  had  secret  in- 
formation of  a  conspiracy  against  his  life  ;  and 
without  all  question,  if  the  army  had  not  agreed 
to  stand  by  their  general,  his  ruin  would  have 
been  unavoidable  ;  the  officers,  therefore,  deter- 
mined to  combine  together,  and  not  suffer  their 
men  to  be  disbanded  or  sent  to  sea  till  the  ar- 
rears of  the  whole  army  were  paid ;  for  this 
purpose,  they  presented  a  petition  to  the  House,, 
which  they  resented,  and  instead  of  giving  them 
soft  language,  and  encouragement  to  hope  for 
some  suitable  rewards  for  their  past  services,, 
ordered  them  to  be  reprimanded,  for  presuming 
to  meddle  in  affairs  of  state  that  did  not  belong' 
to  them.  But  the  officers  proving  as  resolute 
as  their  masters,  instead  of  submitting,  present- 
ed another  petition,  in  which,  having  justified 
their  behaviour,  they  boldly  strike  at  the  Parlia- 
ment's continuance,  and  put  them  in  mind  how 
many  years  they  had  sat ;  that  they  had  en- 
grossed all  preferments  and  places  of  profit  to 

*  Dr.  Grey,  evidently  with  a  view  to  controvert 
Mr.  Neal's  representation,  as  well  as  from  prejudice- 
against  these  ambassadors  and  the  power  from  whonx 
they  received  their  commission,  says,  "  the  States  of 
Holland  treated  them  with  much  more  regard  and 
civility  than  was  due  to  them  ;"  and  gives,  as  proofs-- 
of  this,  two  of  their  own  letters,  in  his  Appendix^ 
No.  50  and  51.  But  all  which  these  letters  prove  is,, 
that  the  first  reception  given  to  these  gentlemen  was 
both  respectful  and  pompous.  Mr.  Neal  is  to  be  un- 
derstood of  the  attent-.&D  jfeio  u  .'hen  proposals, 
with  respect  to  which  tne  conduct  of  the  Dutch  was. 
cold  and  evasive.  And  even  the  persons  of  the  am- 
bassadors did  not  escape  insults,  which  the  States 
did  not  properly  resent.  Mr.  Strickland's  life  wr.s- 
threatened.  A  plot  was  formed  to  assassinate  Mr. 
St.  John  ;  and  an  affront  was  offered  to  him  by 
Prince  Edward,  one  of  the  Palatinate,  as  he  was 
passing  the  streets. — Mrs.  Macaulaxfs  History,  vol. 
v.,  p.  83,  84;  note;  and  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  4to,  1771,. 
p.  148.— Ed. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


135 


themselves  and  their  friends ;  that  it  was  a  mani- 
fest injury  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  nation  to  be 
excluded  the  service  of  their  country,  and  an 
invasion  of  the  rights  of  tlVe  people  to  deprive 
them  of  the  right  of  frequent  choosing  new  rep- 
resentatives ;  they  therefore  insist  upon  their 
settling  a  new  council  of  state  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  public  affairs  ;  and  upon  their  fixing 
a  peremptory  day  for  the  choice  of  a  new  Par- 
liament. 

This  was  a  new  and  delicate  crisis  ;  the  civil 
and  military  powers  being  engaged  against  each 
other,  and  resolved  to  maintain  their  respective 
pretensions  :  if  Cromwell,  with  the  sword  in  his 
hand,  had  secured  the  election  of  a  free  repre- 
sentative of  the  people,  and  left  the  settlement 
nf  the  nation  to  them,  all  men  would  have  hon- 
oured and  blessed  him,  for  the  people  were  cer- 
tainly weary  of  the  Parliament.  But  when  the 
officers  had  destroyed  this  form  of  government, 
they  were  not  agreed  what  to  establish,  whether 
a  monarchy  or  a  new  republic  ;  the  general,  be- 
ing for  a  mixed  monarchy,  had,  no  doubt,  some 
ambitious  views  to  himself,  and  therefore  called 
together  some  select  friends  of  several  profes- 
sions to  advise  on  the  affair,  when  Sir  Thomas 
Widdrington,  Lord-chief-justice  St.  John,  and 
the  rest  of  the  lawyers,  declared  for  monarchy, 
as  most  agreeable  to  the  old  Constitution,  and 
proposed  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  for  king  ;  but 
the  officers  of  the  army  then  present  declared 
for  a  republic.  Cromwell  himself,  after  much 
hesitation,  gave  his  opinion  for  something  of  a 
monarchical  power,  a?  most  agreeable  to  the  ge- 
nius of  the  English,  if  it  might  be  accomplished 
with  safety  to  their  rights  and  privileges  as  Eng- 
lishmen and  Christians. 

Some  time  after,  Cromwell  desired  Mr.  Wliite- 
locke's  opinion  upon  the  present  situation  of  af- 
fairs :  "My  lord,"  says  he,  "  it  is  time  to  con- 
sider of  our  present  danger,  that  we  may  not  be 
broken  in  pieces  by  our  particular  quarrels  after 
we  have  gained  an  entire  conquest  over  the  ene- 
my.'' Whitelocke  replied,  "that  all  their  dan- 
ger was  from  the  army,  who  were  men  of  emu- 
lation, and  had  now  nothing  to  do."  Cromwell 
answered,  "  that  the  officers  thought  themselves 
not  rewarded  according  to  their  deserts  ;  that 
the  Parliament  had  engrossed  all  places  of  hon- 
our and  trust  among  themselves  ;  that  they  de- 
layed the  public  business,  and  designed  to  per- 
petuate themselves  ;  that  the  officers  thought  it 
impossible  to  keep  them  within  the  bounds  of 
justice,  law,  or  reason,  unless  there  was  some 
authority  or  power  to  which  they  might  be  ac- 
countable."' Whitelocke  said,  "  he  believed  the 
Parliament  were  honest  men,  and  designed  the 
public  good,  though  some  particular  persons 
might  be  to  blame,  but  that  it  was  absurd  for 
the  officers,  who  were  private  men,  and  had 
received  their  commissions  from  the  Parlia- 
ment, to  pretend  to  control  them."  "  But,"  says 
Cromwell,  "  what  if  a  man  should  take  upon 
him  to  be  king  V  Whitelocke  answered,  "  that 
the  remedy  was  worse  than  the  disease  ;  and 
that  the  general  had  already  all  the  power  of  a 
king,  without  the  envy,  danger,  and  pomp  of 
the  title."  "But,"  says  he,  "the  title  of  king 
AvoulJ  make  all  acts  done  by  him  legal ;  it  would 
indemnify  those  that  should  act  under  him,  at  all  I 
events,  and  be  of  advantage  to  curb  the  inso- 
lence of  those  whom  the  present  powers  could  j 


not  control."  Whitelocke  agreed  to  the  gen- 
eral's reasons,  but  desired  him  to  consider 
"  whether  the  title  of  king  would  not  lose  him 
his  best  friends  in  the  army,  as  well  as  those 
gentlemen  who  were  for  settling  a  free  common- 
wealth ;  but  if  we  must  have  a  king,"  says  he, 
"  the  question  will  be,  whether  it  shall  be  Crom- 
well or  Stuart  !"*  The  general  asking  his  opin- 
ion upon  this,  Whitelocke  proposed  a  private 
treaty  with  the  king  of  the  Scots,  with  whom 
he  might  make  his  own  terms,  and  raise  his 
family  to  what  pitch  of  greatness  he  pleased  ;. 
but  Cromwell  was  so  apprehensive  of  the  dan- 
ger of  this  proposal,  that  he  broke  off  the  con- 
versation with  some  marks  of  dissatisfaction, 
and  never  made  use  of  Whitelocke  with  confi- 
dence afterward. 

Thus  things  remainedt  throughout  the  whole 
winter;  the  army,  having  little  to  do  after  the 
battle  of  Worcester,  drew  near  to  London,  but 
there  was  no  treaty  of  accommodation  between 
them  and  the  Parliament ;  one  would  not  dis- 
band without  their  full  pay ;  nor  the  other  dis- 
solve by  the  direction  of  their  own  servants, 
but  voted  the  expediency  of  filling  up  their  num- 
bers, and  that  it  should  be  high  treason  to  peti- 
tion for  their  dissolution.  When  the  general 
heard  this,  he  called  a  councill  of  officers  to 
Whitehall,  who  all  agreed  that  it  was  not  fit  the 
Parliament  should  continue  any  longer.  This 
was  published  in  hopes  of  frightening  the  House 
to  make  some  advances  towards  a  dissolution  ;. 
but  when  Colonel  Ingoldsby  informed  the  gen^ 
eral,  next  morning,  that  they  were  concluding 
upon  an  act  to  prolong  the  session  for  another, 
year,  he  rose  up  in  a  heat,  and  with  a  small  ret- 
inue of  officers  and  soldiers  marched  to  the  Par- 
liament House,  April  20,  and  having  placed  his 
men  without  doors,  went  into  the  House,  and 
heard  the  debates.  After  some  time  he  beckon- 
ed to  Colonel  Harrison,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
House,  and  told  him  in  his  ear,  that  he  thought 
the  Parliament  was  ripe  for  dissolution,  and  that 
this  was  the  time  for  doing  it.  Harrison  replied 
that  the  work  was  dangerous,  and  desired  him. 
to  think  better  of  it.  Upon  this  he  sat  down 
about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then  said.  This 
is  the  time,  I  must  do  it ;  and,  rising  up  in  his 
place,  he  told  the  House  that  he  was  come  to 
put  an  end  to  their  power,  of  which  they  had 
made  so  ill  a  use  ;  that  some  of  them  were 
whoremasters,  looking  towards  Harry  Martin 
and  Sir  Peter  Wentworth  ;  others  were  drunk- 
ards, and  some  corrupt  and  unjust  men,  who 
had  not  at  heart  the  public  good,  but  were  only 


*  Whitelocke,  p.  523,  &c. 

t  Here  may  be  inserted,  from  Whitelocke,  twcy 
anecdotes,  which  afford  a  pleasing  specimen  of  the 
temper  of  the  Quakers  under  ill  treatment.     Febru- 
ary 3,  1653,  they  were  assaulted  and  beaten  by  some- 
people  in  the  north.    February  13, 1()54,  a  similar  out- 
rage was  oftered  to  others  of  them,  at  Hasington  in 
Northumberland,  for  speaking  to  the  ministers  on 
the  Sabbath  Day,  so  that  one  or  two  of  them  were  ■ 
almost  killed.     The  Quakers  fell  on  their  knees  and 
prayed  God  to  forgive  the  people,  as  those  who  knew 
not  what  they  did;  and  remonstrated  with  them  se- 
as to  convince  them  of  the  evil  of  their  conduct,  on 
which  they  ceased  from  their  violence,  and  began  to 
reproach  each  oiher  with  being  the  occasion  of  it;: 
and,  in  the  last  instance,  beat  one  another  more  than 
they  had  before   the   Quakers. — Memorials,  p.  564^ 
599.— Ed. 


132 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


for  perpetuating  their  own  power.  Upon  tlic 
whole,  he  thought  they  had  sat  long  enough,  ami 
therefore  desired  them  to  retire  and  go  away. 
When  some  of  the  members  began  to  reply,  he 
stepped  into  the  middle  of  the  House,  and  said, 
"  Come,  come,  I  will  put  an  end  to  your  prating  ; 
you  are  no  Parliament ;  I  say  you  are  no  Par- 
liament ;"  and,  stamping  with  his  foot,  a  file  of 
musketeers  entered  the  House,  one  of  whom 
he  commanded  to  take  away  that  fool's  bawble, 
the  mace  ;  and  Major  Harrison  taking  the 
speaker  by  the  arm,  conducted  him  out  of  the 
chair.  Cromwell,  then  seizing  upon  their  pa- 
pers, obliged  them  to  walk  out  of  the  House ; 
and  having  caused  the  doors  to  be  locked  upon 
them,  returned  to  Whitehall.* 

In  the  afternoon  the  general  went  to  the 
Council  of  State,  attended  by  Major-general 
Lambert  and  Harrison,  and  as  he  entered  the 
room,  said,  "Gentlemen,  if  you  are  met  here  as 
private  persons  you  shall  not  be  disturbed,  but 
if  as  a  Council  of  State,  this  is  no  place  for  you ; 
and  since  you  cannot  but  know  what  was  done 
in  the  morning,  so  take  notice  the  Parliament  is 
dissolved."  Sergeant  Bradshaw  replied,  "  Sir, 
■we  have  heard  what  you  did  in  the  morning,  but 
you  are  mistaken  to  think  the  Parliament  is  dis 
solved,  for  no  power  can  dissolve  them  but  them- 
selves ;  therefore,  take  you  notice  of  that." 
But  the  general  not  being  terrified  with  big  words, 
the  Council  thought  it  their  wisest  way  to  rise 
up  and  go  home. 

Thus  ended  the  commonwealth  of  England,  af- 
ter it  had  continued  four  years,  two  months,  and 
twenty  days,  which,  though  no  better  than  a 
usurpation,  had  raised  the  credit  of  the  nation 
to  a  very  high  pitch  of  glory  and  renown  ;  and 
with  the  commonwealth  ended  the  remains  of 
the  Long  Parliament  for  the  present ;  an  assem- 
bly famous  throughout  all  the  world  for  its  un- 
dertakings, actions,  and  successes  :t  "  the  acts 
of  this  Parliament"  says  Mr.  Coke,t  "  will  hard- 


*  The  character  of  the  Long  Parliament  has  been 
Tery  difi'erently  sketched,  just  as  the  passions  of  men 
have  prompted  their  pens.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  theme.  The  assembly  possessed  no  uni- 
form character,  but  changed  its  complexion  with  the 
progress  of  events,  and  the  introduction  of  new  mem- 
bers. In  the  earlier  periods  of  its  e.xisteiice,  it  was 
calm  and  dignified ;  an  honourable  emblem  of  the 
national  intellect  and  heart.  Subsequently  it  was 
torn  by  factions,  and  mangled  by  military  violence. 
Its  deliberations  were  characterized  by  passion,  and 
its  votes  became  indicative  of  the  departure  of  its 
roaster  spirits.  It  lost  the  amplitude,  and  range,  and 
generosity  of  its  designs,  and  looked  to  the  triumph 
«<■  a  party  rather  than  to  the  interest  of  the  com- 
monwealth.— v..'.  ,        .     ,  .   ,        ,      . 

+  Mrs.  Macaulay,  after  quoting  the  high  eulogiums 
made  on  the  government  of  this  Parliament,  adds, 
"  It  is  to  be  remembered,  that  to  them  is  due  the  sin- 
gular praise  of  having  pursued  the  true  interest  of 
their  country  in  attending  particularly  to  its  maritime 
strength,  and  carrying  on  its  foreign  wars  by  its  na- 
val power.  This  example,  which  raised  England  to 
so  great  a  height  of  glory  and  prosperity,  has  never 
yet  been  followed,  and  in  all  probability  never  will, 
by  the  succeeding  monarchs.  The  aim  of  princes  is 
to  make  conquests  on  their  subjects,  not  to  enlarge 
the  empire  of  a  free  people.  A  standing  army  is  a 
never-falling  instrument  of  domestic  triumph  ;  and  it 
is  very  doubtful  whether  a  naval  force  could  he  ren- 
dered useful  ill  any  capacity  but  that  of  extending 
the  power  and  prosperity  of  the  country." — Hist,  of 
England,  vol.  v.,  p.  106,  note,  8vo. — Ed. 

t  Detect.,  p.  3G3. 


ly  find  belief  in  future  ages  ;  and  to  say  the 
truth,  they  were  a  race  of  men  most  indefatiga- 
ble and  industrious  in  business,  always  seeking 
men  fit  for  it,  and  never  preferring  any  for  favour 
or  importunity :  you  hardly  ever  heard  of  any 
revolt  from  them,  no  soldiers  or  seamen  being 
ever  pressed.  And  as  they  excelled  in  civil  af- 
fairs, so,  it  must  be  confessed,  they  exercised  in 
matters  ecclesiastical  no  such  severities  as 
others  before  them  did  upon  such  as  dissented 
from  them." 

But  their  foundation  was  bad,  and  many  of 
their  actions  highly  criminal ;  they  werea  pack- 
ed assembly,  many  of  their  members  being  ex- 
cluded by  force,  before  they  could  be  secure  of 
a  vote  to  put  the  late  king  to  death  ;  they  sub- 
verted the  Constitution,  by  setting  up  them- 
selves, and  continuing  their  sessions  after  his 
majesty's  demise  ;  by  erecting  high  courts  of 
justice  of  their  own  nomination  for  capital  of- 
fences; by  raising  taxes,  and  doing  all  other 
acts  of  sovereignty  without  consent  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  all  which  they  designed  to  perpetuate 
among  themselves,  without  being  accountable 
to  any  superior,  or  giving  place  to  a  new  body 
of  representatives.  If,  then,  it  be  inquired,  What 
right  or  authority  General  Cromwell  and  his  offi- 
cers had  to  offer  violence  to  this  Parliament  ?  it 
may  be  replied,  1.  The  right  of  self-preservation, 
the  ruin  of  one  or  the  other  being  unavoidable. 
2.  The  right  that  every  Englishman  has  to  put 
an  end  to  a  usurpation  when  it  is  in  his  power, 
provided  he  can  substitute  something  better  in 
its  room  ;  and  if  Cromwell  could  by  this  meth- 
od have  restored  the  Constitution,  and  referred 
the  settlement  of  the  government  to  a  free  and 
full  representative  of  the  people,  no  wise  man 
would  have  blamed  him.  It  was  not,  therefore, 
his  turning  out  the  old  Parliament  that  was 
criminal,  but  his  not  summoning  a  new  one,  by 
a  fair  and  free  election  of  the  people  ;  and  yet 
Mr.  Rapin*  is  of  opinion  that  even  this  was 
impracticable,  there  being  three  opposite  inter- 
ests in  the  nation  :  the  Republicans,  who  were 
for  an  absolute  commonwealth  ;  the  Presbyteri- 
ans, who  were  for  restoring  things  to  the  condi- 
tion they  were  in  in  1648  ;  and  the  Cavaliers, 
who  were  for  setting  the  king  upon  the  throne, 
as  before  the  civil  wars ;  it  was  by  no  means 
possible  (says  het)  to  reconcile  the  three  par- 
ties, and  if  they  had  been  let  loose,  they  would 
have  destroyed  each  other,  and  thrown  tha 
whole  nation  into  blood  and  confusion ;  nothing, 
therefore,  but  giving  a  forcible  superiority  to  on 
was  capable  to  hold  the  other  two  in  subjection. 
The  king  was  no  way  interested  in  the  change, 
for  it  was  not  Charles  Stuart,  but  a  republican 
usurpation,  that  was  dispossessed  of  the  su- 
preme power.  If  the  general  had  failed  in  his 
design,  and  lost  his  life  in  the  attempt,  the  king 
would  have  received  no  manner  of  advantage, 
for  the  nation  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  re- 
store him  at  this  time.  Supposing,  then,  it  was 
not  practicable  to  choose  a  free  Parliament,  nor 
fit  to  let  the  old  one  perpetuate  themselves, 
Oliver  Cromwell  had  no  other  choice  but  to 
abandon  the  state,  or  to  take  the  administration 
upon  himself;  or  put  it  into  the  hands  of  some 
other  person  who  had  no  better  title.  How  far 
private  ambition  took  place  of  the  public  good 
in  the  choice,  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  ol 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  289,  foho  edition.        t  Rapin,  p.  149 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


133 


every  reader ;  but  if  it  was  necessary  that  there 
should  be  a  supreme  authority,  capable  of  en- 
forcing obedience,  it  cannot  be  denied  but  that 
General  Cromwell  was  more  capable  of  govern- 
ing the  state  in  such  a  storm  than  any  man  then 
livmg.  No  objection  can  be  raised  against  him, 
•which  might  not  with  more  justice  have  been 
urged  agamst  any  other  single  person,  or  body 
of  men  in  the  nation,  except  the  right  heir. 
However,  all  the  three  parties,  of  Cavaliers, 
Presbyterians,  and  Republicans,  were  displeas- 
ed with  his  conduct,  loaded  him  with  invec- 
tives, and  formed  conspiracies  against  his  per- 
son, though  they  could  never  agree  in  any  other 
scheme  which,  in  the  present  crisis,  was  more 
practicable. 

The  Parliament  being  thus  violently  dispers- 
ed, the  sovereign  power  devolved  on  the  coun- 
cil of  officers,  of  which  Cromwell  was  head, 
who  published  a  declaration,  justifying  his  dis- 
solution of  the  late  Parliament,  and  promising 
to  put  the  administration  into  the  hands  of  per- 
sons of  approved  fidelity  and  honesty,  and  leave 
them  to  form  it  into  what  shape  they  pleased. 
Accordingly,  April  30,  another  declaration  was 
published,  signed  by  Oliver  Cromwell  and  thir- 
ty of  his  officers,  nominating  a  new  council  of 
state  to  take  care  of  the  government,  till  a  new 
representative  body  of  men  could  be  called  to- 
gether ;  and  June  8,  the  general,  by  the  advice 
of  his  council,  sent  the  following  summons  to 
one  hundred  and  forty  select  persons,  out  of  the 
several  counties  of  England,  to  meet  at  West- 
minster, in  order  to  settle  the  nation  :  "  I,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  captain-general,  &c.,  do  hereby  sum- 
mons and  require  you, ,  being  one  of  the  per- 
sons nominated  by  myself,  with  the  advice  of 
my  council,  personally  to  appear  at  the  Council 
Chamber  at  Whitehall,  upon  the  fourth  of  July 
next  ensuing  the  date  hereof,  to  take  upon  you 
the  trust  of  the  affairs  of  the  commonwealth  ; 
to  which  you  are  hereby  called  and  appointed  to 

serve  as  a  member  for  the  county  of ;  and 

hereof  you  are  not  to  fail.  Given  under  my 
hand  this  eighth  of  June,  1653. 

"  0.  Cromwell." 

These  were  high  acts  of  sovereignty,  and  not 
to  be  justified  but  upon  the  supposition  of  ex- 
treme necessity.  The  dissolution  of  the  Long 
Parliament  was  an  act  of  violence,  but  not  unac- 
ceptable to  the  people,  as  appeared  by  the  numer- 
ous addresses  from  the  army,  the  fleet,  and  oth- 
er places,  approving  the  general's  conduct,  and 
promising  to  stand  by  him  and  his  council  in 
their  proceedings ;  but  then  for  the  general  him- 
self, and  thirty  officers,  to  choose  representatives 
for  the  whole  nation,  without  interesting  any  of 
the  counties  or  corporations  of  England  in  the 
choice,  would  have  deserved  the  highest  censure 
under  any  other  circumstances. 

About  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  new 
representatives  appeared  at  the  time  and  place 
appointed,  when  the  general,  after  a  short 
speech,  delivered  them  an  instrument  in  parch- 
ment under  his  hand  and  seal,  resigning  into 
their  hands,  or  the  hands  of  any  forty  of  them, 
the  supreme  authority  and  government  of  the 
commonwealth,  limiting  the  time  of  their  con- 
tinuance to  November  3,  1654,  and  empowering 
them,  three  months  before  their  dissolution,  to 
make  choice  of  others  to  succeed  them  for  a 


year,  and  they  to  provide  for  a  future  succes- 
sion. It  was  much  wondered,  says  White- 
locke,*  that  these  gentlemen,  many  of  whom 
were  persons  of  fortune  and  estate,t  should  ac- 
cept of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  nation 
upon  such  a  summons,  and  from  such  hands. 
Most  of  them  were  men  of  piety,  but  no  great 
politicians,  and  were  therefore  in  contempt  call- 
ed sometimes  the  Little  Parliament ;  and  by  oth- 
ers, Barebones'  ParUament,  from  a  leather-seller 
of  that  name,t  who  was  one  of  the  most  active 
members.     When  the  general  was  withdrawn, 


*  Memoirs,  p.  534. 

t  Dr.  Grey,  after  Lord  Clarendon  and  others,  and 
Mr.  Hume  since  them,  have  spoken  in  severe  and  con- 
teinptuous  terms  of  this  assembly  and  their  proceed- 
ings. "  The  major  part  of  them,"  says  his  lordship, 
"  consisted  of  interior  persons,  of  no  quality  or  name, 
artificers  of  the  meanest  name,  known  only  by  their 
gifts  in  praying  and  preaching."  But  many  of  Crom- 
well's after-councillors,  many  of  the  chief  olficers  of 
the  army,  were  in  this  assembly.  They  were  treated 
as  the  supreme  authority  of  the  nation  by  sovereign 
princes,  and  had  the  most  humble  applications  made 
to  them  by  the  chief  cavaliers,  as  by  the  Earls  of 
Worcester,  Derby,  and  Shrewsbury,  Lord  Mansfield, 
and  the  Countess  of  Derby  ;  and  they  were,  during 
their  short  session,  employed  about  points  of  the  high- 
est national  concernment ;  such  as  abolishing  the 
Court  of  Chancery  on  account  of  its  expensiveness 
a»d  delays,  the  forming  a  new  body  of  the  law,  the 
union  of  Scotland  with  England,  the  regulation  of 
marriages,  and  the  investing  the  solemnization  and 
cognizance  of  them  in  the  civil  magistrate,  with  oth- 
er matters  of  moment. — Harrises  Life  of  Oliver  Crom- 
well, p.  335-337.— Ed. 

X  There  were  three  brothers  of  this  family,  each 
of  whom  had  a  sentence  for  his  name,  viz.  "  Praise 
God,  Barebone  ;  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save 
Barebone  ;  and,  if  Christ  had  not  died,  thou  hadst 
been  damned,  Barebone."  in  this  style  were  the 
Christian  names  of  very  many  persons  formed  in  the 
times  of  the  civil  wars.  It  was  said  that  the  genealogy 
of  our  Saviour  might  be  learned  from  the  names  in 
Cromwell's  regiments ;  and  that  the  muster-master 
used  no  other  list  than  the  first  chapter  of  Matthew. 
A  jury  was  returned  in  the  county  of  Sussex  of  the 
following  names  : 

Accepted,  Trevor,  of  Norsham. 

Redeemed,  Compton,  of  Battle. 

Faint  not,  Hewet,  of  Heathfield. 

Make-peace,  Heaton,  of  Hare. 

God-reward,  Smart,  of  Fivehurst. 

Standfast  on  high.  Stringer,  of  Crowhurst. 

Earth,  Adams,  of  Warbleton. 

Called,  Lower,  of  ditto. 

Kill  Sin,  Pimple,  of  Witliam. 

Return,  Spelman,  of  Watling. 

Be  faithful,  Joyner,  of  Brithng. 

Fty  Debate,  Robert,  of  ditto. 

Fight  the  good  Fight  of  Faith,  White,  of  Emer. 

More  Fruit,  Fowler,  of  East-Hadley. 

Hope  for.  Bending,  of  ditto. 

Graceful,  Harding,  of  Lewes. 

Weep  not,  Billings,  ditto. 

Meek,  Brewer,  of  Okeham. 
—  Granger'' s  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  68,  8vo, 
note;  and  Dr.  Grey,  p.  280,  287,  note.  Mr.  Hume 
has  also  given  this  list  of  the  Sussex  jury.  But  the 
ridicule  which  falls  on  this  mode  of  naming  children 
belongs  not  to  these  times  only,  for  the  practice  was 
in  use  long  before. — Harris's  Life  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 
p.  342,  the  note. — Ed.  "Praise  God"  "is  scarcely 
more  fanatical  than  that  of  Deodatus,  which  is  to  be 
found  in  the  records  of  most  of  the  countries  of  Eu- 
rope." I  quote  the  language  of  Godwin,  and  this  ad- 
mirable historian  rejects  the  account  of  this  same 
Sussex  jury,  as  totally  undeserving  of  credit. —Hi«<. 
of  the  Commonwealth,  vol.  iii.,  p.  524. — C. 


IM 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


they  chose  Mr.  Rouse,  an  aged  and  venerable 
man,  menritter  in  the  late  Parliament  for  Truro 
in  Cornwall,  tlieir  speaker,  and  then  voted  them- 
selves the  Parliament  of  tiie  commonwealth  of 
J^ngland.  Mr.  Baxter*  places  them  in  a  con- 
.temptible  light,  and  says,  "They  intended  to 
■eject  all  the  parish  ministers,  and  to  encourage 
ihe  gathering  Independent  churches;  that  they 
cast  out  all  the  ministers  in  Wales,  which, 
though  bad  enough  for  the  most  part,  were  yet 
better  than  none,  or  the  few  itinerants  they  set 
up  in  their  room  ;  and  that  they  attempted,  and 
had  almost  accomplished,  the  same  in  England." 
5ut  nothing  of  this  appears  among  their  acts. 
'When  the  city  of  London  petitioned  that  more 
/earned  and  approved  ministers  might  be  sent 
into  the  country  to  preach  the  Gospel ;  that  their 
settled  maintenance  by  law  might  be  confirmed, 
and  their  just  properties  preserved  ;  and  that 
the  universities  might  be  zealously  countenan- 
ced and  encouraged,  the  petitioners  had  the 
thanks  of  that  House  ;  and  the  committee  gave 
it  as  their  opinion,  that  commissioners  should 
.be  sent  into  the  several  counties,  who  should 
liave  power  to  eject  scandalous  ministers,  and 
to  settle  others  in  their  room.  They  were  to 
appoint  preaching  in  all  vacant  places,  that  none 
might  live  above  three  miles  from  a  place  of 
worship.  That  such  as  were  approved  for  pub- 
lic ministers  should  enjoy  the  maintenance  pro- 
vided by  the  laws  ;  and  that  if  any  scrupled  the 
payment  of  tithes,  the  neighbouring  justices  of 
peace  should  settle  the  value,  which  the  owner 
of  the  land  should  be  obliged  to  pay  ;  but  as  for 
the  tithes  themselves,  they  were  of  opinion 
that  the  incumbents  and  impropriators  had  a 
right  in  them,  and  therefore  they  could  not  be 
taken  away  till  they  were  satisfied. 

July  23,  it  was  referred  to  a  committee,  to 
consider  of  a  repeal  of  such  laws  as  hindered 
the  progress  of  the  Gospel ;  that  is  (says  Bishop 
Kennet),  to  take  away  the  few  remaining  rules 
of  decency  and  order ;  or,  in  other  language, 
the  penal  laws.  This  was  done  at  the  instance 
of  the  Independents,  who  petitioned  for  protec- 
tion against  the  presbyteries  ;  upon  which,  it 
was  voted  that  a  declaration  should  be  publish- 
ed for  giving  proper  liberty  to  all  that  feared 
God,  and  for  preventing  their  imposing  hard- 
ships on  one  another. 

Mr.  Echard,  and  others  of  his  principles, 
write,  that  this  Parliament  had  under  delibera- 
tion the  taking  away  the  old  English  laws,  as 
■badges  of  the  Norman  conquest,  and  substitu- 
ting the  Mosaic  laws  of  government  in  their 
place ;  and  that  all  schools  of  learning  and  ti- 
tles of  honour  should  be  extinguished,  as  not 
agreeing  with  the  Christian  simplicity.  But  no 
such  proposals  were  made  to  the  House,  and 
therefore  it  is  unjust  to  lay  them  to  their  charge. 

The  solemnizing  of  matrimony  had  hitherto 
been  engrossed  by  the  clergy  ;  but  this  conven- 
tion considered  it  a  civil  contract,  and  put  it 
into  the  hands  of  justices  of  peace,  by  an  ordi- 
nance, which  enacts  "  that  after  the  29th  of 
September,  1653,  all  persons  who  shall  agree  to 
be  married  within  the  commonwealth  of  Eng- 
land, shall  deliver  in  their  names  and  places  of 
abode,  with  the  names  of  their  parents,  guardi- 
ans, and  overseers,  to  the  registrar  of  the  par- 
ish  where  each  party  lives,  who  shall  publish  the 


*  P.  70,  180. 


bans  in  the  church  or  chapel  three  several 
Lord's  Days,  after  the  morning  service  ;  or  else 
in  the  market  place  three  several  w'eeks  suc- 
cessively, between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  two, 
on  a  market  day,  if  the  party  desire  it.  The 
registrar  shall  make  out  a  certificate  of  the  due 
performance  of  one  or  the  other,  at  the  request 
of  the  parties  concerned,  without  which  they 
shall  not  proceed  to  marriage. 

"  It  is  farther  enacted,  that  all  persons  intend- 
ing to  marry  shall  come  before  some  justice  of 
peace  within  the  county,  city,  or  town  corporate 
where  publication  has  been  made  as  aforesaid, 
with  their  certificate,  and  with  sufficient  proof 
of  the  consent  of  the  parents,  if  either  party  be 
under  age,  and  then  the  marriage  shall  proceed 
in  this  manner : 

"The  man  to  be  married  shall  take  the  wom- 
an by  the  hand,  and  distinctly  pronounce  these 
words  :  I,  A.  B.,  do  here,  in  the  presence  of  God, 
the  Searcher  of  all  hearts,  take  thee,  C.  D.,  for 
my  wedded  wife  ;  and  do  also,  in  the  presence 
of  God,  and  before  these  witnesses,  promise  to 
be  to  thee  a  loving  and  faithful  husband. 

"Then  the  woman,  taking  the  man  by  the 
hand,  shall  plainly  and  distinctly  pronounce 
these  words  :  I,  C.  D.,  do  here,  in  the  presence 
of  God,  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts,  take  thee,  A. 
B.,  for  my  wedded  husband  ;  and  do  also,  in  the 
presence  of  God,  and  before  these  witnesses, 
promise  to  be  to  thee  a  loving,  faithful,  and 
obedient  wife. 

"  After  this,  the  justice  may  and  shall  declare 
the  said  man  and  woman  to  be  from  henceforth 
husband  and  wife ;  and  from  and  after  such  con- 
sent so  expressed,  and  such  declaration  made 
of  the  same  (as  to  the  form  of  marriage),  it 
shall  be  good  and  effectual  in  law  ;  and  no  other 
marriage  whatsoever,  within  the  commonwealth 
of  England,  after  the  29th  of  September,  1653, 
shall  be  held  or  accounted  a  marriage  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  England." 

This  ordinance  was  confirmed  by  the  protect- 
or's Parliament  in  the  year  1656,  except  the 
clause,  "  that  no  other  marriage  whatsoever 
within  the  commonwealth  of  England  shall  be 
held  or  accounted  a  legal  marriage ;"  and  it 
was  wisely  done  of  the  Parliannent,  at  the  Res- 
toration, to  confirm  these  marriages,  in  order  to 
prevent  illegitimacy,  and  vexatious  lawsuits  in 
future  times.  But  the  acts  of  this  convention 
were  of  little  significance,  for  when  they  found 
the  affairs  of  the  nation  too  intricate,  and  the 
several  parties  too  stubborn  to  yield  to  their  or- 
dinances, they  wisely  resigned,  and  surrender- 
ed back  their  sovereignty  into  the  same  hands 
that  gave  it  them,  after  they  had  sat  five  months 
and  twelve  days. 

The  general  and  his  officers  finding  them- 
selves reinvested  with  the  supreme  authority, 
by  what  they  fiincied  a  more  parliamentary  dele- 
gation, took  upon  them  to  strike  out  a  new  form 
of  government,  a  little  tending  towards  monar- 
chy, contained  in  a  large  instrument  of  forty- 
two  articles,  entitled  "  The  Government  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land." It  appoints  the  government  to  be  in  a 
single  person  ;  that  the  single  person  be  the 
General  Oliver  Cromwell,  whose  style  and  title 
should  be  his  highness,  lord-protector  of  the 
commonwealth  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land, and  of  the  dominions  thereunto  belonging; 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


135 


that  the  lord-protector  should  have  a  council, 
consisting  of  no  more  than  twenty-one  persons, 
nor  less  than  thirteen,  to  assist  him  in  the  ad- 
ministration. A  Parliament  was  to  be  chosen 
out  of  the  three  kingdoms  every  three  years  at 
longest,  and  not  to  be  dissolved,  without  their 
consent,  in  less  than  five  months.  It  was  to 
consist  of  four  hundred  members  for  England 
and  Wales  ;  thirty  for  Scotland,  and  thirty  for 
Ireland  ;  whereof  sixty  were  to  make  a  house. 
The  counties  of  England  and  Wales  were  to 
choose  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  ;  the  other 
elections  to  be  distributed  among  the  chief  cities 
and  market-towns,  without  regard  to  ancient 
custom.  The  county  of  Dorset  was  to  choose 
eleven  members ;  Cornwall  eight ;  Bedfordshire 
five  ;  the  several  ridings  of  Yorkshire  fourteen  ; 
Middlesex  four  ;  the  city  of  London  six  ;  West- 
minster two ;  the  whole  number  of  cities  and 
boroughs  which  had  the  privilege  of  election 
were  one  hundred  and  ten,  and  the  number  of 
representatives  to  be  chosen  by  them  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty.  If  the  protector  refused  to 
issue  out  writs,  the  commissioners  of  the  great 
seal,  or  the  high-sheriff  of  the  county,  was  to  do 
it,  under  pain  of  treason ;  none  to  have  votes 
but  such  as  were  worth  £200.  This  regulation, 
being  wisely  proportioned,  met  with  universal 
approbation.  Lord  Clarendon  says  it  was  fit 
to  be  more  warrantably  made,  and  in  a  better 
time ;  all  the  great  offices  of  state,  as  chan- 
cellor, treasurer,  &c.,  if  they  became  vacant  in 
time  of  Parliament,  to  be  supplied  with  their 
approbation  ;  and  in  the  intervals,  with  the  ap- 
probation of  the  council ;  such  bills  as  were  of- 
fered to  the  protector  by  the  Parliament,  if  not 
signed  in  twenty  days,  were  to  be  laws  without 
him,  if  not  contrary  to  this  instrument.  In  the 
present  crisis,  the  protector  and  his  council 
might  publish  ordinances,  which  should  have 
force  till  the  first  sessions  of  Parliament ;  the 
protector  was  to  have  power  to  make  war  and 
peace,  to  confer  titles  of  honour,  to  pardon  ail 
crimes  except  treason  and  murder  ;  the  militia 
■was  intrusted  with  him  and  his  council,  except 
-during  the  sessions  of  Parliament,  when  it  was 
to  be  jointly  in  both.  In  short,  the  protector  had 
almost  all  the  royalties  of  a  king  ;  but,  then,  the 
protectorship  was  to  be  elective,  and  no  protect- 
or after  the  present  to  be  general  of  the  army. 

The  articles  relating  to  religion  were  these  : 

Art.  35.  "  That  the  Christian  religion  con- 
tained in  the  Scriptures  be  held  forth  and  rec- 
>  ommended  as  the  public  profession  of  these  na- 
tions, and  that,  as  soon  as  may  be,  a  provision 
less  subject  to  contention,  and  more  certain  than 
the  present,  be  made  for  the  maintenance  of 
ministers  ;  and  that,  tih  such  provision  be  made, 
the  present  maintenance  continue. 

Art.  36.  "  That  none  be  compelled  to  conform 
to  the  public  religion  by  penalties  or  otherwise  ; 
but  that  endeavours  be  used  to  win  them  by 
sound  doctrine,  and  the  example  of  a  good  con- 
versation. 

Art.  37.  "  That  such  as  profess  faith  in  God 
by  Jesus  Christ,  though  differing  in  judgment 
from  the  doctrine,  w^orship,  or  discipline  pub- 
licly held  forth,  shall  not  be  restrained  from, 
but  shall  be  protected  in  the  profession  of  their 
faith  and  exercise  of  their  religion,  so  as  they 
abuse  not  tiiis  liberty  to  the  civil  injury  of  oth- 
ers, and  to  the  actual  disturbaUiC  of  the  public 


peace  on  their  parts  :  provided  this  liberty  be 
not  extended  to  popery  or  prelacy^  or  to  such 
as,  under  a  profession  of  Christ,  hold  forth  and 
practise  licentiousness. 

Art.  38.  "  That  all  laws,  statutes,  ordinances, 
and  clauses,  in  any  law,  statute,  or  ordinance, 
to  the  contrary  of  the  aforesaid  liberty,  shall  be 
esteemed  null  and  void." 

The  protector  was  installed  with  great  mag- 
nificence, December  16,  1653,  in  the  Court  of 
Chancery,  by  order  of  the  council  of  officers,  in 
presence  of  the  lord-mayor  and  aldermen  of 
London,  the  judges,  the  commissioners  of  the 
great  seal,  and  other  great  officers,  who  were 
summoned  to  attend  on  this  occasion.  Oliver 
Cromwell,  standing  uncovered  on  the  left  hand 
of  a  chair  of  state  set  for  him,  first  subscribed 
the  instrument  of  government  in  the  face  of  the 
court,  and  then  took  the  following  oath  : 

"  Whereas  the  major  part  of  the  last  Parlia- 
ment (judging  that  their  sitting  any  longer  as 
then  constituted  would  not  be  for  the  good  of 
the  commonwealth)  did  dissolve  the  same; 
and  by  a  writing  under  their  hands,  dated  the 
r2lh  of  this  instant  December,  resigned  to  me 
their  powers  and  authorities.  And  whereas  it 
was  necessary,  thereupon,  that  some  speedy 
course  should  be  taken  for  the  settlement  of 
these  nations  upon  such  a  basis  and  foundation 
as,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  might  be  lasting,  se- 
cure property,  and  answer  those  great  ends  of 
religion  and  liberty  so  long  contended  for  ;  and 
upon  full  and  mature  consideration  had  of  the 
form  of  government  hereunto  annexed,  being 
satisfied  that  the  same,  through  Divine  assist- 
ance, may  answer  the  ends  afore-mentioned ; 
and  having  also  been  desired  and  advised,  as 
well  by  several  persons  of  interest  and  fidelity 
in  the  commonwealth  as  the  officers  of  the 
army,  to  take  upon  me  the  protection  and  gov- 
erimient  of  these  nations  in  the  manner  express- 
ed in  the  said  form  of  government,  I  have  ac- 
cepted thereof,  and  do  hereby  declare  my  accept- 
ance accordingly  ;  and  do  promise,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God,  that  I  will  not  violate  or  infringe 
the  matters  and  things  contained  therein,  but 
to  my  power  observe  the  same,  and  cause  them 
to  be  observed  ;  and  shall  in  all  other  things,  to 
the  best  of  my  understanding,  govern  these  na- 
tions according  to  the  laws,  statutes,  and  cus- 
toms, seeking  their  peace,  and  causing  justice 
and  law  to  be  equally  administered." 

After  this  he  sat  down  in  the  chair  of  state 
covered,  and  the  commissioners  delivered  him 
the  great  seal,  and  the  lord-mayor  his  sword 
and  cap  of  maintenance  ;  which  he  returned  in 
a  very  obliging  manner.  The  ceremony  being 
over,  the  soldiers,  with  a  shout,  cried  out,  "  God 
bless  the  lord-protector  of  the  commonwealth 
of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  !"  In  their 
return  to  Whitehall,  the  lord-mayor  carried  the 
sword  before  his  highness  uncovered,  and  pres- 
ently after  he  was  proclaimed  in  the  city  of 
London,  and  throughout  all  the  British  domin- 


*  Cromwell  understood  well  the  intrinsic  value  of 
outward  state ;  he  was  aware  that,  taken  abstracted- 
ly, a  monarch  is  but  a  ceremony,  and  so  we  find  him 
afiecting  greater  magnificence  as  he  increased  ia 
years.  A  full  narration  of  the  ceremonial  connected 
with  his  inauguration  may  be  seen  in  Jesse's  Court 
of  the  Stuarts.— C. 


136 


HISTOKY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


Thus  did  this  wonderful  man,  by  surprising 
management,  supported  only  by  the  sword,  ad- 
vance himself  to  the  supreme  government  of 
three  kingdoms  without  consent  of  Parliament 
or  people.  His  birth  seemed  to  promise  no- 
thing of  this  kmd  ;  nor  does  it  appear  that  he  had 
formed  the  project  till  after  the  battle  of  Wor- 
cester, when  he  apprehended  the  Parliament 
had  projected  his  ruin  by  disbanding  the  army, 
and  perpetuating  their  authority  among  them- 
selves :  which  of  the  two  usurpations  was  most 
eligible  must  be  left  with  the  reader  ;  but  how  he 
brought  the  officers  into  his  measures,  and  sup- 
ported his  sovereignty  by  an  army  of  enthusi- 
asts, Anabaptists,  fifth  monarchy  men,  and  Re- 
publicans, will  be  the  admiration  of  all  posteri- 
ty ;  and  though  by  this  adventurous  act  he  drew 
upon  himself  the  plots  and  conspiracies  of  the 
several  factions  in  the  nation,  yet  his  genius 
and  resolution  surmounted  all  difficulties,  his 
short  empire  being  one  continued  blaz.e  of  glory 
and  renown  to  the  British  isles,  and  of  terror  to 
the  rest  of  Europe. 

The  reader  will  make  his  own  remarks  npon 
the  new  instrument  of  government,  and  will 
necessarily  observe  that  it  was  a  creature  of 
Cromwell's  and  his  council  of  officers,  and  not 
drawn  up  by  a  proper  representative  of  the  peo- 
ple. How  far  the  present  circumstances  of  the 
nation  made  this  necessary,  must  be  concluded 
from  the  remarks  we  have  made  upon  the 
change  of  government;  but  the  articles  relating 
to  religion  can  hardly  be  complained  of,  though 
they  disgusted  all  that  part  of  the  clergy  who 
were  for  church  power ;  the  Presbyterians 
preached  and  wrote  against  the  36th  and  37th 
articles,  as  inconsistent  with  their  establish- 
ment, and  sinking  it  almost  to  a  level  with  their 
sectaries.  The  Republicans  were  dissatisfied 
because  the  Engagement,  by  which  they  had 
sworn  fidelity  to  a  commonwealth,  without  a 
single  person,  or  House  of  Lords,  was  set  aside. 
Bishop  Kennet  is  angry  with  the  protector's 
latitude,  because  there  was  no  test  or  barrier  to 
the  establishment.  "  How  little  religion  was 
the  concern,  or  so  much  as  any  longer  the  pre- 
tence of  Cromwell  and  his  officers,"  says  his 
lordship,  "  appears  from  hence,  that  in  the  large 
instrument  of  the  government  of  the  common- 
wealth, which  was  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  new 
Constitution,  there  is  not  a  word  of  churches  or 
ministers,  nor  anything  but  the  Christian  reli- 
gion in  general,  with  liberty  to  all  dilfering  in 
judgment  from  the  doctrine,  worship,  or  disci- 
pline publicly  held  forth."  Strange,  that  this 
should  displease  a  Christian  bishop !  But  his 
lordship  should  have  remembered,  that  this  lib- 
erty was  not  to  extend  to  any  kinds  of  immo- 
ralities, nor  to  such  as  injured  the  civil  rights 
of  others,  nor  to  such  as  disturbed  the  public 
peace.  And  do  the  Scriptures  authorize  us  to 
go  farther  1  The  sixth  article  provides,  "  that 
the  laws  in  being  relating  to  the  Presbyterian 
religion  were  not  to  be  suspended,  altered,  ab- 
rogated, or  repealed  ;  nor  any  new  law  made, 
but  by  consent  of  Parliament."  The  36th  adds, 
"  that  until  a  better  provision  can  be  made  for 
the  encouragement  and  maintenance  of  able 
and  painful  teachers,  the  present  maintenance 
shall  not  be  taken  away  nor  impeached."  And 
triers  were  appointed  soon  after  for  preventing 
scandalous  and  unlearned  persons  invading  the 


pulpit.  This  part  of  the  instrument  is,  in  my 
opinion,  so  far  from  being  criminal,  that  it 
breathes  a  noble  spirit  of  Christian  liberty,, 
though  it  was  undouljtedly  faulty,  in  putting- 
popery,  prelacy,  and  licentiousness  of  manners 
upon  a  level.  The  open  toleration  of  popery  is 
hardly  consistent  with  the  safety  of  a  Protest- 
ant government ;  otherwise,  considered  merely 
as  a  religious  institution,  I  see  not  why  it  should 
be  crushed  by  the  civil  power ;  and  licentious- 
ness of  manners  is  not  to  be  indulged  in  any 
civilized  nation  :  but  if  the  Episcopalians  would 
have  given  security  for  their  living  peaceably 
under  their  new  masters,  they  ought  undoubt- 
edly to  have  been  protected  ;  however,  the  pro- 
tector did  not  in  every  instance  adhere  strictly  • 
to  the  instrument. 

But  though,  in  point  of  policy,  the  Episcopali- 
ans were  at  this  time  excepted  from  a  legal  tol- 
eration, their  assemblies  were  connived  at ;  audi 
several  of  their  clergy  indulged  the  public  ex- 
ercise of  their  ministry  without  the  fetters  of 
oaths,  subscriptions,  or  engagements  ;  as  Dr. 
Hall,  afterward  Bishop  of  Chester,  Dr.  Wild,. 
Pearson,  Ball,  Hardy,  Griffith,  Farringdon,  and2 
others.  Several  of  the  bishops,  who  had  been 
kept  from  public  service  by  the  Covenant  and 
Engagement,  preached  again  publicly  in  the  city,, 
as  Archbishop  Usher,  Bishop  Brownrigge,  and 
others.  Mr.  Baxter,  who  was  very  far  from, 
being  a  friend  of  the  protector's,  says  "  that  all.- 
men  were  suffiired  to  live  quietly,  and  enjoy 
their  properties  under  his  government ;  that  he 
removed  the  terrors  and  prejudices  which  hin- 
dered the  success  of  the  Gospel,  especially  con- 
sidering that  godliness  had  countenance  and 
reputation  as  well  as  liberty,  whereas  before,  if 
it  did  not  appear  in  all  the  fetters  and  formali- 
ties of  the  times,  it  was  the  way  to  common 
shame  and  ruin.  It  is  well  known  that  the- 
Presbyterians  did  not  approve  of  the  usurpation, 
but  when  they  saw  that  Cromwell's  design  was 
to  do  good  in  the  main,  and  encourage  religion 
as  far  as  his  cause  would  admit,  they  acqui- 
esced." And  then,  comparing  these  times  with 
those  after  the  Restoration,  he  adds,  "  I  shall 
for  the  future  think  that  land  happy  where  the 
people  have  but  bare  liberty  to  be  as  good  as 
they  are  willing  ;  and  if  countenance  and  main- 
tenance be  but  added  to  liberty,  and  tolerated 
errors  and  sects  be  but  forced  to  keep  the  peace, 
I  shall  not  hereafter  much  fear  such  a  tolera- 
tion, nor  despair  that  truth  will  bear  down  its 
adversaries."*  This  was  a  considerable  testi- 
mony to  the  protector's  administration  from  the- 
pen  of  an  adversary. 

The  protector's  first  council  were.  Major-gen- 
eral Lambert,  Lieutenant-general  Fleetwood,. 
Colonel  Montague,  afterward  Earl  of  Sandwich ; 
Philip  Lord-viscount  Lisle,  since  Earl  of  Lei- 
cester ;  Colonel  Desborough,  Sir  Gilbert  Pick- 
ering, Sir  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  afterward 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury ;  Sir  Charles  Woolsley, 
Major-general  Skippon,  Mr.  Strictland,  Colonel 
Sydenham,  Colonel  Jones,  Mr.  Rouse,  Mr.  Law- 
rence, and  Mr.  Major:  men  of  great  name  in- 
those  times,  some  of  whom  made  a  consider- 
able figure  after  the  Restoration.  The  protect- 
or's wise  conduct  appeared  in  nothing  more 
than  his  unwearied  endeavours  to  make  all  re- 
ligious parties  easy.     He  indulged  the  army  in. 


.*  Life,  p.  86,  87. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


i37 


their  enthusiastic  raptures,  and  sometimes  join- 
ed in  their  prayers  and  sermons.  He  counte- 
nanced the  Presbyterians,  by  assuring  them  he 
would  maintain  the  public  ministry,  and  give 
them  all  due  encouragement.  He  supported 
the  Independents,  by  making  them  his  chap- 
lains; by  preferring  them  to  considerable  liv- 
ings in  the  Church  and  universities  ;  and  by 
joining  them  in  one  commission  with  the  Pres- 
byterians as  triers  of  all  such  as  desired  to  be 
admitted  to  benefices.  But  he  absolutely  for- 
bade the  clergy  of  every  denomination  dealing 
in  politics,  as  not  belonging  to  their  profession  ; 
and  when  he  perceived  the  managing  Presbyte- 
rians took  too  much  upon  them,  he  always  found 
means  to  mortify  them  ;  and  would  sometimes 
glory  that  he  had  curbed  that  insolent  sect,  that 
would  suffer  none  but  itself. 

It  was  happy  for  the  wise  and  moderate  Pres- 
byterians that  the  protector  disarmed  their  dis- 
cipline of  its  coercive  power,  for  he  still  left 
them  all  that  was  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of 
religion  ;  they  had  their  monthly  or  quarterly 
classical  Presbyteries  in  every  county,  for  the 
ordination  of  ministers,  by  imposition  of  hands, 
according  to  the  Directory,  to  whom  they  gave 
certificates,  or  testimonials,  in  the  following 
words : 

"  We,  the  ministers  of  the  Presbytery  of , 

having  examined  Mr. according  to  the  ten- 

our  of  the  ordinance  for  that  purpose,  and  find- 
ing him  duly  qualified  and  gifted  for  that  holy 
office  and  employment  (no  just  exception  hav- 
ing been  made  to  his  ordination);  having  ap- 
proved him,  and  accordingly,  on  the  day  and 
year  hereafter  expressed,  have  proceeded  sol- 
emnly to  set  him  apart  to  the  office  of  a  preach- 
ing presbyter,  and  work  of  the  ministry,  with 
fasting  and  prayer,  and  imposition  of  hands  ; 
and  do  hereby  actually  admit  him  (as  far  as 
concerns  us)  to  perform  all  the  offices  and  du- 
ties of  a  faithful  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  In 
witness  whereof,  we  have  hereunto  subscribed 
our  names,  this day  of  September,  1653." 

Other  testimonials  were  in  this  form  : 

"  We,  the  ministers  of  Christ,  who  are  called 
to  watch  over  this  part  of  his  flock  in  the  city 

of ,  with  the   assistance   of  some  others, 

that  we  might  not  be  wanting  to  the  service  of 
the  Church  in  its  necessity,  having  received 
credible  testimonials,  under  the  hands  of  divers 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  others,  of  the  so- 
ber, righteous,  and  godly  conversation  of , 

as  also  concerning  his  gifts  for  the  ministry, 
have  proceeded  to  make  farther  trial  of  his  fit- 
ness for  so  great  a  work ;  and  being  in  some 
good  measure  satisfied  concerning  his  piety  and 

ability,  have,  upon  the day  of ,  1653, 

proceeded  solemnly  to  set  him  apart  to  the  of- 
fice of  a  presbyter,  and  work  of  the  ministry, 
by  laying  on  our  hands  with  fasting  and  prayer  ; 
by  virtue  whereof  we  do  esteem  and  declare 
him  a  lawful  minister  of  Christ,  and  hereby  rec- 
ommend him  to  the  Church  of .  In  wit- 
ness whereof,  we  have  set  our  hands,"  &,c. 

When  the  Presbyterians  found  that  their 
classes  could  obtain  no  power  to  inflict  pains 
ami  penalties  on  those  who  refused  to  submit  to 
their  discipline,  the  ministers  of  the  several  de- 
nominations in  the  country  began  to  enter  into 
friendly  associations  for  brotherly  counsel  and 
advice.     Mr.  Baxter,  and  his  brethren  of  Wor- 

VOL.  II.— S 


cestershire,  formed  a  scheme  upon  such  general 
principles  as  all  good  men  were  agreed  in,  which 
he  communicated  to  the  Reverend  Mr.  Vines 
and  Gataker ;  apd  when  he  had  drawn  up  arti- 
cles of  concord,  he  submitted  them  to  the  cor- 
rection of  Archbishop  Usher,  and  other  Episco- 
pal divines,  who  agreed  with  him,  that  no  more 
discipline  should  be  practised  than  the  Episco- 
palian, Presbyterian,  and  Independent  divines 
agreed  in  ;  that  they  should  not  meddle  with 
politics  or  affairs  of  civil  government  in  their 
assemblies,  nor  pretend  to  exercise  the  power 
of  the  keys,  or  any  church  censures  ;  but  only 
to  assist,  advise,  and  encourage  each  other  in 
propagating  truth  and  holiness,  and  in  keeping 
their  churches  from  profane  and  scandalous 
communicants.*  Their  meetings  were  appoint- 
ed to  be  once  a  month  in  some  market-town, 
where  there  was  a  sermon  in  the  morning  ;  and' 
after  dinner  the  conversation  was  upon  sucb 
points  of  doctrine  or  discipline  as  required  ad- 
vice ;  or  else  an  hour  was  spent  in  disputing 
upon  some  theological  question  which  had  been, 
appointed  the  preceding  month.  Doctor  War- 
mestry,  afterward  Dean  of  Worcester,  and  Dr. 
Good,  one  of  the  prebendaries  of  Hereford,  sent 
Mr.  Baxter  a  letter  dated  September  20,  1653, 
wherein  they  testify  their  approbation  of  the 
association  above  mentioned,  and  of  the  arti- 
cles of  concord. t 

In  the  west  of  England,  Mr.  Hughes,  of  Plym- 
outh, and  Mr.  Good,  of  Exeter,  prevailed  with 
the  ministers  of  the  several  persuasions  in  those 
parts  to  follow  the  example  of  Worcestershire  ; 
accordingly,  they  parcelled  themselves  into  four 
divisions,  which  met  once  a  quarter;  and  all 
four  had  a  general  meeting  for  concord  once  a 
year :  the  Reverend  Mr.  Hughes  presided  in  those 
of  1655  and  1656.  The  moderator  began  and 
ended  with  prayer,  and  several  of  the  Episcopal 
divines  of  the  best  character,  as  well  as  Inde- 
pendents, joined  with  them  ;  "the  chief  of  the 
Presbyterian  and  Independent  divines,  who  were 
weary  of  divisions,  and  willing  to  strengthen 
each  other's  hands,  united  in  these  assemblies,. 
though  the  exasperated  prelatists,  the  more  ri- 
gid Presbyterians,  and  severer  sort  of  Independ- 
ents, kept  at  a  distance  :  but  many  remarkable 
advantages,"  says  Mr.  Baxter,  "  attended  these 
associations ;"  they  opened  and  preserved  a- 
friendly  correspondence  among  the  ministers  ; 
they  removed  a  great  many  prejudices  and  mis- 
understandings, insomuch  that  the  controver- 
sies and  heats  of  angry  men  began  to  be  allay- 
ed, their  spirit  bettered,  and  the  ends  of  religion: 
more  generally  promoted. 

But  these  country  associations  were  not  coun- 
tenanced by  the  more  zealous  Presbyterians  of 
London,  who  met  weekly  at  Sion  College  ;  they 
could  hardly  digest  a  toleration  of  the  sectaries, 
much  less  submit  to  a  coalition,  but  resolved  to 
keep  close  to  the  ordinances  of  Parliament,  and 
to  the  acts  of  their  provincial  assembly :  they 
wanted  the  sword  of  discipline,  and  were  impa- 
tient under  the  present  restraint  ;  and  nothing 
but  the  piercing  eye  of  the  protector,  whose  spies 
were  in  every  corner,  kept  them  from  preach- 
ing, praying,  and  plotting  against  the  govern- 
ment. However,  the  country  ministers  being 
easy  in  their  possessions,  cultivated  good  neigh- 


*  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  147,  &c.,  p.  1C7.,  &c. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  149. 


J  38 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


bourhood,  and  spread  the  associations  through 
"Wiltshire,  Essex,  Hampshire,  Dorsetshire,  Cum- 
berland, Westmoreland,  and  other  parts  ;  that  if 
I  am  not  misinformed,  there  are  the  like  broth- 
erly associations  among  the  Dissenters  in  sever- 
al counties  to  this  day. 

This  year  died  old  Dr.  William  Gouge,  born 
at  Stratford-le-Bow  in  the  year  1575,  and  edu- 
cated at  King's  College,  Cambridge,  of  which 
he  was  fellow.  He  entered  into  orders  1607, 
and  the  very  next  year  was  settled  at  Blackfri- 
ars,  London,  where  he  continued  to  his  death. 
He  commenced  doctor  of  divinity  in  the  year 
1628,  about  which  time  he  became  one  of  the 
feoffees  for  buying  up  impropriations,  for  which 
he  was  ordered  to  be  prosecuted  in  the  Star 
Chamber.  In  the  year  1643  he  was  nominated 
one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  was  in  such 
reputation,  that  he  often  filled  the  moderator's 
chair  in  his  absence.  He  was  a  modest,  hum- 
ble, and  affable  person,  of  strict  and  exemplary 
piety,  a  universal  scholar,  and  a  most  constant 
preacher,  as  long  as  he  was  able  to  get  up  into 
■the  pulpit.  For  many  years  he  was  esteemed 
■the  father  of  the  London  ministers,  and  died 
comfortably  and  piously  December  12,  1653,  in 
the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age,  having  been 
minister  of  Blackfriars  almost  forty-six  years.* 

Doctor  Thomas  Hill,  of  whom  mention  has 
been  made  before,  was  born  in  Worcestershire, 
and  educated  in  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge, 
of  which  he  was  a  fellow,  and  tutor  to  young 
scholars  for  many  years.  He  was  afterward 
preferred  to  the  living  of  Tichmarsh  in  North- 
amptonshire, and  was  chosen  into  the  Assembly 
of  Divines  for  that  county.  While  he  was  at 
London  he  preached  every  day  at  St.  Martin's-in- 
the-Fields,  and  was  one  of  the  morning  lectu- 
rers at  Westminster  Abbey.  He  was  afterward 
chosen  to  be  master  of  Emanuel  College,  Cam- 
bridge, and  from  thence  removed  to  Trinity  Col- 
lege ;  in  which  stations  he  behaved  with  geat 
prudence  and  circumspection.  He  was  a  good 
scholar,  and  very  careful  of  the  antiquities  and 
privileges  of  the  university  ;  a  strict  Calvinist, 
a  plain,  powerful,  and  practical  preacher,  and  of 
a  holy  and  unblamable  conversation.  He  died 
of  a  quartan  ague  December  18,  1653,  at  an  ad- 
vanced age,  very  much  lamented  by  his  acquaint- 
ance and  brethren.! 


*  He  spent  nine  years  at  King's  College,  and  was 
never  absent  from  public  prayers  at  the  chapel,  and 
constantly  read  fifteen  chapters  in  the  Bible  every 
day.  He  was  the  laborious,  exemplary,  and  much- 
loved  minister,  of  whom  none  thought  or  spoke  ill, 
says  Mr.  Granger,  "  but  such  as  were  inclined  to 
think  or  speak  ill  of  religion  itself."  He  refused  the 
provostship  of  King's  College  in  Cambridge  ;  and 
had  eight  children,  who  lived  to  man's  and  woman's 
estate.— C/arAre's  Lives  in  his  General  Martyrology,  p. 
234 ;  and  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  179, 
8vo. — Ed.  Dr.  Gouge's  great  effort  seems  to  have 
been  usefulness  ;  he  used  to  say,  "  It  is  my  highest 
ambition  to  go  from  Blackfriars  to  heaven."  He 
regularly  read  fifteen  chapters  of  the  Bible  a  day. 
Laud  and  Neile  both  persecuted  him  for  his  opposi- 
tion to  Arminianism  and  ceremonies  ;  Dr.  Gouge  was 
regarded  as  the  oracle  of  his  time.  Wood  and  Gran- 
ger both  testify  to  his  worth  and  learning.  Bishop 
Wilkins  classes  Dr.  Gouge's  sermons  as  among  the 
best  of  his  time,  and  Wood  styles  his  Commentary 
on  Hebrews  a  learned  and  useful  work.— C. 

t  Dr.  Hill  used  to  lay  his  hand  upon  his  breast, 
■and  say,  "  Every  true  Christian  hath  something  here 


CHAPTER  III. 

FROM  THE   BEGINNING    OF  THE   PROTECTORSHIP   OF 
OLIVER    CROMWELL    TO    HIS    DEATH. 

If  the  reader  will  carefully  review  the  divi- 
ded state  of  the  nation  at  this  time,  the  strength 
of  the  several  parties  in  opposite  interests,  and 
almost  equal  in  power,  each  sanguine  for  his 
own  scheme  of  settlement,  and  all  conspiring 
against  the  present,  he  will  be  surprised  that 
any  wise  man  should  be  prevailed  with  to  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  such  a  distracted  body  ; 
and  yet  more,  that  such  a  genius  should  arise, 
who,  without  any  foreign  alliances,  should  be  ca- 
pable of  guarding  against  so  many  foreign  and 
domestic  enemies,  and  of  steering  the  common- 
wealth through  such  a  hurricane,  clear  of  the 
rocks  and  quicksands  which  threatened  its  ruin. 

This  was  the  province  that  the  enterprising 
Oliver  undertook,  with  the  style  and  title  of 
lord-protector  of  the  commonwealth  of  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland.  He  assumed  all  the  state 
and  ceremony  of  a. crowned  head  ;  his  house- 
hold officers  and  guards  attended  in  their  places, 
and  his  court  appeared  in  as  great  splendour, 
and  more  order,  than  had  been  seen  at  White- 
hall since  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign.  His  first 
concern  was'  to  fill  the  courts  of  justice  with 
the  ablest  lawyers ;  Sir  Matthew  Hale  was  made 
Lord-chief-justice  of  the  Common  Pleas;  Mr. 
Maynard,  Twisden,  Newdigate,  and  Windham, 
sergeants  at  law  ;  Mr.  Thurloe,  secretary  of 
state;  and  Monk,  governor  of  Scotland.  His 
next  care  was  to  deliver  himself  from  his  foreign 
enemies  ;  for  this  purpose  he  gave  peace  to  the 
Dutch,  which  the  fame  of  his  power  enabled 
him  to  accomplish  without  the  ceremony  of  a 
formal  treaty  ;  he  therefore  sent  his  Secretary 
Thurloe,  with  the  conditions  to  which  they  were 
to  submit  ;  the  Dutch  pleaded  for  abatements, 
but  his  highness  was  at  a  point,  and  obliged 
them  to  deliver  up  the  island  of  Polerone  in  the 
East  Indies  ;  to  pay  .£300,000  for  the  affair  of 
Amboyna;  to  abandon  the  interests  of  King 
Charles  II.  ;  to  exclude  the  Prince  of  Orange 
from  being  stadtholder,  and  to  yield  up  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  seas. 

W^hen  this  was  accomplished,  most  of  the 
sovereign  princes  in  Europe  sent  to  compliment 
his  highness  upon  his  advancement,  and  to  cul- 
tivate his  friendship :  the  King  of  Portugal  asked 
pardon  for  receiving  Prince  Rupert  into  his 
ports  ;  the  Danes  got  themselves  included  in 
the  Dutch  treaty,  and  became  security  for 
£  140,000  damages  done  to  the  English  shipping ; 
the  Swedes  sued  for  an  alliance,  which  was  con- 
cluded with  their  ambassador  ;  the  crown  of 
Spain  made  offers  which  the  protector  rejected  ; 
but  the  address  of  the  French  ambassador  was 
most  extraordinary  ;  the  protector  received  him 
in  the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall,  with  all 
the  state  and  magnificence  of  a  crowned  head  ; 
and  the  ambassador,  having  made  his  obeisance, 
acquainted  his  highness  with  the  king  his  mas- 
ter's desire  to  establish  a  correspondence  be- 
tween his  dominions  and  England.  He  men- 
tioned the  value  of  the  friendship  of  France, 
and  how  much  it  was  courted  by  the  greatest 
potentates  of  the  earth  ;  "  but,"  says  the  am- 

that  will  frame  an  argument  against  Arminianism." 
Dr.  Grey  railed  against  this  good  man,  yet  I  can  see 
nothing  but  his  piety  to  which  he  could  object. — C. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


139 


bassador,  "  the  king  my  master  communicates 
Jiis  resolutions  to  none  with  so  mucli  joy  and 
cheerfulness,  as  to  those  whose  virtuous  actions 
■and  extraordinary  merits  render  them  more 
conspicuously  famous  than  the  largeness  of 
their  dominions.  His  majesty  is  sensible  that 
all  these  advantages  do  wholly  reside  in  your 
highness,  and  that  the  Divine  Providence,  after 
so  many  calamities,  could  not  deal  more  favour- 
ably with  these  three  nations,  nor  cause  them 
to  forget  their  past  miseries  with  greater  satis- 
faction, than  by  subjecting  them  to  so  just  a 
government." 

The  protector's  most  dangerous  enemies  were 
the  Royalists,  Presbyterians,  and  Republicans, 
at  home ;  the  former  menaced  him  with  an  as- 
sassination, upon  which  he  declared  openly,  that 
though  he  would  never  begin  so  detestable  a 
practice,  yet,  if  any  of  the  king's  party  should 
attempt  it  and  fail,  he  would  make  an  assassi- 
nating war  of  it,  and  exterminate  the  whole 
family,  which  his  servants  were  ready  to  exe- 
cute ;  the  terror  of  this  threatening  was  a  great- 
er security  to  him  than  his  coat  of  mail  or 
guards.  The  protector  had  the  skill  always  to 
discover  the  most  secret  designs  of  the  Royal- 
ists by  some  of  their  own  number,  whom  he 
spared  no  cost  to  gain  over  to  his  interests. 
Sir  Richard  Willis  was  Chancellor  Hyde's  chief 
confidant,  to  whom  he  wrote  often,  and  in  whom 
all  the  party  confided,  as  in  an  able  and  wise 
statesman  ;  but  the  protector  gained  him  with 
^200  a  year,  by  which  means  he  had  all  the 
king's  party  in  a  net,  and  let  them  dance  in  it 
at  pleasure.*  He  had  another  correspondent  in 
the  king's  little  family,  one  Manning,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  who  gave  Secretary  Thurloe  intelli- 
gence of  all  his  majesty's  councils  and  proceed- 
ings. But  though  the  king's  friends  were  al- 
ways in  one  plot  or  other  against  the  protector's 
person  and  government,  he  always  behaved 
with  decency  towards  them,  as  long  as  they 
kept  within  tolerable  bounds  ;  and  without  all 
question,  the  severe  laws  that  were  made  against 
the  Episcopal  party  were  not  on  the  account  of 
religion,  but  of  their  irreconcilable  aversion  to 
the  government. 

The  whole  body  of  the  Presbyterians  were 
in  principle  for  the  king  and  the  Covenant,  but 
after  the  battle  of  Worcester,  and  the  execution 
-of  Mr.  Love,  they  were  terrified  into  a  compli- 
ance with  the  commonwealth,  though  they  dis- 
allowed their  proceedings,  and  were  pleased  to 
see  them  broken  in  pieces ;  but  the  surprising 
advancement  of  Cromwell  to  the  protectorship 
filled  them  with  new  terrors,  and  threatened  the 
overthrow  of  their  church  power,  for  they  con- 
sidered him  not  only  as  a  usurper,  but  a  sec- 
tarian, who  would  countenance  the  free  exer- 
cise of  religion  to  all  that  would  live  peaceably 
•under  his  government ;  and  though  he  assured 
them  he  would  continue  religion  upon  the  foot- 
ing of  the  present  establishment,  yet  nothing 
would  satisfy  them  as  long  as  their  discipline 
was  disarmed  of  its  coercive  power. 

But  the  protector's  most  determined  adver- 
saries were  the  commonwealth  party  ;  these 
were  divided  into  two  branches  ;  one  had  little 
•or  no  religion,  but  were  for  a  democracy  in  the 
state,  and  universal  liberty  of  conscience  in  re- 
ligion ;  the  heads  of  them  were  Deists,  or,  in  the 


*  Burnet,  p.  91,  vol.  i.,  Edin.  edit. 


language  of  the  protector.  Heathens,  as  Alger- 
non Sidney,  Henry  Neville,  Martin,  Wildman, 
and  Harrington.  It  was  impossible  to  work 
upon  these  men,  or  reconcile  them  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  single  person,  and  therefore  he  dis- 
armed them  of  their  power.  The  others  were 
high  enthusiasts,  and  fifth  monarchy  men,  who 
were  in  expectation  of  King  Jesus,  and  of  a 
glorious  thousand  years'  reign  of  Christ  upon 
earth.  They  were  for  pulling  down  churches, 
says  Bishop  Burnet,*  for  discharging  tithes, 
and  leaving  religion  free  (as  they  called  it),  with- 
out either  encouragement  or  restraint.  Most 
of  them  were  for  destroying  the  clergy,  and  for 
breaking  everything  that  looked  like  a  national 
establishment.  These  the  protector  endeavour- 
ed to  gain,  by  assuring  them,  in  private  conver- 
sation, "  that  he  had  no  manner  of  inclination 
to  assume  the  government,  but  had  rather  have 
been  content  with  a  shepherd's  staff,  were  it 
not  absolutely  necessary  to  keep  the  nation 
from  falling  to  pieces,  and  becoming  a  prey  to 
the  common  enemy  ;  that  he  only  stepped  in 
between  the  living  and  the  dead,  as  he  express- 
ed it,  and  this  only  till  God  should  direct  them 
on  what  bottom  to  settle,  when  he  would  sur- 
render his  dignity  with  a  joy  equal  to  the  sor- 
row with  which  he  had  taken  it  up."  With  the 
chiefs  of  this  party  he  affected  to  converse  upon 
terms  of  great  familiarity,  shutting  the  door, 
and  making  them  sit  down  covered  in  his  pres- 
ence, to  let  them  see  how  little  he  valued  those 
distances  he  was  bound  to  observe  for  form's 
sake  with  others  ;  he  talked  with  them  in  their 
ow-n  language,  and  the  conversation  commonly 
ended  with  a  long  prayer. 

The  protector's  chief  support  against  these 
powerful  adversaries  were  the  Independents, 
the  city  of  London,  and  the  army ;  the  former 
looked  upon  him  as  the  head  of  their  party, 
though  he  was  no  more  theirs  than  as  he  was 
averse  to  church  power,  and  for  a  universal  tol- 
eration. He  courted  the  city  of  London  with  a 
decent  respect,  declaring,  upon  all  occasions, 
his  resolution  to  confirm  their  privileges,  and 
consult  measures  for  promoting  trade  and  com- 
merce. These,  in  return,  after  his  instalment, 
entertained  him  at  dinner  in  a  most  magnificent 
and  princelike  manner,  and  by  degrees  model- 
led their  magistrates  to  his  mind.  But  his  chief 
dependance  was  upon  the  army,  which,  being 
made  up  of  different  parties,  he  took  care  to  re- 
form by  degrees,  till  they  were  in  a  manner  en- 
tirely at  his  devotion.  He  paid  the  soldiers 
well,  and  advanced  them  according  to  theit 
merits  and  zeal  for  his  government,  without 
regard  to  their  birth  or  seniority. 

It  was  the  protector's  felicity  that  the  par- 
ties above  mentioned  had  as  great  an  enmity  to 
each  other  as  to  him  ;  the  Cavaliers  hated  the 
Presbyterians  and  Republicans,  as  these  did 
the  Cavaliers ;  the  Royalists  fancied  that  all 
who  were  against  the  protector  must  join  with 
them  in  restoring  the  king  ;  while  the  Presbyte- 
rians were  pushing  for  their  Covenant  uniform- 
ity, and  the  Republicans  for  a  commonwealth. 
Cromwell  had  the  skill  not  only  to  keep  them 
divided,  but  to  increase  their  jealousies  of  each 
other,  and  by  that  means  to  disconcert  all  their 
measures  against  himself  Let  the  reader  rec- 
ollect what  a  difficult  situation  this  was  ;  and 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  93. 


140 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


what  a  genius  it  must  require  to  maintain  so 
high  a  reputation  abroad,  in  the  midst  of  so 
many  domestic  enemies,  who  were  continually 
plotting  his  destruction. 

In  pursuance  of  the  instrument  of  government, 
the  protector  published  an  ordinance,  April  12, 
to  incorporate  the  two  kingdoms  of  Scotland 
and  England.  The  ordinance  sets  forth,  "  that 
whereas  the  Parliament  in  1651  had  sent  com- 
missioners into  Scotland  to  invite  that  nation 
to  a  union  with  England  under  one  government ; 
and  whereas  the  consent  of  the  shires  and  bor- 
oughs was  then  obtained,  therefore,  for  comple- 
ting that  work,  he  ordains  that  the  people  of 
Scotland,  and  all  the  territories  thereunto  be- 
longing, shall  be  incorporated  into  one  common- 
wealth with  England,  and  that  in  every  Parlia- 
ment to  be  held  successively  for  the  said  com- 
monwealth, thirty  members  shall  be  called  from 
thence  to  serve  for  Scotland."  Shortly  after, 
Ireland  was  incorporated  after  the  same  man- 
ner ;  and  from  this  time  the  arms  of  Scotland 
and  Ireland  were  quartered  with  those  of  Eng- 
land. 

But  the  protector  was  hardly  fixed  in  his 
chair  before  an  assassination-plot  of  the  Royal- 
ists was  discovered,  and  three  of  the  con- 
spirators, viz.,  Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Gerhard,  and  Mr. 
Vowel,  were  apprehended,  and  tried  before  a 
high  court  of  justice,  for  conspiring  to  murder 
the  lord-protector  as  he  was  going  to  Hampton 
Court,  to  seize  the  guards,  and  the  Tower  of 
London,  and  to  proclaim  the  king.  Mr.  Fox, 
who  confessed  most  of  what  was  alleged  against 
him,  pleaded  guilty,  and  was  reprieved  ;  but  the 
other  two,  putting  themselves  on  their  trial, 
though  they  denied  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court, 
were  convicted,  and  executed  July  10.  Ger- 
hard, a  young,  hot-headed  ensign  in  the  late 
king's  army,  was  beheaded ;  and  Vowel,  a 
schoolmaster  at  Islington,  hanged  at  Charing 
Cross  :  Gerhard  confessed  he  knew  of  the  plot, 
but  Vowel  was  silent.*  These  commotions 
were  the  occasion  of  the  hardships  the  Royal- 
ists underwent  some  time  after. 

Don  Pantaleon  Sa,  brother  of  the  Portuguese 
ambassador,  was  beheaded  the  same  day,  upon 
account  of  a  riot  and  murder  in  the  New  Ex- 
change. Pantaleon  had  quarrelled  with  the 
above-mentioned  Gerhard,  and  to  revenge  him- 
self, brought  his  servants  next  day,  armed  with 
swords  and  pistols,  to  kill  him  ;  but  instead  of 
Gerhard,  they  killed  another  man,  and  wounded 
several  others.  The  Portuguese  knight  and 
his  associates  fled  to  his  brother  the  ambassa- 
dor's house  for  sanctuary,  but  the  mob  follow- 
ed them,  and  threatened  to  pull  down  the  house, 
unless  they  were  delivered  up  to  justice.  The 
protector,  being  informed  of  the  tumult,  sent  an 
officer  with  a  party  of  soldiers  to  demand  the 
murderers.  The  ambassador  pleaded  his  public 
character,  but  the  protector  would  admit  of  no 


*  Mr.  Neal's  account,  as  Dr.  Grey  remarks,  does 
not  agree  with  Lord  Clarendon,  who  represents 
Vowel  as  earnestly  and  pathetically  addressing  the 
people  and  the  soldiers,  exhorting  them  to  loyalty  ; 
and  Gerhard  as  declaring  "  that  he  was  innocent,  and 
had  not  entered  into  or  consented  to  any  plot,  nor 
given  any  countenance  to  any  discourse  to  that  pur- 
pose." Whitelocke  savs,  that  when  they  were 
brought  before  the  high  court,  they  both  denied  all  the 
charges  alleged  against  them. — Clarendon's  History, 
vol.  iij.,  p.  492.     Whitelocke  s  Memoirs,  p.  575.— Ed. 


excuse ;  and  therefore,  being  forced  to  deliver 
them  up,  they  were  all  tried  and  convicted,  by 
a  jury  half  English  and  half  foreigners  ;  the 
servants  (says  Whitelocke*)  were  reprieved 
and  pardoned  ;  but  the  ambassador's  brother^ 
v/ho  was  the  principal,  notwithstanding  all  the 
intercession  that  could  be  made  for  his  life,  was 
carried  in  a  mourning  coach  to  Tower  Hill,  and 
beheaded.  This  remarkable  act  of  justice  raised 
the  people's  esteem  of  the  protector's  resolu" 
tion,  and  of  the  justice  of  his  government. 

In  order  to  a  farther  settlement  of  the  nation-, 
the  protector  summoned  a  Parliament  to  meet 
at  Westminster,  September  3  ;  which  being 
reckoned  one  of  his  auspicious  days,  he  would 
not  alter,  though  it  fell  on  a  Sunday  ;  the  House 
met  accordingly,  and  having  waited  upon  the 
protector  in  the  Painted  Chamber,  adjourned  to 
the  next  day,  September  4,  when  his  highness 
rode  from  Whitehall  to  Westminster  with  all 
the  pomp  and  state  of  the  greatest  monarch  : 
some  hundreds  of  gentlemen  went  before  him 
uncovered ;  his  pages  and  lackeys  in  the  richest 
liveries  ;  the  captains  of  his  guards  on  each 
side  of  his  coach,  with  their  attendants,  all  un- 
covered ;  then  followed  the  commissioners  of 
the  treasury,  master  of  ceremonies,  and  other 
officers.  The  sword,  the  great  seal,  the  purse, 
and  four  maces,  were  carried  before  him  by 
their  proper  officers. 

After  a  sermon  preached  by  Dr.  Thomas 
Goodwin,  his  highnesst  repaired  to  the  Painted 
Chamber,t  and  being  seated  in  a  chair  of  state, 
raised  by  sundry  steps,  he  made  a  speech  to  the 
members,  in  which  he  complained  of  the  level- 
lers and  fifth  monarchy  men,  who  were  for  sub- 
verting the  established  laws,  and  for  throwing 
all  things  back  into  confusion.  He  put  them 
in  mind  of  the  difficulties  in  which  the  nation' 
was  involved  at  the  time  he  assumed  the  gov- 
ernment. "  That  it  was  at  war  with  Portugal,. 
Holland,  and  France;  which,  together  with  the 
divisions  among  ourselves,"  says  he,  "  begat  a 
confidence  in  the  enemy  that  we  could  not  hold 
out  long.  In  this  heap  of  confusion,  it  was 
necessary  to  apply  some  remedy,  that  the  nation 
might  not  smk  ;  and  the  remedy,"  says  he,  "is 
this  government,  which  is  calculated  for  the 
interest  of  the  people  alone,  without  regard  to 
any  other,  let  men  say  what  they  will ;  I  can 
speak  with  comfort  before  a  greater  than  you 
all  as  to  my  own  intention.  Since  this  govern- 
ment has  been  erected,  men  of  the  most  known 
integrity  and  ability  have  been  put  into  seats  oi 
justice.  The  Chancery  has  been  reformed.  It 
has  put  a  stop  to  that  heady  way  for  every  man 
that  will  to  make  himself  a  preacher,  by  settling 
a  way  for  approbation  of  men  of  piety  and  fit- 
ness for  the  work.  It  hath  taken  care  to  ex- 
punge men  unfit  for  that  work ;  and  now,  at 
length,  it  has  been  instrumental  of  calling  a  free 
Parliainent. 

"  A  peace  is  now  made  with  Sweden  and  with 
the  Danes ;  a  peace  honourable  to  the  nation 
and  satisfactory  to  the  merchants.  A  peace  is 
made  with  the  Dutch  and  with  Portugal ;  and 


*  Mem.,  p.  577.  f  Whitelocke,  p.  582. 

%  This  is,  I  think,  Cromwell's  best  speech,  and  has 
strong  marks  of  the  ability  which  he  possessed  as  a 
statesman.  No  royal  address  ever  delivered  to  Par- 
liament has  the  force  and  power  of  this  productiorK 
Whitelocke  calls  it "  a  large  and  subtle  speech." — C» 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


141 


such  a  one  that  the  people  that  trade  thither 
liave  liberty  of  conscience,  without  being  sub- 
ject to  the  bloody  Inquisition."  He  then  advises 
them  to  concert  measures  for  the  support  of  the 
present  government,  and  desires  them  to  believe 
that  he  spoke  to  them  not  as  one  that  intended 
to  be  a  lord  over  them,  but  as  one  that  was  re- 
solved to  be  a  fellow-servant  with  them  for  the 
interest  of  their  country;  and  then,  having  ex- 
horted them  to  unanimity,  he  dismissed  them 
to  their  house  to  choose  a  speaker. 

William  Lenihal,  Esq.,  master  of  the  rolls, 
and  speaker  of  the  Long  Parliament,  was  chosen 
without  opposition.  The  first  point  the  House 
entered  on  was  the  instrument  of  government, 
which  occasioned  many  warm  debates,  and  was 
like  to  have  occasioned  a  fatal  breach  among 
Ihem.  To  prevent  this,  the  protector  gave  or- 
ders, September  12,  that  as  the  members  came 
to  the  House,  they  should  be  directed  to  attend 
iiis  highness  in  the  Painted  Chamber,  where  he 
jmade  the  following  remarkable  speech,  which  is 
deserving  the  reader's  careful  attention  :  "  Gen- 
tlemen, I  am  surprised  at  your  conduct,  in  de- 
bating so  freely  the  instrument  of  government ; 
for  the  same  power  that  has  made  you  a  Par- 
liament has  appointed  me  protector,  so  that  if 
you  dispute  the  one,  you  must  disown  the  oth- 
er."* He  added,  "  that  he  was  a  gentleman  by 
birth,  and  had  been  called  to  several  employ- 
ments in  Parliament,  and  in  the  wars,  which 
-being  at  an  end,  he  was  willing  to  retire  to  pri- 
vate life,  and  prayed  to  be  dismissed,  but  could 
not  obtain  it.  That  he  had  pressed  the  Long 
Parliament,  as  a  member,  to  dissolve  them- 
selves ;  but  finding  they  intended  to  continue 
their  sessions,  he  thought  himself  obliged  to  dis- 
miss them,  and  to  call  some  persons  together 
from  the  several  parts  of  the  nation,  to  see  if 
they  could  fall  upon  a  better  settlement.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  resigned  up  all  his  power  into  their 
hands,  but  they,  after  some  time, returned  it  back 
to  him.  After  this,"  says  he,  "  divers  gentlemen 
having  consulted  together,  framed  the  present 
model  without  my  privity,  and  told  me  that,  un- 
less I  would  undertake  the  same,  blood  and  con- 
fusion would  break  in  upon  them  ;  but  I  refused 
again  and  again,  till,  considering  that  it  did  not 
put  me  into  a  higher  capacity  than  I  was  in  be- 
.iore,  I  consented  ;  since  which  time  I  have  had 
the  thanks  of  the  army,  the  fleet,  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, and  of  great  numbers  of  gentry  in  the  three 
nations.  Now  the  government  being  thus  set- 
tled, I  apprehend  there  are  four  fundamentals 
which  may  not  be  examined  into  or  altered. 
(1.)  That  the  government  be  in  a  single  person 
and  a  Pailiament.  (2.)  That  Parliaments  be  not 
perpetual.  (3.)  The  article  relating  to  the  mi- 
litia. And,  (4  )  A  due  liberty  of  conscience  in 
matters  of  religion.  Other  things  in  the  gov- 
ernment may  be  changed  as  occasion  reqiiiies. 
Forasmuch,  therefore,  as  you  have  gone  about  to 
subvert  the  fundamentals  of  this  government, 
and  throw  all  things  back  into  confusion,  to 
prevent  the  like  for  the  future,  I  am  necessita- 
.ted  to  appoint  you  a  test  or  recognition  of  the 
government,  by  which  you  are  made  ;i  Parlia- 
ment, before  you  go  any  more  into  the  House. "  + 
Accordingly,  at  their  return,  they  found  a  guard 
at  the  door  denying  entrance  to  any  who  would 

*  Dugdale's  Late  Troubles,  p.  426,  &c. 
t  Whitelocke,  p.  587. 


not  first  sign  the  following  engagement :  "  r, 
A.  B.,  do  hereby  freely  promise  and  engage  to 
be  true  and  faithful  to  the  lord-protector  of  the 
commonwealth  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land, and  will  not  propose  or  give  my  consent 
to  alter  the  government,  as  it  is  settled  in  one 
single  person  and  a  Parliament."  About  three 
hundred  of  the  members  signed  the  recognition, 
and  having  taken  their  places  in  the  House, 
with  some  difficulty  confirmed  the  instrument 
of  government  almost  in  everything  but  the 
right  of  nominating  a  successor  to  the  present 
protector,  which  they  reserved  to  the  Parlia- 
ment. They  voted  the  present  lord-protector  to 
continue  for  life.  They  continued  the  standing 
army  of  ten  thousand  horse  and  twenty  thou- 
sand foot,  and  £60,000  a  month  for  their  main- 
tenance. They  gave  the  protector  £200,000  a 
year  for  his  civil  list,  and  assigned  Whitehall, 
St.  James's,  and  the  rest  of  the  late  king's  hous- 
es for  his  use ;  but  they  were  out  of  humour, 
and  were  so  far  from  showing  respect  to  the 
court,  that  they  held  no  manner  of  correspond- 
ence with  it ;  which,  together  with  their  voting 
that  no  one  clause  of  what  they  had  agreed  upon 
should  be  binding  unless  the  whole  were  con- 
sented to,  provoked  the  protector,*  as  deroga- 
ting from  his  power  of  consenting  to  or  refusing 
particular  bills,  and  therefore,  having  discover- 
ed several  plots  against  his  government  ready 
to  break  out,  in  which  some  of  the  members 
were  concerned,  he  sent  for  them  into  the  Paint- 
ed Chamber,  January  22  ;  and  after  a  long  and 
intricate  speech,  in  which,  after  some  strong  ex- 
pressions in  favour  of  liberty  to  men  of  the 
same  faith,  though  of  different  judgments  in 
lesser  matters,  he  complained  that  they  had 
taken  no  more  notice  of  him,  either  by  message 
or  address,  than  if  there  had  been  no  such  per- 
son in  being;  that  they  had  done  nothing  for 
the  honour  and  support  of  the  government,  but 
spent  their  time  in  fruitless  debates  of  little  con- 
sequence, while  the  nation  was  bleeding  to 
death  ;  and  instead  of  making  things  easy,  that 
they  had  laid  a  foundation  for  future  dissatis- 
factions ;  he  therefore  dissolved  them,  without 
confirming  any  of  their  acts,  after  they  had  sat 
five  months,  according  to  the  instrument  of 
government,  reckoning  twenty-eight  days  to  a 
month.  This  was  deemed  an  unpopular  action, 
and  a  renouncing  the  additional  title  the  Parlia- 
ment would  have  given  him ;  but  this  great  man, 
with  the  sword  in  his  hand,  was  not  to  be  jost- 
led out  of  the  saddle  witli  votes  ai.d  resolu- 
tions ;  and  if  one  may  credit  his  speech,  his  as- 
suming the  government  was  not  so  much  the 
effect  of  his  own  ambition,  as  of  a  bold  resolu- 
tion to  prevent  the  nation's  falling  back  into 
anarchy  and  blood. 

Upon  the  rising  of  the  Parliament,  Major- 
general  Harrison,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Re- 
publicans, was  taken  into  custody  ;t   and  Mr. 


*  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  291. 

+  The  Republicans  were  divided  into  two  branch- 
es, the  political  and  the  religious,  the  former  headed 
by  Vane,  Bradshavv,  and  Scoit ;  the  latter,  by  Harri- 
son and  others.  Some  of  these  leaders  partook  of 
the  qualities  which  distinguished  both  parties.  Vane 
was  at  once  a  staresman  anrl  mystic;  while  Harri- 
son combined  military  qualities  of  a  high  order  with 
an  enthusiasm  as  ardent  and  visionary  as  any  of  his 
soldiers.  Few  men  have  had  more  reason  to  com- 
[ilain  of  the  judgment  of  posterity  than  Harrison. 


142 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


John  Wildman,  who  had  been  expelled  the 
House,  was  apprehended  as  he  was  drawing 
up  a  paper,  entitled  "  A  Declaration  of  the  free 
and  well-affected  People  of"  England  now  in 
Arms  against  the  Tyrant  Oliver  Cromwell ;" 
which  prevented  the  rising  of  that  party.* 

The  Royalists  were  buying  up  arms  at  the 
same  time,  and  preparing  to  rise  in  several  parts 
of  the  kingdom!  They  had  procured  commis- 
sions from  the  young  king  at  Cologne,  and  de- 
sired his  majesty  to  be  ready  on  the  seacoast 
by  the  11th  of  March,  when  there  would  be  a 
revolt  in  the  army,  and  when  Dover  Castle 
would  be  delivered  into  their  hands.  The  king, 
accordingly,  removed  to  Middleburgh  in  Zea- 
land ;  but  the  protector  had  intelligence  of  it 
from  his  spies,  and  declared  it  openly  as  soon 
as  he  was  arrived,  which  intimidated  the  con- 
spirators, and  made  them  fear  they  were  dis- 
covered :  however,  about  the  time  appointed, 
some  small  parties  of  Royalists  got  togeth- 
er in   Shropshire  with  an   intent   to   surprise 

He  committed  some  errors,  and  who  that  has  acted 
a  prominent  part  in  times  of  revolution  has  done  oth- 
erwise ?  But  take  him  as  a  whole,  he  was  a  man  of 
whom  England  may  well  be  proud.  Honest,  undaunt- 
ed, and  of  acknowledged  military  genius,  he  was  infe- 
rior only  to  Cromwell  in  the  army.  His  character  is 
ably  vindicated  by  Mr.  Godwin,  in  his  History  of  the 
Commonwealth,  vol.  iv.,  p.  379-387.  The  policy  of 
Vane  and  his  associates  was  decided,  yet  cautious. 
They  bore  a  public  testimony  against  the  usurper  by 
retiring  from  his  councils,  &c.,  while  they  prudently 
refused  to  mix  themselves  up  with  the  conspiracies 
that  were  afloat.  But  the  party  which  Harrison  rep- 
resented was  not  to  be  thus  restrained.  His  own 
conduct  was  unexceptionable — frank,  but  prudent ; 
true  to  his  avowed  principles,  yet  tempered  by  a  just 
sense  of  the  evil  which  another  revolution  would 
bring  on  the  country.  But  the  fifth  monarchy  men 
vyere  in  the  calm  spirit,  and  on  the  prudential  con- 
siderations of  Vane  and  Bradshaw.  They  saw  in 
the  protector  a  second  Antichrist ;  a  power  opposed 
to  the  setting  up  of  that  kingdom  in  the  triumphs 
of  which  they  were  to  share.  With  them  it  was 
a  question  of  conscience,  and  admitted  of  no  de- 
lay. They  were  the  chosen  heralds  of  Messiah,  the 
liege  subjects  of  the  Prince  of  Heaven.  The  voice  of 
the  eternal  God  summoned  them  to  bear  witness  on 
his  behalf  before  an  apostate  generation.  Faithful 
among  the  faithless,  they  stood  alone  to  achieve  the 
mighty  enterprise  of  stemming  the  torrent  of  a  na- 
tion's corruption — of  throwing  back  the  polluted 
waters  which  threatened  to  deluge  their  Zion  ;  and 
on  the  fair  face  of  a  renovated  creation,  to  stamp 
the  characters  of  paradise.  Such  was  their  faith  : 
ethereal,  yet  earthly;  high-minded,  but  visionary; 
having  its  origin  in  some  of  the  noblest  aspirations 
of  the  human  mind,  yet  incrusted  with  the  prejudi- 
ces and  passions  of  the  channel  through  which  it 
passed.  Their  proceedings  were,  consequently,  a 
strange  mixture  of  wisdom  and  folly,  of  power  and 
we.ikness.  Some  of  the  fifth  monarchy  men  were 
distinguished  by  an  exalted  and  blameless  piety. 
Their  visionary  scheme  arose  out  of  the  sthnulating 
events  of  the  day.  Applying  the  splendid  visions  of 
prophecy  to  the  passing  circumstances  of  their  times, 
they  looked  for  the  speedy  annihilation  of  all  anti- 
Christian  powers,  and  the  establishment  of  a  univer- 
sal monarchy,  under  the  immediate  auspices  and  per- 
sonal superintendence  of  the  Messiah.  The  extrav- 
agances of  the  more  violent  members  of  the  sect 
have,  with  glaring  injustice,  been  attributed  by  our 
historians  to  the  whole,  and  infidelity  and  a  "cold- 
hearted  formalism  have  thus  sought  to  throw  discred- 
it upon  religion.— Z>r.  Price's  Histori/  of  Nonconform- 
ity, vol.  n.,  p.  556-7.— C.  *  Whitelocke,  p.  COO. 
t  Clarendon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  551. 


Shrewsbury  and  Chirk  Castle.  A  cart-load  of 
arms  was  brought  to  a  place  of  rendezvous  for 
the  northern  parts,  where  they  were  to  be  head- 
ed by  "Wilmot,  earl  of  Rochester  ;  hut  they  no 
sooner  met  but  they  dispersed,  for  fear  of  being 
fallen  upon  by  the  regular  troops.  In  the  west^ 
Sir  Josepli  Wagstaffe,  Colonel  Penruddock,  Cap- 
tain Hugh  Grove,  Mr.  Jones,  and  others,  entered 
the  city  of  Salisbury,  with  two  hundred  horse 
well  armed,  in  the  time  of  the  assizes,  and 
seized  the  Judges  Rolls  and  Nichols,  with  the 
sheriff  of  the  county,  whom  they  resolved  to 
hang.  They  proclaimed  the  king,  and  threaten- 
ed violence  to  such  as  would  not  join  them  ;  but 
the  country  not  coming  in  according  to  their 
expectations,  they  were  intimidated,  and  after 
five  or  six  hours  marched  away  into  Dorsetshire, 
and  from  thence  to  Devonshire,  where  Captain 
Crook  overtook  them,  and  with  one  single  troop 
of  horse  defeated  and  took  most  of  them  pris- 
oners ;  Penruddock  and  Grove  were  beheaded 
at  Exeter  ;  and  some  few  others  were  executed 
at  Salisbury,  the  place  where  they  had  so  lately 
triumphed. 

The  vigilance  of  the  protector  on  this  occa- 
sion is  almost  incredible  ;  he  caused  a  great 
many  suspected  lords  and  gentlemen  to  be  se- 
cured ;  he  sent  letters  to  the  justices  of  peace 
in  every  county,  whom  he  had  already  changed' 
to  his  mind,  commanding  them  to  look  out,  and 
secure  all  persons  who  should  make  the  least 
disturbance.  And  his  private  intelligence  of 
people's  discourse  and  behaviour,  in  every  cor- 
ner of  the  land,  never  failed.* 

If  the  reader  will  duly  consider  the  danger 
arising  from  these  commotions,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  striking  some  terror  into  the  authors  of. 
them,  he  will  easily  account  for  the  jirotector's 
.severity  against  the  Royalists  :  when,  therefore, 
the  insurrection  was  quashed,  he  resolved  to 
inake  the  whole  party  pay  the  expense  ;  and  ac- 
cordingly, with  the  consent  of  his  council,  pub- 
lished an  order,  "  that  all  who  had  been  in  arms 
for  the  king,  or  had  declared  themselves  of  the 
Royal  party,  should  be  decimated  ;  that  is,  pay 
a  tenth  part  of  their  estates  to  support  the 
charge  of  such  extraordinary  forces  as  their  tur- 
bulent and  seditious  practices  obliged  him  to 
keep  up  ;  for  which  purpose  commissioners  were 
appointed  in  every  county,  and  considerable 
sums  were  brought  into  the  treasury."  To  jus- 
tify this  extraordinary  procedure,  the  protector 
published  another  declaration  ;  in  which  he 
complains  of  the  irreconcilableness  of  those 
who  had  adhered  to  the  king,  towards  all  those 
who  had  served  their  country  on  the  side  of  the 
Parliament ;  that  they  were  now  to  be  looked 
upon  as  public  enemies,  and  to  be  kept  from  be- 
ing able  to  do  mischief,  since  it  sufficiently  ap- 
peared that  they  were  always  disposed  to  do  all 
they  could.  Upon  these  accounts,  he  thought  it 
highly  reasonable,  and  declares  it  to  be  his  res- 
olution, that  if  any  desperate  attempts  were  un- 
dertaken by  them  for  the  future,  the  whole  par- 
ty should  suffer  for  it. 

To  return  to  the  affairs  of  religion  :  though 
the  Presbyterian  discipline  was  at  a  low  ebb,  it 
was  still  the  established  religion  of  the  nation. 
The  Provincial  Assembly  of  London  continued 
their  sessions  at  Sion  College  every  half  year, 
and  endeavoured  to  support  the  dignity  of  the 

*  "Whitelocke,  p.  C02. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


US' 


ministerial  office.  Complaint  having  been  made 
that  the  pulpit  doors  were  set  open  to  laymen 
and  gifted  brethren,  they  appointed  a  committee 
to  collect  materials  for  the  vindication  of  the 
ministerial  character^which,  being  revised  by  the 
synod,  was  published  this  summer,  imder  the  ti- 
tle of  "  Jus  Divinum  Ministerii  Evangelici ;  or, 
the  Divine  Right  of  an  Evangelical  Ministry,  in 
two  Parts.  By  the  Provincial  Assembly  of  Lon- 
don. With  an  Appendix,  of  the  Judgment  and 
Practice  of  Antiquity." 

In  the  debates  of  Parliament  upon  the  instru- 
ment of  government,  it  was  observed  that,  by  the 
thirty-seventh  article,  all  who  professed  faith  in 
God  by  Jesus  Christ  should  be  protected  in  their 
religion.*  This  was  interpreted  to  imply  an 
agreement  in  fundamentals.  Upon  which  it  was 
voted,  that  all  should  be  tolerated  or  indulged 
who  professed  the  fundamentals  of  Christiani- 
ty ;  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  nominate 
certain  divines  to  draw  up  a  catalogue  of  fun- 
damentals to  be  presented  to  the  House  :  the 
committee  being  above  fourteen,  named  each  of 
them  a  divine  ;  among  others,  Arciibishop  Ush- 
er was  nominated,  but  he  declining  the  affair, 
Mr.  Baxter  was  appointed  in  his  room  ;  the  rest 
who  acted  were. 


Mr.  Nye. 

Mr.  Sydrach  Simpson. 

Mr.  Vines. 

Mr.  Manton. 

Mr.  Jacomb. 


Dr.  Owen. 
Dr.  Goodwin. 
Dr.  Cheynel. 
Mr.  Marshal. 
Mr.  Reyner. 

Mr.  Baxtert  would  have  persuaded  his  breth- 
ren to  offer  the  committee  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  Ten  Commandments 
alone,  as  containing  the  fundamentals  of  reli- 
gion ;  but  it  was  objected,  that  this  would  in- 
clude Socinians  and  papists.  Mr.  Baxter  re- 
plied that  it  was  so  much  fitter  for  a  centre  of 
unity  or  concord,  because  it  was  impossible,  in 
his  opinion,  to  devise  a  form  of  words  which 
heretics  would  not  subscribe,  when  they  had 
perverted  them  to  their  own  sense.  These  ar- 
guments not  prevailing,  the  following  articles 
were  presented  to  the  committee,  but  not 
brought  into  the  House,!  under  the  title  of 
"  The  Principles  of  Faith,  presented  by  Mr. 
Thomas  Goodwin,  Mr.  Nye,  Mr.  Sydrach  Simp- 
son, and  other  Ministers,  to  the  Committee  of 
Parliament  for  Religion,  by  way  of  Explanation 
to  the  Proposals  for  propagating  the  Gospel." 

1st.  That  the  Holy  Scripture  is  that  rule  of 
knowing  God  and  living  unto  him,  which  whoso 
does  not  believe,  cannot  be  saved. — 2  Thes.,  ii., 
10-12,  15.  1  Cor.,  XV.,  1-3.  2  Cor.,  i.,  13. 
John,  v.,  39.     2  Peter,  ii.,  1. 

2dly.  That  there  is  a  God,  who  is  the  crea- 
tor, governor,  and  judge  of  the  world,  which  is 
to  be  received  by  faith,  and  every  other  way  of 
the  knowledge  of  him  is  insufficient. — Heb.,  xi., 


*  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  197. 

+  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  198. 

X  Neal  represents  these  articles  as  consisting  of 
only  sixteen,  and  says  they  were  not  brought  into  the 
House  ;  but  the  testimony,  of  Baxter,  and  the  follow- 
ing entry  on  the  journals,  proves  him  to  be  inaccu- 
rate on  both  these  points:  "Sir  William  Marsham 
reports  from  the  committee  empowered  to  confer 
with  divines  touching  articles  of  faith,  twenty  arti- 
cles, with  the  proofs  thereof  from  Scripture.  Re- 
solved, that  three  hundred  copies  of  these  articles 
be  printed,  only  for  the  service  of  the  House,''  &c. — 
Burton's  Diary,  Introduction,  p.  119. — C 


3,6.     Rom.,  i,  19-22.    1  Cor.,  i.,  21.    2Thess., 

i.,  8. 

3dly.  That  this  God,  who  is  the  creator,  is 
eternally  distinct  from  all  creatures  in  his  being 
and  blessedness. — Rom.,  i.,  18,  25.  1  Cor., 
viii.,  5,  6. 

4thly.  That  this  God  is  one  in  three  persons 
or  subsistences. — 1  John,  v.,  5-9,  compared 
with  John,  viii.,  17-19,  21.  Malt.,  xxviii.,  19, 
compared  with  Ephesians,  iv.,  4-6.  1  John,  ii., 
22,  23.     2  John,  9,  10. 

5thly.  That  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  mediator 
between  God  and  man,  without  the  knowledge 
of  whom  there  is  no  salvation. — 1  Tim.,  ii.,  4-6. 
2  Tim.,  iii.,  15.  1  John,  ii.,  22.  Acts,  iv.,  10, 
12.     1  Cor.,  iii.,  10,  11. 

6thly.  That  this  Jesus  Christ  is  the  true  God. 
— 1  John,  v.,  29.     Isaiah,  xlv.,  21-25. 

7thly.  That  this  Jesus  Christ  is  also  true  man. 
— 1  John,  iv.,  2,  3.     2  John,  7. 

8thly.  That  tliis  Jesus  Christ  is  God  and  man 
inoneperson.— 1  Tim.,  iii.,  16.  Matt.,xvi.,  13-18. 

9thly.  That  this  Jesus  Christ  is  our  Redeemer, 
who,  by  paying  a  ransom  and  bearing  our  sins, 
has  made  satisfaction  for  them. — Isaiah,  liii., 
11.  1  Pet.,  ii.,  24,  25.  1  Cor.,  xv.,  2,  3.  1 
Tim.,  ii.,  4-6. 

lOthly.  That  this  same  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is 
he  that  was  crucified  at  Jerusalem,  and  rose 
again,  and  ascended  into  heaven. — John,  viii., 
24.  Acts,  iv,  10-12.  Acts,  x.,  38-43.  1  Cor., 
XV.,  2-8.     Acts,  xxii.,  2.     Acts,  ii.,  36. 

llthly.  That  this  same  Jesus  Christ,  being 
the  only  God  and  man  in  one  person,  remains 
forever  a  distinct  person  from  all  saints  and 
angels,  notwithstanding  their  union  and  com- 
munion with  him. — Col.,  ii.,  8-10,  19.  1  Tim., 
iii.,  16. 

12thly.  That  all  men  by  nature  are  dead  in 
sins  and  trespasses  ;  and  no  man  can  be  saved 
unless  he  be  born  again,  repent  and  believe. — 
John,  iii.,  3,  5-7,  10.  Acts,  xvii.,  30,  31.  Acts, 
xxvi,  17-20.  Luke,xxiv.,47.  Acts,  xx.,  20,  21. 
John,  v.,  24,  25. 

13thly.  That  we  are  justified  and  saved  by 
grace  and  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  by 
works. — Acts,  xv.,  24,  compared  with  Gal.,  i., 
6-9.  Gal,  v.,  2,4,  5.  Rom,  ix,  31-33.  Rom., 
x.,3,  4.  Rom.,  i,  16,  17.  Gal,  iii.,  11.  Ephes., 
ii.,  8-10. 

14thly.  That  to  continue  in  any  known  sin, 
upon  what  pretence  or  principle  soever,  is  dam- 
nable.—Rom.,  i.,  32.  Rom.,  vi.,  1, 2,  15, 16.  1 
John,  i.,  6,  8,  and  iii.,  3-8.  2  Pet.,  ii.,  19,  20. 
Rom.,  viii.,  13. 

ISthly.  That  God  is  to  be  worshipped  accord- 
ing to  his  own  will ;  and  whosoever  shall  for- 
sake and  despise  all  the  duties  of  his  worship, 
cannot  be  saved. — Jer.,  x.,  15.  Psalm  xiv.,  4. 
Jude,  18-21.     Rom.,  x.,  13. 

lethly.  That  the  dead  shall  rise  ;  and  that 
there  is  a  day  of  judgment,  wherein  all  shall 
appear,  some  to  go  into  everlasting  life,  and 
some  into  everlasting  condemnation— 1  Tim., 
i.,  19,20,compared  wilh2  Tim.,ii.,  17,18.  Acts, 
xvii,  30,  31.     John,  v.,  28,  29.     1  Cor.,  xv.,  19. 

Mr.  Baxter*  says  Dr.  Owen  worded  these  ar- 
ticles ;  that  Dr.  Goodwin,  Mr.  Nye,  and  Mr. 
Simpson,  were  his  assistants  ;  that  Dr.  Chey- 
nel was  scribe  ;  and  that  Mr.  Marshal,  a  sober, 
worthy  man,  did  something ;  but  that  the  rest 

*  Life,  p.  205. 


144 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


were  little  better  than  passive.  He  adds,  that 
twenty  of  their  propositions  were  printed, 
though  in  my  copy,  licensed  by  Scobel,  there 
are  only  sixteen  :  however,  the  Parliament  be- 
ing abruptly  dissolved,  they  were  all  buried  in 
oblivion. 

It  appears  by  these  articles,  that  these  divines 
intended  to  exclude,  not  only  Deists,  Socinians, 
and  papists,  but  Arians,  Antinomians,  Quakers, 
and  others.  Into  such  difficulties  do  wise  and 
good  men  fall  when  they  usurp  the  kingly  of- 
Sce  of  Christ,  and  pretend  to  restrain  that  lib- 
erty which  is  the  birthright  of  every  reasonable 
creature  !  It  is  an  unwarrantable  ■presumption 
Jor  any  number  of  men  to  declare  what  is  funda- 
mental in  the  Christian  reltgion,  any  farther  than 
the  Scriptures  have  expressly  declared  it.*  It  is 
one  thing  to  maintain  a  doctrine  to  be  true,  and 
another  to  declare  that  without  the  belief  of  it 
no  man  can  be  saved  :  none  may  say  this  but  God 
himself.  Besides,  why  should  the  civil  magis- 
trate protect  none  but  those  who  profess  faith 
in  God  by  Jesus  Christ^  If  a  colony  of  Eng- 
lish merchants  should  settle  among  the  Moham- 
medans or  Chinese,  should  we  not  think  that  the 
government  of  those  countries  ought  to  protect 
them  in  their  religion  as  long  as  they  invaded  no 
man's  property,  and  paid  obedience  and  sub- 
mission to  the  government  under  which  they 
lived  1  Why,  then,  should  Christians  deny  oth- 
ers the  same  liberty  ! 

The  protector  and  his  council  were  in  more 
generous  sentiments  of  liberty,  as  will  appear 
hereafter.t  Mr.  Baxter  saysj  the  protector 
and  his  friends  gave  out  that  they  could  not 
understand  what  the  magistrates  had  to  do  in 
matters  of  religion  ;  they  thought  that  all  men 
should  be  left  to  the  liberty  of  their  own  con- 
sciences, and  that  the  magistrate  could  not  in- 
terpose without  ensnaring  himself  in  the  guilt 
of  persecution.  And  were  not  these  just  and 
noble  sentiments,  though  the  Parliament  would 
not  accept  them1  His  highness,  therefore,  in 
his  speech  at  their  dissolution,  reproaches  them 
in  these  words  :^  "  How  proper  is  it  to  labour 
for  liberty,  that  men  should  not  be  trampled  upon 
for  their  consciences  !  Have  we  not  lately  la- 
boured under  the  weight  of  persecution  ;  and  is 
it  fit,  then,  to  sit  heavy  upon  others?  Is  it  ingen- 
uous to  ask  liberty,  and  not  to  give  if!     What 

*  Mr.  Orme  urges  in  vindication  of  the  divines, 
that  "  they  were  called  together  to  state  what  in 
their  opinion  was  fundamental  in  Christianity.  With 
the  propriety,"  he  adds,  "  of  tolerating  those  who  dif- 
fered from  them  on  the  points  of  their  declaration, 
they  had  nothing  to  do.  The  use  to  be  made  of  these 
papers  was  no  concern  of  theirs,  and  to  the  question 
proposed  to  them  they  religiously  adhered,  as  they 
gave  no  opinion  of  any  kind  on  the  subject  of  reli- 
gious liberty."  "  This  defence,"  says  Dr.  Price,  "  is 
more  specious  than  just.  The  divines  were  well  in- 
formed of  the  temper  which  originated  their  appoint- 
ment, and  of  the  use  which  would  be  made  of  their 
labours.  They  ought  to  have  declined  the  invidious 
task,  and  to  have  enforced  a  more  enlarged  and  tol- 
erant pohcy  ;  advocates  of  toleration  themselves, 
they  were  placed  in  the  disreputable  position  of  aid- 
ing \,he  mioierance  of  others." — Orme's  Life  of  Owen, 
p.  115.  C. 

t  "  Bigotry,"  says  Dr.  Harris,  "  made  no  part  of 
Cromwell's  character;"  and  he  proves  the  truth  of 
his  assertion  by  a  full  elucidation  and  a  minute  detail. 
• — Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  37-45. — En. 

X  Life,  p.  193.  ()  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  307. 


greater  hypocrisy,  than  for  those  who  were  op- 
pressed by  the  bishops  to  become  the  greatest 
oppressors  themselves,  so  soon  as  their  yoke  is 
removed  f  I  could  wish  that  they  who  call  for 
liberty  now  also,  had  not  too  much  of  that  spirit, 
if  the  power  were  in  their  hands.  As  for  pro- 
fane persons,  blasphemers,  such  as  preach  sedi- 
tion, contentious  railers,  evil-speakers,  who 
seek  by  evil  words  to  corrupt  good  manners, 
and  persons  of  loose  conversation,  punishment 
from  the  civil  magistrate  ought  to  meet  with 
them  ;  because,  if  these  pretend  conscience,  yet 
walking  disorderly,  and  not  according,  but  con- 
trary, to  the  Gospel  and  natural  light,  they  are 
judged  of  all,  and  their  sins  being  open,  make 
them  the  subject  of  the  magistrates'  sword, 
who  ought  not  to  bear  it  in  vain." 

Agreeably  to  these  principles,  Dr.  George 
Bates,  an  eminent  Royalist,  and  a  great  enemy 
of  Cromwell's,  writes,  "  that  the  protector  in- 
dulged the  use  of  the  Common  Prayer  in  fami- 
lies, and  in  private  conventicles  ;  and  though 
the  condition  of  the  Church  of  England  was 
but  melancholy,  yet,"  says  the  doctor,  "  it  can- 
not be  denied  but  they  had  a  great  deal  more 
favour  and  indulgence  than  under  the  Parlia- 
ment ;  which  would  never  have  been  interrupt- 
ed had  they  not  insulted  the  protector,  and  for- 
feited their  liberty  by  their  seditious  practices 
and  plottings  against  his  person  and  govern- 
ment."' 

The  approbation  of  public  ministers  had  been 
hitherto  reserved  to  the  several  presbyteries 
in  city  and  country ;  but  the  protector  observ- 
ing some  inconvenience  in  this  method,  and  not 
being  willing  to  intrust  the  qualification  of  can- 
didates all  over  England  to  a  number  of  Pres- 
byterians only,  who  might  admit  none  but  those 
of  their  own  persuasion,  contrived  a  middle  way 
of  joining  the  several  parties  together,  and  in- 
trusting the  affair  with  certain  commissioners 
of  each  denomination,  men  of  as  known  abili- 
ties and  integrity  as  any  the  nation  had.*  This 
was  done  by  an  ordinance  of  council,  bearing 
date  March  20,  1653-4  ;  the  preamble  to  which 
sets  forth,  '■  that  whereas  for  some  time  past 
there  had  not  been  any  certain  course  establish- 
ed for  supplying  vacant  places  with  able  and  fit 
persons  to  preach  the  Gospel,  by  reason  where- 
of the  rights  and  titles  of  patrons  were  preju- 
diced, and  many  weak,  scandalous,  popish,  and 
ill-affected  persons  had  intruded  themselves,  or 
been  brought  in  ;  for  remedy  of  which  it  is  or- 
dained by  his  highness  the  lord-protector,  by 
and  with  the  consent  of  his  council,  that  every 
person  who  shall,  after  the  25th  of  March,  1654, 
be  presented,  nominated,  chosen,  or  appointed 
to  any  benefice  with  care  of  souls,  or  to  any 
public  settled  lecture  in  England  or  Wales,  shall, 
before  he  be  admitted,  be  examined  and  appro- 
ved by  the  persons  hereafter  named,  to  be  a  per- 
son, lor  the  grace  of  God  in  him,  his  holy  and 
unblamable  conversation,  as  also  for  his  knowl- 
edge and  utterance,  able  and  fit  to  preach  the 
Gospel. "t  Among  the  commissioners  were 
eight  or  nine  laymen,  the  rest  ministers ;  their 
names  were, 


Francis  Rouse,  Esq. 
Alderman  Tichbouriie. 
Mark  Ilililesly,  Esq. 
Thomas  Wood,  Esq. 


John  Sadler.  Esq. 
William  Goffe,  Esq. 
Thomas  St.  Nicholas,  Esq. 
William  Packer,  Esq. 


*  Baxter's  Life,  p.  72. 


t  Scobel,  p.  279. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


145 


Rev.  Mr.  Stephen  Marshall. 

"  John  Toinbes,  B.D. 

"  Mr.  Walter  Craddock. 

"  Mr.  Samuel  Fairclough. 

"  Mr.  Hugh  Peters. 

"  Mr.  Peter  Sterry. 

•'  Mr.  Samuel  Bamford. 

"  Thomas   Valentine,   of 

Chaford,  B.D. 

"  Mr.  Henry  Jesse- 

"  Mr.  Obadiah  Sedgwick. 

"  Mr.  Nicholas  Lockyer. 

"  Mr.  Dan.  Dike. 

"  Mr.  James  Russel. 

"  Mr.  Nath.  Campfield. 


Edward  Cresset,  Esq. 

Rev.  Dr.  John  Owen. 

"  Dr.  Thomas  Goodwin. 

"  Dr.  Arrowsmith. 

"  Dr.  Tuckney. 

"  Dr.  Horton. 

"  Thankful  Owen,  M.A. 

"  Mr.  Joseph  Caryl. 

"  Mr.  Philip  Nye. 

"  Mr.  William  Carter. 

"  Mr.  Sydrach  Simpson. 

"  Mr.  William  Greenhill 

"  Mr.  William  Strong. 

"  Mr.  Thomas  Manton. 

"  Mr.  Samuel  Slater. 

"  Mr.  William  Cooper. 

These  were  commonly  called  triers ;  in  all, 
thirty-eight ;  of  whom  some  were  Presbyteri- 
ans, others  Independents,  and  two  or  three  were 
Baptists.  Any  five  were  sufficient  to  approve  ; 
but  no  number  under  nine  had  power  to  reject 
a  person  as  unqualified.  In  case  of  death,  or 
removal  of  any  of  the  commissioners,  their  num- 
bers were  to  be  filled  up  by  the  protector  and 
his  council ;  or  by  the  Parliament,  if  sitting. 
But  some  of  the  Presbyterian  divines  declined 
acting,  for  want  of  a  better  authority ;  or  be- 
cause they  did  not  like  the  company  ;  though 
the  authority  was  as  good  as  any  these  times 
could  produce  till  the  next  sessions  of  Parlia- 
ment.* By  an  ordinance  of  September  2,  1654, 
I  find  the  Rev.  Mr.  John  Rowe,  Mr.  John  Bond, 
Mr.  George  Griffith  of  the  Charter  House,  Mr. 
John  Turner,  and  Godfrey  Bosville,  Esq.,  added 
to  the  commissioners  above  mentioned. 

To  such  as  were  approved,  the  commission- 
ers gave  an  instrument  in  writing  under  a  com- 
man  seal  for  that  purpose,  by  virtue  of  which 
they  were  put  into  as  full  possession  of  the  liv- 
ing to  which  they  were  nominated  or  chosen  as 
if  they  had  been  admitted  by  institution  and  in- 
duction. 

It  was  farther  provided,  that  all  whq  present- 
ed themselves  for  approbation  should  produce  a 
certificate  signed  by  three  persons  at  least,  of 
known  integrity,  one  of  whom  to  he  a  preacher 
of  the  Gospel  in  some  settled  place,  testifying 
on  their  personal  knowledge  the  holy  and  good 
conversation  of  the  person  to  be  admitted ; 
which  certificate  was  to  be  registered  and  filed. 
And  all  penalties  for  not  subscribing  or  reading 
the  articles  of  religion,  according  to  the  act  of 
13  Eliz.,  were  to  cease  and  be  void. 

And  forasmuch  as  some  persons  might  have 
been  preferred  to  livings  within  the  last  twelve- 
month, when  there  was  no  settled  method  of 
approbation,  the  ordinance  looks  back,  and  or- 
dains "  that  no  person  who  had  been  placed  in 
any  benefice  or  lecture  since  April  1, 1653,  should 
be  allowed  to  continue  in  it,  unless  he  got  him- 
self approved  by  the  24th  of  June,  or  at  far- 
thest the  23d  of  July,  1654." 

It  is  observable  that  this  ordinance  provides 
no  security  for  the  civil  government,  the  com- 
missioners not  being  empowered  to  administer 
an  oath  of  allegiance  or  fidelity  to  the  protector. 
By  this  means,  some  of  the  sequestered  clergy, 
taking  advantage  of  the  Act  of  Oblivion  in  1651, 
passed  their  trials  before  the  commissioners,  and 
returned  to  their  livings.  The  protector  being 
advised  of  this  defect,  by  advice  of  his  council, 
published  an  additional  ordinance,  September  2, 
1654,  requiring  the  commissioners  not  to  give 
admission  to  any  who  had  been   sequestered 


Voc.  II.— T 


Scobel,  p.  366. 


from  their  ecclesiastical  benences  for  delinquen- 
cy, till,  by  experience  of  their  conformity,  and 
'submission  to  the  present  government,  his  high- 
ness and  his  council  should  be  satisfied  of  their 
fitness  to  be  admitted  into  ecclesiastical  promo- 
tions ;  and  the  same  to  be  signified  to  the  said 
commissioners.*  Both  these  ordinances  were 
confirmed  by  Parliament  in  the  year  1656, 
with  this  proviso,  "that  the  commissioners  ap- 
pointed by  his  highness  in  tlie  intervals  of  Par- 
liament should  afterward  be  confirmed  by  the 
succeeding  Parliament."  Another  defect  in  the 
ordinance  was,  that  it  did  not  appoint  some 
standard  or  rule  for  the  triers  to  go  by  ;  this 
would  have  taken  off  all  odium  from  themselves, 
and  prevented  a  great  many  needless  disputes  ; 
but,  as  matters  now  stood,  men's  qualifications 
were  perhaps  left  too  much  to  the  arbitrary  opin- 
ions and  votes  of  the  commissioners.  After 
examination,  they  gave  the  candidate  a  copy  of 
the  presentation  in  these  words  :t  "Know  all 

men  by  these,  presents,  that  the day  of , 

in  the  year  ,  there  was  exhibited  to  the 

commissioners  for  examination  of  public  minis- 
ters a  presentation  of  Mr. to  the  rectory 

of ,  in  the  county  of ,  made  to  him  by 

Mr. ,  the  patron  thereof,  under  his  hand  and 

seal,  together  with  a  testimony  of  his  holy  and 
godly  conversation.  Upon  perusal,  and  due  con- 
sideration of  the  premises,  and  finding  him  to 
be  a  person  qualified,  as  in  and  by  the  ordinance 
for  such  qualifications  is  required,  the  commis- 
sioners above  mentioned  have  adjudged  and  ap- 
proved the  said  Mr. to  be  a  fit  person  to 

preach  the  Gospel,  and  have  granted  him  admis- 
sion, and  do  admit  the  said  Mr. to  the  rec- 
tory of aforesaid,  to  be  full  and  perfect  pos- 
sessor and  incumbent  thereof;  and  do  hereby 
signify  to  all  persons  concerned  therein,  that  he 
is  hereby  entitled  to  all  the  profits  and  perquis- 
ites, and  to  all  rights  and  dues  incident  and  be- 
longing to  the  said  rectory,  as  fully  and  effectu- 
ally as  if  he  had  been  instituted  and  inducted 
according  to  any  such  laws  and  customs  as  have 
in  this  case  formerly  been  made  or  used  in  this 
realm.  In  witness  whereof,  they  have  caused 
the  com.mon  seal  to  be  hereunto  affixed,  and  the 
same  to  be  attested  by  the  hand  of  the  registrar, 
by  his  highness  in  that  behalf  appointed.  Da- 
ted  at ,  the day  of ,  in  the  year 

"(L.S.)  John  Nye,  Reg." 

Loud  complaints  have  been  made  against 
these  triers  ;  Mr.  CoUyer  objects  to  there  being 
eight  laymen  among  the  commissioners,  and 
that  any  five  having  power  to  act,  it  might  some- 
times happen  that  none  but  secular  men  might 
determine  the  qualifications  of  such  who  were 
to  preach  and  administer  the  sacraments. 

Mr.  John  Goodwin,  an  Independent  divine  of 
Arminian  principles,  observes,  the  triers  made 
their  own  narrow  Calvinian  sentiments  in  di- 
vinity the  door  of  admission  to  all  church  pref- 
erments ;  and  that  their  power  was  greater  than 
the  bishops',  because  the  laws  had  provided  a 
remedy  against  their  arbitrary  proceedings,  by 
a  quarc  impcdit ;  or  if  the  bishop  might  deter- 
mine absolutely  of  the  qualifications  of  the  can- 
didate or  clerk  to  be  admitted  into  a  living,  yet 
these  qualifications  were  sufficiently  specified, 

♦  Scobel,  p.  3C6.  t  Calamy,  vol.  ii...  p.  247. 


146 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


and  particularized  in  the  ecclesiastical  laws  or 
canons,  and  the  bishop  might  be  obliged,  by  due 
course  of  law,  to  assign  the  reasons  of  his  re- 
fusal ;  whereas  tlie  determinations  of  these 
commissioners  for  approbation  were  final ;  nor 
were  they  obliged  so  much  as  to  specify  any 
reason  for  their  rejecting  any  person,  but  only 
their  vote,  not  approved. 

It  was  farther  complained  of  as  a  very  great 
hardship,  that  "  there  was  but  one  set  of  triers 
for  the  wiiole  nation,  who  resided  always  at  Lon- 
don, which  must  occasion  great  expense  and 
long  journeys  to  such  as  lived  in  the  remoter 
counties."  But  to  remedy  this  inconvenience, 
Dr.  Walker  says*  they  appointed  sub-commis- 
sioners in  the  remoter  counties.  And,  accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Baxter,  if  any  were  unable  to  come 
to  London,  or  were  of  doubtful  qualifications, 
the  commissioners  of  London  used  to  refer 
them  to  some  ministers  in  the  county  where 
they  lived  ;  and  under  their  testimonial  they  ap- 
proved or  rejected  them.  Amid  such  variety 
of  sentiments,  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  please 
all  parties  ;  when  there  were  no  triers,  the  com- 
plaint was,  that  the  pulpit  doors  were  left  open 
to  all  intruders,  and  "  now  they  cannot  agree 
upon  any  one  method  of  examination."  And 
it  must  be  left  to  every  one's  judgment,  wheth- 
er a  bishop  and  his  chaplain,  or  a  classis  of 
presbyters,  or  the  present  mixture  of  laity  and 
clergy,  be  most  eligible. 

The  chief  objections  against  these  triers  has 
been  to  the  manner  of  executing  their  powers. 
Bishop  Kennet  sayst  "that  this  holy  inquisi- 
tion was  turned  into  a  snare  to  catch  men  of 
probity,  and  sense,  and  sound  divinity,  and  to 
let  none  escape  but  ignorant,  bold,  canting  fel- 
lows ;  for  these  triers,"  says  the  bishop,  "  asked 
few  or  no  questions  in  knowledge  or  learning, 
but  only  about  conversation,  and  the  grace  of 
God  in  the  heart,  to  which  the  readiest  answers 
would  arise  from  infatuation  in  some,  and  the 
trade  of  hypocrisy  in  others.  By  this  means 
the  rights  of  patronage  were  at  their  pleasure, 
and  the  character  and  abilities  of  divines  what- 
ever they  pleased  to  make  them,  and  churches 
were  filled  with  little  creatures  of  the  state. "t 
But  the  bishop  has  produced  no  examples  of 
this  ;  nor  were  any  of  these  canting  little  crea- 
tures turned  out  for  insufficiency  at  the  Restora- 
tion. Dr.  George  Bates,  an  eminent  Royalist, 
with  a  little  more  temper  and  truth,  says,  "  that 
they  inquired  more  narrowly  into  their  afTection 
to  the  present  government,  and  into  the  eter- 
nal marks  and  character  of  the  grace  of  God  in 
their  heart,  than  into  their  learning  ;  by  which 
means  many  ignorant  laics,  mechanics,  and  ped- 
lers  were  admitted  to  livings,  when  persons  of 
greater  merit  were  rejected."  But  it  may  be 
observed  again,  that,  ignorant  as  they  were,  not 
one  of  the  mechanics  or  pedlers  who  conformed 
at  the  Restoration  was  ejected  for  insufficiency. 
When  the  commissioners  had  to  do  with  per- 

-  Walker,  p.  172.         t  Complete  History,  p.  209. 

t  After  reading  the  catalogue  of  worthies  who 
composed  the  commission,  embracing  many  of  the 
strongest  names  in  theology  that  England  claims, 
what  can  we  think  of  the  matchless  impudence  of 
Bishop  Kennet  ?  No  doubt  they  made  mistakes,  but 
the  general  tenderu-.y  of  their  labours  was  most  saluta- 
ry. Owen,  Goodwin,  Caryl,  Simpson,  Manton,  and 
Strong,  had  no  greater  affinity  for  vice  and  ignorance 
than  their  right  reverend  slanderer. — C 


sons  of  known  learning,  sobriety,  reputed  or 
thodoxy,  and  a  peaceable  behaviour,  they  made 
but  little  inquiry  into  the  marks  of  their  conver- 
sation ;  as  appears  from  the  example  of  Mr.  Ful- 
ler the  historian,  who,  being  presented  to  a  liv- 
ing, was  approved  by  the  triers,  without  giving 
any  other  evidence  of  the  grace  of  God  in  him 
than  this,  that  he  made  conscience  of  his 
thoughts. 

Dr.  Walker  has  published  the  examinations  of 
two  or  three  clergymen,  who  were  notorious  for 
their  malignity  and  disaffection  to  the  govern- 
ment, whom  the  commissioners  puzzled  with 
dark  and  abstruse  questions  in  divinity,  that 
they  might  set  them  aside,  without  encounter- 
ing their  political  principles  ;  for  when  they  had 
private  intimations  of  notorious  malignants  to 
come  before  them,  they  frequently  had  recourse 
to  this  method  ;  though  it  is  not  unlikely  that,, 
upon  some  other  occasions,  they  might  lay  too 
great  stress  upon  the  internal  characters  of  re- 
generation, the  truth  of  which  depends  entirely 
upon  the  integrity  of  the  respondent.  But  I  be- 
lieve not  a  single  instance  can  be  produced  of 
any  who  were  rejected  for  insufficiency  with- 
out being  first  convicted  either  of  immorality, 
of  obnoxious  sentiments  in  the  Socinian  or  Pe- 
lagian controvei"sy,  or  of  disaffection  to  the  pres- 
ent government.  Mr.  Sadler,  who  was  pre- 
sented to  a  living  in  Dorsetshire,  but  rejected 
by  the  triers,  published  his  examination  in  a 
pamphlet,  which  he  calls  Inquisitio  Anglicana, 
wherein  he  endeavours  to  expose  the  commis- 
sioners in  a  very  contemptuous  manner ;  but 
Mr.  John  Nye,  clerk  to  the  commissioners,  fol- 
lowed him  with  an  ansv\-er,  entitled  "  Sadler  ex- 
amined ;  or,  his  Disguise  discovered  ;"  show- 
ing the  gross  mistakes  and  most  notorious  false- 
hoods in  his  dealings  with  the  commissioners 
for  approbation  of  public  preachers,*  in  his  In- 
quisitio Anglicana.  To  which  Mr.  Sadler  never 
replied. 

Dr.  George  Bates  and  Dr.  Walker  have  char- 
ged the  triers  with  simony,  upon  no  other  proof, 
but  that  Hugh  Peters  said  once  to  Mr.  Camplin, 
a  clergyman  of  Somersetshire,  upon  his  apply- 
ing to  him,  by  a  friend,  for  despatch,  "  Has  thy 
friend  any  money  T'  a  slender  proof  of  so  heavy 
a  charge.  They  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
jocose  conversation  of  Hugh  Peters,  will  not 
wonder  at  such  an  expression.  But  I  refer  the 
reader  back  to  the  names  and  characters  of  the 
commissioners,  most  of  whom  were  men  of  un- 
questionable probity,  for  a  sufficient  answer  to 
this  calumny. 

No  doubt  the  triers  did  commit  sundry  mis- 
takes, which  it  was  hardly  possible  to  avoid 
in  their  station.  I  am  far  from  vindicating  all 
their  proceedings  ;  they  had  a  difficult  work  on 
their  hands,  lived  in  times  when  the  extent  of 
Christian  liberty  was  not  well  understood,  had 
to  deal  with  men  of  different  principles  in  reli- 
gion and  politics ;  and  those  who  were  not  ap- 
proved would,  of  course,  complain.  Had  this 
power  been  lodged  with  the  bishops  of  these 
times  or  their  chaplains,  or  with  the  high  Pres- 
byterians, would  they  not  have  had  their  shib- 
boleth, for  which  ill-natured  men  might  have 
called  them  a  holy  inquisition  1  But  Mr.  Bax- 
ter has  given  a  very  fair  and  candid  account  of 


Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  370. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


147 


them;  his  words  are  these:  "Because  this  as- 
sembly of  triers  is  most  heavily  accused  and  re- 
proached by  some  men,  I  shall  speak  the  truth 
of  them,  and  suppose  my  word  will  be  taken, 
because  most  of  them  took  me  for  one  of  their 
boldest  adversaries  :  the  truth  is,  though  their 
authority  was  null,  and  though  some  few  over- 
rigid  and  over-busy  Independents  among  them 
were  too  severe  against  all  that  were  Armin- 
ians,  and  too  particular  in  inquiring  after  evi- 
dences of  sanctification  in  those  whom  they 
examined,  and  somewhat  too  lax  in  admitting 
of  unlearned  and  erroneous  men,  that  favoured 
Antinomianism  and  Anabaptism,  yet,  tp  give 
them  their  due,  they  did  abundance  of  good  to 
the  Church.  They  saved  many  a  congregation 
from  ignorant,  ungodly,  drunken  teachers,  that 
sort  of  men  who  intend  no  more  in  the  minis- 
try than  to  say  a  sermon,  as  readers  say  their 
common  prayers  on  a  Sunday,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  week  go  with  the  people  to  the  ale-house, 
and  harden  them  in  sin  ;  and  that  sort  of  min- 
isters who  either  preached  against  a  holy  life, 
or  preached  as  men  that  were  never  acquainted 
with  it;  these  they  usually  rejected,  and  in 
their  stead  admitted  of  any  that  were  able,  se- 
rious preachers,  and  lived  a  godly  life,  of  what 
tolerable  opinion  soever  they  were ;  so  that 
though  many  of  them  were  a  little  partial  for 
the  Independents,  separatists,  fifth  monarchy 
men,  and  Anabaptists,  and  against  the  prela- 
tists  and  Arminians,  yet  so  great  was  the  ben- 
efit above  the  hurt  which  they  brought  to  the 
Church,  that  many  thousands  of  souls  blessed 
God  for  the  faithful  ministers  whom  they  let  in, 
and  grieved  when  the  prelatists  afterward  cast 
them  out  again."* 

The  commissioners  were  not  empowered  to 
look  farther  back  than  one  year  before  the  date 
of  the  ordinance  which  constituted  them.t  All 
who  were  in  possession  of  their  livings  before 
that  time  were  out  of  their  reach  ;  nor  would 
the  protector  have  given  these  any  disturbance, 
had  he  not  received  certain  information  of  their 
stirring  up  the  people  to  join  the  insurrection 
that  was  now  on  foot  for  the  restoration  of  the 
king.  They  continued  sitting  at  Whitehall  till 
the  protector's  death,  or  the  year  1659,  and 
were  then  discontinued. 

But  to  humble  the  clergy  yet  farther,  and 
keep  them  within  the  bounds  of  their  spiritual 
function,  his  highness,  by  the  advice  of  his 
council,  published  an  ordinance,  bearing  date 
August  28,  1G54,  entitled  "  An  Ordinance  for 
ejecting  scandalous,  ignorant,  and  insufficient 
Ministers  and  Schoolmasters."  The  ordinance 
appoints  and  nominates  certain  lay-commis- 
sioners for  every  county,  and  joins  with  them 
ten  or  more  of  the  gravest  and  most  noted  min- 
isters, their  assistants,  and  empowers  any  five 
or  more  of  them  to  call  before  them  any  public 
preacher,  lecturer,  parson,  vicar,  curate,  or 
schoolmaster,  who  is  or  shall  be  reputed  igno- 
rant, scandalous,  insufficient,  or  negligent  ;  and 
to  receive  all  articles  or  charges  that  shall  \)e 
exhibited  against  them  on  this  account ;  and  to 
proceed  to  the  examination  and  determination 


*  Baxter's  Life,  part  i.,  p.  72. 

t  Their  duty  was  prospective.  It  respected  the 
future  rather  than  the  past,  and  was  designed  for 
the  prevention,  and  not  for  the  cure  of  evils. — Price, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  535.— C. 


of  such   off'ences,  accordmg   to  the  following 
rules  :* 

"  Such  ministers  and  schoolmasters  shall  be 
accounted  scandalous  in  their  lives  and  conver- 
sations, as  shall  hold  or  maintain  such  blasphe- 
mous or  atheistical  opinions  as  are  punishable 
by  the  act  entitled  '  An  Act  against  several 
Blasphemous  and  Atheistical  Opinions,'  &c..or 
that  shall  be  guilty  of  profane  swearing  and 
cursing,  perjury,  and  subornation  of  perjury  ; 
such  as  maintain  any  popish  opinions  required 
to  be  abjured  by  the  oath  of  abjuration  ;  or 
are  guilty  of  adultery,  fornication,  drunkenness, 
common  haunting  of  taverns  or  ale-houses ;  fre- 
quent quarrellings  or  fightings  ;  frequent  p!ay- 
mg  at  cards  or  dice  ;  profaning  the  Sabbath  ; 
or  that  do  allow  and  countenance  the  same  in 
their  families,  or  in  their  parishes.  Such  as 
have  frequently  read  or  used  the  Common  Pray- 
er Book  in  public  since  the  first  of  .January  last, 
or  shall  at  any  time  hereafter  do  the  same. 
Such  as  publicly  and  profanely  scoff  at  the  strict 
profession  or  professors  of  godliness.  Such  as 
encourage  or  countenance  Whitsun-ales.  wakes, 
morrice-dancing.  May-poles,  stage  plays,  or  such 
like  licentious  practices.  Such  as  have  decla- 
red, or  shall  declare,  by  writing,  preaching,  or 
otherwise  publishing,  their  disaffection  to  the 
present  government. 

"  Such  ministers  shall  be  accounted  negli- 
gent as  omit  the  public  exercise  of  preaching 
and  praying  on  the  Lord's  Day  (not  being  hin- 
dered by  necessary  absence  or  infirmity  of 
body),  or  that  are  or  shall  be  nonresidents. 
Such  schoolmasters  shall  be  accounted  negli- 
gent as  absent  themselves  from  their  schools, 
and  wilfully  neglect  to  teach  their  scholars. 

"  Such  ministers  or  schoolmasters  shall  be 
accounted  ignorant  and  insufficient  aS  shall  be 
so  declared  and  adjudged  by  the  commission- 
ers in  every  county,  or  any  five  of  them,  to- 
gether with  five  of  the  ministers  mentioned  in 
the  ordinance." 

The  lay-commissioners  were  to  proceed  upon 
oath,  both  for  and  against  the  person  accused  ; 
but  in  cases  of  ignorance  or  insufficiency,  they 
were  to  be  joined  by  five  of  the  assistant  cler- 
gy at  least ;  and  if  ten  of  the  commissioners, 
whereof  five  to  be  ministers,  gave  it  under  their 
hands  that  the  party  was  ignorant  or  insuffi- 
cient, then  the  said  minister  or  schoolmaster 
was  to  be  ejected,  and  the  said  judgment  en- 
tered in  a  register  book,  with  the  reason  there- 
of After  ejectment,  the  party  might  not  preach 
or  teach  school  in  the  parish  from  whence  he 
was  ejected  ;  but  convenient  time  was  to  be 
allowed  for  his  removal,  and  the  fifths  reserved 
for  the  support  of  his  family.  The  rightful  pa- 
tron was  to  present  to  the  vacant  living  an  ap- 
proved preacher ;  and  in  case  of  lapse,  it  fell  to 
the  protector  and  his  council. 

This  ordinance  being  confirmed  by  the  Par- 
liament of  1656,  gave  great  offence  to  the  old 
clergy  ;  Mr.  Gatford,  the  sequestered  rector  of 
Denington,  published  a  pamphlet,  entitled  "A 
Petition  for  the  Vindication  of  the  Use  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,"  &c.,  occasioned  by  the  lute  ordi- 
nance for  ejecting  scandalous  ministers  ;  as 
also  thirty-seven  queries  concerning  the  said 
ordinance,  which  he  presented  to  the  Parlia- 


*  Scobel,  p.  335,  340. 


148 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


ment,  which  met  September  3,  1654 ;  but  they 
took  no  notice  of  it. 

Mr.  Gatford  observes,  that  the  protector  and 
his  council  had  no  legal  authority  to  make  this 
or  any  other  ordinance  v.ithout  consent  of  a 
Parliament;  whereas  the  instrument  of  govern- 
ment empowered  them  to  provide  for  the  safe- 
ty of  the  state,  by  making  laws  till  the  Parlia- 
ment should  meet.  He  observes  farther,  that 
such  a  proceeding  must  justify  his  late  majesty 
and  council  in  all  their  illegal  proceedings  be- 
fore the  civil  wars  ;  that  it  would  justify  the 
High  Commission  Court  ;  and  that,  by  the  same 
authority,  an  ordinance  might  be  published  to 
eject  freeholders  out  of  their  estates. 

He  complains  that  the  power  of  the  commis- 
sioners is  linal,  and  admits  of  no  appeal ;  that  it 
looks  back  to  crimes  antecedent  to  the  law  for 
a  tv/elvemonth  ;  whereas  it  ought  only  to  de- 
clare that  for  the  future  such  offences  shall  be 
punished  with  deprivation. 

That  the  commissioners  who  were  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  the  clergy  were  all  laymen,  the 
ministers  being  called  in  only  in  cases  of  igno- 
rance and  insufficiency  ;  that  the  ordinance  ad- 
mits of  the  oath  of  one  witness,  provided  it 
be  supported  with  other  concurrent  evidence, 
which  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God  and  man. 

That  some  crimes  in  the  ordinance  were  none 
at  all,  and  others  of  a  very  doubtful  nature  ;  as 
how  often  a  minister  omitting  to  pray  and 
preach  in  his  pulpit  should  render  him  negli- 
gent, and  what  should  be  deem.ed  nonresi- 
dence.  Above  all,  he  complains  that  the  pub- 
lic reading  of  the  Common  Prayer  should  be 
ranked  with  the  sins  of  swearing  and  drunken- 
ness, and  be  an  evidence  of  a  scandalous  life 
and  conversation  ;  which  observation  was  un- 
questionably just. 

To  give  the  reader  an  example  or  two  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  commissioners  :  those  for 
Berkshire  summoned  Dr.  Pordage,  rector  of 
Bradfield,  to  appear  before  them  at  Speenham- 
land,  near  Newbury,  to  answer  to  divers  arti- 
cles of  blaspliemy  and  heresy.  After  several 
days'  hearing,  and  witnesses  produced  on  both 
sides,  the  commissioners  determined,  Decem- 
ber 8,  1654,  that  the  said  doctor  was  guilty  of 
denying  the  Deity  of  Christ;  the  merits  of  his 
precious  blood  and  passion  ;  and  several  other 
such  like  opinions.  It  is  farther  declared,  un- 
der the  hands  of  six  of  the  commissioners,  and 
a  sufficient  number  of  ministers,  their  assist- 
ants, that  the  said  doctor  was  ignorant,  and  in- 
sufficient for  the  work  of  the  ministry  ;  it  is 
therefore  ordered,  that  the  said  doctor  he  and 
he  \Z  liereby  ejected  out  of  the  rectory  of  Brad- 
field,  and  the  profits  thereof;  but  the  said  com- 
„;<,.ion£'.T8  do  grant  him  time,  till  the  2d  of 
February,  to  remove  himself,  his  family,  his 
goods  and  chattels,  out  of  the  said  parsonage- 
house  ;  and  farther  time  to  remove  his  corn  out 
of  the  barns,  till  the  23d  of  March. 

Ttie  Oxford  historian  says  this  Pordage  was 
a  doctor  by  Charientismus,  and  had  been  preach- 
er of  St.  Lawrence  Church  in  Reading  belore 
he  came  to  Bradfield.*  That  he  was  a  mystic 
enthusiast,  and  used  to  talk  of  the  fiery  Deity 
of  Christ  dwelling  in  the  soul  and  mixmg  itselt 
\with  our  flesh.t    He  dealt  mnch  in  astrology. 


and  pretended  to  converse  with  the  world  of 
spirits.  After  his  ejectment  he  wrote  against 
the  commissioners  a  pamphlet,  entitled  "  Inno- 
cency  Appearing,"  which  was  answered  by  Mr. 
Christopher  Fowler,  vicar  of  St.  Mary,  Reading, 
in  his  Dominium  Meridianum.  However,  the 
doctor  was  restored  to  his  living  at  Bradfield,  at 
the  Restoration. 

The  Wiltshire  commissioners  summoned  Mr. 
Walter  Bushnel,  vicar  of  Box,  near  Malmes- 
bury,  before  them,  to  answer  to  a  charge  of 
drunkenness,  profanation  of  the  Sabbath,  gam- 
ing, and  disaffection  to  the  government  ;*  and, 
after  a  full  hearing,  and  proof  upon  oath,  they 
ejected  him.  The  vicar  prepared  for  the  press 
•'  A  Narrative  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Commis- 
sioners appointed  by  O.  Cromwell  for  ejecting 
scandalous  and  ignorant  Ministers,  in  the  case 
of  Walter  Bushnel,"  &c. ;  but  it  was  not  print- 
ed till  the,  king's  restoration  ;  and  even  then 
the  commissioners  did  themselves  justice  in  a 
reply,  which  they  entitled  "  A  Vindication  of 
the  Marlborough  Commissioners,  by  the  Com- 
missioners themselves."  And  Dr.  Chambers, 
who  was  reproached  by  the  said  Bushnel,  did 
himself  justice  in  a  distinct  vindication.  How- 
ever, the  vicar  was  restored  to  his  vicarage  in 
a  lump  with  the  rest  at  the  Restoration. 

Upon  the  whole,  the  industrious  Dr.  Walker 
says  he  can  find  no  footsteps  of  the  numbers 
of  the  clergy  that  were  ejected  by  the  commis- 
sioners, though  he  imagines  they  might  be  con- 
siderable, t    But  I  am  well  satisfied  there  were 


-  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  450. 

t  Mr.  Neal  is  not  correct  here;  for,  as  Dr.  trrey 


observes,  this  passage  is  not  in  the  Oxford  historian. 
It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Neal  took  this  charge  against 
Dr.  Pordage,  either  from  his  narrative  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  commissioners,  or  from  Mr.  Fowler's  an- 
imadversions ;  though,  by  not  specifying  his  author, 
the  reader  is  led  to  suppose  that  the  whole  paragraph 
is  grounded  on  the  representation  of  the  Oxford  his- 
torian. He,  it  should  be  also  noticed,  does  not 
ascribe  a  skill  in  astrology  to  Dr.  Pordage,  but  says 
that  "  Mr.  Ashmole  commended  him  for  his  knowl- 
edge in,  and  so  great  affection  to,  astronomy." — Ed. 

*  This  last,  Dr.  Grey  supposes,  was  the  main  rea- 
son ;  for  Wood  says,  "  he  continued  at  Box  in  good 
esteem  the  greatest  part  of  the  interrupted  times,  but 
was  at  length  ejected  from  his  living  in  the  reign  of 
Oliver." — Athcn.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2. — Ed. 

t  "  At  the  commencement  of  the  civil  war,  the 
mass  of  the  clergy  were  thoroughly  secular,  and  a 
large  number  of  them  immoral.  They  had  been 
thinned  by  successive  ejectments,  but  ignorance  and 
consequent  inefficiency,  accompanied,  in  some  cases, 
by  open  vice,  were  still  the  characteristics  of  many. 
It  is  easier,  therefore,  to  impugn  the  judgments  of  the 
commissioners  in  particular  cases,  than  to  disprove 
the  necessity  for  some  such  tribunal  as  they  consti- 
tuted. +  *  *  The  influence  of  the  least  qualified 
among  them  was  tempered  by  the  better  spirit  and 
more  enlightened  views  of  their  associates.  The 
case  of  Dr.  Pococke,  the  professor  of  Arabic  at  Ox- 
ford, may  serve  as  a  specimen.  He  held  the  living 
of  Childrey,  in  Berkshire,  and  being  summoned  be- 
fore the  commissioners  for  that  county,  was  in  dan- 
ger of  being  ejecteil.  Dr.  Owen  was,  at  the  time, 
the  vice-chancellor  of  the  university,  and  though  his 
political  views  differed  greatly  from  Pococke's.  he 
keenly  ifelt  the  injustice  which  was  threatened  to  his 
associate,  and  the  dishonour  which  must  accrue  from 
its  being  perpetrated.  He  accordingly  wrote  to 
Thurloerand  his  letter  is,  happily,  preserved.  '  There 
are  in  Berkshire,'  says  the  Independent  divine, 
'  some  few  men  of  mean  quality  and  condition,  rash, 
heady,  enemies  of  tithes,  who  are  the  commissioners 
for  the  ejecting  of  ministers  ;  *  *  ♦  they  intend  next 
week  to  eject   Pococke,  a  man  of  as  unblamable 


HISTORY   OF   THE  PURITANS. 


140 


none  of  any  considerable  character ;  for  there 
were  not  a  great  many  zealous  Loyalists  in  liv- 
ings at  this  time ;  and  those  that  were  had  the 
"Wisdom  to  be  silent  about  public  affairs,  while 
they  saw  the  eyes  of  the  government  were  upon 
them  in  every  corner  of  the  land.  The  com- 
missioners continued  to  act  till  some  time  after 
the  protector's  death,  and  were  a  greater  ter- 
ror to  the  fanatics  and  visionaries  of  (hose  times, 
than  to  the  regular  clery  of  any  denomination.* 


conversation  as  any  I  know  living,  of  repute  for  learn- 
ing throughout  the  world,  being  the  professor  of  He- 
brew and  Arabic  in  our  university.  If  anything 
could  be  done  to  cause  them  to  suspend  acting  until 
this  storm  be  over,  I  cannot  but  think  it  would  be 
good  service  to  his  highness  and  the  commonwealth 
to  do  it.'  Not  content  with  this  appeal,  Owen  repair- 
ed, in  company  with  Drs.  Ward,  Wilkins,  and  Wal- 
lace, to  the  meeting  of  the  commissioners,  and  warm- 
ly expostulated  with  them  on  the  injustice  and  ab- 
surdity of  their  proceedings,  &c. ;  his  appeal  was  ir- 
resistible. 

"  There  are  many  instances,  however,  which  show 
that  their  scrutiny  was  often  less  severe,  and  their 
decision  more  charitable  than  their  enemies  allow. 
An  instance  of  this  is  furnished  in  the  case  of  Fuller, 
♦he  Church  historian,  whose  quaint  humour  and 
ever-flowing  wit  were  happily  chastened  by  the  mild 
and  catholic  spirit  of  Christianity.  Having  been  ci- 
ted before  the  commissioners.  Fuller  was  alarmed 
for  the  result,  and  applied  to  his  friend  John  Howe 
for  advice.  '  You  may  observe,  sir,'  was  his  charac- 
teristic remark  to  Howe, '  that  I  am  a  pretty  corpulent 
man,  and  I  am  to  go  through  a  passage  that  is  very 
strait :  1  beg  you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  give  me  a 
shove,  and  help  me  through.'  Howe's  advice  is  not 
recorded,  but  its  soundness  is  evidenced  in  the  sim- 
ple reply  which  his  alarmed  friend  made  to  the  in- 
quiry of  the  commissioners,  '  Whether  he  had  ever 
had  any  experience  of  a  work  of  grace  on  his  heart  ?' 
Fuller,  instead  of  perplexing  himself  by  a  minute 
detail  of  the  history  and  marks  of  his  conversion, 
gravely  replied,  that  he  made  conscience  of  his 
very  thoughts  ;  and  this  reply,  though  vague,  was  re- 
ceived as  satisfactory  by  the  examiners." — Price's 
Hist.  Noncon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  537.  Orme's  Owen,  p.  118. 
Calamy's  Life  of  Howe,  p.  20. — C. 

*  Baxter  bears  full  testimony  to  the  labours  of  the 
commissioners,  and  was  too  honest  to  resist  the  ev- 
idence of  facts.  "  For  all  the  faults  that  are  now 
among  us,  I  do  not  believe  that  ever  England  had  so 
able  and  faithful  a  ministry  since  it  was  a  nation  as 
it  hath  at  this  day ;  and  I  fear  that  few  nations  on 
earth,  if  any,  have  the  like.  Sure  I  am  the  change 
is  so  great  within  these  twelve  years,  that  it  is  one 
of  the  greatest  joys  that  ever  I  had  in  the  world  to 
behold  it.  Oh,  how  many  congregations  are  now 
plainly  and  frequently  taught,  that  lived  then  in 
great  obscurity  !  How  many  able,  faithful  men  are 
there  now  in  a  county,  in  comparison  of  what  were 
then !  How  graciously  hath  God  prospered  the 
studies  of  many  young  men  that  were  little  children 
in  the  beginning  of  the  late  troubles,  so  that  now 
they  cloud  the  most  of  their  seniors  !  How  many 
miles  would  I  have  gone  twenty  years  ago,  and  less, 
to  have  heard  one  of  those  ancient,  reverend  divines, 
whose  congregations  are  now  grown  thin,  and  their 
parts  esteemed  mean  by  reason  of  the  notable  im- 
provement of  their  juniors  !  And,  in  particular, 
how  mercifully  hath  the  Lord  dealt  with  this  poor 
county  (Worcestershire),  in  raising  up  so  many  of 
these  that  do  credit  to  their  sacred  office,  and  self- 
denying,  and  freely,  zealously,  and  unweariedly  do 
lay  out  themselves  for  the  good  of  souls  !  I  bless  the 
Lord  that  hath  placed  me  in  such  a  neighbourhood, 
where  I  may  have  the  brotherly  fellowship  of  so 
many  able,  humble,  unanimous,  peaceable,  and  faith- 
•ul  men.  Oh,  that  the  Lord  would  long  continue 
this  admirable  mercy  to  this  unworthy  country  !  I 
hope  I  shall  rejoice  in  God  while  I  have  a  being  for 


The  protector  and  his  council  passed  another 
ordinance,  August  30,  for  the  service  of  Wales, 
appointing  Sir  Hugh  Owen,  and  about  eighteen 
other  commissioners,  for  the  six  counties  of 
South  Wales,  with  the  county  of  Monmouth  ; 
and  Matthew  Morgan,  with  about  twelve  other 
commissioners,  for  the  six  counties  of  North 
Wales  ;  any  three  of  which  were  empowered  to 
call  before  them  all  such  who,  by  authority  of 
the  act  for  propagating  the  Gospel  in  Wales, 
had  received  or  disposed  of  any  of  the  profits  of 
the  rectories,  vicarages,  &.C.,  in  that  principali- 
ty ;  and  to  give  an  account,  upon  oath,  of  all 
such  rents  and  profits  ;  and  the  surplus  money, 
in  the  hands  of  the  commissioners,  to  be  paid 
into  the  exchequer.* 

To  set  this  affair  before  the  reader  in  one 
view :  the  principality  of  Wales,  by  reason  of 
the  poverty  of  the  people,  and  the  small  endow- 
ments of  church  livings,  was  never  well  sup- 
plied with  a  learned  or  pious  clergy  ;  the  peo- 
ple were  generally  very  ignorant,  and  only  one 
remove  from  heathens.  In  1641,  a  petition 
was  presented  to  the  king  and  Parliament, 
which  declares  that  there  were  not  so  many 
conscientious  and  constant  preachers  in  Wales 
as  there  were  counties  ;  and  that  these  were 
either  silenced  or  much  persecuted. t  The 
civil  wars  had  made  their  condition  worse  ; 
for  as  they  generally  adhered  to  the  king,  and 
received  great  numbers  of  Irish  papists  into 
their  country,  their  preachers  went  into  his  maj- 
esty's service,  or  fled  from  their  cures,  when 
the  Parliament  forces  took  possession  of  it.  Af- 
ter the  king's  death,  the  Parliament  passed  the 
ordinance  already  mentioned,  for  the  better 
propagating  of  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in 
Wales,  and  for  ejecting  scandalous  ministers 
and  schoolmasters,  and  for  redress  of  some 
grievances;  it  bears  date  February  22,  1649, 
and  empowers  the  commissioners  therein  men- 
tioned, or  any  twelve  of  them,  to  receive  and 


the  common  change  in  other  parts  that  I  have  lived 
to  see ;  that  so  many  hundred  faithful  men  are  so 
hard  at  work  for  the  saving  of  souls,  'frementibus  li- 
cet et  frcndentibus  inimicis  ;'  and  that  more  are  spring- 
ing up  apace.  I  know  there  are  some  men  whose 
parts  I  reverence,  who  being,  in  point  of  government, 
of  another  mind  from  them,  will  be  offended  at  my 
very  mention  of  this  happy  alteration ;  but  1  must 
profess,  if  I  were  absolutely  prelatical,  if  I  knew  my 
heart,  I  could  not  choose,  for  all  that,  but  rejoice. 
What !  not  rejoice  at  the  prosperity  of  the  Church, 
because  men  differ  in  opinion  about  its  order !  Should 
I  shut  my  eyes  against  the  mercies  of  the  Lord? 
The  sotils  of  men  are  not  so  contemptible  to  me  that 
I  should  envy  them  the  Bread  of  Life  because  it  is 
broken  to  them  by  a  hand  that  had  not  the  prelatical 
approbation.  Oh,  that  every  congregation  were  thus 
sup])lied  !  But  ^ll  cannot  be  done  at  once.  They 
had  a  long  time  to  settle  a  corrupted  ministry  ;  and 
when  the  ignorant  and  scandalous  are  cast  out,  we 
cannot  create  abilities  in  others  for  the  supply  ;  we 
must  stay  the  time  of  their  preparation  and  growth  ; 
and  then,  if  England  drive  not  away  the  Gospel  by 
their  abuse,  even  by  their  wilful  unreformedness  and 
hatred  of  the  light,  they  are  likely  to  be  the  happiest 
nation  under  heaven.  For,  as  for  all  the  sects  and 
heresies  that  are  creeping  in  daily  and  troubling  us, 
I  doubt  but  the  free  Gospel,  managed  by  an  able, 
self-denying  ministry,  will  effectually  disperse  and 
shame  them  all." — Baxter's  Reformed  Pastor,  Works, 
vol.  xiv.,  p.  152.— C.  *  Scobel,  p.  347. 

t  Calamy's  Com.  of  Church  and  Dissenters,  p.  47, 
note. 


150 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


dispose  of  all  and  singular  rents,  issues,  and 
profits,  of  all  ecclesiastical  livings,  impropria- 
tions, and  glebe  lands,  within  the  said  conn- 
ties,  which  then  were  or  afterward  should  be 
iincior  sequestration,  or  in  the  disposal  of  the 
Parliament,  and  out  of  them  to  order  and  ap- 
point a  constant  yearly  maintenance  for  such 
persons  as  should  be  recommended,  and  ap- 
proved for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  or  educa- 
tion of  children  ;  and  for  such  other  ministers 
as  were  then  residing  in  the  said  counties. 
The  ordinance  to  continue  in  force  lor  three 
years,  from  March  25,  1650. 

By  virtue  of  this  ordinance,  many  clergymen 
were  ejected,  but  not  all,  for  in  Montgomery- 
shire eleven  or  twelve  remained,  as  did  several 
in  other  counties  ;  but  all  who  were  ejected 
were  so  for  manifest  scandal.*  Afterward, 
complaints  being  made  that  the  people  were 
turning  papists  or  heathens  for  want  of  the 
Word  of  God,  several  were  sent  into  Mont- 
gomeryshire, where  there  were  at  least  sixteen 
preachers,  of  which  ten  were  university  men, 
the  meanest  of  whom  were  approved  and  set- 
tled in  parishes  at  the  Restoration.  The  com- 
missioners were  empowered  to  examine  into 
the  behaviour  of  such  as  were  reputed  ignorant, 
insufficient,  nonresident,  scandalous,  or  ene- 
mies to  the  present  government.  And  it  being 
impossible  to  till  up  the  vacant  livings  with 
such  as  could  preach  in  the  Welsh  language, 
the  revenues  were  to  be  collected  and  brought 
into  a  common  treasury,  out  of  which  £100  per 
annum  was  to  be  given  to  sundry  itinerant 
preachers  in  each  county. 

Dr.  Walker  says  that,  from  the  account  drawn 
up  by  the  commissioners  themselves  in  April, 
1652,  it  appears  that  there  had  been  ejected  in 
South  Wales  and  Monmouthshire  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  ministers ;  that  is,  fifty-six 
from  the  year  1645  to  the  time  when  this  act 
took  place,  and  one  hundred  and  nineteen  by 
the  present  commissioners.  Mr.  Vavasor  Pow- 
el,  who  had  a  chief  hand  in  the  sequestrations, 
says  that,  by  virtue  of  this  act,  between  fifty 
and  sixty  of  the  old  clergy  were  dispossessed 
of  their  livings  when  he  wrote.  Upon  the  whole, 
the  commissioners,  who  continued  to  act  as 
long  as  the  protector  lived,  charged  themselves 
with  between  three  hundred  and  twenty  and 
three  hundred  and  thirty  several  and  distinct 
livings  ;  but  there  could  not  be  an  equal  num- 
ber of  sequestered  clergymen,  because  in  the 
compass  of  seven  years  a  great  many  must  die  ; 
some  fled  or  were  killed  in  the  wars  ;  in  many 
parishes  the  tithes  were  not  duly  paid  by  rea- 
son of  the  confusion  of  the  times,  and  the  liv- 
ings being  but  from  5  to  10  or  £20  a  year,  most 
of  the  incumbents  were  pluralists.  It  is  com- 
puted that  about  one  half  of  the  Church  lands 
and  revenues  in  the  principality  of  Wales,  by 
the  several  accidents  of  death,  desertion,  se- 
questration, &c.,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  gov- 
ernment before  the  expiration  of  this  ordinance 
in  1653,  the  profits  of  which,  if  duly  collected 
and  paid,  must  amount  to  a  very  considerable 
sum.  There  were  thirteen  counties  in  North 
and  South  Wales  within  the  limits  of  the  com- 
mission ;  but  the  largest  sum  that  the  seques- 
trators and  agents  charge  themselves  with  for 
the  county  of  Brecknock,  in  any  one  year,  till 


*  Calamy's  Com.  of  Church  and  Dissenters,  p.  47. 


the  year  165S,  when  the  propagation  had  sut> 
sisted  eight  years,  is  £1543,  by  which  the 
reader  may  make  a  tolerable  computation  of 
the  v,hole;  and  if  we  may  believe  Mr.  White- 
locke,*  who  lived  through  these  times,  in  the 
year  1653  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty 
good  preachers  in  the  thirteen  Welsh  counties, 
most  of  whom  preached  three  or  four  times  a 
week ;  that  in  every  market  town  there  was  a 
schoolmaster,  and  in  most  great  towns  two 
able,  learned,  and  university  men  ;  and  that  the 
tithes  were  all  employed  to  the  uses  directed 
by  act  of  Parliament,!  there  can  be  no  great 
reason  to  complain  of  the  negligence  of  the 
commissioners. 

The  crimes  for  which  the  old  clergy  were 
ejected  were  malignancy,  insufficiency,  drunk- 
enness, and  negligence  of  their  cures.  Mr. 
Vavasor  Povvel  says,  that  of  all  the  men  they 
had  put  out  in  North  Wales,  he  knew  not  any 
that  had  the  power  of  godliness,  and  very  few 
the  form  ;  but  that  most  of  them  were  unpreach- 
ing  curates,  or  scandalous  in  their  morals.  The 
commissioners  affirm,  that  of  the  sixteen  they 
had  dispossessed  in  Cardiganshire,  there  were 
but  three  that  were  preachers,  and  those  most 
scandalous  livers.  And  Mr.  Baxter  admits 
that  they  were  all  weak,  and  bad  enough  for  the 
most  part.  But  the  writers  on  the  other  side 
say  that  the  commissioners  had  no  regard  to 
ability  in  preaching  or  sobriety  in  conversation. 
And  Dr.  Walker  thinks  the  sequestered  Welsh 
clergy  need  no  other  vindication  than  to  let  the 
world  know  that  many  of  them  were  graduates 
in  the  university  ;  as  if  every  graduate  must  of 
course  be  possessed  of  all  ministerial  qualifica- 
tions. There  might  possibly  be  some  few  pious 
and  industrious  preachers  among  the  ejected 
Welsh  clergy ;  but  they  who  will  argue  very 
strenuously  in  favour  of  the  body  of  them,  must 
know  very  little  of  the  country,  or  their  man- 
ner of  life. 

It  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  commission- 
ers to  find  a  succession  of  pious  and  learned 
preachers  in  the  Welsh  language  ;  but,  to  reme- 
dy this  in  the  best  manner  they  could,  they  ap- 
pointed six  initerant  preachers  of  university  ed- 
ucation for  each  county,  to  whom  they  allowed 
£100  a  year  ;  besides  which,  they  sent  out  thir- 
ty-two ministers,  of  whom  twenty-four  were 
university  men,  and  some  of  the  rest  good  schol- 
ars ;  but  these  were  too  few  for  the  work,  though 
they  were  indefatigable  in  their  labours.  To 
supply  what  was  farther  wanting,  they  appro- 
ved of  several  gifted  laymen,  members  of  church- 
es, to  travel  into  the  neighbourhood,  and  assist 
the  people's  devotions,  and  to  these  they  allow- 
ed from  17  to  £20  per  annum.  In  an  article  of 
the  sequestrators'  accounts,  there  appears  £340 
per  annum   distributed  among  godly  members 

*  Memor.,  p.  518. 

t  These  uses  and  the  proportions  of  the  appropria- 
tion were  as  follows,  viz. :  The  tithes  were  divided 
into  six  parts ;  one  of  which  went  to  the  ejected 
ministers ;  a  second  to  other  settled  and  itinerant 
ministers;  a  third  to  maintain  schools,  of  some  of 
which  the  ejected  ministers  and  their  sons  were  mas- 
ters ;  a  fourth  to  the  widows  and  children  of  the 
ejected  ministers ;  a  fifth  to  under-ofiicers,  as  treas- 
urers, solicitors,  sequestrators,  &c. ;  and  a  sixth  to 
the  widows  of  deceased  ministers.  —  Wkitelocke's 
Mem.,  p.  518.  Calnmy's  Church  and  Dissenters  Com- 
pared, p.  47,  note. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


of  the  Clmrcli  of  Lanvacles,  and  Mynthists 
Loyn,  who  had  been  sent  out  to  exercise  their 
jlifts  among  the  Welsh  mountaineers,  and  to 
help  forward  the  work,  of  the  Lord.  Many  oth- 
ers of  the  same  quality  were  approved  by  the 
commissioners,  who  went  through  great  diffi- 
culties and  hardships  in  their  work.  Mr.  Pow- 
el  says  that  some  hundreds,  if  not  thousands, 
had  been  converted  and  reformed  by  the  propaga- 
tors.* But,  after  all,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
at  first  the  number  of  itinerants,  both  scholars 
and  others,  was  by  no  means  equal  to  their 
work ;  the  parishes  in  that  mountainous  coun- 
try are  large  and  wide,  and  there  being  but  one 
itinerant  to  several  of  those  parishes,  the  peo- 
ple must  have  been  neglected,  and  their  chil- 
dren too  much  without  instruction  ;  but  this 
was  owing  to  the  necessity  of  the  times. 

When  the  commissioners  had  acted  about 
two  years,  a  petition  was  presented  to  the  Par- 
liament by  the  inhabitants  of  South  Wales,  sign- 
ed by  above  a  thousand  hands,  in  favour  of  the 
old  ejected  clergy,  setting  forth  the  numbers 
that  had  been  dispossessed,  and  the  want  of  a 
competent  number  of  preacliers  in  their  places, 
upon  which  account  the  country  was  reduced 
to  a  very  miserable  condition.  They  therefore 
pray  the  House  to  take  some  course  for  a  future 
supply  of  godly  and  able  preachers,  and  to  call 
those  persons  to  account  who  had  received  all 
the  profits  of  church  livings  into  their  hands. t 
The  House  received  the  petition,  and  referred 
it  to  the  committee  for  plundered  ministers,  who 
were  empowered  to  examine  witnesses,  and  to 
authorize  other  commissioners  in  the  country  to 
examine  witnesses  upon  oath  touching  the  mat- 
ters contained  in  the  petition.  The  committee 
ordered  the  commissioners  to  bring  in  their  ac- 
counts in  a  mouth's  time,  which  they  did  accord- 
ingly. And  the  petitioners  were  ordered  to  de- 
liver in  the  particulars  on  which  the  desired 
witnesses  might  be  examined  within  two  days  ; 
but  not  being  provided,  they  desired  liberty  to 
make  their  allegations  in  th(^  country,  to  which 
the  commissioners  willingly  agreed.  But  this 
taking  up  some  time,  the  Long  Parliament  was 
dissolved,  and  the  prosecution  of  this  inquiry 
suspended  for  the  present ;  but  as  soon  as  the 
protector  was  fixed  in  his  government,  he  pub- 
lished an  ordinance,  August  20,  165-1,  to  bring 
the  propagators  to  an  account ;  pursuant  to 
W'hich,  the  sequestrators  and  treasurer  for  South 
Wales  delivered  in  their  accounts  for  the  years 
1650,  1651,  1C52,  which  was  all  the  time  the 
ordinance  continued  in  force  ;  and  the  commis- 
sioners appointed  by  the  protector  having  re- 
ceived and  examined  them,  after  a  full  inquiry, 
allowed  and  passed  them,  August  10,  1655. 

It  is  hard  to  read  with  temper  t!ie  reproaches 
cast  upon  these  commissioners  by  our  angry 
historians,  who  have  charged  them  with  all  man- 
ner of  corruption,  as  if  they  had  got  great  es- 
tates out  of  the  revenues  of  the  Church,  though 
without  producing  a  single  example.  Mr.  Povv- 
el,  who  took  more  pains  among  them  than  any 
man  of  his  time,  declares  that  he  never  receiv- 
ed for  all  his  preaching  in  Wales,  by  salary, 
above  6  or  £700 ;  that  he  never  had  anything 
from  the  tithes.  And  whereas  it  was  said  that  he 
had  enriched  himself  by  purchasing  some  thou- 
sands a  year  of  crown-lands,  he  protests  that  he 


Calamy's  Comp.,  p.  48. 


t  Walker,  p.  163. 


never  purchased  above  £70  a  year,  which  he 
lost  at  the  Restoration.*  And  if  Mr.  Powel  did 
not  enrich  himself,  I  apprehend  none  of  his 
brethren  could.  Besides,  if  this  had  been  true, 
the  protector's  commissidners  would  have  dis- 
covered them  ;  or,  if  they  liad  escaped  the  pro- 
tector's inquiry,  their  enemies  would  have  ex- 
posed tlieni  at  the  Tlestoration,  when  Kin^' 
Charles  ap'pdhiteil  a  commission  to  make  the 
strictest  inquiry'lhto  their  management.  "  All 
persons  who  had  acted  as  commissioners  for 
propagating  the  Gospel  were,  by  his  majesty's 
instructions,  to  be  summoned  befcne  his  com- 
missioners ;  and  all  thafhad  acted  under  tiiem 
as  farmers,  tenants,  &c  ;  all  that  had  succeeded 
in  the  sequestered  livings,  or  received  any  of 
the  profits  ;  all  parishioners  who  had  kept  any 
of  the  tithes  in  their  hands  ;  the  heirs,  execu- 
tors, or  administrators  of  any  of  the  aforesaid 
persons  ;  and  all  credible  persons,  who  could 
give  evidence  of  any  of  these  matters.  They 
were  likewise  to  inquire  after  books  and  wri- 
tings ;  and  to  signify  to  all  persons  concerned, 
that  if  they  would  forthwith  apply  to  his  majes- 
ty's commissioners,  they  might  compound  for 
what  they  stood  charged  with,  and  so  avoid  the 
expense  of  a  lawsuit."  But  after  all  this  mighty 
outcry  and  scrutiny,  nothing  of  any  consequence 
appeared,  and  therefore  it  was  thought  proper 
to  drop  the  commission,  and  bury  the  whole  af- 
fair in  silence.  Mr.  Vavasor  Powel,  above  men- 
tioned, was  cruelly  handled  by  the  Welsh  cler- 
gy, but  he  did  himself  justice  in  a  pamphlet,  en- 
titled Examen  et  Purgamen  Vavasoris,  publish- 
ed 1653,  wherein  he  vindicates  his  proceedings 
in  the  propagation.!  And  when  he  was  in  the 
Fleet  after  the  Restoration,  he  published  a  brief 
narrative  concerning  the  proceedings  of  the  com- 
missioners in  Wales  against  the  ejected  clergy, 
occasioned  by  a  report  that  he  had  been  thrown 
into  that  prison  for  some  of  the  revenue,  which 
was  never  answered. 

By  an  ordinance  of  September  2,  commission- 
ers were  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  yearly 
value  of  all  ecclesiastical  livings  and  benefices 
without  cure  of  souls  ;  what  person  or  persons 
received  the  profits,  and  who  was  the  patron  ; 
and  to  certify  the  same  into  Chancery  ;  and  if, 
upon  a  careful  consideration  of  things,  it  shall 
be  found  convenient  and  advantageous  to  unite 
two  parishes  or  more  into  one,  and  that  the 
whole  ecclesiastical  revenues,  tithes,  and  profits 
belonging  to  the  said  parishes  so  united  should 
be  applied  for  a  provision  for  one  godly  and  pain- 
ful minister  to  preach  in  the  said  united  parish- 
es, then  the  trustees  or  commissioners  appoint- 


*  Mr.  Powel  vindicated  his  character  in  two  pub- 
lications: one  entitled  E.Kamen  et  Purgamen  Vava- 
soris, 1653,  wherein  he  was  cleared  by  ihe  authentic 
certificates  of  persons  of  great  credit,  and  many  of 
them  gentlemen  of  good  landed  property  ;  the  other 
called  "  The  Bird  in  the  Cage  chirping  ;  or,  a  Brief 
Narrative  of  the  former  Propagation  and  late  Restric- 
tion of  the  Gospel  in  Wales,"  12mo,  16G1.  The  author 
of  his  life,  in  1(;71,  says  "that  he  received  nothing 
from  the  churches  in  Wales  but  neighbourly  and 
brotherly  kindness.  The  Parliament  ordered  him 
£100  per  annum  out  of  a  sinecure,  whereof  he  re- 
ceived about  £60  for  seven  or  eight  years :  many 
considerai)lc  gifts  he  refused ;  and  never  did  he  get 
anything  by  the  act  for  the  propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel in  Wales." — Life,  p.  112.  Calamy's  Church  and 
Dissenters  compared,  p.  47,  43,  note. — Ed. 

t  Walker,  p.  1-19. 


152 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


ed  by  this  act  shall  represent  the  same  to  his 
highness  and  council,  upon  whose  approbation 
they  shall,  by  an  instrument  under  the  hands 
and  seals  of  any  five  or  more  of  them,  declare 
that  they  do  thereby  unite  such  parishes  into 
one  ;  which  instrument  being  enrolled  in  Chan- 
cery, the  said  parishes  from  thenceforth  shall 
be  adjudged  and  taken  to  be  consolidated  into 
one.  If  there  happen  to  be  more  patrons  than 
one  in  the  parishes  thus  united,  the  patrons  shall 
present  by  turns  ;  but  the  union  shall  not  take 
place  till  the  avoidance  of  one  of  the  livings  by 
the  death  of  the  incumbent.* 

On  the  other  hand,  where  parishes  were  too 
large,  the  trustees  for  the  augmentation  of  poor 
livings  were  empowered  to  divide  them  into 
two  or  more,  upon  their  avoidance  by  death. 

Farther,  if,  when  two  or  more  parishes  were 
united  into  one,  the  income  or  salary  did  not 
amount  to  £100  per  annum,  the  trustees  for  re- 
ceiving impropriations,  tithes,  first-fruits,  and 
tenths,  &c.,  were  directed  to  make  up  the  defi- 
ciency ;  and  where  there  was  a  considerable  sur- 
plus, they  might  take  off  the  augmentations  for- 
merly granted :  provided  this  ordinance  be  not 
construed  to  restrain  the  said  trustees  from 
granting  augmentations  to  preachers  in  cities 
and  market-towns,  where  there  shall  be  cause, 
to  a  greater  proportion,  with  the  consent  of  the 
protector  and  his  council.  This  was  a  noble 
and  generous  design  ;  and  if  the  protector  had 
lived  to  have  seen  it  executeo,  must  have  been 
of  general  service  to  the  body  of  the  clergy. 

Though  his  highness  himself  was  no  great 
scholar,  he  was  a  patron  of  learning  and  learn- 
ed men.t  He  settled  £100  a  year  on  a  divinity 
professor  in  O.xford  ;  and  gave  twenty-four  rare 
manuscripts  to  the  Bodleian  Library.  He  erect- 
ed and  endowed  a  college  in  Durham  for  the 
benefit  of  the  northern  counties,  Mr.  Falkland, 
M.A.,  being  one  of  the  first  fellows.  But  these, 
and  some  other  designs  that  he  had  formed  for 
the  advancement  of  learning,  died  with  him. J 

In  order  to  secure  the  education  of  youth,  he 
took  care  to  regulate  both  universities,  by  ap- 
pointing new  visiters,  the  former  ceasing  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  Long  Parliament,  viz.  : 

For  the  University  of  Oxford.^ 
The  vice-chancellor  for  the  time  being. 
Dr.  Harris,  president  of  Trinity  College. 
Dr.  Rogers,  principal  of  New  Inn  Hall. 
Dr.  T.  Goodwin,  president  of  Magdalen  College. 
Dr.  John  Owen,  dean  of  Christ  Church. 
Dr.  Henry  Wilkinson,  Margaret-professor  of  divinity. 
Dr.  Peter  French,  prebend  of  Christ  Church. 
Dr.  John  Conant,  rector  of  Exeter  College. 
Dr.  John  Goddard,  warden  of  Merton  College. 

*  Sccbel,  p.  35:5. 

t  To  the  proofs  which  Mr.  Neal  produces  of  the 
patronage  Cromwell  afforded  to  learning,  may  be  add- 
ed, that  he  permitted  the  paper  of  Dr.  Walton's  Pol- 
yglot to  be  imported  free  of  duty ;  and  that  when, 
through  his  pre-engagement  to  another.  Dr.  Seth 
Ward,  afterward  Bishop  of  Exeter,  lost  the  principal- 
ship  of  Jesus  College  in  O.xford,  1657,  on  being  in- 
formed of  his  merit  and  learning,  he  promised  him  an 
annuity  equal  to  the  value  of  the  principalship. — Dr. 
Harris's  Life  of  Oliver  Cromwell, p.  429-4.31 ;  and  Cal- 
amy's  Life  of  3Ir.  Howe,  p.  19.— En.  Manton  tells 
us  that  his  hbrary  was  well  selected,  and  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  Thurloe  and  Milton  were  his  secretaries, 
and  Hugh  Peters  his  favourite  preacher.— C. 

X  Whitelocke,  p.  588.  ^  Scobel,  p.  366. 


Mr.  Thankful  Owen,  president  of  St.  John's. 

Mr.  Stephens,  principal  of  Hart  Hall. 

Mr.  James  Baron,  of  Magdalen  College. 

Mr.  Francis  Howel,  fellow  of  Exeter  College. 

Wdliam,  viscount  Say  and  Seal. 

Nathaniel  Fiennes,  Esq. 

Bulstrode  Whitelocke,  comm.  of  the  great  seaL 

Samuel  Dunch,  Esq. 

Sir  John  Dreyden. 

Richard  Ingoldsly,  ^ 

John  Crew,  j 

George  Fleetwood,  It-,..- 

John  Bright,  >l^sqrs. 

Jenkinson,    | 

Greenfield,*  ) 

For  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
The  vice-chancellor  for  the  time  being. 
Dr.  Tuckney,  master  of  St.  John's  College. 
Dr.  Arrowsmith,  master  of  Trinity  College. 
Dr.  Horton,  president  of  Queen's  College. 
Dr.  Samuel  Bolton,  master  of  Christ's  College; 
Dr.  Law.  Seaman,  master  of  Peter  House. 
Dr.  Lightfoot,  master  of  Katherine  Hall. ' 
Mr.  John  Sadler,  master  of  Magdalen  College. 
Dr.  Whichcote. 
Dr.  Cudworth. 

Mr.  Worthington,  master  of  Jesus  College. 
Mr.  Dillingham,  master  of  Emm.  College. 
Mr.  Simpson,  master  of  Pembroke  Hall. 
Mr.  Templer,  fellow  of  Trinity  College. 
Mr.  Mowbrey,  fellow  of  St.  John's  College. 
Mr.  William  Moses,  fellow  of  Pembroke  Hall. 
Mr.  Wood,  fellow  of  Magdalen  College. 
Henry  Cromwell. 
Henry  Lawrence,  lord-president  of  his  higlmess's' 

council. 
J.  Lambert,        )  v^„y.„ 
J.  Desborough,  \  ^^^'^^ 
Sir  Gilbert  Pickering. 
Col.  Ed.  Montague. 
Francis  Rouse,  Esq. 
Oliver  St.  John,  lord-chief-iustice  of  the  Common 

Pleas. 
J.  Thurloe,  ^ 
Robert  Castle,  j 
Tho.  Bendish,  >Esqrs. 
Rob.  Viner,  | 
Griffith  Lloyd,; 
Sir  William  Strickland. 

Any  seven  or  more  of  the  commissioners 
above  named  were  authorized  to  visit  all  col- 
leges and  halls  within  their  respective  univer- 
sities ;  to  examine  what  statutes  were  fit  to  be 
abrogated,  altered,  or  added,  and  to  exhibit  the 
same  to  his  highness  and  the  Parliament.  They 
are  farther  authorized  to  explain  such  statutes 
as  are  ambiguous  and  obscure  ;  to  determine 
appeals ;  and  are  to  be  assisted  upon  all  occa- 
sions by  the  mayor,  sheriffs,  and  justices  of 
peace.  The  said  visiters,  or  any  four  of  them^ 
are  authorized  to  visit  Westminster  School, 
Winchester  School,  Merchant  Tailors'  School, 
and  Eton  College  ;  and  to  consider  of  such  stat- 
utes of  the  said  schools  as  are  fit  to  be  abroga- 
ted, and  of  others  that  may  be  proper  to  be  add- 
ed, for  the  well-government  of  the  said  schools 
and  colleges. 

The  visiters  discharged  their  duty  with  great 
fidelity,  and  the  heads  of  colleges  had  a  watch- 
ful eye  over  their  several  houses  ;  drunkenness, 
swearing,  gaming,  and  all  kinds  of  immorality, 
were  severely  punished  ;  all  students,  gradu- 
ates, and  others,  were  obliged  to  be  at  home  in 
proper  hours  ;  the  public-houses  were  searched, 
and  the  practice  of  religion  in  the  several  col- 


*  Add,  from  Dr.  Grey,  Sir  Charles  Wolseley,  Bart., 
and  Humphrey  Mackworth,  Esq. 


JCnomved I'y  Si/nJMr  frcm  oji  Onoinal 


5VE[p[HJ^^^  x: 


u. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


153 


leges  enforced  with  rigour.  One  of  the  profes- 
sors writes,  that  there  was  more  frequent  prac- 
tical preaching  in  the  colleges  than  ever  had 
been  known.  On  the  Lord's  Day,  at  different 
hours,  there  were  three  or  four  sermons  in  sev- 
eral churches  :  and  on  the  week  days,  lectures 
on  Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  Fridays,  and  Satur- 
days. The  tutors  were  very  diligent  in  dis- 
charge of  their  duty;  the  public  lectures  were 
well  attended,  and  the  students  under  strict 
discipline  ;  learning  revived,  and  the  Muses  re- 
turned to  their  seats,  as  appears  by  the  num- 
ber of  learned  men  that  flourished  in  the  reign 
of  King  Charles  II.,  who  owed  their  education 
to  these  times.* 

The  protector's  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  the 
Protestant  churches  abroad  deserves  a  particu- 
lar notice,  and  was  highly  valued  by  all  the  re- 
formed in  foreign  countries.!  He  took  all  ima- 
ginable care  to  appear  at  the  head  of  that  in- 
terest on  all  occasions,  and  to  show  his  power 
in  protecting  them.  The  Prince  of  Tarente 
having  written  a  respectful  letter  to  the  pro- 
tector, his  highness  returned  him  the  following 
answer  :  "  That  it  was  with  extreme  pleasure 
he  had  learned  by  letters  his  inviolable  zeal  and 
attachment  to  the  Reformed  churches,  for  which 
his  praise  was  the  greater,  inasmuch  as  he 
showed  that  zeal  at  a  time  and  in  a  place  where 
such  flattering  hopes  were  given  to  persons  of 
his  rank  if  they  would  forsake  the  orthodox 
faith,  and  where  those  who  continued  steadfast 
are  threatened  with  so  many  troubles.  He  re- 
joices that  his  own  conduct  in  religion  was  so 
pleasing  to  him  ;  he  calls  God  to  witness,  that 
he  desired  nothing  so  much  as  an  opportunity 
to  answer  the  favourable  opinion  the  churches 
have  of  his  zeal  and  piety,  by  endeavouring  to 
propagate  the  true  faith,  and  procure  rest  and 
peace  for  the  Church.  He  exhorts  the  prince 
to  hold  out  firm  to  the  end  in  the  orthodox  re- 
ligion which  he  received  from  his  fathers  ;  and 
adds,  that  nothing  would  bring  him  greater 
glory  than  to  protect  it  as  much  as  lay  in  his 
power."  What  projects  the  protector  formed 
for  this  purpose  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

But  the  royal  interest  abroad  was  inchning 
towards  popery  ;  the  Duke  of  York  was  already 
perverted  to  the  Romish  faith  -t  no  attempts 
were  unessayed  by  the  queen-mother,  the  Queen 
of  France,  and  others,  to  gain  the  young  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  who  had  been  under  the  instruc- 
tion of  parliamentary  tutors  till  the  last  year  ■,^ 
but  this  young  prince  was  too  well  established 
in  his  religion  to  be  perverted  at  present,||  upon 


*  If  the  High  Church  accounts  of  the  ignorance 
and  fanaticism  of  the  Puritan  party  be  true,  how  can 
it  be  accounted  for  that  such  an  unequalled  amount 
of  talent  issued  from  the  universities  at  this  period  .' 
For  a  list  of  the  eminent  men  who  tilled  the  chairs 
of  0.\ford,  or  were  trained  in  its  schools,  see  Orme's 
Life  of  Owen,  p.  133-142 ;  also  Dr.  Owen's  Testi- 
mony in  Favour  of  the  State  of  Learning  and  Piety, 
p.  137.— C.  t  History  of  the  Smarts,  p.  423. 

J  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  203.  ^  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  599. 

Il  The  manner  of  expression  used  by  Mr.  Neal 
may  lead  the  reader,  Dr.  Grey  observes,  to  thuik 
that  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  was  at  last  perverted, 
which  he  apprehends  was  not  the  case.  For  Echard 
affinus  that  the  duke  was  an  invincible  assertor  of 
his  father's  faith  ;  and  Carte  represents  him  as  with- 
standing the  arguments  of  the  Abbot  of  Pontoise,  and 
rejecting  the  offers  of  a  cardinal's  hat,  and  even  the 
promise  of  placirg  him  on  the  throne.  But,  on  the 
Vol.  II.— U 


which  the  queen  forbade  him  her  presence  ;  and 
the  Marquis  of  Ormond  conducted  him  to  his 
brother  at  Cologne.  The  king  was  a  man  of  no 
religion,  and  having  little  to  do,  devoted  his  lei- 
sure hours  to  the  ladies,  and  other  private  pleas- 
ures. His  majesty  had  some  trial  (says  Bishop 
Kennet*)  of  his  conscience  and  courage  in  re- 
sisting the  little  arguments,  or,  rather,  importu- 
nities, of  popery.  The  papists  put  him  in  mind 
that  all  his  hopes  from  the  Protestant  party  were 
at  an  end ;  that  the  bishops  were  dead,  except 
a  very  few  ;  and  the  church-lands  sold ;  and 
that,  since  the  late  defeat  at  Worcester,  the  Pres- 
byterian power  was  destroyed ;  all  his  hopes, 
therefore,  must  be  from  the  Roman  Catholics, 
from  whose  assistance  only  he  could  now  hope 
for  his  restoration.  But  the  prospect  was  so 
distant,  that  the  king,  by  advice  of  Lord  Clar- 
endon, was  prevailed  with  not  to  declare  him- 
self openly  at  present. 

On  the  last  of  November  died  the  learned  Mr. 
John  Selden,  the  glory  of  the  English  nation  :f 
he  was  born  in  Sussex,  December  6,  1584,  and 
educated  in  Hart  Hall,  Oxford  ;  after  which  he 
was  transplanted  to  the  Inner  Temple,  where 
he  became  a  prodigy  in  the  most  uncommon 
parts  of  science.  He  was  a  great  philologist, 
antiquary,  herald,  linguist,  statesman,  and  law- 
yer, but  seldom  appeared  at  the  bar.  He  was 
chosen  burgess  for  several  parliaments,  where 
he  displayed  his  profound  erudition  in  speeches 
and  debates  in  favour  of  the  liberties  of  his 
country  ;  for  which  he  was  imprisoned,  and  se- 
verely fined  with  Mr.  Pym  in  the  Parliament  of 
1618  and  1628.  He  was  chosen  again  in  the 
Long  Parliament,  and  appeared  against  the  pre- 
rogative, as  he  had  formerly  done.  He  was  one 
of  the  lay-members  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines, 
and  by  his  vast  skill  in  the  Oriental  learning: 
and  Jewish  antiquities,  frequently  silenced  the 
most  able  divines.  He  wrote  on  various  sub- 
jects, which  gained  him  the  title  among  foreign- 
ers of  the  dictator  of  learning  in  the  English 
nation. t  Among  other  remarkable  pieces,  we 
may  reckon  his  History  of  Tithes,  published 
1618,  in  which  he  proves  them  not  to  be  due  to 
the  Christian  clergy  by  Divine  institution :  for 
this  he  was  summoned  before  the  High  Commis- 
sion Court,  and  obliged  to  make  a  public  recan- 
tation.ij     But  after  some  time  his  reputation 


other  hand,  Oldmixon  assures  his  reaaer,  on  ttie  au- 
thority of  a  minister  of  state,  a  man  of  known  wis- 
dom and  probity,  who  was  a  particular  favourite  with 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  at  the  Hague,  from  whose 
mouth  he  had  the  information,  that  the  duke  was  af- 
terward reconciled  to  the  Church  of  Rome. — Grey, 
vol.  hi.,  p.  175.     History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  489.— Ed. 

*  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  213. 

t  Athena;  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  107,  108. 

X  It  does  honour  to  Grotius,  his  antagonist,  that  he 
pronounced  IMr.  Selden  to  be  "  the  glory  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation."  Like  a  man  of  genius,  he  was  for  stri- 
king out  new  paths  of  learning,  and  enlarging  the  ter- 
ritories of  science.  The  greater  jjart  of  his  works 
are  on  uncommon  su'uiects.  But  towards  the  close 
of  his  life  he  saw  the  emptiness  of  all  human  learn- 
ing ;  and  owned  that,  out  of  the  numberless  volumes 
he  had  read  and  digested,  nothing  stuck  so  close  to 
his  heart,  or  gave  him  such  solid  satisfaction,  as  a 
single  passage  of  Paul's  Epistles:  Tit.,  ii.,  11-14. — 
Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  228,  229,  8vo. 
— Ed. 

^  It  is  judiciously  remarked  by  Le  Clerc,  that  it 
was  great  impoUcy  in  the  Church  and  court  party  to 


151 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


was  so  fjrcat,  that  it  was  thought  worth  while 
to  gain  him  over  to  the  court ;  and  upon  tlie  new 
civilities  he  received  at  Lambeth,  he  was  pre- 
vailed with  to  publish  his  Mare  Clausum  against 
Hugo  Grotius,  which  was  esteemed  such  an  in- 
valuable treasure,  that  it  was  ordered  to  be  laid 
up  in  the  Court  of  Records.  The  archbishop  of- 
fered him  preferments,  but  he  would  accept  of 
nothing.  Upon  the  first  pressures  against  the 
bishops,  he  publi.shed  his  Eutychius  in  Greek 
and  Latin,  with  notes,  in  which  he  proves  that 
bishops  and  presbyters  differ  only  in  degree. 
He  afterward  answered  his  majesty's  declara- 
tion about  the  commission  of  array,  and  was 
made  master  of  the  rolls  by  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment. He  had  a  large  and  curious  library  of 
books ;  in  the  frontispiece  of  each  he  used  to 
write  this  motto,  Hepl  Travroc  ilevdepiav  :  Above 
all,  liberty.  At  length,  being  worn  out  with  age 
and  hard  study,  he  died  at  his  house  in  the 
Whitefriars,  aged  seventy  years,  and  was  mag- 
nificently interred  in  the  Temple  Church  on  the 
south  side  of  the  round  walk,  according  to  the 
Directory,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  judges, 
some  Parliament-men,  benchers,  and  great  offi- 
cers. His  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by 
Archbishop  Usher,  who  acknowledged  he  was 
not  worthy  to  carry  his  books  after  him.  His 
works  are  lately  collected,  and  printed  together 
in  six  volumes  folio. 

Mr.  Thomas  Gataker  was  born  in  London 
1574,  and  was  educated  in  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge,  where  'he  proceeded  M.A.,  and  was 
afterward  removed  to  Sidney  College,  where  he 
became  remarkable  for  his  skill  in  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek  languages.*  After  his  ordination  he 
was  chosen  minister  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  oc- 
cupied that  station  ten  years ;  but  in  the  year 
1611  he  was  presented  to  the  rectory  of  Rother- 
hithe,  where  he  continued  till  his  death.  In  the 
year  1643  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines,  and  was  an  ornament  and 
reputation  to  it.  When  the  Earl  of  Manches- 
ter visited  and  reformed  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, he  offered  Mr.  Gataker  the  mastership 
of  Trinity  College,  but  he  refused  it  on  account 
of  his  health.  Mr.  Gataker  was  a  very  learned 
man,  and  a  considerable  critic  and  linguist,  as 
appears  by  his  writings,  which  were  very  numer- 
ous, considering  his  infirm  state  of  health.  He 
was  a  constant  preacher,  of  a  most  holy  and 
exemplary  deportment,  but  withal  of  great  mod- 
esty.    It  is  hard,  says  Mr.  Echard,  to  say  which 

offend  and  irritate  such  a  man  as  Selden  :  a  man  of 
deep  learning,  not  in  Jewish  antiquities  only,  but  in 
those  of  his  own  country,  the  laws  of  which  he  un- 
derstood to  their  first  grounds.  Such  persons  ought 
at  aU  times  to  be  courted  and  favoured,  on  account  of 
the  great  use  which  may  be  made  of  them  on  all  oc- 
casions ;  but  especially  in  seasons  of  public  discon- 
tents, when  they  can  turn  the  balance  on  the  side 
which  they  join.  Whereas  it  generally  happens  that 
they  are  ill  treated,  and  the  court  favours  are  bestow- 
ed on  those  only  who  are  fit  for  nothing  but  to  feed 
on  a  great  benefice  or  a  good  pension.  It  would  have 
been  more  wise  to  have  secured  Selden,  since  he  was 
by  no  means  a  fanatic,  as  many  places  in  his  Table- 
Talk  show  ;  and  even  was  partial  to  the  old  ecclesi- 
astical government,  in  opposition  to  those  who  often 
set  it  at  naught. — Bibliotheque  Ancienne  et  Moderne, 
torn,  vi.,  p.  253. — Ed. 

*  Clarke's  General  Martvrology,  p.  248,  &c.,  of  the 
Lives. 


'  was  most  remarkable,  his  exemplary  piety  and 
charity,  his  polite  literature,  or  his  humility  and 
modesty  in  refusing  preferments.  He  maintain- 
ed a  correspondence  with  Salmasius,  Hornbeck, 
and  other  learned  foreigners,  and  was  in  high 
esteem  both  at  home  and  in  the  Low  Countries, 
where  he  had  travelled.  He  died  of  age,  and  a 
complication  of  infirmities,  July  27,  1654,  in  the 
eightieth  year  of  his  age.* 

Mr.  William  Strong  was  educated  in  Katherine 
Hall,  Cambridge,  of  which  he  was  a  fellow.  He 
was  afterward  rector  of  More  Crichel  in  Dor- 
setshire, where  he  continued  till  he  was  forced 
to  fly  from  the  Cavaliers  ;t  he  then  came  to  Lon- 
don, and  was  chosen  one  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines,  and  minister  of  St.  Dunstan's  in  the 
West.  After  some  time  he  became  preacher  at 
Westminster  Abbey,  where  he  died  suddenly  in 
the  vigour  of  life,  and  was  buried  in  the  Abbey 
Church,  July  4,  1654.  His  funeral  sermon  was 
preached  by  Mr.  Ob.  Sedgwick,  who  says  that 
he  was  so  plain  in  heart,  so  deep  in  judgment, 
so  painful  in  study,  so  exact  in  preaching,  and, 
in  a  word,  so  fit  for  all  the  parts  of  the  minis- 
terial service,  that  he  did  not  know  his  equal. 
But  after  the  Restoration  his  bones  were  dug 
up,  and  removed  to  St.  Margaret's  churchyard, 
with,  those  of  other  eminent  Presbyterian  di- 
vines. He  published  several  sermons  and  the- 
ological treatises  in  his  lifetime  ;  and  after  his 
death  there  was  a  posthumous  one  upon  the 
Covenants,  in  the  preface  to  which  Mr.  The- 
ophilus  Gale  observes,  that  the  author  was  a 
wonder  of  nature  for  natural  parts,  and  a  mira- 
cle of  grace  for  his  deep  insight  into  the  more 
profound  mysteries  of  the  Gospel.  His  thoughts 
were  sublime,  but  clear  and  penetrating,  espe- 
cially in  interpreting  difficult  texts. t 

Mr.  Andrew  Pern  was  educated  in  Cambridge, 
and  from  thence  removed  to  Welby  in  North- 
amptonshire, where  he  maintained  the  charac- 
ter of  a  zealous,  laborious,  and  successful  preach- 
er for  twenty-seven  years.  In  the  year  1643 
he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines at  Westminster.  When  he  was  at  Lon- 
don he  was  offered  several  considerable  prefer- 
ments, but  refused  them,  resolving  to  return  to 
his  people  at  Welby,  who  honoured  him  as  a 
father  ;  for  by  his  awakening  sermons,  and  ex- 
emplary life  and  conversation,  he  accomplished 

*  The  most  celebrated  of  his  works  is  a  valuable 
edition  of  Marcus  Antoninus,  with  a  Latin  translation 
and  commentary,  and  a  preliminary  discourse  on  the 
philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  which  is  much  esteemed. 
His  house  vvfas  a  private  seminary  for  divers  young 
gentlemen  of  this  nation,  and  many  foreigners  resort- 
ed to  him,  and  lodged  at  his  house  in  order  to  receive 
from  him  advice  in  their  studies. — British  Biography, 
vol.  iv.,  p.  354,  note. — En.  In  obedience  to  his  ap- 
pointment by  the  General  Assembly,  he  wrote  the  an- 
notations upon  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Lamentations, 
published  in  the  "  Assernbly^s  Annotations  on  the  Bi- 
ble.'''—C.  t  Athens'  Oxon.,  p.  218. 

t  Among  Mr.  Strong's  other  pubhcations  was  a 
volume  of  thirty-one  sermons  published  in  1656,  with 
a  preface  by  Dr.  Manton,  and  one  by  Dr.  Wilkinson, 
dean  of  Christ  Church.  Dr.  Wilkinson  says  "  there 
is  an  excellent  vein  in  his  sermons :  the  farther  you 
search,  the  richer  treasure  you  are  like  to  find.  ***  He 
was  well  studied  in  the  soul's  anatomy,  and  could 
dexterously  dissect  the  old  man."  The  careful  peru- 
sal of  Strong's  discourses  on  the  two  Covenants  will 
satisfy  the  judicious  reader  that  the  author  was  one 
of  the  greatest  divines  of  his  age. — C. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


155 


a  great  reformation  of  manners  in  that  town. 
He  was  full  of  spiritual  warmth,  says  the  preach- 
er of  his  funeral  sermon,  filled  with  a  holy  in- 
dignation against  sin,  active  in  his  work,  and 
never  more  in  his  element  than  in  the  pulpit. 
As  his  life  was  tioly,  so  his  death  was  comfort- 
able. He  blessed  God  that  he  was  not  afraid 
to  die  ;  nay,  he  earnestly  desired  to  be  gone, 
often  crying  out,  in  his  last  sickness,  "When 
will  that  hour  cornel  One  assault  more,  and 
this  earthen  vessel  will  be  broken,  and  I  shall 
be  with  God."  He  died  the  beginning  of  De- 
cember, 1654,  before  he  was  arrived  to  the  age 
of  sixty. 

Dr.  Samuel  Bolton  was  educated  in  Cam- 
bridge, and  from  thence  removed  to  the  living 
of  St.  Martin's,  Ludgate.  Upon  his  coming  to 
the  city  he  was  chosen  one  of  the  additional 
members  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  being  a 
person  of  great  name  and  character  for  learn- 
ing and  practical  preaching.  He  was  a  burn- 
ing and  shining  light,  says  Mr.  Clarke,"  an  in- 
terpreter one  of  a  thousand,  an  amiable  preach- 
er, and  his  life  was  an  excellent  commentary 
upon  his  sermons.  Upon  the  death  of  Dr.  Bain- 
brigge  he  was  chosen  master  of  Christ's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  which  he  governed  with  great 
wisdom  and  prudence  till  his  death,  which  hap- 
pened about  the  10th  of  October,  1654.  He  was 
buried  with  great  solemnity  in  his  parish  church 
of  Ludgate  on  the  16th  of  the  same  month,  very 
much  lamented  by  the  London  clergy  of  those 
times,  t 

Mr.  Jer.  Whitaker  was  born  at  Wakefield  in 
Yorkshire,  1599,  and  educated  in  Sidney  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  where  he  proceeded  in  arts. 
He  taught  the  free-school  at  Okeham  in  Rut- 
landshire seven  years,  and  then  became  minis- 
ter of  Stretton,  in  the  same  county,  where  he 
continued  thirteen  years.  In  1643  he  was  nomi- 
nated one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  West- 
minster, which  brought  him  to  London,  where 
he  was  chosen  to  the  rectory  of  St.  Mary  Mag- 
dalen, Bermondsey,  in  Southwark.  He  preach- 
ed three  or  four  sermons  every  week ;  two  in 
Southwark,  one  at  Westminster,  and  one  at 
Christ  Church,  London.  He  never  withdrew 
from  any  opportunity  of  preaching  if  he  was  in 
health  ;  and  though  he  preached  often,  his  ser- 
mons were  solid  and  judicious.  He  was  a  uni- 
versal scholar,  both  in  arts  and  languages ;  well 
acquainted  with  the  fathers  and  schoolmen,  an 
acute  disputant,  and  inferior  to  none  in  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Holy  Scriptures. $  He  was 
of  the  Presbyterian  persuasion,  and  had  a  chief 
hand  in  composing  the  Defence  of  the  Gospel 
Ministry,  published  this  year  by  the  Provincial 
Synod  of  London.  He  refused  the  Engagement, 
and  lamented  the  wars  between  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Holland.  No  man  was  more  beloved 
by  the  Presbyterian  ministers  of  London  than 
Mr.  Whitaker.     When  he  was  seized  with  the 


*  Lives  of  Eminent  Persons,  p.  43. 

t  He  gave  orders  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  to 
be  interred  as  a  private  Christian,  and  not  with  the 
outward  pomp  of  a  doctor;  "because,"  as  he  ob- 
served, "he  hoped  to  rise  in  the  day  of  judgment, 
and  appear  before  God,  not  as  a  doctor,  but  as  an  himi- 
hle  Christian."  When  he  perceived  any  symptoms  of 
nis  approaching  dissolution,  he  rejoiced  exceedingly, 
calling  them  the  litile  crevices  through  which  his 
soul  peeped. — C. 

J  Clarke's  General  Martyrol.  in  the  Lives,  p.  2G4. 


violent  and  acute  pain  of  tne  stone,  about  the 
beginning  of  November,  many  days  of  prayer 
and  fasting  were  observed  for  his  recovery,  but 
the  distemper  was  incurable.  He  bore  his  pains 
with  uncommon  patience,  fearing  nothing  more 
than  to  dishonour  God  by  unreasonable  com- 
plaints. AVhen  his  distemper  was  most  violent 
he  would  desire  his  friends  to  withdraw,  that 
they  might  not  be  affected  with  his  roarings. 
At  length,  nature  being  quite  spent,  he  cheerful- 
ly resigned  his  soul  into  the  hands  of  his  Re- 
deemer, about  the  fifty-fifth  yeaV  of  his  age. 
His  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by  Mr.  Cala- 
my,  who  gave  him  a  large  and  deserved  enco- 
mium. 

Mr.  Richard  Vines,  of  whom  mention  has 
been  made  already,  was  born  at  Blazon  in  Lei- 
cestershire, and  educated  in  Magdalen  College. 
Cambridge,  where  he  commenced  M.A.  He 
was  first  schoolmaster  at  Hinckley,  then  min- 
ister of  Weddington  in  Warwickshire.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  civil  war  he  was  driven  from 
his  parish,  and  forced  to  take  shelter  in  Coven- 
try. When  the  Assembly  of  Divines  was  con- 
vened, he  was  chosen  one  of  their  number  ;  and, 
as  Fuller  says,*  was  the  champion  of  their  party. 
While  he  was  at  London  he  became  minister  of 
St.  Clement's  Danes  ;  afterward  he  removed  to 
Watton  in  Hertfordshire,  and  was  chosen  mas- 
ter of  Pembroke  Hall  in  Cambridge,  but  resign- 
ed that,  and  his  living  of  St.  Lawrence  Jewry, 
on  account  of  the  Engagement.  He  was  a  son 
of  thunder,  and  therefore  compared  to  Luther  ; 
but  moderate  and  charitable  to  those  who  dif- 
fered from  him  in  judgment.  The  Parliament 
employed  him  in  all  their  treaties  with  the  king; 
and  his  majesty,  though  of  a  different  judgment, 
valued  him  for  his  ingenuity,  seldom  speaking 
to  him  without  touching  his  hat,  which  Mr. 
Vines  returned  with  most  respectful  language 
and  gestures.  He  was  an  admirable  scholar  ; 
holy  and  pious  in  his  conversation,  and  indefat- 
igable in  his  labours,  which  wasted  his  strength, 
and  brought  him  into  a  consumption,  when  he 
had  lived  but  about  fifty-six  years.  He  was 
buried  in  his  own  parish  church,  February  7, 
1655,  his  funeral  sermon  being  preached  by  Dr. 
Jacomb,  who  gave  him  his  just  commendation. 
He  was  a  perfect  master  of  the  Greek  tongue, 
a  good  philologist,  and  an  admirable  disputant. 
He  was  a  thorough  Calvinist,  and  a  bold,  honest 
man,  without  pride  or  flattery.t    Mr.  Newcomen 


*  Fuller's  Worthies,  p.  134. 

t  Dr.  Grey  insinuates  a  reflection  on  Mr.  Vines's 
simplicity  and  integrity,  by  a  story  of  his  pra\nng  m 
the  morning  of  an  Easter  Sunday,  before  the  MarquLs 
of  Hertford,  for  the  king's  restoration  to  his  throne 
and  legal  rights;  but  in  the  afternoon,  when  the 
marquis  was  absent,  and  Lord  Fairfax  came  to 
church,  praying,  in  stylo  parlinmentario,  that  God 
would  turn  the  heart  of  the  king,  and  give  him  grace 
to  repent  of  his  grievous  sins,  especially  all  the  blood 
shed  in  those  civil,  uncivil  wars.  On  which  it  wa.- 
observed,  that  Mr.  Vines  was  much  more  altered  be 
tween  the  forenoon  and  afternoon  than  the  dift'erencf 
between  an  English  marquis  and  an  Irish  baron 
The  reader,  perhaps,  will  think  that  each  prayei 
might  very  consistently  be  formed  by  the  same  per 
son.  Not  a  week  before  Mr.  Vines's  death,  as  he 
was  preaching  at  St.  Gregory's,  a  rude  fellow  cried 
out  to  him,  "  Lift  up  your  voice,  for  1  cannot  hear 
you;"  to  whom  Mr.  Vines  returned,  "Lift  up  your 
ears,  for  I  can  speak  no  louder." — Fuller's  Worthies, 
p.  446,  8vo  edition.  1684.— Ed. 


156 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


calls  him  "  dispiUator  acutissimus,  concionator 
felicissimus,  theologiis  eximius."  Many  funer- 
al poems  and  elegies  were  published  on  his 
death.* 

The  protector  having  dissolved  his  second 
Parliament  without  confirming  their  acts,  was 
obliged  still  to  rely  on  the  military  arm  ;  this, 
together  with  the  insurrections  in  several  parts 
of  the  country,  induced  him,  for  his  greater  se 
curity,  to  canton  the  nation  into  eleven  districts, 
and  place  over  them  major-generals,  whose 
commission  it  was  to  inspect  the  behaviour  of 
the  inferior  commissioners  within  their  dis- 
tricts ;  to  commit  to  prison  all  suspected  per- 
sons ;  to  take  care  of  collecting  the  public  tax- 
es ;  and  to  sequester  such  as  did  not  pay  their 
decimation.  They  were  to  inquire  after  all  pri- 
vate assemblies  of  suspected  persons,  and  after 
such  as  bought  up  arms  ;  after  vagabonds  and 
idle  persons  ;  after  such  as  lived  at  a  higher 
rate  than  they  could  afford ;  after  such  as  fre- 
quented taverns  and  gaming-houses,  and  after 
scandalous  and  unlearned  ministers  and  school- 
masters ;  and  there  was  no  appeal  from  them 
but  to  the  protector  and  his  council.  They  were 
ordered  to  list  a  body  of  reserves,  both  horse 
and  foot,  at  half  pay,  who  were  to  be  called  to- 
gether upon  any  sudden  emergency,  and  to  at- 
tend so  many  days  at  their  ovi'n  expense,  but  if 
they  were  detained  longer,  to  have  full  pay  ;  by 
which  means  the  protector  had  a  second  army 
in  view,  if  any  disaster  should  befall  the  first ; 
but  these  officers  became  so  severe  and  arbitrary, 
that  his  highness  found  it  necessary,  after  some 
time,  to  reduce  their  power,  and  when  affairs 
were  a  little  more  settled,  to  dissolve  them. 

Having  provided  for  the  security  of  his  gov- 
ernment at  home,  the  protector  concluded  an 
alliance  with  France,  October  23,  in  which  it  is 
remarkable  that  Louis  XIV.  is  not  allowed  to 
style  himself  King  of  France,  but  King  of  the 
French,  his  highness  claiming  the  protectorship 
of  that  kingdom  among  his  other  titles  ;  and, 
which  is  more  surprising,  the  name  of  Oliver 
stands  in  the  treaty  before  that  of  the  French 
king.  At  the  same  time,  he  sent  Admiral  Blake 
with  a  fleet  into  the  Mediterranean,  who  spread 
the  terror  of  the  English  name  all  over  Italy, 
even  to  Rome  itself;  processions  being  made, 
and  the  Host  exposed  for  forty  hours,  to  avert 
the  judgments  of  Heaven,  and  preserve  the  pat- 
rimony of  the  Church.  But  i31ake's  commis- 
sion was  only  to  demand  £60,000  of  the  Duke 
of  Tuscany,  for  damages  sustained  by  the  Eng- 
lish merchants  while  he  harboured  Prince  Ru- 
pert, which  he  paid  immediately.  The  admiral 
released  all  the  English  slaves  on  the  coast  of 
Barbary,  to  the  number  of  four  hundred,  and 
obtained  satisfaction  for  the  ships  taken  by  the 
pirates  of  Algiers,  Tunis,  &c.  Upon  the  whole, 
he  brought  home  sixteen  ships  laden  with  booty, 
which  sailed  up  the  River  Thames  to  the  port  of 
London,  as  a  grateful  spectacle  of  triumph  to 
the  people. 

While  Blake  was  in  the  Mediterranean,  Ad- 
miral Penn  and  Venables,  with  thirty  men-of-war 
and  some  land-forces,  sailed  to  the  West  Indies, 


*  Clarke's  Lives  of  Eminent  Persons,  p.  48. — 
There  are  few  things  more  to  be  desired  than  a  judi- 
cious biography  of  these  glorious  pulpit  giants  :  how 
few  of  the  present  generation  know  their  worth,  and 
appreciate  their  claims  ! — C. 


with  a  design  to  surprise  the  town  of  Hispani- 
ola ;  but,  miscarrying  in  the  attempt,  they  re- 
embarked  and  took  possession  of  the  island  of 
Jamaica,  which  is  in  possession  of  the  crown 
of  Great  Britain  to  this  day. 

The  protector  did  not  commission  Blake  to 
assault  the  Spanish  coasts  in  the  Mediterranean, 
because  there  was  no  open  rupture  between  the 
two  nations  in  Europe  ;  but  the  West  Indies 
not  being  included  in  the  treaty,  he  thought 
himself  at  liberty  in  those  parts  :  which  occa- 
sioned a  declaration  of  war.  on  the  part  of  Spain, 
with  all  the  English  dominions ;  upon  which, 
Blake  was  ordered  to  cruise  upon  the  Spanish 
coasts,  and  to  wait  for  the  return  of  the  Plate 
fleet,  of  which  he  gave  a  very  good  account  the 
next  summer. 

To  support  these  additional  expenses,  the 
protector,  by  advice  of  his  council,  raised  some 
extraordinary  taxes  before  the  Parliament  met, 
which  he  knew  to  be  illegal,  and  did  not  pre- 
tend to  justify  upon  any  other  foot  than  "the 
absolute  necessity  of  the  public  safety  ;  the  dis- 
tracted condition  of  the  nation  ;  that  it  was  im- 
practicable, in  the  present  juncture,  to  call  a 
Parliament,  or  to  proceed  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  law  ;  and  that  in  extraordinary  cases,  where- 
in all  was  at  stake,  some  extraordinary  meth- 
ods were  allowable."  How  far  this  reasoning 
will  excuse  the  protector,  or  vindicate  his  con- 
duct, must  be  left  with  the  reader.  But  it  is 
agreed  on  all  hands,  that  in  things  that  did  not 
affect  the  very  being  of  his  government,  he 
never  interposed,  but  let  the  laws  have  their 
free  course.  He  had  a  zeal  for  trade  and  com- 
merce beyond  all  his  predecessors,  and  appoint- 
ed a  standing  committee  of  merchants  for  ad- 
vancing it,  which  met  for  the  first  time  in  the 
Painted  Chamber,  November  27,  1655,  and  con- 
tinued to  his  death. 

The  Provincial  Assembly  of  London,  finding 
their  attempts  to  establish  their  discipline  inef- 
fectual, employed  themselves  this  year  in  pro- 
moting the  religious  education  of  youth  ;  for 
which  purpose  they  published  an  exhortation  to 
catechising,  with  the  following  directions  for 
the  more  orderly  carrying  it  on  ; 

1.  "  That  the  ministers,  on  some  Lord's  Day, 
prove  in  their  sermons  the  necessity  and  use- 
fulness of  such  a  work,  and  exhort  all  parents 
and  masters  of  families  to  prepare  their  chil- 
dren and  servants  for  it,  by  catechising  them 
at  home,  that  they  may  more  readily  make  their 
answers  in  public. 

2.  "That  the  catechism  to  be  used  be  the 
lesser  catechism  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines. 
This  catechism  excelling  all  others  in  this  re- 
spect, that  every  answer  is  a  perfect  proposi- 
tion without  the  question. 

3.  "  That  the  persons  to  be  catechised  be 
children  and  servants  that  have  not  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  Lord's  Supper  by  the  eldership. 

4.  "  That  the  time  of  catechising  be  on  the 
Lord's  Day  in  the  afternoon,  before  the  sermon, 
to  the  end  that  the  whole  congregation  may  re- 
ceive benefit  thereby. 

5.  "  That  the  catechism  may  be  explained 
briefly  at  the  first  going  over,  that  the  people 
may  in  a  short  time  have  a  notion  of  the  whole 
body  of  divinity. 

6.  "  That  the  parish  be  desired,  at  the  com- 
mon charge,  to  provide  catechisms  for  the  poor 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


157 


er  sort,  who  cannot  well  provide  for  themselves, 
and  that  the  distribution  of  them  be  referred  to 
the  respective  ministers. 

7.  "  It  is  desired  that  an  account  in  writing, 
what  progress  is  made  in  the  premises,  may  be 
returned  from  the  classes  to  the  Provincial 
Assembly  within  forty  days  after  the  receipt 
hereof 

"  Signed  in  the  name  and  by  the  appointment 
of  the  assembly, 

"  Edmund  Calamy,  Moderator. 
"  William  Harrison 


William 


Harrison,     )  c    •;     " 
Blackmo;e,  \  ^"'^''- 


These  instructions  were  sent  to  the  several 
classes  of  London  ;  and  after  their  example, 
the  associated  ministers  in  the  several  counties 
of  England  published  the  like  exhortations  to 
their  brethren. 

The  occasion  of  this  proceeding  was  the  pub- 
lishing two  catechisms  of  Mr.  John  Biddie,  a 
Socinian,  one  called  a  Scripture  Catechism,  and 
the  other  a  Brief  Scripture  Catechism,  for  the 
Use  of  Children.  Complaints  of  which  being 
made  to  the  last  Parliament,  tliey  were  ordered 
to  be  burned  by  tlie  hands  of  the  common  hang- 
man, and  the  author  to  be  imprisoned  in  the 
Gate-house.  Mr.  Biddie  had  been  in  custody 
for  his  opinions  before  the  late  king's  death. 
While  he  was  there,  he  had  published  twelve 
questions  or  arguments  against  the  Deity  of  I 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  quarto,  1G47,  which  were  | 
answered  by  Mr.  Pool,  and  the  book  ordered  to 
be  burned.  Next  year,  being  still  in  prison,  he 
published  seven  articles  against  the  Deity  of 
Christ,  with  the  testimonies  of  several  of  the 
fathers  on  this  head  ;  upon  which,  some  zealous 
in  the  assembly  moved  that  he  might  be  put  to 
death  as  a  heretic  ;  but  he  went  on,  and  being 
set  at  liberty,  in  the  year  1651  he  composed  and 
published  the  catechisms  above  mentioned,  in 
which  he  maintains,  "(1.)  That  God  is  con- 
fined to  a  certain  place.  (2  )  That  he  has  a 
bodily  shape.  (3.)  That  he  has  passions.  (4.) 
That  he  is  neither  omnipotent  nor  unchange- 
able. (5.)  That  we  are  not  to  believe  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead.  (G.)  That  Jesus  Christ 
has  not  the  nature  of  God,  but  only  a  Divine 
lordship.  (7.)  That  he  was  not  a  priest  while 
upon  earth,  nor  did  reconcile  men  to  God.  And, 
(8.)  That  there  is  no  Deity  in  the  Holy  Ghost." 
These  propositions*  were  condemned  by  the 
Parliament,  and  the  author  committed  to  the 
Gate-house.  But  as  soon  as  the  protector  had 
dissolved  his  Parliament,  he  gave  him  his  liberty. 

After  this,  being  of  a  restless  spirit,!  he  chal- 


*  Mr.  Biddie  was  a  pious,  holy,  and  humble  man  ; 
a  conscientious  sufferer  for  what  appeared  to  him 
Divine  and  important  truth.  The  propositions  ob- 
jected to  him  above  do  not  appear  in  his  catechisms 
under  the  form  of  principles  which  be  asserts,  but  of 
questions  which  he  proposes,  and  the  answers  to 
which  are  numerous  te.xts  of  Scripture,  that  appear 
to  speak  to  the  point.  E.  g..  The  first  proposition  is 
this  question  :  "  Is  not  God,  according  to  the  current 
of  the  Scripture,  in  a  certain  place,  namely,  in  heav- 
en ?"  The  answer  consists  of  twenty-nine  passages 
of  Scripture,  which  represent  God  as  "  looking  from 
heaven,  as  our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,"  and  the 
like.  For  a  full  account  of  these  catechisms,  I  would 
refer  the  reader  to  my  Review  of  the  Life,  Charac- 
ter, and  Writings  of  Mr.  John  Biddie,  section  8. — 
Ed.  (Toulmin). 

t  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  Mr.  Neal  should  speak 


lenged  Mr.  Griffin,  a  Baptist  preacher,  to  dis- 
pute with  him  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  on  this 
question  :  "  Whether  Jesus  Christ  be  the  Most 
High,  or  Almighty  God?"  This  occasioning 
new  disturbances,  the  council  committed  him  to 
Newgate  ;  but  the  protector  thought  it  best  to 
send  him  out  of  the  way,  and  accordingly  trans- 
ported him  to  Scilly.  and  allowed  him  one  hun- 
dred crowns  a  year  for  his  maintenance.  Here 
he  remained  till  the  year  165S,  when,  the  noise 
being  over,  he  was  set  at  liberty ;  his  catechisms 
having  been  answered  by  Dr.  Owen,  in  a  learn- 
ed and  elaborate  treatise,  entitled  "  Vindiciaj 
Evangclica;,"  &c. 

After  the  protector's  death,  Biddie  set  up  a 
private  conventicle  in  I^ondon,  which  continued 
till  the  Restoration,  when  the  Church  being  re- 
stored to  its  coercive  power,  he  was  apprehend- 
ed while  preaching,  and  committed  to  prison, 
where  he  died  in  September,  1662,  and  was  bu- 
ried in  the  burying-ground  in  Old  Bedlam.  He 
had  such  a  prodigious  memory  (says  Wood), 
that  he  could  repeat  all  St.  Paul's  Epistles  in 
Greek,  and  was  reckoned  by  those  of  his  per- 
suasion a  sober  man,  and  so  devout,  that  he  sel- 
dom prayed  without  lying  prostrate  on  the 
ground. 

Though  it  was  well  known  by  this,  as  well  as 
other  examples,  that  the  protector  was  averse 
to  all  acts  of  severity  on  the  account  of  reli- 
gion, yet  such  was  the  turbulent  behaviour  of 
the  Royalists,  who  threatened  an  assassination,* 
published  the  most  daring  libels  against  the 
government,  and  were  actually  in  arms,  tliat  he 
thought  it  necessary  to  crush  them,  and  there- 
fore an  order  was  published  November  24,t 
"  That  no  persons  after  January  1, 1655-6,  shall 
keep  in  their  houses  or  families,  as  chaplains  or 
schoolmasters  for  the  education  of  their  chil- 
dren, any  sequestered  or  ejected  minister,  fel- 
low of  a  college,  or  schoolmaster,  nor  permit 
their  chUdren  to  be  taught  by  such.  That  no 
such  persons  shall  keep  school  either  publicly 
or  privately,  nor  preach  in  any  public  place,  or 
private  meeting,  of  any  others  than  those  of  his 


in  this  manner  of  one  who  thought  it  his  duty,  by  the 
fair  and  peaceable  means  of  preaching  and  writing, 
to  advance  and  disseminate  sentiments  which  he 
judged  to  be  the  truths  of  Scripture,  and  only  called 
men  to  inquire  and  examine.  Such  language  fixes  a 
stigma  upon  the  honest  advocate  for  truth,  and  is  the 
illiberal  cry  of  those  wlio  cannot  bear  to  have  es- 
tablished opinions  attacked.  The  iirst  teachers  of 
Christianity  were  reproached  as  men  of  restless  spir- 
its ;  as  men  who  "  would  turn  the  world  upside 
dovvfn." — Acts,  X  vii.,  0.  In  the  present  case,  the  term 
was  not  deserved;  Mr.  Neal  has  misstated  the  trans- 
action. Mr.  Biddie  was  not  the  llrst  in  the  business. 
The  challenge  came  from  Mr.  Griffin,  and  Mr.  Bid- 
die  waived  accepting  it,  and  decUned  the  disputation 
for  some  time  ;  and  when  he  entered  the  lists,  there 
were  in  the  auditory  many  of  his  bitter  and  fiery  ad- 
versaries.—See  Review  of  his  Life,  p.  117,  118;  or  a 
modern  Collection  of  Unitarian  Tracts,  in  12mo,  vol. 
iv.,p.  91. — Ed.  (Toulmin). 

*  It  is  not  generally  known  that  a  proclamation, 
dated  Paris,  3d  May,  1654,  was  issued  by  the  e.xile 
king,  in  which  he  promised  an  annuity  of  £bQG  to 
any  person,  and  his  heirs  forever,  who  would  take 
away  the  life  of  the  protector.     In  this  proclamation 


Charles  talks  of  "  a  certain  mechanic  fellow,  by  name 

Oliver  C  ~ 

114.— C 


Oliver  Cromwell,"  &C. — Jesse's  Court,  &c. 


w,  by  na7 
,  vol.  iii., 


P- 


t  The  date,  as  giTen  by  Evelyn,  is  27th  November. 
— Harleian  Miscellany,  vol.  vi.,  p.  420. — C. 


158 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


own  family  ;  nor  shall  administer  baptism,  or 
the  Lord's  Supper,  or  marry  any  persons.  Or  use 
the  Boolv  of  Common  Prayer,  or  the  forms  of 
prayer  therein  contained,  on  pain  of  being  pros- 
ecuted, according  to  the  orders  lately  published 
by  his  highness  and  council,  for  securmg  the 
peace  of  the  commonwealth.  Nevertheless,  his 
highness  declares  that  towards  such  of  the  said 
persons  as  have,  since  their  ejectment  or  seques- 
tration, given,  or  hereafter  shall  give,  a  real  tes- 
timony of  their  godliness,  and  good  affection  to 
the  present  government,  so  much  tenderness 
shall  be  used  as  may  consist  with  the  safety  and 
good  of  the  nation."* 

This  was  a  severe  and  terrible  ordert  upon 
the  Episcopalians,  and  absolutely  unjustifiable 
in  itself;  but  the  title  of  the  act,  which  is  "  An 
Ordinance  for  securing  the  Peace  of  the  Com- 
monvi^ealth,"  as  well  as  the  last  clause,  shows 
it  was  made  for  the  safety  of  the  government, 
against  a  number  of  men  who  were  undermi- 
ning It,  and  was  published  chiefly  in  terrorem,  fur 
no  person  was  prosecuted  upon  it ;  and  the  Par- 
liament which  met  next  year  not  confirming  it, 
jt  became  absolutely  void. J 

Dr.  Gauden  presented  a  petitionary  remon- 
strance to  the  protector  against  this  order  ;  and 
Archbishop  Usher  was  desired  to  use  his  inter- 
est with  his  highness  in  behalf  of  the  Episcopal 
clergy  ;  upon  which,  says  the  writer  of  the  arch- 
bishop's life,!^!  the  protector  promised  either  to 
recall  his  declaration,  or  prevent  its  being  put 
in  execution,  provided  the  clergy  were  inoffen- 
sive in  their  language  and  sermons,  and  stood 
clear  in  meddling  with  matters  of  state.  His 
highness,  accordingly,  laid  the  matter  before  his 


*  Hughes's  Exact  Abridgment  of  Public  Acts  and 
Ordinances,  4to,  p.  597. 

t  "  It  would  be  useless,"  says  Dr.  Harris,  "  to  spend 
words  in  exposing  the  cruelty  of  this  declaration. 
Persecution  is  written  on  the  face  of  it,  nor  is  it  ca- 
pable of  a  vindication." — Life  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  p. 
438.— Ed. 

t  This  ordinance  was  designed  to  terrify  rather 
than  injure,  and  was,  in  point  of  fact,  as  Mr.  Hallam 
remarks,  '•  so  far  from  being  rigorously  observed,  that 
Episcopahan  conventicles  were  openly  kept  in  Lon- 
don." "  It  was  one  of  the  unhappy  features  of  these 
times,  that  religion  and  politics  were  so  intimately 
blended  as  to  admit  of  no  practical  disjunction. 
Cromwell  was  desirous  of  extending  toleration  to  all; 
to  the  Cathohc  as  well  as  to  the  Protestant ;  to  the 
Episcopalian  equally  with  the  Presbyterian  and  In- 
dependent. From  this  generous  policy  he  was  com- 
pelled partially  to  swerve,  in  the  case  of  the  Epis- 
copalians and  Catholics.  These  parties  had  sunk 
into  two  sections  of  one  political  faction,  whose  im- 
bittered  hostility  to  his  government  was  the  promi- 
nent and  most  practical  article  of  their  creed.  Their 
religion  was  the  rallying-point  of  disatfection ;  the 
perpetual  incentive  to  revolt;  he  must  have  been 
more  of  a  philosopher  than  is  usual  with  statesmen, 
if  he  had  not  sought  to  discourage  their  religious 
faith.  *  *  It  ims  not  against  Episcopacy  that  Crom- 
well warred,  but  against  the  politics — ever  restless 
and  plotting — with  which  its  profession  was  associ- 
ated." Hailam  says,  "  It  is  somewhat  bold  in  Angli- 
can writers  to  complain,  as  they  do,  of  the  persecu- 
tion ihey  suffered  at  this  period,  when  we  consider 
what  had  been  the  conduct  of  the  bishops  before,  and  what 
it  was  afterward.  I  do  not  know  that  any  member  of 
the  Church  of  England  was  imprisoned  under  the 
commonwealth,  except  for  some  political  reason  ;  cer- 
tain it  is,  the  jails  were  not  filled  with  them,"  as  in  pre- 
latical  persecutions. — Const.  Hist.,yo\.  ii.,  p.  428,  note. 
— C.  ^  Parr's  Life  of  Usher,  p.  75. 


council,  who  were  of  opinion*  that  it  was  not 
safe  for  him  to  recall  his  declaration,  and  give 
open  liberty  to  men  who  were  declared  enemies 
to  his  government,  but  that  he  should  suspend 
the  execution  of  it  as  far  as  their  behaviour 
should  deserve  ;  so  that  in  the  event  there  was 
no  great  cause  of  complaint ;  for  notwithstand- 
ing this  ordinance,  the  sober  Episcopal  clergy 
preached  publicly  in  the  churches,  at  London 
and  in  the  country,  as  Dr.  Hall,  afterward  Bish- 
op of  Chester,  Dr.  Ball,  Dr.  Wild,  Dr.  Hardy, 
Dr.  Griflith,  Dr.  Pearson,  bishop  of  Chester, 
and  others.  Remarkable  are  the  words  of  Bish- 
op Kennet  to  this  purpose  :  "  It  is  certain,"  says 
his  lordship,  "  that  the  protector  was  for  liberty, 
and  the  utmost  latitude  to  all  parties,  so  far  as 
consisted  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  his  per- 
son and  government,  and  therefore  he  was  nev- 
er jealous  of  any  cause  or  sect  on  the  account  of 
heresy  and  falsehood,  but  on  his  wiser  accounts 
of  political  peace  and  quiet ;  and  even  the  prej- 
udice he  had  against  the  Episcopal  party  v-as 
more  for  their  leing  Royalists,  than  for  being  of 
the  good  old  Church.  Dr.  Gunning,  afterward 
Bishop  of  Ely,  kept  a  conventicle  in  London,  in 
as  open  a  manner  as  Dissenters  did  after  the 
toleration  ;  and  so  did  several  other  Episcopal 
Divines. "t 

For  the  same  reasons,  his  highness  girt  the 
laws  close  upon  the  papists,  not  on  account 
of  their  religion,  but  because  they  were  ene- 
mies to  his  government  ;  for,  in  the  month  of 
May,  a  proclamation  was  published  for  the  bet- 
ter executing  the  laws  against  Jesuits  and 
priests,  and  for  the  conviction  of  popish  recu- 
sants ;  the  reasons  of  which  the  protector  gives 
in  his  declaration  of  October  31,  published  with 
the  advice  of  his  council,  in  these  words  :  "  Be- 


*  On  this  ground,  when  the  lord-primate  went  to 
him  a  second  time  to  get  the  promise  which  the  pro- 
tector on  the  first  application  had  made  of  taking  olf 
these  restraints  ratified  and  put  into  writing,  he  re- 
tracted his  engagement,  which  both  grieved  and  irri- 
tated the  archbishop.  He  had,  indeed,  good  reason 
to  be  displeased.  By  this  it  appears  that  Mr.  Neal's 
statement  above  is  not  accurate.  The  ordinance 
was  executed  ;  and  though  some  worthy  Episcopa- 
lians were  permitted  to  officiate,  it  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed but  many  innocent  and  worthy  men  must  have 
received  very  hard  measure.  The  ordinance  was 
marked  with  horrid  severity ;  and  it  is  "  a  barbarous 
thing  to  prohibit  men  the  use  of  those  forms  of  ad- 
dress to  the  Deity  which  they  imagine  are  most  hon- 
ourable and  acceptable  to  him."  Besides,  men  ought 
not  to  suffer  in  their  most  valuable  and  inalienable 
rights  on  suspicion;  and  instead  of  being  amenable 
for  overt  acts,  be  punished,  as  it  were,  for  crimes 
they  have  never  committed.  This  is  injustice  and 
cruelty  ;  has  its  origin  in  fear  and  the  consciousness 
of  oppressive  government ;  and  tends  to  make  the 
government,  which  it  would  protect  from  danger, 
odious  and  hateful. —  Grey's  Remarks,  vol.  iii.,  p.  177, 
178.     Harris's  Life  of  O.  Cromwell,  p.  438,  439.— En. 

t  Conf  Plea,  part  iv.,  p.  510.  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  223. 
Baxter,  in  his  True  History  of  Councils,  makes  a 
statement  greatly  adapted  to  diminish  sympathy  with 
the  Episcopalians  of  that  period.  "In  the  days  of 
the  usurper,"  he  says,  "  I  moved  for  a  petition  that 
when  they  granted  liberty  of  conscience  for  so  many 
others,  they  would  grant  liberty  for  the  full  exercise 
of  the  Episcopal  government  to  all  that  desired  it. 
But  the  Episcopal  party  that  I  spake  to  would  not 
endure  it,  as  knowing  what  bare  liberty  would  be  to 
their  cause,  unless  they  could  have  the  sword  to  sup- 
press those  that  vielded  not  to  their  reason.'' — P. 
13L— C. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


159> 


cause  it  was  not  only  commonly  observed,  but 
there  remains  with  us  somewhat  of  proof,  that 
Jesuits  have  been  found  among  discontented 
parties  of  this  nation,  who  are  observed  to  quar- 
rel and  fall  out  with  every  form  of  administra- 
tion in  Church  and  State."'*  The  protector 
gave  notice  of  the  lilce  kind  to  the  Republicans, 
lifth  monarchy  men.  Levellers,  and  to  the  Pres- 
byterians, that  they  should  stand  upon  the  same 
foot  with  Royalists,  in  case  of  any  future  delin- 
quencies. 

Such  was  the  protector's  latitude,  that  he 
was  for  indulging  the  Jews,  who  petitioned  for 
liberty  of  their  religion,  and  for  carrying  on  a 
trade  in  London.  Manasseh  Ben  Israel,  one  of 
tlieir  chief  rabbles,  with  some  others,  came  from 
Amsterdam  to  Whitehall  for  this  purpose,  whom 
the  protector  treated  with  respect,  and  sum- 
moned an  assembly  of  divines,  lawyers,  and 
merchants  to  consult  upon  the  affair.t  The 
divines  were  to  consider  it  as  a  case  of  con- 
science ;  the  lawyers  to  report  how  far  it  was 
consistent  with  the  laws  of  England  ;  and  the 
merchants,  whether  it  was  for  the  advantage  of 
trade  and  commerce.  Bishop  Burnet  appre- 
hends that  the  protector  designed  the  Jews  for 
spies  in  the  several  nations  of  Europe  ;  howev- 
er, he  was  of  opinion  that  their  admission,  un- 
der certain  limitation,  might  be  for  the  advan- 
tage of  commerce ;  and  told  the  divines  that, 
since  there  was  a  promise  in  Holy  Scripture  of 
the  conversion  of  the  Jews,  he  did  not  know  but 
the  preaching  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  it 
was  then  in  England,  without  idolatry  or  su- 
perstition, might  conduce  to  it.  But  the  assem- 
bly not  agreeing  in  their  opinions,  the  affair 
was  dropped,  and  the  petitioners  returned  to 
Holland,  where  Manasseh  Ben  Israel  wrote  a 
handsome  letter,  now  before  me,  which  he  calls 
"  An  Answer  to  certain  Questions  propounded 
by  a  noble  and  learned  Gentleman,  touching  the 
Reproaches  cast  upon  the  Nation  of  the  Jews, 
wherein  all  Objections  are  candidly  and  fully 
stated."  The  famous  Mr.  Prynne,  and  Mr. 
Dury,  a  Presbyterian  minister,  wrote  fiercely 
against  the  admission  of  the  Jews  ;  but  other 
divines,  whom  the  protector  consulted,  were 
for  admitting  them  with  some  limitations.  I 
shall  report  their  resolution  on  this  point  in 
their  own  language. 

Question,  Whether  the  Jews,  at  their  desire, 
may  be  admitted  into  this  nation  to  traffic  and 
dwell  among  us,  as  Providence  shall  give  occa- 
sion 1 

The  answer  of  those  who  were  against  it 
was,  that  they  could  not  think  it  lawful  for  the 
following  reasons  . 

1.  "  Because  the  motives  on  which  Manas- 
seh Ben  Israel,  in  his  book  lately  printed,  de- 
sires their  admission  into  this  commonwealth, 
are  such  as  we  conceive  to  be  very  sinful. 

2.  "  The  danger  of  seducing  the  people  of 
this  nation,  by  their  admission,  is  very  great. 

3.  "  Their  having  synagogues,  or  any  public 
meetings  for  the  exercise  of  their  religion,  is 


*  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  225,  in  marg. 

t  It  is  a  proof  of  the  protector's  good  dispositions 
towards  this  business,  and  of  his  respect  for  the  rab- 
bi who  came  to  negotiate  it,  that,  by  an  order  of  the 
24th  of  March,  1655,  he  directed  X200  to  be  paid  to 
him  out  of  the  treasury. —  Whiielocke's  Memorials,  p. 
673.— Ed. 


not  only  evil  in  itself,  but  likewise  very  scan- 
dalous to  other  Christian  churches. 

4.  "  Their  customs  and  practices  concerning 
marriage  and  divorce  are  unlawful,  and  will  be 
of  very  evil  example  among  us. 

5.  "  The  principles  of  not  making  conscience 
of  oaths  made,  and  injuries  done  to  Christians 
in  life,  chastity,  goods,  or  good  name,  have 
been  very  notoriously  charged  upon  them  by 
valuable  testimony. 

6.  "  Great  prejudice  is  like  to  arise  to  the  na- 
tives of  this  commonwealth  in  matters  of  trade, 
which,  besides  other  dangers  here  mentioned, 
we  find  very  commonly  suggested  by  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  city  of  London." 

Other  divines  were  of  opinion  that  the  civil 
magistrate  might  tolerate  them  under  the  fol- 
lowing limitations  : 

1.  "  That  they  be  not  admitted  to  have  any 
public  judicatories,  civil  or  ecclesiastical. 

2.  "  That  they  be  not  permitted  to  speak  or 
do  anything  to  the  defamation  or  dishonour  of 
the  names  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  of  the 
Christian  religion. 

3.  "  That  they  be  not  permitted  to  do  any 
work,  or  anything,  to  the  open  profanation  ot~ 
the  Lord's  Day,  or  Christian  Sabbath. 

4.  "That  they  be  not  permitted  to  have  any 
Christians  dwell  with  them  as  their  servants. 

5.  "  That  they  have  no  public  office  or  trust 
in  this  commonwealth. 

6.  "  That  they  be  not  allowed  to  print  any- 
thing in  our  language  against  the  Christain  re- 
ligion. 

7.  "  That  so  far  as  may  be,  they  be  not  suf- 
fered to  discourage  any  of  their  own  from  using 
any  proper  means,  or  applying  themselves  to 
any  who  may  convince  them  of  their  error,  and 
turn  them  to  Christianity.  And  that  some  se- 
vere penalty  be  imposed  upon  them  who  shall 
apostatize  from  Christianity  to  Judaism." 

Mr.  Archdeacon  Echard  says,*  "  The  Jews 
offered  the  protector  £200,000  provided  they 
might  have  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  for  a  settle- 
ment." And  he  adds  the  following  malicious 
reflection,  that  "  the  money  made  his  highness 
look  upon  it  as  the  cause  of  God,  but  that  both 
t'ne  clergy  and  laity  so  declaimed  against  them, 
that  the  religious  juggle  would  not  take  place." 
This  the  archdeacon  himself  could  not  believe, 
as  being  quite  out  of  character,  for  he  knew  that 
the  protector  did  not  enrich  his  family,  nor  val- 
ue money,  but  for  the  public  service.  He  con- 
cludes that  "  the  Jews  could  never  be  permitted, 
to  live  long  in  a  well-settled  monarchy."  What, 
then,  does  he  call  the  monarchy  of  England, 
where  the  Jews  have  been  indulged  in  the  free 
exercise  of  their  religion,  without  doing  any 
damage  to  the  religion  or  commerce  of  the  na- 
tion, for  above  sixty  years  1 

The  protector's  zeal  for  the  Reformed  religion 
made  hini  the  refuge  of  persecuted  Protestants 
in  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  Duke  of  Savoy, 
at  the  instance  of  his  duchess,  sister  to. the 
Queen  of  England,  determined  to  oblige  his  re- 
formed subjects  in  the  valleys  of  Piedmont  to 
embrace  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  or  depart 
the  country.  For  this  purpose,  he  quartered  an 
army  upon  them,  which  ate  up  their  substance. 
The  Protestants  making  some  little  resistance 
to  the  rudeness  of  the  soldiers,  the  duke  gave 

*  P.  716.  ~ 


IBO 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


orders  that  all  the  Protestant  families  in  the 
valley  of  Lucerne  should  go  into  banishment, 
■which  some  obeyed,  while  the  rest  sent  depu- 
ties to  the  court  of  Turin  to  implore  mercy  ; 
but  the  pope  and  the  princes  of  Italy  advised 
the  duke  to  improve  the  present  opportunity 
for  extirpating  the  Reformed,  and  making  all 
his  subjects  of  one  religion.    The  duke  accord- 
ingly sent  express  orders  to  his  general  to  drive 
them  all  out  of  the  country,  with  their  wives 
and  children,  and  to  put  to  death  such  as  should 
remain.     This  was  executed  with  great  sever- 
ity, April  20,  1655.     Those  who  escaped  the 
sword  fled  into  the  mountains,  from  whence, 
being  ready  to  perish  with  hunger  and  cold,  they 
sent  their  agents  to  the  Lord-protector  of  Eng- 
land, and  other  Protestant  powers,  for  relief 
It  was  the  beginning  of  May  when  his  highness 
was  first  made  acquainted  with  their  distress, 
Avhereupon   he   appointed  a  general  fast,  and 
charitable  contributions  throughout  all  England 
for  their  present  assistance  ;  and  such  was  the 
compassion  of  the  people,  that  the  collection 
amounted  to  £37,097  7*.  2d.    About  £30,000 
was  remitted  to  their  deputies  at  several  pay- 
ments, in  this  and  the  next  year  ;  but  the  con- 
fusions which  followed   upon   the   protector's 
death  prevented  the  clearing  the  whole  account 
till  the  Convention  Parliament  at  the  Restora- 
tion, who  ordered  the  remaining  £7000  to  be 
paid.    The  protector  applied  to  the  Protestant 
kings  of  Sweden  and  Denmark  ;  to  the  States 
of  Holland,  the  cantons  of  Switzerland,  and  the 
Reformed  churches  of  Germany  and  France  ; 
and  by  his  powerful  instances  procured  large 
contributions  from  those  parts.     He  wrote  to 
the  King  of  France,  and  to  Cardinal  Mazarine ; 
and  being  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  strike  ter- 
ror into  the  Roman  Catholic  powers,  he  sent 
Samuel  Moreland,   Esq.,  with  a  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  in  which,  having  represented 
the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  his  behaviour  to- 
wards the  Protestants  in  the  valleys,  he  tells 
him,  "  that  he  was  pierced  with  grief  at  the 
news  of  the  sufferings  of  the  Vaudois,  being 
united  to  them  not  only  by  the  common  ties  of 
humanity,  but  by  the  profession  of  the  same 
faith,  which  obliged  him  to  regard  them  as  his 
brethren  ;  and  he  should  think  himself  wanting 
in  his  duty  to  God,  to  charity,  and  to  his  reli- 
gion, if  he  should  be  satisfied  with  pitying  them 
only  (whose  miserable  condition  was  enough  to 
raise  compassion  in  the  most  barbarous  minds), 
unless  he  also  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost 
of  his  ability  to  deliver  them  out  of  it."    This 
awakened  the  popish  powers,  insomuch  that 
Mazarine  wrote  in  the  most  pressing  language 
to  the  court  of  Turin  to  give  the  protector  im- 
mediate satisfaction  ;  with  which  the  duchess 
reproached  him,  because  he  had  made  no  terms 
for  the  English  papists  ;*'  but  his  eminence  re- 
plied, "  We  must  leave  to  God  the  care  of  de- 
fending the  Catholics,  whose  cause  is  most  just ; 
but  that  of  the  heretics  needs  for  its  support  the 
clemency  of  princes."    Upon  this  the  persecu- 
tion immediately  ceased  ;  the  duke  recalled  his 
army  out  of  the  valleys,  and   restored   their 
goods ;  the  poor  people  returned  to  their  houses, 
and  recovered  aU  their  ancient  rights  and  priv- 
ileges.   But  to  strike  some  farther  terror  into 

*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  108,  Edin.  edit. 


the  pope  and  the  little  princes  of  Italy,  the  f 
protector  gave  out  that,  forasmuch  as  he  was 
satisfied  they  had  been  the  promoters  of  this 
persecution,  he  would  keep  it  in  mind,  and  lay 
hold  of  the  first  opportunity  to  send  his  fleet 
into  the  Mediterranean  to  visit  Civita  Vecchia, 
and  other  parts  of  the  ecclesiastical  territories  ; 
and  that  the  sound  of  his  cannon  should  be 
heard  in  Rome  itself  He  declared  publicly  that 
he  would  not  suffer  the  Protestant  faith  to  be 
insulted  in  any  part  of  the  world  ;  and  there- 
fore procured  liberty  to  the  Reformed  in  Bohe- 
mia and  France  ;  nor  was  there  any  potentate 
in  Europe  so  hardy  as  to  risk  his  displeasure  by 
denying  his  requests.* 

The  charitable  society  for  the  relief  of  the 
widows  and  children  of  clergymen,  since  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Corporation  for  the  Sons  of 
the  Clergy,  had  its  beginning  this  year  ;  the 
first  sermon  being  preached  by  the  Reverend 
Mr.  George  Hall,  son  of  the  famous  Joseph 
Hall,  bishop  of  E.xeter,  then  minister  of  Alders- 
gate,  afterward  Archdeacon  of  Canterbury,  and 
Bishop  of  Chester.  The  sermon  was  entitled 
"  God's  appearing  for  the  Tribe  of  Levi,  impro- 
ved in  a  Sermon  preached  at  St,  Paul's,  Novem- 
ber 8,  1655,  to  the  Sons  of  Ministers  then  sol- 
emnly assembled,"  from  Numb.,  xvii.,  8,  "The 
rod  of  Aaron  budded,  and  bloomed  blossoms, 
and  yielded  almonds."  The  preacher's  design 
was  to  enforce  the  necessity  and  usefulness  of 
a  settled  ministry  ;  and  though  there  were  some 
passages  that  discovered  him  to  be  a  prelatist, 
the  main  part  of  the  sermon  breathes  modera- 
tion. "  Let  those  ill-invented  terms,"  says  he, 
"  whereby  we  have  been  distinguished  from 
each  other,  be  swallowed  up  in  that  name  which 
will  lead  us  hand  in  hand  to  heaven,  the  name 
of  Christians.  If  my  stomach,  or  any  of  yours, 
rise  against  the  name  of  brotherly  communion, 
which  may  consist  with  our  several  principles 
retained,  not  differing  in  substantials,  God  take 
down  that  stomach,  and  make  us  see  how  much 
we  are  concerned  to  keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  bond  of  peace.  Why  should  some,  m 
the  height  of  their  zeal  for  a  liturgy,  suppose 
there  can  be  no  service  of  God  but  where  that 
is  used  1  Why  should  others,  again,  think 
their  piety  concerned  and  trespassed  upon,  if  I 
prefer  and  think  fit  to  use  a  set  form  1  There 
must  be  abatements  and  allowances  of  each 
other ;  a  coming  down  from  our  punctilios,  or 
we  shall  never  give  up  a  good  account  to  God."t 
From  this  time  sermons  have  been  preached 
annually,  and  large  contributions  made  for  the 
service  of  this  charity.  In  the  reign  of  King 
Charles  II.  they  became  a  body  corporate  ;  and 
their  present  grandeur  is  sufficiently  known  to 
the  whole  nation. 

On  the  21st  of  March,  this  year,  died  the  most 
reverend  and  learned  Archbishop  Usher,  born 
in  Dublin,  1580,  and  educated  in  Trinity  Col- 


*  Mr.  Neal's  statement  of  Cromwell's  interference 
in  behalf  of  the  Waldenses  is,  in  general,  correct ; 
but  when  he  says  "  the  poor  people  returned  to  their 
houses  and  recovered  nil  their  anciejU  rights  and  privi- 
leges," his  representation  is  not  borne  out  by  facts, 
if  the  reader  wishes  a  more  detailed  and  correct  ac- 
count of  this  tragical  affair,  he  should  consult  Jones's 
History  of  the  Christian  Church,  vol.  ii.,  C.  vi.,  sect. 
vi.,  p.  358-398.— C. 

t  How  rarely  are  these  admirable  sentiments  to 
be  heard  from  the  advocates  of  prelacy ! — C. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


161 


lege.*  He  proceeded  M.A.  in  the  year  1600, 
and  next  year  was  ordained  deacon  and  priest 
by  his  uncle,  Henry  Usher,  ihen  Archbishop  of 
Armagh.  In  the  year  1620  he  was  made  Bish- 
op of  Meath,  and.  four  years  after,  Archbishop 
of  Armagh  ;  in  which  station  he  remained  till 
the  dissolution  of  the  hierarciiy  during  the  civil 
■wars.  In  his  younger  years  he  was  a  Calvin- 
ist,  hut  in  his  advanced  age  he  embraced  the 
middle  way  between  Calvin  and  Arminius.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  moderate  prelates  of  his 
time,  and  allowed  of  the  ordinations  of  foreign 
Protestants,  which  none  but  he  and  Bishop 
Davenant,  and  one  or  two  more  among  the 
bishops  of  those  times,  would  admit. t  The 
archbishop  having  lost  all  his  revenues  by  the 
Irish  rebellion,  the  king  conferred  upon  him  the 
bishopric  of  Carlisle,  in  commendam.  In  1643 
he  was  nominated  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines at  Westminster,  but  did  not  appear  among 
them.  As  long  as  the  king  was  at  Oxford  he 
continued  with  him,  but,  when  the  war  was 
ended,  he  returned  to  London  and  lived  private- 
ly, without  any  molestation.  He  assisted  at 
the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  but  could  do  no 
service,  the  contending  parties  being  then  at  too 
great  a  distance  to  be  reconciled.  A  little  be- 
fore the  king's  death,  the  archbishop  was  cho- 
sen preacher  to  the  honourable  society  of  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  preaching  constantly  all  term-time, 
till  his  eyes  failing,  he  quitted  that  post,  about 
a  year  and  a  half  before  his  death,  and  retired 
with  the  Countess  of  Peterborough  to  her  house 
at  Ryegate.  The  protector  had  a  high  esteem 
for  this  excellent  prelate,  and  consulted  him 
about  proper  measures  for  advancing  the  Prot- 
estant interest  at  home  and  abroad  :  he  allowed 
liim  a  pension,  and  promised  him  a  lease  of  part 
of  the  lands  of  his  archbishopric  in  Ireland  for 
twenty-one  years  ;  but  his  death  prevented  the 
accomplishment  of  his  design.  About  the  mid- 
dle of  February  the  archbishop  went  down  to 
Ryegate,  and  on  the  20th  of  March  was  seized 
with  a  pleurisy,  of  which  he  died  the  next  day, 
in  the  seveniy-sixth  year  of  his  age,  having  been 
fifty-five  years  a  preacher,  four  years  Bishop  of 
Meath,  and  thirty-one  years  x\rchbishop  of  Ar- 
magh. The  archbishop  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  men  of  his  age  ;  he  had  a  penetrating 
judgment,  a  tenacious  memory ;  above  all,  he 
was  a  most  pious,  humble,  exemplary  Chris- 
tian.$     His  body  was  of  the  smaller  size,  his 

*  It  is  a  curious  and  singular  circumstance,  that 
Archbishop  Usher  received  his  first  elements  of  learn- 
ing from  two  aunts,  who  were  both  born  blind,  yet 
found  out  a  method  of  teaching  him  to  read  English. 
These  ladies  had  vast  memories,  and  could  repeat 
most  part  of  the  Scriptures  by  heart  distinctly  and 
without  mistake.  When  it  was  debated  whether 
Dr.  Usher  should  be  nominated  one  of  the  assembly 
at  Westminster,  Mr.  Selden  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"that  they  had  as  good  inquire  whether  they  had 
best  admit  Jnigo  Jones,  the  king's  architect,  to  the 
company  of  mousetrap-makers." — British  Biography, 
vol.  IV.,  p.  330.  350.— Ed. 

t  He  was  not  so  severe  in  his  judgment  about 
Episcopacy  as  to  disown  other  Koforuied  churches, 
but  declared  that  he  loved  and  honoured  them  as 
true  members  of  the  Church  universal,  and  was  ready 
for  the  ministers  of  Holland,  France,  &c.,  to  testify 
his  communion  with  them. —  Clarke's  Life  of  Usher, 
edition  16G2,  p.  239.— C. 

X  "  With  his  great  and  vast  learning  (it  is  said),  no 
man  had  a  better  soul,  and  a  more  apostolical  mind. 

Vol.  II.— X 


complexion  sanguine,  but  his  presence  always 
commanded  reverence.  The  protector  lid  him 
the  honour  of  a  public  funeral,  and  buried  him 
at  his  own  expense,*  in  King  Henry  VII. 's  chap- 
el.t 

Stephen  Marshall,  B.D.,  was  born  at  Godman- 
chester  in  Huntingdonshire,  and  was  educa- 
ted in  Cambridge,  and  afterward  beneficed  at 
Finchingfield  in  Essex,  where  he  acquired  such 
reputation  by  his  preaching,  that  he  was  often 
called  to  preach  before  the  Long  Parliament, 
who  consulted  him  in  all  affairs  relating  to  re- 
ligion. He  was  one  of  the  Assembly  of  l3ivines, 
and  employed  in  most,  if  not  all,  the  treaties  be- 
tween the  king  and  Parliament :  Mr.  Eehard,  ac- 
cording to  his  usual  candour,  calls  him  "a  fa- 
mous incendiary,  and  assistant  to  the  Parlia- 
mentarians, their  trumpet  in  their  fasts,  their 
confessor  in  their  sickness,  their  counsellor  in 
their  assemblies,  their  chaplain  in  their  treaties, 
and  their  champion  in  their  disputations  ;"t  and 


Passion,  pride,  self-will,  or  the  love  of  the  world, 
seemed  not  to  be  so  much  as  in  his  nature.  He  had 
all  the  innocence  of  the  dove  in  him.  But  no  man 
IS  entirely  perfect.  He  was  not  made  for  the  govern- 
ing part  of  his  function.  His  soul  was  too  gentle  to 
manage  the  rough  work  of  reforming  abuses ;  there- 
fore, he  lelt  things  as  he  found  them.  He  saw  the 
necessity  of  cuttmg  otY  many  abuses,  and  hoped  for 
a  time  of  reformation,  yet  he  did  not  exert  himself 
to  correct  or  remove  those  corruptions  v.-hich  he  ap- 
prehended would  bring  a  curse  and  ruin  upon  the 
Church.  It  seems  that  this  sat  heavy  upon  his  mind 
in  his  last  illness  ;  for  he  prayed  often,  and  with  great 
humility,  that  God  would  forgive  his  sins  of  omis- 
sion, and  his  failings  in  his  duty." — Life  of  Bishop  Be- 
del, p.  86,  87.— Ed. 

*  Here  Mr.  Neal  was,  it  seems,  in  a  mistake.  The 
protector,  though  he  directed  that  this  prelate  should 
be  buried  with  great  pomp  at  Westminster  Abbey, 
bore  but  half  the  expense  of  the  funeral ;  the  other 
half  fell  very  heavily  upon  his  relations.  His  .\nnals 
of  the  Old  and  Sew  Testament  is  esteemed  the  most 
valuable  of  his  numerous  works  ;  and  the  first  draught; 
of  this  work  was  drawn  up  by  him  when  he  was  on- 
ly fifteen  years  of  age.  The  Western  world  owes  its 
first  acquaintance  with  the  Samaritan  Bible  to  this 
prelate.  Four  copies  were  procured  for  him  by  a 
factor,  and  sent  to  him  from  Syria,  in  1625.  He  gave 
one  copy  to  the  library  at  Oxford  ;  a  second  he  lodg- 
ed in  Sir  Robert  Cotton's  library ;  he  sent  a  third  to 
Leyden,  and  reserved  the  fourth  to  himself  The 
Old  Testament  in  Syriac  was  obtained  for  him  not; 
long  after. — Clarke's  Martyrology,  in  the  Lives,  p.  280 
and  292.     Granger's  Hist,  of  Eng.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  27,  8vo. 

Cromwell  prevented  the  sale  of  Archbishop  Usher's 
valuable  library  of  prints  and  manuscripts  to  foreign- 
ers ;  and  caused  it  to  be  purchased  and  sent  over  to 
Dublin,  with  an  intention  to  bestow  it  on  a  new  col- 
lege, or  hall,  which  he  proposed  to  build  and  endow 
there.  The  lease,  which,  as  Mr.  Neal  says,  Crom- 
well promised  to  the  archbishop,  was  never  execu- 
ted ;  and  it  admits  a  doubt  whether  the  pension  was 
ever  enjoyed. — Dr.  Grey,  on  the  authority  of  Dr. 
Parr,  the  primate's  biographer. — -Ed. 

t  Clarke's  General  Martyrology,  p.  277,  &c.,  of  the 
Lives. 

%  The  words  of  Mr.  Eehard  are  almost  verbatim 
borrowed  from  Fuller.  Dr.  Grey,  to  confute  the 
character  given  of  Mr.  Marshall  as  an  admired 
preacher,  quotes  some  passages  from  his  sermons, 
which  certaitily  are  not  in  the  taste  of  modern  elo- 
quence; but  they  hu<l  a  point  in  them,  and  abounded 
m  antitheses  and  comparisons,  which,  it  is  easy  to 
conceive,  might  gain  admiration.  Besides,  composi- 
tions should  be,  in  part  at  least,  judged  of  by  the 
spirit  and  taste  of  the  age  to  which  they  were  adapt- 
ed.-Eo. 


162 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


then  adds,  "  This  great  Shimei,  being  taken  with 
a  desperate  sickness,  departed  the  world  mad 
and  raving."  An  unjust  aspersion  !  for  he  was 
a  person  of  sober  and  moderate  principles,  in- 
asmuch that  Mr.  Baxter  used  to  say,  that  if  all 
the  bishops  had  been  of  the  spirit  and  temjjer 
of  Archbishop  Usher,  the  Presbyterians  of  the 
temper  of  Mr.  Marshall,  and  the  Independents 
like  Mr.  Jer.  Burroughs,  the  divisions  of  the 
Church  would  have  been  easily  compromised. 
When  he  was  taken  ill,  and  obliged  to  retire 
into  the  country  for  the  air,  the  Oxford  Mercury 
said  he  was  distracted,  and  in  his  rage  constant- 
ly cried  out,  that  he  was  damned  for  adhering 
to  the  Parliament  in  their  war  against  their  king. 
But  he  lived  to  confute  the  calumny,  and  pub- 
lished a  treatise  to  prove  the  lawfulness  of  de- 
fensive arms  in  cases  of  necessity.  He  was  an 
admired  preacher,  and  far  from  running  into  the 
extremes  of  the  times.  In  the  decline  of  his 
life  he  retired  from  the  city,  and  spent  the  last 
two  years  of  his  life  in  Ipswich.  The  Rever- 
end Mr.  G.  Firmin,  in  a  preface  to  one  of  Mr. 
Marshall's  posthumous  sermons,  writes,  that  he 
had  left  few  labourers  like  himself  behind  him  ; 
that  he  was  a  Christian  by  practice  as  well  as 
profession  ;  that  he  lived  by  faith,  and  died  by 
faith,  and  was  an  example  to  the  believers  in 
word,  in  conversation,  in  charity,  in  faith,  and 
purity.  That  when  he  and  others  were  talking 
with  Mr.  Marshall  about  his  death,  he  replied, 
"  I  cannot  say,  as  he,  I  have  not  so  lived  that  I 
should  now  be  afraid  to  die  ;  but  this  I  can  say, 
I  have  so  learned  Christ,  that  I  am  n-ot  afraid  to 
die."  He  enjoyed  the  fidl  use  of  his  under- 
standing to  the  last ;  but  lost  the  use  of  his 
hands  and  appetite,  insomuch  that  he  could  eat 
nothing  for  some  months  before  he  died.  Mr. 
Fuller  says  that  he  performed  his  exercise  for 
bachelor  of  divinity  with  general  applause  ;  that 
he  was  a  good  preacher,  but  so  supple,  that  he 
brake  not  a  joint  in  all  the  alteration  of  the 
times  ;  and  although  some  suspected  him  of 
deserting  his  Presbyterian  principles,  yet  upon 
his  deathbed  he  gave  them  full  satisfaction  that 
he  had  not.*  His  remains  were  solemnly  in- 
terred in  Westminster  Abbey,  but  were  dug  up 
again  at  the  Restoration.! 

The  protector  having  as  yet  no  better  than  a 
military  title  to  his  high  dignity,  resolved  to  ob- 
tain a  more  legal  one  as  soon  as  the  times  would 
admit.  He  had  now  cut  his  way  through  a  great 
many  difficulties,  and  the  success  of  his  arms 
this  summer  having  raised  his  reputation  to  an 
uncommon  pitch  of  greatness,  he  resolved  to 
summon  a  new  Parliament,  to  meet  at  West- 
minster, September  17,  1656,  to  contirm  his  ti- 
tle to  the  protectorship ;  and  the  Republicans 
being  his  most  dangerous  enemies,  the  protector 
sent  for  Sir  H.  Vane  and  Major-general  Ludlow, 
to  give  security  not  to  act  against  the  present 
government. t  He  asked  Ludlow  what  made 
him  uneasy,  or  what  he  would  have  1  Ludlow 
answered,  He  would  have  the  nation  governed 
by  its  own  consent.  I  am,  said  the  protector, 
as  much  for  a  government  by  consent  as  any 
man  ;   but  where  shall  we  find  that  consent : 


*  Fuller's  Worthies,  book  ii.,  p.  53. 

t  Mr.  Marshall  was  one  of  the  authors  of  the  work 
written  by  Smeclymnuus,  1641,  in  reply  to  Bishop 
Hall's  "Humble  Remonstrance  to  Parliament." — C. 

t  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  340. 


among  the  Prelatical,  Presbyterian,  Independ- 
ent, Anabaptist,  or  Levelling  parties  1  The 
other  replied,  Among  those  of  all  sorts  who 
have  acted  with  fidelity  and  affection  to  the 
public.  The  protector,  apprehending  that  he 
was  for  throwing  all  things  back  into  confusion, 
told  him  that  all  men  now  enjoyed  as  much 
liberty  and  protection  as  they  could  desire,  and 
that  he  was  resolved  to  keep  the  nation  from 
being  imbrued  again  in  blood.  "I  desire  not," 
says  he,  "  to  put  any  more  hardships  upon  you 
than  upon  myself;  nor  do  I  aim  at  anything  by 
this  proceeding  but  the  public  quiet  and  securi- 
ty. As  to  my  own  circumstances  in  the  world, 
I  have  not  much  improved  them,  as  these  gen- 
tlemen (pointing  to  his  council)  well  know." 
But  Ludlow,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  and  Colonel  Rich 
persisting  in 'their  refusal  to  give  security,  were 
taken  into  custody.  Bishop  Burnet  says  that 
others  solicited  him  to  restore  the  young  king, 
and  that  the  Earl  of  Orrery  told  him  he  might 
make  his  own  terms  ;  but  that  Cromwell  replied, 
"  that  the  son  could  never  forgive  his  father's 
blood  ;  and  that  he  was  so  debauched  he  would 
undo  everything."  It  was  therefore  resolved 
to  set  him  aside,  and  proceed  upon  the  present 
plan. 

When  the  Parliament  met  according  to  ap- 
pointment, the  Reverend  Dr.  Owen  preached  be- 
fore them  ;  his  text  was  Isa.,  xiv.,  32  :  "  What 
shall  one  then  answer  the  messengers  of  the 
nation^  That  the  Lord  hath  founded  Zion,  and 
the  poor  of  his  people  shall  trust  in  it."  From 
the  Abbey,  the  protector  went  with  the  mem- 
bers to  the  Painted  Chamber,  where  he  made  a 
speech,  and  then  dismissed  them  to  their  house  ; 
but  to  prevent  their  entering  into  debates  about 
his  title,  a  guard  was  placed  at  the  door,  with  a 
paper  of  recognition  for  each  member  to  sub- 
scribe, wherein  they  promised  not  to  act  any- 
thing prejudicial  to  the  government  as  it  wa& 
established  under  a  protector.  Upon  their  sub- 
scribing this,  if  they  were  under  no  disqualifi- 
cation, they  had  a  certificate  of  their  return, 
and  of  their  being  approved  by  his  highness  and 
council.*  This  measure  was  certainly  incon- 
sistent with  the  freedom  of  Parliaments  :  for  if 
the  crown  has  a  negative  upon  the  return  of  the 
members,  they  are  tools  of  the  crown,  and  not 
representatives  of  the  people  ;  because,  though 
they  are  legally  chosen  and  returned  by  the  prop- 
er officer,  a  superior  tribunal  may  set  them  aside. 
Besides,  if  the  Parliament  was  to  give  a  sanc- 
tion to  the  new  government,  the  recognition  was 
absurd,  because  it  obliged  them  to  consent  to 
that  which  they  had  no  liberty  to  debate.  It 
must  therefore  be  allowed,  that  Cromwell's  pro- 
tectorship was  built  solely  upon  the  authority 
of  the  council  of  officers,  this  being  one  of 
those  fundamentals  which  his  highness  would 
not  suffer  any  of  his  Parliaments  to  debate. 
But  it  is  highly  probable  that  these  stretches  of 
power  might  be  absolutely  unavoidable,  at  this, 
time,  to  maintain  government  under  any  form  ;. 
and  that  without  them  the  several  parties  would 
have  fallen  to  pieces,  and  involved  the  nation 
in  confusion  and  a  new  war.  The  Parliament, 
in  their  humble  petition  and  advice,  guarded 
against  the  exclusion  of  their  members  for  the 
future,  except  by  a  vote  of  the  House,  which  the 
protector  freely  consented  to  ;  so  that  this  was 

*  Whitelocke,  p.  639. 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


.'i63 


only  a  temporary  expedient,  and  not  to  be  made 
a  precedent  of:  but  at  present  almost  one  hun- 
dred members  refused  to  subscribe,  and  were 
therefore  excluded.  These  presented  a  petition 
to  the  sitting  members  for  redress,  and  were 
answered,  that  the  protector  had  promised  to 
relieve  them  if  they  could  show  cause  of  com- 
plaint. But  inst£?ad  of  this,  they  appealed  to 
the  people  in  a  severe  remonstrance,  charging 
his  highness  with  invading  their  fundamental 
Tights  and  liberties,  and  preventing  the  free 
meeting  of  the  representatives  of  the  people  in 
Parliament.  To  which  it  was  replied,  that  if 
they  would  not  so  much  as  own  the  protector, 
they  had  no  colour  or  pretence  to  call  themselves 
members  of  Parliament. 

The  sitting  members  having  chosen  Sir  Thom- 
an  Widdrington  their  speaker,  approved  of  the 
war  with  Spain,  and  voted  supplies  to  support 
his  highness  in  the  prosecution  of  it.  They  re- 
nounced and  disannulled  the  title  of  Charles 
.Stuart ;  and  passed  an  act,  making  it  high  trea- 
son to  compass  or  imagine  the  death  of  the  lord- 
protector.  They  reviewed  the  orders  and  ordi- 
nances of  the  protector  and  his  council  in  the 
intervals  of  Parliament,  and  confirmed  most  of 
them.  They  abrogated  the  authority  and  pow- 
er of  the  major-generals,  conceiving  it  incon- 
sistent with  the  laws  of  England  and  liberties 
of  the  people.  These,  and  some  other  acts  here- 
after mentioned,  were  presented  to  his  highness, 
November  27,  for  confirmation  ;  and  as  he  was 
pleased  to  confirm  them  all,  he  told  them,  that 
as  it  had  been  the  custom  of  the  chief  govern- 
ors to  acknowledge  the  care  and  kindness  of  the 
Commons  upon  such  occasions,  so  he  did  very 
heartily  and  thankfully  acknowledge  their  kind- 
ness therein.  But  the  Parliament  continued 
sitting  till  next  year,  when  we  shall  meet  with 
more  important  transactions. 

The  act  for  security  of  the  protector's  person 
was  no  sooner  passed  than  a  plot  was  discover- 
ed against  his  life.  Miles  Syndercomb,  a  Level- 
ler, a  bold,  resolute  man,  having  been  disbanded 
in  Scotland,  combined  with  one  Cecil,  and  an- 
other of  the  protector's  lifeguards,  to  assassi- 
nate him  as  he  was  going  to  Hampton  Court ; 
but  being  disappointed  once  and  again  by  some 
unexpected  accidents,  the  other  conspirators  be- 
trayed the  design.  Syndercomb  put  himself  on 
his  trial,  and  was  condemned  on  the  statute  25th 
of  Edward  III.,  the  Chief-justice  Glynne  decla- 
ring that,  by  the  word  king  in  the  statute,  any 
chief  magistrate  was  understood.  But  Synder- 
comb prevented  the  execution  ;  for  the  very 
morning  he  was  to  suffer,  he  was  found  dead  in 
his  bed  :  whereupon  his  body  was  tied  to  a 
horse's  tail,  and  dragged  naked  to  the  scaffold 
on  Tower  Hill,  and  then  buried  with  a  stake  driv- 
en through  it.  However,  a  day  of  public  thanks- 
giving was  appointed  for  the  protector's  deliver- 
ance, February  20,  when  his  highness  gave  the 
speaker  and  members  of  Parliament  a  splendid 
entertainment  at  the  Banqueting  House. 

The  war  with  Spain  this  summer  was  attend- 
ed with  vast  success,  for  no  sooner  had  the  King 
of  Spain  seized  the  effects  of  the  English  mer- 
chants in  his  country,  than  the  protector  order- 
ed his  admirals,  Blake  and  Montague,  to  block 
up  the  harbour  of  Cadiz,  and  look  out  for  the 
Plate  fleet,  which  Captain  Stayner,  who  was  left 
with  seven  men-of-war  upon  the  coast,  while 


the  admirals  were  gone  to  Portugal  for  fresh, 
water,  discovered,  consisting  of  eight  men-of- 
war,  making  directly  for  Cadiz  ;  Stayner  bore 
up  to  them  with  all  the  sail  he  could  make,  and 
engaged  them  within  four  leagues  of  their  port ; 
the  Spanish  admiral  ran  his  ship  ashore  with 
six  hundred  thousand  pieces  of  eight ;  but  the 
vice-admiral,  with  twelve  hundred  thousand  pie- 
ces of  eight,  and  another  galleon,  were  fired  and 
sunk  ;  the  rear-admiral,  with  two  millions  of 
plate  in  her,  was  taken  ;  and,  upon  the  whole, 
six  of  the  eight  ships  were  destroyed  ;  the  plate, 
to  the  value  of  two  millions,  was  brought  to 
Portsmouth,  and  conveyed  in  carts  to  London, 
and  carried  through  the  city  to  the  Tower  to  be 
coined.  Admiral  Blake,  with  the  rest  of  the 
fleet,  wintered  upon  the  coast  of  Spain,  and  de- 
stroyed another  fleet  of  much  greater  value  the 
next  summer. 

After  the  discovery  of  Syndercomb's  plot,  the 
Prelatists,  Presbyterians,  and  Levellers,  were 
pretty  quiet,  but  the  Quakers  began  to  be  very 
troublesome.  The  reader  has  been  informed, 
under  the  year  1650,  that  George  Fox  travelled 
the  countries,  declaiming  in  the  market-places, 
and  in  churches,  against  all  ordained  ministers, 
and  placing  the  whole  of  religion  in  an  in- 
ward light,  and  an  extraordinary  impulse  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  In  the  year  1652,  the  Quakers  set 
up  separate  assemblies  in  Lancashire  and  the 
adjacent  parts.  In  1654,  they  opened  the  first 
separate  meeting  of  the  people  called  Quakers 
in  the  house  of  Robert  Bring,  in  Watling-street, 
London.  These  unwary  people,  by  interrupt- 
ing public  worship,  and  refusing  to  pay  any  re- 
spect to  the  magistrate,  frequently  exposed  them- 
selves to  sufferings.*  One  of  them,  in  a  letter 
to  the  protector,  says,  "  that  though  there  are 
no  penal  laws  in  force  obliging  men  to  comply 
with  the  established  religion,  yet  the  Quakers 
are  exposed  upon  other  accounts ;  they  are  fined 
and  imprisoned  for  refusing  to  take  an  oath ;  for 
not  paying  their  tithes  ;  for  disturbing  the  pub- 
lic assemblies,  and  meeting  in  the  streets,  and 
places  of  public  resort ;  some  of  them  have  been 
whipped  for  vagabonds,  and  for  their  plain 
speeches  to  the  magistrates."  But  the  Quakers 
were  so  far  from  being  discouraged,  that  they 


*  Gough  says,  "  that  mostly  (though  not  always) 
they  waited  till  the  worship  was  ended."  The 
Quakers,  he  observes,  were  not  singular  concerning 
Gospel-liberty  of  prophesying.  The  Baptists  and  In- 
dependents adopted  the  opinion  that  ordained  minis- 
ters had  not,  either  from  the  appointment  of  Christ, 
or  the  practice  of  the  primitive  Christians,  an  exclu- 
sive right  of  speaking  in  the  Church;  but  that  all 
properly  gifted  might  speak  one  by  one.  During  the 
civil  wars  it  had  been  usual  for  laymen,  soldiers,  and 
others,  with  the  connivance,  if  not  with  the  approba- 
tion of  the  ruling  powers,  to  speak  or  preach  in  the 
public  places  of  worship,  or  elsewhere.  Oliver  Crom- 
well, in  his  correspondence  with  the  ministers  of 
Scotland,  in  KioO,  had  vindicated  the  practice.  The 
members  of  this  infant  society,  who  thought  it  their 
duty  to  declare  the  burden  of  the  Word  on  their  minds, 
were  sanctioned  by  the  opinions  and  manners  of  the 
age.  They  were  reprehensible  only  when  the  impet- 
uosity of  their  zeal  interrupted  the  service  as  it  was 
proceeding.  And  then  the  irregularity  and  rudeness 
of  this  conduct  did  not  justify  the  violence  and  out- 
rage with  which  they  were  often  treated,  as  contrary 
to  humanity  and  civilization  as  to  the  professed  prin- 
ciples of  religious  liberty.— 6ro«^A's  History  of  the 
QvMkers,  vol.  i.,  p.  87.— Ed. 


164 


HISTORY  OF   THE    PURITANS. 


opened  a  public  nieoting  under  favour  of  the  tol- 
eration, at  the  Biiil-and-Moiith  Inn,  in  Aklors- 
gate-street,  where  women  as  well  as  rnen  spake 
as  they  were  moved  ;  and  when  none  were  mo- 
ved, there  was  no  speaking  at  all.*  Tlic  novelty 
of  ihis  asseml)ly  drew  great  numbers  of  people 
thither  out  of  curiosity;  nor  did  any  give  them 
disturbance,  as  long  as  they  continued  ijuiet  with- 
in themselves  ;  but  in  several  places  where  they 
had  no  business,  the  extravagance  of  their  speak- 
ers was  insufferable  ;  one  of  them  interrupted 
the  minfstcr  in  Whitechapel  Church,  and  dis- 
turbed the  whole  assembly.  A  female  came 
into  VVhiLehall  Chapel  stark  naked,  in  the  midst 
of  public  worship,!  the  lord-protector  himself  be- 
ing present.  Another  came  into  the  Parliament 
House  with  a  trenchard  in  her  hand,  which  she 
broke  in  pieces,  saying,  "  Thus  shall  ye  be  broke 
in  pieces."  Thomas  Aldam,  having  complained 
to  the  protector  of  the  imprisonment  of  some 
friends  in  the  country,  and  not  finding  redress, 
look  off  his  cap  and  tore  it  in  pieces,  saying,  "  So 
shall  thy  government  be  torn  from  thee  and  thy 
house."  Several  pretending  an  extraordinary 
message  from  Heaven,  went  about  the  streets 
of  London  denouncing  the  judgments  of  God 
against  the  protector  and  his  council.  One  came 
to  the  door  of  the  Parliament  House  with  a 
drawn  sword,  and  wounded  several  who  were 
present,  saying  "he  was  inspired  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  kill  every  man  that  sat  in  the  House. "i 
Others,  in  their  prophetic  raptures,  denounced 
judgments  on  tlie  whole  nation,  and  frequently 
.disturbed  the  public  assemblies  where  the  chief 
■magistrate  himself  was  present.  Many  opened 
their  ahups  on  the  Lord's  Day,  in  defiance  of 
the  laws,  and  were  so  very  obstinate  and  in- 
tractable, that  it  was  impossible  to  keep  the 
peace  without  some  marks  of  severity. 

But  the  most  extravagant  Quaker  that  appear- 
ed at  this  time  was  James  Naylor.iJ  formerly  an 
.officej-  in   Major-general  Lambert's   troops  in 


*  Sewel's  History,  p.  84. 

t  It  does  not  appear  on  what  authority  Mr.  Neal 
brings  forward  this  story.  It  is  not  to  be  met  with  in 
Sewel,  who  does  relate  the  two  following  facts,  p. 
144.  If  it  were  a  well-authenticated  fact,  and  if  this 
female  were  a  Quaker,  the  impropriety  and  indecen- 
cy of  her  conduct  ought  not  to  be  imputed  to  the  so- 
ciety, unless  it  directly  arose  from  their  avowed  prin- 
ciples, and  had  been  sanctioned  by  their  approbation. 
Mr.  Neal,  farther  on,  speaks  of  "  other  extravagan- 
ces of  this  people,  recorded  by  our  historians  about 
itbat  lime."  The  matter  of  mquiry  will  be  whether 
those  historians  wrote  on  good  evidence,  and  were 
candid  and  fair  in  their  representations.  He  says 
that  '  .the  protector  wascontiinially  teased  with  their 
VL'aportunities :"'  others  may  applaud  the  firmness  and 
perseverence  with  vvhicli  their  remonstrances,  on  the 
persecutions  they  suffered,  here  called  teasing  im- 
portunities, were  renewed.  "  Fox  and  others,"  he 
adds,  "  wrote  letters  to  him,  filled  with  denuncia- 
tions of  the  Divine  judgments."  If  we  may  judge  by 
the  specimens  of  these  letters  which  Sewel  and 
Gough  have  given  us,  the  candid  reader  will  find  rea- 
son rather  to  applaud  the  honest  simplicity  and  un- 
disguised plaindealing  in  them,  than  contempt  of  au- 
.thority,  or  bitter  invectives. — Ed. 
X  VVhitelocke,  p.  592. 

()  There  is  so  much  of  painful  interest  connected 
with  the  delusion  and  sufferings  of  this  man,  and 
nearly  all  his  history  being  uidvnown  to  the  largest 
part  of  this  community,  that  I  shall  give  his  history 
and  tortures  at  length  in  the  Appendix,  copied  from 
a  rare  work. — C. 


Scotland,  a  man  of  good  natural  parts,  and  an 
admired  speaker  among  these  people  ;  some  of 
whom  had  such  a  veneration  for  him,  that  they 
styled  him,  in  blasphemous  language,  the  "  ever- 
lasting Sun  of  righteousness  ;  the  Prince  of 
peace;  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God  ;  the  fair- 
est among  ten  thousand."  Some  of  the  friends 
kissed  his  feet  in  the  prison  atf  Exeter,  and  after 
his  release  went  before  him  into  the  city  of  Bris- 
tol, after  the  manner  of  our  Saviour's  entrance 
into  Jerusalem;  one  walked  bareheaded;  an- 
other of  the  women  led  his  horse  ;  others  spread 
their  scarfs  and  handkerchiefs  before  him  in  the 
way,  crying  continually  as  they  went  on,  "Holy, 
holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  God  of  hosts  :  Hosanna 
in  the  highest;  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel."*  Upon  this  the  magistrates  of  Bristol 
caused  him  to  be  apprehended,  and  sent  up  to  the 
Parliament,  who  appointed  a  committee  to  ex- 
amine the  witnesses  against  him,  upon  a  charge 
of  blasphemy  :  (I.)  For  admitting  religious  wor- 
ship to  be  paid  to  him  ;  and,  (2.)  For  assuming 
the  names  and  incommunicable  titles  and  attri- 
butes of  our  blessed  Saviour,  as  the  name  Jesus, 
the  fairest  among  ten  thousand,  the  onlybegot- 
ten  Son  of  God,  the  Prophet  of  the  Most  High, 
the  King  of  Israel,  the  everlasting  Sun  of  right- 
eousness, the  Prince  of  peace."  All  which  he 
confessed,!  but  alleged  in  his  own  defence  that 
these  honours  were  not  paid  to  him,  but  to 
Christ  who  dwelt  in  liim. 


*  The  story  of  James  Naylur  was  too  remarkable, 
both  on  account  of  the  extravagant  delusions  which 
misled  him  and  his  admirers,  and  the  severe  and  ille- 
gal sentence  under  which  he  suffered,  not  to  be  re- 
corded. But  to  give  it  as  a  picture  of  Quakerism  is 
not  fair  or  candid ;  for  not  only  Sewel  himself  con- 
demns the  behaviour  of  Naylor  and  his  followers, 
and  resolves  it  into  his  being  slupitied  in  his  under- 
standing, and  beguiled  by  the  wiles  of  Satan,  but  in- 
forms us  that  the  Quakers  in  general  spoke  against 
him  and  his  doings.  They  disowned  him  and  his  ad- 
herents. Gough,  therefore,  not  without  reason,  com- 
plains that  this  has  been  passed  over  unnoticed,  while 
the  enormities  of  this  man,  instead  of  being  overlook- 
ed, have  been  rather  exaggerated.  The  reflection  he 
makes  on  this  is  just,  and  deserves  serious  attention. 
"  There  seems  to  be  a  pride  and  malignity  in  human 
nature,  v/hile  unreformed  by  religion,  diametrically 
opposite  to  Christian  charity,  which,  unconscious  of 
sublime  virtue  in  itself,  and  aiming  to  depress  the  rest 
of  mankind  below  its  own  level,  delights  to  dwell  on 
the  dark  side  of  characters,  to  magnify  the  failings 
of  men,  and  draw  a  suspicious  shade  over  their  vir- 
tues, or  the  mitigating  circumstances  of  their  defects ; 
and  this  malevolent  disposition  receives  new  force 
from  the  spirit  of  party,  which  peculiarly  character- 
ized this  age,  and  raged  with  unabated  violence 
against  the  Quakers."  It  may  be  added,  ihough  it 
should  be  with  deep  concern,  that  even  good  and  lib- 
eral minds  do  not  always  rise  wholly  superior  to  the 
influence  of  these  dispositions. —  Gongh's  Hisiory,  vol. 
i.,  p.  217.  248,  251.  Sewel's  History,  p.  1  !3,  150.— Ed. 
A  reference  to  the  Appendix  will  show  that  tkis  is  dis- 
puted ;  and  though  it  is  no  disgrace  to  Quakerism 
now,  that  Naylor  was  one,  I  am  wcil  satisfied  that 
Ne^l  did  him  nor  the  body  any  injustice  m  calling 
him  one.  He  was  hardly  inferior  in  celebrity  to  Fox 
himself,  and  both  bfforr  and  after  his  mania  he  was 
identified  with  them.— C. 

t  This  is  not  accurate.  When  the  speaker,  Wid- 
drington,  was  going  to  pronounce  the  sentence,  J. 
Naylor  said  "he  did  not  know  his  offence."  To 
which  the  speaker  replied,  "  he  should  know  his  of- 
fence by  his  punishment."  The  trial  was  published, 
but  the  extravagance  of  the  sentence  countenances 
the  suspicion  that  the  account  was  partially  taken 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


165 


The  committee  asked  him  why  he  came  in 
so  extraordinary  a  manner  into  Bristol.  To 
which  he  replied,  that  he  might  not  refuse  any 
honours  whicli  others  who  were  moved  hy  the 
Lord  gave  him.  Being  farther  asi<ed  whether 
he  had  reproved  the  persons  who  gave  him  those 
titles  and  attributes,  he  answered,  "  If  they  had 
it  from  the  Lord,  what  had  I  to  do  to  reprove 
them  1  If  the  Father  has  moved  them  to  give 
these  honours  to  Christ,  I  may  not  deny  them  ; 
if  they  have  given  them  to  any  other  but  to 
Christ,  I  disown  them."  He  concluded  his  de- 
fence thus  :  "  I  do  abhor  that  any  honours  due 
to  God  should  be  given  to  me,  as  I  am  a  creature ; 
but  it  pleased  the  Lord  to  set  me  up  as  a  sign 
of  the  coming  of  the  righteous  one,  and  what 
has  been  done  to  me  passing  through  the  town, 
I  was  commanded  by  the  power  of  the  Lord  to 
suffer  to  be  done  to  the  outward  man,  as  a  sign  ; 
but  I  abhor  any  honour  as  a  creature." 

From  the  committee,  he  was  brought  to  the 
bar  of  the  House,  where  the  report  being  read, 
he  confessed  it ;  upon  which  the  House  voted 
him  guilty  of  blasphemy,  and  ordered  him  to 
be  set  in  the  pillory  two  hours  at  Westminster, 
and  two  hours  at  the  Old  Exchange ;  that 
he  should  be  whipped  through  the  streets  from 
Westminster  to  the  Old  Exchange  ;  that  his 
tongue  should  be  bored  through  with  a  hot  iron, 
and  his  forehead  stigmatized  with  the  letter  B  ; 
he  was  afterward  to  be  sent  to  Bristol,  and  to 
ride  through  the  city  with  his  face  to  the  horse's 
tail,  and  to  be  whipped  the  next  market  day  af- 
ter he  came  thither.  Last  of  all.  he  was  to  be 
committed  to  Bridewell,  in  London,  to  be  re- 
strained from  company,  and  to  be  put  to  hard 
labour  till  he  should  be  released  by  Parliament ; 
during  which  time  he  was  to  be  debarred  from 
pen,  ink,  and  paper,  and  to  have  no  sustenance* 
hut  what  he  got  by  his  hard  labour.  A  sentence 
much  too  severe  for  such  a  wrong-headed,  ob- 
"•  stinate  creature.! 


and  published  to  justify  the  cruelty  of  it.  Some  of 
his  answers  were  innocent  enough;  some  not  clear, 
and  some  wrested  and  aggravated  by  his  adversaries  : 
they  reported  the  worst,  and  more  than  was  true ; 
adding  and  diminishing,  it  is  said,  as  they  were  mind- 
ed, and  leaving  out  much  of  what  was  spoken  to  the 
committee.  His  words  were  perverted,  and  ensnar- 
ing questions  proposed  to  him. —  Sewel's  History,  p. 
139,  note,  and  p.  UO ;  or  Gough,  vol.  i.,  p.  237,  233, 
■iiote. —  Ed. 

*  It  ought  to  be  mentioned,  to  the  honour  of  hu- 
manity, and  as  a  proof  that  some  persons  of  equity 
and  moderation  existed  in  those  times,  that  several 
persons  of  different  persuasions  had  offered  petitions 
to  Parliament  on  his  behalf,  but  it  was  resolved  not 
to  read  them  till  sentence  had  been  passed  :  when, 
by  the  e.xecution  of  the  first  part  of  it,  he  was  redu- 
ced to  a  state  of  extreme  weakness,  many  again  in- 
terposed in  his  favour  by  a  petition,  vvhich  was  pre- 
sented to  the  House  by  more  than  a  hundred  on  be- 
half of  the  subscribers,  while  the  execution  of  the 
remaining  part  was  respited  for  a  week,  pleading  that 
this  respite  had  refreshed  the  hearts  of  many  thou- 
sands altogether  unconcerned  in  his  practice,  and 
praying  that  it  might  be  Vv^holly  remitted.  But  intol- 
erance and  vindictiveness  resisted  these  solicitations. 
The  protector  was  then  addressed,  on  which  he  v\'rote 
a  letter  to  the  House  ;  but  this,  though  it  occasioned 
some  debate,  obtained  no  resolution  in  fa\our  of  the 
prisoner.  On  this  the  petitioners  presented  a  second 
address  to  the  protector;  but  it  is  said  the  public 
preachers,  by  their  influence,  prevented  its  effect. — 
Sewel,  p.  141  ;  and  Gough,  vol.  i.,p.  210,  241.— Ed. 

+  Mr.  Neal's  censure  of  this  sentence  is  too  gentle. 


December  18,  James  Naylor  stood  in  the  pil- 
lory in  the  Palace-yard,  Westminster,  and  was 
whipped  to  the  Old  Exchange  ;  the  remainder 
of  the  sentence  being  lespited  for  a  week,  in 
which  time  the  Reverend  Mr.  Caryl,  Manton, 
Nye,  Griffith,  and  Reynolds  went  to  him,  in  or- 
der to  bring  him  to  some  acknowledgment  of  his 
crime  ;*  but  not  being  able  to  reclaim  him,  the 
remainder  of  his  sentence  was  executed  De- 
cember 27,  when  some  of  his  followers  licked 
his  wounds,  and  paid  him  other  honours,  both 
ridiculous  and  superstitious.  He  was  afterward 
sent  to  Bristol,  and  whipped  from  the  middle  of 
Thomas-street,  over  the  bridge,  to  the  middle  of 
Broad-street.  From  Bristol  he  was  brought 
back  to  Bridewell,  London,  where  he  remained 
sullen  for  three  days,  and  would  not  work,  but 
then  begged  for  victuals,  and  was  content  to  la- 
bour. 

At  length,  after  two  years'  imprisonment,  he 
recanted  his  errors  so  far  as  to  acknowledge 
that  the  honours  he  received  at  his  entrance 
into  Bristol  were  wrong  ;  "  and  all  those  ranting, 
wild  spirits  which  gathered  about  me,"  says  he, 
"  at  that  time  of  darkness,  vv'ith  all  their  wild 
acts  and  wicked  works,  against  the  honour  of 
God  and  his  pure  Spirit  and  people,  I  renounce. 
And  whereas  I  gave  advantage,  through  want 
of  judgment,  to  That  evil  spirit,  I  take  shame  to 
myself"  After  the  protector's  death,  James 
Naylor  was  released  out  of  prison,  and  wrote 
several  things  in  defence  of  the  Quakers,  who 
owned  him  as  a  friend,  notwithstanding  his  ex- 
travagant behaviour  ;t  but  he  did  not  long  sur- 


It  was  repugnant  to  humanity,  equity,  and  wisdom  j 
for  though  the  religious  extravagances  of  Naylor 
might  reasonably  shock  pious  and  sober  minds,  his 
criminality  ought  to  have  been  estimated,  not  by  the 
sound  of  the  titles  and  claims  he  assumed  or  which 
were  given  to  him,  but  by  the  delusion  and  phrensy 
which  had  seized  his  brain ;  and  on  this  ground  he 
was  an  object  of  pity,  not  of  indignation  ;  and  he 
should  have  been  assigned  over  to  a  physician  for  a 
cure  of  his  madness,  and  not  to  the  executioner  of 
public  justice  to  be  punished.  His  features,  we  are 
told,  bore  a  near  resemblance  to  the  common  pictures 
of  Christ;  whichiscandidly  mentioned  by  Mr.  Gran- 
ger to  account  for  his  imagining  that  he  was  trans- 
formed into  Christ ;  and  which  circumstance  ought 
to  have  had  its  influence  with  his  judges. — Histonj 
of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  149,  8vo. — En. 

*■  These  gentlemen,  in  many  respects  excellent 
characters,  did  not  manage  this  interview  in  a  man- 
ner worthy  of  themselves,  or  honourable  to  their 
memory  ;  for  they  would  admit  no  friend  of  his,  nor 
any  other  person,  into  the  room,  although  requested. 
When  Naylor  insisted  that  what  had  passed  should 
be  put  in  writing,  and  a  copy  left  with  him  or  the  jail- 
er, they  consented  ;  but  on  his  remarking  afterward, 
in  the  course  of  the  conversation,  on  perceiving  they 
meant  to  wrest  his  words,  "  how  soon  they  forgot  the 
work  of  the  bishops  who  were  now  treading  the  same 
steps,  seeking  to  ensnare  the  innocent,"  they  ro.se  up 
in  a  rage,  and  burned  what  they  had  written. — Sewel, 
p.  142.     Gougli,  vol.  i.,  p.  242. — Ed. 

t  The  reflections  insinuated  here  against  the  Qua- 
kers might  have  been  well  spared ;  and  it  would 
have  been  more  handsome  in  our  author  to  have  sta- 
ted the  matter  as  Sewel  has  :  "  James  Naylor,"  says 
he,  "  came  to  very  great  sorrow  and  deep  humiliation 
of  mind  ;  and  therefore,  because  God  forgives  the 
transgressions  of  the  penitent,  and  blotteth  them  out, 
and  remembereth  them  no  more,  so  could  James  Nay- 
lor's  friends  do  no  other  than  forgive  his  crime,  and 
thus  take  back  the  lost  sheep  into  their  society."' 
— Sewel's  Jlistorij,  p.  153. — Ed. 


166 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


vive  his  enlargement,  for,  retiring  into  Hunting- 
donshire, he  died  there  towards  the  latter  end 
of  the  year  IGGO,  about  the  forty-fourth  year  of 
his  age.*  Mr.  Whitelocke  observes,  very  just- 
ly, that  many  thought  he  was  too  furiously  pros- 
ecuted by  some  rigid  men.t 

Other  extravagances  of  this  people  about  this 
time  are  recorded  by  our  historians.  The  pro- 
tector was  continually  teased  with  their  impor- 
tunities ;  they  waited  for  him  on  the  road,  and 
watched  about  his  palace,  till  they  got  an  op- 
portunity to  speak  to  him.  George  Fox  and 
others  wrote  letters  filled  with  denunciations 
of  Divine  judgments,  unless  he  would  pull  down 
the  remains  of  antichrist,  by  which  they  un- 
derstood church  ministers  and  church  mainte- 
nance:  to  which  the  protector  paid  no  regard. 

As  new  inroads  were  made  upon  the  orduian- 
ces  for  observation  of  the  Sabbath,  the  Parlia- 
ment took  care  to  amend  them.  This  year  they 
ordained,  that  "the  Sabbath  should  be  deemed 
to  extend  from  twelve  of  the  clock  on  Saturday 
night,  to  twelve  of  the  clock  on  the  Lord's  Day 
night ;  and  within  that  compass  of  time  they 
prohibited  all  kinds  of  business  and  diversions, 
except  works  of  necessity  and  mercy.  No  elec- 
tion of  magistrates  is  to  be  on  the  Lord's  Day  ; 
no  holding  of  courts  or  return  of  writs,  but  if, 
according  to  their  charters,  they  fall  upon  the 
Lord's  Day,  they  are  to  be  deferred  to  Monday. 

*  The  expressions  uttered  by  James  Naylor,  about 
two  hours  before  his  death,  both  in  justice  to  his 
name,  and  on  account  of  their  own  excellence,  de- 
serve to  be  preserved  here.  "  There  is  a  spirit  which 
I  feel,"  he  said,  "that  delights  to  do  no  evil,  nor  to 
revenge  any  wrong,  but  delights  to  endure  all  thmgs, 
in  hopes  to  enjoy  its  own  to  the  end  :  its  hope  is  to  out- 
live all  wrath  and  contention,  and  to  weary  out  all 
exaltation  and  cruelty,  or  whatever  is  of  a  nature 
contrary  to  itself  It  sees  to  the  end  of  all  tempta- 
tion :  as  it  bears  no  evil  in  itself,  so  it  conceives  none 
in  thought  to  any  other ;  if  it  be  betrayed,  it  bears  it ; 
for  its  ground  and  spring  are  the  mercies  and  forgive- 
ness of  God  ;  its  crown  is  meekness,  its  hfe  is  ever- 
lasting love  unfeigned,  and  takes  its  kmgdom  with 
entreaty,  and  not  with  contention,  and  keeps  it  by 
lowliness  of  mind.  In  God  alone  it  can  rejoice, 
though  none  else  can  regard  it,  or  can  own  its  life : 
it  is  conceived  in  sorrow,  and  brought  forth  without 
any  pity  to  it ;  nor  doth  it  murmur  at  grief  and  op- 
pression. It  never  rejoiceth  but  through  sufferings, 
for  with  the  world's  joy  it  is  murdered ;  I  found  it 
alone,  being  forsaken  ;  1  have  fellowship  therein  with 
'them  who  lived  in  dens  and  desolate  places  in  the 
earth,  who  through  death  obtained  this  resurrection 
and  eternal  life."  After  his  fall  James  Naylor  was  a 
man  of  great  self-denial,  and  very  diffident  and  jeal- 
ous of  himself — Sewel,  p.  159.  (rough's  History,  vol. 
i.,  p.  246.— Ed. 

t  Whitelocke's  observation  on  Naylor's  sentence, 
just  as  it  is,  is  not  sufficiently  strong  and  poignant. 
In  its  cruelty,  this  sentence  bore  a  great  resemblance 
to  that  passed  on  Dr.  Leightonby  the  infamous  court 
of  Star  Chamber;  and  it  vied  with  it  in  illegality, 
for  the  House  of  Commons,  as  Gough  remarks,  is  no 
court  of  judicature,  nor  hath  any  power  to  inflict  a 
punishment  beyond  imprisonment  during  its  session. 
— Hist,  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p.  239.  It  ought  not  to 
be  omitted,  that  many  of  the  members  were  very 
averse  to  the  severity  of  the  measures  taken  against 
this  persecuted  man,  whom  a  temporary  phrensy  mis- 
led. Though  it  may  be  added  here,  the  recantation 
of  this  bewildered  victim  was  not  published  till  after 
his  release,  yet  Ihat  and  other  pieces  were  written 
by  him  while  he  was  in  prison  ;  during  which  period 
he  recovered  a  sound  state  of  mind,  and  repented  of 
his  errors. — Sewel,  p.  141. — Ed. 


It  is  farther  enacted,  That  all  persons  not  hav- 
mg  a  reasonable  excuse,  to  be  allowed  by  a  jus- 
tice ofpeace,  shall  resort  to  some  church  or  chap- 
el, where  the  true  worship  of  God  is  perform- 
ed, or  to  some  meeting-place  of  Christians  not 
diiTering  in  matters  of  faith  from  the  public  pro- 
fession of  the  nation,  on  a  penalty  of  two  shil- 
lings and  sixpence  for  every  offence.  It  is  farther 
ordered,  that  no  minister  shall  be  molested  or 
disturbed  in  the  discharge  of  his  office  on  the 
Lord's  Day,  or  any  other  day  when  he  is  per- 
forming his  duty,  or  in  going  and  coming  from 
the  place  of  public  worship.  Nor  shall  any  wil- 
ful disturbance  be  given  to  the  congregation,  on 
penalty  of  five  pounds,  or  being  sent  to  the 
workhouse  for  six  months,  provided  the  infor- 
mation be  within  one  month  after  the  offence  is 
committed.'"*  This  ordinance  to  be  read  in 
every  church  or  chapel  of  this  nation  annually, 
the  first  Lord's  Day  in  every  March. 

The  oath  of  abjuration,  for  discovering  popish 
recusants,  not  being  effectual,  it  was  now  farther 
ordained,  "that  all  justices  of  peace,  at  the 
quarter-sessions,  should  charge  the  grand  juries 
to  present  all  persons  whom  they  suspected  to 
be  popishly  affected  ;  and  that  every  such  per- 
son should  appear  at  the  next  quarter-sessions, 
and  take  and  subscribe  the  following  oath  of  ab- 
juration, on  penalty  of  being  adjudged  popish 
recusants  convict,  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
whatsoever : 

"  I,  A.  B.,  do  abjure  and  renounce  the  pope's  su- 
premacy and  authority  over  the  Catholic  Church 
in  general,  and  over  myself  in  particular.  And  I 
do  believe  the  Church  of  Rome  is  not  the  true 
Church ;  and  that  there  is  not  any  transubstan- 
tiation  in  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  or 
in  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine  after  conse- 
cration thereof,  by  any  person  whatsoever.  And 
I  do  al§o  believe  that  there  is  not  any  purgatory ; 
and  that  consecrated  hosts,  crucifixes,  or  images, 
ought  not  to  be  worshipped  ;  neither  that  any 
worship  is  due  unto  them.  And  I  also  believe 
that  salvation  cannot  be  merited  by  works.  And 
I  do  sincerely  testify  and  declare,  that  the  pope, 
neither  of  himself,  nor  by  any  authority  of  the 
Church  or  See  of  Rome,  or  by  any  other  means, 
with  any  other,  hath  any  power  or  authority  to 
depose  the  chief  magistrate  of  these  nations,  or 
to  dispose  of  any  of  the  countries  or  territories 
thereunto  belonging  ;  or  to  authorize  any  foreign 
prince  or  state  to  invade  or  annoy  him  or  them  ; 
or  to  discharge  any  of  the  people  of  these  na- 
tions from  their  obedience  to  the  chief  magis- 
trate ;  or  to  give  license  or  leave  to  any  of  the 
said  people  to  bear  arms,  raise  tumults,  or  to 
offer  any  violence  or  hurt  to  the  person  of  the 
said  chief  magistrate,  or  to  the  state  or  govern- 
ment of  these  nations,  or  to  any  of  the  people 
thereof  And  I  do  farther  swear,  that  I  do  from 
my  heart  abhor,  detest,  and  abjure  this  damna- 
ble doctrine  and  position,  that  princes,  rulers,  or 
governors,  which  be  excommunicated  or  de- 
prived by  the  pope,  may,  by  virtue  of  such  ex- 
communication or  deprivation,  be  killed,  mur- 
dered, or  deposed  from  their  rule  or  govern- 
ment ;  or  any  outrage  or  violence  done  to  them 
by  the  people  that  are  under  them ;  or  by  any 
other  whatsoever  upon  such  pretence.  And  I 
do  farther  swear,  that  I  do  believe  that  the  pope, 
or  Bishop  of  Rome,  hath  no  authority,  power, 


Scobel,  p.  438. 


HISTORY  OF    THE   PURITANS. 


1G7 


-or  jurisdiction  whatsoever  within  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Ireland,  or  any  or  either  of  them,  or 
the  dominions  or  territories  thereunto  belong- 
ing, or  any  or  either  of  them.  And  all  doctrines 
in  affirmation  of  the  same  points  I  do  abjure  and 
renounce,  without  any  equivocation,  mental  res- 
ervation, or  secret  evasion  whatsoever,  taking 
the  words  by  me  spoken  according  to  the  com- 
mon and  usual  meaning  of  them.  And  I  do  be- 
lieve no  power  derived  from  the  pope  or  Church 
of  Rome,  or  any  other  person,  can  absolve  me 
from  this  mine  oath.  And  I  do  renounce  all 
pardons  and  dispensations 'to  the  contrary.  So 
help  me  God."* 

Upon  refusal  of  this  oath,  the  protector  and 
his  successors  might,  by  process  in  the  excheq- 
uer, seize  upon  two  thirds  of  their  estates,  both 
real  and  personal,  for  the  use  of  the  public,  du- 
ring the  time  of  their  recusancy  ;  but  after  their 
decease,  the  same  were  to  return  to  the  right 
heir,  provided  they  took  the  above-mentioned 
oath.  It  was  farther  ordained,  "  that  no  subject 
of  this  commonwealth  shall  at  any  time  be  pres- 
ent at  mass,  in  the  house  of  any  foreign  ambas- 
sador or  agent,  or  at  any  other  place,  on  pen- 
alty of  £100  and  imprisonment  for  six  months, 
half  to  the  protector,  and  half  to  the  informer." 

How  far  tliese  severities  were  needful  or  jus- 
tifiable I  leave  with  the  judgment  of  the  reader. 

The  protector  had  an  opportunity  this  year 
of  appearing  for  the  Protestants  of  France,t  as 
he  had  done  last  year  for  those  of  the  Valleys  ; 
there  happened  a  quarrel  between  the  burghers 
of  Nismes,  who  were  mostly  Huguenots,  and  the 
magistrates  and  bishop  of  the  city  ;  the  intend- 
ant  of  the  province  being  informed  of  it,  repair- 
ed thither  to  prevent  an  insurrection  ;  but  the 
burghers,  standing  in  their  own  defence,  raised  a 
tumult,  of  which  the  intendant  sent  an  account 
to  court.  The  burghers,  being  soon  sensible 
of  their  folly,  submitted,  and  begged  pardon ; 
but  the  court,  laying  hold  of  the  opportunity, 
resolved  to  ruin  them.  Upon  which,  they  de- 
spatched a  messenger  privately  to  Cromwell,  and 
begged  his  interposition.  The  protector,  having 
heard  the  whole  account,  bid  the  messenger 
stay  and  refresh  himself,  and  before  he  could 
return  to  Paris,  his  business  should  be  done. 
Accordingly,  an  express  was  immediately  de- 
spatched with  a  letter  to  the  King  of  France, 
under  cover  of  the  following  to  Cardinal  Maza- 
rine : 

"  To  his  Eminence  the  Lord  Cardinal  Mazarine. 
•'  Having  thought  necessary  to  despatch  this 
gentleman  to  the  king  with  the  enclosed  letter, 
I  commanded  him  to  salute  your  eminence  on 
my  part ;  and  having  charged  him  to  communi- 
cate to  you  certain  affairs  which  I  have  intrust- 
ed him  with.  I  therefore  pray  your  highness  to 


*  Scobel,  p.  444. 

t  The  conduct  of  Cromwell  in  this  instance  does 
him  the  more  honour,  as,  unhappily  for  the  suffering 
Protestants  of  France,  it  is  unparalleled.  It  was  not 
formed  on  any  precedent ;  nor  has  his  generous  ex- 
ample been  followed.  "  When  an  opportunity."  ob- 
serves an  ingenious  writer,  "  offered  for  doing  some- 
thing for  them  at  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  in  1G97; 
and  again  of  Utrecht,  1713,  at  which  time  four  hun- 
dred were  still  groaning  on  board  the  galleys,  or  per- 
ishing in  dungeons,  there  was  not  one  stipulation  in 
their  favour." — Bkheno's  Signs  of  the  Times,  part  i., 
p.  40,  note. — Ed. 


give  credit  to  w'hat  he  shall  say,  having  an  en- 
tire confidence  in  liim. 

"  Your  eminence's  most  affectionate, 

"  O.  Cromwell,  protector  of  the 
"  Commonwealth  of  England,  &;c. 

"  Whiteliall,  December  23th,  1656." 

The  protector  added  the  following  postscript 
with  his  own  hand  :  "  I  have  been  informed  of 
the  tumult  at  Nismes  :  I  recommend  to  your 
highness  the  interest  of  the  reformed."  And 
in  his  instructions  to  his  ambassador  Lockhart, 
he  commanded  him  to  insist  peremptorily  that 
the  tumult  of  Nismes  be  forgiven,  or  else  to 
leave  the  court  immediately.  Mazarine  com- 
plained of  this  usage  as  too  high  and  imperi- 
ous ;  but  his  eminence  stood  in  too  much  awe 
of  the  protector  to  quarrel  with  him,  and  there- 
fore sent  orders  to  the  intendant  to  make  up 
the  matter  as  well  as  he  could.  Mr.  Welwood 
says,  the  cardinal  would  change  countenance 
whenever  he  heard  the  name  of  the  protector, 
insomuch  that  it  became  a  proverb  in  France, 
that  Mazarine  was  not  so  much  afraid  of  the 
devil  as  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  Such  was  the 
terror  of  this  great  man's  name  in  the  principal 
courts  of  Europe ! 

This  year^  died  the  right  reverend  and  pi- 
ous Dr.  .loseph  Hall,  bishop  of  Norwich,  whose 
practical  works  have  been  in  great  esteem 
among  the  Dissenters.  He  was  born  at  Ashby- 
de-la-Zouch  in  Leicestershire,  and  educated  in 


*  In  September,  this  year  [1656],  there  happened 
at  Abingdon,  in  Berkshire,  a  tumult,  which  was  at- 
tended with  singular  circumstances,  expressive  of  the 
political  as  well  as  religious  phrensy  of  the  times.  It 
was  occasioned  by  the  burial  of  Mr.  Pendarvis,  the 
pastor  of  the  Baptist  church  in  that  town,  who  died 
in  London,  and  was  brought  down  to  Abingdon  by 
water,  in  a  sugar-cask  filled  up  with  sand,  to  be  in- 
terred. As  he  was  one  of  the  fifth-monarchy  men, 
and  the  people  to  whom  he  ministered  were  of  that 
stamp,  and  famous  among  the  party  in  general,  his 
interment  drew  together  so  vast  a  concourse  of  peo- 
ple, even  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
that  the  governing  powers  took  notice  of  it,  and  sent 
Major-general  Bridges  with  a  party  of  soldiers  to  at- 
tend on  the  occasion.  Several  days  were  spent  by 
the  people  in  religious  exercises,  in  which  were 
thrown  out  many  railing  accusations  against  the  ex- 
isting government,  and  exhortatious  to  "arise  and 
fight  the  Lord's  battles,"  &c.  At  last  the  major-gen- 
eral sent  an  order  to  dissolve  the  meeting  in  these 
words  :  "  It  is  the  order  of  the  state  that  you  depart 
to  your  habitations."  They  refused  to  obey  this  or- 
der, and  persisted  in  their  exercises.  A  guard  was 
then  set  upon  the  house  where  they  were  assembled. 
On  this,  they  repaired  to  the  market-place,  and  con- 
tinued in  the  most  insolent  manner  to  rail  at  the  pro-  ' 
lector  and  abuse  the  soldiers,  crying  out,  "Now, 
Lord,  appear ;  down  with  the  priests,"  &c.,  the  very 
women  exciting  the  men  to  violence.  The  soldiers 
at  last  pulled  down  the  men  from  their  stools.  A 
fray  ensued,  and  swords  and  canes  were  brandished 
together  in  the  greatest  confusion,  and  some  few 
slightly  hurt.  The  major-general  then  entered  the 
town  with  his  whole  brigade  of  horse.  The  ring- 
leaders were  apprehended  and  brought  before  him, 
with  whom  he  reasoned  and  expostulated  in  the  most 
friendly  manner,  but  without  success,  for  none  of 
them  would  own  their  fault,  or  acknowledge  the  ex- 
isting government,  nor  even  promise  to  behave  peace- 
ably, saying,  "  they  knew  not  how  soon  they  might 
be  called  forth  to  do  the  Lord's  work."  However, 
five  only  were  committed  to  prison,  and  they  were 
soon  afterward  released. —  Tho/npsons  Collections, 
under  word  Abingdon  MSS. — Ed. 


168 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


Emanuel  College,  Caniliriilge.  When  he  left 
the  university,  he  travelled  with  Sir  Edmund 
Bacon  to  the  Spa  in  Germany.  Upon  his  return, 
he  was  taken  into  the  service  of  Prince  Henry, 
and  preferred  to  tlie  rectory  of  Waltham  in  Es- 
sex, which  he  held  twenty-two  years.  King 
James  sent  him  to  the  Synod  of  Dort  with  other 
English  divines,  where  he  preached  a  Latin  ser- 
mon, but  was  forced  to  retire  to  England  before 
the  synod  broke  up,  on  the  account  of  his  health. 
Some  time  after  his  return,  he  was  preferred  to 
the  bishopric  of  Exeter,  and  from  thence  trans- 
lated to  Norwich.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
troubles  between  the  king  and  Parliament,  the 
bishop  published  several  treatises  in  favour  of 
diocesan  Episcopacy,  which  was  answered  by 
Smectymnuus,  as  has  been  already  related.  He 
was  afterward  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  with  the 
rest  of  the  protestmg  bishops  ;  upon  his  release 
he  retired  to  Norwich,  the  revenues  of  which 
bishopric  being  soon  sequestered,  together  with 
his  own  real  and  personal  estate,  he  was  forced 
to  be  content  with  the  fifths.  The  soldiers  used 
him  severely,  turning  him  out  of  his  palace,  and 
threatening  to  sell  his  books,  if  a  friend  had  not 
given  bond  for  the  money  at  which  they  were 
appraised.  The  bishop  complained  very  justly 
of  this  usage  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  Hard  Meas- 
ure. At  length  the  Parliament,  to  make  him 
some  amends,  voted  him  £40  per  annum  ;  and 
when  the  war  was  ended,  in  the  year  1647,  they 
took  off  the  sequestration  from  his  estate,  and 
the  bishop  lived  peaceably  upon  it  afterward, 
spending  his  solitude  in  acts  of  charity  and  di- 
vine meditation.  He  was  a  learned  and  pious 
man,  and  of  great  humility  and  goodness  in  con- 
versation :  but  being  the  tool  of  Archbishop 
Laud  in  supporting  the  Divine  right  of  diocesan 
Episcopacy,  lessened  him  in  the  esteem  of  the 
Parliament.  Mr.  Fuller  says*  he  was  frequent- 
ly called  our  English  Seneca,  for  the  pureness, 
plainness,  and  fulness  of  his  style. t  He  was 
more  happy  in  his  practical  than  polemical  wri- 
tings. There  is  one  remarkable  passage  in  his 
will,  which  is  this :  after  having  desired  a  pri- 
vate funeral,  he  adds,  "  I  do  not  hold  God's 
house  a  meet  repository  for  the  dead  bodies  of 
the  greatest  saints."  In  his  last  sickness  he 
was  afflicted  with  violent  pains  of  the  stone  and 
strangury,  which  he  bore  with  wonderful  pa- 
tience, till  death  put  an  end  to  all  his  troubles, 
September  8, 1656,  in  the  eighty-second  year  of 
his  age. 

Towards  the  latter  end  of  this  year  died  the 
Jleverend  Mr.  Richard  Capel,  born  at  Glouces- 
ter, 1585,  and  educated  in  Magdalen  College, 
Oxon,  where  he  proceeded  M.A.J  His  emi- 
nence in  the  university,  says  the  Oxford  histo- 
rian, was  great ;  he  had  divers  learned  men  for 
his  pupils,  who  were  afterward  famous  in  the 
Church,  as  Accepted  Frewen,  archbishop  of 
York,  William  Pemble,  and  others.  He  left  the 
university  for  the  rectory  of  Eastington  in  his 

*  Fuller's  Worthies,  book  ii.,  p.  130. 

+  In  his  younger  years  he  composed  a  book  of  sat- 
ires, and  was  the  first  writer  in  that  kind  of  our  Eng- 
lish poets.  Mr.  Pope  said  high  things  of  this  per- 
iormance. — Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
157,  8vo. — Ed.  Hall's  Contemplations  are  among 
the  best  practical  works  of  theology  afforded  by  the 
English  Church.  All  his  works  (reprinted)  are  well 
worthy  of  a  place  in  the  library  of  every  Christian 
minister. — C.  t  Fuller's  Wonhies,  p.  2C0. 


own  county,  where  he  became  ceienrated  for  his 
painful  and  practical  preaching,  as  well  as  for 
his  exem()lary  life.  When  the  Book  of  Sports 
came  out,  1633,  he  refused  to  read  it,  hut  resign- 
ed his  rectory  and  commenced  physician.  la 
1641  he  closed  with  the  Parliament,  and  was 
chosen  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  but  de- 
clined sitting  among  them,  choosing  to  reside 
at  his  living  at  Pitchcomb,  near  Stroud,  where 
he  was  in  great  reputation  as  a  physician  and 
divine,  preaching  gratis  to  his  congregation. 
He  published  several  valuable  treatise.-;,  and^ 
among  others,  a  celebrated  one,  Of  Temptations, 
their  Nature,  Danger,  and  Cure.  He  was  a 
good  old  Puritan,  of  the  stamp  of  Mr.  Dod, 
Cleaver,  and  Hildershain;  and  died  at  Pitch- 
comb,  in  Gloucestershire,  September  21,  1656^ 
aged  seventy-two  years.* 


*  Sir.  Neal  has  passed  over  here  a  name  of  great 
worth  and  eminence,  which  ought  not  to  be  forgot- 
ten in  a  history  of  the  progress  of  religious  liberty — 
that  of  the  "  ever-memorable"  John  Hales,  of  Eaton, 
as  he  has  been  usually  called,  who  died  on  the  19th 
of  May,  1G56,  aged  seventy-two  years:  whose  wri- 
tings, though  not  numerous,  especially  his  Discourse 
on  Schism,  have  much  contributed  to  promote  just 
sentiments  and  a  liberality  of  spirit.  He  was  bom 
at  Bath  in  1581,  and  made  so  early  a  proficiency  in 
grammar-learning,  that  at  thirteen  years  of  age  he 
was  sent  to  Corpus-Christi  College  in  O.xford,  and 
studied  under  George  Abbot,  afterward  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  under  whom  he  imbibed  an  attach- 
ment to  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism.  In  1C05,  by  the 
interest  of  Sir  Henry  Saville,  warden  of  Morton  Col- 
lege, whose  notice  and  patronage  his  merit  and  learn- 
ing had  attracted,  he  was  chosen  fellow  of  the  same  ; 
and  his  assistance  was  engaged  in  the  e.xcellent  edi- 
tion of  Chrysoslom's  work  by  Sir  Henry,  which  is 
the  best  printed  Greek  book  England  can  boast,  and 
cost  the  learned  editor  several  thousand  pounds. — 
HarwootTs  View  of  the  Editions  of  the  Classics,  second 
edition,  p.  143.  Mr.  Hales  was  also  appointed  to  read 
the  Greek  lecture  in  his  college,  and  in  1G12  he  was 
elected  Greek  professor  to  the  university.  In  1612- 
]3  he  was  called  upon  to  compose  and  speak  the  fu- 
neral oration  for  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  founder  of  the 
Bodleian  library,  whose  corpse  the  university  deter- 
mined to  inter  in  the  most  solemn  manner.  On  the 
24th  of  May  in  that  year,  he  was  admitted  fellow  of 
Eton  College,  being  then  in  holy  orders.  In  1618 
he  accompanied  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  King  James's 
ambassador  to  the  States  of  Holland,  as  his  chaplain  ; 
and  was  present  at  many  of  the  sessions  of  the  Syn- 
od of  Dort,  from  whence  he  returned  an  Arminian  : 
"  There,"  he  said,  "  I  bid  John  Calvin  good-night." 
On  the  27th  of  June,  1639,  by  the  interest  of  Archbish- 
op Laud,  he  was  installed  a  canon  of  Windsor;  but 
he  enjoyed  this  preferment,  which  he  reluctantly  ac- 
cepted, little  more  than  two  years,  till  the  beginning 
of  the  civil  wars  in  1042.  About  the  beginning  of 
1645  he  retired  into  a  private  chamber  at  Eton, 
where  he  remained  a  quarter  of  a  year  in  a  very  ob- 
scure manner,  and  he  is  said,  during  that  time,  to 
have  lived  only  upon  bread  and  beer.  His  fellowship 
was  continued,  though  he  refused  to  sign  the  Cove- 
nant ;  but  he  was  rejected  from  it  on  refusing  to  take, 
the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  commonwealth.  His  ne- 
cessities at  length  obliged  him  to  sell  his  admirable 
library  for  £700,  which  had  cost  him  £2500.  His 
love  of  retirement  and  study  induced  him  to  decline 
a  generous  offer  of  one  of  the  Seldian  family.  When 
he  held  the  fellowship  and  bursar's  place  of  his  col- 
lege, he  was  wont  to  say,  ihey  were  worth  to  him  £50 
a  year  more  than  he  could  spend.  His  body,  it  is  re- 
ported, was  well  proportioned,  and  his  motion  brisk 
and  lively.  His  countenance  was  sanguine,  cheer- 
ful, and  full  of  air.  His  parts  were  great ;  his  genius 
acute  and  piercing,  his  judgment  profound  ;  his- 
learning  various,  polite,  and  universal ;  so  that  he 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


169 


The  Parliament  which  met  September  17 
continued  sitting  till  ihe  next  year,  having  be- 
fore them  an  affair  of  the  greatest  consequence, 
which  was  confirming  the  government  under 
Cromwell  as  lord-proteetor,  or  changing  it  for 
the  title  of  king.  Colonel  Jephson,  one  of  the 
members  from  Ireland,  moved  that  the  pro- 
tector might  have  the  crown,  with  the  title  of 
king,  and  was  seconded  by  Alderman  Pack,  one 
of  the  representatives  for  the  city  of  London  ; 
but  the  Republicans  in  the  House  opposed  it  with 
great  vehemence  ;  however,  upon  putting  the 
question,  it  was  carried  for  a  king,  most  of  the 
lawyers,  as  Sergeant  Glyn,  Maynard,  Fountain, 
St.  John,  and  others,  bemg  on  that  side.*  April 
4,  a  petition  was  presented  to  the  protector,  rec- 
ommending the  title  and  office  of  a  king  as  best 
fitted  to  the  laws  and  temper  of  the  people  of 
England  ;  and  upon  his  desiring  time  to  consid- 
er of  it,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  give  him 
satisfaction  in  any  difficulties  that  might  arise, 
who  urged,  that  "  the  name  of  protector  was 
unknown  to  our  English  Constitution  ;  that  his 
highness  had  already  the  office  and  power  of  a 
king,  and  therefore  the  dispute  was  only  about 
a  name.  That  his  person  would  never  be  se- 
cure till  he  assumed  it,  because  the  laws  did  not 
take  notice  of  him  as  chief  magistrate,  and  ju- 
ries were  backward  to  find  persons  guilty  of 
treason  where  there  was  no  king.  They  urged 
the  advantages  of  "a  mixed  monarchy,  and  m- 
sisted  on  the  safety  and  security  of  himself  and 
his  friends.     That,  by  the  laws  of  Edward  IV. 


was  called  "  a  walking  library."  His  manners  were 
most  amiable  and  engaging.  He  was  most  exempla- 
nly  meek  and  humble,  and  beyond  all  example  char- 
itable; of  great  candour  and  moderation  ;  judging  for 
himself,  but  not  others ;  none  more  studious  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel,  or  more  curious  in  the 
search  ;  of  the  strictest  integrity,  and  sincerely  pious. 
He  had  a  great  detestation  of  an  imposing,  censori- 
ous, and  intolerant  spirit ;  and  would  often  say,  that 
"  he  would  renounce  the  religion  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land to-morrow,  if  it  obliged  him  to  believe  that  any  other 
Christians  would  be  damned  ;  and  that  nobody  would 
conclude  another  man  to  be  damned  who  did  not  wish 
him  so."  The  force,  eloquence,  and  simplicity  with 
which  he  wrote  to  Archbishop  Laud,  give  a  picture 
of  his  mind,  as  well  as  convey  excellent  instruction. 
"The  pursuit  of  truth,"  says  he,  "has  been  my  only 
care  ever  since  I  understood  the  meaning  of  the 
word.  For  this  I  have  forsaken  all  hopes,  all  friends, 
all  desires  which  might  bias  me,  and  hinder  me  from 
driving  right  at  what  I  aimed.  For  this  I  have  spent 
my  money,  my  means,  my  youth,  my  age,  and  all 
that  I  have.  If,  with  all  this  cost  and  pains,  my  pur- 
chase is  but  error,  I  may  safely  say,  to*  err  has  cost 
me  more  than  it  has  many  to  find  the  truth ;  and 
truth  shall  give  me  this  testimony  at  last,  that  if  I 
have  missed  of  her,  it  is  not  my  fault,  but  my  mis- 
fortune." He  was  buried,  according  to  his  desire, 
in  Eton  College  churchyard,  on  the  day  after  his 
death  ;  and  a  monument  was  erected  over  bis  grave 
by  Mr.  Peter  Curwen.  A  complete  edition  of  his 
work  was,  for  the  first  time,  oflered  to  the  public, 
from  the  press  of  the  Foulis  at  Glasgow,  17G5,  in 
three  volumes  12mo,  undertaken  with  the  approba- 
tion of  Dr.  Warburton,  the  bishop  of  Gloucester. 
"  The  greatness  of  his  character,"  observes  M  r.  Gran- 
ger, '•  has  stamped  a  value  upon  some  of  his  compo- 
sitions, which  are  thought  to  have  but  little  merit 
in  themselves." — History  of  Ensland,  vol.  ii..  8vo,  p. 
172.  British  Biogriphy,  voL  iv.,  p.  368-375;  and 
^Vorlis,  vol.  i.  Testimonies  prefixed,  and  p.  137,  138. 
—El). 

*  Clarke's  General  Martyrology,  p.  303,  of  the  an- 
nexed Lives. — Ed. 

Vol.  II.— Y 


and  Henry  VII.,  whatever  was  done  by  a  king 
in  possession,  with  the  consent  of  a  House  of 
Lords  and  Commons,  was  valid,  and  all  that 
served  under  hirn  were  exempt  from  punish- 
ment. That  without  this  title  all  the  grants 
and  sales  that  had  been  made  were  null  and 
void  ;  and  all  who  had  collected  the  public  mon- 
eys were  accountable.  In  short,  that  the  incli- 
nations of  the  nation  were  for  a  king.  That 
his  not  accepting  the  office  would  occasion  the 
changing  many  ancient  laws,  customs,  and  for- 
malities. That  there  would  be  no  lasting  set- 
tlement till  things  reverted  to  this  channel.  To 
all  which  they  added,  that  it  was  the  advice  and 
opinion  of  the  representatives  of  the  three  na- 
tions ;  and  since  the  Parliament  of  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland  advised  and  desired  him 
to  accept  the  title,  he  ought  not,  in  reason  or 
equity,  to  decline  it."*^' 

The  protector  attended  to  these  arguments, 
and  would  no  doubt  have  complied  if  he  could 
have  relied  upon  the  army ;  but  the  chief  officers 
remonstrated  strongly  against  it,  and  many  of 
his  old  friends,  among  whom  was  his  own  son- 
in-law  Fleetwood,  threatened  to  lay  down  their 
commissions.  All  the  Republicans  declaimed 
loudly  against  his  accepting  the  crown,  and  pre- 
sented a  petition  to  the  House  against  it,  drawn 
up  by  Dr.  Owen,  and  presented  by  Lieutenant- 
general  Mason  ;  they  said,  "  they  had  pulled 
down  monarchy  with  the  monarch,  and  should 
they  now  build  it  up  1  They  had  appealed  to 
God  in  the  late  war,  who  had  answered  in  their 
favour,  and  should  they  now  distrust  himi 
They  had  voted  to  be  true  to  the  common- 
wealth, without  king  or  kingship,  and  should 
they  break  their  vows,  and  go  back  to  Egypt  for 
security  ]  They  thought  it  rather  their  happi- 
ness to  be  under  a  legal  danger,  which  might 
make  thern  more  cautious  and  diligent.  Some 
said,  if  they  must  have  a  king,  why  not  the  le- 
gal oneT't  Upon  these  grounds  they  stood  out, 
and  rejected  with  scorn  all  limitations  of  the 
prerogative  under  monarchy.  So  that,  whatev- 
er might  be  the  protector's  inclination, J  he  judg- 
ed it  most  prudent  to  decline  the  crown  at  pres- 
ent :  and  accordingly,  May  8,  he  sent  for  th& 
House,  and  acquainted  them  that,  as  the  circum- 
stances of  affairs  then  stood,  he  could  not  un- 
dertake the  government  with  the  title  of  king.^ 
Some  have  been  of  opinion  that  the  protect- 
or's great  genius  forsook  him  in  this  affair  ;  but 
it  is  impossible,  at  this  distance  of  time,  to 
judge  of  the  strength  of  the  reasons  that  deter- 
mined him  the  other  way.  Had  he  assumed  th& 
title  of  king,  the  army  would  have  revolted  ;  the 
Cavaliers  would  have  joined  the  Republicans 
to  have  pulled  him  down  from  the  throne,  the 


♦  Whitelocke,  p.  646. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  98,  12mo,  Edinb.  edition. 

%  The  inclinations  of  Cromwell  were  strongly  ia 
favour  of  kingship :  for  he  used  all  possible  means 
to  prevail  with  the  officers  of  the  army  to  concur 
with  his  scheme  of  royalty.  With  this  view  he  in- 
vited himself  to  dine  with  Colonel  Desborough,  and 
carried  Lieutenant-general  Fleetwood  with  him,  as 
he  knew  the  influence  of  those  officers,  and  their 
aversion  to  his  wearing  the  crown.  He  then  even 
stooped  to  solicit  their  indulgence  :  "  It  is  but  a  feath- 
er in  a  man's  cap,"  said  he,  "  and  therefore  he  won- 
dered thit  men  would  not  please  children,  and  per- 
mit them  to  enjoy  their  rattle." — Ludlow's  Memoirs, 
•ito,  p.  248.— Ed.  ^  Whitelocke,  d.  646. 


170 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITAISS. 


M'hole  nation  would  in  all  probability  have  been 
thrown  into  confusion,  and  himself  have  been 
the  sacrifice.  The  protector  had  made  large 
advances  in  power  already,  and  he  might  appre- 
hend It  not  worth  while  at  present  to  risk  the 
whole  for  the  sake  of  a  name  ;  though  I  make 
no  question,  but  if  he  had  lived  to  see  his  gov- 
ernment established,  and  the  spirits  of  the  peo- 
ple calmed,  he  would  in  a  proper  time  have  ac- 
cepted of  the  style  and  title,  as  he  had  already 
done  the  office,  of  king.  Nay,  Mr.  Welwood* 
says  that  a  crown  was  actually  made,  and 
brought  to  Whitehall  for  that  purpose. 

Upon  Cromwell's  declining  the  title  of  king, 
the  Parliament  concluded  upon  an  humble  peti- 
tion and  advice,  which  was  presented  to  the 
protector  May  25,  containing,  among  others,  the 
following  articles  :  "  That  his  highness  would 
exercise  the  oflice  of  chief  magistrate  of  this 
nation  under  the  title  of  lord-protector ;  and 
that  during  life  he  would  declare  his  successor. 
That  for  the  future  he  would  be  pleased  to  call 
Parliaments,  consisting  of  two  houses,  to  meet 
once  in  three  years,  and  oftener,  if  there  be  oc- 
casion. That  the  ancient  liberties  of  Parlia- 
ment may  be  preserved  ;  and  that  none  who  are 
chosen  may  be  excluded  but  by  the  judgment 
and  consent  of  the  house  of  which  they  are 
members.  That  no  papist,  no  person  that  has 
borne  arms  against  the  Parliament,  unless  he 
has  since  given  proof  of  his  good  affection  to 
the  commonwealth  ;  no  clergyman,  no  atheist, 
or  openly  profane  person,  be  qualified  to  be  cho- 
sen member  of  Parliament.  That  the  other 
House  of  Parliament  be  not  more  than  seventy, 
nor  less  than  forty,  of  which  twenty-one  to  make 
a  house.  That  they  may  not  vote  by  proxy. 
That  as  any  of  them  die,  no  new  ones  be  ad- 
mitted but  by  consent  of  the  House  itself,  but 
the  nomination  to  be  in  the  protector  ;  and  that 
they  may  not  proceed  in  any  criminal  causes 
but  by  impeachment  of  the  Commons.  That 
no  laws  be  abrogated,  suspended,  or  repealed 
but  by  act  of  Parliament ;  and  that  no  person 
be  compelled  to  contribute  to  any  gift,  loans, 
benevolences,  or  taxes,  without  consent  of  Par- 
liament. That  the  number  of  his  highness's 
council  be  not  more  than  twenty-one,  of  which 
seven  to  be  a  quorum ;  and  that  no  privy  coun- 
cillor be  removed  but  by  consent  of  Parliament ; 
though,  in  the  intervals  of  Parliament,  they  may 
be  suspended.  That  the  chancellor,  or  keeper 
of  the  great  seal,  the  commissioners  of  the 
treasury,  and  other  chief  officers  of  state,  may 
be  approved  by  both  houses  of  Parliament." 

The  article  relating  to  religion  was  in  these 
words  :  "  That  the  Protestant  Christian  religion 
contained  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  and  no  other,  be  asserted  and 
held  forth  as  the  public  profession  of  this  na- 
tion ;  and  that  a  confession  of  faith,  to  be  agreed 
upon  by  your  highness  and  this  present  Parlia- 
ment, be  asserted,  and  recommended  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  nation ;  and  that  none  shall  be  per- 
mitted by  opprobrious  words  or  writings  to  re- 
vile or  reproach  the  said  confession.  That  such 
who  profess  faith  in  God  the  Father,  and  in 
Jesus  Christ  his  eternal  Son,  the  true  God.  and  in 
the  Holy  Ghost,  God  coequal  and  coeternal  with 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  one  God  blessed  forever, 
and  do  acknowledge  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the 


*  Memoirs,  p.  111. 


Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  the  revealed  will 
and  Word  of  God,  tiiough  in  other  things  they 
may  differ  in  word  and  doctrine,  or  discipline, 
from  the  public  profession  held  forth,  shall  not 
be  compelled  by  penalties  or  restraints  from 
their  profession,  but  shall  be  protected  from  ail 
injuries  and  molestations  in  the  profession  of 
their  faith,  and  exercise  of  their  religion,  while 
they  abuse  not  this  liberty  to  the  civil  injury  of 
others,  or  the  disturbance  of  the  public  peace ; 
provided  this  liberty  do  not  extend  to  popery  or 
prelacy,  or  to  the  countenance  of  such  who  pub- 
lish horrid  blasphemies  ;  or  who  practise  or  hold 
forth  licentiousness  or  profaneness,  under  the 
profession  of  Christ ;  and  those  ministers,  or 
public  preachers,  who  agree  with  the  public  pro- 
fession aforesaid  in  matters  of  faith,  though  they 
differ  in  matters  of  worship  or  discipline,  shall 
not  only  have  protection  in  the  way  of  then" 
churches  or  worship,  but  shall  be  deemed  equal- 
ly fit  and  capable  (being  otherwise  qualified)  of 
any  trust,  promotion,  or  employment  in  this 
nation,  with  those  who  agree  with  the  public 
profession  of  faith,  only  they  shall  not  be  capa- 
ble of  receiving  the  public  maintenance  appoint- 
ed for  the  ministry.  And  all  ministers  shall 
remain  disqualified  from  holding  any  civil  em- 
ployment according  to  the  act  for  disabling  all 
persons  in  holy  orders  to  exercise  any  temporal 
jurisdiction  and  authority,  which  is  hereby  con- 
firmed."* 

The  protector  having  consented  to  these,  and 
some  other  articles,  to  the  number  of  eighteen, 
an  oath  was  appointed  to  be  taken  by  all  privy 
councillors  and  members  of  Parliament  for  the 
future,  "  to  maintain  the  Protestant  religion  ;  to 
be  faithful  to  the  lord-protector ;  and  to  pre- 
serve the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  ;" 
and  a  few  days  after  Oliver  Cromwell  was  pro- 
claimed a  second  time  lord- protector  in  the 
cities  of  London  and  Westminster,  this  being 
esteemed  a  new  and  more  parliamentary  title  ; 
and  if  the  House  had  been  full  and  free  it  might 
have  been  so,  but  the  council's  assuming  a  pow- 
er to  approve  or  disapprove  of  the  members  af- 
ter they  were  returned — their  forbidding  them 
to  debate  the  fhndamentals  of  the  new  govern- 
ment, and  obliging  them  to  sign  a  recognition 
of  it  before  they  entered  the  House,  looks  like  a 
Ibrce,  or  taking  the  election  out  of  their  hands. 
But,  lame  and  imperfect  as  the  protector's  title 
may  seem,  it  was  as  good  as  that  of  the  Roman 
emperors,  or  the  original  claims  of  many  of  the 
royal  houses  of  Europe  ;  and,  in  the  present  dis- 
jointed state  of  the  English  nation,  not  only  ne- 
cessary, but  it  may  be  the  best  thing  that  could 
be  done ;  for  if  the  protectorship  had  been  set 
aside,  there  was  hardly  a  man  in  the  House 
who  would  have  ventured  to  vote  for  the  king  ; 
an  absolute  commonwealth  could  not  have  been 
supported,  and  therefore  anarchy  would  inevita- 
bly have  ensued. 

This  being  the  last  settlement  of  government 
in  the  protector's  time,  the  reader  will  observe 
that  the  four  fundamental  articles  already  men- 
tioned, viz.,  (1.)  That  the  government  be  in  a 
single  person  and  a  Parliament ;  (2.)  that  Par- 
liaments be  not  perpetual ;  (3.)  the  militia  ;  and 
(4.)  liberty  of  conscience  in  matters  of  religion, 
were  not  suffered  to  be  examined  or  altered, 
hut  were  supposed  as  the  basis  upon  which  the 


Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  678. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


171 


new  government  was  founded.  That,  though 
Oliver's  title  to  the  government  had  the  sanc- 
tion and  confirmation  of  the  present  Parliament, 
it  was  derived  originally  from  the  choice  of  the 
council  of  officers,  and  was  never  suffered  to  be 
debated  in  the  House  afterward.  That  the  hum- 
ble petition  and  advice  approaches  nearer  the 
old  legal  Constitution,  by  appointing  two  houses 
of  Parliament,  and  would  most  likely,  in  time, 
have  been  converted  into  it.  That  the  regula- 
tions it  makes  in  the  Constitution  are  for  the 
most  part  reasonable.  That  the  Presbyterians 
were  still  left  in  possession  of  all  the  ecclesias- 
tical revenues  of  the  kingdom,  though  an  open 
and  free  liberty  was  granted  to  all  Christians, 
except  papists  and  Prelatists,  who  were  exclu- 
ded for  reasons  of  state  ;  and  the  penal  laws 
made  against  the  latter  were  dropped  by  the 
Parliament's  not  confirming  them.  Remark- 
able are  the  words  of  the  Lord-commissioner 
Fiennes,  at  the  opening  of  the  second  session  of 
this  Parliament,  in  which  he  "  warns  the  houses 
of  the  rock  on  which  many  had  split,  which  was 
a  spirit  of  imposing  upon  men's  consciences  in 
things  wherein  God  leaves  them  a  latitude,  and 
would  have  them  free.  The  prelates  and  their 
adherents,  nay,  and  their  master  and  supporter, 
with  all  his  posterity,  have  split  upon  it.  The 
bloody  rebels  in  Ireland,  who  would  endure  no 
religion  but  their  own,  have  split  upon  it ;  and 
we  doubt  not  but  the  prince  of  those  satanical 
spirits  will  in  due  time  split  upon  it,  and  be 
brought  to  the  ground  with  his  bloody  inquisi- 
tion. But  as  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons, 
so  he  is  no  respecter  of  forms ;  but,  in  what  form 
soever  the  spirit  of  imposition  appears,  he  would 
testify  against  it.  If  men,  though  otherwise 
good,  will  turn  ceremony  into  substance,  and 
make  the  kingdom  of  Christ  consist  in  circum- 
stances, in  discipline,  and  in  forms  ;  and  if  they 
carry  their  animosities  to  such  a  height,  that  if 
one  says  Sibboleth  instead  of  Shibboleth,  it- shall 
be  accounted  ground  enough  to  cut  his  throat ; 
if  they  shall  account  such  devils,  or  the  seed  of 
the  serpent,  that  are  not  within  such  a  circle  or 
of  such  an  opinion,  in  vain  do  they  protest 
against  the  persecution  of  God's  people,  when 
they  make  the  definition  of  God's  people  so  nar- 
row, that  their  persecution  is  as  broad  as  any 
■other,  and  usually  more  fierce,  because  edged 
with  a  sharp  temper  of  spirit.  Blessed,  there- 
fore, be  God,  who,  in  mercy  to  us  and  them,  has 
placed  the  power  in  such  hands  as  make  it  their 
business  to  preserve  peace,  and  hinder  men 
from  biting  and  devouring  one  another.  It  is 
good  to  hold  forth  a  public  profession  of  the 
truth,  but  not  so  as  to  exclude  those  that  can- 
not come  up  to  it  in  all  points  from  the  privi- 
lege that  belongs  to  them  as  Christians,  much 
less  from  the  privilege  that  belongs  to  them  as 
men."* 

His  highness  having  now  a  more  parliament- 
ary title,  it  was  thought  proper  that  he  should 
have  a  more  solemn  inauguration,  which  was 
accordingly  appointed  to  be  celebrated  on  June 
26,  in  Westminster  Hall,  which  was  adorned 
and  beautified  for  this  purpose  as  for  a  corona- 
tion. At  the  upper  end  there  was  an  ascent  of 
two  degrees  covered  with  carpets,  in  the  midst 
of  which  there  was  a  rich  canopy,  and  under  it 
a  chair  of  state.     Before  the  canopy  there  was 

*  Whitelocke's  Memoirs,  p.  93. 


a  table  and  chair  for  the  speaker,*  and  on  each 
side  seats  for  the  members  of  Parliament,  for 
the  judges,  for  the  lord-mayor  and  aldermen  of 
London.  The  protector  was  conducted  from 
the  House  of  Lords  with  all  the  state  and  gran- 
deur of  a  king,  and  being  seated  under  the  can- 
opy of  state,  the  speaker  of  the  Parliament,  the 
Earl  of  Warwick,  and  Commissioner  White- 
locke,  vested  him  with  a  purple  velvet  robe 
lined  with  ermine  ;  they  delivered  into  one  of 
his  hands  a  Bible  richly  gilt,  and  embossed  with 
gold,  and  into  the  other  a  sceptre  of  massy 
gold  ;  and,  lastly,  they  girt  him  with  a  rich 
sword ;  after  this  they  administered  an  oath  to 
the  protector,  to  govern  according  to  law.  The 
solemnity  concluded  with  a  short  prayer,  pro- 
nounced by  Dr.  Manton  ;  and  then  the  herald 
having  proclaimed  his  highness's  titles,  the  peo- 
ple shouted,  with  loud  acclamations,  "  Long  live 
the  lord-protector  !"  &c.,  and  the  day  concluded 
with  feastings,  and  all  other  kinds  of  public  re- 
joicing. 

The  protector  having  waded  through  all  these 
difficulties  to  the  supreme  government  of  these 
nations,  appeared  on  a  sudden  like  a  comet  or 
blazing  star,t  raised  up  by  Providence  to  exalt 
this  nation  to  a  distinguished  pitch  of  glory,  and 
to  strike  terror  into  the  rest  of  Europe. t  His 
management  for  the  little  time  he  survived  was 
the  admiration  of  all  mankind ;  for  though  he 
would  never  suffer  his  title  to  the  supreme  gov- 
ernment to  be  disputed,  yet  his  greatest  enemies 
have  confessed  that,  in  all  other  cases,  distribu- 
tive justice  was  restored  to  its  ancient  splen- 
dour. The  judges  executed  their  duty  accord- 
ing to  equity,  without  partiality  or  bribery  ;  the 
laws  had  their  full  and  free  course  without  im- 
pediment or  delay  ;  men's  manners  were  won- 
derfully reformed,  and  the  protector's  court  kept 
under  an  exact  discipline.  Trade  flourished, 
and  the  arts  of  peace  were  cultivated  through- 
out the  whole  nation  ;  the  public  money  was 
managed  with  frugality,  and  to  the  best  advan- 
tage ;  the  army  and  navy  were  well  paid,  and 
served  accordingly.^  As  the  protector  proceed- 
ed with  great  steadiness  and  resolution  against 
the  enemies  of  his  government,  he  was  no  less 
generous  and  bountiful  to  those  of  all  parties 
who  submitted  to  it ;  for  as  he  would  not  de- 
clare himself  of  any  particular  sect,  he  gave 
out  that  "  it  was  his  only  wish  that  all  would 
gather  into  one  sheepfold,  under  one  shepherd, 
Jesus  Christ,  and  love  one  another."  He  re- 
spected the  clergy  in  their  places,  but  confined 
them  to  their  spiritual  function.  Nor  was  he 
jealous  of  any  who  did  not  meddle  in  politics, 
and  endeavour  to  raise  disturbances  in  the  state ; 


*  Dr.  Grey  gives  at  length  the  speech  with  which 
the  speaker,  Lord  Widdrington,  addressed  the  pro- 
tector.— Ed. 

t  Echard,  p.  719.  $  Complete  Hist.,  p.  223. 

^  Dr.  Grey  controverts  the  truth  of  this  repre- 
sentation ot  the  happy  state  of  things  under  (Jrom- 
vvell's  governiaent :  though  Mr.  Neal  quotes  Echard 
and  Kennet,  whose  authority  Dr.  Grey  does  not  at- 
tempt to  invalidate.  He  refers  principallv  to  a  speech 
of  Cromwell,  25th  January,  1057,  comp'laining  that 
the  army  was  unpaid,  and  that  Ireland  and  Scotland 
were  surternig  by  poverty.  For  a  review  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  Cromwell,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
Dr.  Harrix's  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  412-475,  and  Mrs, 
Macaulay's  History  of  En<rta>id,  vol.  \..  8vo,  p.  194- 
203,  who  is  by  no  means  partial  to  the  protector.— Ed. 


172 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


even  the  prejudice  he  had  against  the  Episcopal 
party,  says  Bishop  Kennet,  was  more  for  tlieir 
being  Royiiiists  tliaii  being  of  tlie  Church  of 
England.  But  when  one  parly  of  the  clergy 
began  to  lift  up  their  heads  above  their  breiii- 
ren,  or  to  act  out  of  tlieir  sphere,  he  always 
found  means  to  lake  them  down.  He  had  a 
■watchful  eye  over  the  Royalists  and  Republi- 
cans, who  v\  ere  always  plotting  against  his  per- 
son and  government ;  but  his  erectnig  a  House 
of  Lords,  or  upper  house,  so  quickly  alter  his  in- 
stalment, roused  the  maleconlents,  and  had  like 
to  have  subverted  his  government  in  its  infancy. 

The  protector  was  m  high  reputation  abroad, 
and  carried  victory  with  his  armies  and  navies 
wherever  they  appeared.  There  had  been  a 
negotiation  with  Fiance  concerning  an  alliance 
against  Spain,  begun  at  London,  1655,  but  not 
concluded  till  Marcli  13,  1657,  by  which  the  pro- 
tector obliged  himself  to  join  six  thousand  men 
with  the  French  army,  and  to  furnish  fifty  men- 
of-war  to  conquer  the  maritime  towns  belong- 
ing to  Spain  in  the  Low  Countries,  on  this  con- 
dition, that  Dunkirk  and  Mardyke  should  be  put 
into  his  hands,  and  the  family  of  the  Stuaris 
depart  the  territories  of  France.  That  which 
determined  him  to  join  with  France  rather  than 
Spain,  was  the  numerous  parties  that  were 
against  him  at  home  ;  for  if  the  young  king, 
assisted  by  France,  should  have  made  a  descent 
upon  England  with  an  army  of  French  Protest- 
ants, it  might  have  been  of  fatal  consequence 
to  his  infant  government ;  whereas  the  Span- 
iards were  at  a  distance,  and  having  no  Prtoest- 
ant  subjects,  were  less  to  be  feared.  Upon  the 
conclusion  of  this  treaty.  King  Charles  entered 
into  an  alliance  with  the  Spaniards,  who  allow- 
ed him  a  small  pension,  and  promised  him  the 
command  of  six  thousand  men  as  soon  as  he 
was  possessed  of  any  seaport  in  England.  In 
consequence  of  this  treaty,  most  of  the  Royal- 
ists enlisted  in  the  Spanish  service.  But  the 
protector's  six  thousand  men  in  Flanders  be- 
haved with  undaunted  bravery,  and  took  St. 
Venant,  Mardyke,  and  some  other  places  from 
the  Spaniards  this  summer.* 

Admiral  Blake  was  no  less  successful  at 
sea;  for,  having  received  advice  of  the  return 
of  the  Spanish  West  India  fleet,  he  sailed  to  the 
Canaries  with  twenty-five  men-of-war,  and  on 
the  20th  of  April  arrived  at  the  Bay  of  Santa 
Cruz,  in  the  island  of  Teneriffe,  where  the  gal- 
leons, to  the  number  of  sixteen,  richly  laden, 
lay  close  under  a  strong  castle,  defended  by 
seven  forts  mounted  with  cannon  ;  the  admiral, 
finding  it  impossible  to  make  them  prize,  had 
the  good  fortune  to  burn  and  destroy  them  all, 
only  with  the  loss  of  one  ship,  and  one  hundred 
and  sixty  men.  When  the  news  of  this  success 
arrived  m  England,  a  day  of  thanksgiving  was 
appointed,  and  a  rich  present  ordered  the  admi- 
ral upon  his  return  ;  but  this  great  sea-officer, 
having  been  three  years  at  sea,  died  as  he  was 
entering  Plymouth  Sound,  August  17,  in  the 
sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age.f  He  was  of  the 
ancient  family  of  the  Blakes,  of  Planchfield, 
Somersetshire,  and  was  educated  in  Wadham 
College,  Oxford. t     He  was  small  of  stature,  but 


the  bravest  and  boldest  sailor  that  England  ever 
bred,  and  consulted  the  honour  of  his  country 
beyond  all  his  predecessors.  When  some  of  his 
men,  being  ashore  at  Malaga,  refused  to  do  hon- 
our to  the  host  as  it  passed  by,  one  of  the  priests 
raised  the  mob  upon  them.  Upon  which  Blake 
sent  a  trumpet  to  the  viceroy  to  demand  the 
priest,  who,  saying  he  had  no  authority  to  deliv- 
er him  up,  the  admiral  answered,  that  if  he  did 
not  send  him  aboard  in  three  hours,  he  would 
burn  the  town  about  their  ears  :  upon  which  he 
came,  and  bogged  pardon  ;  the  admiral,  after  a 
severe  reprimand,  lold  him  that,  if  he  had  com- 
plained to  him  of  his  sailors,  he  would  have 
punished  them,  but  he  would  have  all  the  world 
know  that  an  Englishman  was  only  to  be  pun- 
ished by  an  Englishman,  and  so  dismissed  him, 
being  satisfied  with  having  struck  terror  into 
the  priest,  and  had  him  at  his  mercy.  When 
Oliver  read  this  passage  of  Blake's  letter  in 
council,  he  said,  "  he  hoped  to  make  the  name 
of  an  Englisliman  as  great  as  ever  that  of  a 
Roman  had  been."*  The  admiral  preserved  an 
exact  discipline  in  the  fleet,  and  taught  his  men 
to  despise  castles  on  shore  as  well  as  ships  at 
sea.t  Valour  seldom  missed  its  reward  with 
him,  nor  cowardice  its  punishment.  He  had  a 
noble  public  spirit ;  for,  after  all  his  services  for 
his  country,  and  opportunities  of  acquiring  im- 
mense riches  from  the  Spaniards,  he  died  not 
£500  richer  than  his  father  left  him..  His  body 
was  brouglit  by  water  to  Greenwich,  and  de- 
posited, in  a  most  magnificent  manner,  in  a  vault 
made  on  purpose,  in  King  Henry  Vli.'s  chapel, 
at  the  public  expense ;  but  at  the  Restoration 
his  body  was  taken  out  of  the  grave,  and  flung, 
with  otiiers,  into  a  common  pit  ;t  and  his  broth- 
er, being  a  Dissenter,  sutfered  so  many  hardships 
for  religion  in  King  Charles  II. 's  reign,  that  he 
was  obliged  to  sell  the  little  estate  the  admiral 
left  him,  and  transport  himself  and  children  to 
Carolina. 

By  the  second  article  of  the  humble  advice, 
which  appoints  all  future  Parliaments  to  con- 
sist of  two  houses,  the  form  of  the  present  gov- 
ernment began  to  change  in  favour  of  the  an- 
cient Constitution.  The  protector,  pursuant  to 
the  powers  given  him,  made  several  promotions- 


*  'Burnet,  p.  73. 

t  Other  accounts  say  in  the  fifty-ninth  year  of  his 
age.— Ed.  %  Echard,  p.  725. 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  113,  114. 

t  It  is  remarkable  that  Blake  did  not  take  the  com- 
mand of  the  fleet  till  he  was  above  fifty  years  of  age. 
"  His  want  of  experience,"  says  Mr.  Granger,  "  seems 
to  have  been  of  great  advantage  to  him  ;  he  followed 
the  light  of  his  own  genius  only,  and  was  presently 
seen  to  have  all  the  courage,  the  conduct,  and  pre- 
cipitancy of  a  good  sea-oflicer." — Ed. 

}  Bishop  Kennet,  whom  Dr.  Grey  quotes  here,  be- 
ing ashamed,  it  is  probable,  of  the  base  contempt 
with  which  the  body  of  Blake  was  treated,  says,  "  It 
was  taken  up  and  buried  in  the  churchyard."  But 
Wood  plainly  says  that  his  body,  with  others,  by  his 
majeslv's  e.xpress  coininand  sent  to  the  Dean  of  VVest- 
minsteV,  was  taken  up  and  buried  m  a  pit  in  St.  Mar- 
garet's churchyard.  The  other  bodies  treated  thus 
ignominously  were  Adnnral  Dean's,  a  brave  man, 
who  lost  his  life  in  the  service  of  his  country  ;  Col- 
onel Humphrey  Mackworth's  ;  Sir  W.  Constable's  j 
Colonel  Boscawen's,  a  Cornish  gentleman  of  a  fam- 
ily distinguished  by  its  constant  attachment  to  liber- 
ty ;  and  many  others,  too  long  to  be  here  mentioned. 
"  Such,"  observes  Dr.  Harris,  "  was  the  politeness 
and  humanity  introduced  by  the  Restoration  !" — Life 
of  Cromwell,  p.  400.  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  i.,  p. 
285,  286. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


173 


of  knights  and  lords,  and  in  the  month  of  De- 
cember issued  out  writs,  by  advice  of  his  council, 
to  divers  lords  and  gentlemen  to  sit  as  mem- 
bers of  the  other  House,*  at  the  next  session 
of  Parliament,  January  20.  His  intention  was 
to  have  this  house  considered  as  a  House  of 
Peers,  though  he  declined  giving  it  that  name 
till  a  more  favourable  conjuncture.  Some  de- 
clined the  honour,  and  chose  to  sit  in  the  Low- 
er House,  but  between  fifty  and  sixty  appeared, 
among  whom  were  seven  or  eight  of  the  ancient 
peers,  divers  knights  and  gentlemen  of  good 
families,  and  some  few  chief  officers  of  the  ar- 
my. They  met  in  the  House  of  Lords,  whith- 
er his  highness  came  at  the  time  of  their  meet- 
ing, and,  according  to  ancient  custom,  sent  the 
usher  of  the  black  rod  to  bring  up  the  Com- 
mons, to  whom  he  made  a  short  speech  from 
the  throne,  beginning  with  the  usual  form,  "  My 
lords,  and  you  the  knights,  citizens,  and  bur- 
gesses," &c.,  and  then,  as  our  kings  used  to 
<lo,  he  referred  them  to  the  Lord-commissioner 
Fiennes,  who  tired  them  with  a  long  and  per- 
plexed harangue  before  they  entered  upon  busi- 
ness. 

This  hasty  resolution  of  the  protector  and  his 
council  had  like  to  have  subverted  the  infant 
government,  for  many  of  the  protector's  best 
friends  being  called  out  of  the  Lower  House  to 
the  Upper,  the  balance  of  power  among  the  Com- 
mons was  changed  ;  whereas,  if  he  bad  defer- 
red the  settling  of  the  Upper  House  till  the  pres- 
ent Parliament  had  been  dissolved,  they  would 
have  gone  through  their  business  without  in- 
terruption ;  but  the  Lower  House  was  now  in  a 
flame,  some  Iteing  disappointed  of  their  ex- 
pectations, and  others  envied  for  their  advance- 
ment, insomuch  that,  as  soon  as  they  returned 
to  their  house,  they  called  for  the  third  article 
of  the  humble  advice,  which  says,  that  no 
*'  members  legally  chosen  shall  be  excluded 
from  performing  their  duty  but  by  consent  of 
the  house  of  which  they  are  members  ;"  and 
then,  to  strengthen  their  party,  they  ordered  all 
those  who  had  been  excluded  last  sessions,  be- 
cause they  would  not  recognise  tiie  new  gov- 
ernment, to  return  to  their  places  ;  which  was 
no  sooner  done,  than  they  began  to  call  in 
question  the  authority  and  jurisdiction  of  the 
other  house,  though  themselves  had  advised  it, 
and  though  there  was  almost  as  good  reason 
for  their  beuig  an  upper,  as  for  the  other  being 
a  lower  house  ;  but  these  gentlemen  were  de 
termined  to  erect  an  absolute  commonwealth 
on  the  ruins  of  the  present  family.  Many  de- 
grading speeches  were  made  in  the  Lower  House 
against  the  persons  who  had  been  thus  promo- 
ted, who  were  no  less  resolute  in  defending 
their  honours  and  characters;  so  that  there 
was  no  prospect  of  an  agreement  till  the  pro- 
tector hmiself  appeared,  and  having  sent  for 
them  to  Whitehall,  spoke  with  such  an  accent 
in  favour  of  the  other  house,  that  they  returii- 
•ed  and  acknowledged  it ;  but  then  they  went  on 
to  re-examine  the  validity  of  the  whole  instru- 
ment of  government,  as  being  made  when  many 
members  were  excluded.  Upon  which,  the  pro- 
lector,  being  oiit  of  all  patience,  went  to  the 


*  Ur.  Grey  gives  a  catalogue  of  the  names  of  the 
persons  whom  the  writ  summoned,  with  degrading 
anecdotes  of  some  of  them. — Ed. 


House  and  dissolved  them,  after  they  had  sat 
about  fifteen  days. 

The  protector's  speech  upon  this  occasion  will 
give  the  reader  the  best  idea  of  the  state  of  the 
nation:  "  I  bad  comfortable  expectations  that 
God  would  make  the  meeting  of  this  Parliament 
a  blessing  for  the  improvement  of  mercy,  truth, 
righteousness,  and  peace.  I  was  drawn  into 
this  office  of  protector  by  your  petition  and  ad- 
vice :  there  is  not  a  man  living  that  can  say  I 
sought  it ;  but  after  I  was  petitioned  and  advised 
to  lake  the  government  upon  me,  I  expected 
that  the  same  men  that  made  the  frame  should 
make  it  good  to  me.  I  told  you  at  a  conference 
that  I  would  not  accept  the  government  unless 
there  might  be  some  persons  to  interpose  be- 
tween me  and  the  House  of  Commons,  and  it 
was  granted  I  should  name  another  house, 
which  I  did,  of  men  of  your  own  rank  and  quali- 
ty, who  will  shake  hands  with  you  while  you  love 
the  interest  of  England  and  religion.  Again,  I 
would  not  have  accepted  the  government  un- 
less mutual  oaths  were  taken  to  make  good 
what  was  agreed  upon  in  the  petition  and  ad- 
vice ;  and  God  knows,  I  took  the  oath  upon  the 
condition  expressed,  and  thought  we  had  now 
been  upon  a  foundation  and  bottom,  otherwise 
we  must  necessarily  have  been  in  confusion. 
I  do  not  say  what  the  meaning  of  the  oath 
was  to  you — that  were  to  go  against  my  own 
principles  ;  but  God  will  judge  between  us  ;  but 
if  there  had  been  any  intention  in  you  of  a 
settlement,  you  would  have  settled  on  this 
basis. 

"  But  there  have  been  contrivances  in  the 
army  against  this  settlement  by  your  consent. 
I  speak  not  this  to  the  gentlemen  or  lords  (point- 
ing to  his  right  hand),  whatsoever  you  will  call 
them,  of  the  other  house,  but  to  you;  you  ad- 
vised me  to  accept  of  this  office,  and  now  you 
dispute  the  thing  that  was  taken  for  granted,  and 
are  in  danger  of  running  the  nation  back  into 
more  confusion  within  these  fifteen  days  you 
have  sat,  than  it  has  been  in  since  the  rising  of 
the  last  session,  from  an  immoderate  design  of 
restoring  a  commonwealth,  that  some  people 
might  be  the  men  that  might  rule  all,  and  they 
are  endeavouring  to  engage  the  army  in  the  de- 
sign, which  is  iiardly  consistent  with  the  oath 
you  have  taken  to  the  present  government. 
Has  that  man  been  true  to  the  nation,  whoso- 
ever he  is,  that  has  taken  an  oath  thus  to  pre- 
varicate! These  things  are  not  according  to 
truth,  pretend  what  you  will,  but  tend  to  play 
the  King  of  Scots'  game,  which  I  think  myself 
bound  beft)re  God  to  do  what  I  can  to  prevent. 
There  are  preparations  of  force  to  invade  us ; 
the  King  of  Scots  has  an  army  at  the  water-side, 
ready  to  be  shipped  for  England.  I  have  it  from 
those  who  have  been  eyewitnesses  of  it ;  and 
while  this  is  doing,  there  are  endeavours  of  some, 
not  far  from  this  place,  to  stir  up  the  people  of 
this  town  into  tumulting — what  if  I  had  said  re- 
bellion ?  and  I  hope  to  make  it  appear  no  better, 
if  God  assist  me.  You  have  not  only  endeav- 
oured to  pervert  the  army  while  you  have  been 
sitting,  but  some  of  you  have  been  listing  per- 
sons by  commission  from  Charles  Stuart  to  join 
with  any  insurrection  that  may  be  made ;  and 
what  is  like  to  be  the  end  of  this  but  blood  and 
confusion  !  Now,  if  this  be  the  case,  I  think  it 
high  time  to  put  an  end  to  your  sitting,  and  I  do 


174 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


accordingly  dissolve  this  Parliament ;  and  let 
God  judge  between  me  and  you."* 

The  protector,  being  now  convinced  that  the 
disturbances  in  Parliament  arose  from  the  chief 
officers  of  the  army,  who  clogged  his  affairs  in 
order  to  introduce  a  commonwealth  govern- 
ment, resolved  to  clear  his  hands  of  them  at 
once ;  Harrison  and  Ludlow  were  laid  aside  ; 
Fleetwood  was  recalled  from  his  government  in 
Ireland ;  Major-general  Lambert  was  ordered  to 
surrender  his  commission ;  and  the  rest  were 
obliged  to  take  an  oath  not  to  oppose  the  pres- 
ent government.  By  such  methods  he  went  on 
purging  the  army  and  navy  ;  and  if  he  had  lived 
a  little  longer,  would  have  had  none  in  power 
but  such  as  were  thoroughly  attached  to  his 
person  and  government.  It  was  observed,  after 
this,  that  all  things  succeeded  at  home  and 
abroad  according  to  his  wish  ;  and  that  his  pow- 
er and  greatness  were  better  established  than 
ever,  though  there  were  a  few  malecontents  who 
were  hardy  enough  to  attempt  some  little  dis- 
turbances ;  but  the  disasters  that  befell  the  pro- 
tector's family  soon  after  broke  the  firmness  of 
his  constitution,  and  hastened  his  end. 

It  was  his  highness's  ambition  not  only  to 
set  himself  at  the  head,  but  to  strengthen  the 
whole  body  of  the  Protestant  interest,  and  unite 
its  several  members,  so  that  it  might  maintain 
its  ground  against  the  Church  of  Rome.  Bish- 
op Burnett  informs  us,  that  he  had  projected  a 
sort  of  general  council,  to  be  set  up  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  congregation  de  Propaganda  Fide  at 
K-ome  :  it  was  to  consist  of  seven  councillors, 
and  four  secretaries  for  different  provinces  ;  the 
first  was  for  France,  Switzerland,  and  the  Val- 
leys ;  the  second  for  the  Palatinate,  and  other 
Calvinists  ;  the  third  for  Germany,  for  the  North, 
and  for  Turkey  ;  the  fourth  for  the  East  and 
West  Indies.  The  secretaries  were  to  have 
£500  a  year  each,  and  to  hold  a  correspondence 
everywhere,  to  acquaint  themselves  with  the 
state  of  religion  all  over  the  world,  that  so  all 
good  designs  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole,  and 
of  the  several  parts,  might  by  their  means  be 
protected  and  encouraged.  They  were  to  have 
a  fund  of  .£10,000  a  year,  and  to  be  farther 
supplied  as  occasion  should  require.  Chelsea 
College  was  to  be  fitted  up  for  them.  This  was  a 
noble  project,  says  the  bishop,  and  must  have 
been  attended  with  extraordinary  effects  under 
the  protection  of  a  power  which  was  formida- 
ble and  terrible  to  all  nations  to  whom  it  was 
known. 

About  the  beginning  of  this  year.  Dr.  Bryan 
Walton,  afterward  Bishop  of  Chester,  published 
the  Biblia  Polyglotta,  in  six  volumes  in  folio, 
wherein  the  sacred  text  is  printed  in  the  Vulgar 
Latin,  Hebrew,  Greek,  Syriac,  Chaldee,  Samar- 
itan, Arabic,  Ethiopic,  and  Persic  languages, 
each  having  its  peculiar  Latin  translation,  with 
an  apparatus  for  the  better  understanding  those 
tongues.  This  laborious  performance,  by  the 
assistance  of  several  who  engaged  in  it,  was 
completed  in  about  four  years,  and  was  reckon- 
ed the  most  absolute  edition  of  the  Bible  that 
the  world  had  ever  seen.  Several  learned  per- 
sons, both  Puritans  and  others,  assisted  in  cor- 
recting the  press  and  in  collating  the  copies. 
Many  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  quality  con- 

*  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  598,  folio. 
t  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  109,  12mo. 


tributed  to  the  expense  of  printmg  this  work, 
without  which  it  could  not  have  seen  the  light.* 
After  the  Restoration,  the  doctor  presented  King 
Charles  11.  with  the  six  volumes,  which  his  maj- 
esty received  very  graciously,  and  rewarded  the 
author  with  the  bishopric  of  Chester.! 

The  learned  Dr.  Owen  made  some  remarks 
on  the  prolegomena  of  this  work ;  but,  after  a 
high  commendation  of  the  performance  in  gen- 
eral, complains  that  he  had  weakened  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  sacred  text,  (1.)  By  maintaining 
that  the  points  or  vowels  of  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage were  of  novel  invention.  (2.)  By  produ- 
cing a  great  number  of  various  readings  from  the 
ancient  copies  of  little  moment.  (3.)  By  his  own 
critical  remarks  and  amendments,  not  supported 
by  ancient  authorities.  The  doctor  maintains, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  antiquity  of  the  Hebrew 
points,  and  their  absolute  necessity  to  fix  the 
determinate  sense  of  Scripture  ;  that  the  vari- 
ous readings  are  of  little  consequence,  and  that 
conjectural  amendments  ought  not  to  be  admit- 
ted without  the  authority  of  ancient  copies. 
The  doctor  writes  with  great  modesty,  but  the 
validity  of  his  arguments  must  be  submitted  to 
the  learned  reader. 

On  the  3d  of  July  the  protector  resigned  his 
chancellorship  of  Oxford,  and  upon  the  18th  day 
of  the  same  month  his  eldest  son  Richard  was 
chosen  his  successor,  and  installed^  at  White- 
hall on  the  29th.  About  six  weeks  after,  the 
new  chancellor  dismissed  Dr.  Owen,  who  had 
been  vice-chancellor  of  the  university  about  five 
years,  and  appointed  Dr.  John  Conant,  rector  of 
Exeter  College,  to  succeed  him.  This  gentle- 
man, says  the  Oxford  historian,iJ  was  a  good 
Latinist  and  Grecian,  a  profound  theologist,  a 
learned,  pious,  and  meek  divine,  and  an  excel- 
lent preacher.  He  had  been  one  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  and  was  elected  rector  of  this 
college  upon  the  death  of  Dr.  Hakewell,  in  June, 
1649.  In  the  latter  end  of  the  year  1654  he 
became  king's  professor  of  divinity  in  the  room 
of  Dr.  Hoyle.  He  continued  the  vice-chancel- 
lorship two  years  with  due  commendation,  keep- 
ing a  severe  discipline  in  his  college,  as  did  all 
the  heads  of  colleges  in  these  times.  He  was 
ejected  out  of  everything  in  1662  for  noncon- 
formity ;  but  some  time  after,  being  persuaded 
to  comply  with  the  establishment,  he  became 
vicar  of  All  Saints  in  Northampton,  archdea- 
con of  Norwich,  and  prebendary  of  Worcester, 
which  places  he  held  till  his  death,  which  did. 
not  happen  till  1693. 


*  "  This,"  Mr.  Granger  says,  "  was  the  first  book 
published  in  England  by  subscription.  The  design 
of  this  great  work  was  formed  in  1645.  Dr.  Walton 
died  1661."— i/i's^  of  Eng.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  29,  8vo.— Ed. 

t  A  seventh  volume  of  the  Polyglott  was  prepared 
for  the  press  by  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  including  the 
Targum  of  Rabbi  Joseph  on  the  Chronicles,  and 
several  Arabic  and  other  versions  of  other  parts  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures,  but  it  was  never  printed,  owing 
to  the  death  of  Bishop  Walton.  It  is  deposited  in 
the  Bodleian  Library.  Cromwell  not  only  suffered 
the  paper  for  this  great  work  to  be  imported  duty 
free,  but  contributed  £1000  to  commence  the  under- 
taking. For  a  full  account  of  Bishop  Walton,  and 
interesting  details  respecting  the  individuals  who 
aided  him  in  his  learned  labours,  see  Lloyd's  Me- 
moirs of  the  Worthies  of  Charles  I.,  folio   1668. — C. 

t  The  ceremonial  of  the  instalment  may  be  seen 
in  Dr.  Grey,  vol.  iii.,  p.  200,  note. — Ed. 

^  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol,  ii.,  p,  785. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


175 


November  24,  his  highness  signed  a  commis- 
sion, appointing  his  younger  sou  Henry  to  be 
Lord-heutenant  of  Ireland,  with  a  power  of  con- 
ferring the  honour  of  knighthood.  Henry  was 
a  wise  and  discreet  governor,  and  by  his  prudent 
behaviour  kept  the  Irish  in  awe,  and  brought  the 
nation  into  a  flourishing  condition.  Upon  the 
accession  of  Richard  to  the  protectorship,  he 
advised  him  to  abide  by  the  Parliament,  and 
have  a  watchful  eye  over  the  army,  whom  he 
suspected  to  be  designing  mischief  (as  appears 
by  his  letters  now  before  me).  Nay,  he  offered 
to  come  over  to  his  assistance,  but  was  forbid 
till  it  was  too  late.  When  Richard  was  depo- 
sed, his  brother  Henry  laid  down  his  charge,  and 
came  over  to  England,  and  lived  privately  upon 
an  estate  of  his  own  of  about  £G0O  a  year,  at 
Spinny  Abbey  in  Cambridgeshire,  not  far  from 
Newmarket,  till  his  death.  While  he  was  in 
Ireland  he  behaved  with  such  a  generous  im- 
partiality as  gained  him  the  esteem  even  of  the 
Royalists  themselves,  and  after  his  retirement 
King  Charles  II.  did  him  once  the  honour  of  a 
visit ;  he  had  a  son  Henry,  who  was  bred  to 
arms,  and  had  a  major's  commission,  and  died 
in  the  service  of  the  crown  about  the  year  1711, 
and  left  behind  him  several  children  ;  some  of 
the  sons  are  yet  living  in  good  reputation  in  the 
city  of  London,  and  are  the  only  male  descend- 
ants of  the  Protector  Cromwell,  the  posterity  of 
Richard  being  extinct. 

The  Royal  Society,  which  has  been  the  orna- 
ment of  the  English  nation,  by  the  vast  improve- 
ment It  has  made  in  natural  and  experimental 
philosophy,  was  formed  at  Oxford  in  these  times, 
which  some  have  represented  as  covered  with 
ignorance,  barbarism,  and  pedantry  ;  the  words 
of  Bishop  Sprat,*  their  historian,  are  these  :  "  It 
was  some  space  after  the  end  of  the  civil  wars 
at  Oxford,  in  Dr.  Wilkins's  lodgings,  in  Wadham 
College,  which  was  then  the  place  of  resort  for 
virtuous  and  learned  men,  that  the  first  meet- 
ings were  made  which  laid  the  foundation  of  all 
that  followed.  The  university  had,  at  that  time, 
many  members  of  its  own  who  had  begun  a 
free  way  of  reasoning,  and  was  also  frequented 
by  some  gentlemen  of  philosophical  minds, 
whom  the  misfortune  of  the  kingdom,  and  the 
security  and  ease  of  a  retirement  among  gowns- 
men, had  drawn  thither.  The  principal  and 
most  constant  of  them  were.  Dr.  Seth  Ward, 
Mr.  Boyle,  Dr.  Wilkins,  Sir  William  Petty,  Mr. 
Matthew  Wren,  Dr.  Wallis,  Dr.  Goddard,  Dr. 
Willis,  Dr.  Bathurst,  Dr.  Christopher  Wren,  and 
Mr.  Rook,  besides  several  others  who  joined 
them  on  occasions.  Their  meetings  were  as 
Irequent  as  their  occasions  would  permit ;  their 
proceedings  were  upon  some  particular  trials  in 
chemistry  or  mechanics,  which  they  communi- 
cated to  each  other.  They  continued  without 
any  great  interruption  till  the  death  of  the  pro- 
tector, when  their  meetings  were  transferred  to 
London."  Here  they  began  to  enlarge  their  de- 
signs, and  formed  the  platform  of  a  philosophi- 
cal college,  to  inquire  into  the  works  of  nature  ; 
they  set  up  a  correspondence  with  learned  for- 
eigners, and  admitted  such  into  their  numbers 
without  distinction  of  names  or  parties  in  reli- 
gion, and  were  at  length  incorporated  by  the 
royal  patent  or  charter  in  the  year  1663. 

This  year  [1657]  died  Mr.  John  Langley,  the 


^  P.  53, 57. 


noted  master  of  St.  Paul's  School,  London  ;  he 
was  born  near  Banbury  in  Oxfordshire,  and  be- 
came a  commoner  or  brother  of  Magdalen  Hall 
about  1612  ;  was  also  prebendary  of  Glouces- 
ter, where  he  kept  the  college-school  for  twenty 
years.  In  the  year  1640  he  succeeded  Dr.  Gill, 
chief  master  of  St.  Paul's  School,  where  he  ed- 
ucated many  who  were  afterward  eminent  in 
Church  and  State.  He  was  a  universal  schol- 
ar, an  excellent  linguist,  grammarian,  historian, 
cosmographer,  a  most  judicious  divine,  and  so 
great  an  antiquarian,  says  the  Oxford  historian, 
that  his  delight  and  acquaintance  in  antiquity 
deserve  greater  commendation  than  can  be  giv- 
en in  a  few  lines.*  He  was  esteemed  by  learn- 
ed men,  and  particularly  by  Mr.  Selden  ;  but 
was  not  regarded  by  the  clergy,  because  he  was 
a  Puritan,  and  a  witness  against  Archbishop 
Laud  at  his  trial.  He  was  a  member  of  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines,!  and  died  at  his  house  next 
adjoining  to  St.  Paul's  School,  September  13,. 
1657.  Dr.  Reynolds  preached  his  funeral  ser- 
mon, and  gave  him  a  very  high  encomium. t 

Mr.  Obadiah  Sedgwick  was  born  at  Marlbor- 
ough in  the  year  1600,  and  educated  in  Magda- 
len College,  Oxford,  where  he  took  the  degrees 
in  arts,  and  was  afterward  chaplain  to  Sir  Hora- 
tio Vere,  with  whom  he  travelled  into  the  Low 
Countries.  After  his  return  he  became  reader 
of  the  sentences,  1629,  and  was  afterward  cho- 
sen preacher  to  the  inhabitants  of  St.  Mildred, 
Bread-street,  London ;  but  being  driven  from 
thence  by  the  severity  of  the  governors  of  the 
Church,  he  retired  to  Coggeshall  in  Essex,  where 
he  continued  till  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil 
wars.  In  1643  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  of  Divines.  In  1646  he  became  a 
preacher  at  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden  :  he  often 
preached  before  the  Parliament,  and  was  es- 
teemed an  orthodox,  as  well  as  an  admired 
preacher. (J  In  the  year  1653  he  was  appointed 
one  of  the  triers,  and  the  year  after,  one  of  the 
commissioners,  for  ejecting  scandalous  minis- 
ters ;  but,  finding  his  health  declining,  he  resign- 
ed his  preferments,  and  retired  to  his  native 
town  of  Marlborough,  where  he  died  the  begin- 
ning of  January.  1657.11 

Mr.  Edward  Corbet  was  born  in  Shropshire, 
and  educated  in  Merton  College,  Oxford,  where 
he  took  the  degrees  in  arts,  and  was  made  pro- 
bationer fellow  of  his  college. IT    In  1638  he  was 

*  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  135. 

t  Wood  says  it  was  a  man  of  another  name  who 
sat  in  the  Assembly. — Athente,  vol.  ii.,  p.  135. — C. 

t  Dr.  Fuller  calls  him  "The  able  and  rehgious 
schoolmaster."  He  had  a  very  awful  presence  and 
speech,  that  struck  a  mighty  respect  and  fear  in  his 
scholars ;  yet  his  behaviour  towards  them  was  such, 
that  they  both  loVed  and  feared  him.  When  he  was 
buried,  all  the  scholars  attended  his  funeral,  walking 
before  the  corpse,  hung  with  verses  instead  of  es- 
cutcheons, with  white  gloves,  as  he  died  a  single 
man,  from  the  school  through  Cheapside  to  Mercer's 
Chapel,  where  he  was  buried.  He  was  so  much  in 
favour  with  the  worshipful  Company  of  Mercers,  that 
they  accepted  his  recommendation  of  his  successor. 
—Knis'ht'ii  Life  of  Dr.  John  Colet,  p.  379,  ice— En. 

^  All  the  writings  of  Mr.  Sedgwick  are  valuable, 
and  deserving  of  reprint.  His  "  Shepherd  of  Israel" 
and  "  The  Humble  Sinner  Resolved"  are  admirable 
performances.  Ho  was  succeeded  at  St.  Paul's  by 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Thomas  Manton. — C. 

II  Wood's  Athen.  O.xon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  138. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  749. 


176 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


one  of  the  proctors  of  the  university;  but,  be- 
ing a' Puritan  divine,  was  denied  the  rectory  of 
Challiam  by  Archbishop  Laud,  then  in  the  Tow- 
er ;  upon  which  an  ordinance  of  Parliament 
came  out,  May  17,  1643,  appointing  him  rector 
of  Chatham.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  a  witness  against  the  archbish- 
op at  bis  trial,  one  of  the  preachers  appointed 
to  reconcile  the  Oxford  scholars  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  afterward  one  of  the  visiters,  ora- 
tor, and  canon  of  Christ  Church,  in  the  room 
cf  Dr.  Hammond,  which  he  soon  after  quitted, 
and  became  rector  of  Great  Hasely,  in  Oxford- 
shire, where  he  continued  to  his  death.  He  was 
a  very  considerable  divine,  a  valuable  preacher, 
and  a  person  of  remarkable  integrity  and  steadi- 
ness of  conscience. 

Mr.  James  Cranford  was  born  in  Coventry, 
and  some  time  master  of  the  freeschool  there  : 
he  was  educated  in  Baliol  College,  Oxford,  where 
he  took  the  degrees  in  arts,  and  was  at  length 
rector  of  St.  Christopher's-le-Stocks,  near  the 
Old  Exchange,  London.*  He  was  an  exact 
linguist,  well  acquainted  with  the  fathers  and 
schoolmen,  as  well  as  with  the  modern  divines  ; 
a  zealous  Presbyterian,  and  a  laborious  preach- 
er. Mr.  Fuller  adds,t  that  he  was  a  subtle  dis- 
putant, orthodox  in  judgment,  and  a  person  of 
great  humility,  charity,  and  moderation  towards 
all  men.  In  the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars  he 
was  appointed  licenser  of  the  press- in  London, 
which  gave  him  an  occasion  to  write  several 
epistles  before  books,  besides  some  treatises 
that  he  published  of  his  own.  He  died  April 
27,  1657,  aged  about  fifty-five  years. t 

The  protector's  arms  were  no  less  successful 
this  summer  than  they  had  been  the  last,  for  in 
the  month  of  June,  Marshal  Turenne,  in  con- 
junction with  the  English  forces,  laid  siege  to 
Dunkirk,  then  in  possession  of  the  Spaniards, 
which  brought  on  an  engagement  between  the 
two  armies  :  the  Spanish  forces  consisted  of 
thirty  thousand  men,  but  Major-general  Mor- 
gan, who  covered  the  siege,  attacked  the  right 
wing  of  the  Spanish  army  which  came  to  re- 
lieve it  with  six  thousand  English,  who  routed 
the  whole  army,  which  was  followed  with  the 
surrender  of  the  town,  June  25.  The  French 
looked  on,  and  said  they  never  saw  a  more  glo- 
rious action  in  their  lives. <^  Cardinal  Mazarine 
intended  to  keep  this  important  place  in  French 
hands,  contrary  to  the  late  treaty  ;  of  which  his 
highness  being  informed,  acquainted  the  ambas- 
dor ;  but  his  excellency  denying  any  such  in- 
tended breach  of  contract,  the  protector  pulled 
out  of  his  pocket  a  copy  of  the  cardinal's  pri- 
vate order,  and  desired  him  to  let  his  eminence 
know,  that  if  the  keys  of  Dunkirk  were  not  de- 


•»  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  133. 

t  Fuller's  Worthies,  book  iii.,  p.  12S. 

%  Mr.  Cranford  was  the  author  of  a  very  interest- 
ing volume,  entitled  '-the  Tears  of  Ireland,  where- 
in is  represented  the  unheard-of  Cruellies  of  the 
Blood-thirsty  Jesuits,  and  the  Popish  Faction,"  1642. 
— C. 

i)  Dr.  Grey,  thpugh  he  allows  that  Mr.  Neal  had 
the  authority  of  Echard  for  the  merit  which  he  im- 
putes to  the  English  forces  iu  the  siege  of  Dunkirk, 
yet  contends  that  ihe  French  had  then-  share  in  the 
glories  of  the  day  ;  and,  to  prove  this,  he  gives  a 
full  detail  of  the  action  from  the  History  of  Vise. 
Turenne. — Imparlicd  Examination,  vol.  ih.,  p.  207, 2J3. 
— £d 


livered  to  Lockhart  within  an  hour  after  it  was 
taken,  he  would  come  in  person,  and  demand 
them  at  the  gates  of  Paris;'*  and  the  cardinal 
had  too  great  a  dread  of  the  name  of  Cromwell 
to  deny  anything  he  required.  By  this  conquest 
the  protector  gained  immortal  glory,  because  it 
gave  the  English  a  settlement  on  the  Continent, 
and  made  them  masters  of  both  sides  of  the 
Channel. t  How  hasely  it  was  sold  by  Lord 
Clarendon  to  the  French,  will  be  seen  hereafter. 

The  enthusiastic  Republicans,  or  fifth-monar- 
chy men,  liaving  failed  in  their  design  in  Par- 
liament, agreed,  to  the  number  of  three  hun- 
dred, to  attempt  a  revolution  of  government  by 
force,  and  having  killed  the  protector,  to  pro- 
claim King  Jesus  ;  but  Secretary  Thurloe,  who 
never  spared  expense  to  gain  intelligence,  had 
a  spy  among  them,  who  discovered  their  in- 
trigues, and  seized  their  arms  and  ammunition 
in  Shoreditch,  with  their  standard,  containing 
a  lion  couchant,  alluding  to  the  lion  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  with  this  motto.  Who  will  rouse  him 
up  1  The  chief  of  the  conspirators,  as  Venner, 
Grey,  Hopkins,  &c.,  were  imprisoned  in  the 
Gate-house  till  the  protectors  death,  with  their 
accomplices.  Major-general  Harrison,  Colonel 
Rich,  Colonel  Danvers,  and  others,  after  which 
they  created  new  disturbances,  which  hastened 
their  own  destruction  soon  after  the  king's  res- 
toration. 

But  the  most  formidable  conspiracy  against 
the  government  was  a  new  one  of  the  Cava- 
liers, with  which  the  protector  acquainted  the 
lord-inayor  and  common  council  of  the  city  in 
a  speech,  w^herein  he  takes  notice,  that  the 
Marquis  of  Ormond  had  been  privately  in  Lon- 
don three  weeks,t  to  promote  the  king's  affairs. 


•'«  Dr.  Grey,  while  he  grants  that  Cromwell  was  a 
vain  man,  very  much  questions  the  truth  of  what  is 
said  above,  as  it  does  not  agree  with  what  White- 
locke  says  concerning  the  surrender  of  Dunkirk. 
The  story  Mr.  Neal  relates  is  the  same  we  find  in 
Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  97,  6th  edition.  Dr.  Har- 
ris treats  it  as  all  falsehood  and  invention,  and  as 
authoritatively  confuted  by  Thurloe's  State  Papers, 
vol.  vii.,  p.  173,  where  Lockhart,  in  his  letter  to 
Thurloe  written  the  day  before  the  surrender  of  Dun- 
kirk, has  these  expressions :  "  To-morrow,  before  five 
of  the  clock  at  night,  his  highness's  forces  under  my 
command  will  be  possessed  of  Dunkirk.  I  have  a 
great  many  disputes  with  the  cardinal  about  several 
things  ;  nevertheless,  1  must  say,  I  find  him  willing 
to  hear  reason  ;  and  though  the  generality  of  court 
and  arms  are  even  mad  to  see  themselves  part  with 
what  they  call  unni  bon  morceau,  or  so  delicate  a  bit, 
yet  he  is  still  constant  to  his  promises,  and  seems  to 
be  as  glad,  in  the  general  (notwithstanding  ourdififer- 
ences  in  little  particulars),  to  give  this  place  to  his 
highness,  as  I  can  be  to  receive  it.  The  king  is  also 
exceedingly  obliging  and  civil,  and  hath  more  true 
worth  in  him  than  1  could  have  imagined."— if/e  of 
Cromwell,  p.  402,  403.— Ed. 

t  Coinpl.  Hist.,  p.  223.     Echard,  p.  730. 

t  A  remarkable  instance  of  the  accuracy  of  Crom- 
well's information  is  related,  which  shows  how  al- 
most impossible  it  was  to  escape  his  vigilance.  Or- 
mond had  visited  London.  Cromwell  was  aware  of 
his  presence,  and  traced  him  from  place  to  place. 
Havin"-  learned  his  business,  and  who  were  his  ac- 
complices, he-  took  this  magnanimous  mode  to  in- 
duce him'  to  depart.  "  An  old  Iriend  of  yours  is 
come  to  town,"  said  Cromwell,  in  a  jocular  strain,  to 
Lord  Broghill.  The  latter  asked,  "Who?"  Crom- 
well replied,  "  The  Marquis  of  Ormond."  Broghill 
protested  his  ignorance  of  the  fact,  which  Cromwell  _ 
admittetl,  adding,  "  lie  lodges  at ;  and  if  you  have  ' 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


177 


who  lay  ready  on  the  coast  with  an  army  of 
eiglit  thousand  men  and  twenty-two  ships  ; 
that  there  was  a  design  to  seize  the  Tower  ;  and 
that  several  ill-afiected  persons  were  endeavour- 
ing to  put  themselves  in  arms  for  that  purpose  ; 
be  therefore  desired  them  to  put  the  city  into  a 
posture  of  defence,  professing  a  more  passion- 
ate regard  for  their  safety  than  his  own.  The 
citizens  returned  his  iiighuess  thanks,  and  in 
an  address,  promised  to  defend  his  person  and 
government  with  their  lives  and  fortunes.  The 
like  addresses  came  from  several  of  the  regi- 
ments at  home,  and  from  the  English  army  in 
Flanders.  This  was  the  plot  the  protector  men- 
tioned in  his  speech  to  the  Parliament,  and  was 
discovered  by  one  Stapley,  whose  father  had 
been  one  of  the  king's  judges.  Immediately 
after  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament,  three  of 
the  conspirators  were  apprehended,  and  tried 
before  a  high  court  of  justice,  according  to  the 
late  act  for  the  security  of  his  highness's  per- 
son. Mr.  Mordaunt,  youngest  son  and  brother 
of  the  Earl  of  Peterborough,  was  acquitted  by 
one  vote  ;  but  the  other  two,  Sir  Henry  Slings- 
by  and  Dr.  Hewet,  were  condemned.  The  doc- 
tor was  indicted  for  holding  correspondence 
with  Charles  Stuart,  for  publishing  him  to  be 
King  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  for 
sending  him  money.  He  behaved  with  great 
boldness  towards  his  judges,  keeping  his  hat 
upon  his  head  while  the  indictment  was  read- 
ing ;  but  an  officer  being  sent  to  take  it  off,  he 
saved  him  the  trouble.  The  doctor  then  refu- 
sed to  plead  three  times,  disowning  the  juris- 
diction of  the  court ;  but,  though  they  read  the 
clause  in  the  late  act  by  which  they  were  em- 
powered to  be  his  judges,  he  continued  mute  ; 
upon  which  one  of  the  judges  summed  up  the 
charge,  and  was  going  to  pronounce  sentence, 
when  he  offered  to  put  himself  upon  his  trial,  but 
was  told  it  was  then  too  late,  so  judgment  was 
given  against  him  as  a  mute.  The  doctor  had 
prepared  a  plea  and  demurrer  to  the  jurisdiction 
and  proceedings  of  the  court,  and  exceptions 
to  their  judgment,  drawn  up  in  form  by  counsel, 
and  ready  to  be  engrossed,  but  was  not  suffer- 
ed to  have  them  argued.  However,  he  had  the 
favour  of  being  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill,  June 
8,  ]6o8,  being  attended  by  Dr.  Wild,  Dr.  War- 
mestry,  and  Dr.  Barwick.*  His  funeral  ser- 
mon was  preached  the  Sunday  following,  by 
Mr.  Nath.  Hardy,  at  St.  Dionis  Backehurch, 
in  Lime-street ;  and  soon  after,  both  the  ser- 
mon and  the  doctor's  intended  defence  were 
published,  entitled  "  Beheaded  Dr.  John  Hew- 
et's  Ghost  crying  for  Justice,''  containing  his 
legal  plea,  demurrer,  and  exceptions  to  the  ju- 
risdiction of  the  court,  &lc.,  drawn  up  by  his 
counsel,  Mr.  William  Prynne.  The  doctor  was 
a  Cambridge  divine,  but  lived  at  Oxford  and  in 
the  army  till  the  end  of  the  war,  when  he  came 
to  London,  and  was  permitted  to  preach  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Gregory's,  London,  though  he 
was  known  to  be  a  malignant.  After  his  con- 
viction, the  Lady  Clay  pole  and  Lady  Falcon- 
bridge,  the    protector's   daughters,  interceded 

a  mind  to  save  an  old  friend,  let  him  know  that  I  am 
aware  where  he  is  and  what  he  is  doing." 

There  was  no  thirsting  for  blood  in  the  heart  of 
Cromwell ;  ho  never  took,  the  life  of  an  enemy  but 
from  a  conviction  of  absolute  necesxily. — See  Godwin, 
vol.  iv.,  p.  507.— C.  *  Life  of  "Barwick,  p.  175. 

Vol.  II.— Z 


with  their  father  for  his  life  ;  but  because  he 
disputed  the  authority  of  the  court,  which  struck 
at  the  very  lile  of  his  government,  tlie  protect- 
or would  not  pardon  him.  He  told  Dr.  Man- 
ton,  one  of  his  chaplains,  that  if  Dr.  Hewet  had 
shown  himself  an  ingenuous  person,  and  would 
have  owned  what  he  knew  was  his  share  in  the 
design  against  him,  he  would  have  spared  his 
life:  but  he  said  he  would  not  be  trifled  with, 
and  the  doctor  was  of  so  obstinate  a  temper 
that  he  was  resolved  he  should  die  ;  and  the 
protector  convinced  Dr.  Manton,  before  they  part- 
ed, that  he  knew,  without  his  confession,  how 
far  he  was  engaged  in  the  plot.  Three  more 
of  the  conspirators  were  executed  in  other  parts 
of  the  city,  but  the  rest  were  pardoned. 

A  little  before  the  protector's  death,  the  In- 
dependents petitioned  his  highness  for  liberty 
to  hold  a  synod,  in  order  to  publish  to  the  world 
a  uniform  confession  of  their  faith.  They  were 
now  become  a  considerable  body,  their  church- 
es being  increased  both  in  city  and  country,*  by 
the  additon  of  great  numbers  of  rich  and  sub- 
stantial persons ;  but  they  were  not  agreed  upon 
any  standard  of  faith  or  discipline.  The  Pres- 
byterians in  the  Assembly  of  Divines  had  urged 
them  to  this,  and  their  brethren  in  New-Eng- 
land had  done  it  ten  years  ago ;  nor  were  the 

*  The  number  of  these  churches  was,  proportion- 
ally, much  greater  in  the  two  counties  of  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk  than  in  most  other  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
This  was  owing  to  the  particular  intercourse  which 
those  counties  have  with  the  city  of  Rotterdam  and 
Holland,  where  the  more  rigid  Puritans,  who  were 
driven  out  of  England  by  the  severities  of  the  times, 
before  the  civil  wars  began,  had  taken  refuge,  and 
formed  several  Congregational  churches.  On  the  re- 
turn of  the  English  e.Kiles  to  England,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  those  dissensions,  they  brought  with 
them  their  sentiments  on  church  government,  and 
formed  churches  on  the  Independent  plan.  Of  these 
the  most  ancient  was  the  church  of  Yarmouth,  con- 
sisting of  members  resident  in  that  town  and  at  Nor- 
wich ;  and  the  Lord's  Supper  was  administered  al- 
ternately at  the  two  places.  This,  after  a  time,  was 
found  very  troublesome,  and  by  a  majority  of  votes 
the  seat  of  the  church  was  fixed  at  Yarmouth.  This 
new  arrangement  was  attended  with  great  inconveni- 
ence to  those  who  lived  at  Norwich.  They  there- 
fore, with  the  consent  of  the  other  part  who  resided  at 
Yarmouth,  formed  a  separate  church,  June  10,  1644. 
This  consent  was  given  with  e.xpressionsof  the  most 
tender  and  endeared  affection,  as  having  been,  many 
of  them,  "companions  together  in  the  patience  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  in  their  own  and  in  a  strange  land, 
and  having  long  enjoyed  sweet  communion  togeth- 
er in  Divine  oniinances."  On  these  models  other 
churches  were  settled  through  these  counties.  As 
at  Denton,  in  May  or  June  of  the  year  I C55.  At  Tun- 
stead,  North  Walsham,  Wymondham,  and  Guest- 
wick,  in  1G52.  In  the  same  year  was  laid  the  found- 
ation of  the  Congregational  Church  of  Beccles,  in 
Suffolk,  by  nine  persons  joining  togetlrer  in  church- 
fellowship,  and  by  July  29,  1033,  their  number  was 
increased  to  forty.  The  church  at  Walpole  was  set- 
tled into  fellowship  in  the  year  1C47.  That  of  St. 
Edmund's  Burv,  in  1618.  That  of  VV'oodbridge,  in 
1051.  That  at'Watleslield,  May  2,  1678.  That  of 
Wrentham  was  first  gathered  February  1,  1649,  un- 
der Mr.  John  Philip,  and  one  of  its  hrst  members 
was  Francis  Brewster,  Esq.,  lord  of  the  manor  of 
M'renlham,  who  gave  the  clmrch-plate,  which  bears 
his  arms;  and  some  considerable  legacies  were  left 
liy  him  and  different  branches  of  his  family.  The 
hall  was  a  place  of  refuge  and  concealment  for  the 
ministers  or  any  of  the  people  in  time  of  persecution. 
— Mr.  Thnmp!!on\i  MS.  Collections,  under  the  words 
Norfolk  and  Stiffolk. — Ed. 


1- 


niSTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


English  Indcpendpnts  insensible  of  the  defect ; 
for  hitherto,  say  tiiey,  there  have  "  been  no  as- 
sociation of  our  cliiirches,  no  meetings  of  our 
ministers  to  promote  the  common  interest ;  our 
churches  are  like  so  many  ships  launched  singly, 
and  sailing  apart  and  alone  in  the  vast  ocean  of 
those  tumultuous  times,  exposed  to  every  wind 
of  doctrine ;  under  no  other  conduct  than  the 
Word  and  Spirit,  and  their  particular  elders  and 
principal  brethren,  witiiout  associations  among 
themselves,  or  so  much  as  holding  out  a  com- 
mon light  to  others,  whereby  to  know  where 
they  were."*  To  remedy  this,  some  of  their 
divines  and  principal  brethren  in  London  met 
together,  and  proposed  that  there  itiight  be  a 
correspondence  among  their  churches  in  city 
and  country  for  counsel  and  mutual  edification  ; 
and  forasmuch  as  all  sects  and  parties  of  Chris- 
tians had  published  a  confession  of  their  faith, 
they  apprehended  the  world  might  reasonably 
expect  it  from  them  ;  for  these  reasons,  they  pe- 
titioned the  protector  for  liberty  to  assemble  for 
this  purpose.  This  was  opposed  by  some  of  the 
court,  as  tending  to  establish  a  separation  be- 
tween them  and  the  Presbyterians- ;  nor  was 
the  protector  himself  fond  of  it ;  however,  he 
gave  way  to  their  importunity ;  and,  as  Mr. 
Echard  represents  that  matter,  when  he  was 
moved  upon  his  deathbed  to  discountenance 
their  petition,  he  replied,  "  They  must  be  satis- 
fied, they  must  be  satisfied,  or  we  shall  all  run 
hack  into  blood  again." 

However,  the  protector  did  not  live  to  see  the 
fruits  of  this  assembly,  which  was  appointed  to 
be  held  at  the  Savoy,  October  12,  1658,  where 
ministers  and  messengers  from  above  one  hun- 
dred Congregational  churches  met  together,  of 
which  the  majority  were  laymen,  the  rest  pas- 
tors in  churches,  and  some  younger  divines 
about  the  court,  as  the  reverend  and  learned 
Mr.  John  Howe,  at  that  time  chaplain  to  the 
young  protector,  and  others. t  They  opened 
their  synod  with  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer, 
and  after  some  debate  whether  they  should 
adopt  the  doctrinal  articles  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly  for  their  own,  with  some  amendments 
and  additions,  it  was  thought  more  advisable  to 
draw  up  a  new  confession,  but  to  keep  as  near 
as  possible  to  the  method  and  order  of  the  other. 
A  committee  of  the  most  eminent  divines  was 
chosen  for  this  work,  viz..  Dr.  Thomas  Good- 
win, Dr.  Owen,  Mr.  Phil.  Nye,  Mr.  William 
Bridge,  of  Yarmouth,  Mr.  Jos.  Caryl,  and  Mr. 
William  Greenhill.  While  these  were  employ- 
ed in  preparing  and  putting  together  the  articles 
of  their  confession,  the  synod  heard  complaints 
and  gave  advice  in  several  cases  which  were 
brought  before  them,  relating  to  disputes  or  dif- 
ferences in  their  churches.  The  particular 
heads  of  doctrine  agreed  to  by  the  committee 
were  presented  to  the  synod  every  morning,  and 
read  by  the  Reverend  Mr.  George  Griffith,  their 
scribe.  There  were  some-speeches  and  debates 
upon  words  and  phrases,  but  at  length  all  acqui- 
esced, and  the  whole  was  soon  after  published 
in  quarto,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Declaration  of 
the  Faith  and  Order  owned  and  practised  in  the 
Congregational  Churches  in  England,  agreed 
upon  and  consented  unto  by  their  Elders  and 
Messengers,  in  their  Meeting  at  the  Savoy,  Oc- 


*  Confess.,  Pref.,  p.  6. 

t  Calamy's  Abridg.,  vol.  ii.,  p. 


444. 


tober  12,  1658."  Next  year  it  was  translated 
into  Latin  by  Professor  Hornbeck,  and  published 
at  the  end  of  his  Epistola  ad  Duramm  de  Inde- 
pendcntissimo.  Some  imputed  their  unanimity 
to  the  authority  and  i-ufliience  of  Dr.  Owen.  Mr. 
Nye,  and  the  rest  of  the  elder  divines  over  the 
younger  ;  but  they  themselves,  in  their  preface, 
"  look  upon  it  as  a  great  and  special  work  of  the 
Holy  Gliost,  that  so  numerous  a  company  of 
ministers  and  other  principal  brethren  should 
so  readily,  speedily,  and  jointly  give  up  them- 
selves to  such  a  whole  body  of  truths  as  is  there 
collected."  They  add,  farther,  "  that  this  agree- 
ment of  theirs  fell  out  without  their  having  held 
any  correspondence  together  or  prepared  con- 
sultation, by  which  they  might  be  advised  of 
one  another's  minds,"  which  I  confess  is  very 
extraordinary,  considering  the  confession  ciin- 
sists  of  thirty-three  chapters,  in  which  are  al- 
most two  hundred  distinct  articles  of  faith  and 
discipline,  and  that  the  whole  tiine  of  the  syn- 
od's sessions  or  continuance  was  not  above 
eleven  or  twelve  days. 

The  Savoy  confession  proceeds  upon  the  plan 
of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  which  made  the 
work  very  easy,  and  in  most  places  retains 
their  very  words.  They  tell  the  world,  in  their 
preface,  that  they  fully  consent  to  the  Westmin- 
ster confession  for  the  substance  of  it,  but  have 
taken  liberty  to  add  a  few  things,  in  order  ta 
obviate  some  erroneous  opinions  that  have  been 
more  boldly  maintained  of  late  than  in  former 
times.  They  have  likewise  varied  the  method 
in  some  places,  and  have  here  and  there  ex- 
pressed themselves  more  clearly,  as  they  found 
occasion.  They  have  omitted  all  those  chap- 
ters in  the  Assembly's  confession  which  relate 
to  discipline,  as  the  thirtieth  and  thirty-first, 
with  part  of  the  twentieth  and  twenty-fourth, 
relating  to  the  power  of  synods,  councils^ 
church  censures,  marriage  and  divorce,  and  the 
power  of  the  civil  magistrate  in  matters  of  reli- 
gion. These  (say  they)  were  such  doubtful  as- 
sertions, and  so  unsuited  to  a  confession  of  faith, 
that  the  English  Parliament  would  never  ratify 
them,  there  being  nothing  that  tends  more  to 
heighten  dissensions  among  brethren  than  to 
place  these  doubtful  speculations  under  so  high 
a  title  as  a  confession  of  faith.  After  the  nine- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Assembly's  confession,  of 
the  law,  the  Savoy  divines  have  added  an  entire 
chapter,  of  the  Gospel,  in  which  what  is  dis- 
persed up  and  down  the  Assembly's  confession, 
is  collected  and  put  together.  Upon  the  whole, 
the  dilTerence  between  these  two  confessions, 
in  points  of  doctrine,  is  so  very  small,  that  the 
modern  Independents  have  in  a  manner  laid 
aside  the  use  of  it  in  their  families,  and  agreed 
with  the  Presbyterians  in  the  use  of  the  Assem- 
bly's catechism. 

At  the  end  of  the  Savoy  confession  there  is 
a  chapter  of  disciphne,  entitled  "  Of  the  Insti- 
tution of  Churches,  and  the  Order  appointed  in 
them  by  Jesus  Christ,"  in  which  they  assert, 

"  That  every  particular  society  of  visible  pro- 
fessors agreeing  to  walk  together  in  the  faith 
and  order  of  the  Gospel  is  a  complete  church, 
and  has  full  power  within  itself  to  elect  and  or- 
dain all  church-officers,  to  exclude  all  offenders, 
and  to  do  all  other  acts  rt-lating  to  the  edifica- 
tion and  well-being  of  the  church. 

"  That  the  way  of  ordaining  officers,  that  is,. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


179 


pastors,  teachers,  or  elders,  is,  after  their  elec- 
tion, by  the  suffrage  of  the  church,  to  set  them 
apart  with  fasting  and  prayer,  and  imposition  of 
the  hands  of  the  eidersliip  of  the  church,  though, 
if  there  be  no  imposition  of  liands,  they  are 
nevertheless  rightly  constituted  ministers  of 
Christ ;  but  tiicy  do  not  allow  that  ordination 
to  the  work  of  the  ministry,  though  it  be  by 
persons  rightly  ordained,  does  convey  any  of- 
fice power,  without  a  previous  election  of  the 
church. 

"  That  no  persons  may  administer  the  sacra- 
ment but  such  as  are  ordained  and  appointed 
thereunto.  Nor  are  the  pastors  of  one  church 
obliged  to  administer  the  sacraments  to  any 
other  than  to  the  members  of  that  church  to 
whom  they  stand  related  in  that  capacity.  Nor 
may  any  person  be  added  to  the  church  as  a 
private  member,  but*  by  the  consent  of  the 
church,  after  a  confession  of  his  faith,  declared 
by  himself,  or  otherwise  manifested. 

"  They  disallow  the  power  of  all  stated  syn- 
ods, presbyteries,  convocations,  and  assemblies 
of  divines,  over  particular  churches ;  but  ad- 
mit that,  in  cases  of  difficulty,  or  ditference  re- 
lating to  doctrine  or  order,  churches  may  meet 
together  by  their  messengers  in  synods  or  coun- 
cils, to  consider  and  give  advice,  but  without 
exercising  any  jurisdiction. 

"And,  lastly,  they  agree  that  churches,  con- 
sisting of  persons  sound  in  tlu"  faith  and  of  good 
conversation,  ought  not  to  refuse  communion 
with  each  other,  though  they  walk  not  in  all 
things  according  to  the  same  rule  of  church 
order;  and  if  they  judge  other  churches  to  be 
true  churches,  though  less  pure,  they  may  re- 
ceive to  occasional  communion  such  members 
of  those  churches  as  are  credibly  testified  to  be 
godly,  and  to  live  without  offence. 

"These  opinions."  say  they,  "may  appear  new 
to  a  great  many  people,  because  they  have  not 
been  openly  and  publicly  professed  in  the  Eng- 
lish nation  ;  but  we  are  a!)le  to  trace  the  foot- 
steps of  an  Independent  congregational  way  in 
the  ancientest  practice  of  the  Church,  and  in 
the  writings  of  the  soundest  Protestant  di- 
vines." They  add,  "that  their  principles  do  not 
in  the  least  interfere  with  the  authority  of  the 
civil  magistrate,  nor  do  they  concern  themselves 
upon  any  occasion  with  him,  any  farther  than  to 


*  It  was  also  a  practice  of  the  Independents,  at  the 
first  formation  of  their  churches,  to  sign  an  agree- 
ment, or  covenant,  which  they  entered  on  their 
church  books.  This  sometimes  ran  out  into  vari- 
ous articles,  expres-sive  of  their  devotedness  to  the 
service  of  God,  their  trust  in  Christ,  then-  determina- 
tion to  study  the  Scriptures,  and  to  form  their  faith 
and  worship  by  them,  of  their  mutual  engagement  to 
keep  the  Christian  ordinances,  to  watch  over  one  an- 
other in  the  Lord,  to  hear  one  another's  burdens,  and 
to  preserve  union  and  love,  and  of  their  resokiiions 
to  persevere  in  a  course  of  faith  and  holiness.  Of 
these  forms  of  agreement,  one  of  the  mo.st  simple  is 
that  which  was  adopted  by  the  church  at  VVattes- 
field,  in  Suffolk.  It  was  in  these  words :  '•  We  do 
covenant  or  agree,  in  the  presence  of  God,  through 
the  assistance  of  his  Holy  Spirit,  to  walk  together 
in  all  the  ordinances  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  as  far  as  the 
same  are  made  clear  unto  us,  endeavourmg  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  glory  of  our  Father,  the  subjection 
of  our  will  to  the  will  of  our  Redeemer,  and  the  mu- 
tual cdilication  of  each  other  in  his  most  holy  faith 
and  fear." — Mr.  Thompson's  MS.  Collections,  under 
the  name  WattcsHeld. — £d. 


implore  his  protection  for  the  preservation  of 
the  peace  and  liberty  of  their  churches."  They 
glory  in  this,  that  ever  since  they  appeared  in 
the  world,  they  have  distinguished  themselves 
in  the  cause  of  Christian  liberty.  "  We  have  al- 
ways," say  they,  "  maintained  this  principle,  that 
among  all  Christian  states  and  churches,  there 
ought  to  be  a  forbearance  and  mutual  indulgence 
to  Christians  of  all  persuasions,  that  keep  to 
and  hold  fast  the  necessary  foundations  of  faith 
and  holiness.  This  principle  we  have  main- 
tained for  the  sake  of  others,  when  we  our- 
selves had  no  need  of  it."  They  conclude  with 
thankfulness  to  their  present  governors  fur  per- 
mitting those  who  could  not  comply  with  the 
Presbyterian  establishinent  to  enjoy  the  liberty 
of  their  consciences,  and  equal  encouragement 
and  protection  with  others  ;  and  that  this  lib- 
erty is  established  by  law,  as  long  as  they  dis- 
turb not  the  public  peace.  This  should  engage 
us  (say  they)  to  ])r()mote  the  honour  and  pros- 
perity of  such  a  government,  to  he  peaceably 
disposed  one  towards  another,  and  to  love  as 
brethren  ;  forasinuch  as  the  differences  between 
Presbyterians  and  Independents  are  differences 
between  fellow-servants,  neither  of  theiu  hav- 
ing authority,  from  God  or  man,  to  impose  their 
opinions  upon  one  another.* 

Mr.  Baxter,  in  the  main  a  very  peaceable  and 
candid  divine,  loses  all  temper  when  he  speaks 
of  this  assembly;  he  finds  fault  with  their  defi- 
nition of  justification,  and  makes  these  remarks  : 
"  They  thought  it  not  enough  expressly  to  con- 
tradict St.  James,  and  to  say  unlimitedly  that 
we  are  justified  by  the  righteousness  of  Christ 
only,  and  not  by  any  works,  but  they  contra- 
dicted St.  Paul  also,  who  says,  that  '  faith  is  im- 
puted for  righteousness ;'  and  not  only  so,  but 
they  asserted  that  we  have  no  other  righteous- 
ness but  that  of  Christ.  A  doctrine  abhorred 
by  all  the  Reformed  and  Christian  churches,  and 
which,"  says  he,  "would  be  an  utter  shame  of  the 
Protestant  name,  if  what  such  men  held  and  did 
were  imputable  to  sober  Protestants."  But  is 
it  possible  that  Mr.  Baxter  could  believe  that 
the  Savoy  divines  denied  the  necessity  of  sanc- 
tification,  or  personal  holiness  1  when  they  have 
a  whole  chapter  in  their  Confession  upon  sanc- 
tification,  another  upon  repentance  and  good 
works,  and  a  third  upon  the  moral  law,  which 
they  declare  does  forever  hind  all  men  to  obedi- 
ence, both  justified  and  unjustified.  When  Mr. 
Baxter  asked  some  honest  men  who  joined  them 
whether  they  subscribed  the  Confession,  they 
said  no  ;  ho  then  inquired  why  they  did  not 
contradict  this  1  To  which  they  answered,  be- 
cause the  meaning  was,  that  they  had  no  other 
righteousness  but  that  of  Christ  to  be  justifi^dl 
by,  which  is  certainly  the  doctrine  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly.  What  'does  Mr.  Baxter  re- 
ply to  this  l  Why  nothing,  hut  adds,  very  un- 
charitably, "  that  the  Independent  confessions 
are  like  such  oaths  as  speak  one  thing  and  mean 
another ;  so  much  could  two  men  [Ur.  Owen  and 
Goodwin]  do  with  many  honest,  tractable  young 
men,  who  had  more  zeal  for  separating  strict- 
ness than  judgment  to  understand  the  Word 


*  Dr.  Price  observes,  "  The  views  maintained  on 
the  constitution  of  the  Christian  Church  are  pre- 
cisely those  still  held  by  the  whole  body  of  Congre- 
gationalists"  (in  England). — Hist.  Nonconformity,  voL 
ii.,  p.  621.— C. 


180 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


of  God,  the  interest  of  the  churches  and  of  them- 
selves."* And  yet  there  were  in  that  assembly 
many  divines  of  as  great  age  and  learning  as 
himself;  their  design  was  not  to  undervalue  the 
Westminster  Confession,  but  rather  to  answer 
the  ilcsircs  of  thai  assembly,  by  publishing  to  the 
world  such  a  declaration  of  their  faith  and  disei- 
pline  as  they  hud  demanded.  And  the  Confession 
%vas  so  far  from  raising  any  new  divisions,  that 
Mr.  Philip  Henry  observes,  upon  the  death  of 
Cromwell,  that  there  was  a  great  change  in  the 
tempers  of  good  people  throughout  the  nation, 
and  a  mighty  tendency  to  peace  and  unity,  as  if 
they  were  by  consent  weary  of  their  long  clash- 
ings.  However,  the  Independents  lost  their  best 
friend  in  the  protector,  who  was  not  only  their 
patron  upon  the  principle  of  liberty,  but  a  bal- 
ance to  the  Presbyterian  pretences  to  ecclesias- 
tical power. 

The  hierarchy  of  the  Church  of  England  was 
now  at  a  very  low  ebb,  and  in  danger  of  being 
lost  beyond  recovery  ;  for  if  the  bishops,  who 
were  now  very  ancient,  had  all  died  off  before 
others  had  been  consecrated,  the  line  of  sricce.s- 
sion  must  have  failed  ;  for  the  Church  of  Rome 
•was  so  far  from  supporting  it,  that  they  publish- 
ed a  treatise  this  year,  Of  the  Nature  of  the 
Catholic  Faith,  and  of  Heresy  ;  in  which  they 
endeavour  to  invalidate  the  English  ordina- 
tions, and  revived  the  story  of  the  Nag's-head 
Club,  for  the  truth  of  which  they  appealed  to 
Dr.  Moreton,  the  ancient  Bishopof  Durham,  who, 
in  a  solemn  speech  made  in  full  Parliament  (say 
they),  declared  in  express  words,  that  our  tirsl 
bishops  after  the  Reformation  had  been  conse- 
crated in  a  tavern  ;  and  that  this  was  so  far 
from  being  doubted,  that  it  was  a  fact  most  no- 
torious to  all  the  world  ;  adding,  that  the  rest 
of  the  bishops  present  rather  approved  than  in 
the  least  opposed  what  he  had  said.  The  bish- 
op, then  in  the  ninety-fourth  year  of  his  age, 
being  advised  of  this  calumny,  sent  for  a  public 
notary  from  London,  and  in  the  presence  of  prop- 
er witnesses,  made  a  solemn  protestation  of  the 
falsehood  of  this  story,  and  signed  it  in  due 
form,  July  17,  1058.  He  then  sent  his  chaplain, 
Dr.  Barwick.t  to  all  the  lords  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral then  alive,  who  had  sat  in  that  Parliament, 
desiring  that  if  they  believed  him  undeserved- 
ly aspersed,  they  would  attest  it  by  subscribing 
their  names  ;  which  was  done  by  six  bishops 
and  fourteen  temporal  lords,  and  by  the  several 
clerks  and  registrars  of  the  House.  The  bishop 
died  soon  after,  but  his  protestation,  with  the 
proofs,  was  afterward  published  by  Dr.  Bramhal, 
bishop  of  Derry,  in  a  treatise  entitled  "  The  Con- 
secration and  Succession  of  Protestant  Bisli- 
ops  Justified  ;  the  Bishop  of  Duresme  Vindica- 
ted ;  and  the  Fable,  of  the  Ordination  of  the 
Nag's-head  Club  clearly  Confuted."  This  awa- 
kened the  clergy  to  enter  upon  measures  for  the 
continuance  of  a  succession  of  bishops,  though 
they  could  not  be  regularly  chosen,  lest  the  va- 
lidity of  the  Episcopal  ministry  should  cease; 
which  will  come  under  consideration  in  the 
transactions  of  the  ne.xt  year. 

Lord  Clarendon  mentions  an  address  of  the 
Anabaptists  to  the  king,  who,  being  disappointed 
in  their  expectations  of  a  commonwealth,  threw 
themselves  at  his  majesty's  feet,  offering  their 
assistance  to  pull  down  the  present  government. 


*  Life,  p.  101 


t  Ibid.,  p.  40. 


In  their  address  they  say,  "  they  took  up  arms 
in  the  late  war  for  liberty  and  reformation,  but 
assure  his  majesty  that  tliey  were  so  far  from 
entertaining  any  thoughts  of  casting  off  their 
allegiance,  or  extirpating  the  royal  family,  that 
they  had  not  the  least  intent  to  abridge  him  of 
his  just  prerogatives,  but  only  the  restraining 
those  excesses  of  government,  which  were  no- 
thing but  the  excrescences  of  a  wanton  power, 
and  were  rather  a  burden  than  an  ornament  to 
the  royal  diadem."  They  then  go  cm  to  declaim 
against  the  protector,  calling  him  that  grand  im- 
postor, that  loathsome  hypocrite,  that  detestable 
traitor,  the  prodigy  of  nature,  the  opprobrium  of 
mankind,  a  landskip  of  iniquity,  a  sink  of  sin,  a 
compendium  of  baseness.  And  then,  begging 
pardon  for  their  former  offences,  they  promise 
to  sacrifice  their  lives  and  fortunes  for  his  maj- 
esty's restoration,  provided  his  majesty  would 
be  so  gracious  as  to  restore  the  remains  of  the 
Long  Parliatnent  ;  to  ratify  the  treaty  of  the  Isle 
of  Wight;  to  establish  liberty  of  conscience  ;  to 
take  away  tithes,  and  provide  some  other  main- 
tenance for  the  national  clergy  ;  and  to  pass  an 
act  of  oblivion  lor  all  who  had  been  in  arms 
against  his  father  and  himself,  except  those  who 
should  adhere  to  that  ungodly  tyrant  who  calls 
himself  protector.  His  lordship  adds,  that  the 
messenger  that  brought  these  propositions,  ask- 
ing the  sum  of  £2000  to  carry  on  the  project, 
his  majesty  dismissed  him  with  civil  expres- 
sions, telling  him  he  had  no  design  to  trouble 
any  man  for  his  opinion.  However,  if  there 
had  been  such  an  address  from  the  body  of  the 
Anabaptists,  it  is  a  little  strange  that  after  the 
Restoration  it  was  not  remembered  to  their  ad- 
vantage. But  his  lordship  seems  to  have  had 
no  great  acquaintance  with  these  men,  when 
he  says  they  always  pretended  a  just  esteem 
and  value  for  all  men  who  faithfully  adhered  to 
the  king  ;  whereas  they  were  of  all  sects  the 
most  zealous  for  a  commonwealth,  and  were 
enemies  to  the  protector  for  no  other  reason  but 
because  he  was  for  government  by  a  single  per- 
son. In  truth,  this  whole  afTair  seems  no  more 
than  an  artifice  to  get  a  little  money  out  of  the 
poor  king's  purse.* 

The  protector's  health  was  now  declining, 
through  his  advanced  age  and  excessive  toils 
and  fatigues.  The  restless  spirits  of  the  Royal- 
ists and  Republicans  put  him  upon  his  guard, 
insomuch  that  he  usually  wore  under  his  clothes 
a  piece  of  armour,  or  a  coat  of  mail.  'I  he  loss 
of  his  beloved  daughter  Claypole,  who  died  this 
summer,  had  also  a  very  sensible  influence  on 
his  health.  About  the  middle  of  August  he  was 
seized  with  a  slow  fever,  which  turned  to  a  ter- 
tian ague  ;  but  the  distemper  appeared  so  fa- 
vourable for  a  while,  that  he  walked  abroad  in 
the  gardens  at  Hampton  Court.  Ludlow  says, 
the  protector  had  a  humour  in  his  leg,  which  he 
desired  the  physicians  to  disperse,  by  which 
means  it  was  thrown  into  his  blood  ;  at  length 
his  pulse  began  to  intermit,  and  he  was  advi- 
sed to  keep  bis  bed  ;  and  his  ague  fits  growing 
stronger,  it  was  thought  proper  to  remove  him 
to  Wliitehall,  where  he  began  to  be  light-head- 
ed ;  upon  which  his  physicians  declared  his  life 


*  Notwithstanding  the  suspicions  which  rest  upon 
this  affair,  Crosby  has  seen  fit  to  preserve  the  ad- 
dress, propositions,  and  letter,  in  the  Appendix  to  his 
first  volume,  No.  5. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


181 


in  danger,  and  the  council  being  summoned  to 
desire  him  to  nominate  his  successor,  he  ap- 
pointed his  eldest  son  Richard.  In  the  inter- 
vals of  his  tits  he  behaved  wiili  great  devotion 
and  piety,  but  manifested  no  remorse  for  his 
public  actions  ;  lie  declared,  in  genera!,  that  he 
designed  the  good  of  the  nation,  and  to  preserve 
it  from  anarchy  and  a  new  war.  He  once  asked 
Dr.  Goodwin,  who  attended  at  his  bedside,  and 
is  said  to  have  expressed  an  unbecoming  assu- 
rance* to  Almighty  God  in  prayer  of  his  recov- 
ery, whether  a  man  could  fall  from  grace  !  which 
the  doctor  answering  in  the  negative,  the  pro- 
tector replied,  "Then  I  am  safe,  for  I  am  sure 
I  was  once  in  a  state  of  grace."!  About  twelve 
hours  before  he  died  he  lay  very  quiet,  when 
Major  Butler,  being  in  his  chamber,  says  he 
heard  him  make  his  last  prayer  to  this  purpose  :  j 
"  Lord,  I  am  a  poor  foolish  creature  ;  this  peo- 
ple would  fain  have  me  live  ;  they  think  it  best 
for  them,  and  that  it  will  redound  much  to  thy 
glory,  and  all  the  stir  is  about  this.  Others 
would  fain  have  me  die  ;  Lord,  pardon  them, 
and  pardon  thy  foolish  people ;  forgive  their  sins, 
and  do  not  forsake  them,  but  love  and  biess,  and 


*  The  language  of  Dr.  Goodwin  was  thus  extrav- 
agant :  "  Lord,  we  beg  not  for  his  recovery,  for  that 
thou  hast  already  granted  and  assured  us  hi;  but  for 
his  speedy  recovery."  And  when  news  was  brought 
of  his  death,  Mr.  Peter  Sterry  stood  up,  and  desired 
them  not  to  be  troubled.  "  l*"or,"  said  he,  "  this  is 
good  news :  because,  if  he  was  of  great  use  lo  the 
people  of  God  when  he  was  among  us,  now  he  will 
be  much  more  so,  being  ascended  to  heaven  to  sit  al 
the  right  baud  of  Jesus  Christ,  there  to  intercede  for 
us,  and  to  be  mindful  of  us  on  all  occasions." — Lud- 
loiv's  Memoirs,  4to,  p.  25S,  259.  Dr.  Grey  does  not 
fail  to  notice  these  strange  flights.  And  Sewel  the 
historian's  reflection  on  this  last  instance  of  the  flat- 
tery, or  phrensy,  of  these  courtiers,  was  just.  "  Oh, 
horrid  flattery  !  Thus  I  call  it,  though  lie  had  been 
the  greatest  saint  on  earth  ;  which  he  came  much 
short  of,  though  he  was  once  endued  with  some  emi- 
nent virtues." — History  of  the  Quaktrs,  p.  189. — Ed. 
The  abundant  knowledge  that  we  possess  of  Dr. 
Goodwin  from  his  works,  and  the  character  ascribed 
to  hini  by  his  colemporanes,  furnish  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  the  falsity  of  this  version  of  his  prayer  for 
Cromwell.  Sir  Phillip  Warwick's  account  of  Crom- 
well's last  sickness  is  manifestly  unworthy  of  credit. 
The  phrensied  speeches  and  prayers  attributed  to  his 
chaplains  by  Echard,  and  such  writers,  are  gross 
caricatures,  unworthy  of  a  place  in  any  work  pretend- 
ing to  historical  lidelity.  The  language  of  Dr.  Good- 
win reported  by  Ludlow,  and  improved  on  by  suhse- 
quent  writers,  is  fairly  susceptible  of  an  interpreta- 
tion against  which  no  valid  objection  can  be  urge'd. 
Thurloe's  letter  to  Henry  Cromwell  proves  that  there 
uas  a  period  of  the  protector's  illness  when  his  dis- 
order was  thought  to  have  yielded  to  the  remedies 
which  had  been  employed.  Only  let  it  be  supposed 
that  it  was  at  this  period — and  there  is  nothing 
against  the  suppo.sition — that  tbc  prayer  referred  to 
was  uttered,  and  what  is  there  in  the  following  sen- 
tence to  call  for  the  pious  horror  which  has  been 
expressed  ?  "  Lord,  we  be<r  not  for  his  recovery,  for  that 
thou  hast  already  granted  a?id  assured  us  of;  but  for  his 
speedy  recovery."  It  requires  little  but  candour  and 
fair  dealing  to  interpret  Goodwin's  language  by  the 
light  which  is  thus  incidentally  obtained.  The  dan- 
ger was  believed  to  be  past,  and  speedy  restoration 
to  health  was  therefore  implored.  Dr.  Owen  was 
charged  with  similar  language,  but  his  brief  and  con- 
clusive reply  was,  "  Mentitur  impuilentissime,  for  I  saw 
him  not  in  his  sickness,  nor  in  some  long  time  be- 
fore." — Owen's  Works,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  506.  South's  ser- 
mons abound  in  slanders  of  this  kind  :  see  volume  i., 
p.  65.— C.  t  Baxter's  Life,  p.  93. 


give  them  rest,  and  bring  them  to  a  consisten- 
cy, and  give  me  rest,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  to 
whom,  with  thee  and  thy  Holy  Spirit,  be  all  hon- 
our and  glory,  now  and  forever.  Amen."*  The 
protector  dietl  Septeinber  3,  1658,  about  three 
in  the  afternoon,  the  day  on  which  he  had  tri- 
umphed in  the  battles  of  Marston  Moor,t  Dun- 
bar, and  Worcester,  when  he  had  lived  tifty-nine 
years,  four  months,  and  eight  days  :  four  years 
and  eight  months  after  he  had  been  declared  pro- 
tector by  the  instrument  of  government,  and 
one  year  and  three  months  after  his  confirma- 
tion by  the  humble  petition  and  advice.  As  he 
had  lived  most  part  of  his  life  in  a  storm,  his 
death  was  attended  with  (me  of  the  greatest  ^ 
hurricanes  that  had  been  known  for  many  years.  J 
Some  have  said,  that  next  night  after  his  death 
his  body  was  wrapped  up  in  lead,  and  buried  in 
Naseby  field,  according  to  his  desire.  Others, 
more  probably,  that  it  was  deposited  privately 
in  a  vault  in  King  Henry  V'll.'s  chapel,  some 
time  before  the  public  funeral,  which  was  per- 
formed November  23,  with  all  imaginable  gran- 
deur and  military  pomp, iji  from  Somerset  House, 
where  he  had  lain  in  state,  to  the  Abbey  Church 


*■  Thurloe,  his  secretary,  would  be  more  likely  to 
furnish  an  accurate  form  of  Cromwell's  prayer  than 
the  major,  and  he  sent  it  to  Henry  in  Ireland,  in- 
scribed, "  His  Highnesse's  Prayer,  Sept.  2,  being  the 
night  before  he  departed."  "  Lord,  although  1  am 
a  wretched  and  miserable  creature,  1  am  in  covenant 
with  thee  through  grace,  and  I  may,  I  will  come  to 
thee  for  my  people:  thou  hast  made  me  a  mean  in- 
strument to  doe  them  some  good,  and  thee  sarves, 
and  many  of  them  have  sett  too  high  a  valine  upon 
me,  though  others  wishe,  and  would  be  glad  of  my 
death  ;  but.  Lord,  however  thou  shall  dispose  of  me, 
continue  and  goe  on  to  doe  good  for  them  ;  give  them 
consistency  of  judgment,  mutual  love,  and  one  harte ; 
goe  on  to  deliver  them,  and  with  the  work  of  refor- 
mation, and  make  the  name  of  Christ  great  and  glo- 
rious in  the  world  ;  teach  those  who  looke  too  much 
upon  thy  instruments  to  depend  more  upon  thyselfe. 
Pardon  such  as  desire  to  trample  upon  the  dust  of  a 
poore  worme,  for  they  are  thy  people  too ;  and  pardon 
the  lolly  of  this  short  prayer,  for  Jesus  Christ  his 
sake,  and  give  us  a  good  night  if  it  be  thy  pleasurp." 
— Cromwell's  Memoirs  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
366.— C. 

t  This,  as  Dr.  Grey  notices,  is  an  error;  the  bat- 
tle of  Marston  Moor  was  fought  on  the  2d  of  July, 
1614.— En. 

%  Dr.  Grey  tells  us,  also,  that  on  the  day  his  coffin 
was  taken  up  and  hung  at  Tyburn,  almost  as  remark- 
able a  storm  rose  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  king- 
dom. Superstition  and  a  hatred  of  Cromwell  con- 
strued these  circumstances  as  appearances  of  nature 
or  the  God  of  nature,  by  physical  phenomena,  ex- 
pressing an  abhorrence  of  his  character.  But  sound 
philosophy  sees  nothing  but  a  singular  coincidence 
of  events,  happening  together,  but  without  any  cor- 
respondence in  their  causes ;  and  will  reflect  how 
many  storms  disturb  the  eleinents,  when  no  wicked 
tyrant  dies  in  the  political  world  ! — En. 

9  The  expenses  of  Cromwell's  funeral  amounted 
to  .£60,000.  The  body  was  laid  in  a  more  private 
apartment  till  the  1st  of  November;  in  imitation  of 
the  solemnities  used  upon  the  like  occasion  for  Phil- 
ip II.,  king  of  Spain,  who  was  thus  represented  to  be 
in  purgatory  for  two  months.  It  was  then  removed 
into  the  great  hall  of  Somerset  House ;  the  part 
where  the  bed  stood  was  railed  in,  and  the  rails  and 
ground  within  covered  with  crimson  velvet.  Four  or 
five  hundred  candles,  set  in  flat  shining  candlesticks, 
were  so  placed  round  near  the  roof  of  the  hall,  that 
the  light  they  gave  seemed  like  the  rays  of  the  sun; 
by  all  which  he  was  represented  to  be  in  a  state  of 
glory. — Ludlow's  Memoirs,  4to,  p.  2C0. — Ed. 


182 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


ill  Westminster,  where  a  fine  mausoleum  was 
erected  fur  liim,  on  vvhicli  his  effigy  was  placed, 
and  exhibited  to  the  view  of  all  spectators  for  a 
time  ;  but  after  the  king's  restoration,  his  coffin 
was  taken  out  of  the  vault,  and  drawn  upon  a 
sledge  to  Tyburn,  where  he  was  hanged  up  till 
sunset,  and  then  buried  under  the  gallows* 

Tlius  died  the  mighty  Oliver  Cromwell,  the 
greatest  soldier  and  statesman  of  his  age,  after 
he  had  undergone  excessive  fatigues  and  labours 
in  a  long  course  of  warlike  acti(jns,  and  escaped 
innumerable  dangers  from  the  plots  and  con- 
spiracies of  domestic  enemies.  Few  historians 
have  spoken  of  him  with  temper,  though  no 
other  genius,  it  may  be,  could  have  held  the 
reins,  or  steered  the  commonwealth  through  so 
many  storms  and  hurricanes,  as  the  factions  of 
these  times  had  raised  in  the  nation.  He  was 
born  at*  Huntingdon,  April  25,  1599,  and  de- 
scended of  the  family  of  Williams,  of  Glamor- 
gan in  Wales,  which  assumed  the  name  of  Crom- 
well by  marrying  with  a  daughter  of  Cromwell, 
earl  of  Essex,  in  the  reign  of  King  Henry  VIH. 
Ttie  seat  of  the  eldest  branch  of  the  family  was 
called  Hinchinbrook,  now  belonging  to  the  Earl 
of  Sandwich,  who  were  reputed  to  possess  an 
estate  of  £30,000  a  year.  Oliver,  who  was  de- 
scended of  a  younger  branch,  was  educated  in 
Cambridge,  and  from  thence  became  a  student 
in  Lincoln's  Inn,  being  a  wild  and  extravagant 
youth  till  about  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  his  age, 
when  he  quitted  his  irregular  life,  and  became 
remarkably  sober.  In  the  year  1G40  he  was 
chosen  representative  in  Parliament  for  the 
town  of  Cambridge,  and  sat  two  years  undis- 
tinguished in  the  House,  as  a  mere  country  gen- 
tleman, appearing,  says  Sir  Philip  Warwick,  in 
a  plain  cloth  suit  of  clothes  made  by  a  country 
tailor,  his  linen  not  very  clean,  his  band  un- 
fashionable, his  hat  without  a  hat-band,  and  his 
sword  close  by  his  side ;  his  countenance  was 
swollen  and  reddish,  his  voice  hoarse  and  un- 
tunable,  but  his  elocution  was  full  of  fervour 
and  warmth,  and  he  was  well  heard  in  the 
House.  His  person  somewhat  exceeded  the 
middle  stature,!   but   was   well  proportioned, 

*  The  reader  is  referred,  for  very  curious  and  mi- 
nute information  upon  this  much-disputed  suiiject, 
the  disposal  of  the  protector's  body,  to  Noble's  House 
of  Cromwell,  vol.  ii.,  p.  288-291. — C. 

t  Sir  John  Ueresby  calls  Cromwell  "  one  of  the 
greatest  and  bravest  men,  had  his  cause  been  good, 
the  world  ever  saw.  His  figure  diil  not  come  up  to 
his  character  ;  he  was,  indeed,  a  likely  person,  but 
not  handsome,  nor  had  he  a  very  bold  look  with  him. 
He  was  plain  in  his  apparel,  and  rather  negligent 
than  not.  Tears  he  had  at  will,  and  was,  doubtless, 
the  greatest  dissembler  on  earth." — Memoirs,  p.  2. 
Since  Mr.  Neal  wrote,  various  historians  have  review- 
ed the  actions  and  character  of  Cromwell,  among 
whom  the  ihithful  and  judicious  Dr.  Harris  deserves 
particular  mention.  The  candid  and  copious  account 
of  this  extraordinary  man  in  the  first  edition  of  Che 
Biographia  Britannica  has  been  enriched  with  new 
and  curious  matter  by  the  learned  and  accurate  pen 
which  has  conducted  the  second  edition.  The  his- 
tory of  the  Cromwell  family  has  been  accurately  in- 
vestigated by  Mr.  Noble,  in  his  Memoirs  of  the  Pro- 
tectoral  House  of  Cromwell ;  not  to  mention  other 
writers  who  have  elucidated  this  subject.  To  oth- 
er particulars  with  which  Dr.  Kippis  has  improved 
the  article  Cronnvell  in  the  Biogr.  Britan.,  is  added 
an  ample  e.xhibilion  of  the  characters  of  him  drawn 
by  foreigners  and  natives. — Eo.     Since  Dr.  Toul- 


compact,  and  strong.  He  had  a  masculine 
countenance,  a  sparkling  eye,  a  manly,  stern 
look,  a  vigorous  constitution,  and  was  an  ene- 
my to  ease  and  excess  ;  the  motto  upon  his 
coat  of  arms  was,  Pax  quaritur  bdlo. 

Upon  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war  he 
took  arms  for  the  Parliament,  and  though  he 
was  forty-three  years  of  age  before  he  drew  a 
sword,  he  soon  became  colonel  of  a  regiment  of 
chosen  men,  who  declared  they  fought  not  for 
gain,  but  for  the  cause  of  religion  and  liberty. 
He  always  went  to  prayer  before  battle,  and  re- 
turned solemn  thanks  for  his  success  afterward. 
He  was  careful  to  promote  an  exact  discipline 
in  the  army,  and  would  not  have  pardoned  his 
own  brother,  says  my  author,*  if  he  had  found 
him  plundering  the  country  people.  The  army 
had  not  an  officer  who  faced  danger  with  great- 
er intrepidity,  or  more  eagerly  sought  occasions 
to  distinguish  his  personal  valour.  He  had  a 
great  presence  of  mind  in  the  heat  of  action, 
and  taught  his  soldiers  to  fight  in  a  more  des-. 
perate  manner  than  usual,  not  allowing  them  to 
discharge  their  muskets  till  they  were  so  near 
the  enemy  as  to  be  sure  of  doing  execution. 
His  reputation  rose  so  fast,  that  he  quickly  be- 
came a  major-general,  then  lieutenant-general, 
under  Fafrfax,  and  at  last  supplanted  him.  His 
troops  believed  themselves  invincible  under  his 
conduct ;  he  never  lost  a  battle  where  he  had 
the  chief  command.  The  victory  of  Marston 
Moor  was  chiefly  ascribed  to  his  valour.  The 
reduction  of  Ireland  in  less  than  a  year  made 
him  the  terror  of  his  enemies  ;  and  the  battles 
of  Dunbar  and  Worcester  completed'his  mar- 
tial glory. 

How  far  his  usurping  the  protectorship  of  the 
three  nations,  without  the  previous  consent  of 
a  free  Parliament,  was  the  result  of  ambition 
or  necessity,  has  been  considered  already  ;  but 
if  we  view  him  as  a  statesman,  he  was  an 
able  politician,  a  steady,  resolute  governor  ;  and 
though  he  had  more  numerous  and  powerful 
enemies  than  any  man  of  the  age,  he  was  nev- 
er intimidated,  having  a  peculiar  art  of  keeping 
men  quiet,  and  giving  them,  by  turns,  hopes  of 
his  favour.  He  had  a  wonderful  knowledge  of 
mankind,  and  an  inimitable  sagacity  and  pene- 
tration. If  there  was  a  man  in  Eng-land  who 
excelled  in  any  faculty  or  science,  he  would  find 
him  out,  and  reward  him  according  to  his  mer- 
it. In  nothing  was  his  good  understanding  bet- 
ter discovered,  says  Bishop  Burnet,  than  in  seek- 
ing out  able  and  worthy  men  for  all  employ- 
ments, which  gave  a  general  satisfaction.  By 
these  methods,  in  the  space  of  four  or  five  years 
he  carried  the  reputation  and  glory  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation  as  high  as  it  was  capable  of  being 
raised.  He  was  equally  dreaded  by  France, 
Spain,  and  the  United  Provinces,  who  conde- 
scended to  servile  compliances  to  o!)tain  his 
friendship;  Charles  Gustavus,  king  of  Sweden, 
thought  himself  honoured  by  his  alliance  ;  and 
Cardinal  Mazarme  said   that  nothing  but  the 

min  wrote  this  note,  other  lives  of  Cromwell  have 
appeared.  The  best,  undoubtedly,  that  has  appeared, 
is  entitled  "  Memoirs  of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  his 
Sons,  by  Oliver  Cromwell,  Esq.,"  3d  edition,  London, 
1822  Russell's  Life  in  the  Family  Library  is  a  high 
church  libel  upon  that  great  man. — C. 

*  Carrington's  Life  of  Cromwell,  p.  243.  Wel- 
wbod's  Mem.,  p.  lOt. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


183 


King  of  France's  having  the  smallpox  could 
have  hindered  him  from  coming  over  to  Eng- 
land, that  he  might  have  the  honour  of  waiting 
on  one  of  the  greatest  men. 

The  protector  had  an  uncommon  command 
of  his  passions,  and  knew  how  to  behave  in 
character  upon  all  occasions,  though  in  private 
life  he  would  be  jocose  and  merry  with  his  infe- 
riors ;  yet  no  jjrince  was  more  jealous  of  his 
dignity  on  public  occasions.  His  ambassadors 
in  foreign  courts  had  all  the  respects  paid  them 
that  our  kings  ever  had.  All  Europe  trembled 
at  his  name  !  And  though  he  could  converse 
with  no  foreigners  but  in  broken  Latin,  yet  no 
man  ever  had  better  intelligence,  nor  understood 
the  views  and  interest  of  the  several  courts  of 
Europe  better  than  himself  He  had  spies  at 
Madrid  and  Paris,  and  was  so  happy  as  to  fix 
upon  persons  who  never  failed  him.  Mr.  Al- 
gernon Sydney,  who  was  not  inclined  to  think 
or  speak  well  of  kings,  commended  him  to  Bish- 
op Burnet,  as  one  who  had  just  notions  of  pub- 
lic liberty  ;  and  though  he  made  some  severe 
and  cruel  laws  against  the  Episcopal  clergy,  it 
was  not  for  their  religion,  but  because  they 
were  open  and  declared  enemies  to  his  person 
and  government. 

The  protector  was  a  Protestant,  but  affected 
to  go  under  no  denomination  or  party  ;  he  had 
chaplains  of  all  persuasions  ;  and  though  he 
was  by  principle  an  Independent,  he  esteemed 
all  Reformed  churches  as  part  of  the  Catholic 
Church  ;  and  without  aiming  to  establish  any 
tenets  by  force  or  violence,  he  witnessed,  on  all 
occasions,  an  extreme  zeal  for  the  Protestant 
religion,  and  a  just  regard  for  liberty  of  con- 
science. 

As  to  his  moral  character,  his  greatest  ene- 
mies have  not  charged  him  with  any  public  vi- 
ces. Dr.  Welwood  admits  that  he  was  not  ad- 
dicted to  swearing,  gluttony,  drunkenness,  ga- 
ming, avarice,  or  the  love  of  wonien,  but  kept 
close  to  his  marriage-bed.  Nor  is  he  chargea- 
ble with  covetousness,  for  it  has  been  computed, 
says  the  writer  of  his  life,*  that  he  distributed 
£40,000  a  year  out  of  his  privy  purse  to  chari- 
table uses.t  He  promoted  virtuous  men,  and 
was  inflexible  in  his  punishment  of  ill  actions. 
His  court  was  regulated  according  to  a  most 
strict  discipline,  says  Mr.  Echard,  where  every 
vice  was  banished  or  severely  punished.  He 
maintained  a  constant  appearance  of  piety,  and 
was  regular  in  his  private  and  public  devotions  : 
he  retired  constantly  every  day  to  read  the  Scrip- 
tures and  prayer ;  and  some  who  watched  him 
narrowly  have  reported,  that  after  he  had  read 
and  expounded  a  chapter,  he  prostrated  himself 
with  his  face  on  the  ground,  and,  with  tears, 
poured  out  his  soul  to  God  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour.  He  was  a  strict  observer  of  the  Sabbath, 
and  an  encourager  of  goodness  and  austerity  of 
life.t      Mr.  Baxter  admits  that   "he  kept  as 

*  Carrington,  p.  248. 

t  An  observation  of  Dr.  Gibbons,  as  just  in  itself 
and  doing  honour  to  Cromwell,  deserves  lo  be  men- 
tioned here.  It  is  this:  "that  it  does  not  appear 
that,  in  the  height  of  his  power,  he  ever  diverted  any 
part  of  the  national  property  to  the  private  emolu- 
ment of  himself  or  fanuly,as  he  leltthem  possessed 
of  the  small  estates  only  which  he  enjoyed  before  he 
arrived  to  the  protectorate." — Funeral  Sermon  fur 
William  Cromivdl,  p.  48. — Ed. 

J  To  this  must  be  ascribed  his  prohibition  of  all 


much  honesty  and  godliness  as  his  cause  and 
interest  would  allow  ;  that  he  had  a  zeal  for  re- 
ligion, meant  honestly  in  the  main,  and  was  pi- 
ous in  the  main  course  of  his  life,*  till  prosperi- 
ty corrupted  him." 

But,  with  all  these  good  qualities,  it  is  certain 
the  protector  was  a  strong  enthusiast,  and  did 
not  take  up  his  religion  upon  rational  or  solid 
principles,  which  led  him  uito  sundry  mistakes, 
not  supported  by  reason  or  Scripture.  One  of 
his  favourite  principles  was,  a  particular  faith  ; 
that  is,  if  anything  was  strongly  impressed  upon 
his  mind  in  prayer,  he  apprehended  it  came  im- 
mediately from  God,  and  was  a  rule  of  action  ; 
but  if  there  were  no  impressions,  but  a  flatness 
in  his  devotions,  it  was  a  denial.  Upon  this 
maxim  he  is  said  to  have  sutTered  the  late  king 
to  be  put  to  death  in  an  arbitrary  and  illegal 
manner.  Another  maxun  was,  that  "  in  extra- 
ordinary cases,  sometiiing  extraordinary,  or  be- 
yond the  common  rules  of  justice,  may  be  done  ^ 
that  the  moral  laws,  wliich  are  binding  in  ordi- 
nary cases,  may  then  be  dispensed  with;  and 
that  private  justice  must  give  way  lo  public  ne- 
cessity." Wliich  was  the  protector's  govern- 
ing principle  in  all  his  unwarrantable  stretches 
of  power.  A  third  principle  by  which  the  pro- 
tector was  misled  was,  his  determining  the 
goodness  of  a  cause  by  its  success.  An  appeal 
to  the  sword  was  with  him  an  appeal  to  God  ; 
and  as  victory  inclined,  God  owned  or  discoun- 
tenanced the  cause.  It  is  impossible  that  a 
man's  conduct  could  be  just  or  consistent  while 
it  was  directed  by  sueli  mistaken  principles 

It  has  been  farther  objected  to  the  protector's 
character,  that  he  was  notoriously  guilty  of  hy- 
pocrisy and  dissimulation  both  to  God  and  man  ! 
that  he  mocked  God  by  the  pretence  of  piety 
and  devotion,  and  by  long  prayers  full  of  hypo- 
critical zeal.  But  who  can  penetrate  the  heart, 
to  see  whether  the  outward  actions  flow  from 
an  inward  principle  !  With  regard  to  men,  it  is 
certain  the  protector  knew  how  to  address  their 
passions,  and  talk  to  them  in  their  own  way; 
and  if  in  his  devotions  he  uttered  with  his 
mouth  what  his  heart  never  meant,  no  one  can 
vindicate  him  :  hut  men  are  not  slightly  to  be 
arraigned,  says  Ilapin,  for  the  inward  motions 
of  their  heart,  which  pass  all  human  knowledge. 
Besides,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  the  watcliful 
eyes  that  were  upon  him,  and  the  vast  difllcul- 
ties  he  had  to  contend  with.  Queen  Elizabeth's 
dissimulation  has  been  extolled  for  the  very 
same  reason  that  the  protector's  is  condemned  ; 
if,  therefore,  such  a  conduct  was  necessary  to 
govern   the   several   parties,  there   is   nothing 


theatrical  e.^hibitions.  There  was,  indeed,  a  remarka- 
ble e.yception,  in  his  permitting,  from  hatred  to  the 
Spaniards,  the  representation  of  a  performance  enti- 
tled "The  Cruelty  of  the  Spaniards  in  Peru.'' — Rns- 
cius  Atiglicanus,  p.  29,  ill  the  Literary  Museum,  8v0, 
printed  in  1702. — Ed. 

*  That  his  religious  character  was  not  originally 
assumed,  however  it  might  afterward  be  abused,  to 
carry  political  views,  and  was  prior  to  his  dignity  and 
power,  it  has  been  observed,  is  evinced  from  his  let- 
ters written  long  before  that  period,  and  from  what 
Jlilton  says  of  him  :  "  that,  being  arrived  to  matdy 
and  mature  age,  which  he  spent  as  a  private  person, 
and  noted  for  nothing  more  than  the  cultivation  of 
pure  religion  and  integrity  of  life,  he  was  grown 
wealthy  in  retirement  at  home." — Gibbon's  Funeral 
itennonfor  William  Cromwell,  o.  47,  48. — Ed. 


184 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


greatly  blameworthy  in  it,  says  the  same  author, 
unless  it  was  a  crime  in  him  not  to  put  it  into 
the  power  of  his  enemies  to  destroy  him  with 
the  greater  ease. 

Ambition  and  thirst  of  glory  might  sometimes 
lead  the  protector  aside,  for  he  uiiagined  himself 
to  be  a  second  Phineas,  raised  up  by  Providence 
to  be  the  scourge  of  idolatry  and  superstition  ; 
and  in  climbing  up  to  the  pinnacle  of  supreme 
power,  he  did  not  always  keep  within  the  bounds 
of  law  and  etiuily  :  to  this  passion  some  have 
ascribed  his  assuming  the  protectorship,  and 
putting  himself  at  the  head  of  three  kingdoms  ; 
though  others  are  of  opinion  it  was  owing  to 
hard  necessity  and  self-preservation.  I  will  not 
venture  to  decide  in  this  case ;  possibly  there 
might  be  a  mixture  of  both.  When  he  was  in 
possession  of  the  sovereign  power,  no  man  ever 
used  it  to  greater  public  advantage,  for  he  had 
_a  due  veneration  for  the  laws  of  his  country  in 
all  things  wherein  the  life  of  his  jurisdiction 
was  not  concerned  ;  and  though  he  kept  a  stand- 
ing army,  they  were  under  an  exact  discipline, 
and  very  little  burden  to  the  people. 

The  charge  of  cruelty,  which  is  brought 
against  him  lor  having  put  some  men  to  death 
for  conspiring  against  his  person  and  govern- 
ment, deserves  no  confutation,  unless  they 
would  have  had  him  sit  still  till  some  conspira- 
cy or  other  had  succeeded.  Cruelty  was  not  in 
his  nature  ;*  he  was  not  for  unnecessary  effu- 
sion of  blood.  Lord  Clarendon  assures  us  that, 
when  a  general  massacre  of  the  Royalists  was 
proposed  by  the  otTicers  in  council,  he  warmly 
opposed  and  prevented  it. 

Dr.  Welwoodt  compares  the  protector  to  an 
unusual  meteor,  which  with  its  surprising  influ- 
ence overawed  not  only  three  kingdoms,  but  the 
most  powerful  princes  and  states  about  us.  A 
great  man  he  was,  says  he,  and  posterity  might 
have  paid  a  just  homage  to  his  memory,  if  he 
had  not  imbrued  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  his 
prince,  and  trampled  upon  the  liberties  of  his 
country. 

Upon  the  whole,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that 
the  character  of  tliis  great  man  has  been  trans- 
mitted down  to  posterity  with  some  disadvan- 
tage, by  the  several  factions  of  Pv-oyalists,  Pres- 
byterians, and  Republicans,  because  each  were 
disappointed,  and  enraged  to  see  the  supreme 
power  wrested  from  them  :  but  his  management 
is  a  convincing  proof  of  his  great  abilities  ;  he 
was  at  the  helm  in  the  most  stormy  and  tem- 
pestuous season  that  England  ever  saw  ;  but, 
by  his  consummate  wisdom  and  valour,  he  dis- 
concerted the  measures  and  designs  of  his  ene- 
mies, and  preserved  both  himself  and  the  com- 
monwealth from  shipwreck.  I  shall  only  ob- 
serve farther,  with  Rapin,  that  the  confusions 
which  prevailed  in  England  after  the  death  of 
Cromwell  clearly  evidence  the  necessity  of  this 

*  Such  was  the  sensibility  of  his  spirit,  that  if  an 
account  were  given  him  of  a  distressed  case,  the  nar- 
ration would  draw  tears  from  his  eyes.  It  speaks 
strongly  in  favour  of  his  temper  and  his  domestic  de- 
portment, that  the  daughter  of  Sir  Francis  Russol, 
married  to  his  second  son  Henry,  who,  before  her 
marriage,  had  entertained  an  ill  opinion  of  his  father 
Oliver,  upon  her  coming  into  the  family  felt  all  lier 
prejudice  removed,  and  changed  into  a  most  affec- 
tionate esteem  for  her  father-in-law,  as  the  most  ami- 
able of  parents. —  Gibbon's  Funeral  Sermon  for  Will- 
iam Cromwell,  Esq.,  p.  46.— Ed.  t  P-  102. 


usurpation,  at  least  till  the  Constitution  couM 
be  restored.  After  his  death  his  great  achieve- 
ments were  celebrated  in  verse  by  the  greatest 
wits  of  the  age,  as  Dr.  Sprat,  afterward  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  Waller,  Dryden,  and  others,  who 
in  their  panegyrics  outdid  everything  which  till 
that  time  had  been  written  in  the  English  lan- 
guage.* 

Four  divines  of  the  assembly  died  this  year ; 
Dr.  John  Harris,  son  of  Richard  Harris,  of  J3uck- 
inghamstiirc,  horn  in  the  parsonage  house  of 
Hardwick  in  the  same  county,  educated  in  Wick- 
ham  school  near  Winchester,  and  in  the  year* 
1606  admitted  perpetual  fellow  of  New  College. 
He  was  so  admirable  a  Grecian  and  eloquent  a 
preacher,  that  Sir  Henry  Saville  called  iiim  a 
second  St.  Chrysostom.  In  1619  he  was  cho- 
sen Greek  professor  of  the  university.  He  was- 
afterward  prebendary  of  Winchester,  rector  of 
Meonstoke  in  Hampshire,  and  in  the  year  1630, 
warden  of  Wickham  College,  near  Winchester  ; 
in  all  which  places  he  behaved  with  great  repu- 
tation. In  the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars  he 
took  part  with  the  Parliament,  was  chosen  one 
of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  took  the  Covenant, 
and  other  oaths,  and  kept  his  wardenship  till  his- 
death ;  he  published  several  learned  works,! 
and  then  died  at  Winchester,  August  11,  1658, 
aged  seventy  years. 

Mr.  Sydrach  Sympson,  a  meek  and  quiet  di- 
vine of  the  Independent  persuasion,  was  educa- 
ted in  Cambridge,  but  forced  to  fly  his  country 
for  nonconformity  in  the  times  of  Archbishop 
Laud.  He  was  one  of  the  dissenting  brethren 
in  the  Assembly,  and  behaved  with  great  tem- 
per and  moderation. t  Bishop  Kennet  says  he 
was  silenced  for  some  time  from  preaching,  be- 
cause he  differed  in  judgment  from  the  Assem- 
bly in  points  of  church  discipline,  but  was  re- 
stored to  his  liberty  October  28,  1646.  He  af- 
terward gathered  a  congregation  in  London,  af- 
ter the  manner  of  the  Independents,  which  met 
in  Ab  Church,  near  Cannon-street.  Upon  the 
resignation  of  Mr.  Vines  in  the  year  1650.  for 
refusing  the  Engagement,  he  was  by  the  visit- 
ers made  master  of  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge. 
He  was  a  divine  of  considerable  learning,  and 
of  great  piety  and  devotion.  In  his  last  sick- 
ness he  was  under  some  darkness  and  melan- 
choly apprehensions  ;  upon  which  account  some 
of  his  friends  and  brethren  assembled  in  his 
own  house  to  assist  him  with  their  prayers ; 
and  in  the  evening,  when  they  took  their  leave, 
he  thanked  them,  and  said  he  was  now  satisfled 

*  The  reader  is  referred  to  the  Appendix  for  a 
view  of  the  character  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  drawn 
from  various  works. — C. 

t  His  principal  work  was  "  A  View  of  the  Life  of 
Dr.  Arthur  Lake,  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  1629." 
— C. 

t  Dr.  Grey  calls  Mr.  Sympson  a  celebrated  preach^ 
er  o{  rebellious  principles ;  which  is  plain,  he  says, 
from  the  following  extract  from  one  of  his  discours- 
es :  "Reformation  is  liable  to  inhuman  treacheries. 
Pharaoh's  dealing  was  very  treacherous.  He  Iwde 
the  people  go;  gave  them  liberty  by  proclamation; 
and  when  he  bad  got  them  at  an  advantage, he  brought 
np  an  army  to  cut  thein  off.  The  reforming  of  the 
Church  will  meet  with  such  kind  of  enemies."  If 
Dr.  Grey  had  not  been  accustomed  to  ascribe  rebellion 
to  all  the  Puritan  divines,  he  would  have  been  unable 
to  find  rebellious  doctrine  in  this  passage.  Brook* 
says  it  would  puzzle  both  the  universities  to  detect 
the  treason. — C. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


IS^ 


in  his  sou] ;  and  lifting  up  his  hands  towards 
heaven,  said,  "  He  is  come,  he  is  come;"  and 
that  night  died. 

Dr.  Roi)erl  Harris  was  born  at  Broad  Camden 
in  Gloucestershire,  1578,  and  educated  in  Mag- 
dalen College,  Oxon.  He  preached  for  some 
time  about  Oxford,  and  settled  afterward  at 
Hanwell,  in  the  place  of  famous  Mr.  Dodd,  then 
suspended  for  nonconformity  ;*  here  he  contin- 
ued till  I  he  breaking  out  of  the  civil  wars,  when 
by  the  king's  soldiers  he  was  driven  to  London. 
lie  was  appointed  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines, and  m'nister  of  St.  Botolph,  Bishopsgate. 
In  the  year  1646  he  was  one  of  the  six  preach- 
ers to  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  next  year 
one  of  their  visiters,  when  he  was  created  D.D. 
and  made  president  of  Trinity  College,  and  rec- 
tor of  Garlington,  near  Oxford,  which  is  always 
annexed  to  it.  Here  he  continued  till  his  death, 
governing  his  college  with  a  paternal  affection, 
being  reverenced  by  the  students  as  a  father. 
The  inscription  over  his  grave  gives  him  a 
great  character;  but  the  Royalists  charge  him, 
and  I  believe  justly,  with  being  a  notorious  plu- 
ralist.f  He  died  December  11,  1653,  in  the 
eightieth  year  of  his  age.f. 

Mr.  William  Carter  was  educated  in  Cam- 
bridge, and  afterward  a  very  popular  preacher 
in  London.  He  was  a  good  scholar,  of  great 
seriousness,  and  though  a  young  man,  appoint- 
ed one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  After  some 
time  he  joined  the  Independents,  and  became 
one  of  the  dissenting  brethren  in  the  Assembly. 
He  had  offers  of  many  livings,  but  refused  them, 
being  dissatisfied  with  the  parochial  discipline 
of  those  times  ;  nevertheless,  he  was  indefati- 
gable in  his  ministry,  preaching  twice  every 
Lord's  Day  to  two  large  congregations  in  the 
city,  besides  lectures  on  the  week  days :  this 
wasted  his  strength,  and  put  an  end  to  his  life 
about  midsummer,  1658,  in  the  fifty-third  year 
of  his  age.  His  family  were  afterward  great 
sufferers  by  the  purchase  of  bishops'  lands. 


-«^1>» 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  INTERREGNUM  FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  OLIVER 
CROMWELL  TO  THE  REST0R.\T[0N  OF  KING 
CH.^RLES  11.  .4ND  THE  RE-ESTABHS)IMENT  OF 
THE     CHURCH    OF    ENGL.4ND.        1659. 

Upon  the  death  of  the  protector,  all  the  dis- 
contented spirits  who  had  been  subdued  by  his 
administration  resumed  their  courage,  and  with- 
in the  compass  of  one  year  revived  the  confu- 


*■  Dr.  Harris  did  not  conceive  any  one  external 
form  to  be  so  essential  to  a  cluircb,  but  that  it  might 
still  deserve  that  name,  though  under  a  Presbyterian, 
or  Independent,  or  Episcopal  form,  so  long  as  it 
was  kept  within  the  bounds  of  those  general  rules 
laid  down  in  the  Scriptures. — Life  of  Dr.  Harris,  p. 
318.— 0. 

t  Against  this  charge,  if  the  truth  of  it  should  be 
admitted,  ought  to  be  set  his  charity,  which,  we  are 
told,  exceeded  the  ordinary  proportion  of  his  revenues. 
— Ed.  Dr.  Walker,  that  most  mendacious  of  all  his- 
torians, rests  the  evidence  of  this  accusation  on  the 
authority  of  a  scurrilous  letter  published  to  pour 
contempt  upon  the  Puritans. — See  Brooks's  Lives  of 
the  Piirilans,  vol.  hi.,  p.  307. — C. 

i  Clarke's  Lives,  in  his  Martyrology,  p.  314-339. 

Vol.  II  —A  A 


sions  of  the  preceding  ten.  Richard  Cromweli 
being  proclaimed  protector  upon  his  father's  de 
cease,  received  numberless  addresses  from  all 
parts,*  congratulating  his  accession  to  the  dig- 
nity of  protector,  with  assurances  of  lives  and 
fortunes  cheerfully  devoted  to  support  his  title. 
He  was  a  young  gentleman  of  a  calm  and  peace- 
able temper,  but  had  by  no  means  the  capacity 
or  resolution  of  his  father,  and  was  therefore 
unfit  to  be  at  the  helm  in  such  boisterous  times. 
He  was  highly  caressed  by  the  Presbyterians, 
though  he  set  out  upon  the  principles  of  gener- 
al toleration,  as  appears  by  his  declaration  of 
November  25,  entitled  "  A  Proclamation  for  the 
better  encouraging  godly  Ministers  and  oth- 
ers ;"  and  for  their  enjoying  their  dues  and  lib- 
erties, according  to  law,  without  being  molest- 
ed with  indictments  for  not  using  the  Common 
Prayer  Book.t 


*  Of  these  addresses  Dr.  Grey  says,  "  Nothing 
ever  exceeded  them  in  point  of  flattery,  except  those- 
canting  addresses  of  the  Dissenters  to  King  James 
upon  his  indulgence ;"  and  he  gives  several  at  length,, 
as  specimens  of  the  strain  of  adulation  in  which  they 
were  drawn  up,  from  different  corporations;  from 
which  the  reader  will  see  that  mayors,  recorders, 
and  aldermen  of  that  day  could  rival  the  Independ- 
ent ministers,  whom  the  doctor  reproaches  as  "  most 
foully  guilty,"  in  their  elfusions  of  (lattery.  In  truth, 
all  were  paying  their  devoirs  to  the  rising  sun. — Ed. 

t  "  The  Presbyterian  discipline  and  synodical  gov- 
ernment," says  Mr.  Hallam,  "were  very  partially  in- 
troduced ;  and,  upon  the  whole,  the  church,  during 
the  suspension  of  the  ancient  laws,  was  rather  an 
assemblage  of  congregations  than  a  compact  body, 
proving  little  more  unity  than  resulted  from  their 
common  dependancy  on  the  temporal  magistrate. 
In  the  time  of  Cromwell,  who  favoured  the  Independ- 
ent sectaries,  some  of  that  denomination  obtained 
livings;  but  very  few,  I  believe,  comparatively,  who 
had  not  received  either  Episcopal  or  Presbyterian 
ordination.  The  right  of  private  patronage  to  bene- 
fices, and  that  of  tithes,  though  continually  menaced 
by  the  more  violent  party,  subsisted  without  altera- 
tion."— Const.  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  427.  The  anoma- 
lous condition  of  the  ecclesiastical  affairs  led  to  the 
possession  of  church  livings  by  a  few  Independent 
and  Baptist  ministers.  The  fact  is  notorious,  and 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  principles  of  the  par- 
ties in  question.  Independency  is  founded  on  the 
voluntary  character  of  religion.  This  is  the  element 
in  which  it  lives,  and  moves,  and  has  its  being.  It 
is  its  universal  and  all-pervading  attribute  ;  the  sim- 
ple but  majestic  doctrine  which  it  lisped  in  its  infan- 
cy, and  the  distinct  enunciation  of  which  constitutes 
the  glory  of  its  manhood.  It  is,  therefore,  matter  of 
surprise  that  any  Congregationalist  should  so  far 
have  forgotten  what  was  due  to  their  own  consisten- 
cy as  to  have  received  the  constrained  report  of  their 
people.  The  violation  of  their  principles  in  this  case 
was  as  real  as  in  the  more  palpable  forms  sometimes 
assumed  by  the  coercive  principle  when  it  had  dic- 
tated the  modes  of  religious  worship,  and  furnished 
the  slightest  departure  from  an  established  creed  and 
ritual.  To  compel  others  to  support  religion  is  to 
admit  the  seminal  principle  of  persecution  ;  while  it 
subjects  the  recipients  of  such  tribute  to 'a  host  of 
noxious  influences,  from  which  no  personal  excel- 
lences can  wholly  protect  them.  Nor  can  the  con- 
sistency of  the  ])arties  in  question  be  defended  on 
the  ground  that,  though  th(>y  occupied  the  edifices, 
and  received  the  stipend  allotted  by  the  state,  they 
did  not  regard  themselves  as  parochial  ministers.  The 
churches  which  they  formed  approximated,  it  is  true, 
more  nearly  to  the  Congregational  than  to  any  other 
model ;  but  there  were  incongruous  elements  in  their 
constitution,  which,  had  time  permitted,  could  not 
fail  to  have  produced  the  most  lamentable  results. 
Like  the  image  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  system  was 


186 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


The  yonng  protector  summoned  a  Parliament 
to  meet  on  the  27tli  of  January,  1658-9.  The 
elections  were  not  according  to  the  method 
practised  by  his  father,  but  according  to  the  old 
Constitution,  because  it  was  apprehended  that 
the  smaller  boroughs  might  he  more  easily  in- 
fluenced than  cities  and  counties  ;  but  it  was 
ill  judged  to  break  in  upon  the  instrument  of 
government,  by  which  he  held  his  protectorship. 
The  Parliament  met  according  to  appointment, 
but  did  little  business,  the  Lower  House  not  be- 
ing willing  to  own  the  Upper.  The  army  was 
divided  into  two  grand  factions :  the  Walling- 
ford  House  party,  which  was  for  a  common- 
wealth ;  and  the  Presbyterian,  which,  with  the 
majority  of  the  Parliament,  was  for  the  protect- 
or. The  Wallingford  House  party,  of  which 
Jleetwood  and  Desborough  were  the  head,  in- 
vited Dr.  Owen  and  Dr.  Manton  to  their  con- 
sultations. Dr.  Owen  went  to  prayer  before 
they  entered  on  business,  but  Dr.  Manton,  be- 
ing late  before  he  came,  heard  a  loud  voice  from 
within  saying.  He  must  down,  and  he  shall 
down.  Manton  knew  the  voice  to  be  Dr. 
Owen's,  and  understood  him  to  iriean  the  de- 
posing of  Richard,  and  therefore  would  not  go 
in.  But  the  writer  of  Dr.  Owen's  life  discred- 
its this  story  ;  though,  in  my  opinion,  it  is  very 
probable,  for  the  doctor  inclined  to  a  Republican 
government ;  he  sided  with  the  army,  and  drew 
up  their  address  against  Oliver's  being  king ; 
upon  which,  he  decimed  in  the  protector's  fa- 
vour,, and  as  soon  as  Krichard  became  chancel- 


partly  gold  and  partly  clay,  imposing  and  beautiful 
it  maybe  to  the  eye,  but  destined  speedily  to  become 
"  like  the  chaff  of  the  summer  threshing-floor."  Mil- 
ton's keen  vision  detected  and  exposed  the  inconsist- 
ency. "  Independency  and  state  hire  in  religion," 
he  remarks,  "can  never  consist  long  or  certainly  to- 
gether ;  for  magistrates,  at  some  time  or  other,  will 
pay  none  but  such  whom,  by  their  committees  of 
examination,  they  find  conformable  to  their  interests 
and  opinions.  And  hirelings  will  soon  frame  them- 
selves to  that  interest,  and  those  opinions  which  they 
see  best  pleasing  to  their  paymasters ;  and,  to  seem 
light  themselves,  will  force  others  as  to  the  truth." 
Such  is  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Price  upon  the  state  of 
the  Church  at  this  jieriod.  Yet  the  inconsistency 
was  more  apparent  than  real,  in  some  cases  at  least. 
The  Independent  or  Baptist  minister  consented  to 
occupy  the  vacant  pulpit  of  a  parish,  but  threw  him- 
self entirely  on  the  voluntary  support  of  the  people. 
This  appears  to  have  been  the  case  with  John  Good- 
win, who  replied  in  the  following  language  to  a  vio- 
lent attack  upon  his  character  by  the  celebrated 
Prynne  :  "  I  am  charged  with  receiving  their  tithes. 
My  answer  is,  that  I  demand  no  tithes  of  any  of 
them,  nor  ever  had  any  right  to  do  it.  Nor  have  I 
ever  received  any  tithes  from  them  in  the  nature  of 
tithes,  but  as  their  voluntary  contribution.  The 
parsonage  is  impropriate  in  the  parishioners'  hands  ; 
the  vicarage  is  only  endowed  with  eleven  pounds 
])er  annum.  For  the  last  half  year  I  have  received 
little  above  twenty  pounds,  e.xcepting  only  one  half 
of  the  yearly  rent  of  a  small  house,  let  sometimes 
b\it  for  twelve  pounds,  and  never  for  above  fourteen 
pounds  a  year.  Out  of  which  sum.  twelve  pounds 
ten  shillings  being  deducted  for  the  rent  of  my  house, 
the  remainder  is  of  as  low  a  proportion  as  envy  her- 
self can  desire  for  the  maintenance  of  a  minister, 
his  wife,  and  seven  children,  in  such  an  expensive 
place  as  this  city.  If  Mr.  Prynne  knew  how  small 
a  portion  of  subsistence  I  receive,  and  what  my  la- 
bour and  pains  are,  I  verily  believe  that,  instead  of  up- 
braiding me  with  '  receiving  tithes,'  he  would  pity 
me  that  I  received  no  more." — Jackson's  Life  of  Good- 
:win,  p.  68. — C. 


lor  of  O.xford,  he  turned  him  out  of  the  vice- 
chancellorship.  The  cabinet-council  at  Wall- 
ingford House  having  gained  over  several  to 
their  party,  prevailed  with  Richard  to  consent 
to  their  erecting  a  general  council  of  officers, 
though  he  could  not  but  know  they  designed  his 
ruin,  being  all  Republicans  ;  and  therefore,  in- 
stead of  supporting  the  protector,  they  present- 
ed a  remonstrance,  complaining  of  the  advance- 
ment of  disaffected  persons,  and  that  the  good 
old  cause  was  ridiculed.  Richard,  sensible  of 
his  fatal  mistake,  by  the  advice  of  Lord  Brog- 
hill  dissolved  the  council,  and  then  the  Parlia- 
ment voted  they  should  meet  no  more  ;  but  the 
officers  bid  him  defiance,  and  like  a  company  of 
sovereign  dictators  armed  with  power,  sent  the 
protector  a  peremptory  message  to  dissolve  the 
Parliament,  telling  him  that  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  keep  both  the  army  and  Parliament 
at  his  devotion,  but  that  he  might  choose  which 
he  would  prefer  ;  if  he  dissolved  the  Parliament, 
he  might  depend  upon  the  army  ;  but  if  he  re- 
fused, they  would  quickly  pull  him  out  of  White- 
hall. Upon  this,  the  timorous  gentleman  being 
at  a  plunge,  and  destitute  of  his  father's  cour- 
age, submitted  to  part  with  the  only  men  who 
could  support  him. 

After  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament,  Rich- 
ard became  a  cipher  in  the  government  ;  Lord 
Broghill,  afterward  Earl  of  Orrery,  advised  him 
to  the  last  to  support  the  Parliament  and  de- 
clare against  the  council  of  officers  ;  and  if  he 
had  allowed  the  captain  of  his  guard  at  the  same 
time  to  have  secured  Fleetwood  and  Desbor- 
ough, as  he  undertook  to  do  with  the  hazard  of 
his  life,  he  might  have  been  established  ;  but 
the  poor-spirited  protector  told  him  that  he  was 
afraid  of  blood  ;  upon  which  the  captain,  Lord 
Howard,  made  his  peace  with  the  king.*  The 
officers  at  Wallingford  House,  having  carried 
their  point,  published  a  declaration  about  twelve 
days  after,  without  so  much  as  asking  the  pro- 
tector's leave,  inviting  the  remains  of  the  Long 
Parliament  to  resume  the  government,  who  im- 
mediately declared  their  resolutions  for  a  com- 
monwealth without  a  single  person,  or  House 
of  Peers.  Thus  was  the  grandeur  of  Crom- 
well's family  destroyed  by  the  pride  and  resent- 
ment of  some  of  its  own  branches  ;  Fleetwood 
had  married  the  widow  of  Ireton,  one  of  Oliver's 
daughters,  and  being  disappointed  of  the  pro- 
tectorship by  his  last  will,  was  determined  that 
no  single  person  should  be  his  superior.  Des- 
borough, who  had  married  Oliver's  sister,  joined 
in  the  fatal  conspiracy.  Lambert,  whom  Oli- 
ver had  dismissed  the  army,  was  called  from 
his  retirement  to  take  his  place  among  the 
council  of  officers.  These,  with  Sir  H.  Vane, 
and  one  or  two  more  behind  the  curtain,  sub- 
verted the  government,  and  were  the  springs 
of  all  the  confusions  of  this  year,  as  is  evident 
by  the  letters  of  Mr.  Henry  Cromwell,  lord- 
lieutenant  of  Ireland,  now  before  me,  who  saw 
farther  into  their  intrigues  at  that  distance,  than 
the  protector,  who  was  upon  the  spot.  I  shall 
take  the  liberty  to  transcribe  some  passages  out 
of  them  to  my  present  purpose. 

Upon  the  sur[)risiog  news  of  Oliver's  death, 
he  writes  to  his  brother,  September,  18,  1658, 

*  See  the  dialogue  between  Richard  and  How- 
ard, marked  SS..  in  Aoble's  House  of  Cromwell,  vol. 
i.,  p.  330.— C. 


HISTORY  OF    THE    PURITANS. 


187 


"  I  am  so  astonished  at  the  news  of  my  dear 
father's  sickness  and  death,  that  I  know  not 
what  to  say  or  write  on  so  grievous  an  occa- 
sion ;  but  the  happy  news  of  leaving  your  high- 
ness his  successor  gives  some  relief,  not  only 
on  account  of  the  public,  but  of  our  poor  fami- 
ly, which  the  goodness  of  God  has  preserved 
from  the  contempt  of  our  enemies.  I  may  say, 
without  vanity,  that  your  highness  has  been 
proclaimed  here  with  as  great  joy  and  general 
satisfaction  (I  believe)  as  in  the  best-affected 
places  of  England  ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  of  the 
dutiful  compliance  of  the  army.  Now,  that  the 
God  of  your  late  father  and  mine,  and  your  high- 
ness's  predecessor,  would  support  you,  and  pour 
down  a  double  portion  of  the  same  spirit  that 
was  so  eminently  in  him,  and  would  enable  you 
to  walk  in  his  steps,  and  do  worthily  for  his 
name,  namesake,  and  people,  and  continually 
preserve  you  in  so  doing,  is  the  prayer  of 

"Yours,  &c.,  H.  C." 

In  another  letter  of  the  same  date,  sent  by  an 
express  messenger,  he  writes,  that  "  he  had 
caused  a  very  dutiful  address  to  be  sent  to  the 
army,  which  had  been  already  signed  by  several 
of  the  field  officers,  and  when  perfected,  should 
be  sent  to  him  as  a  witness  against  any  single 
officer  that  should  hereafter  warp  from  his  obe- 
dience ;  so  that  I  may  and  do  assure  your  high- 
ness of  the  active  subjection  of  this  army  to 
your  government,  and  will  answer  for  it  with 
my  life." 

In  his  letter  of  October  20,  1658,  he  says,  "  If 
the  account  be  true  which  I  have  received  of 
the  state  of  affairs  in  England,  I  confess  it  is  no 
more  than  I  looked  for,  only  I  had  some  hopes 
it  might  have  been  prevented  by  keeping  all  of- 
ficers at  their  respective  charges  ;  but,  as  things 
now  stand,  I  doubt  the  flood  is  so  strong  you 
can  neither  stem  it  nor  come  to  an  anchor,  but 
must  be  content  to  go  adrift  and  expect  the  ebb. 
I  thought  those  whom  my  father  had  raised  from 
nothing  would  not  so  soon  have  forgot  him,  and 
endeavour  to  destroy  his  famdy  before  he  is  in 
his  grave.  Why  do  I  say  I  thought,  when  I 
know  ambition  and  affection  of  empire  never 
had  any  bounds  1  I  cannot  think  these  men  will 
ever  rest  till  they  are  in  the  saddle ;  and  we 
have  of  late  years  been  so  used  to  changes,  that 
it  will  be  but  a  nine  days'  wonder ;  and  yet  I 
fear  there  is  no  remedy,  but  what  must  be  used 
gradually  and  pedeicnitm.  Sometimes  I  think 
of  a  Parliament,  but  am  doubtful  whether  sober 
men  will  venture  to  embark  themselves  when 
things  are  in  so  high  a  distraction  ;  or  if  they 
would,  whether  the  army  can  be  restrained  from 
forcing  elections.  I  am  almost  afraid  to  come 
over  to  your  highness,  lest  I  should  be  kept 
there,  and  so  your  highness  lose  this  army, 
which,  for  aught  I  know,  is  the  only  stay  you 
have,  though  I  cannot  but  earnestly  desire  it. 
I  also  think  it  dangerous  to  write  freely  to  you, 
for  I  make  no  question  but  all  the  letters  will 
be  opened  that  pass  between  us,  unless  they 
come  by  a  trusty  messenger.  I  pray  God  help 
you,  and  bless  your  councils. 

"I  remain  yours,  &c.  H.  C." 

In  a  letter  of  the  same  date  to  his  brother-in- 
law  Fleetwood,  he  writes  : 
"  Dear  Brother, 

"  I  received  your  account  of  the  petition  of 


the  officers  ;  but  pray  give  me  leave  to  expos- 
tulate with  you :  How  came  these  two  or  three 
iiundied  officers  together^  If  they  came  of 
their  own  heads,  their  being  absent  from  their 
charge  without  license  would  have  flown  in 
their  face  when  they  petitioned  for  a  due  observ- 
ance of  martial  discipline.  If  they  were  called 
together,  were  they  not  also  taught  what  to 
say  and  do  1  If  they  were  called,  was  it  with 
his  highness's  privity  1  If  they  met  without 
leave  in  so  great  a  number,  were  they  told  of 
their  error!  I  shall  not  meddle  with  the  mat- 
ter of  their  petition  ;  but,  dear  brother,  I  must 
tell  you,  I  hear  that  dirt  was  thrown  upon  his 
late  highness  at  that  great  meeting ;  that  they 
were  exhorted  to  stand  up  for  that  good  old 
cause  which  had  long  lain  asleep.  I  thought 
my  father  had  pursued  it  to  the  last.  He  died 
praying  for  those  that  desired  to  trample  on  his 
dust.  Let  us,  then,  not  render  evil  for  good, 
and  make  his  memory  stink  before  he  is  under 
ground.  Let  us  remember  his  last  legacy,  and 
for  his  sake  render  his  successor  considerable, 
and  not  make  him  vile,  a  thing  of  naught,  and 
a  by-word.  Whither  do  these  things  tend? 
What  a  hurly-burly  is  there  !  One  hundred  In- 
dependent ministers  called  together  ;  a  council, 
as  you  call  it,  of  two  or  three  hundred  officers 
of  a  judgment.  Remember  what  has  always 
befallen  imposing  spirits.  Will  not  the  loins  of 
an  imposing  Independent  or  Anabaptist  be  as 
heavy  as  the  loins  of  an  imposing  prelate  or 
presbytery  !  And  is  it  a  dangerous  opinion,  that 
dominion  is  founded  in  grace,  when  it  is  held 
by  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  a  sound  principle 
when  it  is  held  by  the  fifth-monarchy  men  1 
Dear  brother,  let  us  not  fall  into  the  sins  of  oth- 
er men,  lest  we  partake  of  their  plagues.  Let 
it  be  so  carried,  that  all  tlie  people  of  God, 
though  under  different  forms ;  yea,  even  those 
whom  you  count  without,  may  enjoy  their  birth- 
right and  civil  liberty  ;  and  that  no  one  party 
may  tread  upon  the  neck  of  another.  It  does 
not  become  the  magistrate  to  descend  into  par- 
ties ;  but  can  the  things  you  do  tend  to  this 
end?  Can  these  things  be  done,  and  the  world 
not  think  his  highness  a  knave  or  a  fool,  or  op- 
pressed with  mutinous  spirits?  Dear  brother, 
my  spirit  is  sorely  oppressed  with  the  consider- 
ation of  the  miserable  state  of  the  innocent  peo- 
ple of  these  nations  :  what  have  these  sheep 
done  that  their  blood  should  be  the  price  of  our 
lust  and  ambition  ?  Let  mo  beg  you  to  remem- 
ber how  his  late  highness  loved  you  ;  how  he 
honoured  you  with  the  highest  trust,  by  leaving 
the  sword  in  your  hand,  which  must  defend  or 
destroy  us.  And  his  declaring  his  liighness  his 
successor  shows  that  he  left  it  there  to  pre- 
serve him  and  his  reputation.  O  brother  !  use 
it  to  curb  extravagant  spirits  and  busy-bodies, 
but  let  not  the  nations  be  governed  by  it.  Let 
us  take  heed  of  arbitrary  power  ;  let  us  be  gov- 
erned by  the  known  laws  of  the  land  ;  and  let 
all  things  be  kept  in  their  proper  channels  ;  and 
let  the  army  be  so  gorverned,  that  the  world 
may  never  hear  of  them  unless  there  be  occa- 
sion to  fight.  And  truly,  brother,  you  must  par- 
don me  if  I  say  God  and  man  may  require  this 
duty  at  your  hand,  and  lay  all  miscarriages  of 
the  army,  in  point  of  discipline,  at  your  door. 
You  see  I  deal  freely  and  plainly  with  you,  as 
becomes  your  friend  and  a  good  subject ;   and 


188 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


the  great  God,  in  whose  presence  I  speak,  knows 
that  I  do  it  not  to  reproach  you.  but  out  of  my 
tender  affection  and  faithCuhiess  to  you.  And 
you  may  rest  assured  that  you  sliall  always  tind 
me  your  true  friend  and  hiving  brother. 

"H.  C." 

In  other  letters  to  Lord  BroghiJl,  afterward 
Earl  of  Orrery,  with  whom  he  maintained  an  in- 
timate correspondence,  "  he  complains  of  his  be- 
ing forbid  to  come  over  into  England  ;  and  that 
the  clause  in  his  new  commission  was  left  out ; 
namely,  the  power  of  appointing  a  deputy,  or  ju- 
ries, in  order  to  prevent  his  coming  over  to  Eng- 
land, which  he  hopes  his  highness  will  permit, 
there  being  much  more  cause  to  press  it  now 
than  ever."  "  I  find,'.'  says  he,  in  a  letlerto  the 
protector,  "that  my  enemies  have  sentenced 
me  to  an  honourable  banishment ;  I  am  not 
conscious  of  any  crime  which  might  deserve  it; 
but  if  they  can  denounce  judgment  upon  my  in- 
nocence, they  will  easily  be  able  to  make  me 
criminal.  They  have  already  begot  a  doubt 
among  my  friends  whether  all  be  right  ;  but  I 
will  rather  submit  to  any  sufferings  witli  a  good 
name,  than  be  the  greatest  man  upon  earth  with- 
out it."  In  a  letter  to  Secretary  Thurloe,  he 
writes,  "  that  since  he  was  not  allowed  to  leave 
Ireland,  he  could  do  no  more  than  sit  still  and 
look  on.  The  elections  for  Parliament  are  like 
to  be  good  here,"  says  he,  "  though  I  could  wish 
the  writs  had  come  timely,  that  the  members 
might  have  been  there  before  they  had  been  ex- 
cluded by  a  vote,  which,  it  is  said,  will  be  the 
first  thing  brought  upon  the  stage."  From 
these,  and  some  other  of  his  letters,  it  is  natu- 
ral to  conclude  that  Lieutenant-general  Fleet- 
wood was  at  the  head  of  the  councils  which 
deposed  Richard,  which  might  be  owing  either 
to  his  Republican  principles,  or  to  his  disap- 
pointment of  the  protectorship.  However,  when 
he  found  he  could  not  keep  the  army  within 
bounds,  who  were  for  new  changes,  he  retired 
from  public  business,  and  spent  the  remainder 
of  his  life  privately  among  his  friends  at  Stoke 
Newington,  where  he  died  soon  after  the  Revo- 
lution, being  more  remarkable  for  piety  and  de- 
votion than  for  courage  and  deep  penetration  in 
politics.* 

To  return  :  After  the  Rump  Parliament  had 
sat  about  a  week,  the  officers  petitioned,  "  I. 
That  the  laws  might  have  their  free  course.  2. 
That  all  public  debts  unsatisfied  might  be  paid. 
3.  That  all  who  profess  faith  in  the  holy  Trini- 
ty, and  acknowledge  the  Holy  Scriptures  to  be 
the  revealed  will  of  God,  may  have  protection 
and  encouragement  in  the  profession  of  their 
religion,  while  they  give  no  disturbance  to  the 
state,  except  papists,  Prelatists,  and  persons  who 
teach  licentious  doctrines.  4.  That  the  two  uni- 
versities, and  all  schools  of  learning,  may  be 
countenanced.  5.  That  those  who  took  part 
with  the  king  in  the  late  wars,  or  are  notorious- 
ly disaffected  to  the  Parliament's  cause,  may 
be  removed  from  all  places  of  trust.     6.  That 


*  "  He  thought  that  prayers  superseded  the  use  of 
carnal  weapons,  and  that  '  it  was  sufficient  to  tru.^t 
in  the  hand  of  Providence,  without  exerting  the  arm 
of  flesh.'  He  would  fall  on  his  knees  and  pray  when 
he  heard  of  a  mutiny  among  the  soldiers;  and  was 
with  the  uttnost  difficulty  roused  to  action  on  sever- 
al emergencies." — Granger's  History  of  J^ngland,  vol. 
lii.,  8vo,  p.  17.— Ed 


the  protector's  debts  be  paid,  and  an  nllowane* 
of  .£10,000  per  annum  be  allowed  to  Richard 
and  his  heirs  forever.  7.  That  there  may  be  a 
representative  of  the  people,  consisting  of  one 
house,  successively  chosen  by  the  pec.ple ;  and 
that  the  government  of  the  nation  may  be  pla- 
ced in  such  a  representative  body,  with  a  select 
senate  co-ordinate  in  power;  and  that  the  ad- 
ministration of  all  executive  |  ower  of  govern- 
ment may  be  in  a  council  of  stale,  consisting  ol 
a  convenient  nuinber  of  persons  eminent  for 
godliness,  and  who  are  in  principle  for  the  pres- 
ent cause  " 

The  Parliament  thanked  the  officers  for  their 
petition,  but  postponed  the  affair  relating  to 
Richard  till  he  should  acquiesce  in  the  change 
of  government.  The  protector,  having  parted 
with  the  Parliament,  who  were  his  chief  sup- 
port, had  not  the  resolution  to  strike  a  bold 
stroke  for  three  kingdoms,  but  tamely  submitted 
to  resign  his  high  dignity,*  by  a  writing  under 
his  hand,  alter  he  had  enjoyed  it  eight  months. 
How  little  the  soul  of  Oliver  survived  in  his  son 
Richard  may  be  seen  by  this  conduct !  His 
brother  Henry, t  who  was  at  the  head  of  an  ar- 
my in  Ireland,  offered  to  come  immediately  to 
his  assistance,  but  was  forbid,  and  the  timorous 
young  gentleman  returned  to  a  private  life  with 
more  seeming  satisfaction  than  he  had  accept- 
ed the  sovereignty.}     Upon  his  quitting  White- 


*  Richard  Cromwell  has  been  reproached  as  "ex- 
tremely jiusillanimoiis,"  as  "a  lool  and  a  sot,"  and 
"  a  titmouse  prince,"  because  he  yielded  to  the  times, 
and  relinquished  power  and  royalty.  "  But,  in  the 
name  of  common  sense,"  says  Dr.  Harris,  with  virtu- 
ous animation,  "what  was  there  weak  and  foolish  in 
laying  down  a  burden  too  heavy  for  the  shoulders  ! 
What  in  preferring  the  peace  and  wellure  of  men  to 
blood  and  confusion,  the  necessary  consequences  of 
retaining  the  government?  Or  what,  in  a  word,  in 
resigning  the  power  to  such  as,  by  experience,  had 
been  found  fully  equal  to  it,  and  intent  on  promoting 
the  common  welfare?  Ambition,  glory, iame, sound 
well  in  the  ears  of  the  vulgar;  and  men,  excited  by 
them,  have  seldom  failed  to  figure  in  the  eyes  of  thij 
world  :  bnt  the  man  who  can  divest  himself  of  em- 
pire for  the  sake  of  his  fellow-men,  must,  in  the  eye 
of  reason,  be  entitled  to  a  much  higher  renown  than 
the  purpled  hero  who  leads  them  on  to  slaughter, 
though  provinces  or  kingdoms  are  gained  to  him. 
thereby." 

Ambition,  cease  •  the  idle  contest  end  ; 

'Tis  but  a  kingdom  thou  canst  win  or  lose. 

And  why  must  murder'd  myriads  lose  their  all 

(If  life  be  all)  ;  why  desolation  lour 

With  famish 'd  frown  on  this  afTriphted  ball. 

That  thou  mayst  (lame  the  meteor  of  an  hour  ? — Mason. 

—Harris's  Life  of  Charles  II.,  vol.  i.,  p.  214.— En. 

t  Had  He'nry  been  the  first-born  of  his  father, 
probably  Charles  II.  would  never  have  succeeded  to 
the  throne  of  his  ancestors.  Henry  is  .said  to  havs 
resembled  his  father  not  only  in  person,  but  in  mind. 
— C. 

I  For  his  conduct  at  this  period,  Richard  has  been 
accused  of  fe^hleness  and  pusillanimity.  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson says  in  her  Jlemoirs,  "  He  was  a  meek,  tem- 
perate, and  quiet  man,  hut  had  not  a  sj>irit  fit  to  suc- 
ceed his  father  or  to  manage  such  a  jierplexed  gov- 
ernment." Certainly,  had  he  plunged  the  nation  into 
a  war!  and  had  he  put  to  death  two  or  three  of  his 
most  factious  opponents,  he  might  possibly  have  re- 
mained in  power  for  a  longer  season.  He  entertain- 
ed, however,  a  strong  disinclin.Ttion  to  shed  blood  ; 
and  rather  than  owe  his  aggrandizement  to  crime,  re<- 
turtied  peaceably  to  the  private  station  I'rorn  which 
he  had  sprung,  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  which  his 
nature  was  peculiarly  adapted.      By  the  Cavaliers- 


HISTOilY   OF   TflE    PURITANS. 


189 


hall,  and  the  other  royal  palaces,  the  Parliament 
voted  hiin  a  iiiaiiitetiaiice,  but  refused  to  concern 
themselves  witli  his  lather's  del)ts,*  the  payment 
whereof  swept  away  the  greatest  part  ot  his  es- 
tate, which  was  far. from  being  large,  consider- 
ing the  high  prelerments  his  father  had  enjoyed 
for  several  years.  This  was  a  farther  contempt 
thrown  Uj)on  the  protector's  memory  ;  former 
obligations  were  forgotten,  and  a  new  council 
of  state  being  chosen,  the  nation  seemed  to 
slide  peaceably  into  a  commonwealth  govern- 
ment. 

The  Presbyterians  would  have  been  content 
with  Richard's  government ;  hut  seeing  no  like- 
lihood of  restoring  the  Covenant,  or  coming 
into  power,  by  the  Rump  Parliament,  which 
was  chiefly  made  up  of  enthusiasts  and  decla- 
red enemies  to  monarchy,  they  entered  into  a 
kind  of  confederacy  with  the  Royalists  to  re- 


and  Republicans,  the  course  adopted  by  Richard 
was  of  coarse  ridiculed,  and  affected  to  be  despised. 
iSiich  lenns  as  "  Queen  Dick,"  "  Tumble-down  Dick." 
and  '■  the  meek  kiiight,"  were  plenteously  bestowed 
upon  hiin.  Heath  styles  bun  a  "milksop;"  Lord 
Clarendon,  a  "  poor  creature  ;"  and  Bishop  VVaibur- 
ton,  a  "  poltroon."  Of  his  true  character  and  of  the 
real  motives  of  his  conduct,  historians  jirobably  will 
ever  remain  divided  in  opinion.  Kicluird  resided  on 
the  Coutineiil  till  16S0,  principally  in  Pans.  On  las 
return,  lie  settled,  under  the  name  of  Richard  Clarke, 
at  Cheshuiit.  Here,  with  the  e.KCeption  (if  exchan- 
ging occasional  visits  with  a  few  friends,  he  passed 
the  remainder  of  his  long  lite  in  peace  and  seclusion. 
Dr.  vVatts,  who  was  one  of  his  most  favoured  inti- 
mates, used  to  mention  that  only  on  one  occasion 
had  he  heard  any  allusion  troin  the  recluse  as  to  his 
loriner  greatness,  and  then  but  in  an  indirect  man- 
ner. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  many  fulsome  ad- 
dresses which  were  poured  upon  the  new  protector 
on  his  tirst  accession  to  power.  They  Hew  to  him, 
says  Anthony  Wood,  '•  from  all  parts  of  the  three  na- 
tions to  salute  and  magnify  his  assumption  to  the 
sovereignty,  wherein  he  was  celebrated  for  the  ex- 
cellence of  his  wisdom  and  nobleness  ot  his  mind," 
(Sec.  On  his  expulsion  from  VVIntehall,  Richard, 
showing  particular  anxiety  about  the  safety  of  two 
old  trunks,  a  friend,  somewhat  surprised,  inquired 
the  reason  of  Ihis  extraordinary  interest.  "  fhey 
contain,"  said  the  ex-protector,  '"no  less  than  the 
lives  and  fortunes  of  the  people."  The  fact  is,  tbey 
were  the  addresses  which  he  had  received  in  the 
zenith  of  his  glory,  in  which  he  was  spoken  of  as 
the  saviour  ot  his  country,  and  as  the  person  on 
whom  alone  depended  the  lives  and  liberties  of  the 
three  kingdoms. 

liichard  died  at  Cheshunt,  1712,  in  his  86th  year  ; 
he  seems  to  have  been  a  religious  character,  and  at- 
tended service  alternately  at  the  Established  Church 
and  at  the  Baptist  meeting  in  Romsey. — Jescs's  Court 
of  the  Stuarts,  vol.  111.,  p.  170-2.  Noble,  vol.  i.,  p.  183. 
— C. 

*  The  Parliament  instituted,  however,  an  inquiry 
into  the  debts  of  Richard  Cromwell,  and  a  schedule 
.of  them  was  given  in;  by  which  it  appeared  ihat 
Richard,  even  alter  having  reduced  his  lather's  deljts 
from  .£28,000  to  £23,550,  owed  .£21),tJ40.  It  was  re- 
solved to  acquit  Richard  Cromwell  from  this  debt, 
and  to  provide  for  the  payment  of  it  by  the  sale  of  the 
plate,  hangings,  goods,  and  furniture  in  Whitehall 
and  Hampton  Court,  belonging  to  the  state,  which 
could  be  conveniently  spared.  It  was  also  resolved 
to  seitle  on  hiin  an  annuity  of  £8700,  so  as  to  make 
to  him  with  his  own  fortune  a  yearly  income  ol 
.£10,00.).  Uiit,  through  the  changes  that  followed, 
Richard  Cromwell  derived  no  benelit  from  these  reso- 
lutions.—  Grey's  Examination,  vol.  hi.,  p.  241.  Dr. 
Harris's  Life  of  Charles  II.,  vol.  i.,  p.  108,  &c. — Ed. 


store  the  king  and  the  old  Constitution.  The 
particulars  of  this  union  (says  liapin)  are  not 
known,  because  the  historians  who  write  of  it, 
being  Royalists,  have  not  thought  fit  to  do  so 
much  honour  to  the  Presbyterians.  But  it  is 
generally  agreed  that  from  this  time  the  Pres- 
byterians appeared  no  longer  among  the  king's 
enemies,  but  very  much  promoted  his  restora- 
tion. Upon  the  foundation  of  this  union  an  in- 
surrection was  formed  in  several  parts  of  the 
country,  which  was  discovered  by  Sir  Richard 
Willis,  a  correspondent  of  .Secretary  Thurloe's, 
so  that  Sir  George  Booth,  a  Presbyterian,  had 
an  opportunity  of  appearing  about  Chester,  at 
the  head  of  live  or  six  hundred  men,  declaring 
for  a  free  Parliament,  without  mentioning  the 
king;  but  he  and  Sir  Thomas  Middleton,°who 
joined  him,  were  defeated  by  Lambert,  and 
made  prisoners.*  The  king  and  Duke  of  York 
came  to  Calais,  to  be  in  readiness  to  embark  in 
case  it  succeeded,  but  upon  the  news  of  its 
miscarriage  they  retired,  and  his  majesty,  in 
despair,  determined  to  rely  upon  the  Roman 
Catholic  powers  for  the  future.  Several  of  the 
Presbyterian  ministers  appeared  in  this  insur- 
rection, as  the  Reverend  Mr.  Newcombe,  of 
Manchester,  Mr.  Eaton,  of  Walton,  and  Mr. 
Finch,  chaplain  to  Sir  George  Booth,  all  after- 
ward ejected  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity. 

The  Parliament,  to  secure  the  Republican 
government,  first  appointed  an  oath  of  abjura- 
tion, whereby  they  renounced  allegiance  to 
Charles  Stuart,  and  the  whole  race  of  King 
James,  and  promised  fidelity  to  the  comiiion- 
wealih,  wihout  a  single  person  or  the  House  of 
Peers.  They  then  attempted  the  reduction  of 
the  army,  which  had  set  them  up,  depending 
upon  the  assurances  General  Monk  had  given 
them  fnun  Scotland,  of  his  army's  entire  sub- 
mission to  their  orders  ;  but  the  English  offi- 
cers, instead  of  submitting,  stood  in  their  own 
defence,  and  presented  another  petition  to  the 
House,  desiring  their  former  address  from  VVal- 
lingford  House  might  not  lie  asleep,  but  that 
Fleetwood,  whom  they  had  chosen  for  their  gen- 
eral, might  be  confirmed  in  his  high  station. 
The  House  demurred  upon  the  petition,  and  see- 
ing there  was  like  to  be  a  new  contest  for  do- 
minion, endeavoured  to  divide  the  officers,  by 
cashiering  some,  and  paying  others  their  arrears. 
Upon  this,  the  officers  presented  a  third  petition 
to  the  same  purpose  ;  but  the  Parliament,  being 
out  of  all  patience,  told  them  their  complaints 
were  wiymutjust  grounds,  and  cashiered  nine 
of  their  chiefs,  among  whom  were  Lieutenant- 
general  Fleetwood,  Lambert,  Desborough,  Ber- 
ry, Kelsey,  Gobbet,  and  others  of  the  first  rank  ; 
by  means  whereof  things  were  brought  to  this 
crisis,  that  the  army  must  submit  to  the  Par- 
liament, or  instantly  dissolve  them.  The  dis- 
carded officers  resolved  on  the  latter,  for  which 
purpose,  October  13,  Lambert  with  his  forces 
secured  all  the  avenues  to  the  Parliament  House, 
and  as  the  speaker  p.issed  by  Whitehall,  he  rode 
up  to  bis  coach,  and  having  told  him  there  was 
nothing  to  he  done  at  Westminster,  command- 
ed Major  Creed  to  conduct  him  hack  to  his 
house.  At  the  same  time  all  the  members  were 
stopped  in  their  passage,  and  prevented  from  ta- 

*  The  Parliament  so  much  resented  this  insurrec- 
tion, that_  they  disfranchised  the  city  of  Chester. — 
Dr.  Grey's  Examinalton,  vol.  ill.,  p!  242. —  ^^.u. 


190 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


king  their  seats  in  Parliament,  Fleetwood  hav- 
ing placed  a  strong  guard  at  the  door  of  the  Par- 
liament House  for  that  purpose.  Thus,  the  re- 
mains of  the  Long  Parliament,  after  they  had 
sat  five  months  and  six  days,  having  no  army 
to  support  them,  were  turned  out  of  their  house 
a  second  time  by  a  company  of  headstrong  of- 
ficers, who  knew  how  to  pull  down,  but  could 
not  agree  upon  any  form  of  government  to  set 
up  in  its  place. 

There  being  now  a  perfect  anarchy,  the  offi- 
cers, who  were  masters  of  the  nation,  first  ap- 
pointed a  council  of  ten  of  their  own  body  to 
take  care  of  the  public,  and  having  restored 
their  general  officers,  they  concluded  upon  a  se- 
lect number  of  men  to  assume  the  administra- 
tion, under  the  title  of  a  Committee  of  Safety, 
which  consisted  of  twenty-three  persons,  who 
had  the  same  authority  and  power  that  the  late 
council  of  state  had,  to  manage  all  public  affairs, 
till  they  could  agree  upon  a  new  settlement. 
The  people  of  England  were  highly  disgusted 
with  these  changes,  but  there  was  no  Parlia- 
ment or  king  to  fly  to  ;  many  of  the  gentry,  there- 
fore, from  several  parts,  sent  letters  to  Gen- 
eral Monk  in  Scotland,  inviting  him  to  march  his 
army  into  England  to  obtain  a  free  Parliament, 
and  promising  him  all  necessary  assistance. 

The  Committee  of  Safety,  being  aware  of 
this,  attempted  an  accommodation  with  Monk 
by  Clarges  his  brother-in-law,  but  without  suc- 
cess ;  for  they  had  not  sat  above  a  fortnight  be- 
fore they  received  letters  from  Scotland  full  of 
reproaches  for  their  late  violation  of  faith  to  the 
Parliament,  and  of  the  general's  resolution  to 
march  his  army  into  England  to  restore  tliem. 
Upon  this  Lambert  was  sent  immediately  to  the 
frontiers,  who,  quartering  his  soldiers  about 
Newcastle,  put  a  stop  to  Monk's  march  for 
about  a  month.  In  the  mean  time,  the  general, 
in  order  to  gain  time,  sent  commissioners  to 
London,  to  come  to  terms  with  the  Committee 
of  Safety,  who  were  so  supple,  that  a  treaty 
was  concluded  November  15,  but  when  it  was 
brought  to  Monk  he  pretended  his  commission- 
ers had  exceeded  their  instructions,  and  refused 
to  ratify  it.  The  Council  of  State,  therefore, 
which  sat  before  the  Rump  Parliament  was  in- 
terrupted, taking  advantage  of  this,  resolved  to 
gain  over  Monk  to  their  party,  and,  being  as- 
sembled privately,  sent  him  a  commission,  con- 
stituting him  general  of  the  armies  of  England. 
Scotland,  and  Ireland,  which  was  the  very  thing 
he  desired. 

At  this  juncture  died  Sergeant  Bradshaw, 
who  sat  as  judge  and  pronounced  sentence  of 
death  on  King  Charles  at  his  trial  :  he  died  with 
a  firm  belief  of  the  justice  of  putting  his  majes- 
ty to  death  in  the  manner  it  was  done,  and  said 
that  if  it  were  to  do  again,  he  would  be  the  first 
man  that  should  do  it :  he  was  buried  in  a  very 
pompous  manner  in  Westminster  Abbey,  being 
attended  by  most  of  the  members  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  and  other  gentlemen  of  quality,  No- 
vember 22,  1659,  but  his  body  was  not  suffered 
to  rest  long  in  its  grave.* 

*  At  the  Restoration  Bradshaw  was  exhumed,  and, 
with  Cromwell,  hanged  on  a  gallows  ;  and  on  the  30th 
of  January,  1660,  the  anniversary  of  Charles  I.'s  death, 
their  heads  were  set  upon  poles  on  the  top  of  West- 
minster Hall,  where  they  remained  twenty  years 

Noble's  House  of  Cromwell,  vol.  i.,  p.  290. — C. 


The  general  having  secured  Scotland,  and 
put  garrisons  into  the  fortified  places,  marched 
to  the  borders  with  no  more  than  five  thousand 
men  ;  but  while  Lambert  was  encamped  about 
Newcastle  to  oppose  his  progress,  it  appeared 
that  the  nation  was  sick  of  the  phrensies  of  the 
officers,  and  willing  to  prefer  any  government 
to  the  present  anarchy ;  Portsmouth  and  part 
of  the  fleet  revolted,  and  declared  for  a  free 
Parliament,  as  did  several  of  the  detachments 
of  the  army  ;  upon  which  Lambert  retired  to- 
wards London,  and  made  way  for  Monk's  enter- 
ing England.  The  Committee  of  Safety,  see- 
ing all  things  in  confusion,  and  not  knowing 
whom  to  trust,  resigned  their  authority,  and  re- 
stored the  Parliament,  which  met  again  Decem- 
ber 26,  and  would  now  have  been  glad  to  have 
had  Monk  back  again  in  Scotland  :  for  this  pur- 
pose, they  sent  letters  to  acquaint  him  with  their 
restoration,  and  that  now  he  might  return  to  his 
government  in  Scotland ;  but  the  general,  hav- 
ing entered  England  January  2,  continued  his 
march  towards  London,  designing  a  new  as 
well  as  a  free  Parliament.  When  he  came  to 
York,  Lord  Fairfax  received  him  into  that  city, 
and  declared  for  a  new  and  free  Parliament ;  as 
did  the  London  apprentices,  and  great  numbers 
of  all  ranks  and  orders  of  men,  both  in  city 
and  country.  The  Rump  being  suspicious  that 
Monk  had  some  farther  design,  either  of  estab- 
lishing himself  after  the  example  of  Cromwell, 
or  of  restoring  the  king,  obliged  him  to  take  the 
oath  of  abjuration  of  Charles  Stuart,  already 
mentioned,  and  to  swear  that,  by  the  grace  and 
assistance  of  Almighty  God,  he  would  be  true, 
faithful,  and  constant  to  the  Parliament  and 
commonwealth  ;  and  that  he  would  oppose  the 
bringing  in  or  setting  up  any  single  person  or 
House  of  Lords  in  this  commonwealth.  They 
also  sent  Mr.  Scot  and  Robinson  to  be  spies 
upon  his  conduct,  who  came  to  him  at  Leices- 
ter, where  he  received  addresses  from  divers 
parts,  to  restore  the  secluded  Presbyterian  mem- 
bers of  1648,  which  was  the  first  step  towards 
the  king's  restoration.  Thus  a  few  giddy  poli- 
ticians at  the  head  of  an  army,  through  ambition, 
envy,  lust  of  power,  or  because  they  knew  not 
what  to  carve  out  for  themselves,  threw  the 
whole  kingdom  back  into  confusion,  and  made 
way  for  that  restoration  they  were  most  afraid 
of,  and  which,  without  their  own  quarrels,  and 
insulting  every  form  of  government  that  had 
been  set  up,  could  not  have  been  accomplished. 

When  the  general  came  to  St.  Alban's,  he 
sent  a  message  to  desire  the  Parliament  to  re- 
move the  regiments  quartered  in  the  city  to 
some  distance,  which  they  weakly  complied 
with,  and  made  way  for  Monk's  entrance  with 
his  forces  in  a  sort  of  triumph,  February  3,  1659- 
60.  Being  conducted  to  the  Parliament  House, 
the  speaker  gave  him  thanks  for  his  great  and 
many  services  ;  and  the  general  having  returned 
the  compliment,  acquainted  the  House  "  that 
several  applications  had  been  made  to  him,  in 
his  march  from  Scotland,  for  a  full  and  free 
Parliament ;  for  the  admission  of  the  secluded 
members  in  1648,  without  any  previous  oath  or 
engagement,  and  that  the  present  Parliament 
would  determine  their  sitting.  To  all  which  he 
had  replied,  that  they  were  now  a  free  Parlia- 
ment, and  had  voted  to  fill  up  their  house  in  or- 
der to  their  being  a  full  Parliament ;  but  to  re- 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


101 


store  the  secluded  members  without  a  previous 
oath  to  the  present  government,  is  what  had 
never  been  done  in  England  ;  but  he  took  the 
liberty  to  add,  that  he  was  of  opinion  that  the 
fewer  oaths  the  better,  provided  they  took  care 
that  neither  the  Cavaliers  nor  fanatics  should 
have  any  share  in  the  administration." 

The  citizens  of  London  being  Presbyterians, 
fell  in  with  Monk,  in  hopes  of  a  better  estab- 
lishment, and  came  to  a  bold  resolution  in  com- 
mon council,  February  17,  to  pay  no  more  taxes 
till  the  Parliament  was  filled  up.  Upon  this, 
the  House,  to  show  their  resentment,  ordered 
the  general  to  march  into  the  city ;  to  seize 
eleven  of  the  most  active  common  councilmen, 
and  to  pull  down  their  gates,  chains,  and  port- 
cullisses.  This  was  bidding  them  defiance  at 
a  time  when  they  ought  to  have  courted  their 
friendship.  Monk,  having  arrested  the  com- 
mon councilmen,  prayed  the  Parliament  to  sus- 
pend the  execution  of  the  remaining  part,  but 
they  insisting  upon  his  compliance,  he  obeyed. 
The  citizens  were  enraged  at  this  act  of  vio- 
lence; and  Monk's  friends  told  him  that  his  em- 
broiling hmiself  with  the  city  in  this  manner 
would  inevitably  be  his  ruin,  for  without  their 
assistance  he  could  neither  support  himself  nor 
obtain  another  Parliament ;  people  being  now 
generally  of  opinion  with  Oliver  Cromwell,  that 
the  Rump  Parliament  was  designed  to  be  per- 
petual, and  their  government  as  arbitrary  as  the 
most  despotic  king.  Monk,  therefore,  convin- 
ced of  his  mistake,  resolved  to  reconcile  him- 
self to  the  magistracy  of  the  city,  in  order  to 
which,  he  sent  his  brother  Clarges  to  assure 
them  of  his  concern  for  what  he  had  done  ;  and 
having  summoned  a  council  of  officers  in  the 
night,  he  sent  a  letter  to  the  Parliament,  insist- 
ing upon  their  issuing  out  writs  to  fill  up  their 
house,  and,  when  filled,  to  rise  at  an  appointed 
time,  and  give  way  to  a  full  and  free  Parliament. 
Upon  reading  this  letter,  the  House  voted  him 
thanks,  and  sent  to  acquaint  him  that  they  were 
taking  measures  to  satisfy  his  request ;  but  the 
general,  not  willing  to  trust  himself  in  their 
hands,  broke  up  from  Whitehall,  and  having 
been  invited  by  the  Lord-mayor  of  London,  and 
the  chief  Presbyterian  ministers,  marched  his 
whole  army  into  the  city ;  and  a  common  coun- 
cil being  called,  he  excused  his  late  conduct, 
and  acquainted  them  with  the  letter  he  had  sent 
to  the  House,  assuring  them  that  he  would  now 
stand  by  them  to  the  utmost  of  his  power. 
This  appeased  the  angry  citizens,  and  caused 
them  to  treat  him  as  their  friend,  notwithstand- 
ing what  had  happened  the  day  before.  When 
the  news  of  this  reconciliation  was  spread 
through  the  town,  the  Parliament  were  struck 
with  surprise  ;  but  there  was  a  perfect  triumph 
among  the  people  ;  the  bells  rung,  bonfires  were 
made,  and  numbers  of  rumps  thrown  into  them, 
in  contempt  of  the  Parhament. 

The  general,  being  now  supported  by  the  cit- 
izens, proceeded  to  restore  the  secluded  mem- 
bers of  1648  who  were  of  the  Presbyterian 
party  :*  for  this  purpose,  he  appointed  a  confer- 
ence between  them  and  some  of  the  sitting 
members,  which  miscarried,  because  the  sitting 
members  could  not  undertake  that  the  Parlia- 
ment would  stand  to  their  agreement.     Upon 


*  Dr.  Grey  has  given  a  list  of  those  secluded  mem- 
bers.— Exatninatiun,  vol.  iii.,  p.  250. — Ed. 


which.  Monk  resolved  to  restore  them  immedi- 
ately by  force,  lest  the  Parliament  and  their 
army  should  come  to  an  accommodation,  and 
dislodge  him  from  the  city.  Accordingly,  he 
summoned  the  secluded  members  to  Whitehall, 
February  24,  and  having  acquainted  them  with 
his  design,  exhorted  them  to  take  care  of  the 
true  interest  of  the  nation,  and  told  them  "  that 
the  citizens  of  London  were  for  a  common- 
wealth, the  old  foundations  of  monarchy  being 
so  broken  that  it  could  not  be  restored  but  upon 
the  ruins  of  the  people,  who  had  engaged  for 
the  Parliament ;  for  if  the  king  should  return," 
says  he,  "he  will  govern  by  arbitrary  will  and 
power.  Besides,  if  the  government  of  the  State 
be  monarchical,  the  Church  must  follow,  and 
prelacy  he  brought  in,  which  I  know  the  nation 
cannot  bear,  and  have  sworn  against  it ;  and 
therefore  a  moderate,  not  a  rigid  Presbyterian 
government,  with  liberty  of  conscience,  will  be 
the  most  acceptable  way  to  the  Church's  settle- 
ment."* He  then  ol)liged  them  to  subscribe 
the  following  articles  :  "  1.  To  settle  the  armies 
so  as  to  preserve  the  peace.  2.  To  provide  for 
theirgupport,  and  pay  their  arrears.  3.  To  con- 
stitute a  council  of  state  for  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land. And,  4.  To  call  a  new  Parliament  and 
dissolve  tlie  present."  And  so  dismissed  them 
with  a  strong  party  of  guards  to  see  them  take 
their  places  in  the  House.  This  speech  was 
very  ditferent  from  what  is  pretended  the  gen- 
eral had  in  view,  and  seems  to  have  been  drawn 
up  by  some  of  the  more  moderate  Presbyteri- 
ans, with  whom  he  kept  a  close  correspodence. 
And  though  he  did  not  turn  the  members  out  of 
the  House  as  Cromwell  did,  yet  his  discharging 
the  Parliament-guards,  and  placing  a  strong 
body  of  his  own  horse  at  the  door,  without 
leave  of  the  Parliament,  gave  them  sufficiently 
to  understand  what  would  be  the  consequence 
of  their  making  opposition. 

The  House,  thus  enlarged,  became  entirely 
Presbyterian.  They  ratified  the  vote  of  De- 
cember, 1648,  viz.,  that  the  king's  concessions 
at  the  Isle  of  Wight  were  a  sufficient  ground 
for  peace.  They  annulled  the  Engagement  of 
1649.  They  put  the  militia  into  new  hands, 
with  this  limitation,  that  none  should  be  em- 
ployed in  that  trust  but  who  would  first  declare, 
under  their  hands,  that  they  believed  the  war 
raised  by  both  houses  of  Parliament  against 
the  king  was  just  and  lawful,  tih  such  time  as 
force  and  violence  were  used  upon  the  Parlia- 
ment, in  1648.  They  repealed  the  oath  of  ab- 
juration of  Charles  Stuart.  They  appointed  a 
new  council  of  state,  and  declared  for  a  free 
commonwealth  ;  for  a  learned  and  pious  minis- 
try ;  for  the  continuance  of  tithes,  and  for  the 
augmentation  of  smaller  livings  by  the  tenths 
and  first-fruits.  They  resolved  to  encourage 
the  two  universities,  and  all  other  schools  of 
learning.  And,  to  content  the  Independents, 
they  voted  that  provision  should  be  made  for  a 
due  liberty  of  conscience  in  matters  of  religion, 
according  to  the  Word  of  God. 

Thus  all  things  seemed  to  return  to  the  con- 
dition they  were  in  at  the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  The  Presbyterians  being  now  again  in 
the  saddle^  a  day  of  thanksgiving  was  kept; 
after  which,  the  city  ministers  petitioned  for  the 
redress  of  sundry  grievances;  as,  1.  "That  a 


*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  63,  64. 


ID2 


HISTORY    O  F    T II  E    P  L  U  1  T  A  N  S. 


more  efteciiial  course  be  taken  against  the  pa- 
pists. 2.  Tliat  the  Quakers  be  prohibited  open- 
ing their  shops  on  the  Sabbath-day.  3.  Thai  the 
publie  ministers  may  not  be  disturbed  in  their 
public  services."  They  requested  the  House  to 
estabhsh  the  Assembly's  Confession  of  Faith, 
Directory,  and  Catechisms;  to  appoint  persons 
for  approbation  of  ministers,  till  the  next  Par- 
liament should  take  Airther  order;  and  to  call 
another  Assembly  of  Divines,  to  be  chosen  by 
llie  ministers  of  the  several  counties,  to  heal 
the  divisions  of  the  nation.* 

In  answer  to  these  requests,  the  House  agreed 
to  a  bill,  March  2,  for  approbation  of  public  min- 
isters, according  to  the  Directory,  and  named 
Dr  Manton,  and  several  others  of  the  Presby- 
terian persuasion,  for  that  service  ;  which  pass- 
ed into  an  act  jMarch  14.  They  declared  for  the 
Assembly's  Confession  of  Faith,  except  the  thir- 
tieth and  thirty-first  chapters  of  the  discipline, 
and  appointed  a  committee  to  prepare  an  act, 
declaring  it  to  be  the  public  confession  of  faith 
of  the  Church  of  England.  The  act  passed  the 
House  March  5,  and  was  ordered  to  be  printed  ; 
Dr.  Reynolds,  Dr.  Manton,  and  Mr.  Calamy,  to 
have  the  care  of  the  press.  On  the  same  day 
they  ordered  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant 
to  be  reprinted,  and  set  up  in  every  church  in 
England,  and  read  publicly  by  the  minister  once 
every  year. 

Thus  Presbytery  was  restored  to  all  the  power 
it  had  ever  enjoyed  ;  and  the  ministers  of  that 
persuasion  were  in  full  possession  of  all  the  liv- 
ings in  England.  A  reform  was  made  in  the 
militia  ;  and  the  chief  places  of  profit,  trust,  and 
honour  were  put  into  their  hands.  The  army 
•was  in  disgrace,  the  Independents  deprived  of 
all  their  inlluence,  and  all  things  managed  by 
the  Presbyterians,  supported  by  Monk's  forces. 
After  this  the  Long  Parliament  passed  an  act 
for  their  own  dissolution,  and  for  calling  a  new 
Parliament  to  meet  April  25,  1660,  the  candi- 
dates for  which  were  to  declare,  under  their 
hands,  that  the  war  against  the  late  king  was 
just  and  lawful  ;t  and  all  who  had  assisted  in 
any  war  against  the  Parliament  since  January 
1,  1641,  they  and  their  sons  were  made  incapa- 
ble of  being  elected,  unless  they  had  since  mani- 
fested their  good  affection  to  the  Parliament. t 
They  then  appointed  a  new  council  of  state,  con- 
sisting of  thirty-one  persons,  to  take  care  of  the 
government ;  and  dissolved  themselves  March 
16,  after  they  had  sat,  with  sundry  intermis- 
sions, nineteen  years,  four  months,  and  thirteen 
days. 

We  are  now  come  to  the  dawn  of  the  Resto- 
ration, of  which  General  Monk  has  had  the  rep- 
utation of  being  the  chief  instrument.  This 
gentkman  was  the  son  of  Sir  Thomas  Monk,  of 
Pothendge  in  Devonshire,  and  served  the  king 
in  the  wars  fur  some  years;  but,  being  taken 
prisoner,  he  changed  sides,  and  acted  for  the 
Parliament.  He  al'terward  served  Oliver  Crom- 
well, and  was  by  him  left  commander-in-chief 


*  Keiiners  t^hron.,  p.  52,  75. 

+  This  was  the  requisition  put  to  such  as  sought 
a  conunission  in  the  army,  rather  than  to  candidates 
for  a  seat  in  Parliament ;  though  Kennet,  in  his  mar- 
gin, apjilies  ii  to  the  eligibility  of  members.  He  says 
nothing  01  the  candidates  being  obliged  to  sign  the 
declaration.  So  that  Mr.  Neal  is  not  quite  accurate 
in  his  statement  of  this  matter. — Ed. 

X  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  85 


of  the  forces  in  Scotland,  from  whence  he  now 
marched  into  England  to  restore  tiie  Parliament. 
Lord  Clarendon  and  Echard  say  "  he  vva<  of  a 
reserved  nature,  of  deep  thoughts,  and  of  few 
words;  and  what  he  wanted  in  fine  elocution, 
he  had  in  sound  judgment.  That  he  had  a  nat- 
ural secrecy  in  him,  prevalent  upon  all  his  cpial- 
ifications  of  a  soldier;  a  strong  body,  a  mind 
not  easily  disordered,  an  invincible  courage,  and" 
a  sedate  and  uniform  contempt  of  death,  with- 
out any  phrensy  of  fanaticism  or  superstition  to 
turn  his  iiead."  This  is  the  language  of  flattery. 
Others  have  set  him  forth  in  a  very  different 
light ;  they  admit  that  he  was  bold  and  enter- 
prising, but  had  nothing  of  the  gentleman,  nor 
had  any  depth  of  contrivance  ;  that  he  was  per- 
petually wavering,  and  betrayed  all  whom  he 
served  but  Cromwell.  Ludlow  says  he  was  a 
man  of  covetous  temper,  and  of  no  principles  ; 
of  a  vicious  life  and  scandalous  conversation. 
Father  Orleans  says  that  he  was  a  man  of  slow 
understanding.  And  Whitelocke  reports  that 
the  French  ambassador  said  lie  had  neither 
sense  nor  breeding.  The  truth  is,  he  had  a 
cloudy  head,  and  in  no  action  of  his  life  discov- 
ered a  quick  or  fine  genius.  Li  the  latter  part 
of  his  life  he  was  sordfdly  covetous,  and  sunk 
into  most  of  the  vices  of  the  times.  No  man 
ever  went  beyond  him  in  dissimulation  and  false- 
hood, as  appears  in  this  very  aflTair  of  the  king's 
restoration.  He  took  the  abjuration  oalh  once 
under  Oliver,  and  again  this  very  year,  whereby 
he  renounced  the  title  of  Charles  Stuart,  and 
swore  to  be  true  to  the  commonwealth,  without 
a  single  person  or  House  of  Lords.*  And  yet, 
in  his  first  message  to  the  king  by  Sir  John 
Grenville,  he  assures  his  majesty  that  his  heart 
had  been  ever  faithful  to  him,  though  he  had  not 
been  in  a  condition  to  serve  him  till  now.t 
When  he  came  with  his  army  to  London,  he 
assured  the  Rump  Parliament  of  his  cheerful 
obedience  to  all  their  commands,  and  desired 
thein  to  be  very  careful  that  the  Cavalier  party 
might  have  no  share  in  the  civil  or  military 
power.  When  he  restored  the  secluded  mem- 
bers, he  promised  the  Parliament  to  take  eflect- 
ual  care  that  they  should  do  no  hurt.  When 
the  comtnonwealth's  men  expressed  their  fears, 
and  asked  the  general  whether  he  would  join 
with  them  against  the  king,  he  replied,  "  I  have 
often  declared  my  resolution  so  to  do  ;"  and  ta- 
king Sir  Arthur  Haslerigge  by  the  hand,  he  said, 
"  I  do  here  protest  to  you,  in  the  presence  of 
all  these  gentleiitien,  that  I  will  oppose  to  the 
utmost  the  setting  up  of  Charles  Stuart,  a  sin- 
gle person,  or  a  House  of  Peers."  He  then  ex- 
postulated with  them  about  their  suspicions  : 
"  What  is  it  I  have  done  in  bringing  these  mem- 
bers into  the  House  1"  says  he.  "  Are  they  not 
the  same  that  brought  the  king  to  the  block, 
though  others  cut  off  his  head,  and  that  justly  V 
And  yet  this  very  man,  within  six  months,  con- 
demned these  persons  to  the  gallows.  Nay, 
farther,  the  general  sent  letters  to  all  the  re- 
giments, assuring  them  that  the  government 
should  continue  a  commonwealth,  that  they  had. 
no  purpose  to  return  to  their  old  bondage,  that 
is,  monarchy  ;  and  if  any  made  disturbances  in 
favour  of  Charles  Stuart,  he  desired  they  might 
be  secured.     So  tiiat,  if  tiiis  gentleman  was  in 


♦  WeUvood's  Mem.,  p.  117,  &c. 
t  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  459. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


193 


the  secret  of  restoring  the  king  from  his  en- 
trance into  England,  or  his  first  coining  to  Lon- 
don, I  may  challenge  all  history  to  produce  a 
scene  of  hypocrisy  and  dissimulation  equal  to 
his  conduct.  Dr  Welwood  adds,*  that  he  act- 
ed the  part  of  a  politician  much  better  than  that 
of  a  Christian,  and  carried  on  the  thread  of 
dissimulation  with  wonderful  dexterity.  Bish- 
op Burnet  differs  from  the  doctor,  and  says, 
that  "  though  he  had  both  the  praise  and  the 
reward,  yet  a  very  small  share  of  the  restora- 
tion belonged  to  him.  The  tide  ran  so  strong 
that  the  general  only  went  into  it  dexterously 
enough  to  get  much  fame  and  great  rewards. 
If  he  had  died  soon  after,  he  might  have  been 
more  justly  admired  ;  but  he  lived  long  enough 
to  make  it  known  how  false  a  judgment  men 
are  apt  to  make  upon  outward  appearance.'"! 

But  before  we  relate  the  particulars  of  the 
Restoration,  it  will  be  proper  to  consider  the 
abject  state  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the 
religion  of  the  young  king.  If  Cromwell  had 
lived  ten  or  twelve  years  longer,  Episcopacy 
might  have  been  lost  beyond  recovery,  for  by 
that  time  the  whole  bench  of  bishops  would 
have  been  dead,  and  there  would  have  been  none 
to  consecrate  or  ordain  for  the  future,  unless 
they  could  have  obtained  a  new  conveyance 
from  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  admitted  the  va- 
lidity of  Presbyterian  ordination.  This  was  the 
;ase  in  view,  which  induced  some  of  the  an- 
'■;ient  bishops  to  petition  the  king  to  fill  up  the 
i'acant  sees  with  all  expedition,  in  which  they 
were  supported  by  Sir  Edward  Hyde,  chancel- 
'or  of  the  exchequer,  who  prevailed  with  his 
/najesty  to  nommate  certain  clergymen  for  those 


*  Memoirs,  p.  117,  120. 

t  Burnet's  History,  voi.  i.,  p.  126, 12mo.  I  subjoin 
'he  following  from  another  source  :  "George  Monk 
was  a  gentleman  by  birth,  being  descended  of  a  very 
ancient  and  respectable  fanuly  in  Devonshire  ;  he 
was  related  to  the  blood  royal  by  his  great-grand- 
mother, daughter  of  Arthur  Flantagenet,  Viscount 
Lisle.  He  was  at  first  a  Royalist,  but  happening  to 
become  a  prisoner  to  ihe  Parliamentarians,  they  con- 
verted him  to  their  sentiments  ;  he  was  an  able  offi- 
cer, and  as  such,  rose  in  their  army.  The  elder  pro- 
tector trusted  him  much,  though  he  suspected  him 
of  being  inclined  to  the  interests  of  Charles  Stuart, 
but  he  was  a  good  subject  to  both  Oliver  and  Rich- 
ard :  after  the  ruin  of  the  latter,  he  was  at  a  loss 
which  side  to  declare  for,  and  had  thoughts  of  seat- 
ing himself  in  the  protectorship,  as  France  offered 
to  support  him;  but  he  was  ordered  to  espouse  the 
royal  interest  by  his  wife,  who  hail  been  his  mistress, 
and  is  said  to  have  been  the  daughter  of  a  blacksmith, 
to  whom  he  bore  an  implicit  obedience ;  therefore,  at 
the  expense  of  a  thousand  perjuries,  he  was  the  main 
instrument  in  seating  Charles  upon  the  throne  of  his 
ancestors ;  at  least,  in  causing  his  return  without 
any  conditions;  a  great  misfortune  to  the  royal  fam- 
ily, as  well  as  these  kingdoms.  He  was  rewarded 
■with  the  title  of  Duke  of  Albemarle,  honoured  with 
the  garter,  and  as  many  other  titles  and  places  as  he 
would  accept.  The  dukedom  became  e.xtinct  in  his 
son.  He  himself  died  January  4,  UuO,  and  was  buri- 
e<i  in  Westminster  Abbey  at  the  pubhc  expense,  and 
almost  in  regal  style.  His  duchess  died  January  23, 
i  few  days  after  him.  She  retained  that  vulgarity 
when  duchess  which  she  had  early  imbibed ;  she 
was  a  most  turbulent  woman,  and  Btonk  was  more 
fearful  of  her  than  an  army.  It  is  said  she  would 
even  give  him  manual  correction.  The  duke  was 
awkward  and  stupid  in  a  drawing-room,  and  respect- 
able only  in  the  camp." — Noble's  Memoirs  of  House 
of  Cromwell,  vol.  i.,  p.  389.— C. 
Vol.  ir.— B  b 


high  preferments,  and  sent  over  a  list  of  the 
names  to  Dr.  Barwick,  to  be  communicated  by 
him  to  the  Bishops  of  London,  Ely,  Sarum,  and 
others  who  were  to  be  concerned  in  the  conse- 
cration. It  was  necessary  to  carry  on  this  de- 
sign with  a  great  deal  of  secrecy,  lest  the  gov- 
erning powers  should  secure  the  bishops,  and 
by  that  means  put  a  stop  to  the  work.  It  was 
no  less  difficult  to  provide  persons  of  learning 
and  character  who  would  accept  the  charge, 
when  it  would  expose  them  to  sufferings,  as  be- 
ing contrary  to  the  laws  in  being,  and  whea 
there  was  no  prospect  of  restoring  the  Church. 
But  the  greatest  difficulty  of  all  was,  how  to 
do  it  in  a  canonical  manner,  when  there  were 
no  deans  and  chapters  to  elect,  and,  consequent- 
ly, no  persons  to  receive  a  conge  d'dirc,  accord- 
ing to  ancient  custom. 

Several  expedients  were  proposed  for  remo- 
ving this  difficulty.  Sir  Edward  Hyde  was  of 
opinion  that  the  proceeding  should  be  by  a  man- 
date from  the  king  to  any  three  or  four  bish- 
ops, by  way  of  collation,  upon  the  lapse,  for  the 
dean  and  chapters'  non-election.  But  it  was  ob- 
jected, that  the  supposal  of  a  lapse  would  im- 
pair the  king's  prerogative  more  than  the  colla- 
tion would  advance  it,  because  it  would  presup- 
pose a  power  of  election  pie  no  jure  in  the  deans 
and  chapters,  which  they  have  only  de  facilitate 
regia ;  nor  could  they  petition  for  such  a  license, 
because  most  of  the  deans  were  dead,  some 
chapters  extinguished,  and  all  of  them  so  dis- 
turbed that  they  could  not  meet  in  the  Chapter 
House,  where  such  acts  regularly  are  to  be  per- 
formed. 

Dr.  Barwick,*  who  was  in  England,  andcor- 


*  The  Dr.  Barwick  to  whom  Mr.  Neal  refers  was 
a  singular  and  eminent  character  at  this  period  :  an 
active  and  zealous  adherent  to  the  Kings  Charles  I. 
and  II.  He  managed  with  great  address  and  dex- 
terity the  correspondence  of  the  first  with  the  city 
of  London,  when  he  was  at  Oxford.  He  correspond- 
ed with  the  second  while  he  was  abroad;  and  was 
sent  by  the  bishops,  as  will  afterward  appear,  with 
their  instructions  to  him  at  Breda,  where  he  preach- 
ed before  him.  and  v^'as  made  one  of  his  chaplains. 
He  had  the  chief  hand  in  the  Querela  Cantabrigien- 
sis.  and  wrote  against  the  Covenant.  It  was  much 
owing  to  his  infiuence  that  the  Cambridge  plate  was 
presented  to  the  king ;  and  he  is  said  to  have  furnish- 
ed Lord  Clarendon  with  a  great  part  of  the  materi- 
als for  his  history.  He  was  so  dexterous  in  all  his 
communications  as  to  elude  the  vigilance  of  Thur- 
loe.  He  \vas4)orn  April  20,  1612,  at  Welherslack  in 
Wcstmorelarifi,  and  received  his  classical  learning  at 
Sedberg  School  in  Yorkshire,  where  he  distinguish- 
ed himself  by  acting  the  part  of  Hercules  in  one  of 
Seneca's  tragedies.  In  the  eighteenth  year  of  his 
age  he  was  sent  to  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge ; 
where,  so  eminent  were  his  aliilities  and  attainments, 
he  was  chosen,  when  he  v^ras  little  more  than  twen- 
ty, by  the  members  of  his  college,  to  be  their  advo- 
cate in  a  controverted  election  of  a  master,  which 
was  heard  before  the  privy  council.  He  resided 
some  time  in  Durham  House  in  London,  as  chaplain 
to  the  bishop.  Dr.  .Morton,  who  bestowed  on  him  a 
[irebend  in  his  cathedral,  and  the  rich  rectories  of 
VVolsingham  andof  Honghton-in-le-Spring.  Jn  1660, 
Charles  1 1,  promoted  him  to  the  deanery  of  Durham  ; 
and  before  the  end  of  the  year  he  was  removed  from 
that  dignity  to  the  deanery  of  St.  Paul's.  On  the 
18th  of  February,  1061,  he  was  chosen  prolocutor  of 
the  Convocation.  He  died  in  the  year  1664,  aged  fif- 
ly-two.  He  united  in  his  character,  with  his  loyal- 
ty, sincere  devotion  with  sanctity  of  manners,  and 
an  undaunted  sjurit  uniler  his  sufferings  in  the  royal 


194 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


responded  with  the  chancellor,  proposed  that 
his  majesty  sliould  grant  his  commissions  to  the 
bishops  of  each  province,  respectively  assem- 
bled in  provincial  council,  or  otherwise,  as 
should  be  most  convenient,  to  elect  and  conse- 
crate lit  persons  lor  the  vacant  sees,  with  such 
dispensative  clauses  as  sliould  be  found  neces- 
sary upon  the  emergency  of  the  case,  his  maj- 
esty signifying  his  pleasure  concerning  the  per- 
sons and  the  sees,  which  commission  may  bear 
date  before  the  action,  and  then  afterward  upon 
certificate,  and  petition  to  have  his  majesty's 
ratification  and  confirmation  of  the  whole  pro- 
cess, and  the  register  to  be  drawn  up  accord- 
ingly by  the  chief  actuary,  vviio  may  take  his 
memorials  hence,  and  make  up  the  record 
there.* 

Dr.  Bram.hall,  bishop  of  Derry,  was  for  the 
Irish  way,  where  the  king  has  an  absolute  pow- 
er of  nomination  ;  and,  therefore,  no  way  seem- 
ed to  him  so  safe  as  consecrating  the  persons 
nominated  to  void  sees  in  Ireland,  and  then  re- 
moving them  to  others  in  England,  which  he 
api)rehended  would  clearly  elude  all  these  for- 
malities, which  seemed  to  perplex  the  affair  ; 
but  this  was  thought  an  ill  precedent,  as  it  open- 
ed a  door  for  destroying  the  privileges  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  their  capitular  elections. 
The  old  Bishop  of  Ely  was  so  far  from  wishing, 
with  Dr.  Bramhall,  that  the  Irish  method  might 
be  introduced  into  England,  that  he  said,  if  he 
should  live  to  see  the  Church  restored,  he  would 
be  an  humble  suiter  to  his  majesty,  that  the 
privileges  of  the  English  Church,  in  their  elec- 
tions of  bishops,  might  be  introduced  into  Ire- 
land. 

Dr.  Wren,  bishop  of  Ely,  and  Dr.  Gosins,  of 
Peterborough,  were  for  an  expedient  something 
like  the  second,  to  which  the  court  agreed,  and 
Mr.  Chancellor  Hyde  wrote  to  Dr.  Barwick  for 
the  form  of  such  a  commission  as  they  judged 
proper,  and  urged  that  it  might  be  despatched 
with  all  possible  expedition.  The  chancellor 
had  this  affair  very  much  at  heart,  but  the  old 
bishops  were  fearful  lest  it  should  be  discover- 
ed, in  which  case  they  were  sure  to  be  the  suf- 
ferers. Dr.  Brownrigge,  of  Exeter,  and  Dr. 
Skinner,  of  Oxford,  declined  meddling  in  the  af- 
fair ;  the  rest  declared  their  willingness  to  ad- 
vance the  work,  but  lived  in  hopes  there  might 
be  no  occasion  for  the  hazard.  The  chancellor, 
in  one  of  his  letters,  says  the  king  was  much 
troubled  that  no  more  care  was  taken  of  the 
Church  by  those  who  should  be  the  guardians 
of  it.  He  censures  the  slowness  of  the  clergy, 
and  says  it  was  very  indecent,  when  their  af- 
flicted mother  was  in  extremity,  any  of  her  sons 
should  be  timorous  and  fearful.  Such  were  the 
chancellor's  narrow  prmciples,  who  seemed  to 
hang  the  essence  of  Christianity,  and  the  virtue 
of  all  Divine  ordinances,  upon  the  conveyance 
of  ecclesiastical  power  by  an  uninterrupted  suc- 
cession from  the  apostles. 

The  nonjurors  had  the  like  case  in  view  after 


cause,  for  which  he  was  imprisoned  in  a  dungeon  in 
the  Tower.  He  was  then  far  gone  in  a  consump- 
tion ;  but  living  upon  gruel  and  vegetables,  he,  after 
some  time,  recovered  to  a  miracle. — See  his  Life; 
and  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  ill.,  p.  257, 
8vo.— Ed. 

*  Life  of  Barwick,  p.  204.     Rennet's  Chron.,  p. 
14,  15. 


the  Revolution,  and  provided  for  it  in  the  best 
manner  they  could.  But  is  not  the  Christian 
world  in  a  sad  condition,  if  the  Christian  bish- 
op cannot  be  chosen  or  consecrated  without  a 
royal  mandate,  and  the  suffrage  of  a  dean  and 
chapter,  when  there  -were  no  such  officers  in  the 
Church  for  three  hundred  years  after  the  apostles  ? 
and  if  the  validity  of  all  sacerdotal  ministra- 
tions must  depend  on  a  regular  uninterrupted 
succession  from  St.  Peter  1  especially  as  Baro- 
nius,  a  popish  historian,  confesses  that,  in  a  suc- 
cession of  fifty  popes,  not  one  pious  or  virtuous 
man  sat  in  the  chair ;  that  there  had  been  no 
popes  for  some  years  together ;  and  at  other 
times  two  or  three  at  once;  and  when  the 
same  writer  admits  between  twenty  and  thirty 
schisms,  one  of  which  continued  fifty  years,  the 
Popes  of  Avignon  and  Rome  excommunica- 
ting each  other,  and  yet  conferring  orders  upon 
their  several  clergy.  How  impossible  is  it  to 
trace  the  right  line  through  so  much  confu- 
sion !* 

But  with  regard  to  the  king,  his  concern  for 
the  regular  consecration  of  Protestant  bishops 
was  a  mere  farce  ;  for  if  he  was  not  a  papist 
before  this  time,  it  is  certain  he  was  reconciled 
to  the  Church  of  Rome  this  year,  at  the  Pyr- 
enean  treaty  concluded  between  France  and 
wSpain  at  Fontarabia,  whither  he  had  repaired 
incognito  to  engage  them  in  his  interest.  Here 
the  king  stayed  twenty  days,  in  which  time  his 
majesty,  with  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  and  Sir  H. 
Bennet,  embraced  the  Roman  Catholic  religion. 
The  secret  of  this  affair  was  well  known  ta 
Lord  Clarendon,  though  he  is  pleased  to  men- 
tion it  with  great  tenderness.  "  It  is  believed," 
says  his  lordship,  "  by  wise  men,  that  in  that 
treaty  somewhat  was  agreed  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  Protestant  interest ;  and  that  in  a  short 
time  there  would  have  been  much  done  against 
it,  both  in  France  and  Germany,  if  the  meas- 
ures they  had  then  taken  had  not  been  shortly 
broken,  chiefly  by  the  surprising  revolution  in 
England,  which  happened  the  next  year,  and  also 
by  the  death  of  the  two  great  favourites  of  the 
two  crowns,  Don  Lewis  de  Haro,  and  Cardinal 
Mazarine,  who  both  died  not  long  after  it."t 
But  the  secret  of  the  king's  reconciliation  to 
the  Church  of  Rome  has  been  more  fully  ac- 
knowledged, of  late  years,  by  the  eldest  son  of 
Lord  Clarendon,  and  by  the  Duke  of  Ormond, 
who  declared  to  several  persons  of  honour,  that 
"  he  himself,  to  his  great  surprise  and  concern, 
accidentally,  in  a  morning  early,  saw  the  king  in 
the  great  church  on  his  knees  before  the  high 
altar,  with  several  priests  and  ecclesiastics 
about  him.  That  he  was  soon  after  confirmed 
in  his  sentiments  by  Sir  Henry  Bennet  and  the 
Earl  of  Bristol,  who  both  owned  the  king  to  be 
a  Catholic  as  well  as  themselves ;  but  it  was 
agreed  that  this  change  should  be  kept  as  the 
greatest  secret  imaginable."  There  is  another 
story,  says  Bishop  Kennet,  which  I  have  reason 


*  it  seems  almost  impossible  that  American  minr 
isters  can  be  so  infatuated  as  to  swallow  the  absurd- 
ities of  this  same  Divine  apostolical  succession' 
But  Prelacy  is  one  and  the  same  thing  in  all  ages, 
and  the  world  over.  The  claims  of  the  Bishop  of 
London  are  not  a  jot  more  revolting  than  those  of 
our  Right  Reverend  Fathers  in  God,  who  forbid  lay- 
men 10  speak  in  conventions,  or  dare  to  question 
their  apostolic  movements. — C. 

t  Echard,  p.  751. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


195 


to  think  true  :  "  Sir  H.  Bennet  was  soon  after 
seen  to  wait  on  the  king  from  mass,  at  which 
sight  the  Lord  Culpeper  had  so  much  indigna- 
tion, that  he  went  up  to  Bennet  and  spoke  to 
this  efieot :  '  I  see  what  you  are  at ;  is  this  the 
way  to  bring  our  master  home  to  hrs  three  king- 
doms 1  Well,  sir,  if  ever  you  and  I  live  to  see 
England  together,  I  will  have  your  head,  or  you 
shall  have  mine  ;'  which  words  struck  such  ter- 
ror upon  Sir  Harry  Bennet,  that  he  never  durst 
set  his  foot  in  England  till  after  the  death  of 
Lord  Culpeper,  who  met  with  a  very  surprising 
end  soon  after  the  king's  return."* 

But,  though  the  prime  ministers  of  France 
and  Spain  were  now  tirst  witnesses  of  his  maj- 
esty's abjuring  the  Protestant  religion,  there 
are  strong  presumptions  tliat  he  was  a  papist 
long  before,  even  before  his  brother  James,  if 
we  may  credit  the  testimony  of  liis  confessor. 
Father  Huddleston.t  To  the  proofs  of  this  fact, 
already  mentioned  under  the  year  1652, 1  would 
add  the  testimony  of  the  aujthor  of  the  Myste- 
ry of  Iniquity,  printed  1689,  who  writes  thus: 
"The  king's  [Charles  II. 'sj  apostacy  is  not  of 
so  late  a  date  as  the  world  is  made  commonly 
to  believe,  for  though  it  was  many  years  con- 
cealed, and  the  contrary  pretended  and  dissem- 
bled, yet  it  is  certain  he  abjured  the  Protestant 
religion  soon  after  the  exilement  of  the  royal 
family,  and  was  reconciled  to  the  Church  of 
Rome  at  St.  Germains  in  France.  Nor  were 
several  of  the  then  suffering  bishops  and  clergy 
ignorant  of  this,  though  they  had  neither  integ- 
rity nor  courage  to  give  the  nation  warning  of 
it."!  Bishop  Burnet,  in  the  History  of  his  Life 
and  Times,  confirms  this  testimony  from  the 
cardinal  minister,  who  sent  an  advertisement 
of  it  to  the  bishop  himself;  he  says,  "that  be- 
fore the  king  left  Paris  (which  was  in  June, 
1654)  he  changed  his  religion,  but  by  whose 
persuasion  is  not  yet  known  ;  only  Cardinal  de 
Retz  was  in  the  secret,  and  Lord  Aubigny  had 
a  great  hand  in  it.  Chancellor  Hyde  had  some 
suspicion  of  it,  but  would  not  sutler  himself  to 
believe  it  quite. "i^  And  Sir  Allen  Broderick  de- 
clared upon  his  deathbed  that  King  Charles 
II.  made  profession  of  the  popish  religion  at 
Fontainebleau  before  he  was  sent  out  of  France 
to  Cologne. 

The  Dutch  Protestants  suspected  the  change, 
but  the  king  denied  it  in  the  most  public  man- 
ner ;  for  when  he  was  at  Brussels  in  the  year 
1658,  he  wrote  the  following  letter  to  the  Rev- 
erend Mr.  Ca\vton,the  Presbyterian  minister  of 
the  English  congregation  at  Rotterdam  : 

"  Charles  Res. 
.  "  Trusty  and  well  beloved,  we  greet  you  well. 
We  have  received  so  full  testimony  of  your  af- 
fection to  our  person,  and  zeal  for  our  service, 
that  we  are  willing  to  recommend  an  affair  to 
you  in  which  we  arc  much  concerned.  We  do 
not  wonder  that  the  malice  of  our  enemies 
should  continue  to  lay  all  manner  of  scandals 
upon  us,  but  are  concerned  that  they  should  find 
credit  with  any  to  make  our  affection  to  the 
Protestant  religion  suspected,  since  the  world 
cannot  but  take  notice  of  our  constant  and  un- 
interrupted profession  of  it  in  all  places.     No 

*  Kennet,  p.  238.    f  Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  126. 

t  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  598. 

^  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  103,  104,  12mo. 


man  has  or  can  more  manifest  his  affection  to, 
and  zeal  for  the  Protestant  religion,  than  we 
have  done.  Now,  as  you  cannot  but  have  much 
conversation  with  the  ministers  of  the  Dutch 
Church,  we  presume  and  expect  that  you  will 
use  your  utmost  diligence  and  dexterity  to  root 
out  those  unworthy  aspersions  so  maliciously 
and  groundlessly  laid  upon  us  by  wicked  men  ; 
and  that  you  assure  all  that  will  give  credit  to 
you,  that  we  value  ourselves  so  much  upon  that 
part  of  our  title,  of  being  defender  of  the  faith, 
that  no  worldly  consideration  can  ever  prevail 
with  us  to  swerve  from  it,  and  the  Protestant 
religion  in  which  we  have  been  bred,  the  prop- 
agation whereof  we  shall  endeavour  with  our 
utmost  power.  Given  at  Bruxels,  November 
7,  in  the  tenth  year  of  our  reign." 

To  carry  on  the  disguise.  Dr.  Morley,  after- 
ward Bishop  of  Winchester,  was  employed  to 
write  an  apologetical  letter  to  Dr.  Trigland,  the 
Dutch  minister  at  the  Hague,  to  assert  and 
prove  the  king's  steadfastness  to  the  Reformed 
faith  and  communion.  The  letter  was  dated 
June  7,  1659,  a  little  before  the  king's  going  to 
the  Pyrenean  treaty,  to  engage  the  Roman 
Catholic  powers  for  his  restoration.* 

But  to  confirm  the  Presbyterians  farther,  and 
to  put  an  end  to  all  suspicions  of  his  majesty's 
being  turned  papist,  Sir  Robert  Murray  and  the 
Countess  of  Balcarras  were  employed  to  engage 
the  most  eminent  Reformed  ministers  in  France 
to  write  to  their  Presbyterian  brethren  in  Eng- 
land, and  assure  them  of  the  king's  steadfast- 
ness in  the  Protestant  faith,  and  to  excuse  his 
not  joining  with  the  church  at  Charenton.  Ac- 
cordingly, these  credulous  ministers,  not'being 
acquainted  with  the  secret,  wrote  to  their  breth- 
ren at  London  to  the  following  purpose: 

Monsieur  Raymond  Gaches,  pastor  of  the  Pv,e- 
formed  Church  at  Paris,  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bax- 
ter, March  23,  1659-60:  "I  know  what  odium 
has  been  cast  upon  the  king ;  some  are  dissat- 
isfied in  his  constancy  to  the  true  religion.  I 
will  not  answer  what  truly  may  be  said,  that  it 
belongs  not  to  subjects  to  inquire  into  the 
prince's  religion ;  be  he  what  he  will,  if  the 
right  of  reigning  belongs  to  him,  obedience  in 
civil  matters  is  his  due.  But  this  prince  never 
departed  from  the  public  profession  of  the  true 
religion  ;  nor  did  he  disdain  to  be  present  at 
our  religious  assemblies  at  Roan  and  Rochelle, 
though  he  never  graced  our  church  at  Paris 
with  his  presence,  which  truly  grieved  us."t 

Monsieur  Drelincourt,  another  of  the  French 
pastors  at  Paris,  writes,  March  24,  "  A  report  is 
here,  that  the  thing  which  will  hinder  the  king's 
restoration  is  the  opinion  conceived  by  some  of 
his  being  turned  Roman  Catholic,  and  the  fear 
that  in  time  he  will  ruin  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion. But  I  see  no  ground  for  the  report,  his 
majesty  making  no  profession  of  it,  but,  on  the 
contrary  has  rejected  all  the  aids  and  advanta- 
ges offered  him  upon  that  condition.  Charity 
is  not  jealous,  and  if  it  forbids  us  to  suspect  on 
slight  grounds  private  persons,  how  can  it  ap- 
prove jealousies  upon  persons  so  sacred  !  Be- 
sides, there  are  in  the  king's  family,  and  among 
his  domestics,  some  gentlemen  of  our  religion" 
and  my  old  friends,  who  at  several  times  have 
given  me  assurances  of  the  piety  of  this  prince, 
and  his  stability  in  the  profession  he  makes. 


*  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  95.  f  Ibid.,  p.  91,  92. 


196 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


Your  Prpshytrrians  are  now  intrusted  with  the 
honiiiir  of  our  cliurclirs  ;  if  they  recall  this 
prince  without  tlie  iiilervoning  of  any  foreign 
power,  tlif'v  will  acquire  to  lliemselves  immor- 
tal glory,  and  stop  their  mouths  forever,  who 
charge  us  falsely  as  enemies  to  royalty,  and 
make  appear  that  the  maxim,  No  bishop,  no 
king,  is  falsely  imputed  to  us." 

The  famous  Monsieur  Daillc,  of  Paris,  in  his 
letter  of  A\)r[\  7,  IfifiO,  writes  to  the  same  pur- 
pose :  "  I  know  it  is  reported  that  the  king  has 
changed  his  religion  ;  but  who  can  believe  a 
thing  so  contrary  to  all  probability!  Nothing 
of  this  appears  to  us  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  well 
know  that,  when  he  has  resided  in  places  where 
the  exercise  of  his  religion  is  not  permitted,  he 
has  always  had  his  chaplains  with  him,  who 
have  regularly  performed  Divine  service.  More- 
over, all  Paris  knows  the  anger  the  king  ex- 
pressed at  the  endeavours  that  were  used  to 
pervert  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  And  though 
it  is  objected  that  he  never  came  to  our  church 
at  Charenton,  yet,  as  we  are  better  informed  of 
this  than  any  one,  we  can  testily  that  religion 
was  not  the  cause  of  it,  but  that  it  was  upon 
political  and  prudential  considerations,  which 
may  be  peculiar  to  our  church,  for  he  has  gone 
to  sermon  in  Caen  and  some  other  towns;  and 
in  Holland  he  heard  some  sermons  from  the  fa- 
mous Monsieur  More,  our  present  colleague. 
Thus,  sir,  it  is  moie  clear  than  the  day,  that 
whatsoever  has  been  reported  till  this  time  of 
the  change  of  this  prince's  religion,  is  a  mere 
calumny."* 

Monsieur  de  I'Angle,  minister  of  the  Prot- 
estant Church  at  Rouen,  wrote  upon  the  same 
subject  to  his  friend  in  London,  more  fully  to 
evidence  the  king's  steadfastness  in  the  Prot- 
estant religion.  These  letters  were  printed  and 
industriously  spread  over  the  whole  kingdom. 

The  king  himself,  in  his  letter  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  says,  "Do  you  desire  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Protestant  religion  !  We  have,  by 
our  constant  profession  and  practice,  given  suf- 
ficient testimony  to  the  world  that  neither  un- 
kindness  of  those  of  the  same  faith  towards  us, 
nor  the  civilities  and  protestations  of  those  of 
a  contrary  profession,  could  in  the  least  degree 
startle  us,  or  make  us  swerve  from  it."t 


*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  94,  95. 
t  The  reader  will  llnd  very  curious  information 
respecting  Charles's  religious  opinions  in  Jesse's 
Court  of  the  Stuarts.  He  will  probably  gather,  from 
those  passages,  that  Charles,  from  his  earliest  exile, 
held  himself  ready  to  confess  himself  a  convert  to 
that  faith  which  was  the  most  likely  to  assist  his 
■restoration.  The  earliest  intimation  of  Charles's 
conversion  to  popery  is  on  the  authority  of  the  Duke 
of  Ormond.  At  Fontarabia,  in  1659,  the  duke,  we 
are  told,  to  his  great  surprise  and  concern,  accident- 
ally, one  morning  early,  saw  the  king  in  the  great 
church  on  his  knees  before  the  high  altar,  with  sev- 
eral priests  and  ecclesiastics  flbout  him  ;  that  he  was 
soon  after  confirmed  in  his  sentiments  by  Sir  Henry 
Bennet  and  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  who  both  owned  the 
king  to  be  a  Catholic  as  well  as  themselves  ;  the  for- 
mer was  of  opinion  that  tlie  king  ought,  in  policy,  to 
declare  his  religion  as  the  most  hopeful  method  to 
recover  his  dominions.  But  the  latter  looked  upon 
it  as  the  most  dangerous  advice  that  could  be  given, 
such  as  would  be  the  ruin  of  the  king's  cause;  and 
it  was  finally  agreed  by  the  majority  of  the  little 
court  there,  that  this  change  should  be  kept  as  the 
greatest  secret  imaginable.    After  perusing  this  pas- 


It  is  a  surprising  reflection  of  Mr.  Baxter* 

upon  occasion  of  these  letters :  'These  d  i  vines," 
says  he,  "knew  nothing  of  tlie  state  of  affairs  in 
England.  They  knew  not  those  men  who  were 
to  be  restored  with  the  king.  They  pray,"  says 
he,  "for  the  success  of  my  labours,  when  they 
are  persuading  me  to  put  an  end  to  my  labours 
by  setting  up  those  prelates,  who  will  silence  me 
and  many  hundreds  more.  They  persuade  mo 
to  that  which  will  separate  me  from  my  fl(tck, 
and  then  pray  that  I  may  be  a  blessing  to  them  ; 
and  yet,"  says  he,  "  I  am  for  restoring  the  king, 
that  when  we  are  silenced,  and  our  ministry  at 
an  end,  and  some  of  us  lie  in  prisons,  we  may 
there,  and  in  that  condition,  have  peace  of  con- 
science in  the  discharge  of  our  duty,  and  the 
exercise  of  faith,  patience,  and  chanty  in  our 
sufferings."  Was  there  ever  such  reasoning 
as  this!  But  the  reader  will  make  his  owa 
remarks  upon  these  extraordinary  paragraphs. 

To  return  back  to  General  Monk  in  Scotland. 
As  long  as  the  army  governed  affairs  at  West- 
minster, the  general  was  on  their  side,  and  en- 
tertained Mr.  John  Collins,  an  Independent  min- 
ister, for  his  chaplain  ;  but  upon  the  quarrel  be- 
tween the  army  and  Parliament,  and  Monk's 
declaring  for  the  latter,  it  was  api)rehended  he 
had  changed  sides,  and  would  fall  in  with  the 
Presbyterians  ;  upon  which,  Mr.  Caryl  and  Bar- 
ker were  sent  to  Scotland  with  a  letter  from  Dr. 
Owen,  expressing  their  fears  of  the  danger  of 
their  religious  liberties  upon  a  revolution  of  gov- 
ernment. The  general  received  them  with  all 
the  marks  of  esteem  ;  and  after  a  few  days  re- 
turned the  f(dlowing  answer,  in  a  letter  directed 
to  Dr.  Owen,  Mr  Greenhill,  and  Mr.  Hook,  to 
be  communicated  to  the  churches  in  and  about 
London : 

"  Honourable  and  dear  Friends, 

"  I  received  yours,  and  am  very  sensible  of 
your  kindness  expressed  to  the  army  in  Scot- 
land, in  sending  such  honourable  and  reverend 
persons,  whom  we  received  with  thankfulness 
and  great  joy  as  the  messengers  of  the  church- 
es, and  the  ministers  of  Christ  in  these  three 
nations.  I  do  promise  you  for  myself,  and  the 
rest  of  the  offitters  here,  that  your  interest,  lib- 
erty, and  encouragement  shall  be  very  dear  to 
us.  And  we  shall  take  this  as  a  renewed  obli- 
gation to  assert  to  the  utmost  what  we  have 
already  declared  to  the  churches  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  doubt  not  but  you  have  received  satisfaction 
of  our  inclinations  to  a  peaceable  accommoda- 
tion. I  do  hope  that,  some  differences  being 
obviated,  we  sliall  obtain  a  fair  composure.  I 
do  assure  you  that  the  great  things  that  have 
been  upon  my  heart  to  secure  and  provide  for, 
are  our  liberties  and  freedom,  as  the  subjects 
and  servants  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  we  have 
conveyed  to  us  in  the  covenant  of  grace,  as- 
sage,  it  is  amusing  to  turn  to  the  pages  of  the  obse- 
quious Fuller.  "  During  the  king's  continuance  be- 
yond the  seas," says  that  writer,  "great  were  the  prof- 
fers tended  to  him  of  forsaking  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion. But,  alas  I  as  soon  might  the  impotent  waves 
remove  the  most  sturdy  rocks,  as  they  once  unfix 
him  :  such  his  constancy,  whom  neither  the  frowns 
othis  afFIiction,  norsiniles  of  secular  advantage,  could 
make  to  warp  from  his  first  principles."  "This," 
says  Jesse,  "is  nonsense,  and  Dr.  Fuller  probably 
knew  as  much  ;  at  all  events,  he  could  not  have  been 
in  Ignorance  of  Charles's  character." — C 

♦  Life,  part  li.,  p.  210. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


197 


sured  in  the  promises  purchased  by  the  blood  of 
our  Saviour  for  us,  and  given  as  his  great  lega- 
cy to  his  Church  and  people  ;  in  comparison  of 
which,  we  esteem  all  other  things  as  dung  and 
dross,  but  as  they  have  a  relation  to,  and  de- 
pendance  upon  this  noble  end.  The  others  are 
our  laws  and  rights  as  men,  which  must  have 
their  esteem  in  the  second  place  ;  for  which 
many  members  of  churches  have  been  eminent 
instruments  to  labour  in  sweat  and  blood  for 
these  eighteen  years  last  past,  and  our  ances- 
tors for  many  hundred  years  before ;  the  sub- 
stance of  which  may  be  reduced  to  a  parlia- 
mentary government,  and  the  people's  consent- 
ing to  the  laws  by  which  they  are  governed. 
That  these  privileges  of  the  nation  may  be  so 
bounded  that  the  churches  may  have  boLli  se- 
curity and  settlement,  is  my  great  desire,  and 
of  those  with  me  ;  so  that  I  hope  you  will  own 
these  just  things,  and  give  us  that  assistance 
that  becomes  the  churches  of  Christ,  in  pursu- 
ance of  this  work.  Aj)d  we  do  assure  you  we 
shall  comply  as  far  as  possible,  with  respect  had 
to  the  security  and  safety  of  the  nation,  and 
the  preservation  of  our  ancient  birthright  and 
liberties.  And  we  shall  pray  that  we  may  be 
kept  from  going  out  of  God's  way  in  doing 
God's  work. 

"  I  do,  in  the  name  of  the  whole  army  and 
myself,  give  all  our  affectionate  thanks  for  this 
your  work  of  love  ;  and  though  we  are  not  able 
to  make  such  returns  as  are  in  our  hearts  and 
desires  to  do,  yet  vve  shall  endeavour,  by  all 
ways  and  means,  to  express  our  care  and  love 
to  the  churches,  and  shall  leave  the  reward  to 
him  who  is  the  God  of  peace,  and  has  in  special 
assured  all  blessings  to  the  peacemakers.  I 
conclude  with  the  words  of  David,  1  Sam,,  xxv., 
32,  '  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  and 
blessed  be  your  advice,'  and  blessed  be  you  all. 
Now  the  Lord  God  be  a  wall  of  fire  round  about 
you,  and  let  his  presence  be  in  his  churches, 
and  they  filled  with  his  glory.  I  have  no  more, 
but  to  entreat  your  prayers  for  a  happy  issue  of 
this  unhappy  difference  ;  which  is  the  prayer  of 
him  who  is,  reverend  sirs  and  dear  friends,  your 
very  affectionate  brother  and  servant, 

"  G.  Monk. 
"Edinburgli,  Nov.  23,  1659." 

In  one  of  the  general's  letters  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, written  about  June,  1659,  he  declares 
strongly  for  liberty  of  conscience,  and  an  abso- 
lute commonwealth,  in  language  which  in  an- 
other would  be  called  the  fumes  of  fanaticism. 
"  You  are  the  people,"'  says  he,  "  who  have  filled 
the  world  with  wonder,  but  nothing  is  difficult 
to  faith  ;  and  the  promises  of  God  are  sure  and 
certain.  We  acknowledge  that  we  ourselves 
have  very  much  contributed  to  the  Lord's  de- 
parting from  our  Israel,  but  we  see  God's  hour 
is  come,  and  the  time  of  the  people's  deliver- 
ance, even  the  set  time,  is  at  hand.  He  Com- 
eth skipping  over  all  the  mountains  of  sin  and 
nnworthmess,  &c.  We  humbly  beseech  you 
not  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  daughter  of  God's 
people  slightly,  but  to  make  so  sure  and  lasting 
provision  for  both  Christian  and  civil  rights,  as 
both  this  and  future  generations  may  have  cause 
to  rise  up  and  call  you  blessed,  and  the  blackest 
of  designs  may  never  be  able  to  cast  dirt  in 
your  faces  any  more."*     He  then  desires  them 

*  WcLwood's  Memoirs  Appendix  No.  ii. 


to  encourage  none  but  godly  ministers  and 
magistrates,  that  no  yoke  may  he  imposed  upon 
conscience  but  what  is  agreeable  to  the  Word 
of  God,  and  that  they  would  establish  the  gov- 
ernment in  a  free  state  or  commonwealth. 
Signed  by  General  Monk  and  twenty-five  of  his 
chief  officers. 

Upon  the  general's  coming  to  London,  he  was 
transformed  at  once  into  a  zealous  Presbyte- 
rian, and  thought  no  more  of  the  Independent 
churches  ;    he  received  the  sacrament  at  Mr. 
Caiamy's   church,    and   would   suffer   none   to 
preach  before  him  but  whom  he  approved.     He 
consulted  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  and  asked 
their  advice  in  all  important  affairs.     It  seems 
these  were  the  gentlemen  that  beat  him  out  of 
his  commonwealth  principles,  if  we  may  believe 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Sharp,  afterward  Archbishop 
of  St.  Andrew's,  whose  words  are  these,  in  one 
of  his  letters  to  the  Reverend  .Mr.  Douglas  in 
Scotland  ;  "  Sunday  last,  March  11.  the  general 
sent  his  coach  for  Mr.  Calamy,  Mr.  Ash,  and 
me  ;    we  had  a  long  conversation  with  him  in 
private,  and  convinced    him   that  a  common- 
wealth was  impracticable  ;    and,  to  our  sense, 
beat  him  ofl' that  sconce  he  has  hitherto  main- 
tained.    We  urged  upon  him  that  the  Presby- 
terian interest,  which   he   had  espoused,  was 
much  concerned  in  keeping  up  this  house,  and 
settling  the  government  upon  terms.     But  the 
subtle  general  replied,  that  in  regard  he  had  de- 
clared so  lately  against  a  House  of  Lords,  and 
the  continuing  this  House  of  Commons,  he  could 
not   so    reputably  do   it."*     Afterward,   when 
some  gentlemen  of  quality,  suspecting  the  king 
to  be  at  the  bottom,  were  earnest  with  the  gen- 
eral, that  if  the  king  must  be  brought  in  by  the 
next  Parliament,  it  might  be  upon  the  terms  of 
his  late  majesty's  concessions  at  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  the  general  at  first  recoiled,  and  de- 
clared he  would  adhere  to  a  commonwealth  ; 
but  at  last,  seeming  to  be  conquered  into  a  com- 
pliance, he  intimated  to  them  that  this  was  the 
utmost  line  he  could  or  would  advance  in  fa- 
vour of  the  king  ;  and  yet,  when  this  was  moved 
in  the  Convention  Parliament  by  Sir  Matthew 
Hale,  the  general  stood  up,  and  declared  against 
all  conditions,  and  threatened  them  that  should 
encourage  such  a  motion  with  all  the  mischiefs 
that  might  follow.     Thus  the  credulous  Pres- 
byterians were  gradually  drawn  into  a  snare, 
and  made  to  believe  that  Presbytery  was  to  be 
the  established  g:overnment  of  the  Church  of 
England  under  King  Charles  II. 

The  Scots  were  equally  concerned  in  this  af- 
fair, and  much  more  zealous  for  their  discipline. 
The  general,  therefore,  sent  letters  to  the  Kirk, 
with  the  strongest  assurances  that  he  would 
take  care  of  their  discipline.!  But  the  Scots, 
not  willing  to  trust  him,  commissioned  Mr. 
Sharp  to  be  their  agent,  and  gave  him  instruc- 
tions to  use  his  best  endeavours  that  the  Kirk 
of  Scotland  might,  without  interruption  or  en- 
croachment, enjoy  the  freedom  and  liberty  of 
her  established  judicatories,  and  to  represent 
the  sinfulness  and  offensiveness  of  a  toleration 
in  that  kingdom.  Siiarp  was  to  concert  meas- 
ures with  Mr.  Calamy,  Ash,  Manton,  and  Cow- 
per ;  but  these  gentlemen  being  not  very  zeal- 
ous for  the  discipline.  Sharp  informed  his  prin- 
cipals that  it  was  feared  the  king  would  come 

♦  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  81.  f  Ibid    p.  50. 


198 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


in,  and  with  liim  moderate  Episcopacy,  at  least 
in  England,  but  that  the  more  zealous  party 
were  doing  what  they  could  to  keep  on  foot  the 
Covenant.  To  wliich  Douglas  replied,  "It  is 
best  that  the  Presbyterian  government  be  set- 
tled simply,  for  you  know  tliat  the  judgment  of 
honest  men  here  is  for  admitting  the  king  on  no 
other  but  covenant  terms." 

The  Independents  and  Baptists  were  in  such 
disgrace,  that  their  leaders  had  not  the  honour 
of  being  consulted  in  this  weighly  affair.  Gen- 
eral Monk  and  the  Presbyterians  were  united, 
and  had  force  sufficient  to  support  their  claims  ; 
the  tide  was  with  them,  and  the  Parliament  at 
their  mercy.  The  Independents  offered  to 
stand  by  their  friends  in  Parliament,  and  to 
raise  four  new  regiments  from  among  them- 
selves, to  force  the  general  back  into  Scotland. 
Dr.  Owen  and  Mr.  Nye  had  frequent  consulta- 
tions with  Mr.  Whitelocke  and  St.  John  ;  and 
at  a  private  treaty  with  the  oflicers  at  "VValling- 
ford  House,  offered  to  raise  £100,000  for  the 
use  of  the  army,  provided  they  would  protect 
them  in  their  religious  liberties,  which  they 
were  apprehensive  Monk  and  the  Presbyterians 
designed  to  subvert ;  but  those  officers  had  lost 
their  credit ;  their  measures  were  disconcert- 
ed and  broken  ;  one  party  was  for  a  treaty, 
and  another  for  the  sword,  but  it  was  too  late  ; 
their  old  veteran  regiments  were  dislodged  from 
the  city,  and  Monk  in  possession.  In  this  confu- 
sion, their  general,  Fleetwood,  who  had  brought 
them  into  this  distress,  retired,  and  left  them  a 
body  without  a  head,  after  which  they  became 
insignificant,  and  in  a  few  months  quite  con- 
temptible. Here  ended  the  power  of  the  army 
and  of  the  Independents. 

Being  now  to  take  leave  of  this  people,  it  may 
be  proper  to  observe,  that  the  Independents 
sprang  up  and  mightily  increased  in  the  time  of 
the  civil  wars,  and  had  the  reputation  of  a  wise 
and  politic  people  :  they  divided  from  the  Pres- 
byterians upon  the  foot  of  discipline,  and  fought 
in  the  Parliament's  quarrel,  not  so  much  for  hire 
and  reward,  as  from  a  real  belief  that  it  was 
the  cause  of  God  ;  this  inspired  their  soldiers 
with  courage,  and  made  them  face  death  with 
undaunted  bravery,  insomuch  that,  when  the 
army  was  new  modelled,  and  filled  up  with  men 
of  this  principle,  they  carried  all  before  them. 
"When  the  war  was  ended,  they  boldly  seized 
the  person  of  the  king,  and  treated  him  with 
honour  till  they  found  him  unsteady  to  his  prom- 
ises of  a  toleration  of  their  principles,  and  then 
they  became  his  most  determined  enemies ; 
when  they  were  assured  afterward,  by  the  treaty 
of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  that  they  were  to  be  crush- 
ed between  both  parties,  and  to  lose  their  reli- 
gious liberty,  for  which  they  had  been  fighting, 
they  tore  up  the  government  by  the  roots,  and 
subverted  the  whole  Constitution.  This  they 
did,  not  in  consequence  of  their  religious  prin- 
ciples, but  to  secure  their  own  safety  and  liberty. 
After  the  king's  death  they  assumed  the  chief 
management  of  public  affairs,  and  would  not 
part  with  it  on  any  terms,  lest  they  should  be 
disbanded  and  called  to  account  by  a  parliament- 
ary power,  and  therefore  they  could  never  come 
to  a  settlement,  though  they  attempted  it  under 
several  forms  :  the  first  was  an  absolute  com- 
monwealth, as  most  agreeable  to  their  princi- 
ples ;  but  when  the  commonwealth  began  to 


clip  their  military  wings,  they  dispossessed 
them,  and  set  up  their  own  general,  with  the 
title  of  protector,  who  had  skill  enough  to  keep 
them  in  awe,  though  they  were  continually  plot- 
ting against  his  government.  After  his  death 
they  dispossessed  his  son,  and  restored  the  com- 
monwealth. When  these  again  attempted  to 
disband  them,  they  turned  them  out  a  second 
time,  and  set  up  themselves  under  the  title  of  a 
Conmiittee  of  Safety  ;  but  they  wanted  Oliver's 
head,  their  new  general,  Fleetwood,  having 
neither  courage  nor  conduct  enough  to  keep 
them  united.  Thus  they  crumbled  into  factions, 
while  their  wanton  sporting  with  tlie  supreme 
power  made  the  nation  sick  of  such  distractions, 
and  yield  to  the  return  of  the  old  Constitution. 

The  officers  were  made  up  chiefly  of  Inde- 
pendents and  Anabaptists,  most  of  them  of 
mean  extraction,  and  far  from  being  as  able 
statesmen  as  they  had  been  fortunate  soldiers  ; 
they  were  brave  and  resolute  men,  who  had  the 
cause  of  religion  and  liberty  at  heart ;  but  they 
neglected  the  old  nobdity  and  gentry  so  much, 
that  when  they  fell  to  pieces,  there  was  hardly 
a  gentleman  of  estate  or  interest  in  his  county 
that  would  stand  by  them.  As  to  their  moral 
character,  they  seem  to  have  been  men  of  piety 
and  prayer  ;  they  called  God  into  all  their  coun- 
cils, but  were  too  much  governed  by  the  false 
notions  they  had  imbibed,  and  the  enthusiastic 
impulses  of  their  own  minds.  I  do  not  find 
that  they  consulted  any  number  of  their  clergy, 
though  many  of  the  Independent  ministers  were 
among  the  most  learned  and  eminent  preachers 
of  the  times,  as,  Dr.  Goodwin,  Owen,  Nye,  and 
Greenhill,  &c.,  some  of  whom  had  no  small 
reputation  for  politics ;  but  their  pulling  down 
so  many  forms  of  government,  without  adhering 
steadily  to  any,  issued  in  their  ruin.  Thus,  as 
the  army  and  Independents  outwitted  the  Pres- 
byterians in  1648,  the  Presbyterians,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  Scots,  blew  up  the  Independents 
at  this  time  ;  and  the  next  year  the  Episcopal 
party,  by  dexterous  management  of  the  credu- 
lous Presbyterians,  undermined  and  deceived 
them  both.* 

This  year  died  Dr.  Ralph  Brownrigge,  bishop 
of  Exeter,  born  at  Ipswich  in  the  year  1592, 
educated  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  and  at 
length  chosen  master  of  Katherine  Hall  in  that 
university.!     He  was  also  prebendary  of  Dur- 

*  An  admirable  testimony  has  been  borne  by  an 
Episcopalian  historian  to  the  liberal  policy  of  the 
Independents;  and  I  cite  the  testimony  with  pleas- 
ure, because  it  is  in  strong  contrast  to  the  bigotry 
and  ignorance  so  frequently  evinced  on  the  subject. 
"  At  the  Restoration  fell,  ultimately,  the  power  of  the 
Independents.  With  their  management  of  civil  mat- 
ter.s  I  shall  not  now  concern  myself;  hut  all  ike  world 
iiiil  allow  that,  in  point  of  rcU^ioas  libtrty,  their  conduct, 
when  in  power  {and  would  that  the  same  could  be  averred 
of  all  other  religious  bodies  .')  fulfilled  the  promises  made 
when  they  u-ere  in  obscurity.  They  e.xhibited  a  noble 
and  meinorable  example  of  a  sect  who,  in  possessing 
the  citadel  of  establishment,  forgot  and  forgave  the 
injuries  they  had  sustained,  abu.«;('d  not  their  authori- 
ty by  the  oppression  of  their  brethren,  and  were  con- 
tent to  hold  the  second  place,  preferring  others  before 
themselves  in  honour  and  emoluments."— /Zirforj/  of 
the  English  Church  and  Sects,  by  the  Rev.  Johnson 
Grant,  vol.  ii.,  p.  435. — C. 

+  He  was  esteemed  one  of  the  greatest  ornaments 
of  his  time  to  this  seminary.  He  was  one  of  those 
excellent  men  with  whom  Archbishop  Tillotson  cul- 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


199 


ham,  and  rector  of  Barly  in  Hertfordshire.  In 
the  year  1641  he  was  nominated  to  the  see  of 
Exeter,  and  installed  June  1,  1G42,  but  tiie  wars 
between  the  king  and  Parliament  did  not  allow 
him  the  enjoyment  of  his  dignity.  He  was 
nominated  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and 
was  vice-ehancellor  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge in  the  year  1644,  when  the  Earl  of  Man- 
chester visited  it  ;  and  complied  so  for  as  to 
keep  his  mastership  till  the  next  year,  when  he 
was  deprived  for  a  sermcm  he  preached  upon 
the  anniversary  of  his  majesty's  inauguration. 
He  was  no  favourer  of  Archbishop  Laud's  in- 
novations ;*  for  while  he  was  vice-chancellor  he 
sent  for  one  of  Mr.  Barwick's  pupils,  and  said 
to  him,  "  I  v.'onder  your  tutor,  no  ill  man  in 
other  respects,  does  not  yet  abstain  from  tliat 
form  of  worship  [bowing  down  towards  the  east] 
which  he  knows  is  disagreeable  to  our  excellent 
Parliament,  and  not  very  acceptable  lo  God  him- 
self ;t  but  be  you  careful  to  steer  your  course 
clear  of  the  dangerous  rock  of  every  error, 
whether  it  savour  of  the  impiety  of  Arminian- 
ism,  or  of  the  superstition  of  popery. "I 

He  was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Spurstow,  and  suf- 
i"ered  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the  bishops  ; 
.  but  being  a  Calvinist,  and  a  person  of  great 
temper  and  moderation,  he  was  allowed  by  the 
Protector  Cromwell  to  be  a  preacher  at  the  Tem- 
ple, in  which  employment  he  died,  December  7, 
1659,  about  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age. 
Dr.  Gauden  says  he  was  a  person  of  great  can- 
dour, sweetness,  gravity,  and  solidity  of  judg- 
ment. He  was  consulted  by  Mr.  Baxter  and 
others  in  several  points  of  controversy,  and  was 
indeed  a  most  humble  Christian,  and  very  pa- 
tient under  most  severe  fits  of  the  stone,  which 
"were  very  acute  and  tedious  for  some  time  be- 
fore his  death. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Charles  Herle,  some  time 
prolocutor  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  West- 
minster, was  born  of  honourable  parents  at 
Prideaux  Herle,  near  Lostwiihyel  in  Cornwall, 
in  the  year  1598. i^  He  was  educated  in  Exe- 
ter College,  Oxon.      In  the  year  1618  he  took 


tivated  an  acquaintance  at  his  first  coming  to  Lon- 
don, and  by  whose  preaching  and  example  he  formed 
himself.  His  sermons  were  not  e.xceeded  by  any 
published  in  that  period  ;  and  they  derived  great  ad- 
vantage, in  the  delivery,  from  the  dignity  of  his  per- 
son and  the  justness  of  his  elocution.— Gra«n-e)-'s 
History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  IGl,  8vo.— Ed. 

*•  Dr.  Grey  neglects  not  to  inform  the  reader,  on  the 
authority  of  Ur.  Gauden,  that  Bishop  Brovvnrigge  was 
tenacioiLS  of  the  doctrine,  worship,  devotion,  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  Cluirch  of  England,  "which,"  he 
said,  "  he  liked  better  and  better  as  he  grew  older." 
He  seems  to  have  been  very  free  in  his  advice  to 
Cromwell ;  for  when  the  protector,  with  some  show 
of  respect  to  him,  demanded  his  judgment  in  some 
public  afiairs,  then  at  a  nonplus,  Bishop  Brownrigge, 
with  his  wonted  gravity  and  freedom,  replied,  "My 
lord,  the  best  counsel  I  can  give  you  is  that  of  our 
Saviour,  Render  unto  Csesar  the  things  that  are 
Casar's,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's :" 
with  which  free  answer  the  protector  rested  rather 
silenced  than  satisfied. — Dr.  Grey's  Examination,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  258. — Ed. 

+  This  form  still  exists  in  the  Episcopal  Church, 
and  bowing  and  courlesying  to  the  east  may  be  seen 
at  the  present  day.  So  far  from  the  Church  having 
thrown  oft'  her  points  of  semblance  to  popery,  she 
seems  at  the  present  day  to  be  studiously  keeping 
them  in  repair.— C.  ;  Life  of  Barwick,  p.  17. 

i)  Wood's  Athenae  Oxon.  vol.  ii.,  p.  151   152. 


the  degrees  in  arts,  and  was  afterward  rector  of 
Winwick  in  Lancashire,  one  of  the  richest  liv- 
ings in  England,  and  was  always  esteemed  a 
Puritan.  When  the  wars  broke  out,  he  took 
part  with  the  Parliament,  was  elected  one  of 
the  members  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and 
upon  the  death  of  Dr.  Tvvisse  in  1648,  was  ap- 
pointed prolocutor.  After  the  king's  death  he 
retired  to  his  living  at  Winwick,  and  was  in 
very  high  esteem  with  all  the  clergy  in  that 
country.  In  the  year  1654  he  was  appointed 
one  of  the  assistant  commissioners  for  ejecting 
scandalous  ministers,  together  with  Mr.  Isaac 
Ambrose  and  Mr.  Gee.  He  was  a  moderate 
Presbyterian,  and  left  behind  him  §otne  practi- 
cal and  controversial  writings.  .Mr.  Fuller  says* 
he  was  so  much  of  a  Christian,  scholar,  and 
gentleman,  that  he  could  agree  in  affection  with 
those  who  differed  from  him  in  judgment.  He 
died  at  his  parsonage  at  Winwick,  in  the  sixty- 
first  year  of  his  age,  and  was  buried  in  his  own 
church,  Septemberr  29,  1659. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Thomas  Cawion,  born  at 
Raynham  in  Norfolk,  and  educated  in  Queen's 
College,  Cambridge  ;  he  was  afterward  minis- 
ter of  Wivenhoe  in  Essex,  1637,  and  at  last  of 
St.  Bartholomew  behind  the  E.xchange.  He 
was,  says  the  Oxford  historian, t  a  learned  and 
religious  Puritan,  driven  into  exile  for  preaching 
against  the  murder  of  King  Charles  I.,  and  for 
being  in  the  same  plot  with  Mr.  Love,  for  rais- 
ing money  to  supply  the  army  of  King  Charles 
II.,  when  he  was  coming  into  England  to  recov- 
er his  right.  He  fled  to  Rotterdam,  and  became 
preacher  to  the  English  church  there,  where  he 
died  August  7,  1659,  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of 
his  age.J 

The  new  year  [1660]  began  with  the  Resto- 
ration of  King  Charles  II.  to  the  throne  of  his 
ancestors.  'J  he  Long  Parliament  dissolved 
themselves  March  16,  and  while  the  people  were 
busy  in  choosing  a  new  one.  General  Monk  was 
courted  by  all  parties.  The  Republicans  en- 
deavoured to  fix  him  for  a  commonwealth  ;  the 
French  ambassador  offered  him  the  assistance 
of  France  if  he  would  assume  the  government 
either  as  king  or  protector,  which,  it  is  said,  he 
would  have  accepted,  if  Sir  Anthony  Ashley 
Cooper  had  not  prevented  it,  by  summoning  him 
before  the  council,  and  keeping  the  doors  lock- 
ed till  he  had  taken  away  the  commissions  from 
some  of  his  most  trusty  officers,  and  given  them 
to  others  of  the  council's  nomination.  But  be 
this  as  it  will,  it  is  certain  Monk  had  not  yet 
given  the  king  any  encouragement  to  rely  upon 
him,  though  his  majesty  had  sent  him  a  letter 
as  long  ago  as  July  21,  1659,  by  an  express  mes- 
senger, with  the  largest  offers  of  reward. 


*  Fuller's  Worthies,  p.  305. 

t  VVood's  Athena;  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  432. 

%  Mr.  Cawtoii  had  few  equals  in  learning,  and 
scarcely  a  superior  m  piety.  Those  great  works,  the 
Polyglot  Bible,  and  Dr.  Castle's  Polyglot  Lexicon, 
owed  much  to  his  encouragement  and  exertions.  It 
showed  a  most  deep  seriousness  of  spirit,  though 
probably  mingled  with  superstitious  notions  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  that  he  fainted  when  he  first  received 
!t ;  and  he  ever  afterward  expressed  at  that  solem- 
nity the  profoundest  reverence  and  most  elevated 
devotion. — Granger's  Histon/of  England,  vol.  hi.,  8vo, 
p.  47. — En.  The  learned  Mr.  Thomas  Cawton  eject- 
ed in  1GG2  was  his  son.  In  that  year  he  jjublished 
the  life  of  his  father,  with  his  sermon,  entitled  "Good 
Rule  for  a  Godly  Life,"  from  Phil.,  i.,  27. — C. 


200 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


The  Presbyterians  were  now  in'possession 
of  the  whole  power  of  England  ;  the  Council 
of  Slate,  the  chief  otiicers  of  the  army  and 
navy,  and  the  governors  of  tlie  chief  fortd  and 
garrisons  were  tlicirs ;  the  clergy  were  in  pos- 
session of  both  universities,  and  of  the  best  liv- 
ings in  the  kingdom.  There  was  hardly  a  Loy- 
alist or  piofessed  Episcopalian  in  any  post  of 
honour  or  trust  ;  nor  had  the  king  any  number 
of  friends  capable  of  promoting  his  restoration, 
for  there  was  a  disablmg  clause  in  the  Qualifica- 
tion Act,  that  all  who  had  been  in  arms  against 
the  Long  Parliament  should  be  disqualified  from 
serving  m  the  next.  The  whole  government, 
therefore,  was  with  the  Presbyterians,  who  were 
shy  of  the  Independents,  as  a  body  of  men  more 
distant  from  the  Church,  and  more  inclined  to 
the  commonwealth.  'I'hey  were  no  less  vigi- 
lant to  keep  out  of  ParliamcHt  the  Republicans 
of  all  sorts,  some  of  whom,  says  Burnet,*  ran 
about  everywhere  like  men  that  were  giddy  or 
amazed,  but  their  time  was  past.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  secretly  courted  the  Episcopalians, 
who  dispersed  papers  among  the  people,  pro- 
testing their  resolutions  to  forget  all  passed  in- 
juries, and  to  bury  all  rancour,  malice,  and  an- 
imosities, under  the  foundation  of  his  majesty's 
restoration.  "We  reflect,"  say  they,  "upon 
our  sufferings  as  from  the  hand  of  God,  and 
therefore  do  not  cherish  any  violent  thoughts 
or  inclinaticms  against  any  persons  whatsoever 
who  have  been  instrumental  in  them  ;  and  if 
the  indiscretion  of  any  particular  persons  shall 
transport  them  to  expressions  contrary  to  this 
general  sense,  we  shall  disclaim  them."t  This 
was  signed  by  eighteen  noblemen,  and  about  fif- 
ty knights  and  gentlemen. t  Dr.  Morley  and 
some  of  his  brethren  met  privately  with  the 
Presbyterian  ministers,  and  made  large  profes- 
sions of  lenity  and  moderation,  but  without  de- 
scending to  particulars.  The  king  and  Chan- 
cellor Hyde  carried  on  the  intrigue.  The  chan- 
cellor, in  one  of  his  letters  from  Breda,  dated 
April  20,  1660,  says  that  "  the  king  very  well 
approved  that  Dr.  Morley  and  some  of  his  breth- 
ren should  enter  into  conferences,  and  have  fre- 
(luent  conversation  with  the  Presbyterian  party, 
in  order  to  reduce  them  to  such  a  temper  as  is 
consistent  with  the  good  of  the  Church  ;  and 
it  may  be  no  ill  expedient."  says  he,  "  to  assure 
them  of  present  good  preferments  ;  hut,  in  my 
opinion,  you  shouldrather  endeavour  to  win  over 
those  who,  being  recovered,  will  both  have  rep- 
utation, and  desire  to  merit  from  the  Church, 
than  be  over-solicitous  to  comply  with  the  pride 
and  passion  of  those  who  propose  extravagant 
things."!^  Such  was  the  spirit  or  professions 
of  the  Church  party,  while  they  were  decoying 
the  others  into  the  snare  !  The  Presbyterian 
ministers  did  not  want  for  cautions  from  the 
Independents  and  others  not  to  be  too  forward 
m  trusting  their  new  allies,  but  they  would 
neither  hear,  see,  nor  believe,  till  it  was  too  late. 
They  valued  themselves  upon  their  superior  in- 
fluence ;  and  from  an  ambitious  desire  of  grasp- 
ing all  the  merit  and  glory  of  the  Restoration 
to  themselves,  they  would  suffer  none  to  act 


♦  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  123,  12mo. 

+  Baxter,  p.  21(),  218.  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p. 
458. 

t  Kennet's  Chronicle,  p.  121,  144.  Baxter's  Life, 
part  ii.,  p.  217.  /)  Life  of  Barwick,  p.  525. 


openly  with  them,  but  desired  the  Episcopal 
clergy  to  lie  still  lor  fear  of  the  people,  and  leave 
the  conducting  this  great  affair  to  the  hands  it 
was  in. 

Accordingly,  the  Presbyterian  ministers  wrote 
to  their  friends  in  their  several  counties  to  be 
careful  that  men  of  republican  [)rinciples  might 
not  be  returned  to  serve  in  the  next  Faiiiament, 
so  that  in  some  counties  the  elections  fell  upon 
men  void  of  all  religion  ;  and  in  other  places- 
the  people  broke  through  the  disabling  cause. 
Dr.  13arvvick  says  they  paid  no  regard  to  it,  and 
Monk  declared,  that  if  the  people  made  use  of 
their  natural  rights  in  choosing  whom  they 
thought  fit.  without  reserve,  no  injury  should 
be  done  them.  So  that  when  the  houses  met, 
it  was  evident  to  all  wise  men  it  would  be  a 
court  Parliament. 

But  the  Scots  were  more  steady  to  the  Cov- 
enant, and  sent  over  the  Reverend  Mr.  James 
Sharp,  with  the  Earls  of  Crawford  and  Lauder- 
dale, to  Holland,  humbly  to  put  his  majesty  in 
mind  that  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  expected  pro- 
tection upon  the  footing  of  the  Presbyterian  es- 
tabUshment,  without  indulgence  to  sectaries. 
Their  brethren  in  the  north  of  Ireland  joined  in 
the  address  to  the  same  purpose  :  and  some  of 
the  English  Presbyterians  were  of  the  same 
mind  ;  ten  of  whom  met  the  Scots  commission- 
ers at  London,  and  made  earnest  applications 
to  the  general  not  to  restore  the  king  but  upon 
the  concessions  made  by  his  father  in  the  Isle 
of  Wight.*  But  this  was  only  the  resolution 
of  a  few  ;  the  majority,  says  Mr.  Sharp,  were 
for  moderate  Episcopacy,  upon  the  scheme  of 
Archbishop  Usher,  and  therefore  willing  to 
hearken  to  an  accommodation  with  the  Church. 
Dr.  Barwick  adds,t  "  What  the  Presbyterians 
aimed  at,  who  were  now  superior  to  the  Inde- 
pendents, was,  that  all  matters  should  be  set- 
tled according  to  the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of 
Wight,"  which  gave  the  court  a  fair  opportuni- 
ty of  referring  all  church  matters  to  a  concilia- 
tory synod,  the  divines  of  each  party  to  be  sum- 
moned when  the  king  should  be  settled  on  his 
throne.  This  was  the  bait  that  was  laid  for  the 
Presbyterians,  and  was  the  ruin  of  their  cause. 
The  Scots  Kirk  stood  to  their  principles,  and 
would  have  bid  defiance  to  the  old  clergy,  but 
Mr.  Calamy,  Manton,  and  Ash  informed  them, 
in  the  name  of  the  London  ministers,  that  the 
general  stream  and  current  being  for  the  old 
prelacy  in  its  pomp  and  height,  it  was  in  vain 
to  hope  for  establishing  Presbytery,  which 
made  them  lay  aside  the  thoughts  of  it.  and 
fly  to  Archbishop  Usher's  moderate  Episcopa- 
cy.t  Thus  they  were  beaten  from  their  first 
works. 

But  if  the  tide  was  so  strong  against  them, 
should  they  have  opened  their  sluices,  and  let 
in  the  enemy  at  once,  without  a  single  article 
of  capitulation  !  It  is  hard  to  account  for  this 
conduct  of  the  Presbyterians,  without  impeach- 
ing their  understandings.  Indeed,  the  Episco- 
pal clergy  gave  them  good  words,  assuring  them 
that  all  things  should  be  to  their  minds  when 
the  king  was  restored  ;  and  that  their  relying 
upon  the  royal  word  would  be  a  mark  of  confi- 
dence which  his  majesty  would  always  remem- 
ber, and  would  do  honour  to  the  king,  who  had 

**Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  101.  104,  110. 

j  Life.  p.  256.  t  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  228. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


201 


been  so  long  neglected.  But  should  tliis  have 
induced  the  ministers  to  give  up  a  cause  that 
had  cost  so  uiucli  treasure  and  blood,  and  be- 
come humble  petitioners  to  those  who  were 
now  almost  at  their  mercy  1  For  they  could 
not  but  be  sensible  that  the  old"  Constitution 
must  return  with  the  king,  that  diocesan  epis- 
copacy was  the  only  legal  establishment,  that 
all  which  had  been  done  in  favour  of  presby- 
tery not  having  had  the  royal  assent,  was  void  in 
law,  therefore  they  and  their  friends  who  had 
nolEpiscopal  ordination  and  induction  into  their 
livings,  must  be  looked  upon  as  intruders,  and 
not  legal  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England. 
But,  notwithstandingthis  infatuation  and  vain 
confidence  in  the  court  and  the  clergy,  Mr. 
Echard  would  set  aside  all  their  merit  by  say- 
ing, "Whatever  the  Presbyterians  did  in  this 
affair,  was  principally  to  relieve  themselves  from 
the  oppression  of  the  Independents,  who  had 
wrested  the  power  out  of  their  hands,  and  not 
out  of  any  afii^ction  to  the  king  and  Church." 
Directly  contrary  to  his  majesty's  declaration 
concerning  ecclesiastical  affairs,  which  says, 
"  When  we  were  in  Holland  we  were  attended 
with  many  grave  and  learned  ministers  of  the 
Presbyterian  persuasion,  whom,  to  ourgreat  sat- 
isfaction and  comfort,  we  (bund  to  be  full  of  af- 
fection to  us,  of  zeal  for  the  peace  of  the  Church 
and  State,  and  neither  enemies  (as  they  have 
been  given  out  to  be)  to  episcopacy  nor  liturgy." 
Bishop  Burnet  acknowledges*  that  many  of  the 
Presbyterian  ministers,  chiefly  in  the  city  of 
London,  had  gone  into  the  design  of  the  Resto- 
ration in  so  signal  a  manner,  and  with  such 
success,  that  they  had  great  merit,  and  a  just  ti- 
tle to  very  high  preferments.  Mr.  Baxter!  gives 
the  following  reasons  of  their  conduct  :  "  The 
Presbyterians,"  says  he,  "  were  influenced  by 
the  Covenant,  by  which,  and  by  the  oaths  of  al- 
legiance to  the  king  and  his  heirs,  they  appre- 
hended themselves  bound  to  do  their  utmost  to 
restore  the  king,  let  the  event  be  what  it  will." 
But  then  he  adds,  '•  Most  of  them  had  great  ex- 
pectations of  favour  and  respect ;  and  because 
the  king  had  taken  the  Covenant,  tliey  hoped  he 
would  remove  subscriptions,  and  leave  the  Com- 
mon Prayer  and  ceremonies  indifferent,  that 
they  might  not  be  cast  out  of  the  churches. 
Some,  who  were  less  sanguine,  depended  on 
such  a  liberty  as  the  Protestants  had  in  France  ; 
but  others,  who  were  better  acquainted  with 
the  principles  and  tempers  of  the  prelates,  de- 
clared that  they  expected  to  be  silenced,  impris- 
oned, and  banished,  but  yet  they  would  do  their 
parts  to  restore  the  king,  because  no  foreseen 
ill  consequence  ought  to  hinder  them  from  do- 
ing their  duty."  Surely,  these  were  better 
Christians  than  casuists  !  When  the  ministers 
waited  on  his  majesty  in  Holland,  he  gave  them 
such  encouraging  promises,  says  Mr.  Baxter, 
as  raised  in  some  of  them  high  expectations. 
When  he  came  to  Whitehall  he  made  ten  of 
them  his  chaplains  ;  and  when  he  went  to  the 
House  to  quicken  the  passing  the  Act  of  In- 
demnity, he  said,  "  My  lords,  if  you  do  not  join 
with  me  in  extinguishing  this  fear,  which  keeps 
the  hearts  of  men  awake,  you  keep  me  Irom 
performing  my  promi.se,  which  if  I  had  not  made, 
neither  I  nor  yon  had  been  now  here.  I  pray 
let  us  not  deceive  those  who  brought  or  permit- 


«•  Vol.i.,  p.  259. 
Vol.  II.— C  c 


t  Life,  p.  216. 


ted  us  to  come  hither."  Here  is  a  royal  decla- 
ration, and  yet  all  came  to  nothing.  The  reader 
will  judge  hereafter  who  were  most  to  blame, 
the  Episcopal  party,  for  breaking  through  so 
many  solemn  vows  and  protestations  ;  or  the 
Presbyterians,  for  bringing  in  the  king  without 
a  previous  treaty,  and  trusting  a  set  of  men 
whom  they  knew  to  be  their  implacable  enemies. 
I  can  think  of  no  decent  excuse  to  the  former ; 
and  the  best  apology  that  can  be  made  for  the 
latter  is,  that  most  of  them  lived  long  enough 
to  see  their  error  and  heartily  repent  it. 

In  the  interval  between  the  dissolution  of  the 
Long  Parliament  and  the  meeting  of  the  con- 
vention which  brought  in  the  king.  General 
Monk,  seeing  which  way  the  tide  ran,  fell  in 
with  the  stream,  and  ventured  to  correspond 
more  freely  with  the  king  by  Sir  J.  Grenville, 
who  brought  the  general  a  letter,  and  was  sent 
back  with  an  assurance  that  he  would  serve  his 
majesty  in  the  best  manner  he  could.  He  de- 
sired the  king  to  remove  out  of  the  Spanish  do- 
minions, and  promised  that,  if  his  majesty  wrote 
letters  to  the  Parliament,  he  would  deliver  them 
at  the  opening  of  the  sessions.  Bishop  Burnet 
says  that  he  had  like  to  have  let  the  honour  slip 
through  his  fingers,  and  that  a  very  small  share 
of  it  really  belonged  to  him.* 

The  convention  met  April  25,  the  Earl  of 
Manchester  being  chosen  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Peers,  and  Sir  Harbottle  Grimstone  of  the 
Commons.  At  the  opening  the  sessions.  Dr. 
Reynolds  preached  before  the  houses.  April 
30  was  appointed  for  a  fast,  when  Dr.  Reynolds 
and  Mr.  Hardy  preached  before  the  Lords,  and 
Dr.  Gauden,  Mr.  Calamy,  and  Baxter,  before 
the  Commons  ;  all  except  Gauden  of  the  Pres- 
byterian party.  Lord  Clarendon  says  the  Pres- 
byterian party  in  the  House  were  rather  trouble- 
some than  powerful ;  but  others,  with  great 
probability,  affirm  that  the  body  of  the  Com- 
mons were  at  first  of  that  party.  Next  day 
after  the  fast,  the  king,  by  the  advice  of  the 
general,  having  removed  privately  to  Breda,  and 
addressed  letters  to  both  houses,  the  general 
stood  up  and  acquainted  the  speaker  that  one 
Sir  J.  Grenville  had  brought  him  a  letter  from 
the  king,  but  that  he  had  not  presumed  to  open 
it ;  and  that  the  same  gentleman  attended  at 
the  door  with  another  to  the  House.  Sir  John 
was  immediately  called  in,  and  having  delivered 
his  letter  at  the  bar,  withdrew,  and  carried  an- 
other to  the  Lords. t  The  letter  contained  an 
earnest  invitation  to  the  Commons  to  return  to 
their  duty,  as  the  only  way  to  a  settled  peace ; 
his  majesty  promising  an  act  of  oblivion  for 
what  was  past,  and  all  the  security  they  could 
desire  for  their  liberties  and  properties,  and  the 
rights  of  Parliament,  for  the  future. 

Under  the  same  cover  was  enclosed  his  maj- 
esty's declaration  from  Breda,  granting  "  a  gen- 
eral pardon  to  all  his  loving  subjects  who  should 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  123. 

t  Two  days  after  Sir  John  Grenville  received  the 
thanks  of  the  House  lor  d(ilivering  the  king's  letter, 
in  a  high  strain  of  joy  and  adulation  ;  and  the  House 
voted  him  £500  to  buy  a  jewel,  as  a  badge  of  the 
honour  due  to  the  person  whom  "  the  king  had  hon- 
oured to  be  the  messenger  of  his  gracious  message." 
The  city  of  London  also  presented  to  him  and  Lord 
Mordaunt,  who  brought  them  his  majesty's  letter, 
£300  to  buy  them  rings. — Dr.  Grey's  ExanuTiation^ 
vol.  iii.,  p.  2G0,  261,  and  note  (o). — Ed. 


202 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


lay  hold  of  it  within  forty  days,  except  such 
u'ho  should  be  excepted  by  Parliament.  Those 
only  excepted,"  says  he,  "let  all  our  subjects, 
how  faulty  soever,  rely  upon  the  word  of  a  king 
solemnly  given,  that  no  crime  committed  against 
us  or  our  royal  fiUher  shall  ever  be  brougiit 
into  question  to  the  prejudice  of  their  lives,  es- 
tates, or  reputation.  We  do  also  declare  a  lil)- 
erty  to  tender  consciences,  and  that  no  man 
shall  be  disquieted  or  called  in  (piestion  for  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  in  matters  of  religion,  which 
do  not  disturb  the  peace  of  the  kingdom.  And 
w'c  shall  be  ready  to  consent  to  such  an  act  of 
Parliament  as,  upon  mature  deliberation,  shall  be 
offered  to  us  for  the  full  granting  that  indul- 
gence." Upon  reading  these  letters,  the  Com- 
mons voted  that,  according  to  the  ancient  Con- 
stitution, the  government  of  this  kingdom  is, 
and  ought  to  be,  by  kings,  lords,  and  commons  ; 
and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  draw  up  a 
dutiful  letter,  inviting  his  majesty  to  return  to 
his  dominions  :  money  was  voted  to  defray  his 
expenses  ;  a  deputation  of  lords  and  commons 
was  sent  to  attend  his  majesty ;  and  the  fleet 
was  ordered  to  convey  him  home.  Sir  Mat- 
thew Hale  moved  that  a  committee  might  be 
appointed  to  review  the  propositions  of  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  and  was  seconded  in  the  motion  ;  but 
Monk,  who  was  prepared  for  such  a  motion, 
stood  up  and  said,  "  The  nation  was  now  quiet, 
but  there  were  many  incendiaries  upon  the 
watch  trying  where  they  could  first  raise  a 
flame  ;  that  he  could  not  answer  for  the  peace 
of  the  kingdom  or  army,  if  any  delays  were  put 
lo  the  sending  for  the  king.  What  need  is 
there  of  it,"  says  he,  "  when  he  is  to  bring  nei- 
ther arms  nor  treasure  along  with  himl"  He 
then  added,  "That  he  should  lay  the  blame  of 
all  the  blood  and  mischief  that  might  follow  on 
Ihe  heads  of  those  who  should  insist  upon  any 
motion  that  might  retard  the  present  settlement 
of  the  nation,"*  which  frightened  the  House 
into  a  compliance.  And  this  was  all  the  ser- 
vice General  Monk  did  towards  the  king's  res- 
toration, for  which  he  was  rewarded  with  a  gar- 
ter, a  dukedom,  a  great  estate  in  land,  and  with 
one  of  the  highest  posts  of  honour  and  profit  in 
the  kingdom. 

Thus  was  the  king  voted  home  in  a  hurry, 
which  was  owing  to  the  flattering  representa- 
tions made  by  Lord  Clarendon  in  his  letters  of 
the  king's  good  nature,  virtue,  probity,  and  ap- 
plication to  business  ;t  so  that  when  the  Earl 
of  Southampton  saw  afterward  what  the  king 
was  like  to  prove,  he  said  once,  in  great  wrath, 
to  the  chancellor,  "  that  it  was  to  him  they 
owed  all  they  either  felt  or  feared  ;  for  if  he 
had  not  possessed  them  in  all  his  letters  with 
such  an  opinion  of  the  king,  they  would  have 
taken  care  to  have  put  it  out  of  his  power  either 
to  do  himself  or  them  any  mischief,  which  was 
like  to  be  the  effect  of  their  trusting  him  so  en- 
tirely." To  which  Hyde  answered,  that  "  he 
thought  the  king  had  so  true  a  judgment,  and 
so  much  good  nature,  that  when  the  age  of 
pleasure  should  he  over,  and  the  idleness  of  his 
exile,  which  made  him  seek  new  diversions  for 
want  of  other  employment,  was  turned  to  an 
obligation  to  mind  affairs,  then  he  would  have 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  123,  124,  12mo. 
t  Clarendon,  p.  8S,  89. 


shaken  off  these  entanglements."     But  here  t  e 
chancellor  was  mistaken. 

When  the  Lords  and  Commons  sent  over  a 
deputation  to  the  king  at  Breda,  the  London 
ministers  maved  that  a  pass  might  be  granted 
to  some  of  their  number,  to  wait  upon  his  maj- 
esty with  an  address  from  their  brethren ;  ac- 
cordingly. Dr.  Reynolds,  Dr.  Spurstow,  Mr.  Cal- 
amy,  Mr.  Hall,  Mr.  Manton,  and  Mr.  Case  were 
delegated,  vv'ho  went  over  with  three  or  four 
attendants,  and  had  an  audience  May  17,  where- 
in, according  to  Lord  Clarendon,  "they  magni- 
fied their  own,  and  the  affection  of  their  friends, 
who  had  always  wished  his  majesty's  restora- 
tion, according  to  the  Covenant,  and  had  lately 
informed  the  people  of  their  duty  to  invite  him 
home.  They  thanked  God  for  his  majesty's 
constancy  to  the  Protestant  religion,  and  de- 
clared themselves  no  enemies  to  moderate  epis- 
copacy, only  they  desired  that  such  things  might 
not  lie  pressed  vpon  them  in  GucVs  worship,  which 
in  their  judgmenis  that  used  them  were  indijfferent, 
hut  by  others  were  held  to  be  unlawful."*  But 
the  tables  were  now  turned  :  the  king  spoke 
kindly  to  them,  and  acknowledged  their  servi- 
ces, hut  told  tiiem  he  would  refer  all  to  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Parliament.  At  another  audience 
(if  we  may  believe  the  noble  historian)  they 
met  with  very  different  usage;  for  when  they 
entreated  his  majesty  at  his  first  landing  not  to 
use  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  entire  and 
formally  in  his  chapel,  it  having  been  long  laid 
aside,  the  king  replied  with  some  warmth, 
"  that  while  he  gave  them  liberty,  he  would  not 
have  his  own  taken  away.  That  he  had  al- 
ways used  that  form  of  service,  which  he  thought 
the  best  in  the  world,  and  had  never  discontin- 
ued it  in  places  where  it  was  more  disliked  than 
he  hoped  it  was  by  them.  That  when  he  came 
into  England,  he  should  not  severely  inquire 
how  it  was  used  in  other  churches,  but  he  would 
have  no  other  used  in  his  own  chapel. "t  They 
then  besought  him,  with  more  impunity,  that 
the  use  of  the  surplice  might  be  discontinued  by 
his  chaplains,  because  it  would  give  offence; 
but  the  king  was  as  inexorable  in  that  point  as 
the  other,  and  told  them  that  it  was  a  decent 
habit,  and  bad  been  long  used  in  the  Church  ; 
that  it  had  been  still  retained  by  him,  and  that 
he  would  never  discountenance  that  good  old 
practice  of  the  church  in  which  he  had  been 
bred.  Mr.  Baxter  says,  the  king  gave  them 
such  encouraging  promises  of  peace,  as  raised 
some  of  them  to  high  expectations.  He  never 
refused  them  a  private  audience  when  they  de- 
sired it ;  and  to  amuse  them  farther,  while  they 
were  once  waiting  in  an  antechamber,  his  maj- 
esty said  his  prayers  with  such  an  audible  voice 
in  the  room  adjoining,  that  the  ministers  might 
hear  him  ;  "  he  thanked  God  that  he  was  a  cov- 
enanted king:  that  he  hoped  the  Lord  would 
give  him  an  humble,  meek,  forgiving  spirit; 
that  he  might  have  forbearance  towards  his  of- 
fending subjects,  as  he  expected  forbearance 
from  offended  Heaven."  Upon  hearing  which 
old  Mr.  Case  lifted  up  his   hands  to  heaven.t 

*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  139.      Compl.  Hist.,  p.  247. 

t  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  152. 

X  Mr.  Daniel  Dyke,  who,  soon  after  the  Restora- 
tion, voluntarily  resigned  the  living  of  Hadham-Mag- 
na  in  Hertfordshire,  showed  more  discernment  and 
judgment.    For  when  Mr.  Case,  to  induce  him  to 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


203 


and  blessed  God,  who  had  given  them  a  praying 
king. 

Though  the  bishops  held  a  private  correspond- 
ence with  Chancellor  Hyde,  and  by  him  were 
assured  of  the  king's  favour,  they  were  not  less 
forward  than  the  Presbyterians  in  their  applica- 
tion to  his  majesty  himself;  for  while  he  re- 
mained at  Breda,  Mr.  Barwick  was  sent  over 
•with  the  following  instructions  : 

1.  He  was  to  wait  upon  the  right  honourable 
the  Lord-chancellor  of  England,  and  beg  his 
lordship's  assistance  to  present  a  most  humble 
petition  to  his  majesty  in  the  name  of  the  bish- 
ops, and  then  to  deliver  their  lordships'  letters 
to  the  chancellor,  to  the  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ire- 
land, and  to  the  secretary  of  state,  wherein 
they  returned  those  great  men  their  most  thank- 
ful acknowledgments  for  their  piety  and  aflec- 
tion  to  the  Church  in  the  late  most  afflicted 
state. 

2.  He  was  then  to  give  his  majesty  a  distinct 
account  of  the  present  state  of  the  Church  in 
all  the  particulars  wherein  his  majesty  desired 
to  be  informed  ;  and  to  bring  the  bishops  back 
his  majesty's  commands,  with  regard  to  all  that 
should  be  thought  proper  for  them,  or  any  of 
them,  to  do. 

3.  He  was  humbly  to  ask  his  majesty's  pleas- 
ure with  regard  to  some  of  the  bishops  waiting 
on  the  seacoast  to  pay  their  duty  to  his  maj- 
esty, when,  by  God's  blessing,  he  should  soon 
land  in  England ;  and  whether  it  was  his  royal 
pleasure  that  they  should  attend  him  there  in 
tlieir  Episcopal  habits ;  and  at  what  time  and 
place,  and  how  many,  and  which  of  them  his 
majesty  pleased  should  wait  his  arrival. 

4.  He  was  also  to  inquire  concerning  the  num- 
ber of  his  majesty's  chaplains  ;  whether  any  of 
them,  besides  those  in  waiting,  should  attend 
his  arrival  upon  the  coast ;  and  to  beg  that  his 
majesty  would  vouchsafe  to  appoint  how  many, 
and  who. 

5.  He  was  most  humbly  to  beseech  his  maj- 
esty, that  if  Dr.  Lushington,  formerly  the  king's 
chaplain,  should  offer  to  officiate  in  that  capaci- 
ty, his  majesty  would  be  pleased  not  to  indulge 
him  in  that  favour  till  inquiry  should  be  made 
concerning  his  suspected  faith  and  principles. 
[He  was  a  Socinian.] 

6.  Since  it  has  been  customary  for  our  kings 
to  celebrate  public  thanksgivings  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  he  was  humbly  to  beseech  his  maj- 
esty to  signify  what  was  his  royal  pleasure  in 
this  behalf,  considering  the  ruinous  estate  of 
that  church. 

7.  His  last  instruction  was  to  give  a  just  and 
due  account  to  his  majesty  why  the  affair  of 
lining  up  the  vacant  sees  had  met  with  no  bet- 
ter success. 


continue  in  it,  related  the  king's  behaviour,  and  ar- 
gued what  a  hopeful  prospect  it  gave  them,  Mr. 
Dyke  wisely  answered,  "  that  they  did  but  deceive 
and  flatter  themselves;  that  if  the  king  was  sincere 
in  his  show  of  piety  and  great  respect  lor  them  and 
their  religion,  yet,  when  he  caine  to  be  settled,  the 
party  that  had  formerly  adhered  to  him,  and  the 
creatures  that  would  come  over  with  him,  would 
have  the  management  of  public  affairs,  and  would 
circumvent  all  their  designs,  and  in  all  probability 
not  only  turn  them  out,  but  take  away  their  liberty 
too." — Crosby's  History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p.  357  ; 
and  Palmer's  Noyiconfonnists'  Memorial  vol.  ii.,  p.  43. 
— Ed 


Mr.  Barwick  was  most  graciously  received 
by  the  king  and  his  ministers,  and  the  Sunday 
after  his  arrival  at  Breda  was  appointed  to 
preach  before  his  majesty.*  The  court  was  as 
yet  very  much  upon  their  guard  with  respect  to 
the  Presbyterians  ;  but  the  flames  began  to  kin- 
dle at  home,  the  Episcopal  clergy  not  observing 
any  measures  of  prudence  in  their  sermons ; 
Dr.  Griffith,  having  preached  an  angry  sermon 
before  the  general  at  Mercers'  Hall,  March  25, 
on  Prov.,  xxiv.,  21,  -'My  son,  fear  thou  the 
Lord  and  tbe-  king,  and  meddle  not  with  them 
that  are  given  to  change,"  was  for  a  pretence 
confined  to  Newgate,  but  in  a  \^e\v  days  was  re- 
leased, and  published  his  sermon,  with  a  dedica- 
tion to  the  general.  Others,  in  their  sermons, 
took  upon  tliem  to  threaten  those  who  had  hith- 
erto had  the  power  in  their  hands  ;  of  which 
the  king  being  advised,  commanded  Chancellor 
Hyde  to  acquaint  his  correspondents  that  he 
was  extremely  apprehensive  of  inconvenience 
and  mischief  to  the  Church  and  himself  from 
offences  of  that  kind,  and  ordered  him  to  desire 
Mr.  Barwick  and  Dr.  Morley  to  use  their  credit 
and  authority  with  such  men,  and  to  let  them 
know  from  his  majesty  the  tenderness  of  the 
conjuncture.  The  chancellor  accordingly,  in  his 
letter  from  Breda,  April  16,  1660,  wrote  the 
king's  sense,  and  added,  that  if  occasion  re- 
quired, they  were  to  speak  to  the  Bishops  of  Ely 
and  Salisbury  to  interpose  their  authority  to 
conjure  these  men  to  make  a  better  judgment 
of  the  season,  and  not  to  awaken  those  jealous- 
ies and  apprehensions  which  all  men  should  en- 
deavour to  extinguish.  "  And  truly  I  hope," 
says  the  chancellor,  '•  if  faults  of  this  kind  are 
not  committed,  that  both  the  Church  and  the 
kingdom  will  be  better  dealt  with  than  is  ima- 
gined ;  and  I  am  confident  these  good  men  will 
be  more  troubled  that  the  Church  should  under- 
go a  new  suffering  by  their  indiscretion,  than 
for  all  that  they  have  suffered  hitherto  them- 
selves." 

The  clouds  gathering  thus  thick  over  the  late 
managers,  every  one  began  to  shift  for  himself. 
Richard  Cromwell  resigned  his  chancellorship 
of  the  University  of  Oxford  the  very  day  the 
king  was  invited  home,  and  retired  beyond  sea  : 
he  had  offered  to  relinquish  it  when  lie  was  di- 
vested of  the  protectorship,  as  appears  by  his 
letter  on  that  occasion,  which  says,  "  You 
should  have  had  fuller  experience  of  my  high 
esteem  for  learning  and  learned  men,  if  Provi- 
dence had  continued  me  in  my  high  station ;  but 
as  I  accepted  of  the  honour  of  being  your  chan- 
cellor in  order  to  promote  your  prosperity,  I  as- 
sure you  I  will  divest  myself  of  the  honour 
when  it  will  contribute  to  your  advantage."! 
Accordingly,  as  soon  as  the  king's  return  was 
voted,  he  sent  tiiem  the  following  resignation  : 
"  Gentlemen, 

"  I  shall  always  retain  a  hearty  sense  of  my 
former  obligations  to  you,  in  your  free  election 
of  me  to  the  office  of  your  chancellor ;  and  it  is 
no  small  trouiile  to  my  thuutihts,  when  I  con- 
sider how  little  serviceable  I  have  been  to  you. 
in  that  relation.  But  since  the  ail-wise  provi- 
dence of  God,  which  I  desire  always  to  adore 
and  bow  down  unto,  has  been  pleased  to  change 
my  condition,  that  I  am  not  in  a  capacity  to  an- 

*  Life  of  Barwick,  p.  519,  note, 
t  Kennet's  Chron.,  u.  ML 


204 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


swer  the  ends  of  the  office,  I  do  therefore  most 
freely  resign  and  give  up  all  my  right  and  inter- 
est therein,  hut  shall  always  retain  my  afFee- 
tion  and  esteem  for  you,  with  my  prayers  for 
your  continual  prosperity,  that,  amid  the  many 
examples  of  the  instahility  and  revolutions  of 
human  affairs,  you  may  still  abide  flourishing 
and  fruitful. 

"  Gentlemen, 
"  Your  affectionate  friend  and  servant, 

"  Rich.  Ckomwell. 
"  Hurslcy,  May  8,  1660." 

Thus  Richard  went  off  the  stage  of  public  ac- 
tion. "As  he  was  innocent  of  all  the  evil  his 
father  had  done,"  says  Burnet,*  "  so  there  was 
no  prejudice  laid  against  him.  Upon  his  ad- 
vancement to  the  protectorship,  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, and  almost  all  the  counties  of  England, 
sent  him  addresses  of  congratulation  ;  but 
when  he  found  the  times  too  boisterous,  he  read- 
ily withdrew,  and  became  a  private  man  ;  and 
as  he  had  done  no  hurt  to  anybody,  so  nobody 
ever  studied  to  hurt  him."  A  rare  instance  of 
the  instability  of  human  greatness,  and  of  the 
security  of  innocence  1  In  his  younger  years 
he  had  not  all  that  zeal  for  religion  as  was  the 
fashion  of  tlie  times  ;  but  those  who  knew  him 
well  in  the  latter  part  of  life  have  assured  me 
that  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman  in  his  beha- 
viour, well  acquainted  with  public  affairs,  of 
great  gravity,  and  real  piety  ;  but  so  very  mod- 
est, that  he  would  not  be  distinguished  or 
known  by  any  name  but  the  feigned  one  of  Mr. 
Clarke. t  He  died  at  Theobalds  about  the  year 
1712. 

The  king  landed  at  DoverJ  May  26,  and  came 
The  same  night  to  Canterbury,  where  he  rested 
the  next  day,  and  on  Tuesday,  May  29,  rode  in 
triumph,  with  his  two  brothers,  througli  the  city 
of  London  to  Whitehall,  amid  the  acclama- 
tions of  an  innumerable  crowd  of  spectators. ij 
As  he  passed  along,  old  Mr.  Arthur  Jackson,  an 
eminent  Presbyterian  minister,  presented  his 
majesty  with  a  rich  embossed  Bible,  which  he 
was  pleased  to  receive,  and  to  declare  it  his 
resolution  to  make  that  hook  the  rule  of  his  con- 
duct.|| 

Two  days  after  the  king's  arrival  at  AVhite- 
hall,  his  majesty  went  to  the  House  of  Peers, 
and  after  a  short  congratulatory  speech,  passed 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  116,117. 

t  Under  this  name  he  lived,  for  some  years,  pri- 
vately at  Hursley,  about  seven  miles  from  Romsey, 
DOW  the  seat  of  Sir  Thomas  Heathcote,  Bart,,  and 
attended  the  meeting-house  in  Romsey.  The  pew 
in  which  he  used  to  sit  is  still  in  being,  and  preserved 
entire  at  the  church's  removal  to  their  new  house,  as 
a  relic  worthy  of  notice. — Mr.  Thnmson's  MS.  Col- 
lections, under  the  word  Romsey. — En. 

:]:  "  I  conversed,"  says  an  anonymous  writer,  "  with 
some  of  our  seamen  who  brought  over  King  Charles 
in  the  Naseby,  and  they  told  me  that  the  first  time 
they  had  ever  heard  the  Common  Prayer  and  God 
damn  ye,  was  on  board  that  ship  as  she  came  home 
with  his  majesty." — Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  our  JVa- 
val  Miscarriages,  London,  1707. — C. 

^  Dr.  Grey  gives,  from  Pochard  and  Heath,  a  de- 
scription of  the  proce-ssion. — Ed. 

II  Baxter's  Life,  p.  218.  Jesse,  in  his  Court  of  the 
Stuarts,  says,  "Charles  displayed  his  gratitude  to 
Heaven  for  his  wonderful  restoration,  by  passing  the 
night  of  his  return  with  Mrs.  Palmer  (afterward 
the  celebrated  Duchess  of  Cleveland),  at  the  house 
of  Sir  Samuel  Morland." — Vol.  iii.,  p.  308.— C. 


an  act  turning  the  present  convention  into  a 
Parliament.  After  which  the  houses,  for  them- 
selves and  all  the  commons  of  Enuland,  laid 
hold  of  his  majesty's  most  gracious  pardon,  and 
appointed  a  committee  to  prepare  an  act  of  in- 
demnity for  all  who  had  been  concerned  in  tiie 
preceding  commotions,  except  the  late  king's 
judges,  and  two  or  three  others. 

Had  the  directions  given  for  the  choice  of 
this  Parliament  been  observed,  no  Royalist  could 
have  sat  in  the  House;  however,  their  numbers 
were  inconsiderable ;  the  convention  was  a 
Presbyterian  Parliament,  and  Iiad  the  courage 
to  avow  the  justice  and  lawfulness  of  taking 
arms  against  the  late  king  till  the  year  lfi4S  :* 
for  when  Mr.  1  enthall,  speaker  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  in  order  to  show  the  sincerity  of 
his  repentance,  had  said,  that  he  that  first  drew 
his  sword  against  the  late  king,  committed  as 
great  an  offence  as  he  that  cut  off  his  head,  he 
was  brought  to  the  bar,  and  received  the  follow- 
ing reprimand  from  the  present  speaker,  by  or- 
der of  the  House : 

"  Sir, 

"  The  House  has  taken  great  offence  at  vvhat 
you  have  said,  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
House,  contains  as  high  a  reflection  upon  the 
justice  of  the  proceedings  of  the  lords  and  com- 
mons of  the  last  Parliament,  in  their  actings 
before  1648,  as  could  be  expressed.  They  ap- 
prehend there  is  much  poison  in  the  said  words, 
and  that  they  were  spoken  out  of  design  to  in- 
flame, and  to  render  them  who  drew  the  sword 
to  bring  delinquents  to  punishment,  and  to  vin- 
dicate their  just  liberties,  into  balance  with 
them  who  cut  off  the  king's  head  ;  of  which 
they  express  their  abhorrence  and  detestation. 
Therefore  I  am  commanded  to  let  you  know, 
that  had  these  words  fallen  out  at  any  other 
time  in  this  Parliament  but  when  they  had  con- 
siderations of  mercy  and  indemnity,  you  might 
have  expected  a  sharper  and  severer  sentence. 
Nevertheless,  I  am,  according  to  command,  to 
give  you  a  sharp  reprehension,  and  I  do  as 
sharply  and  severely  as  I  can  reprehend  you  for 
it." 

But  it  was  to  little  purpose  to  justify  the  civil 
war,  when  they  were  yielding  up  all  they  had 
been  contending  for  to  the  court  ;t  for  though 
they  stopped  short  of  the  lengths  of  the  next 
Parliament,  they  increased  his  majesty's  reve- 
nues so  much,  that  if  he  had  been  a  frugal 
prince,  he  might  have  lived  without  Parliaments 
for  the  future.  The  restoring  the  king  after 
this  manner  without  any  treaty,  or  one  single 
article  for  the  securing  men  in  the  enjoyment 
of  their  religious  and  civil  liherfies,  was,  as  Bish- 
op Burnet  observes,!  the  foundation  of  all  the 
misfortunes  of  the  nation  under  this  reign. 
.And  as  another  right  reverend  prelate  observes, 
the  restorati(m  of  the  king  in  this  high  and  ab- 
solute manner  laid  the  foundation  of  all  the 
king's  future  miscarriages;  so  that  if  the  revo- 
lution by  King  William  and  Queen  Mary  had 
not  taken  place,  the  Restoration  had  been  no 
blessing  to  the  nation.^ 


*  Echard,  p.  7G5.     t  Rapin,  p.  258.     %  Page  126. 

i)  Let  those  who  take  so  much  pleasure  in  casting 
blame  upon  Cromwell  and  the  judges  of  Charles  I., 
remember  that  all  their  work  had  to  be  done  over 
again  in  1688  !  How  can  men  who  glory  in  the  rev- 
olution of  1C88,  or  in  that  of  1776,  find  fault  with  the 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


205 


But  it  ought  to  be  remembered,  that  this  was 
not  a  legal  Parliament,  for  the  Rump  had  no 
power  to  appoint  keepers  of  the  liherties  of 
England  ;  nor  had  the  keepers  a  right  to  issue 
out  writs  for  election  of  a  new  I'arliament ; 
nor  could  the  king's  writ,  without  the  subsequent 
choice  of  the  people,  make  them  so.  All  the 
laws,  therefore,  made  by  this  convention,  and  all 
the  punishments  inflicted  upon  offenders  in  pur- 
suance of  them,  were  not  strictly  legal  ;  which 
the  court  were  so  apprehensive  of,  that  they 
prevailed  with  the  next  Parliament  to  confirm 
them.  When  this  convention  Parliament  had 
set  about  eight  months,  it  was  dissolved,  De- 
cember 29,  partly  because  it  was  not  legally 
chosen,  and  because  it  was  too  much  Presbyte- 
rian ;  the  prime  minister  [Hyde]  having  now 
formed  a  design,  in  concert  with  the  bishops, 
of  evacuating  the  Church  of  all  the  Presbyte- 
rians. 

The  managing  Presbyterians  still  buoyed 
themselves  up  with  hopes  of  a  comprehension 
within  the  Church,  though  they  had  parted  with 
all  their  weight  and  influence  ;  and  from  di- 
rectors, were  become  humble  supplicants  to 
those  very  men  who,  a  few  months  before,  lay  at 
their  feet.  They  had  now  no  other  refuge  than 
the  king's  clemency,  which  was  directed  by 
(Chancellor  Hyde  and  the  bishops  ;  but  to  keep 
them  quiet,  his  majesty  condescended,  at  the 
instance  of  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  to  admit 
ten  of  their  number  into  the  list  of  his  chap- 
lains in  ordinary,  viz..  Dr.  Reynolds,  Spurstow, 
Wallis,  Manton,  Bates ;  Mr.  Calamy,  Ashe, 
Case,  Baxter,  and  Wood  bridge."* 

But  none  of  these  divines  were  called  to 
preach  at  court,  except  Dr.  Reynolds,  Dr.  Spur- 
stow, Mr.  Calamy,  and  Mr.  Baxter,  each  of 
them  once.  Here,  again,  the  Presbyterians  were 
divided  in  their  politics,  some  being  Ibr  going 
as  far  as  they  could  with  the  court,  and  oihers 
for  drawing  back.  Of  the  former  sort  were, 
Mr.  Calamy,  Dr.  Reynolds,  and  Mr.  Ashe,  who 
were  entirely  directed  by  the  Earl  of  Manches- 
ter, and  had  frequent  assemblies  at  his  liouse  ; 
to  them  were  joined  Dr.  Bales,  Dr.  Manton,  and 
most  of  the  city  ministers  ;  but  Dr.  Seaman, 
Mr.  Jenkins,  and  others,  were  of  another  party  ; 
these  were  a  little  estrangpd  from  the  rest  of 
their  brethren,  and  meddled  not  with  politics, 
says  Mr.  Baxter,t  because  the  court  gave  them 
no  encouragement,  their  design  being  only  to 
divide  them  ;  but  tlie  former  had  more  confi- 
dence in  their  superiors,  and  carried  on  a  treaty, 
till,  by  force  and  violence,  they  were  beaten  out 
of  the  field. 

Upon  the  king's  arrival  at  Whitehall,  the  lit- 
urgy of  the  Church  of  England  was  restored  to 
his  majesty's  chapel,  and  in  several  churches 
both  in  city  and  country  ;  for  it  was  justly  ob- 
served, that  all  acts  and  ordinances  of  the  Long 
Parliament  which  had  not  the  royal  assent  were 
in  themselves  null,  anil,  therefore,  prelacy  was 
still  the  legal  establishment,  and  the  Common 
Prayer  the  only  legal  form  of  worship,  and  that 
they  were  punishable  by  the  laws  of  the  land 
who  officiated  by  any  other.  The  king,  in  his 
declaration,  had  desired  that  the  Presbyterians 

opposition  of  their  forefathers  to  the  pranks  of  royal- 
ty and  prelacy  in  the  civil  war  ? — C. 

*   Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  162. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  p.  229. 


would  read  so  much  of  the  liturgy  as  they 
themselves  had  no  exception  against,  but  most 
of  them  declined  the  proposal.*  But,  to  set  an 
example  to  the  rest  of  the  nation,  the  House  of 
Peers,  two  days  after  the  king  was  proclaimed, 
appointed  Mr.  Marston  to  read  Divine  service 
before  thein,  in  his  formalities,  according  to  the 
Conmion  Prayer  Book  ;  and  the  Sunday  follow- 
ing Dr.  Gauden  preached  and  administered  the 
sacrament  to  several  of  the  peers,  who  received 
it  kneeling.  On  the  31st  of  May  ihey  ordered 
that  the  lorm  of  prayers  formerly  used  should 
be  constantly  read  in  their  House,  provided  that 
no  prejudice,  penalty,  or  reflection  shall  be  on 
any  who  are  not  present.  The  House  of  Com- 
mons followed  the  example  of  the  Lords;  and 
before  the  end  of  the  year  many  of  the  paro- 
chial clergy,  who  scrupled  the  use  of  the  Service 
Book,  were  prosecuted  liir  ofTending  against  the 
statutes  made  in  that  behalf;  the  justices  of  the 
peace  and  others  insisting  that  the  laws  return- 
ed with  the  king,  and  that  they  ought  not  to  be 
dispensed  with  in  the  neglect  of  them. 

The  old  sequestered  clergy  fl(jr-ked  in  great 
numbers  about  the  court,  magnifying  their  suf- 
ferings, and  making  interest  for  preferment ; 
every  one  took  possession  of  the  living  from 
which  he  had  been  ejected  ;  by  which  means 
some  hundreds  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  were 
dispossessed  at  once.  Upon  this,  the  heads  of 
that  party  waited  upon  the  king,  and  prayed 
that,  though  all  who  had  lost  their  livings  for 
malignancy,  or  disaffection  to  the  late  powers, 
were  restored,  yet  that  those  mitlisters  who 
succeeded  such  as  had  been  ejected  for  scandal, 
might  keep  their  places  ;  but  the  court  paid  no 
regard  to  their  petitions.  However,  where  the 
incumbent  was  dead,  his  majesty  yielded  that 
the  living  should  be  confirmed  to  the  present 
possessor. 

The  heads  of  colleges  and  fellows  who  had 
been  ejected  in  the  late  times  were  no  less  for- 
ward in  their  applications  to  be  restored  ;  upon 
which  the  Parliament  appointed  a  committee  to 
receive  their  petitions.  Dr.  Goodwin  having 
resigned  his  presidentship  of  Magdalen  College, 
the  Lords  ordered  "  that  Dr.  Oliver  be  restored 
in  as  full  and  ample  manner  as  formerly  he  en- 
joyed it,  till  the  pleasure  of  his  majesty  be 
farther  known.  And  the  three  senior  fellows 
were  appointed  to  put  this  order  in  execu- 
tion."t  The  ejected  fellows  of  New  College, 
Oxon,  petitioned,  at  the  same  time,  to  he  resto- 
red ;  upon  which  the  Lords  ordered.  May  19, 
that  "Robert  Grove,  John  Lainpshire,  &c.,  late 
fellows  of  New  College,  Oxon,  and  all  oihers 
who  were  unjustly  ejected  out  of  their  fellow- 
ships, be  forthwith  restored  ;  and  that  all  such 
fellows  as  have  been  admitted  contrary  to  the 
statute  be  forthwith  ejected;  and  that  no  new 
fellows  be  admitted  contrary  to  the  statutes. "t 
And  to  prevent  farther  applications  of  this  kind, 
the  Lords  passed  this  general  order,  June  4  : 
"  that  the  chancellors  of  both  universities  shall 
take  care  that  the  several  colleges  in  the  said 
universities  sliall  be  governed  according  to  their 
respective  statutes  ;  and  that  such  persons  who 
have  been  unjustly  put  out  of  their  headships, 
fellowships,  or  other  offices  relating  to  the  sev- 
eral colleges  or  universities,  may  be  restored 


*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  432. 
X  iljid.,  p.  153. 


Ibid.,  p.  152. 


'MG 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


according  to  the  said  statutes  of  the  university,  I  who,  in  the  months  of  August  and  September, 


and  founders  of  colleges  therein."* 

Pursuant  to  this  order,  there  followed  a  very 
considerable  change  in  both  universities,  com- 
missioners being  appointed  by  the  king  to  hear 
and  determine  all  causes  relating  to  this  affair, 
Heads  of  Colleges  restored,  Aiigust  3.  President  of. 

Dr.  Hannibal  Potter,        Trinity  College, 

St.  John's  College, 
Jesus  College, 
Corpus  Christi  College, 
All  Souls  College, 
Brazen  Nose  College, 
Pembroke  College, 
N.  B.  This  Mr.  Wightwick  was  ejected  a  second  time,  1664 
Mr.  Henry  Wightwick,    St.  Mary's  Hall, 
Dr.  Robert  Saunderson,  Regius  Professor  in  Divinity, 
Dr.  Thomas  Willis, 


Dr.  Richard  Bayly, 
Dr.  P'rancis  Mansel, 
Dr.  Robert  Nevvlin, 
Dr.  Gilbert  Sheldon, 
Dr.  Thomas  Yate, 
Mr.  Henry  Wightwick, 


restored  all  such  as  were  unmarried  to  their  re- 
spective places.  In  the  University  of  Oxford, 
besides  Dr.  Oliver,  aheady  mentioned,  the  fol- 
lowing heads  of  colleges  were  restored,  and  the 
present  possessors  ejected  : 

In  the  place  of  heads  ejected. 

Dr.  Seth  Ward. 

Mr.  Thank  Owen. 

Mr.  Francis  Howel. 

Dr.  Edward  Staunton. 

Dr.  Meredith,  dec. 

Dr.  D.  Greenwood. 

Dr.  Henry  Langley. 


Mr.  Thomas  Cole. 

Dr.  John  Conant. 

Dr.  Josh.  Crosse. 


Natural  Philosophy  reader, 
Dr  Robert  South  ?  Canon  of  Christ  Church  and  University  orator,    >  Mr.  Ralph  Button. 

Dr.  Thomas  Barlow,     i  Canon  of  Christ  Church  and  Margaret  Prof,      I  Dr.  H.  Wilkinson,  Sen. 


Besides  these,  all  surviving  ejected  fellows 
of  colleges  were  restored  without  exceptions, 
and  sucli  as  had  been  nominated  by  the  com- 
missioners in  1648,  or  elected  in  any  other  man- 
ner than  according  to  the  statutes,  were  ejected, 
and  their  places  declared  vacant. 

The  like  alterations  were  made  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge.  The  Earl  of  Manches- 
ter, chancellor,  was  obliged  to  send  the  follow- 
ing letter  to  the  university,  dated  August  3,  for 
restoring  Dr.  Martin  to  the  mastership  of 
Queen's  College,  whom  he  had  ejected  for  scan- 
dal, by  letters  under  his  hand,  dated  March  13, 
1643  : 

Heads  of  Colleges  restored. 
Dr.  J.  Cosins, 


"  Whereas  I  am  informed  that  Dr.  Ed.  Mar- 
tin has  been  wrongfully  put  out  of  his  master- 
ship: these  are  to  signify  to  all  whom  it  may 
concern,  that  I  do,  by  virtue  of  an  authority 
given  to  me,  by  the  Lords  assembled  in  Parlia- 
ment, restore  him  to  his  said  mastership,  to- 
gether with  all  lodgings,  &c.,  appertaining  to 
his  place,  from  henceforth  to  have  and  enjoy  all 
profits,  rights,  privileges,  and  advantages  be- 
longing thereunto,  unless  cause  be  shown  to  the 
contrary  within  ten  days  after  the  date  hereof"* 
This  gentleman  was  accordingly  restored,  and 
with  him  several  others :  as, 


Peter  House, 

Dr.  Thomas  Paske,  Clare  Hall, 

Dr.  Benjamin  Laney,  Pembroke  Hall, 

Dr.  Robert  King,  Trinity  Hall, 

Dr.  Richard  Sterne,  Jesus  College, 

Dr.  Edw.  Rainbowe,  Magdalen  College,  ejected  for  refusing  Eng., 

All  the  surviving  fellows  unmarried  were  re- 
stored, as  in  the  other  university,  by  which 
means  most  of  the  Presbyterians  were  dispos- 
sessed, and  the  education  of  youth  taken  out  of 
their  hands. t  To  make  way  for  the  tilling  up 
these  and  other  vacancies  in  the  Church,  the 
honours  of  the  universities  were  offered  to  al- 
most any  who  would  declare  their  aversion  to 
Presbytery,  and  hearty  affection  for  Episcopal 
government. t  It  was  his  majesty's  pleasure, 
and  the  chancellor's,  that  there  should  be  a  crea- 
tion in  all  faculties  of  such  as  had  suffered  for 
the  royal  cause,  and  had  been  ejected  from  the 
university  by  the  visiters  in  1648.  Accordingly, 
between  seventy  and  eighty  masters  of  arts 
were  created  this  year  ;  among  whom,  says  the 
Oxford  historian,  some  that  had  not  been  suf- 
ferers thrust  themselves  into  the  crowd  for  their 
money  ;  others,  yet  few,  were  gentlemen,  and 
created  by  the  favour  of  the  chancellor's  letters 
only  ;  eighteen  were  created  bachelors  of  divin- 
ity, seventy  doctors  of  divinity,  twenty-two  doc- 
tors of  physic,  besides  doctors  of  laws.  The 
creations  in  the  University  of  Cambridge  were 
yet  more  numerous.  On  Midsummer-day,  a 
grace  passed  in  the  university  in  favour  of  some 


Master  of.  In  place  of  heads  ejected. 

Dr.  Lazarus  Seaman. 
(  Resigned  to  Dr.  The.  Dil- 
(      hngham. 

Mr.  William  Moses. 

Mr.  Bond. 

Mr.  J.  Worthington. 

Mr.  John  Sadleir. 

candidates  for  degrees.!  August  2,  the  king 
sent  letters  to  Cambridge  for  creating  nine  or 
ten  persons  doctors  of  divinity  ;t  and  on  the 
5th  of  September  there  were  created,  by  virtue 
of  his  majesty's  mandamus,  no  less  than  sev- 
enty-one doctors  of  divinity,  nine  doctors  of 
civil  law,  five  doctors  of  physic,  and  five  bach- 
elors of  divinity.  So  that,  within  the  compass 
of  little  more  than  six  months,  the  universities 
conferred  one  hundred  and  fifty  doctors  of  di- 
vinity degrees,  and  as  many  more  in  the  other 
faculties.  Some  of  these  were  deserving  per- 
sons, but  the  names  of  most  of  them  are  no- 
where to  be  found  but  in  the  university-regis- 
ters. Had  the  Parliament  visiters  in  1648,  or 
Oliver  Cromwell  in  his  protectorship,  made  so 
free  with  the  honours  of  the  universities,  they 
might  justly  have  been  supposed  to  countenance 
the  illiterate,  and  prostitute  the  honour  of  the 
two  great  luminaries  of  this  kingdom  ;  but  his 
majesty's  promoting  such  numbers  in  so  short 
a  time  by  a  royal  mandamus,  without  inquiring 
into  their  qualifications,  or  insisting  upon  their 
performing  any  academical  exercise,  must  be 
covered  with  a  veil,  because  it  was  for  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Church.  In  the  midst  of  these  pro- 
motions, the  Marquis  of  Hertford,  chancellor  of 


*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  173.  f  Fasti,  p.  120. 

t  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  220,221,  &c. 


Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  221,  222. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  188. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  220,  251. 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


207 


the  University  of  Oxfoid,  died,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded hy  Sir  Edward  Hyde,  now  Lord-chancel- 
ior  of  England,  and  created  about  this  time  Earl 
of  Clarendon.  He  was  installed  Novemher  15, 
and  continued  in  this  office  till  he  retired  into 
France  in  the  year  1667. 

These  promotions  made  way  for  filling  up  the 
vacancies  in  cathedrals  ;  July  5,  Drs.  Killigrew, 
Jones,  Doughty,  and  Busby,  were  installed  preb- 
endaries of  Westminster  ;  and  within  a  month 
or  six  weeks  four  more  were  added.*  In  the 
months  of  July  and  August,  all  the  dignities  in 
the  Cathedral  of  St.  Paul's  were  filled  up,  being 
upward  of  twenty.  July  13,  twelve  divines 
were  installed  prebendaries  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Canterbury  ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  year,  all 
the  dignities  in  the  Cathedrals  of  Durham,  Ches 
ter,  Litchfield,  Bristol,  Hereford,  Worcester, 
Gloucester,  &.c.,  were  supplied  with  younger 
divines,  who  ran  violently  in  the  current  of  the 
times. t  There  were  only  nine  bishops  alive  at 
the  king's  restoration,  viz.  : 

Dr.  William  Juxon,       Bishop  of  London. 
Dr.  William  Pierse,  "         Bath  and  Wells. 

Dr.  Matthew  Wren,  "         Ely. 

Dr.  Robert  Skinner,  "        Oxford. 

Dr.  William  Roberts  "        Bangor. 

Dr.  John  Warner,  "        Rochester. 

Dr.  Bryan  Duppa,  "         Sarum. 

Dr.  Henry  King,  "         Chichester. 

Dr.  Accepted  Frewen,         "        Litchfield  and  Cov- 

entry.t 

In  order  to  make  way  for  a  new  creation, 
some  of  the  bishops  above  mentioned  were 
translated  to  better  sees  ;  as. 

Dr.  Juxon,  bishop  of  London,  to  Canterbury, 
who  was  promoted  more  out  of  decency,  says 
Bishop  Burnet,iJ  as  being  the  eldest  and  most 
eminent  of  the  surviving  bishops  ;  he  never  was 
a  great  divine,  but  was  now  superannuated. 

Dr.  Accepted  Frewen  was  translated  to  York, 
September  22,  and  confirmed  October  4.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  Puritanical  minister,  and  him- 
self inclined  that  way,  till  some  time  after  the 
beginning  of  the  civil  wars,  when  he  became  a 
great  Loyalist,  and  was  promoted  in  the  year 
1644  to  the  see  of  Litchfield  and  Coventry  :  he 
made  no  figure  in  the  learned  world, II  and  died 
in  the  year  1664. 

Dr.  Bryan  Duppa  was  translated  to  Winches- 
ter, and  confirmed  October  4.  He  had  been 
the  king's  tutor,  though  no  way  equal  to  the 
service.  He  was  a  meek,  humble  man,  and 
much  beloved  for  his  good  temper,  says  Bishop 
Burnet, IT  and  would  have  been  more  esteemed 
if  he  had  died  before  the  Restoration,  for  he 
made  not  that  use  of  the  great  wealth  that 
flowed  in  upon  him  as  was  expected.** 


*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  199.  t  Ibid.,  p.  204. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  252.  <)  Vol.  i.,  p.  257. 

II  Dr.  Grey  observes,  however,  on  the  authority 
of  Wood,  that  Dr.  Frewen,  though  he  published  only 
a  Latin  or&tion,  with  some  verses  on  the  death  of 
Prince  Henry,  was  esteemed  a  general  scholar  and  a 
good  orator.  He  was  buried  in  his  cathedral  church, 
and  a  splendid  monument  was  erccteil  over  his  grave. 
He  bequeathed  £1000  to  Magdalen  College,  Oxon, 
of  which  he  had  been  president. —  Wood's  Athente 
Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  663,  664.  Godwinus  de  PrtEsulibux. 
euro,  Richardson,  p.  714. — Ed.  IT  Page  258. 

**  Dr.  Grey  censures  Mr.  Neal  for  adopting  this 
mistake  of  Bishop  Burnet,  and  says  that  Dr.  Duppa's 
charities  were  extraordinary.    He  gave  for  redeem- 


Xo  make  way  for  the  election  of  new  bishops 
in  a  regular  and  canonical  manner,  it  was  first 
necessary  lo  restore  to  every  cathedral  a  dean  and 
chapter;*  vvhich  being  done. 

Dr.  Gilbert  Sheldon  was  advanced  to  the  see 
of  London  ;  he  was  esteemed  a  learned  man 
before  the  civil  wars,  but  had  since  engaged  so 
deep  in  politics,  says  Bishop  Burnet, t  that 
scarce  any  prints  of  what  he  had  been  remain- 
ed ;  he  was  a  dexterous  man  in  business,  and 
treated  all  men  in  an  obliging  manner,  but  few 
depended  much  on  his  professions  of  friendship. 
He  seemed  not  to  have  a  deep  sense  of  religion, 
if  any  at  all  ;  and  spoke  of  it  most  commonly 
as  an  engine  of  government,  and  a  matter  of 
policy,  for  which  reason  the  king  looked  upon 
him  as  a  wise  and  honest  clergyman.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  implacable  adver- 
saries of  the  Nonconformists. 

Dr.  Henchman  was  consecrated  Bishop  of 
Sarum,  and  Dr.  George  Morley  Bishop  of  Wor- 
cester, October  28.  December  2,  seven  bishops, 
were  consecrated  together  in  St.  Peter's,  West- 
minster, viz.: 


Dr.  John  Cosins, 
Dr.  William  Lawes, 
Dr.  Benjamin  Laney, 
Dr.  Hugh  Lloyd, 
Dr.  Richard  Sterne, 
Dr.  Bryan  Walton, 
Dr.  John  Gauden, 


Bishop  of  Durham. 

"  St.  David's. 

"  Peterborough. 

"  Landaff. 

"  Carlisle. 

"  Chester. 

"  Exeter. 


On  the  6th  of  January  following  four  other 
bishops  were  consecrated,  viz  : 

Dr.  Gilbert  Ironside,  Bishop  of  Bristol. 
Dr.  Edward  Reynolds,  "  Norwich. 

Dr.  Nicholas  Monk,  "  Hereford. 

Dr.  William  Nicholson,  "  Gloucester. 

Four  or  five  sees  were  kept  vacant  for  the 
leading  divines  among  the  Presbyterians,  if 
they  would  conform  ;  but  they  declined,  as  will 
be  seen  hereafter.  In  Scotland  and  Ireland 
things  were  not  quite  so  ripe  for  execution  ;  the 
Scots  Parliament  disannulled  the  Covenant,  but 
Episcopacy  was  not  established  in  either  of  the 
kingdoms  till  next  year. 


ing  of  captives,  building  and  endowing  almshouses, 
with  other  charitable  deeds,  in  benevolences,  repairs, 
&c.,  £16,000,  and  was  so  good  to  his  tenants  as  to 
abate  £30,000  in  fines.  Richardson  says  that  during 
the  two  years  he  lived  after  his  translation  to  the  see 
of  Winchester,  he  expended  great  sums  in  public 
services,  and  was  meditating  more  undertakings. 
He  built  an  almshouse  at  Richmond,  and  endowed 
it  by  his  will  with  £1500.  He  bequeathed  £200  to 
the  almshouse  at  Pembridge  in  Herts ;  and,  to  omit 
private  donations,  he  left  to  the  Church  of  Salisbury 
£500,  of  Winchester  £200,  of  St.  Paul's,  London, 
£300,  and  of  Cirencester  200. —  Grey's  Examination, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  276  ;  and  Godwin,  de  Prissulibus,  p.  243. — 
Eo. 

*  All  these  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament. 
No  bishop  of  the  English  Church  can  be  made  with- 
out them.  That  Church  declares  no  minister  can 
be  scriptiirally  ordained  but  by  these  bishops  so  un- 
scripturally  made.  How  long  will  it  be  before  we 
have  deans  and  chapters  in  this  country  ?  Certain 
bishops  among  us  have  already  taken  their  titles  as 
Bishop  of  States,  and  applications  have  been  made 
to  legislatures  to  incorporate  "  the  Church,"'  this,  and 
the  other  matter.  Perhaps  Episcopacy  at  first  will 
be  content  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  court  religion. 
The  chaplains  of  the  army  and  navy  are  neariy  al{ 
appointed  from  this  division  of  the  Christian  Chu'ich. 
— C.  t  Page  257. 


•208 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


The  English  nierarchy  being  restored  ta  its 
former  pre-eminenee,  except  the  peerage  of  the 
bisiiops,  it  remained  only  to  consider  what  was 
to  be  done  with  tlie  malecontents  ;  tiie  Inde- 
pendents and  Anabaptists  petitioned  the  king 
only  for  a  toleration  ;*  and  the  English  papists, 
depending  npon  their  interest  at  court,  offered 
his  majesty  .£100,000,  before  he  left  Breda,  to 
take  off  the  penal  laws,  upon  which  his  majesty 
ordered  tiie  chancellor  to  insert  the  following 
clause  in  his  declaration  concerning  ecclesias- 
tical affairs:  That  others  also  be  permitted  to 
meet  for  religious  worship,  so  be  it  they  do  it 
not  to  the  disturbance  of  the  peace ;  and  that 
no  justice  of  peace  offer  to  disturb  them.t 
"When  tills  was  debated  in  the  kuig's  prescMice 
after  the  Restoration,  the  bishops  wisely  held 
their  peace ;  but  Mr.  Baxter,  who  was  more 
zealous  than  prudent,  declared  plainly  his  dis- 
like of  a  toleration  of  papists  and  Socinians  ; 
■which  his  majesty  took  so  very  ill,  that  he  said 
the  Presbyterians  were  a  set  of  men  who  were 
-only  for  setting  up  tiiemselves.  These  still 
flattered  themselves  with  hopes  of  a  compre- 
hension, but  the  Independents  and  Baptists 
were  in  despair. 

And  here  was  an  end  of  those  distracted 
times,  which  our  liistorians  have  loaded  with 
all  the  infamy  and  reproach  that  the  wit  of  man 
could  invent.  The  Puritan  mitiisters  have  been 
decried  as  ignorant  meciianics,  canting  preach- 
ers, enemies  to  learning,  and  no  better  than 
public  robbers.  The  universities  were  said  to 
be  reduced  to  a  mere  Munster  ;  and  that  if  the 
Goths  and  Vandals,  and  even  the  Turks,  had 
overrun  the  nation,  tliey  could  nt)t  have  done 
more  to  introduce  barbarism,  disloyalty,  and  ig- 
norance ;  and  yel  in  these  limes,  and  by  the  men 
who  then  filled  the  university  ehairs,  icere  educa- 
ted the  most  learned  divines  and  eloqnent  preach- 
ers of  the  last  age,  as  the  Stillingflcels,  Tillot- 
sons.  Bulls,  Barroivs,  Whuhys,  and  others,  who 
retained  a  high  veneration  for  their  learned  tutors 
after  they  were  rejected  and  displaced.  The  reli- 
gious part  of  the  common  people  have  been 
stigmatized  with  the  character  of  hypocrites  ; 
their  looks,  their  dress,  and  behaviour  have 
been  represented  in  the  most  odious  colours; 
and  yet  one  may  venture  to  challenge  these  de- 
claimers  to  produce  any  period  of  time  since 
the  Reformation  wherein  there  was  less  open 
profaneness  and  impiety,  and  more  of  the  spirit 
as  well  as  appearance  of  religion.  Perhaps 
there  was  too  much  rigour  and  preciseness  in 
indifferent  matters  ;  but  the  lusts  of  men  were 
laid  under  a  visible  restraint;  and  though  the 
Ieg?l  constitution  was  unhappily  broken,  and 
men  were  governed  by  false  politics,  yet  lietter 
laws  were  never  made  against  vice,  or  more 
vigorously  executed.  The  dress  and  conversa- 
tion of  people  were  sober  and  virtuous,  and 
their  manner  of  living  remarkably  frugal ;  there 
was  hardly  a  single  bankruptcy  to  be  heard  of 
in  a  year ;  and  in  such  a  case  the  bankrupt  had 
a  mark  of  infimy  set  upon  him  that  he  could 
never  wipe  off.  Drunkenness,  fornication,  pro- 
fane swearing,  and  every  kind  of  debauchery, 
were  justly  deemed  infamous,  and  universally 
discountenanced.  Tlie  clergy  were  laborious 
to  excess  in  preaching  and  praying,  and  cate- 
chising youth,  and  visiting  their  parishes.     The 

♦  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  142.   f  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  258. 


magistrates  did  their  duty  in  suppressing  all 
kind  of  games,  stage-plays,  and  abuses  in  pub- 
lic houses.  There  was  not  a  play  acted  on  any 
theatre  in  England  for  almost  twenty  years. 
The  Lord's  Day  was  observed  with  unusual 
reverence  ;  and  there  were  a  set  of  as  learned 
and  pious  youths  training  up  in  the  university 
as  had  ever  been  known.  So  that  if  such  a 
reformation  of  manners  had  obtained  under  a 
legal  administration,  they  would  have  deserved 
the  character  of  the  best  of  times. 

But  when  the  legal  constitution  was  restored, 
there  returned  with  it  a  torrent  of  debauchery 
and  wickedness.  The  times  w'hich  followed 
the  Restoration  were  the  reverse  of  those  lliat 
preceded  it;  for  the  laws  which  had  been  en- 
acted against  vice  A)r  the  last  twenty  years  be- 
ing declared  null,  and  the  magistrates  changed, 
men  set  no  bounds  to  their  licentiousness.  A 
proclamation,  indeed,  was  published  against 
those  loose  and  riotous  Cavaliers  whose  loyal- 
ty consisted  in  drinking  healths  and  railing  at 
those  who  would  not  revel  with  them  ;  but  in 
reality  the  king  was  at  the  head  of  these  disor- 
ders, being  devoted  to  his  pleasures,  and  hav- 
ing given  himself  up  to  an  avowed  course  of 
lewdness;  his  bishops  and  chaplains  said  that 
he  usually  came  from  his  mistresses'  apart- 
ments to  church,  even  on  sacrament  days.* 
There  were  two  play-houses  erected  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  tlie  court.  Women-actresses 
were  introduced  into  the  theatres,  which  had 
not  been  known  till  that  time ;  the  most  lewd 
and  obscene  plays  were  brought  on  the  stage ; 
and  the  more  obscene,  the  king  was  the  better 
pleased,  who  graced  every  new  play  with  his 
royal  presence.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen  at 
court  but  feasting,  hard  drinking,  revelling,  and 
amorous  intrigues,  which  engendered  the  most 
enormous  vices.  From  court  the  contagion 
spread  like  wildfire  among  the  people,  insomuch 
that  men  threw  off  the  very  profession  of  vir- 
tue and  piety,  under  colour  of  drinking  the 
king's  health  ;  all  kinds  of  old  cavalier  rioting 
and  debauchery  revived;  the  appearances  of 
religion  which  remained  with  some,  furnished 
matters  of  ridicule  to  libertines  and  scoffers  :t 
some,  who  had  been  concerned  in  the  former 
changes,  thought  they  could  not  redeem  their 
credit  better  than  by  deriding  all  religion,  and 
telling  or  making  stories  to  render  their  former 
party  ridiculous.  To  appear  serious,  or  make 
conscience  either  of  words  or  actions,  was  the 
way  to  DC  accounted  a  schismatic,  a  fanatic,  or 
a  sectarian  ;  though,  if  there  was  any  real  reli- 
gion during  the  course  of  this  reign,  it  was 
chiefly  among  those  people.  They  who  did  not 
applaud  the  new  ceremonies  were  marked  out 
for  Presbyterians,  and  every  Presbyterian  was 
a  rebel.  The  old  clergy  who  had  been  seques- 
tered for  scandal,  having  taken  possession  of 
their  livings,  were  intoxicated  with  their  new 
felicity,  and  threw  off  all  the  restraints  of  their 
order.  Every  week,  says  Mr.  Baxter,}  pro- 
duced reports  of  one  or  other  clergyman  who 
was  taken  up  by  the  watch  drunk  at  night,  and 
mobbed  in  the  streets.  Some  were  taken  with 
lewd  women ;  and  one  was  reported  to  be 
drunk  in  the  pulpit.^     Such  was  liie  general 

*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  167.  f  Ibid.,  p.  493. 

X  Life,  part  if,  p.  2s8. 

i)  Dr.  Grey  questions  the  truth  of  the  above  dharge 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


209 


dissoluteness  of  manners  which  attended  the 
deluge  of  joy  which  overflowed  the  nation  upon 
his  majesty's  restoration  ! 

About  this  time  died  tiie  Reverend  Mr.  Fran- 
cis Taylor,  some  time  rector  of  Clapham  in  Sur- 
ry, and  afterward  of  Yalden,  from  whence  he 
was  called  to  sit  in  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at 
Westminster,  and  had  a  considerable  share  in 
the  annotations  which  go  under  their  name. 
From  Yalden  Mr.  Taylor  reinoved  to  Canter- 
bury, and  became  preacher  of  Christ  Church  in 
that  city,  where  I  presume  he  died,  leaving  be- 
hind iiim  the  character  of  an  able  critic  in  the 
Oriental  languages,  and  one  of  the  most  consid- 
erable divines  of  the  Assembly.  He  published 
several  valuable  works,  and  among  others,  a 
translation  of  the  Jerusalem  Targum  on  the 
Pentateuch  out  of  the  Chaldee  into  Latin,  ded- 
icated to  the  learned  Mr.  Gataker,  of  Rother- 
hithe,  with  a  prefatory  epistle  of  Selden's  and 
several  others,  relating  to  Jewish  antiquities. 
Among  the  letters  to  Archbishop  Usher  there  is 
one  from  Mr.  Taylor,  dated  from  Clapham,  1635. 
He  corresponded  also  with  Boetius,  and  most 
of  the  learned  men  of  his  time.  He  left  behind 
him  a  son  who  was  blind,*  but  ejected  for  non- 
conformity in  the  year  1G62,  from  St.  Alphage 
Church  in  Canterbury,  where  he  lies  buried. 


CHAPTER  V. 

FROM    THE    RESTORATION    OK  KING  CHARLES    II.    TO 
THE    CONFERENCE    AT    THE    SAVOV.        1660. 

Before  we  relate  the  conference  between  the 
Episcopal  and  Presbyterian  divines  in  order  to 
a  comprehension,  it  will  be  proper  to  represent 
the  views  of  the  court,  and  of  the  bishops,  who 
had  promised  to  act  with  temper,  and  to  bury 
all  past  offences  under  the  foundation  of  the 
Restoration.  The  point  in  debate  was,  "  Wheth- 
er concessions  should  be  made,  and  pains  taken, 
to  gain  the  Presbyterians  V    The  king  seemed 

But  whoever  reads  Mr.  Baxter's  account  of  the  mat- 
ter, and  of  the  conduct  of  himself  and  some  of  his 
brethren  on  the  report  of  it,  which  rang  through  the 
city,  will  scarcely  doubt  the  fact.  But  there  is  force 
and  candour  in  what  Dr.  Grey  adds  concerning  the 
reply  of  Mr.  Selden  to  an  alderman  of  the  Long  Par- 
hament  on  the  subject  of  episcopacy.  The  alderman 
said,  "  that  there  were  so  many  clamours  against 
such  and  such  prelates,  that  they  would  never  be 
quiet  till  they  had  no  more  bishops."  On  this  Mr. 
Selden  informed  the  House  what  grievous  com- 
plaints there  were  against  such  and  such  aldermen  ; 
and  therefore,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  it  was  his  opin- 
ion, he  sfiid,  that  Ihey  should  have  no  more  aldermen. 
Here  was  the  fault  transferred  to  the  office,  which  is 
a  dangerous  error ;  for  not  only  government,  but  hu- 
man society  itself,  may  be  dissolved  by  the  same  ar- 
gument, if  the  frailties  or  corruptions  of  particular 
men  shall  be  revenged  upon  the  whole  body. — Grey\ 
Examination,  vol.  iii.,  p.  2G7.^Ed. 

*  He  lost  his  sight  by  the  smallpox,  but  pursued 
his  studies  by  the  aid  of  others  who  read  to  him. 
His  brother,  who  was  also  blind,  he  supported,  and 
took  great  pains  to  instruct  and  win  over  to  serious 
religion,  but  not  with  all  the  success  he  desired  ;  he 
was  a  man  of  good  abilities,  and  noted  for  an  elo- 
quent preacher;  and  his  ministry  was  much  valued 
and  respected.  He  did  not  long  survive  the  treat- 
ment he  met  with  in  being  seized  and  carried  to 
prison  ;  but  was  cheerful  in  all  his  afflictions. — Palm- 
«r'.<  Nonconformists'  Memorial, \o\.  if,  p.  57,  58. — Ed. 

Vol.    II.— Dd 


to  he  for  it ;  but  the  court-bishops,  with  Lord 
Clarendon  at  llieir  head,  were  absolutely  against 
it :  Clarendon  was  a  man  of  high  ami  arbitrary 
principles,  and  gave  himself  up  to  the  bisliops, 
for  the  service  they  had  done  hiin  in  reconciling 
the  king  to  his  daughter's  clandestine  marriage 
with  the  Duke  of  York.  If  his  lordship  had  been 
a  friend  to  moderate  measures,  the  greatest  part 
of  the  Presbyterians  might  have  been  gained  ; 
but  he  would  not  disoblige  the  bishops;  the 
reasons  of  whose  angry  behaviour  were,  "1. 
Their  high  notions  of  the  Episcopal  form  of 
government,  as  necessary  to  the  very  essence 
of  a  Christian  church.  2.  The  resentments 
that  remained  in  their  breasts  against  all  who 
had  engaged  with  the  Long  Parliament,  and  had 
been  the  cause  of  their  sufferings.  3.  The  Pres- 
byterians being  legally  possessed  of  most  of  the 
benefices  in  Church  and  State,  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  dispossess  them  ;  and  if  there  must 
be  a  schism,  rather  to  have  it  out  of  the  Church 
than  within  it ;"  for  it  had  been  observed  that 
the  half  conformity  of  the  Puritans  before  the 
war  had,  in  most  cities  and  corporations,  occa- 
sioned a  faction  between  the  incumbents  and 
lecturers,  which  latter  had  endeavoured  to  ren- 
der themselves  popular  at  the  expense  of  the 
hierarchy.  4.  Besides,  they  had  too  much  in- 
fluence in  the  election  of  representatives  to 
serve  in  Parliament ;  therefore,  instead  of  using 
methods  to  bring  them  into  the  Church,  says 
Bishop  Burnet.*  they  resolved  to  seek  the  most 
effectual  ones  for  casting  them  out.  Here  was 
no  generosity  or  spirit  of  Catholicism,  no  re- 
membrance of  past  services,  no  compassion  for 
weak  or  prejudiced  minds,  but  a  fixed  resolution 
to  disarm  their  opponents  at  all  events  ;  so  that 
the  ensuing  conferences  with  the  Presbyterians 
were  no  othen  than  an  amusement  to  keep  them 
quiet  till  they  could  obtain  a  law  for  their  utter 
expulsion. 

The  king  was  devoted  to  his  pleasures,  and 
had  no  principles  of  real  religion  ;  his  grand 
design  was  to  lay  asleep  the  former  controver- 
sies, and  to  unite  both  Protestant  and  papist 
under  his  government ;  with  this  view  he  sub- 
mitted to  the  scheme  of  the  bishop.s,  in  hopes 
of  making  it  subservient  to  a  general  toleration  ; 
which  nothing  could  render  more  necessary 
than  having  great  bodies  of  men  shut  out  oi" 
the  Church,  and  put  under  severe  penal  laws, 
who  must  then  be  petitioners  for  a  toleration, 
which  the  Legislature  would  probably  grant; 
but  it  was  his  majesty's  resolution  that,  what- 
soever should  be  granted  of  that  sort,  should 
pass  in  so  limited  a  manner,  that  papists  as 
well  as  other  sectaries  should  be  comprehended 
within  it.  The  Duke  of  York  and  all  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  were  in  this  scheme ;  they  de- 
clared absolutely  against  a  comprehension,  but 
were  very  much  for  a  general  toleration,  as 
what  was  necessary  for  the  peace  of  the  nation, 
and  promoting  the  Catholic  cause. 

The  well-meaning  Presbyterians  were  all  this 
while  striving  against  the  stream,  and  making 
interest  with  a  set  of  men  who  were  now  laugh- 
ing in  their  sleeves  at  the  abject  condition  to 
which  their  egregious  credulity  had  reduced 
them.  They  otfered  Archbishop  Usher's  model 
of  primitive  Episcopacy  as  a  plan  of  accommo- 
dation;  that  the  surplice,  the  cross  in  baptism, 
*  Vol.  i.,  p.  259,  2G0,  12mo. 


210 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


and  kneeling  at  the  communion,  should  be  left 
indifferent.*     They  were  content  to  set  aside 
the  Assembly's  confession,  and  let  the  articles 
of  the  Cliiirch  of  England  take  place  with  some 
few  amendments.     About  the  middle  of  June, 
Mr.  Calauiy,  Dr.  Reynolds,  Mr.  Ashe,  Mr.  Bax- 
ter, Dr.  Wallis,  Dr.  Manton,  and  Dr.  Spurstow 
waited  upon  the  king,  being  iniroduced  by  the 
Earl  of  Manchester,  to  crave  his  majesty's  in- 
terposition for  reconciling  the  differences  in  the 
Church,  that  the  people  might  not  be  deprived 
of  their  faithful  pastors.     Honest  Mr.  Baxter 
told  his  majesty  that  the  interest  of  the  late 
usurpers  with  the  people  arose  from  the  encour- 
agement they  had  given  religion  ;  and  he  hoped 
the  king  would  not  undo,  but  rather  go  beyond, 
the   good   which  Cromwell  or  any  other   had 
done.f    They  laid  a  good  deal  of  stress  on  their 
own   loyalty,  and   carefully   distinguished   be- 
tween their  own  behaviour  and  that  of  other 
sectaries,  who  had  been  disloyal  and  factious. 
The  king  replied  that  "he  was  glad  to  hear  of 
their   inclinations   to   an    agreement ;  that   he 
would  do  his  part  to  bring  them  together,  but 
this  must  not  be  by  bringing  one  party  over  to 
another,  but  by  ahating  somewhat  on  both  sides, 
and  meeting  in  the  midway  ;  and  that  if  it  were 
not  accomplished,  it  should  not  be  his  fault ;  nay, 
he  said,  he  was  resolved  to  see  it  brought  to 
pass."t      Accordingly,    his    majesty   required 
them  to  draw  up  such  proposals  as  they  thought 
meet  for   an  agreement  about  church  govern- 
ment, and  to  set  down  the  most  they  could 
yield ;  promising  them  a  meeting  with  some 
Episcopal  divines  in  his  majesty's  presence, 
when  the  proposals  were  ready.     Upon  this  they 
summoned  the  city  ministers  to  meet  and  con- 
sult at  Sion  College,  not  excluding  such  of  their 
country  brethren  as  would  attend,  that  it  might 
not  be   said  afterward  they  took  upon  them- 
selves  the  concluding  so  weighty  an  affair.^ 
After  two  or  three  weeks'  consultation,  they 
agreed  upon  a  paper  to  the  following  purpose, 
drawn  up  chiefly  by  Dr.  Reynolds,  Dr.  Worth, 
and  Mr.  Calamy,  which,  together  with  Archbish- 
op Usher's  reduction  of  Episcopacy,  they  offer- 
ed to  the  king,  with  the  following  address  : 
"May  it  please  your  most  excellent  majesty, 
"We,  your  majesty's  most  loyal  subjects, 
cannot  but  acknowledge  it  is  a  very  great  mercy 
of  God,  that  immediately  after  so  wonderful  and 
peaceable  restoration  to  your  throne  and  gov- 
ernment (for  whicb  we  bless  his  name),  he  has 
stirred  up  your  royal  heart,  as  to  a  zealous  testi- 
mony against  profaneness,  so  to  endeavour  a 
happy  composing  of  the  differences,  and  heal- 
ing the  sad  breaches  which  are  in  the  Church. 
And  we  shall,  according  to  our  bounden  duty, 
become  humble  suiters  to  the  throne  of  grace, 
that  the  God  of  peace,  who  has  put  such  a  thing 
as  this  into  your  majesty's  heart,  will,  by  his 
heavenly  wisdom  and  Holy  Spirit,  assist  you 
herein,  that  you  may  bring  your  resolutions  to 
a  perfect  effect  and  issue. 

"  In  humble  conformity  to  your  majesty's 
Christian  designs,  we,  taking  it  for  granted  that 
there  is  a  firm  agreement  between  our  brethren 
and  us  in  the  doctrinal  truths  of  the  Reformed 
religion,  and  in  the  substantial  parts  of  Divine 
worship,  humbly  desire. 


*  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  173.  f  Ibid.,  p.  182. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  183.  ^  Baxter,  part  ii.,  p.  232. 


First,  "  That  we  may  be  secured  of  those 
things  in  practice  of  which  we  seem  to  be 
agreed  in  princi|)le  ;  as, 

1.  "  That  those  of  our  flocks  that  are  serious 
in  matters  of  their  salvation  may  not  be  re- 
proachfully handled  by  words  of  scorn,  or  any 
abusive  language,  but  may  be  encouraged  ia 
their  duties  of  exhorting  and  provoking  one  an- 

I  other  in  their  most  holy  faith,  and  of  furthering 
one  another  in  the  ways  of  eternal  life. 

2.  "That  each  congregation  may  have  a  learn- 
ed, orthodox,  and  godly  pastor,  that  the  people 
may  be  publicly  instructed  by  preaching  every 
Lord's  Day,  by  catechising,  by  frequent  admin- 
istering the  Lord's  Supper  and  baptism  ;  and 
that  effectual  provision  by  law  may  be  made 
that  such  as  are  insufficient,  negligent,  or  scan- 
dalous, may  not  officiate. 

3.  "  That  none  may  be  admitted  to  the  Loid's 
Supper  till  they  personally  own  their  baptismal 
covenant  by  a  credible  profession  of  faith  and 
holiness,  not  contradicted  by  a  scandalous  life. 
That  to  such  only  confirmation  may  be  admin- 
istered ;  and  that  the  approbation  of  the  pastor 
to  whom  the  instructing  those  under  his  charge 
doth  appertain,  may  be  produced  before  any 
person  receives  confirmation. 

4  "  That  an  effectual  course  be  taken  for  the 
sanctification  of  the  Lord's  Day,  appropriating 
the  same  to  holy  exercises  both  in  public  and 
private,  without  any  unnecessary  divertise- 
ments." 

"  Then  for  matters  in  difference,  viz.,  church 
government,  liturgy,  and  ceremonies,  we  hum- 
bly represent, 

"  That  we  do  not  renounce  the  true  ancient 
primitive  episcopacy  or  presidency,  as  it  was 
balanced  with  a  due  commixtion  of  presbyters. 
If,  therefore,  your  majesty,  in  your  grave  wisdom 
and  moderation,  shall  constitute  such  an  epis- 
copacy, we  shall  humbly  submit  thereunto. 
And  in  order  to  an  accommodation  in  this 
weighty  affair,  we  desire  humbly  to  offer  some 
particulars  which  we  conceive  were  amiss  ia 
the  Episcopal  government  as  it  was  practised 
before  the  year  1G40. 

1.  "  The  great  extent  of  the  bishop's  diocess, 
which  we  apprehend  too  large  for  his  personal 
inspection. 

2.  "  That,  by  reason  of  this  disability,  the 
bishops  did  depute  the  administration,  in  mat- 
ters of  spiritual  cognizance,  to  commissaries,, 
chancellors,  officials,  whereof  some  are  secular 
persons,  and  could  not  administer  that  power 
that  originally  belongs  to  the  officers  of  the 
Church. 

3.  "  That  the  bishops  did  assume  the  sole 
power  of  ordination  and  jurisdiction  to  them- 
selves. 

4.  "  That  some  of  the  bishops  exercised  aa 
arbitrary  power,  by  sending  forth  articles  of 
visitation,  inquiring  unwarrantably  into  several 
things,  and  swearing  church-wardens  to  pre- 
sent accordingly.  Also,  many  innovations  and 
ceremonies  were  imposed  upon  ministers  and 
people  not  required  by  law. 

"  For  remedy  of  these  evils  we  crave  leave 
to  offer, 

1.  "The  late  most  reverend  primate  of  Ire- 
land, his  reduction  of  episcopacy  into  the  form 
of  synodical  government. 

2.  "  We  humbly  desire  that  the  suffragans, 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


211 


or  chorepiscopi,  may  be  chosen  by  the  respect- 
ive synods. 

3.  "  That  no  oaths,  or  promises  of  obedience 
to  the  bishops,  nor  any  unnecessary  subscrip- 
tions or  engagements,  be  made  necessary  to  or- 
dination, institution,  or  induction,  ministration, 
communion,  or  immunities  of  ministers,  they 
being  responsil)le  for  any  transgression  of  the 
law.  And  that  no  bishops  or  ecclesiastical  gov- 
ernors may  exercise  their  government  by  their 
private  will  or  pleasure,  but  only  by  such  rules, 
canons,  and  constitutions  as  shall  be  establish- 
ed by  Parliament. 

Secondly,  "  Concerning  liturgy. 
1.  "We  are  satisfied  in  our  judgments  con- 
cerning the  lawfulness  of  a  liturgy,  or  form  of 
worship,  provided  it  be  for  matter  agreeable  to 
the  Word  of  God,  and  suited  to  the  nature  of 
the  several  ordinances  and  necessities  of  the 
Church,  neither  too  tedious,  nor  composed  of 
too  short  prayers  or  responsals,  not  dissonant 
from  the  liturgies  of  other  Reformed  churches, 
nor  too  rigorously  imposed,  nor  the  minister 
confined  thereunto,  but  that  he  may  also  make 
use  of  his  gifts  for  prayer  and  exhortation. 

2.  "  Forasmuch  as  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  is  in  some  things  justly  offensive,  and 
needs  amendment,  we  most  humbly  pray  that 
some  learned,  godly,  and  moderate  divines  of 
both  persuasions,  may  be  employed  to  compile 
such  a  form  as  is  before  described,  as  much  as 
may  be  in  Scripture  w'ords  ;  or  at  least  to  revise 
and  reform  tlie  old  :  together  with  an  addition 
of  other  various  forms  in  Scripture  phrase,  to 
be  used  at  the  minister's  choice. 
Thirdly,  "  Concerning  ceremonies. 
"  We  hold  ourselves  obliged,  in  every  part  of 
Divine  worship,  to  do  all  things  decently  and  in 
order,  and  to  edification  ;  and  are  willing  to  be 
determined  by  authority  in  such  things  as,  being 
merely  circumstantial,  or  common  to  human 
actions  and  societies,  are  to  be  ordered  by  the 
light  of  nature  and  human  prudence. 

"As  to  divers  ceremonies  formerly  retain- 
ed in  the  Church  of  England,  we  do,  in  all  hu- 
mility, offer  to  your  majesty  the  following  con- 
siderattons  : 

"  That  the  worship  of  God  is  in  itself  pure 
and  perfect,  and  decent,  without  any  such  cer- 
emonies. That  it  IS,  then,  most  pure  and  ac- 
ceptable when  it  has  least  of  human  mixtures. 
That  these  ceremonies  have  been  imposed  and 
advanced  by  some,  so  as  to  draw  near  to  the 
significancy  and  moral  efficacy  of  sacraments. 
That  they  have  been  rejected  by  many  of  the 
Reformed  churches  abroad,  and  have  been  ever 
the  subject  of  contention  and  endless  disputes 
in  this  church  ;  and  therefore,  being  in  their 
own  nature  indifferent  and  mutable,  they  ought 
to  be  changed,  lest  in  time  they  should  be  ap- 
prehended as  necessary  as  the  substantial  of 
worship  themselves. 

"  May  it  therefore  please  your  majesty  gra- 
ciously to  grant  that  kneeling  at  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  such  holydays  as  are  but  of  human 
institution,  may  not  be  ihiposed  on  such  as 
scruple  them.  That  the  use  of  the  surplice  and 
cross  in  baptism,  and  bowing  at  the  name  of 
Jesus,  may  be  abolished.  And  forasmuch  as 
erecting  altars  and  bowmg  towards  them,  and 
such  like  (having  no  foundation  in  the  law  of 
the  land),  have  been  introduced  and  imposed, 


I  we  humbJy  beseech  your  majesty  that  such  in- 
novations may  not  be  used  or  imposed  for  the 
future." 

When  the  Presbyterian  divines  came  to  court, 
with  these  proposals,  the  king  received  them 
favourably,  and  promised  to  bring  both  parties 
together.  His  majesty  expressed  a  satisfaction 
in  hearing  they  were  disposed  to  a  liturgy  and 
forms  of  prayer,  and  that  they  were  willing  to 
yield  to  the  essence  of  episcopacy,  and  there- 
fore doubted  not  of  procuring  an  accommoda- 
tion. The  ministers  expected  to  have  met  the 
bishops  with  their  papers  of  proposals,  but  none 
of  them  appeared,  having  been  better  instructed 
in  a  private  conference  with  Lord-chancellor 
Hyde,  who  told  them  it  was  not  their  business 
to  offer  proposals,  because  they  were  in  posses- 
sion of  the  laws  of  the  land  ;  that  the  hierarchy 
and  Service  Book,  being  the  only  legal  estab- 
lishment, ought  to  be  the  standard  of  agree- 
ment ;  and  therefore  their  only  concern  was  to 
answer  the  exceptions  of  the  ministers  against 
it.  Accordingly,  instead  of  a  conference,  or 
paper  of  proposals,  which  the  ministers  expect- 
ed, the  bishops,  having  obtained  a  copy  of  the 
paper  of  the  Presbyterians,  drew  up  an  answer 
in  writing,  which  was  communicated  to  their 
ministers,  July  8. 

In  this  answer,  the  bisTiops  take  notice  of  the 
ministers'  concessions  in  their  preamble,  as 
that  they  agree  with  them  in  the  substantials 
of  doctrine  and  worship  ;  and  infer  from  thence, 
that  their  particular  exceptions  are  of  less  im- 
portance, and  ought  not  to  be  stiffly  insisted  on 
to  the  disturbance  of  the  peace  of  the  Church.* 
To  the  particulars  they  answer, 
1.  Concerning  church  government,  "That 
they  never  heard  any  just  reasons  for  a  dissent 
from  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  of  this  king- 
dom, which  they  believe  in  the  main  to  be  the 
true  primitive  episcopacy,  which  was  more 
than  a  mere  presidency  of  order.  Nor  do  they 
find  that  it  was  balanced  by  an  authoritative 
commixtion  of  presbyters,  though  it  has  been 
in  all  times  exercised  with  the  assistance  and 
counsel  of  presbyters  in  subordination  to  bish- 
ops. They  wonder  that  they  should  except 
against  the  government  by  one  single  person, 
which,  if  applied  to  the  civil  magistrate,  is  a 
most  dangerous  insinuation."! 

As  to  the  four  particular  instances  of  things 
amiss. 

1.  "We  cannot  grant  the  extent  of  any  dio- 
cess  is  so  great  but  that  a  bishop  may  well  per- 
form his  duty,  which  is  not  a  personal  inspec- 
tion of  every  man's  soul,  but  the  pastoral 
charge,  or  taking  care  that  the  ministers,  and 
other  ecclesiastical  officers  within  their  diocess, 
do  their  duties  ;  and  if  some  diocesses  should 
be  too  large,  the  law  allows  suffragans. 

2.  "  Concerning  lay-chancellors,  &c.,  we  con- 
fess the  bishops  did  depute  part  of  their  eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction  to  chancellors,  commissa- 
ries, officials,  &c  ,  as  men  better  skilled  in  the 
civil  and  canon  laws  ;  but  as  for  matters  of 
mere  spiritual  concernment,  as  excommunica- 
tion, absolution,  and  other  censures  of  the 
Church,  we  conceive  they  belong  properly  to 
the  bishop  himself,  or  his  surrogate,  wherein,  if 


*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  200. 
p.  242. 


Ba.xter's  Life,  part 
t  Baxter,  p.  243. 


212 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


anything  lias  been  done  amiss,  we  are  willing 
it  should  be  lelormed. 

3.  "  Whether  bishops  are  a  distinct  order 
from  presbyters  or  not,  or  whether  they  have 
the  sole  power  of  ordmation,  is  not  now  the 
question  ;  but  we  affirm  that  the  bishops  of 
this  realm  have  constantly  ordained  with  the 
assistance  of  presbyters,  and  the  imposition  of 
their  hands  together  with  the  bishops,  and  for 
this  purpose  the  colleges  of  deans  and  chapters 
are  instituted. 

4.  "As  to  Archbishop  Usher's  model  of 
church  government,  we  decline  it,  as  not  con- 
sistent witli  his  other  learned  discourses  on  the 
original  of  episcopacy,  and  of  metropolitans ; 
nor  with  the  king's  supremacy  in  causes  eccle- 
siastical." 

II.    Concerning  Liturgy. 

"We  esteem  the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of 
England,  contamed  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  and  by  law  established,  to  be  such  a 
one  as  is  by  them  desired,  according  to  the 
qualifications  which  they  mention  ;  the  disuse 
of  which  has  been  the  cause  of  the  sad  divisions 
of  the  Church,  and  the  restoring  it  may  be,  by 
God's  blessing,  a  special  means  of  making  up 
the  breach.  Nor  can  the  imposition  of  it  be 
called  rigorous,  as  long  as  clergymen  have  the 
liberty  of  using  their  gifts  before  and  after  ser- 
mon. Nevertheless,  we  are  not  against  revi- 
sing the  liturgy  by  such  discreet  persons  as  his 
majesty  shall  think  fit  to  employ  therein. 
III.   Of  Ceremonies. 

"  Lawful  authority  has  already  determined 
the  ceremonies  in  question  to  he  decent  and  or- 
<lerly,  and  for  edification,  and,  consequently,  to 
be  agreeable  to  the  general  rules  of  the  Word. 
We  allow  the  worship  of  God  is  in  itself  perfect 
in  essentials,  but  stdl  the  Cliurch  is  at  liberty 
to  improve  it  with  circumstantials  for  decency 
and  order.  Ceremonies  were  never  esteemed 
to  be  sacraments,  nor  imposed  as  such  ;  they 
are  retained  by  most  Protestant  churches  ;  and 
that  they  have  been  the  subject  of  contention 
is  owing  to  men's  weakness,  and  their  unwill- 
ingness to  submit  their  private  opinions  to  the 
public  judgment  of  the  Church.  We  acknowl- 
edge that  these  things  are  in  their  nature  mu- 
table, but  we  can  by  no  means  think  it  expedi- 
ent to  remove  them.  However,  as  we  are  no 
way  against  such  a  tender  and  religious  com- 
passion in  things  of  this  nature,  as  his  majesty's 
piety  and  wisdom  shall  think  fit  to  extend,  so 
we  cannot  ihmk  that  the  satisfaction  of  some 
private  persons  is  to  be  laid  in  the  balance 
against  the  public  peace  and  uniformity  of  the 

"  As  for  kneelmg  at  the  Lord's  Supper,  it  is  a 
gesture  of  the  greatest  reverence  and  devotion, 
and  so  most  agTeeable  to  that  holy  service. 

"  Holydays  of  human  institution  bavmg  been 
observed  by  the  people  of  God  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, and  by  our  blessed  Saviour  himself  in 
the  Gospel,  and  by  all  the  churches  of  Christ  in 
the  primitive  and  following  times,  as  apt  means 
to  preserve  the  memorials  of  the  chief  myster- 
ies of  the  Christian  religion  ;  and  such  holy- 
days  also  being  fit  times  for  the  honest  recrea- 
tion of  the  meaner  sort  of  people,  for  these 
reasons  we  humbly  desire  they  may  be  contin- 
ued in  the  Church. 


"  As  for  the  three  other  ceremonies,  the  sur- 
plice, the  cross  after  baptism,  and  bowing  at  the 
name  of  Jesus,  though  we  see  not  any  sufficient 
reason  why  they  should  be  utterly  abolished, 
nevertheless,  how  far  forth,  in  regard  of  tender 
consciences,  a  liberty  may  be  thought  fit  to  be 
indulged  to  any,  his  majesty  is  best  able  to 
judge." 

I'hey  conclude  thus  :  "  We  are  so  far  from 
believing  that  his  majesty's  condescending  to 
the  ministers'  demands  will  take  away  not  only 
our  differences,  but  the  roots  and  causes  of  them, 
that  we  are  confident  it  will  prove  the  seminary 
of  new  differences,  both  by  giving  dissalis.fac- 
tion  to  those  that  are  well  pleased  with  what  is 
already  established,  who  are  much  the  greatest 
part  of  liis  majesty's  subjects  ;  and  by  encour- 
aging unquiet  spirits,  when  these  things  shall  be 
granted,  to  make  farther  demands  ;  there  being 
no  assurance  by  them  given  what  will  content 
all  dissenters,  than  which  nothing  is  more  ne- 
cessary for  settling  a  firm  peace  in  the  Church." 

About  a  week  after,  the  Presbyterian  divines 
sent  the  bishops  a  warm  remonstrance  and  de- 
fence of  their  proposals,  drawn  up  chiefly  by 
Mr.  Baxter,  to  the  following  purpose: 
Concerning  the  Preamble. 

"  We  are  not  insensible  of  the  danger  of  the 
Church,  through  the  doctrinal  errors  of  those 
with  whom  we  differ  about  points  of  govern- 
ment and  worship;  but  we  choose  to  say  no- 
thing of  the  party  that  we  are  agreed  with  in 
doctrinals,  because  we  both  subscribe  the  same 
Holy  Scriptures,  articles  of  religion,  and  books 
of  homilies  ;  and  the  contradictions  to  their 
own  confessions,  which  too  many  are  guilty  of, 
we  did  not  thinkjust  to  charge  upon  the  whole."* 
Concerning  Church  Government. 

"  Had  you  read  Gerson,  Bucer,  Parker,  Baynes, 
Salmasius,  Blondel,  &c.,  you  would  have  seen 
just  reason  given  for  our  dissent  from  the  ec- 
clesiastical hierarchy,  as  stated  in  England." 
Instances  of  Things  amiss. 

"You  would  easily  grant  that  diocesses  are 
too  great,  if  you  had  ever  conscionably  tried 
the  task  which  Dr.  Hammond  describeth  as  the 
bishop's  work ;  or  had  ever  believed  Ignatius, 
and  other  ancient  descriptions  of  a  bishop's 
church.  You  cannot  be  ignorant  that  our  bish- 
ops have  the  sole  government  of  pastors  and 
people  ;  that  the  whole  power  of  the  keys  is  in 
their  hands,  and  that  their  presbyters  are  but 
ciphers." 

Concerning  Ceremonies. 

"  These  divines  argue  for  leaving  them  indif- 
ferent for  the  peace  of  the  Church,  as  being  not 
essential  to  the  perfection  of  Christian  worship, 
especially  when  so  many  looked  upon  them  as 
sinful." 

They  conclude  thus:  "We  perceive  your 
counsels  against  peace  are  not  likely  to  be  frus- 
trated. Your  desires  concerning  us  are  likely 
to  be  accomplished.  You  are  like  to  be  gratified 
with  our  silence  and  ejection  ;  and  yet  we  will 
believe  that  '  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers ;' 
and  though  we  are  prevented  by  you  in  our  pur- 
suits of  peace,  and  are  never  like  thus  publicly 
to  seek  it  more,  yet  are  we  resolved,  as  much 
I  as  possible,  to  live  peaceably  with  all  men." 

1     *  Kennet'sChron.,  p.205.    Baxter,  part  ii.,  p.  248. 


HISTORYOF    THE    PURITANS. 


213 


The  eyes  of  the  Presbyterians  were  now 
opened,  and  they  began  to  discern  their  weak- 
ness in  expecting  an  agreement  with  the  bish- 
ops, who  appeared  to  be  exasperated,  and  deter- 
mined to  tie  them  down  to  the  old  establish- 
ment. The  former  severities  began  already  to 
be  revived,  and  the  laws  were  put  in  execution 
agaifiot  some  who  did  not  make  use  of  the  old 
liturgy.  Many  were  suspended  and  turned  out 
of  their  livings  on  this  account ;  upon  which 
the  leading  Presbyterians  applied  to  the  king, 
and  humbly  requested, 

1.  "That  they  might  with  all  convenient 
speed  see  his  majesty's  conclusions  upon  the 
proposals  of  mutual  condescensions,  before  they 
pass  into  resolves. 

2.  "  That  his  majesty  would  publicly  declare 
his  pleasure  for  the  suspension  of  all  proceed- 
ings upon  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  against  non- 
conformists to  the  liturgy  and  ceremonies,  till 
they  saw  the  issue  of  their  hoped-for  agreement. 

3.  "  That,  until  the  said  settlement,  there  may 
be  no  oath  of  canonical  obedience,  nor  subscrip- 
tion to  the  liturgy  and  ceremonies  required,  nor 
renunciation  of  their  ordination  by  mere  pres- 
byters, imposed  as  necessary  to  institution,  in- 
duction, or  confirmation. 

4.  "  That  his  mtijesty  would  cause  the  broad 
seal  to  be  revoked,  where  persons  had  been  put 
into  the  possession  of  the  livings  of  others  not 
void  by  sequestration,  but  by  the  death  of  the 
former  incumbents. 

5.  "  That  a  remedy  may  be  provided  against 
the  return  of  scandalous  ministers  into  the  pla- 
ces from  whence  they  had  been  ejected."* 

His  majesty  gave  them  a  civil  audience,  and 
told  them  he  would  put  what  he  thought  fit  to 
grant  them  into  the  form  of  a  declaration,  which 
they  should  have  the  liberty  of  perusing  before 
it  was  made  public.  A  copy  of  this  was  accord- 
ingly delivered  by  the  chancellor  to  Mr.  Baxter, 
and  other  Presbyterian  divines,  September  4, 
with  liberty  to  make  exceptions,  and  give  notice 
of  what  they  disliked,  t  These  divines  petition- 
ed for  some  farther  amendments  and  alterations ; 
upon  which  the  king  appointed  a  day  to  hear 
what  could  be  said  on  both  sides,  and  came  to 
the  chancellor's  house,  October  32,  attended  by 
the  Dukes  of  Albemarle  and  Ormond,  the  Earls 
of  Manchester,  Anglesea,  and  Lord  HoUis. 
On  the  part  of  the  bishops  were. 

Dr.  Sheldon,       Bishop  of  London. 

Dr.  Morley,  "         Worcester 

Dr.  Henchman,  "  Salisbury. 

Dr.  Cosms,  "         Durham. 

Dr.  Gauden,  "         Exeter. 

Dr.  Hacket,  [  "         ^'SlJy^'^  ^"'^    ^°''" 

Dr.Barwick,  I    ^^'^'^  "^  ^'-  ^^'^^'^    ^'-  ^""- 
5  ning,  &c. 

On  the  side  of  the  Presbyterians  were, 

Dr.  Reynolds,  Dr.  Manton, 

Mr.  Calamy,  Mr.  Ba.\ter, 

Dr.  Spurstow,  Dr.  Wallis. 

Mr.  Ashe, 
As  the  chancellor  read  over  the  declaration, 
each  party  were  to  allege  their  exceptions,  and 
the  king  to  determine.  The  chief  debates  were 
on  the  high  power  of  the  bishops,  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  reordination.     Bishop  Morley  and  Dr. 

*  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  241. 
+  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  24G.     Baxter's  Life  part  ii., 
p.  275, 270. 


Gunning  spoke  most  on  one  side  ;  and  Mr.  Cal- 
amy and  Baxter  on  the  other.*  Upon  hearing 
the  whole,  his  majesty  delivered  his  judgment 
as  to  what  he  thought  proper  should  stand  in 
the  declaration  ;  and  appointed  Bishop  Morley 
and  Henchman,  Dr.  Reynolds  and  Mr.  Calamy, 
to  express  it  in  proper  words  ;  and  if  they  dis- 
agreed, the  Earl  of  Anglesea  and  Lord  Hollis  to 
decide. 

At  length  the  declaration,  with  such  amend- 
ments as  the  king  would  admit,  was  published 
under  the  followmg  title  : 

'•  His  Majesty's  Declaration  to  all  his  loving 
Subjects  of  his  Kingdom  of  England  and 
Dominion  of  Wales,  concerning  Ecclesias- 
tical Affairs.     Given  at  our  Court  at  White- 
hall, October  25,  16G0,  in  the  twelfth  Year 
of  our  Reign." 
The  declaration  being  long,t  and  to  be  met 
with  in  most  of  our  historians,  I  shall  give  the 
reader  only  an  abstract  of  it. 
"  Charles  Rex. 
"  In  our  letter  from  Breda,  we  promised  in  due 
time  to  propose  something  to  the  world  for  the 
propagation  ol  the  Protestant  religion;  and  we 
think  ourself  more  competent  to  propose,  and, 
with  God's  assistance,  determine  many  things 
now  in  difference,  from  the  experience  we  have 
had  in  most  of  the  Reformed  churches  abroad, 
where  we  have  had  frequent  conferences  with 
the  most  learned  men,  who  have  unanimously 
lamented    the   distempers    and    too    notorious 
schisms  in  matters  of  religion  in  England. 

"  When  we  were  in  Holland,  we  were  attend- 
ed by  many  grave  and  learned  ministers  from 
hence  of  the  Presbyterian  opinion,  and,  to  our 
great  satisfaction,  we  found  them  full  of  affec- 
tion to  us,  no  enemies  to  Episcopacy  or  liturgy 
(as  they  have  been  reported  to  be),  but  modest- 
ly desiring  such  alterations  as,  without  shatter- 
ing foundations,  might  give  ease  to  the  tender- 
ness of  some  men's  consciences.  For  the  doing 
of  this  we  intended  to  have  called  a  synod  of 
divines,  but  observing  the  over- passionate  and 
turbulent  way  of  proceeding  of  some  persons, 
and  the  impatience  of  others  for  a  speedy  de- 
termination of  these  matters,  we  have  been  pre- 
vailed with  to  invert  the  method  we  proposed, 
and  to  give  some  determination  ourself  to  the 
matters  in  difference,  till  such  a  synod  may  be 
called  as  may,  without  passion  or  prejudice,  give 
us  such  farther  assistance  towards  a  perfect 
union  of  affections,  as  well  as  submission  to 
authority,  as  is  necessary. 

"  We  must,  for  the  honour  of  all  with  whom 
we  have  conferred,  declare,  that  the  professions 
and  desires  of  all  for  the  advancement  of  piety 
and  true  godliness  are  the  same  ;  their  profes- 
sions of  zeal  for  the  peace  of  the  Church,  and 
of  affection  and  duty  to  us,  the  same  ;  they  all 
approve  Episcopacy  and  a  liturgy,  and  disap- 
prove of  sacrilege,  and  the  alienation  of  the  rev- 
enues of  the  Church. "t 

His  majesty  then  declares  his  high  esteem 
and  affection  for  the  Church  of  England,  and 


*  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  278. 

t  This  declaration  was  drawn  up  by  Lord-chan- 
cellor Hyde,  but  many  of  the  evasive  clauses  were 
suggested  by  some  of  the  king's  more  secret  advisers. 
— Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign,  of  Charles  II., 
vol.  i,,  p.  93.— Ed. 

X  Comp.  Hist.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  210.  Baxter's  Life, 
Dart  ii.,  p.  259.    Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  289. 


214 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


that  his  esteem  of  it  is  not  lessened  by  his  con- 
descending to  dispense  with  some  particular 
ceremonies,  and  then  proceeds  to  his  conces- 
sions. 

1.  "We  declare  our  purpose  and  resolution 
is,  and  shall  be,  to  promote  the  power  of  godli- 
ness, to  encourage  the  public  and  private  exer- 
cises of  religion,  to  take  care  of  the  due  obser- 
vation of  the  Lord's  Day,  and  that  insufficient, 
negligent,  and  scandalous  ministers  be  not  per- 
mitted in  the  Church.  We  shall  take  care  to 
prefer  none  to  the  Episcopal  office  and  charge 
but  men  of  learning,  virtue,  and  piety ;  and  we 
shall  provide  the  best  we  can,  that  the  bishops 
be  frequent  preachers,  and  that  they  do  often 
preach  in  some  church  or  other  of  their  diocess. 

3.  "  Because  some  dioccsses  may  be  of  too 
large  extent,  we  will  appoint  such  a  number  of 
suffragans  as  shall  be  sufficient  for  the  due  per- 
formance of  their  work. 

3.  "  No  bishop  shall  ordain  or  exercise  any 
part  of  jurisdiction  which  appertains  to  the 
censures  of  the  Church,  without  advice  and  as- 
sistance of  the  presbyters.  No  chancellors, 
commissaries,  or  officials  shall  excommunicate, 
absolve,  or  exercise  any  act  of  spiritual  juris- 
diction, wherein  any  of  the  ministry  are  con- 
cerned with  reference  to  their  pastoral  charge. 
Nor  shall  the  archdeacon  exercise  any  jurisdic- 
tion without  the  advice  and  assistance  of  six 
ministers  of  his  archdeaconry ;  three  to  be  nom- 
inated by  the  bishop,  and  three  by  the  suffrage 
of  the  presbyters  within  the  archdeaconry. 

4.  "We  will  take  care  that  the  preferment 
of  deans  and  chapters  shall  be  given  to  the  most 
learned  and  pious  presbyters  of  the  diocess, 
and  that  an  equal  number  (to  those  of  the  chap- 
ter) of  the  most  learned  and  pious  presbyters  of 
the  same  diocess,  annually  chosen  by  the  major 
vote  of  all  the  presbyters  of  that  diocess  pres- 
ent at  such  elections,  shall  be  always  advising 
and  assisting,  together  with  those  of  the  chap- 
ter, in  all  ordinations,  at  all  church  censures, 
and  other  important  acts  of  ecclesiastical  juris- 
diction wherein  any  of  the  ministry  are  con- 
cerned. Provided,  that  at  all  such  meetings, 
the  number  of  ministers  so  elected,  and  those 
of  the  chapter  present,  be  equal ;  and  to  make 
the  numbers  equal,  the  juniors  of  the  exceeding 
number  shall  withdraw  to  make  way  for  the 
more  ancient.  Nor  shall  any  suffragan  bishop 
ordain  or  exercise  any  jurisdiction  without  the 
advice  and  assistance  of  a  sufficient  number  of 
presbyters  annually  chosen  as  before.  And  our 
will  is,  that  ordination  be  constantly  and  sol- 
emnly performed  by  the  bishop  and  his  aforesaid 
presbyters  at  the  four  set  times  appointed  by 
the  Church  for  that  purpose. 

5.  "  Confirmation  shall  be  rightly  and  solemn- 
ly performed,  by  the  information  and  with  the 
consent  of  the  minister  of  the  place,  who  shall 
admit  none  to  the  Lord's  Supper  till  they  have 
made  a  credible  profession  of  their  faith,  and 
promised  obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  accord- 
ing to  the  rubric  before  the  catechism  ;  and 
all  diligence  shall  be  used  for  the  instruction 
and  reformation  of  scandalous  offenders,  whom 
the  minister  shall  not  suffer  to  partake  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  till  they  have  openly  declared 
their  repentance,  and  resolutions  of  amendment ; 
provided  there  be  place  for  appeals  to  superior 
powers.     Every  rural  dean  to  be  nominated  by 


the  bishop  as  heretofore),  w  ith  three  or  four 
ministers  of  that  deanery  chosen  by  the  major 
part  of  all  the  ministers  within  the  same,  shall 
meet  once  a  month  to  receive  complaints  from 
the  ministers  or  church-wardens  of  parishes, 
and  to  compose  sucli  differences  as  shall  be  re- 
ferred to  them  for  arbitration,  and  to  reform 
such  things  as  are  amiss,  by  their  pastoral  re- 
proofs and  admonitions,  and  what  they  cannot 
reform  are  to  be  presented  to  the  bishop.  More- 
over, the  rural  dean  and  his  assistants  are  to 
take  care  of  the  catechising  children  and  youth, 
and  that  they  can  give  a  good  account  of  their 
faith  before  they  are  brought  to  the  bishop  to  be 
confirmed. 

6.  "  No  bishop  shall  exercise  any  arbitrary 
power,  or  impose  anything  upon  his  clergy  or 
people,  but  according  to  the  law  of  the  land. 

7.  "  We  will  appoint  an  equal  number  of  di- 
vines of  both  persuasions  to  review  the  liturgy 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  to  make  such. 
alterations  as  shall  be  thought  necessary  ;  and 
some  additional  forms  in  the  Scripture  phrase, 
as  near  as  may  be,  suited  to  the  nature  of  the 
several  parts  of  worship,  and  that  it  be  left  to 
the  minister's  choice  to  use  one  or  the  other  at 
his  discretion.  In  the  mean  time,  we  desire 
that  the  ministers  in  their  several  churches  will 
not  wholly  lay  aside  the  use  of  the  Common 
Prayer,  but  will  read  those  parts  of  it  against 
which  they  have  no  exception  ;  yet  our  will  and 
pleasure  is,  that  none  be  punished  or  troubled 
for  not  using  it  till  it  be  reviewed  and  effectual- 
ly reformed. 

8.  Lastly,  "Concerning  ceremonies,  if  any 
are  practised  contrary  to  law,  the  same  shall 
cease.  Every  national  church  has  a  power  to 
appoint  ceremonies  for  its  members,  which, 
though  before  they  were  indifferent,  yet  cease 
to  be  so  when  established  by  law.  We  are 
therefore  content  to  indulge  tender  consciences, 
so  far  as  to  dispense  with  their  using  such  cer- 
emonies as  are  an  offence  to  them,  but  not  to 
abolish  them.  We  declare,  therefore,  that  none 
shall  be  compelled  to  receive  the  sacrament 
kneeling,  nor  to  use  the  cross  in  baptism,  nor  to 
bow  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  nor  to  use  the  sur- 
plice, except  in  the  royal  chapel,  and  in  cathe- 
dral and  collegiate  churches.  Nor  shall  sub- 
scription, nor  the  oath  of  canonical  obedience, 
be  required  at  present,  in  order  to  ordination, 
institution,  or  induction,  but  only  the  taking  the 
oaths  of  allegience  and  supremacy ;  nor  shall 
any  lose  their  academical  degrees,  or  forfeit  a 
presentation,  or  be  deprived  of  a  benefice,  for 
not  declaring  his  assent  to  all  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  provided  he  read  and  declare  his  assent 
to  all  the  doctrinal  articles,  and  to  the  sacra- 
ments. And  we  do  again  renew  our  declaration 
from  Breda,  that  no  man  shall  be  disquieted  or 
called  in  question  for  differences  of  opinion  in 
matters  of  religion  which  do  not  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  kingdom." 

His  majesty  coneludes  "with  conjuring  all 
his  loving  subjects  to  acquiesce  and  submit  to 
this  declaration,  concerning  the  differences  that 
have  so  much  disquieted  the  nation  at  home, 
and  given  offence  to  the  Protestant  churches 
abroad." 

Though  this  declaration  did  not  satisfy  all  the 
ministers,  yet  the  greatest  nnmhers  were  con- 
tent ;  but  because  it  proceeded  upon  the  plan 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


215 


of  diocesan  Episcopacy  which  they  had  cov- 
enanted against,  others  were  extremely  uneasy  ; 
some  ventured  upon  a  second  address  to  the 
king,  in  which  tliey  renew  llieir  requests  for 
Archbishop  Usher's  scheme  of  primitive  Epis- 
■copacy,  as  most  agreeable  to  Scripture,  most 
conducive  to  good  discipline,  and  as  that  which 
Would  save  the  nation  from  the  violation  of  a 
solemn  League  and  Covenant,  which,  whether  it 
■were  lawfully  imposed  or  no,  they  conceive 
now  to  be  binding. 

Concerning  the  preamble  of  his  majesty's  dec- 
laration they  tender  these  requests  : 

1.  "  That  as  they  are  persuaded  it  is  not  in 
his  majesty's  thoughts  to  intimate  that  they  are 
guilty  of  the  ofl'ences  therein  mentioned,  they 
hope  it  will  be  a  motive  to  hasten  the  union. 

2.  "  Though  they  detest  sacrilege,  yet  they 
will  not  determine  whether,  in  some  cases  of 
superfluities  of  revenues,  and  the  necessity  of 
the  Cliurch,  there  may  not  be  an  alienation, 
which  is  no  sacrilege. 

3.  "  His  majesty  having  acknowledged  their 
Jiioderation,  they  still  hope  they  may  be  received 
into  the  settlement,  and  continue  their  stations 
in  the  Church. 

4.  "  Since  his  majesty  has  declared  that  the 
essence  of  Episcopacy  may  be  preserved,  though 
the  extent  of  the  jurisdiction  be  altered,  they 
hope  his  majesty  will  consent  to  such  an  alter- 
ation as  may  satisfy  their  consciences." 

They  then  renew  their  requests  for  promo- 
ting of  piety  ;  of  a  religious  and  ddigent  minis- 
try ;  of  the  requisites  of  church  communion  ; 
and  for  the  observation  of  the  Sabbath.  They 
complain  that  parish  discipline  is  not  sufficient- 
ly granted  in  his  majesty's  declaration,  that  in- 
ferior synods  are  passed  by,  and  that  the  bishop 
is  not  cpiscopus  presses,  but  episcopus  princcps, 
endued  with  sole  power  of  ordination  and  juris- 
diction. They  therefore  pray  again  that  Arch- 
bishop Usher's  form  of  church  government  may 
be  established,  at  least  in  these  three  points  :* 

1.  "  That  the  pastors  of  parishes  may  be  al- 
lowed to  preach,  catechise,  and  deny  the  com- 
munion of  the  Church  to  the  impenitent,  scan- 
dalous, or  such  as  do  not  make  a  credible 
profession  of  faith  and  obedience  to  the  com- 
mands of  Christ. 

2.  "  That  the  pastors  of  each  rural  deanery 
may  meet  once  a  month,  to  receive  present- 
ments and  appeals,  to  admonish  offenders,  and, 
after  due  patience,  to  proceed  to  excommuni- 
cation. 

3.  "  That  a  diocesan  synod  of  the  delegates 
of  rural  synods  may  be  called  as  often  as  need 
requires  ;  that  the  bishop  may  not  ordain  or 
exercise  spiritual  censures  witliout  the  consent 
of  the  majority;  and  that  neither  chancellors, 
archdeacons,  commissaries,  nor  officials  may 
pass  censures  purely  spiritual ;  but  for  the  ex- 
ercise of  civil  government  coercivcly  by  mulcts, 
or  corporeal  penalties,  by  power  derived  from 
your  majesty,  as  supreme  over  all  persons  and 
things  ecclesiastical,  we  presume  not  at  all  to 
interpose." 

"  As  to  the  Liturgy. 
"  They  rejoice  that  his  majesty  lias  declared 
that  none  should  suffer  for  not  using  the  Com- 


*  Hist,  of  the  Noncon.,  p.  14. 
268. 


Baxter,  part  ii.,  p. 


mon  Prayer  and  ceremonies ;  but  then  it  grieves 
us,"  say  they,  "  to  hear  that  it  is  given  in  charge 
to  the  judges  at  the  assizes  to  indict  men  upon 
the  Act  of  Uniformity  for  not  using  the  Com- 
mon Prayer.  That  it  is  not  only  some  obsolete 
words  and  phrases  that  are  offensive,  but  that 
other  things  need  amendment;  therefore,  we 
pray  that  none  may  be  punished  for  not  using 
the  book,  tilt  it  be  reformed  by  the  consent  of 
the  divines  of  both  parties." 

"  Concerning  Ceremonies. 
"They  thank  his  majesty  for  his  gracious 
concessions,  but  pray  him  to  leave  out  of  his 
declaration  these  words,  '  that  we  do  nut  be- 
lieve the  practice  of  the  particular  ceremonies 
excepted  against  unlawful,'  because  we  are  not 
all  of  that  opinion  ;  but  we  desire  that  there 
may  be  no  law  nor  canon  for  or  against  them 
(being  allowed  by  our  opponents  as  indifferent), 
as  there  is  no  canon  against  any  particular  ges- 
ture in  singing  psalms,  and  yet  there  is  an  un- 
interrupted unity." 

"  For  particular  Ceremonies. 

1.  "  We  humbly  crave  that  there  may  be  lib- 
erty to  receive  the  Lord's  Supper  either  kneel- 
ing, standing,  or  silting.  2.  That  the  observa- 
tion of  holydays  of  human  institution  may  be 
left  indifferent.  3.  We  thank  your  majesty  for 
liberty  as  to  the  cross  in  baptism,  the  surplice, 
and  bowing  at  the  name  of  Jesus  ;  but  we  pray 
that  this  liberty  may  e.xtend  to  colleges  and 
cathedrals,  for  the  benefit  of  youth  as  well  as 
elder  persons,  and  that  the  canons  which  im- 
pose these  ceremonies  may  be  repealed. 

"We  thank  your  majesty  for  your  gracious 
concession  of  the  forbearance  of  subscription  ; 
though  we  do  not  dissent  from  the  doctrinal  ar- 
ticles of  the  Church  of  England  ;  nor  do  we 
scruple  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy, 
nor  would  we  have  the  door  left  open  for  papists 
and  heretics  to  come  in. 

"  But  we  take  the  liberty  to  represent  to  your 
majesty,  that,  notwithstanding  your  gracious 
concessions,  our  ministers  cannot  procure  in- 
stitution without  renouncing  their  ordination  by 
presbyters,  or  being  reordained,  nor  without 
subscription  and  the  oaths  of  canonical  obe- 
dience. And  we  are  apprehensive  that  your 
majesty's  indulgence  does  not  extend  to  the 
abatement  of  reordination,  or  subscription,  or 
the  oath  of  canonical  obedience.  We  therefore 
earnestly  crave  that  your  majesty  will  declare 
your  pleasure,  1.  That  ordination,  and  institu- 
tion, and  induction,  may  be  confirmed  without 
the  said  subscription  and  oath  2.  That  none 
may  be  urged  to  be  reordained,  or  denied  insti- 
tution for  want  of  ordination  by  prelates  that 
have  been  ordained  by  presbyters.  3.  That 
none  may  forfeit  their  presentation  or  benefice 
for  not  reading  those  articles  of  the  thirty-nine 
that  relate  to  government  and  ceremonies." 

However,  if  the  king's  declaration,  without 
any  amendments,  had  passed  into  a  law,  it  would 
have  prevented  in  a  great  measure  the  separa- 
tion that  followed  ;  but  neither  the  court  nor 
ministry  intended  it,  if  they  could  stand  their 
ground  upon  the  foot  of  the  old  establishment. 
A  reverend  prelate  of  the  Church  of  England 
confesses,  "  that  this  declaration  has  in  it  a 
spirit  of  true  wisdom  and  charity  above  any  one 
public  confession  that  was  ever  made  in  matters 


216 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


of  religion.  It  shows  Die  admirable  temper 
and  pru(leiu-e  of  tiie  king  and  his  council  in  lliat 
tender  juncture  of  atiairs  ;  it  proves  the  charily 
and  moderation  of  the  sufferino;  bishops,  in 
thinking  such  concessions  just  and  reasonable 
for  peace  and  unity  ;  and  it  shows  a  disposition 
in  the  other  party  to  have  accepted  the  terms 
of  union  consistent  with  our  Episcopacy  and 
liturgy.  It  condemns  the  unhappy  ferment  that 
soon  after  followed  for  want  of  this  temper ; 
and  it  may  stand  for  a  pattern  to  posterity, 
whenever  they  are  disposed  to  restore  the  dis- 
cipline and  heal  the  breaches  of  the  Church." 
Another  conformist  writer  adds,  "If  ever  a  di- 
vine sentence  was  in  the  mouth  of  any  king,  and 
his  mouth  erred  not  in  judgment,  I  verily  be- 
lieve it  was  thus  with  our  present  majesty  when 
he  composed  that  admirable  declaration,  which, 
next  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  I  adore,  and  think 
that  the  united  judgment  of  the  whole  nation 
cannot  frame  a  better  or  a  more  unexceptiona- 
ble expedient,  for  a  firm  and  lasting  concord  of 
these  distracted  churches." 

The  Presbyterians  about  London  were  so  far 
pleased,  that  they  drew  up  the  following  ad- 
dress of  thanks,  in  the  name  of  the  city  minis- 
ters, and  presented  it  to  the  king  November  16, 
by  the  hands  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Samuel 
Clarke : 

"  Most  dread  Sovereign  ! 

"We,  your  majesty's  most  dutiful  and  loyal 
subjects,  ministers  of  the  Gospel  in  your  city  of 
London,  having  perused  your  majesty's  late 
declaration,  and  finding  it  so  full  of  indulgence 
and  gracious  condescension,  we  cannot  but 
judge  ourselves  highly  obliged,  first,  to  render 
our  unfeigned  thanks  to  God,  and,  next,  our 
most  hearty  and  humble  acknowledgments  to 
your  majesty,  that  we  may  testify  to  your  royal 
self,  and  all  the  world,  our  just  sentiments  of 
your  majesty's  great  goodness  and  clemency 
therein  expressed."* 

The  address  then  recites  the  several  conde- 
scensions of  his  majesty  in  the  declaration,  and 
concludes  thus :  "  We  crave  leave  to  profess, 
that  though  all  things  in  this  frame  of  govern- 
ment be  not  exactly  suited  to  our  judgments, 
yet  your  majesty's  moderation  has  so  great  an 
influence  on  us,  that  we  shall  to  the  utmost  en- 
deavour the  healing  of  the  breaches,  and  pro- 
moting the  peace  and  union  of  the  Church.  We 
would  beg  of  your  majesty,  with  all  humility, 
upon  our  knees,  that  reordination,  and  the  sur- 
plice in  colleges,  might  not  be  imposed  ;  and  we 
hope  God  will  incline  your  majesty's  heart  to 
gratify  us  in  these  our  desires  also." 
Signed  by 

Samuel  Clarke,  Jo.  Rawlinson,  Thomas  Lye, 

William  Cooper,  Jo.  Sheffield,  John  Jackson, 

Thomas  Case,  Thomas  Gouge,  John  Meriton, 

Jo.  Gibbon,  Gab.  Sang-er,  William  Bates, 

William  Whitakcr,  El.  Pledi^er,  With  many  others. 

Thomas  Jacomb,  Matth.  Pool, 

The  king  having  received  the  address,  re- 
turned this  answer  :t  "Gentlemen,  I  will  en- 
deavour to  give  you  all  satisfaction,  and  to 
make  you  as  happy  as  myself  "t 


*  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  279,  284.  Rennet's 
Chron.,  p.  311.  f  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  315. 

t  December  11,  1729.— Waitins  on  Arthur  On- 
slow, Esq.,  speaker  of  the  honourable  House  of  Com- 
mons, he  was  pleased  to  suffer  me  to  peruse,  and  af- 
terward to  transcribe,  a  marginal  note,  which  he  had 


Upon  the  terms  of  this  declaration  Dr.  Rey- 
nolds accepted  of  the  bishopric  of  Norwich;, 
Mr.  Baxter  was  offered  the  bishopric  of  Here- 
ford, but  refused  upon  other  reasons  ;  and  Mr. 
Calamy  declined  the  bishopric  of  Litchfield 
and  Coventry,  till  the  king's  declaration  should 
be  passed  into  a  law.  Dr.  Manton,  having 
been  presented  to  the  living  of  Covent  Garden 
by  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  accepted  it  ujion  the 
terms  of  the  declaration,  and  received  Episco- 
pal institution  from  Dr.  Sheldon,  bishop  of  Lon- 
don, January  10,  16()0-61.  Having  first  sub- 
scribed the  doctrinal  articles  of  the  Church  of 
England  only,  and  taken  the  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  supremacy,  and  of  canonical  obedience  in 
all  things  lawful  and  honest,  the  doctor  was 
also  content  that  the  Common  Prayer  should 
be  read  in  his  church.  Dr.  Bates  was  offered 
the  deanery  of  Litchfield ;  Dr.  Manton  the 
deanery  of  Rochester ;  and  Mr.  Bowles  that  of 
York ;  but  finding  how  things  were  going  at 
court,  after  some  time,  refused. 

The  Lords  and  Commons,  upon  reading  the 
king's  declaration,  agreed  to  wait  upon  his  maj- 
esty in  a  body,  and  return  him  thanks  ;  and  the 
Commons  ordered  a  bill  into  their  house  to  pass 
it  into  a  law ;  but  when  the  bill  had  been  read 
the  first  time,  the  question  being  put  for  a  sec- 
ond reading,  it  passed  in  the  negative  ;  one  of 
the  secretaries  of  state  opposing  it,  which  vi'as 
a  sufficient  indication,  says  Dr.  Bates,  of  the 
king  and  court's  aversion  to  it.*  Sir  Matthew- 
Hale,  who  was  zealous  for  the  declaration,  at 
that  very  juncture  was  taken  out  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  made  lord-chief-baron  of  the 
exchequer,  that  he  might  not  oppose  the  reso- 
lutions of  the  ministry.     Strange  !  that  a  House 


written  with  his  own  hand  to  pages  152,  153,  and 
154,  of  the  first  volume  of  my  Abridgment  of  Mr. 
Baxter's  Life,  where  the  subject  of  which  I  was 
treating  was  King  Charles's  celebrated  declaration 
for  ecclesiastical  affairs,  which  bore  date  October 
25,  1660. 

I  had  said,  that  the  concessions  there  made  were 
so  highly  pleasing,  that  an  address  of  thanks  was 
drawn  up  and  signed  by  many  of  the  dissenting 
members  in  and  about  London,  &c. 

The  marginal  note  before  mentioned  was  in  the- 
words  following  : 

"  Both  houses  of  Parliament  did  also  severally 
present  to  the  king  an  addres.s  of  thanks  for  this  dec- 
laration ;  and  in  the  House  of  Commons,  November 
6,  1660,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  bring  in  a  bill 
to  make  the  declaration  effectual,  and  the  person 
first  named  of  the  committee  was  Sergeant  Hale, 
who  was  therefore  very  probably  the  first  mover  of 
this  bill.  And  as  he  was  the  ne.xt  day  (I  think  it 
was  so  soon)  made  chief-lord-baroii,  it  is  not  unlike- 
ly that  he  was  desirous  to  leave  the  House  of  Com- 
mons with  this  mark  of  his  moderation  as  to  the  re- 
ligious differences  of  that  time,  and  what  he  thought 
would  be  the  proper  means  to  heal  them.  But  his 
endeavours  did  not  succeed  ;  for  on  the  28th  of  No- 
vember following,  the  bill  being  read  the  first  time, 
and  a  question  put  that  the  bill  be  read  a  second 
time,  it  passed  in  the  negative :  the  yeas  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-seven,  the  noes  one  hundred  and 
eighty-three.  The  tellers  for  the  yeas  were  Sir  An- 
thony Joby  and  Sir  George  Booth  ;  for  the  noes,  Sir 
Solomon  Swale  and  Mr.  Palmer." 

Note.  "  Sir  Solomon  Swale  was  afterward  dis- 
charged being  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
for  being  a  popish  recusant  convict." — Dr.  Calamy's 
Hi  si  fry  of  his  otim  Life. 

I  here  insert  this  for  the  use  of  posterity. 
*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  358. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


217 


of  Commons,  which  on  the  9th  of  November 
had  given  the  king  thanks  for  his  declaration 
by  their  speaker  ncm  conlradiccnle,  should  on 
the  28th  ol'  the  same  month  reject  it  before  a 
second  reading.  This  blasted  all  the  expecta- 
tions of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  at  once.  It 
was  now  apparent  that  the  court  did  not  design 
the  declaration  should  be  carried  into  execu- 
tion, but  only  serve  as  a  temporary  expedient 
to  keep  them  quiet  till  the  Church  should  be  in 
circumstances  to  bid  them  defiance.  While 
the  diocesan  doctors  were  at  Breda  (says  Mr. 
Baxter*),  they  did  not  dream  that  their  way  to 
the  highest  grandeur  was  so  fair ;  then  they 
would  have  been  glad  of  the  terms  of  the  dec- 
laration of  Breda  ;  when  they  came  in  they  pro- 
ceeded by  blow  degrees,  that  they  might  feel 
the  ground  under  them  ;  for  this  purpose  they 
proposed  the  declaration,  which,  being  but  a 
temporary  provision,  must  give  place  to  laws ; 
but  when  they  found  the  Parliament  and  popu- 
lace ripe  for  anything  they  should  propose,  they 
dropped  the  declaration,  and  all  farther  thoughts 
of  accommodation! 

The  court  and  bishops  were  now  at  ease, 
and  went  on  briskly  with  restoring  all  things  to 
the  old  standard  ;  the  doctrines  of  passive  obe- 
dience and  non-resistance  were  revived  ;  men 
of  the  highest  principles,  and  most  inveterate 
resentments,  were  preferred  to  bishoprics,  by 
which  they  were  more  than  compensated  for 
their  sufferings  by  the  large  sums  of  money 
they  raised  on  the  renewal  of  leases,!  which, 
after  so  long  an  interval,  were  almost  e.xpired  ; 
but  what  a  sad  use  they  made  of  their  riches,  I 
choose  rather  to  relate  in  the  words  of  Bishop 
Burnet  than  my  own.  "What  the  bishops  did 
with  their  great  fines  was  a  pattern  to  all  their 
lower  dignitaries,  who  generally  took  more 
care  of  themselves  than  of  the  Church  ;  the 
men  of  service  were  loaded  with  many  livings 
and  many  dignities.  With  this  accession  of 
wealth,  there  broke  in  upon  the  Church  a  great 
deal  of  luxury  and  high  living,  on  pretence  of 
hospitality ;  and  with  this  overset  of  wealth 
and  pomp  that  came  upon  men  in  the  decline 
of  their  age,  they  who  were  now  growing  into 
old  age  became  lazy  and  negligent  in  all  the 
true  concerns  of  thft  Church. "i^ 

*  Life,  p.  287. 

t  How  very  apostolical  and  peaceable  were  these 
successors  of  the  apostles  who  were  on  the  bench  at 
this  period  ! — C. 

t  The  terms  on  which  these  leases  were  renewed 
were  high  and  oppressive,  and  the  bishops  incurred 
the  severe  censure  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  and 
raised  against  themselves  the  clamour  of  the  subor- 
dmate  and  dependant  clergy.  The  fines  raised  by 
renewing  the  leases  amounted  to  a  million  and  a 
half.  In  some  sees  they  produced  40  or  £50,000, 
which  were  applied  to  the  enriching  the  bishops, 
families. — Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of 
Kitig  Charles  II.,  vol.  i.,  p.  350-351  ;  and  Burnet's 
History  of  his  Own  Times,  vol.  i.,  p.  271,  12mo. — En. 

(J  Dr.  Grey  endeavours  to  show  that  Bishop  Bur- 
net's representation,  quoted  above,  was  founded  in  a 
mistake  ;  and  with  tins  view  he  states  the  benefac- 
tions and  chanties  of  some  of  the  bishops,  deans, 
and  chapters.  According  to  his  authorities,  besides 
the  expenditures  of  Bishop  Duppa,  which  we  have 
mentioned  before.  Dr.  Juxon,  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, eave  to  various  purposes  and  public  works 
£48,000,  and  abated  in  fines  £16,000.  Dr.  Sheldon, 
while  Bishop  of  London,  expended  £40,000,  and  aba- 
ted to  his  tenants  £17,000.     Dr.  Frewen,  archbishop 

Vol.  n.— E  e 


From  this  time,  says  Bishop  Kennet,  the 
Presbyterians  began  to  prepare  for  the  cry  of 
persecution,  and  not  without  reason,  for  March 
23,  Mr.  Zach.  Crofton,  minister  of  Aldgate, 
was  sent  to  the  Tower  for  writing  in  favour  of 
the  Covenant ;  where  he  lay  a  considerable 
time  at  great  expense,  and  was  at  last  turned 
out  of  his  parish  without  any  consideration^ 
though  he  had  a  wife  and  seven  children,  and 
had  been  very  zealous  for  the  king's  restora- 
tion.* Mr.  Andrew  Parsons,  rector  of  Wem  m 
Shropshire,  a  noted  Loyalist,  was  fetched  from 
his  house  in  the  month  of  December  by  six 
soldiers,  for  seditious  preaching  and  noncon- 
formity to  the  ceremonies  ;  for  which  he  was 
fined  £200,  and  to  continue  in  prison  till  it  was 
paid. 

Spies  were  sent  into  all  the  congregations  of 
Presbyterians  throughout  England,  to  observe 
and  report  their  behaviour  to  the  bishops  ;  and 
if  a  minister  lamented  the  degeneracy  of  the 
times,  or  expressed  his  concern  for  the  ark  of 
God,  if  he  preached  against  perfidiousness,  or 
glanced  at  the  vices  of  the  court,  he  was 
marked  for  an  enemy  to  the  king  and  govern- 
ment. Many  eminent  and  loyal  Presbyterians 
were  sent  to  prison  upon  such  informations, 
among  whom  was  the  learned  and  prudent  Mr. 
John  Howe  ;  and  when  they  came  to  their  tri- 
als, the  court  was  guarded  with  soldiers,  and 
their  friends  not  suffered  to  attend  them. 
Many  were  sequestered  from  their  livings,  and 
cited  into  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  for  not 
using  the  surplice  and  other  ceremonies,  whil& 
the  discipline  of  the  Church  was  under  a  kind 
of  suspension.  So  eager  were  the  spiritual 
courts  to  renew  the  exercise  of  the  sword  ;  and 
so  fiercely  was  it  brandished  against  tlie  faUing 
Presbyterians  ! 

The  convention  Parliament  passed  sundry 
acts  with  relation  to  the  late  times,  of  which 
these  following  deserve  to  be  remembered  :  An 
act  for  the  confirming  and  restoring  of  minis- 
ters, which  enacts,  among  other  things,  "  that 
every  sequestered  minister,  who  has  not  justi- 
fied the  late  king's  murder,  or  declared  against 
infant  baptism,  shall  be  restored  to  his  hving 
before  the  25th  of  December  next  ensuing,  and 
the  present  incumbent  shall  peaceably  quit  it. 


of  York,  disbursed  in  public  payments,  besides  abate- 
ments to  tenants,  £15,000.  Dr.  Cosins's  (bishop  of 
Durham)  expenditures  in  building  and  repairing 
public  edifices  and  in  charities  amounted  to  .£44,000. 
Dr.  Warner,  bishop  of  Rochester,  though  his  fines 
were  small,  gave  in  royal  presents,  benevolences, 
and  subsidies,  and  redeeming  captives,  £25,000. 
The  liberalities  of  various  deans  and  chapters  made 
the  sum  of  £191,300.  These  expenditures  bespeak 
munificence  and  generosity  ;  and  they  appear  to 
lake  off  much  of  the  edge  of  Bishop  Burnet's  cen- 
sure. He  allows  that  "  some  few  exceptions  are  to 
be  made  ;  but  so  few  (he  adds),  that  if  a  new  set  of 
men  had  not  appeared  of  another  stamp,  the  Church 
had  quite  lost  her  esteem  over  the  nation."  The 
reader  will  also  reflect,  that  the  proportion  not  of 
the  number  of  dignitaries  only,  who  made  a  display 
of  charity  or  liberality,  but  of  the  sums  they  ex- 
pended to  the  accession  of  wealth,  is  to  be  taken 
into  the  account.  The  above  sums  fall  more  than  a 
million  short  of  the  amount  of  the  fines  that  were 
raised  :  to  these  must  be  added  the  annual  incomes 
of  the  ecclesiastical  estates  to  which  they  were  pre- 
ferred.—  Grey's  E.rnmination,  vol.  lii.,  p.  269-274. 
Burnet's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  271. — En. 
*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  397.     Conf  Pica,  p.  34. 


218 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


and  be  accountable  for  dilapidations,  and  all  ar- 
rears of  fiftlis  not  paid."  By  this  act  some 
hundreds  of  Nonconforniist  ministers  were  dis- 
possessed of  their  livings,  before  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity was  penned.  Here  was  no  distinction 
between  good  or  bad  ;  but  if  the  parson  had 
"been  Episcopally  ordained,  and  in  possession, 
he  must  be  restored,  though  he  had  beed  eject- 
ed upon  the  strongest  evidence  of  immorality 
■or  scandal. 

The  act  for  confirmation  of  marriages  was 
very  expedient  for  the  peace  of  the  kingdom, 
and  the  order  and  harmony  of  families.  It  en- 
acts, "  that  all  marriages  since  May  I,  1642, 
solemnized  before  a  justice  of  peace,  or  reputed 
justice  ;  and  all  marriages  since  the  said  time, 
had  or  solemnized  according  to  the  direction  of 
any  ordinance,  or  reputed  act  or  ordinance  of 
one  or  both  houses  of  Parliament,  shall  be  ad- 
judged and  esteemed  to  be  of  the  same  force  and 
effect  as  if  they  had  been  solemnized  accord- 
ing to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church 
of  England." 

An  act  for  the  attainder  of  several  persons 
guilty  of  the  horrid  murder  of  his  late  sacred 
majesty  King  Charles  I.,  and  for  the  perpetual 
observation  of  the  30th  of  January.*  This  was 
the  subject  of  many  conferences  between  the 
two  houses,  in  one  of  which  Chancellor  Hyde 
declared  that  the  king  having  sent  him  in  em- 
bassy to  the  King  of  Spain,  charged  him  to 
tell  that  monarch  expressly,  "  that  the  horrible 
murder  of  his  father  ought  not  to  be  deemed  as 
the  act  of  the  Parliament  or  people  of  England, 
but  of  a  small  crew  of  wretches  and  miscreants 
who  had  usurped  the  sovereign  power,  and  ren- 
dered themselves  masters  of  the  kingdom  ;"t 
for  which  the  Commons  sent  a  deputation  with 
thanks  to  the  king.  After  the  preamble,  the  act 
goes  on  to  attaint  the  king's  judges,  dead  or 
alive,  except  Colonel  Ingoldsbyl  and  Thomp- 
son, who,  for  their  late  good  services,  were  par- 
doned, but  in  their  room  were  included  Colonel 
Lambert,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  and  Hugh  Peters, 


*  The  service  for  this  day,  it  has  been  remarked, 
was  framed  on  the  jure  divmo  plan,  consequently  on 
principles  inconsistent  with  those  of  the  Revolution. 
It  was  drawn  up  by  Archbishop  Sancroft,  whose  in- 
fluence procured  it  to  be  adopted  and  published  by 
the  king's  authority,  though  another  of  a  more  mod- 
erate strain  was  at  first  preferred  to  it.  When  San- 
croft himself  was  laid  aside  for  adopting  or  adhering 
to  principles  suitable  to  his  style,  what  had  we  to  do 
any  longer  with  Sancroft's  office  ? — Letters  and  Es- 
says in  favour  of  Public  Liberty,  vol.  i.,  p.  32. — Ed. 

+  This  plea,  it  has  been  observed  by  a  late  writer, 
■would  have  been  precluded,  had  the  Parliament  of 
1641  proceeded  against  the  king  by  way  of  attainder, 
about  the  time  that  Stratford  and  Laud  were  im- 
peached. For  then  they  were  constitutionally  in- 
vested with  the  legislative  and  judicial  powers  of  a 
national  representative  ;  and  they  had  snflicient  overt 
acts  before  them  to  convict  him  of  the  lilackest  trea- 
son against  the  majesty  of  the  people  of  England. — 
Memoirs  of  Mollis,  vol.  li.,  p.  591. — Ed. 

X  Dr.  Grey  observes,  on  the  authority  of  Lord  Clar- 
endon, that  the  case  of  Colonel  Ingoldsby  was  sin- 
gular. He  was  drawn  into  the  army  about  the  time 
when  he  came  first  of  age  by  Cromwell,  to  whom  he 
was  nearly  allied.  Though  appointed  to  it,  he  never 
sat  with  the  judges  of  the  king ;  and  his  signature  to 
the  warrant  for  the  king's  death  was  obtained  by  vio- 
lence ;  Cromwell  seized  his  hand,  put  the  pen  be- 
tween his  fingers,  and  with  his  own  hand  wrote 
Richard  Ingoldsby,  he  making  all  the  resistance  he 
could. — Clarendo7i's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  763. 


who  were  not  of  the  judges.  On  the  30th  of 
January  this  year,  the  bodies  of  O.  Cromwell, 
Bradshaw,  and  Ircton  were  taken  out  of  their 
graves,  and  drawn  upon  hurdles  to  Tyburn, 
where  they  were  hung  up  from  ten  in  the  morn- 
ing till  sunset  of  the  next  day,  after  which  their 
heads  were  cut  off,  and  their  trunks  buried  all 
together  in  one  hole  under  the  gallows.*  Colo- 
nel Lambert  was  sent  to  the  Isle  of  Jersey, 
where  he  continued  shut  up  a  patient  prisoner 
almost  thirty  years ;  nineteen  made  their  es- 
cape beyond  sea  ;  seven  were  made  objects  of 
the  king's  clemency  ;  nineteen  others,  who  sur- 
rendered on  the  king's  proclamation  of  June  6, 
had  their  lives  saved  after  trial,  but  underwent 
other  penalties,  as  imprisonment,  banishment, 
and  fi)rfeiture  of  estates  ;  so  that  ten  only  were 
executed  in  the  month  of  October,  after  the  new 
sheriffs  were  entered  upon  their  office,  viz  ,  Col- 
onel Harrison,  Mr.  Carew,  Cook,  Hugh  Peters, 
Mr.  Scot,  Clement,  Scroop,  Jones,  Hacker,  and 
Axtel.t 

Bishop  Burnet  says,t  "  The  trials  and  execu- 
tions of  the  first  that  suffered  were  attended  by 
vast  crowds  of  people.  All  men  seemed  pleas- 
ed with  the  sight ;  but  the  firmness  and  show 
of  piety  of  the  sufferers,  who  went  out  of  the 
world  with  a  sort  of  triumph  in  the  cause  for 
which  they  suffered,  turned  the  minds  of  the 
populace,  insomuch  that  the  king  was  advised 
to  proceed  no  farther."  The  prisoners  were 
rudely  treated  in  court,  the  spectators,  with 
their  noise  and  clamour,  endeavouring  to  put 
them  out  of  countenance.  None  of  them  deni- 
ed the  fact,  but  all  pleaded  "Not  guilty  to  the 
treason,"  because,  as  they  said,  they  acted  by 
authority  of  Parliament  ;  not  considering  that 
the  House  of  Commons  is  no  court  of  judica- 
ture ;  or  if  it  was,  that  it  was  packed  and  pur- 
ged before  the  king  was  brought  to  his  triaL 
Those  who  guarded  the  scaffold  pleaded  that 
they  acted  by  command  of  their  superior  offi- 
cers, who  would  have  cashiered  or  put  them  to 
death  if  they  had  not  obeyed.  They  were  not 
pennitted  to  enter  into  the  merits  of  the  cause 
between  the  king  and  Parliament,  but  were  con- 
demned upon  the  statute  of  the  25th  Edward 
III.,  for  compassing  and  imagining  the  king's 
death. 

The  behaviour  of  the  regicides  at  their  exe- 
cution was  bold  and  resolute  ;  Colonel  Harrison 
declared  at  the  gibbet  that  he  was  fully  per- 
suaded that  what  he  had  done  was  the  cause 
and  work  of  God,  which  he  was  confident  God 
would  own  and  raise  up  again,  how  much  so- 
ever it  suffered  at  that  time.  He  went  through 
all  the  indignities  and  severities  of  his  suffer- 
ings with  a  calmness,  or  rather  cheerfulness, 
that  astonished  the  spectators  ;  he  was  turned 
off,  and  cut  down  alive  ;  for,  after  his  body  was 
opened,  he  raised  himself  up,  and  gave  the  ex- 
ecutioner a  box  on  the  ear.^  When  Mr.  Soli- 
citor Cook  and  Hugh  Peters  went  into  the 
sledge,  the  head  of  Major-general  Harrison  was 
put  upon  it,  with  the  face  hare  towards  them; 
but,  notwithstanding  this,  Mr.  Cook  went  out  of 
j.he  world  with  surprising  resolution,  blessing 


*  This  was  done,  says  Dr.  Grey,  upon  a  30th  of 
January ;  a  circumstance  which  Mr.  Neal  might 
probalily  think  below  his  notice. — Ed. 

t  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  367.  J  Vol.  i.,  p.  234. 

^  State  Trials,  p.  401. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS, 


219 


God  that  he  had  a  clear  conscience.  Hugh  Pe- 
ters was  more  timid;  but  after  he  had  seen  the 
execution  and  quartering  of  Mr.  Cook,  he  re- 
sumed his  courage  at  length  (which  some  said 
was  artificial),  and  said  to  the  sheriff,  "  Sir,  you 
have  here  slain  one  of  the  servants  of  the  Lord, 
and  made  me  behold  it,  on  purpose  to  terrify  and 
discourage  me  ;  but  God  has  made  it  an  ordi- 
nance for  my  strengthening  and  encourage- 
ment."* Mr.  Scot  was  not  allowed  to  speak 
to  the  people,  but  said  in  his  prayer,  "  that  he 
had  been  engaged  in  a  cause  not  to  be  repent- 
ed of;  I  say  in  a  cause  not  to  be  repented 
of.'-  Carew  appeared  very  cheerful  as  he  went 
to  the  gibbet,  but  said  little  of  the  cause  for 
which  he  suffered.  Clements  also  said  nothing. 
Colonel  Jones  justified  the  king  and  court  in 
their  proceedings  ;  but  added,  that  they  did  not 
satisfy  him  in  so  great  and  deep  a  point.  Col- 
onel Scroop  was  drawn  in  the  same  sledge, 
whose  grave  and  venerable  countenance,  ac- 
companied with  courage  and  cheerfulness,  rais- 
ed great  compassion  in  some  of  the  spectators, 
though  the  insults  and  rudeness  of  others  were 
cruel  and  barbarous  :  he  said  he  was  born  and 
bred  a  gentleman,  and  appealed  to  those  who 
had  known  him  for  his  behaviour ;  he  forgave 
the  instruments  of  his  sufferings,  and  died 
for  that  which  he  judged  to  be  the  cause  of 
Christ.  Colonel  Axtel  and  Hacker  suffered 
last ;  the  former  behaved  with  great  resolution, 
and,  holding  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  said,  "The 
very  cause  in  which  I  was  engaged  is  contained 
in  this  Book  of  God  ;  and  having  been  fully  con- 
vinced in  my  conscience  of  the  justness  of  the 
war,  I  freely  engaged  in  the  Parliament's  ser- 
vice, which,  as  I  do  believe,  was  the  cause  of 
the  Lord,  I  ventured  my  life  freely  for  it,  and 
now  die  for  it."  Hacker  read  a  paper  to  the 
same  purpose ;  and  after  having  expressed  his 
charity  towards  his  judges,  jury,  and  witness- 
es, he  said,  "  I  have  nothing  lies  upon  my  con- 
science as  guilt  whereof  I  am  now  condemned, 
and  do  not  doubt  but  to  have  the  sentence  re- 
versed." 

Few,  if  any,  of  these  criminals  were  friends 
of  the  Protector  Cromwell,  but  gave  him  all 
possible  disturbance  in  favour  of  a  common- 
wealth. Mr.  H.  Cromwell,  in  one  of  his  letters 
from  Ireland,  1657-8,  says,  "It  is  a  sad  case, 
when  men,  knowing  the  difficulties  we  labour 
under,  seek  occasions  to  quarrel  and  unsettle 
everything  again  ;  I  hear  Harrison,  Carew,  and 
Okey,  have  done  new  feats.  I  hope  God  will 
infatuate  them  in  their  endeavours  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  the  nation  ;  their  folly  shows  them 
to  be  no  better  than  abusers  of  religion,  and 
such  whose  hypocrisy  the  Lord  will  avenge  in 
Alue  time." 

The  regicides  certainly  confounded  the  cause 
of  the  Parliament,  or  the  necessity  of  entering 
into  a  war  to  bring  delinquents  to  justice,  with 
the  king's  execution  ;  whereas  they  fall  under 
a  very  distinct  consideration  ;  the  former  might 
be  necessary,  when  the  latter  had  neither  law 
nor  equity  to  support  it  :t  for  admitting,  with 

*  I  propose  to  afford  the  reader  an  opportunity  of 
understanding  Hugh  Peters's  character,  by  annexing 
an  historical  and  critical  account  of  this  much-slan- 
dered man  in  the  Appendix. — C. 

t  A  distinguished  writer,  who  now  ranks  a  peer, 
dehvers  a  different  opinion  from  our  author.     "  If  a 


them,  that  the  king  is  accountable  to  his  Par- 
Uament,  the  House  of  Commons  alone  is  not 
the  Parliament ;  and  if  it  was,  it  could  not  be 
so  after  it  was  under  restraint,  and  one  half  of 
the  members  forcibly  kept  from  their  places 
by  the  military  power.  They  had  no  precedent 
for  their  conduct,  nor  any  measure  of  law  to 
try  and  condemn  their  sovereign  ;  though  the 
Scripture  says,  "He  that  sheds  man's  blood,  by 
man  shall  his  blood  be  shed,"  yet  this  is  not  a 
rule  of  duty  for  private  persons,  when  there  is 
a  government  subsisting.  If  the  king  had  fallen 
in  battle,  it  had  been  a  different  case ;  but  how 
criminal  soever  his  majesty  miglit  be  in  their 
apprehensions,  they  had  no  warrant  to  sit  as  his 
judges,  and,  therefore,  could  have  no  right  by 
their  verdict  or  sentence  to  put  him  to  death. 

There  was  another  act  passed  this  session 
for  a  perpetual  anniversary  thanksgiving  on  the 
29th  of  May,  for  his  majesty's  happy  restora- 
tion ;  upon  which  occasion  the  bishops  were 
commanded  to  draw  up  a  suitable  form  of  pray- 
er ;  and  Mr.  Robinson,  in  the  preface  to  his 
Review  of  the  Case  of  Liturgies,  says  that  in 
their  first  form,  which  is  since  altered,  there 
are  these  unwarrantable  expressions,  which  I 
mention  only  to  show  tlie  spirit  of  the  times: 
"  We  beseech  thee  to  give  us  grace  to  remem- 
ber and  provide  for  our  latter  end,  by  a  careful 
and  studious  imitation  of  this  thy  blessed  saint 
and  martyr,  and  all  other  thy  saints  and  mar- 
tyrs that  have  gone  before  us  ;  that  we  may  be 
made  worthy  to  receive  the  benefit  by  their 
prayers,  which  they,  in  communion  with  thy 
Church  catholic,  offer  up  unto  thee  for  that  part 
of  it  here  militant,  and  yet  in  sight  with  and 
danger  from  the  flesh."* 

The  books  of  the  great  Milton,  and  Mr.  John 
Goodwin,  published  in  defence  of  the  sentence 
of  death  passed  upon  his  late  majesty,  were 
called  in  by  proclamation.  And  upon  the  27th 
of  August,  Milton's  Defensio  pro  Populo  Angli- 
cano  contra  Salmasium,  and  his  answer  to  a 
book  entitled  The  Portraiture  of  his  sacred 
Majesty  in  his  Solitude  and  Sufferings,  were 
burned  by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman; 
together  with  Mr.  John  Goodwin's  book,  enti- 
tled The  Obstructors  of  Justice ;  but  the  au- 
thors absconded  till  the  storm  was  over.  It 
was  a  surprise  to  all  that  they  had  escaped 


king  deserves,"  says  he,  "  to  be  opposed  by  force  of 
arms,  he  deserves  death  ;  if  he  reduces  his  subjects 
to  that  extremity,  the  blood  spilled  iii  the  quarrel  lies 
on  hiin  ;  the  executing  him  afterward  is  a  mere  for- 
mality."—  Walpote's  Royal  and  Noble  Authors,  vol.  ii., 
p.  09,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Harris,  Life  of  Charles  II., 
vol.  i.,  p.  262.  A  sentiment  of  this  last  writer,  which 
carries  truth  and  force  in  it,  may  be  properly  brought 
forward  in  this  connexion.  "'I'he  depriving  of  the 
people  of  their  rights  and  liberties,  or  the  arguing  for 
the  expediency  and  justice  of  so  doing,  is  a  crime  of 
a  higher  nature  than  the  murdering,  or  magnifying 
the  murder,  of  the  wisest. and  best  prince  under 
heaven.  The  loss  of  a  good  prince  is  greatly  to  be 
lamented  ;  but  it  is  a  loss  which  may  be  repaired  : 
whereas  the  loss  of  a  people's  liberiies  is  seldom  or 
ever  to  be  recovered  ;  consequently,  the  foe  to  the 
latter  is  much  more  detestal)le  than  the  foe  to  the 
former.'' — Hivloncal  and  Critical  Account  of  Hugh 
Felers,p.  4S),  50.— En. 

*  Dr.  Grey  asks,  "  What  is  there  blame.-ible  in  all 
this  ?  Here  is  no  praying  to  saints  ;  and  nothing  but 
what  was  thought  warrantable  by  the  fathers,  long 
before  popery  had  a  being." — Ed. 


220 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


prosecution.  None  but  Goodwin  and  Peters 
had  magnified  tiie  king's  execution  in  tiieir  ser- 
mons ;  but  Goodwin's  being  a  strenuous  Ar- 
minian  procured  liim  friends  *  Milton  iiad  ap- 
peared so  boldly,  though  with  much  wit,  and 
so  great  purity  and  elegance  of  style,  upon  the 
argument  of  the  king's  death,  that  it  was 
thought  a  strange  omission  not  to  except  him 
out  of  the  Act  of  Indenmity  ;t  but  he  lived  many 
years  after,  though  blind,  to  acquire  immortal 
renown  by  his  celebrated  poem  of  Paradise 
Lost.t 

The  tide  of  joy  which  overflowed  the  nation 
at  the  king's  restoration  brought  with  it  the  re- 
turn of  popery,  which  had  been  at  a  very  low 
ebb  during  the  late  commotions  :  great  numbers 
of  that  religion  came  over  with  his  majesty,  and 
crowded  about  the  court,  magnifying  their  suf- 
ferings for  the  late  king.  A  list  of  the  lords, 
gentlemen,  and  other  officers,  who  were  killed 
in  his  service,  was  printed  in  red  letters,  by 
which  it  appeared  that  several  noblemen,  ten 
knights  and  baronets,  fourteen  colonels,  seven 
lieutenant-colonels,  fourteen  majors,  sixty-six 
captains,  eighteen  lieutenants  and  cornets,  and 
thirty-eight  gentlemen,  lost  their  lives  in  the 
civil  war,  besides  great  numbers  who  were 
wounded,  and  whose  estates  were  sequestered. 
The  queen-mother  came  from  France,  and  re- 
sided at  Somerset  House  with  her  Catholic  at- 
tendants, both  religious  and  secular.  Several 
Romish  priests  who  had  been  confined  in  New- 
gate, Lancaster,  and  other  jails,  were  by  order 
of  council  set  at  liberty.  Many  popish  priests 
were  sent  over  from  Douay  into  England,  as 
missionaries  for  propagatmg  that  religion  ;  and 
their  clergy  appeared  openly  in  defiance  of  the 
laws  ;  they  were  busy  about  the  court  and  city 
in  dispersing  popish  books  of  devotion  ;  and  the 
king  gave  open  countenance  and  protection  to 
such  as  had  been  serviceable  to  him  abroad,  and 
came   over  with  him,  or  soon  followed  him, 

*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  236,  237,  12mo  edit. 

t  "  And  so,  indeed,  it  was,"  says  Dr.  Grey, "  he  be- 
ing the  most  pestilent  writer  that  appeared  at  that 
time  in  defence  of  the  regicides,  Peyton  and  John 
Goodwin  excepted."  Milion's  safety,  it  is  said,  was 
owing  to  the  powerful  intercession  and  interest  of 
Secretary  Morrice,  Sir  Thomas  Clarges,  and  Andrew 
Marvel;  but  princiijally  to  the  influence  and  grati- 
tude of  Sir  William  Davenant,  whose  release  Milton 
had  procured  when  he  was  taken  prisoner  in  1650. 
Nor  was  Charles  II.,  says  Toland,  such  an  enemy 
to  the  muses  as  to  require  his  destruction. — British 
Biography,  vol.  v.,  p.  313,  314  :  and  Dr.  Grey's  Exam- 
ination, vol.  iii.,  p.  298. — Ed. 

X  The  only  avenue  to  roy;il  favour  at  the  Restora- 
tion was  to  defame  the  character  of  all  who  had 
been  active  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  the  people.  We 
ought  to  receive  the  biography  of  that  period  with 
many  grains  of  allowance.  Take,  for  an  example,  the 
following  life  of  John  Milton,  taken  literally  and  with- 
out abridgment  from  William  Winstanley's  Lives  of 
the  most  famous  English  Poets,  licensed  for  print- 
ing June  16,  1686. 

"  John  Milton  was  one  whose  natural  parts  might 
deservedly  give  him  a  place  among  the  principal  of 
our  English  poets,  having  written  two  heroic  poems 
and  a  tragedy,  viz..  Paradise  Lost,  Paradise  Regain- 
ed, and  Samson  Agonistes  ;  but  his  fame  is  gone  out 
like  a  candle  in  a  snuff",  and  his  memory  will  always 
stink,  which  might  have  ever  lived  in  honourable 
repute,  had  he  not  been  a  notorious  traitor,  and  most 
impiously  and  viUanously  belied  that  blessed  mar- 
tyr, King  Charles  1."— P.  195.— C. 


which,  Bishop  Kennet  says,  his  majesty  could 
not  avoid.  Upon  the  whole,  more  Roman  Cath- 
olics appeared  openly  this  year  than  in  all  the 
twelve  years  of  the  interregnum. 

In  Ireland  the  papists  took  possession  of  their 
estates,  \Vhich  had  been  forfeited  by  the  rebellion 
and  massacre,  and  turned  out  the  purchasers  ; 
which  occasioned  such  commotions  in  that  king- 
dom, that  the  king  was  obliged  to  issue  out  a 
proclamation,  commanding  them  to  wait  the  de- 
termination of  the  ensuing  Parliament.  The 
body  of  their  clergy,  by  an  instrument  bearing 
date  January  1,  1660,  O.  S.,  signed  and  scaled 
by  the  chief  prelates  and  officials  of  their  reli- 
gion, ventured  to  depute  a  person  of  their  own 
communion  to  congratulate  his  majesty's  resto- 
ral  ion,  and  to  present  their  humble  supplications 
for  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion,  pursuant 
to  the  articles  of  1648,  whom  the  king  received 
very  favourably,  and  encouraged  to  hope  for  an 
accomplishment  of  their  requests  in  due  time. 
Such  amazing  changes  happened  within  nine 
months  after  the  king's  arrival  at  Whitehall. 

The  only  persons  who,  under  pretence  of  re- 
ligion, attempted  anything  against  the  govern- 
ment, were  a  small  number  of  enthusiasts,  who 
said  they  were  for  King  Jesus  ;  their  leader  was 
Thomas  Venner,  a  wine  cooper,  who,  in  his  lit- 
tle conventicle  in  Coleman-street,  warmed  his 
admirers  with  passionate  expectations  of  a  fifth 
universal  monarchy,  under  tlie  personal  reign  of 
King  Jesus  upon  earth,  and  that  the  saints  were 
to  take  tiie  kingdom  to  themselves.  To  intro- 
duce this  imaginary  kingdoin,  they  marched 
out  of  their  meeting-house  towards  St.  Paul's 
churchyard,  on  Sunday,  January  6,  to  the  num- 
ber of  about  fifty  men  well  armed,  and  with  a 
resolution  to  subvert  the  present  government  or 
die  in  the  attempt.  They  published  a  declara- 
tion of  the  design  of  their  rising,  and  placed 
sentinels  at  proper  places.  The  lord-mayor  sent 
the  trained-bands  to  disperse  them,  whom  they 
quickly  routed,  but  in  the  evening  retired  to 
Cane  Wood,  between  Highgateand  Hampstead. 
On  Wednesday  morning  they  returned,  and  dis- 
persed a  party  of  the  king's  soldiers  in  Thread- 
needle-street.  In  Wood-street  they  repelled 
the  trained-bands,  and  some  of  the  horse-guards, 
but  Venner  himself  was  knocked  down,  and 
some  of  his  company  slain  ;  from  hence  the  re- 
mainder retreated  to  Cripplegate,  and  took  pos- 
session of  a  house,  which  they  threatened  to  de- 
fend with  a  desperate  resolution,  but  nobody 
appearing  to  countenance  their  phrensy,  they 
surrendered  after  they  had  lost  about  half  their 
number;  Venner  and  one  of  his  officers  were 
hanged  before  their  meeting-house  door  in  Cole- 
man-street,  January  19,  and  a  few  days  after 
nine  more  were  executed  in  divers  parts  of  the 
city.* 


*  It  plainly  appeared,  on  the  examination  of  these 
insurgents,  that  they  had  entered  into  no  plot  with 
any  other  conspirators.  The  whole  transaction  was 
the  unquestionable  effect  of  the  religious  phrensy  ot 
a  few  individuals.  Yet  it  was  the  origin  of  a  nation- 
al burden  and  evil  felt  to  this  day.  At  the  council, 
on  the  morning  after  the  insurrection  was  quelled, 
the  Duke  of  York  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity 
to  push  his  arbitrary  measures.  On  the  prete.xtthat 
so  extravagant  an  attempt  could  not  have  arisen  from 
the  rashness  of  one  man,  but  was  the  result  of  a  plot 
formed  by  all  the  sectaries  and  fanatics  to  overthrow 
the  present  government,  he  moved  "  to  suspend,  at 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


221 


This  mad  insurrection  gave  the  court  a  han- 
dle for  breaking  through  the  late  declaration  of 
indulgence  within  three  months  after  it  was 
published  ;  for  January  2  tiiere  was  an  order  of 
council  against  the  meetings  of  sectaries  in 
great  numbers,  and  at  unusual  times ;  and  on 
the  10th  of  January  a  proclamation  was  publish- 
ed, whereby  his  majesty  forbids  the  Anabap- 
tists, Quakers,  and  tifth-monarchy  men  to  as- 
semble or  meet  together  under  pretence  of  wor- 
shipping God,  except  it  be  in  some  parochial 
church  or  chapel,  or  in  private  houses  by  the 
persons  there  inhabiting.*  All  meetings  in 
other  places  are  declared  to  be  unlawful  and 
riotous.  And  his  majesty  commands  all  may- 
ors, and  other  peace-otlicers,  to  search  for  such 
conventicles,  and  cause  the  persons  therein  to 
be  bound  over  to  the  next  sessions.  Upon  this, 
the  Independents,  Baptists,  and  Quakers,  who 
dissented  from  the  establishment,  thought  fit 
publicly  to  disown  and  renounce  the  late  insur- 
rection. 

The  Independents,  though  not  named  in  the 
proclamation,  were  obnoxious  to  the  govern- 
ment, and  suspected  to  concur  in  all  designs 
that  might  change  the  constitution  into  a  com- 
monwealth :  to  wipe  off  this  odium,  there  was 
published  "  A  Renunciation  and  Declaration  of 
the  Congregational  Churches  and  p'.iblic  Preach- 
ers of  the  said  Judgment,  living  in  and  about 
the  City  of  London,  against  the  late  horrid 
Insurrection  and  Rebellion  acted  in  the  said 
City."t     Dated  January,  1660.     In  this  declar- 


such  an  alarming  crisis,  the  disbanding  of  General 
Monk's  regiment  of  foot ;"  which  had  the  guard  of 
"Whitehall,  and  was,  by  order  of  Parliament,  to  have 
been  disbanded  the  ne.xt  day.  Through  difleient 
causes  the  motion  was  adopted,  and  a  letter  was  sent 
to  the  king  to  request  him  to  approve  and  confirm  the 
resolution  of  the  council,  and  to  appoint  the  continu- 
ance of  the  regiment  till  farther  order.  To  this  the 
king  consented  ;  and,  as  the  rumours  of  fresh  conspir- 
acies were  industriously  kept  up,  those  troops  were 
continued  and  augmented,  and  a  way  was  prepared 
for  the  gradual  establishment  of  a  standing  army  un- 
der the  name  of  guards.  This  should  be  a  memento 
to  future  ages  how  they  credit  reports  of  plots  and 
conspiracies  thrown  out  by  a  minister,  unless  the  ev- 
idence of  their  e.xistence  be  brought  forward.  The 
cry  of  conspiracies  has  been  frequently  nothing  more 
than  the  chimera  of  fear,  or  the  invention  of  a  wicked 
policy  to  carry  the  schemes  of  ambition  and  despo- 
tism.—  Secret  Hiatory  nf  the  Court  and  Reign  of  Charles 
II.,  vol.  i,,  p.  340,  347.— Ed. 

*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  357. 

t  ''This  proclamation,"  Mr.  Gough  well  observes, 
"  appears  to  be  drawn  up  with  more  art  and  fallacy 
than  sound  judgment  and  equity  ;  while  it  reaches 
all  the  dif!erent  sects  of  Dissenters,  all  who  do  not 
assemble  for  worship  in  some  parochial  church  or 
chapel,  as  rioters,  it  distinguishes  only  those  looked 
iipon  as  the  most  insigniticant,  and  least  formidable 
for  their  numbers  or  abilities.  The  Presbyterians 
are  passed  over  in  silence,  for  they  could  not,  with 
any  colour  of  decency,  be  pointed  at  as  foes  to  the 
government  they  had  just  before  been  conducive  to 
establishing.  The  Independents  are  also  unnoticed, 
probably  for  fear  of  awakening  the  exertion  of  that 
vigour  and  of  those  abilities,  the  effects  whereof  were 
yet  recent  in  the  menrory  of  the  present  administra- 
tion. The  Anabaptists  and  Quakers,  as  new  or 
weaker  sects,  are  treated  with  less  ceremony,  and 
are  ranked  with  the  wild  disturbers  of  the  public 
peace :  wherein  justice,  the  characteristic  virtue  of 
good  government,  was  designedly  violated  by  involv- 
ing the  innocent  with  the  guilty  in  one  confused 
mass."— jf/is«.  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p.  443,  444.— Ed. 


ation  they  disown  the  principles  of  a  fifth  mon- 
archy, or  the  personal  reign  of  King  Jesus  on 
earth,  as  dishonourable  to  Him,  and  prejudicial 
to  His  Church  ;  and  abhor  the  propagating  this 
or  any  other  opinion  by  force  or  blood.  They 
refer  to  their  late  meeting  of  messengers  from 
one  hundred  and  twenty  churches  of  their  way 
at  the  Savoy,  in  which  they  declare  (chap.  xxiv. 
of  their  Confession)  that  civil  magistrates  are 
of  Divine  appointment,  and  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  all  subjects  to  pray  for  them,  to  honour  their 
persons,  to  pay  them  tribute,  to  obey  their  law- 
ful commands,  and  to  be  subject  to  their  author- 
ity ;  and  that  infidelity,  or  indifference  in  reli- 
gion, does  not  make  void  the  magistrates'  just 
and  legal  authority,  nor  free  the  people  from 
their  obedience.  Accordingly,  they  cease  not 
to  pray  for  all  sorts  of  blessings,  spiritual  and 
temporal,  upon  the  person  and  government  of 
his  majesty,  and  by  the  grace  of  God  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so  themselves,  and  persuade  others 
thereunto.  And  with  regard  to  the  late  impious 
and  prodigiously-daring  rebellion,  they  add, 
"  Cursed  be  their  anger,  for  it  was  fierce  ;  and 
their  wrath,  for  it  was  cruel :  0  my  soul  !  come 
not  thou  into  their  secret,  but  let  God  divide 
them  in  Jacob,  and  scatter  them  in  Israel." 
Signed  by 

.los.  Caryl,  Samuel  Slater,  William  Greenhil, 

George  Griffiths,  Geurge  Cockyan,  Matth.  Barker, 

Richard  Keiirick,  Thomas  Goodwin,  Tho.  Malory, 

Robert  Bragge,  Thomas  Brooks,  John  Loder, 

Ralph  Venning,  Corn.  Ilclme,  John  Yates, 

Jolin  Oxenbridge,  John  Hodges,  Thomas  Owen, 

Philip  Nye,  John  Bachiler,  Nath.  Mather, 

John  Rowe,  Seth  Wood,  Will.  Stoughton. 
Thomas  Weld, 

The  Baptists  published  an  apology*  in  behalf 
of  themselves  and  their  brethren  of  the  same 
judgment,  with  a  protestation  against  the  late 
wicked  and  most  horrid  treason  and  rebellion 
in  this  city  of  London  ;  in  which  they  avow  their 
loyalty  to  the  king,  and  promise  that  their  prac- 
tice shall  be  contbrmahle  ;  subscribed  by  Will- 
iam Kiffen,  Henry  Den,  John  Batty,  Thomas 
Lamb,  Thomas  Cowper,  and  about  twenty  nine 
or  thirty  other  names.  They  also  addressed  the 
king,  that  the  innocent  might  not  suffer  with  the 
guilty  ;  protesting  in  the  most  solemn  manner, 
that  they  had  not  the  least  knowledge  of  the 
late  insurrection,  nor  did,  directly  or  indirectly, 
contrive,  promote,  assist,  or  approve  of  it. 
They  offered  to  give  security  for  their  peacea- 

*  This  was  subscribed  by  thirty  ministers  and 
principal  members  of  the  Baptist  congregations.  It 
was  accompanied  by  another  paper,  called  also  an 
"  Apology,"  which  had  been  presented  lo  the  king 
some  months  before  Venner's  insurrection,  declara- 
tory of  their  sentiments  concerning  magistracy,  and 
of  their  readiness  to  obey  the  king  and  all  in  author- 
ity in  ail  things  lawful.  Mr.  Jessey,  preaching  soon 
alter,  declared  to  his  congregation,  that  Venner 
should  say,  "  that  he  believed  there  was  not  one 
Haptist  among  his  adherents ;  and  that  if  they  suc- 
ceeded, the  Baptists  should  know  that  infant  baptism 
was  an  ordinance  of  Jesus  Christ."  In  farther  vin- 
dication of  this  people,  and  to  show  that  they  were 
unjustly  charged  with  opposing  magistracy  and  gov- 
ernment, there  was  published  about  this  time  a  small 
treatise  entitled  "  Moderation  ;  or.  Arguments  and 
Motives  tending  thereto;  humbly  tendered  to  the 
honourable  Members  of  Parliament."  Copious  ex- 
tracts from  this  piece  may  be  seen  in  Crosbj/'s  Histo- 
ry of  the  English  Baptists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  42,  63. — Ed. 
(Toolmin). 


222 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


ble  behaviour,  ami  for  their  supporting  his  maj- 
esty's person  and  government.  But  notwith- 
standing this,  their  rehgious  assemblies  were 
disturbed  in  ail  places,  and  their  ministers  im- 
prisoned ;*  great  numbers  were  crowded  into 
Newgate  and  other  prisons,  where  they  remain- 
ed under  close  confinement  till  the  king's  coro- 
nation, when  the  general  pardon  published  on 
that  occasion  set  them  at  liberty. 


*  Divers  pious  persons  were  haled  out  of  their 
houses  ;  four  hundred  were  committed  to  Newgate  ; 
others  to  Wood-street  Compter ;  and  many  to  other 
prisons.  The  first  and  most  violent  persecution  was 
chiefly  levelled  agauist  them.  Among  others  who 
suffered  on  this  occasion  was  Mr.  Hanserd  Knollys. 
Mr.  Vavasor  Powel  was,  early  m  the  morning,  taken 
from  his  house  by  a  company  of  .soldiers,  and  carried 
to  prison;  from  whence  he  was  conducted  to  Salop, 
and  committed  with  several  others  to  the  custody  of 
a  marshal ;  where  they  were  detained  nine  weeks, 
till  they  were  released  by  an  order  of  the  king  and 
council.  Mr.  John  Bunyan  was  apprehended  at  a 
meeting  and  committed  to  prison,  though  he  offered 
bail,  till  the  next  sessions.  He  was  then  indicted 
for  "  devilishly  and  perniciously  abstaining  from  com- 
ing to  church  to  hear  Divine  service  ;  and  as  a  com- 
mon upholder  of  several  unlawful  meetings  and  con- 
venticles, to  the  distraction  of  the  good  subjects  of 
this  kingdom,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  our  sovereign 
lord  the  king."  He  frankly  owned  being  at  the  meet- 
ing. The  justices  took  this  for  a  confession  of  the 
indictment ;  and,  because  he  refused  to  conform,  sen- 
tenced him  to  perpetual  banishment,  on  an  act  made 
by  the  then  Parliament.  Though  the  sentence  of 
banishment  was  never  executed  upon  him,  he  was 
kept  in  prison  twelve  years  and  a  half,  and  suffered 
much  under  cruel  and  oppressive  jailers.  Above 
sixty  Dissenters  were  imprisoned  with  him,  among 
whom  were  Mr.  Wheeler  and  Mr.  Dun,  two  eminent 
ministers  well  known  in  Bedfordshire.  Mr.  Bunyan 
was  at  last  liberated,  on  the  importunity  of  Dr.  Bar- 
low, bishop  of  Lincoln. — Crosby's  History  of  the  Bap- 
tists, vol.  ii.,  p.  91-93;  Vavasor  PowcVs  Life,  p.  129; 
and  Robinson's  Translation  of  Claude,  vol.  ii.,  p.  228. 
—Ed.     . 

I  cannot  resist  the  desire  I  have  to  gratify  the  read- 
er with  Mr.  Robinson's  remarks  on  the  bill  of  indict- 
meni  against  John  Bunyan.  "The  two  facts  are 
these:  Bunyan  did  not  worship  Almighty  God  in  the 
parish  meeting-house.  Bunyan  did  worship  God  in 
a  farmhouse.  Now  these  two  facts  are  innocent  in 
themselves,  inoflensive  to  society,  and  altogether 
unconnected  with  plots  of  subverting  civil  govern- 
ment ;  consequently,  the  citizen  who  did  them  ought 
not  to  have  been  criminated  for  these  actions.  But 
see  what  rhetoric  can  do  !  Call  the  parish  meeting 
house  the  church ;  name  the  ceremonies  performed 
there  service  ;  assert  the  book  that  contains  them  to 
be  Divine ;  make  the  whole  of  religion  to  consist  in 
hearing  a  priest  read  it ;  affirm  that  a  devil  or  a  devil- 
kin  comes  from  hell  to  persuade  Bniiyan  not  to  hear 
it ;  say  that  Bunyan's  absence  is  of  so  much  conse- 
quence as  to  be  pernicious  or  destructive  to  the  Divine 
Book  ;  call  the  farmer's  parlour,  held  in  fee  simple, 
a  conventicle  or  meeting-place  ;  say  if  sixteen  harvest- 
men  and  their  wives  meet  there  on  the  20th  of  Au- 
gust and  get  drunk  at  harvest  home,  the  parlour  is  a 
lavful  conventicle  ;  and  that  if  they  meet  there  on 
the  21st  of  August  to  repent  of  drunkenness,  and 
get  Bunyan  to  pray  to  God  there  to  accept  their 
repentance,  and  to  tell  them  out  of  the  book  whether 
God  will  accept  it,  that  then  it  is  an  unlawful  con- 
venticle ;  say  that  the  prayers  and  tears  of  these  poor 
wretches  disturb  and  distract  all  the  good  subjects  of 
the  kingdom,  who  may  happen  to  he  at  the  very  time 
extremely  merry  at  operas,  play-houses,  taverns,  ale- 
houses, and  other  places,  and  know  nothing  about 
it ;  bedizen  all  this  with  the  name  of  our  sovereign 
lord  the  king  ;  and  lo !  this  rhetorical  objection  shall 
send  Bunyan  to  jail  for  12  years  and  6  months."— C. 


The  Quakers  also  addressed  the  king  upon 
this  occasion  in  the  following  words  :* 
"  Oh  King  Charles  ! 

"  Our  desire  is,  that  thou  mayest  live  forever 
in  the  fear  of  God  and  thy  council.  We  be- 
seech thee  and  thy  council  to  read  these  fol- 
lowing lines,  in  tender  bowels,  and  compassion 
for  our  souls,  and  for  our  good. 

"  And  this  consider  :  we  are  about  four  hun- 
dred imprisoned  in  and  about  this  city,  of  men 
and  women  from  their  families  ;  besides,  in  the 
country  jails  above  ten  hundred.  We  desire 
that  our  meetings  may  not  be  broken  up,  but  that 
all  may  come  to  a  fair  trial,  that  our  innocency 
may  be  cleared  up. 

"London,  ICth  day  eleventh  montli,  ]660.''t 

On  the  28th  of  the  same  month,  they  publish- 
ed the  declaration  referred  to  in  their  address, 
entitled  "  A  Declaration  from  the  harmless  and 
innocent  People  of  God  called  Quakers,  against 
all  Sedition,  Plotters  and  Fighters  in  the  World, 
for  removing  the  Ground  of  Jealousy  and  Suspi- 
cion from  both  Magistrates  and  People  in  the 
Kingdom,  concerning  Wars  and  Fightings." 
Presented  to  the  king  the  21st  day  of  the  elev- 
enth month,  1660.$  Upon  which,  his  majesty 
promised  them,  on  the  word  of  a  king,  that  they 
should  not  suffer  for  their  opinions  as  long  as 
they  lived  peaceably  ;  but  his  promises  were 
little  regarded. 9 

The  Presbyterian  clergy  were  in  some  degree 
affected  with  these  commotions,  though  envy 
itself  could  not  charge  them  with  guilt ;  but  it 
was  the  wish  and  desire  of  the  prelatical  party 
that  they  might  discover  their  uneasiness  in 
such  a  manner  as  might  expose  them  to  trouble ; 
for  their  ruin  was  already  determined,  only  some 
pretexts  were  wanting  to  cover  the  design,  par- 
ticularly such  as  affected  the  peace  of  the  king- 
dom, and  might  not  reflect  on  his  majesty's  dec- 
laration from   Breda,  which  promi.sed  that  no 


*  Mr.  Neal,  a  respectable  person  of  the  society 
informs  me,  has  given  two  short  paragraphs  only  of 
an  address  containing  seven  quarto  pages  of  close 
letter-press.  It  underwent,  it  seems,  several  edi- 
tions, not  fewer  than  eight  or  ten  ;  for,  being  fraught 
witli  much  pertinent,  solid  matter,  as  persecution 
continued,  it  was  made  very  public.  Mr.  Neal,  or 
his  author  Keiinet,  is  charged  with  having  mutilated 
the  paragraphs  which  he  quotes.  For  the  second 
sentence  stands  in  the  original  thus :  "  We  beseech 
thee  and  thy  council  lo  read  these  following  lines  ; 
and  in  tender  bowels  and  compassion  to  read  them 
over,  for  we  write  in  love  and  compassion  to  your 
souls,  and  for  your  good."  And  after  families  should 
be  added,  "in  close  holes  and  prisons." — Ed. 

t  Kennet's  Chron..  p.  361.  t     Ibid.,  p.  366. 

ij  Dr.  Grey  impeaches  here  the  candour  and  fidel- 
ity of  Mr.  Neal  as  an  historian  ;  and  adds,  "  Sewel, 
a  Quaker,  speaks  more  favourably."  This  writer,  as 
Dr.  Grey  quotes  him,  does  say,  that  at  this  time  the 
king  showed  himself  moderate,  for,  at  the  solicitation 
of  some,  he  set  at  liberty  about  seven  hundred  of  the 
people  called  Quakers  ;  and  that  they  were  acquitted 
from  any  hand  in  Venner's  plot,  and  that,  being  con- 
tinually importuned,  the  king  issued  forth  a  declara- 
tion that  the  Quakers  should  be  set  at  liberty  with- 
out paying  fees.  But  though  Sewel  stales  these 
facts.  Dr.  Grey  either  overlooked,  or  forgot  to  inform 
his  reader,  that  Mr.  Neal,  in  charging  the  king  with 
the  breach  of  his  promise,  speaks  on  the  authority  of 
Sewel,  who  says  "the  king  seemed  a  good-natured 
prince,  yet  he  was  so  misled,  that  in  process  of  time 
he  seemed  to  have  forgot  what  he  so  solemnly  prom- 
ised on  the  word  of  a  king." — History  of  the  Quakers, 
p,  257.— Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


223 


person  should  be  molested  purely  for  religion.* 
But  they  were  insulted  by  the  mob  in  the  streets ; 
when  their  families  were  singing  psalms  in  their 
houses,  they  were  frequently  interrupted  by 
blowing  of  horns  or  throwing  stones  at  the 
windows.  The  Presbyterian  ministers  made 
the  best  retreat  they  could,  after  they  had  un- 
advisedly delivered  themselves  up  into  the  hands 
of  their  enemies;  for  while  they  were  careful 
to  maintain  an  inviolable  loyalty  to  his  majesty's 
person  and  government,  they  contended  for  their 
religious  principles  in  the  press ;  several  new 
pamphlets  were  published,  and  a  great  many  old 
ones  reprinted,  about  the  magistrates'  right  of 
imposing  things  indifferent  in  the  worship  of 
God;  against  bowing  at  the  name  of  Jesus  ;  the 
unlawfulness  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  Church 
of  England;  the  Common  Prayer  Book  unmask- 
ed ;  grievances  and  corruptions  in  church  gov- 
ernm.ent,  dec,  most  of  which  were  answered  by 
divines  of  the  Episcopal  party. 

But  the  most  remarkable  treatise  that  appear- 
ed about  this  time,  and  which,  if  it  had  taken 
place,  must  have  prevented  the  mischiefs  that 
followed,!  was  that  of  the  Reverend  Dr.  Edward 
Stillingfleet,  rector  of  Sutton  in  Bedfordshire, 
and  afterward  the  learned  and  worthy  Bishop  of 
Worcester,  who  first  made  himself  known  to 
the  world  at  this  time  by  his  "  Irenicum  ;  or,  A 
Weapon  Salve  for  the  Church's  Wounds,"  print- 
ed 1661,  in  which  he  attempts  to  prove  that  no 
form  of  church  government  is  of  Divine  right, 
and  that  the  Church  had  no  power  to  impose 
things  indifferent.  I  shall  beg  the  reader's  at- 
tention to  a  few  passages  out  of  his  preface. 
"  The  design  of  our  Saviour,"  says  he,  "  was  to 
ease  men  of  their  former  burdens,  and  not  to 
lay  on  more ;  the  duties  he  required  were  no 
other  but  such  as  were  necessary,  and,  withal. 


»■  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  624,  folio. 

t  A  conciliating  and  liberal  design  formed  by  two 
respectable  men  deserves  to  be  mentioned  here. 
"  Soon  after  the  Restoration,  the  honourable  Mr. 
Boyle  and  Sir  Peter  Pett  were  discoursing  of  the 
severities  practised  by  the  bi.shops  towards  the  Puri- 
tans in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  and  of  those  which 
were  returned  on  the  Episcopal  divines  during  the 
following  usurpations;  and  being  apprehensive  that 
the  restored  clergy  might  be  tempted  by  their  late 
sufferings  to  such  a  vindictive  retaliation  as  would 
be  contrary  to  the  true  measures  of  Christianity  and 
politics,  they  came,  at  last,  to  an  agreement  that  it 
would  tend  to  the  public  good  to  have  something 
written  and  published  in  defence  of  liberty  of  con- 
science. Sir  Peter  Pett  engaged  to  write  on  the  po- 
litical part  of  the  question.  Mr.  Boyle  undertook  to 
engage  Dr.  Thomas  Barlow  to  treat  of  the  theologi- 
cal part:  and  he  also  prevailed  on  Mr.  John  Drury, 
who  had  spent  many  years  in  his  travels,  and  had  ta- 
ken an  active  part  in  a  scheme  for  reconciling  the 
Lutherans  and  Calvinists,  to  state  the  fact  of  the  al- 
lowance of  liberty  of  conscience  in  foreign  parts. 
Sir  Peter  Rett's  and  Mr.  Drury's  tracts  were  printed 
in  1G60.  But,  for  particular  reasons,  the  publication 
of  Dr.  Barlow's  piece  did  not  take  place  ;  but  it  was 
published  after  his  death. 

"  Dr.  Barlow  had  given  offence  by  writing,  just  be- 
fore the  Restoration,  a  letter  to  Mr.  Tombs,  and  ex- 
pressing in  it  some  prejudice  against  the  practice  of 
infant  baptism,  and  by  refusing,  even  after  the  Res- 
toration, to  retract  that  letter.  This  refusal  was  a 
noble  conduct,  for  the  doctor  was  in  danger  by  it  of 
losing  his  station  in  the  University  of  O.xlbrd,  and 
all  his  hopes  of  future  preferment."  This  shows 
how  obnoxious  was  the  sect  of  the  Baptists. — Birch's 
Life  of  Boyle,  p.  299,  300.— Ed. 


very  just  and  reasonable  ;  he  that  came  to  take 
away  the  insupportable  yoke  of  Jewish  cere- 
monies, certainly  did  never  intend  to  gall  the 
necks  of  his  disciples  with  another  instead  of  it  - 
and  it  would  be  strange  the  Church  should  re- 
quire more  than  Christ  himself  did,  and  make 
other   conditions  of  her  communion   than  our 
Saviour  did  of  discipleship.     What  possible  rea- 
son can  be  assigned  or  given  why  such  things 
should  not  be  sufficient  for  communion  with  the 
Church  which  are  sufficient  for  eternal  salva- 
tion !     And  certainly  those  things  are  sufficient 
for  that  which  are  laid  down  as  the  necessary 
duties  of  Christianity  by  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
in  his  Word.     What  ground  can  there  be  why 
Christians  should  not  stand  upon  the  same  terms 
now  which  they  did  in  the  time  of  Christ  and 
his   apostles!     Was   not   religion   sufficiently 
guarded  and  fenced  in  then  1     Was  there  ever 
more  true  and  cordial  reverence  in  the  worship 
of  God  1     What  charter  hath  Christ  given  the 
Church  to  bind  men  up  to  more  than  himself 
hath  done  1     Or  to  exclude  those  from  her  so- 
ciety who  may  be  admitted  into  heaven  1     Will 
Christ  ever  thank  men  at  the  great  day  for  keep- 
ing such  out  from  communion  with  his  Church 
who  he  will  vouchsafe,  not  only  crowns  of  glory 
too,  but  it  may  he  aureolcz  too,  if  there  be  any 
such  things  there  1     The  grand  commission  the 
apostles  were  sent  out  with  was  only  to  teach 
what  Christ  had  commanded  them ;  not  the  least 
intimation  of  any  power  given  them  to  impose 
or  require  anything  beyond  what  himself  had 
•spoken  to  them,  or  they  were  directed  to  by  the 
immediate  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God.     It  is 
not,  whether  the  things  commanded  and  re- 
quired be  lawful  or  notl     It  is  not,  whether  in- 
differences may  be  determined  or  no  1     It  is  not 
how  far  Christians  are  bound  to  submit  to  a  re- 
straint of  their  Christian  liberty,  which  I  now 
inquire   after,  but   whether   they   consult   the 
Church's  peace  and  unity  who  suspend  it  upoa 
such  things.     We  never  read  of  the  apostles 
making  laws  but  of  things  necessary,  as  Acts, 
XV.,  19.     It  was  not  enough  with  them  that  the 
things  would  be  necessary  when  they  had  re- 
quired them;  but  they  looked  upon  an  antece- 
dent necessity  either  absolute  or  for  the  present 
state,  which  was  the  only  ground  of  their  im- 
posing these  commands  upon  the  Gentile  Chris- 
tians.    But  the  Holy  Ghost  never  thought  those 
things  fit  to  be  made  matters  of  law  to  which, 
all  parties  should  conform.     All  that  the  apos- 
tles required  as  to  this  was  mutual  forbearance 
and  condescension  towards  each  other  in  them. 
The  apostles  valued  not  indifferences  at  all ; 
and  those  things  they  accounted  as  such  which 
were   of  no   concernment   to  their   salvation. 
And  what  reason  is  there  why  men  should  be 
tied  up  so  strictly  to  such  things  which  they 
may  do  or  let  alone,  and  yet  be  very  good  Chris- 
tians 1     Without  all  controversy,  the  main  inlet 
of  all  the  distractions,  confusions,  and  divisions 
of  the  Christian  world,  has  been  by  adding  other 
conditions   of  church  communion    than  Christ 
has  done.     Would  there  ever  be  the  less  peace 
and  unity  in  a  church,  if  a  diversity  were  allow- 
ed as  to  practices  supposed  indifferent?     Yea, 
there  would  be  so  much  more,  as  there  was  a 
mutual  forbearance  and  condescension  as  to 
such  things.     The  unity  of  the  Church  is  a  unity 
of  love  and  affection,  and  not  a  bare  uniformity 


224 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


of  practice  and  opinion.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  primitive  Church  more  deserving  our  imita- 
tion than  tiiat  admirable  temper,  moderation, 
and  condescension,  whicii  was  used  in  it  towards 
its  members.  It  was  never  thought  worth  the 
while  to  make  any  standing  laws  for  rites  and 
customs  that  had  no  other  original  but  tradition, 
mucii  less  to  suspend  men  from  her  commu- 
nion for  not  observing  them."* 

The  doctor's  proposals  for  an  accommodation 
were,  "  1.  That  nothing  be  imposed  as  necessa- 
ry but  what  is  clearly  revealed  in  the  Word  of 
Ciod.  2.  That  nothing  be  required  or  deter- 
mined but  what  is  sufficiently  known  to  be  in- 
different in  its  own  nature.  3.  That  whatever 
is  thus  determined  be  in  order  only  to  a  due 
performance  of  what  is  in  general  required  in 
the  Word  of  God,  and  not  to  be  looked  upon  as 
any  part  of  Divine  worshiper  service.  4.  That 
no  sanctions  be  made,  nor  mulcts  or  penalties 
be  inflicted,  on  such  who  only  dissent  from  the 
use  of  some  things  whose  lawfulness  they  at 
present  scruple,  till  sufficient  time  and  means 
be  used  for  their  information  of  the  nature  and 
indifferency  of  these  things.  I  am  sure,"  says 
the  doctor,  "  it  is  contrary  to  the  primitive  prac- 
tice, and  the  moderation  then  used,  to  suspend 
or  deprive  men  of  their  ministerial  function  for 
not  conforming  in  habits  and  gestures,  or  the 
like.  Lastly,  that  religion  be  not  clogged  with 
ceremonies  ;  for  when  they  are  multiplied  too 
much,  though  lawful,  they  eat  out  the  heart, 
heat,  life,  and  vigour  of  Christianity. "t  If  the 
doctor  had  steaddy  adhered  to  those  principles, 
he  could  hardly  have  subscribed  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity next  year,  much  less  have  written  so 
warmly  against  the  Dissenters,  as  he  did  twenty 
years  afterward. +  But  all  he  could  say  or  do 
at  present  availed  nothing ;  the  Presbyterians 
were  in  disgrace,  and  nothing  could  stem  the 
torrent  of  popular  fury  that  was  now  coming 
upon  them. 

[In  the  year  1660,  April  25,  died,  when  the 
king  designed  to  advance  him  to  the  see  of 
"Worcester,  the  learned  Dr.  Henry  Hammond. 
In  addition  to  the  short  account  given  of  him 
by  Mr.  Neal,  in  a  former  volume,  some  other 
particulars  may  be  subjoined  here.  He  was 
born  18th  August,  1605,  at  Chertsey  in  Surrey  ; 
and  was  the  youngest  son  of  Dr.  John  Ham- 
mond, a  physician.  He  received  his  grammar 
learning  at  Eton  School,  and  in  1618  was  sent 
to  Magdalen  College  in  Oxford,  of  which  he  was 
elected  fellow  in  July,  1625,  and  entered-  into 

*  Irenicum,  p.  8-10.  t  Ibid.,  p.  06,  67. 

J  "If  Mr.  Neal," says  Dr.  Grey,  "would  allow  a 
man  to  retract  his  mistakes  upon  (hscovering  them, 
he  would  not  find  fault  with  Bishop  Stilhngfleet " 
He  then  quotes  the  bishop's  apology  for  his  conduct, 
from  the  preface  to  the  Unreasonableness  of  Separa- 
tion. "  If  anything  in  the  following  treatise  be  found 
different  from  the  sense  of  that  book,  I  entreat  them 
to  allow  me  that  which  I  heartily  wish  to  them,  that 
in  twenty  years'  time  we  may  arrive  to  such  a  ma- 
turity of  thoughts  as  to  see  reason  to  change  our 
opinion  of  some  things,  and  I  wish  i  had  not  cause 
to  add,  of  some  persons."  But  notwithstanding  the 
force  of  the  bishop's  plea,  it  will  not,  1  conceive,  be 
deemed  a  fortunate  or  honourable  change,  it  a  man's 
views  and  spirit,  instead  of  enlarging  and  l}er;oming 
more  liberal,  arc  contracted,  and  grow  narrow  and 
partial ;  if,  instead  of  being  the  advocate  for  gener- 
ous and  conciliating  measures,  he  should  argue  for 
oppression  and  intolerance. — Ed. 


holy  orders  in  1629.  The  rectory  of  Penshurst 
was  bestowed  upon  him  by  the  Earl  of  Leices- 
ter in  16.33.  In  1640  he  was  chosen  one  of 
the  members  of  the  Convocation  ;  in  1043  made 
Archdeacon  of  Chichester,  and  the  same  year 
was  named  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  but 
never  sal  among  them.  He  was  distinguished 
in  his  youth  for  tlie  sweetness  of  his  carriage, 
and,  at  the  times  allowed  for  play,  would  steal 
from  his  fellows  into  places  of  privacy  to  pray  : 
omens  of  his  future  pacific  temper  and  eminent 
devotion.  When  he  was  at  the  university  he 
generally  spent  thirteen  hours  of  the  day  in 
study.  Charles  I.  said  "  he  was  the  most  nat- 
ural orator  he  had  ever  heard."  He  was  ex- 
tremely liberal  to  the  poor  ;  and  was  used  to 
say,  that  "  it  was  a  most  unreasonable  and  un- 
christian thing  to  despise  any  one  for  his  pov- 
erty, and  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  sensualities 
in  the  world  to  give."  He  gave  it  as  a  rule  to 
his  friends  of  estate  and  quality,  "  to  treat  their 
poor  neighbours  with  such  a  cheerfulness,  that 
they  might  he  glad  to  have  met  with  them." 
The  alms  of  lending  had  an  eminent  place  in 
his  practice.  He  was  accustomed  strongly  to 
recommend  to  others  "  to  be  always  furnished 
with  something  to  do,"  as  the  best  expedient 
both  for  innocence  and  pleasure.  Devoted  as 
he  was  to  his  studies,  he  would  never  suffer  any- 
body to  wait  that  came  to  speak  to  him  ;  and 
to  the  poor  he  came  with  peculiar  alacrity. — 
British  Biography,  vol.  v.,  p.  219,  225 — Ed.] 

The  Earl  ol  Clarendon,  lord-chancellor,  was 
prime  minister,  and  at  the  head  of  the  king's 
councils.  The  year  [1661]  began  with  new 
scenes  of  pleasure  and  diversion,  occasioned  by 
the  king's  marriage  with  the  infanta  of  Porta- 
gal,  which  was  consummated  April  30.  The 
match  was  promoted  by  General  Monk  and  Lord 
Clarendon,  if,  according  to  the  Oxford  historian, 
the  latter  was  not  the  first  mover  of  it.*  .-\nd 
it  was  reckoned  very  strange  that  a  Protestant 
chancellor  should  advise  the  king  to  a  popish 
princess,  when  a  Catht)lic  king  proposed  at  the 
same  time  a  Protestant  consort.  13ut  his  lord- 
ship had  farther  views  :  for  it  was  generally 
talked  among  the  merchants  that  the  infanta 
could  have  no  children,  in  which  case  the  chan- 
cellor's daughter,  who  had  been  privately  mar- 
ried to  the  king's  brother,  must  succeed,  and 
her  issue  by  the  Duke  of  York  become  heirs  to 


*  Dr.  Grey  observes  that  Mr.  Neal  antedates  this 
marriage  somewhat  above  a  year;  the  king  met  the 
infanta  at  Portsmouth  the  21st  of  May,  1062,  and 
was  then  privately  married  to  her  by  Dr.  Sheldon, 
bishop  of  London.  The  doctor,  on  the  authority  of 
Echard,  endeavours  to  invalidate  the  imputalioii 
which  lies  on  Lord  Clarendon  of  being  the  promo- 
ter, if  not  the  first  mover,  of  this  marriage.  Mr. 
Neal  is  supported  in  his  representation  of  the  affair 
by  the  testimony  of  Sir  John  Reresby,  who  says,  "  It 
is  well  known  that  the  lord-chancellor  had  the  blame 
of  this  unfruitful  match."  He  adds,  that  the  qoet-n 
was  said  to  have  had  a  constant  fluor  upon  her,  which 
rendered  her  incapable  of  conception.  Though,  on 
this  occasion  (says  Sir  John),  everything  was  gay, 
and  splendid,  and  profusely  joyful,  it  was  easy  to  dis- 
cern that  the  king  was  not  excessively  charmed  with 
his  new  bride,  who  was  a  very  little  woman,  with  a 
pretty  tolerable  face.  She  neither  in  person  nor  man- 
ners had  anyone  article  to  stand  in  competition  with 
the  charms  of  the  Countess  of  Castlemain,  afterward 
Duchess  of  Cleveland,  the  finest  woman  of  her  age. 
— Memoirs,  p.  9.  10.— Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


225 


the  throne  ;  which  happened  accordingly,  in  the 
persons  of  Queen  Mary  II.  and  Queen  Anne. 
Such  were  the  aspiring  views  of  this  great 
man,  which,  togellier  with  his  haughty  beha- 
viour, in  the  end  proved  his  ruin. 

The  convention  Parliament  being  dissolved, 
a  new  one  was  elected,  and  summoned  to  meet 
May  8.  The  House  of  Commons,  by  the  inter- 
est of  the  court  party,*  had  a  considerable  ma- 
jority of  such  as  were  zealous  enemies  of  the 
Presbyterians,  and  abetters  of  the  principles  of 
Archbishop  Laud  ;  many  of  whom,  having  im- 
paired their  fortunes  in  the  late  wars,  became 
tools  of  the  ministry  in  all  their  arbitrary  and 
violent  measures.  The  court  kept  above  one 
hundred  of  them  in  constant  pay,  who  went  by 
the  name  of  the  club  of  voters,  and  received 
Jarge  sums  of  money  out  of  the  exchequer,  till 
they  had  almost  subverted  the  Constitution  ; 
and  then,  because  they  would  not  put  the  fin- 
ishing hand  to  what  they  had  unadvisedly  be- 
gun, they  were  disbanded. 

The  king  acquainted  the  houses,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  session,!  that  "  he  valued  himself 
much  upon  keeping  his  word,  and  upon  making 
good  whatsoever  he  had  promised  to  his  sub- 
jects."t  But  the  chancellor,  who  commented 
upon  the  king's  speech,  spoke  a  different  lan- 
guage, and  told  the  House,  "  that  there  were  a 
sort  of  patients  in  the  kingdom  that  deserved 
their  utmost  severity,  and  none  of  their  lenity  ; 
these  were  the  seditious  preachers,  who  could 
not  be  contented  to  be  dispensed  with  for  their 
full  obedience  to  some  laws  established,  with- 
out reproaching  and  inveighing  against  those 
laws,  how  established  soever,  who  tell  their 
auditories,  that  when  the  apostle  bid  them  stand 
to  their  liberties,  he  bid  them  stand  to  their 
arms,  and  who,  by  repeating  the  very  expres- 
sions and  teaching  the  very  doctrines  they  set 
on  foot  in  the  year  1640,  sufficiently  declare  that 
they  have  no  mind  that  twenty  years  should  put 
an  end  to  the  miseries  we  have  undergone. 
What  good  Christians  can  think,  without  horror, 
of  these  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  who  by  their 
function  should  be  messengers  of  peace,  but  are 
in  their  practice  only  the  trumpets  of  war,  and 
incendiaries  towards  rebellion  1  And  if  the  per- 
sons and  place  can  aggravate  their  offence,  so 


*  There  were  only  fifty-six  members  of  the  Pres- 
byterian party  returned,  notwithstanding  their  great 
interest  in  almost  all  the  corporations.  But  in  the 
interval  between  the  two  Parliaments  the  court 
party  had  been  active,  and  the  hints  given  at  the 
dissolution  of  the  late  Parliament  by  the  chancellor 
had  great  weight.  He  recommended  that  "such 
persons  should  be  returned  as  were  not  likely  to  op- 
pose the  king,  but  had  already  served  him,  and  were 
likely  to  serve  him  with  their  whole  heart,  and  to 
gratify  him  in  all  his  desires." — Secret  History  of  the 
Court  and  Reign  of  Charles  II.,  vol.  i.,  p.  171  and  400. 
Had  the  people  been  alive  to  a  just  sense  of  the 
design  of  representation  and  the  nature  of  the  Con- 
stitution, they  would  have  received  these  hints  with 
indignant  contempt. — Ed. 

+  The  king  went  to  the  House  of  Lords,  to  open 
the  session,  with  almost  as  much  pomp  and  splen- 
dour as  had  been  displayed  on  the  coronation  day  ; 
and,  says  my  author,  for  the  same  reasons,  to  daz- 
zle the  mob,  and  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple very  exalted  notions  of  the  dignity  of  regal  gov- 
€rnment. — Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of 
Charles  II.,  vol.  i.,  p.  407,  note. — Ed. 

%  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  434. 

Vol.  II.— F  F 


no  doubt  it  does  before  God  and  man.  Me- 
thinks  the  preaching  rebellion  and  treason  out 
of  the  pulpit  should  be  as  much  worse  tlian  ad- 
vancing it  in  the  market,  as  poisoning  a  man 
at  a  communion  would  be  worse  than  killing 
him  at  a  tavern."  His  lordship  concludes  thus  : 
"  If  you  do  not  provide  for  the  thorough  quench- 
ing these  firebrands,  king,  lordg,  and  commons 
shall  be  the  meaner  subjects,  and  the  whole 
kingdom  will  be  kindled  in  a  general  flame."* 
This  was  a  home-thrust  at  the  Presbyterians  ; 
the  chancellor  did  not  explain  himself  upon  the 
authors  of  these  seditious  sermons,  his  design 
being  not  to  accuse  particular  persons,  but  to 
obtain  a  general  order  which  might  suppress  all 
teachers  who  were  not  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;  and  the  Parliament  was  prepared  to  run 
blindfold  into  all  the  court  measures  ;  for  in  this 
session  the  militia  was  given  absolutely  to  the 
king  ;  the  solemn  League  and  Covenant  was  de- 
clared void  and  illegal ;  the  act  for  disabling 
persons  in  holy  orders  to  exercise  temporal  ju- 
risdiction was  repealed ;  the  bishops  were  re- 
stored to  their  seats  in  Parliament ;  the  old  ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction  was  revived  by  the  re- 
peal of  the  17th  of  Charles  I.,  except  the  oath 
ex  officio ;  and  it  was  made  a  premunire  to  call 
the  king  a  papist.! 

The  storm  was  all  this  while  gathering  very 
black  over  the  Presbyterians  ;  for  when  the 
Parliament  met  a  second  time,  November  20, 
the  king  complimented  the  bishops,  who  appear- 
ed now  again  in  their  places  among  the  peers, 
and  observed  in  his  speech,  that  it  was  a  felicity 
he  had  much  disired  to  see,  as  the  only  thing 
wanting  to  restore  the  old  Constitution.  He 
then  spoke  the  language  of  the  chancellor,  and 
told  the  Commons  "  that  there  were  many  wick- 
ed instruments  who  laboured  night  and  day  to 
disturb  the  public  peace.  That  it  was  worthy 
of  their  care  to  provide  proper  remedies  for  the 
diseases  of  that  kind  ;  that  if  they  found  new 
diseases,  they  must  find  new  remedies.  That 
the  difficulties  which  concerned  religion  were 
too  hard  for  him,  and  therefore  he  recommend- 
ed them  to  their  care  and  deliberation  who  could 
best  provide  for  them."  The  tendency  of  this 
speech  was  to  make  way  for  breaking  through 
the  Breda  declaration,  and  to  furnish  the  Par- 
liament with  a  pretence  for  treating  the  Non- 
conformists with  rigour,  to  which  they  were 
themselves  too  well  inclined. 


*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  510,  511. 

t  To  Mr.  Neal's  detail  of  the  acts  of  this  session, 
it  should  be  added,  that  the  Commons  voted  that  all 
their  members  should  receive  the  sacrament  accord- 
ing to  the  prescribed  liturgy,  before  a  certain  day, 
under  penalty  of  expulsion.  This  was  intended  as 
a  test  of  their  religious  sincerity.  Besides  repealing 
the  solemn  League  and  Covenant,  they  ordered  it 
to  be  taken  out  of  all  the  courts  and  places  where 
it  was  recorded,  and  to  be  burned  by  the  common 
hangman.  To  the  same  sentence  were  doomed  all 
acts,  ordinances,  or  engagements  which  had  been 
dictated  by  a  republican  spirit  during  the  late  times. 
And  they  enervated  the  right  of  petitioning  by  vari- 
ous restrictions  ;  limiting  the  number  of  signatures 
to  twenty,  unless  with  the  sanction  of  three  justices, 
or  the  major  part  of  the  grand  jury;  and  of  those 
who  should  present  a  petition  to  the  king  or  either 
House  of  Parliament  to  ten  persons,  under  the  pen- 
alty of  a  fine  of  £100  and  three  months'  inpnsonment. 
—  Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of  Charles  II., 
vol.  i.,  p.  412-414.— Ed. 


226 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


Lord  Clarendon,  in  a  conference  between  the 
two  houses,  affirmed  positively  that  there  was 
a  real  conspiracy  against  the  peace  of  the  king- 
dom ;  and  though  it  was  disconcerted  in  the 
city,  it  was  carried  on  in  divers  counties  ;  a 
committee  was  therefore  appointed  to  inquire 
into  the  truth  of  tlie  report ;  hut,  after  all  their 
examinations,  not  one  single  person  was  con- 
victed, or  so  nmch  as  prosecuted  for  it.*  Great 
pains  wei-e  taken  to  fasten  some  treasonable 
designs  on  the  Presbyterians  ;  letters  were  sent 
from  unknown  hands  to  the  chiefs  of  the  party 
in  several  parts  of  the  kingdom,  intimating  the 
project  of  a  general  insurrection,  in  which  their 
friends  were  concerned,  and  desiring  them  to 
communicate  it  to  certain  persons  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood, whom  tliey  name  in  their  letters,  that 
they  may  he  ready  at  time  and  place.  A  letter 
of  this  kind  was  directed  to  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Sparry,  in  Worcestershire,  desiring  him  and 
Captain  Yarrington  to  be  ready  with  money, 
and  to  acquaint  Mr.  Oatland  and  Mr.  Baxter 
with  the  design.  This,  with  a  packet  of  the 
same  kind,  was  said  to  be  left  under  a  hedge  by 
a  Scots  pedler  ;  and  as  soon  as  they  were 
found,  they  were  carried  to  Sir  J.  Packington, 
who  immediately  committed  Sparry,  Oatland, 
and  Yarrington  to  prison.  The  militia  of  the 
county  was  raised,  and  the  city  of  Worcester 
put  into  a  posture  of  defence  ;  but  the  sham 
was  so  notorious,  that  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  though 
a  papist,  was  ashamed  of  it ;  and_  after  some 
time  the  prisoners,  for  want  of  evidence,  were 
released.  The  members  for  Oxfordshire,  Here- 
fordshire, and  Staffordshire  informed  the  Com- 
mons that  they  had  rumours  of  the  like  con- 
spiracies in  their  counties.  Bishop  Burnet  says 
"  that  many  were  taken  up,  but  none  tried  ;  that 
this  was  done  to  fasten  an  odium  on  the  Pres- 
byterians, and  to  help  to  carry  the  penal  laws 
through  the  House  ;  and  there  were  appearan- 
ces of  foul  dealing,"  says  he,  '•  among  the  fiercer 
sort."  Mr.  Locke  adds,  that  the  reports  of  a 
general  insurrection  were  spread  over  the  whole 
nation,  by  the  very  persons  who  invented  them  ; 
and  though  Lord  Clarendon  could  not  but  be 
acquainted  with  the  farce,  he  kept  it  on  foot  to 
facditate  passing  the  severe  laws  that  were  now 
coming  upon  the  carpet. t  The  government 
could  not  with  decency  attack  the  Nonconform- 
ists purely  on  account  of  their  religion  ;  the 
declaration  from  Breda  was  too  express  on  that 
article  ;  they  were  therefore  to  be  charged  with 
raising  disturbances  in  the  state.  But  suppo- 
sing the  fact  to  be  true,  that  some  few  malecon- 
tents  had  been  seditiously  disposed,  which  yet 
was  never  made  out,  what  reason  can  be  as- 
signed why  it  should  be  charged  upon  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  whole  body  of  men,  who  were  un- 
questionably willing  to  be  quiet  1 

It  was  nevertheless  on  this  base  and  dishon- 
ourable suggestion  that  the  first  penal  law 
which  passed  against  the  Nonconformists  this 
session  was  founded, t  entitled,- 

"An  Act  for  the  well-governing  and  regula- 
ting Corporations  ;"  which  enacts,  "that  with- 
in the  several  cities,  corporations,  boroughs, 
cinque-ports,  and  other  port-towns  within  the 
kingdom  of  England,  dominion  of  Wales,  and 


"^  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  602. 
t  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  627. 
X  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  602. 


town  of  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  all  mayors,  al- 
dermen, recorders,  bailiffs,  town-clerks,  com- 
mon councilmen,  and  other  persons  bearin.o' 
any  office  or  offices  of  magistracy,  or  places,  or 
trusts,  or  other  employment,  relating  to  or  con- 
cerning the  government  of  the  said  respective 
cities,  corporations,  and  boroughs,  and  cinque- 
ports,  and  their  members,  and  other  port-towns, 
shall  take  tlie  oaths  of  allegiance  and  suprema- 
cy, and  this  oath  following: 

"'  1,  A.  B.,  do  declare  and  believe  that  it  is 
not  lawful,  upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to 
take  arms  against  the  king ;  and  that  I  do  ab- 
hor that  traitorous  position  of  taking  arms  by 
his  authority  against  his  person,  or  against 
those  that  are  commissioned  by  him.'* 

"  They  shall  also  subscribe  the  following  dec- 
laration ; 

"  'I,  A.  B.,  do  declare  that  there  lies  no  ob- 
ligation upon  me  from  the  solemn  League  and 
Covenant,  and  that  the  same  was  an  unlawful 
oath  imposed  on  the  subject  against  the  laws 
and  liberties  of  the  kingdom.' 

"  Provided,  also,  and  be  it  enacted  by  the  au^ 
thority  aforesaid,  that  no  person  shall  hereafter 
be  elected  or  chosen  into  any  of  the  offices  or 
places  aforesaid,  that  shall  not  have,  withia 
one  year  next  before  such  election  or  choice,, 
taken  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  ac- 
cording to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England ; 
and  that  every  person  so  elected  shall  take  the 
aforesaid  oaths,  and  subscribe  the  said  declara/- 
tion  at  the  same  time  when  the  oath  for  the 
due  execution  of  the  said  places  and  offices 
shall  be  respectively'administered." 

Thus  all  Nonconformists  were  turned  out  of 
all  the  branches  of  magistracy  at  once,  and  ren- 
dered incapable  of  serving  their  country  in  the 
offices  of  a  common  councilman,  or  a  burgess 
or  bailiff  of  the  smallest  corporation.  The 
oath  imposed  in  this  act  robbed  them  of  their 
right  as  subjects.  Mr.  Echard  confesses  that 
it  seems  at  once  to  give  up  the  whole  Constitu- 
tion ;  and  no  wonder,  says  he,  if  many  of  the 
clergy  as  well  as  laity,  on  the  account  of  thi& 
act,  espoused  a  doctrine  which,  if  rigidly  taken, 
was  hard  to  he  reconciled  to  the  great  deliver- 
ance afterward.  Mr.  Rapin  adds,t  that  to  say 
that  it  is  not  lawful  on  any  pretence  whatever 
to  resist  the  king,  is,  properly  speaking,  to  de- 
liver up  the  liberties  of  the  nation  into  his 
hands.  The  High-churchmen  had  then  elevated 
ideas  of  the  royal  authority.  But  even  this 
Parliament  did  not  think  fit  afterward  to  admit 
the  dangerous  consequences  of  their  own  max- 
ims. 

Commissioners  were  appointed  and  employed 
during  this  and  the  following  year  to  visit  the 
several  corporations  in  England,  and  to  turn 
out  of  office  such  as  were  in  the  least  suspect- 


*  "  One  would  suppose  (it  has  been  well  remark- 
ed) that  the  Parliament  who  prescrib3d  such  an 
oath  must  have  been  as  near-sighted  and  as  stupid 
as  they  were  servile  and  corrupt.  Such  a  ina.xim 
of  nonresistance  to  the  king,  on  any  pretence,  was 
directly  subversive  of  their  own  consequence,  as  well 
as  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  The  e.xtent  to 
which  this  principle  might  be  carried  was  put  to 
the  proof  by  James  If,  but  the  people  of  England 
rent  asunder  the  chains  which  had  been  forged  for 
them  by  their  perfidious  representatives." — /Secret 
History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of  Charles  II.,  vol  i., 
p.  428,  note.— Ed.  t  Vol.  ii.,  p.  623. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


ed  ;  who  executed  their  commissions  with  so 
much  rigour,  that  the  corporations  had  not  one 
member  left  who  was  not  entirely  devoted  to 
the  king  and  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PROM  THE  CONFERENCE  AT  THE  SAVOY  TO  THE 
ACT  OF  UNIFORMITY.   1661. 

According  to  his  majesty's  declaration  of 
October  25,  1660,  concerning  ecclesiastical  af- 
fairs, twelve  bishops*  and  nine  assistants  were 
appointed  on  the  part  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
of  England,  and  as  many  ministers  on  the  side 
of  the  Presbyterians,  to  assemble  at  the  Bishop 
of  London's  lodgings  at  the  Savoy,  "to  review 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  comparing  it 
with  the  most  ancient  and  purest  liturgies ; 
and  to  take  into  their  serious  and  grave  con- 
siderations the  several  directions  and  rules, 
forms  of  prayer,  and  things  in  the  said  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  contained,  and  to  advise  and 
consult  upon  the  same,  and  the  several  objec- 
tions and  exceptions  which  shall  now  be  raised 
against  the  same  ;  and  if  occasion  be,  to  make 
such  reasonable  and  necessary  alterations,  cor- 
rections, and  amendments,  as  shall  be  agreed 
upon  to  be  needful  and  expedient  for  giving 
satisfaction  to  tender  consciences,  and  the  re- 
storing and  contmuance  of  peace  and  unity  in 
the  churches  under  his  majesty's  government 
and  direction."  They  were  to  continue  four 
months  from  the  25th  of  March,  1661,  and  then 
present  the  result  of  their  conferences  to  his 
majesty  under  their  several  hands. 

The  names  of  the  Episcopal  divines  on  the 
side  of  the  Establishment  at  the  Savoy  Confer- 
ence were, 

The  Most  Rev.  Dr.  Accepted  Frewen,  Archbishop  of  York. 
The  Right  Rev.  Dr.  Gilbert  Sheldon,  Bishop  of  London. 

"         "       Dr.  .Tohn  Cosins,  Bishop  of  Durham. 

"         ''       Dr.  John  Warner,  Bishop  of  Rochester. 

"         "      Dr.  Henry  King,  Bishop  of  Chichester. 

"         "       Dr.  Humph.  Henchman,  Bishop  of  Saruni. 

"         "       Dr.  George  Morley,  Bishop  of  Worcester. 

"         "       Dr.  Robert  Sauuderson,  Bishop  of  Lincoln. 

",-      "       Dr.  Benj.  Laney,  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 

"         "       Dr.  Bryan  Walton,  Bisfinp  of  Chester. 

"         "       Dr.  Richard  Sterne,  Bishop  of  Carlisle. 

"         "      Dr.  John  Gaudeu,  Bishop  of  Exeter. 

Their  Assistants. 
John  Earle,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Westminster. 
Peter  Heylin,  D.D.  John  Pearson,  D.D. 

John  Hacket,  D.D.  Thomas  Pierce,  D.D. 

John  Barwiclc,  D.D.         Anthony  Sparrow,  D.D 
Peter  Gunning,  D.D.        Herbert  Thorndike,  B.D. 

The  names  of  the  Presbyterian  divines,  or 
those  who  were  for  alterations  in  the  hierarchy 
of  the  Church  at  the  Savoy  Conference,  were, 

The  Right  Rev.  Edward  Reynolds,  Bishop  of  Norwich. 
The  Rev.  Anthony  Tuckney,  D.D.M.,  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge. 

"      John  Conaut,  D.D.,  Regius  Professor,  Oxon. 

"      William  Spurstow,  D  D.,  Vicar,  Hackney. 

"       John  Wallis,  D.D.,  Sav.  Professor  Geometry 

"       Thomas  Manton,D  D.,MasterofCovent  Garden. 

"      Edmund  C'alamy,  B.D.,  of  Aldermanbury. 

"       Mr.  Richard  Baxter,  Clerk,  late  of  Kidilermin- 
ster. 
"      Mr.  Arthur  .lackson.  Clerk,  of  St.  Faith's. 

*  Dr.  Nichols  reckons  twelve  bishops,  but  has  left 
out  the  Bishop  of  Chichester,  and  named  Edward, 
Bishop  of  Norwich.  Dr.  Kennet  names  thirteen 
bishops,  among  whom  are  the  Bishops  of  Chiches- 
ter and  Norwich. — Dr.  Grey's  Examination,  vol.  iii., 
p.  308.— Ed. 


The  Rev.  Mr.  Thomas  Case,  Clerk,  Rector  of  St.  Giles.  ' 
"  Mr.  Samuel  Clarke,  Clerk,  of  St.  Bene't  Fink. 
"       Mr.  Matihevv  Newcomen,  Clerk,  of  Dedham. 

Their  Assiitants. 
Rev.  Thomas  Horton,  D.D.     Rev.  John  Collins,  D.D. 
"    Thomas  Jacomb,  D.D.        "     Benj.  Woodbridge,  B.D 
"    William  Bates,  D.D.  "    Mr.  John   Rawhnson, 

"    William  Cooper,  D.D.  Clerk. 

"    John  Lightfoot,  D.D.  "    Mr.  Wm.  Drake,  Clerk. 

When  the  commissioners*  were  assembled 
the  first  time,  April  15,  the  Archbishop  of  York 
stood  up  and  said  he  knew  little  of  the  business 
they  were  met  about,  and  therefore  referred  it 
to  Dr.  Sheldon,  bishop  of  London,  who  gave  it 
as  his  opinion,  that  the  Presbyterians  having 
desired  this  conference,  they  [the  bishops] 
should  neither  say  nor  do  anything  till  the  oth- 
ers had  brongiit  in  all  their  exceptions  and  com- 
plaints against  the  liturgy,  in  writing,  with  their 
additional  forms  and  amendments. t  The  Pres- 
byterians humbly  moved  for  a  conference  ac- 
cording to  the  words  of  the  commission,  but 
the  Bishop  of  London  insisting  peremptorily 
upon  his  own  method,  the  others  consented  to 
bring  in  their  exceptions  at  one  time,  and  their 
additions  at  another.  For  this  purpose.  Bishop 
Reynolds,  Dr.  Wallis,  and  the  rest  of  the  Pres- 
byterian party,  met  from  day  to  day  to  collect 
their  exceptions  ;t  but  the  additions,  or  draw- 
ing up  a  new  form,  was  intrusted  with  Mr.  Bax- 
ter alone.  "  Bishop  Sheldon  saw  well  enough," 
says  Burnet,!^  "what  the  effect  would  be  of 
obliging  them  to  make  all  their  demands  at  once ; 
that  the  number  would  raise  a  mighty  outcry 
against  them,  as  a  people  that  could  never  be 
satisfied."  On  the  other  hand,  the  Presbyteri- 
ans were  divided  in  their  sentiments ;  some 
were  for  insisting  only  on  a  few  important 
things,  reckoning  that  if  they  were  gained,  and 
a  union  followed,  it  might  be  easier  to  obtain 
others  afterward.  But  the  majority,  by  the  in- 
fluence of  Mr.  Baxter,  were  for  extending  their 
desires  to  the  utmost,  and  thought  themselves 
bound  by  the  words  of  the  commission  to  ofier 
everything  they  thought  might  conduce  to  the 
peace  of  the  Church,  without  considering  what 
an  aspect  this  would  have  with  the  world,  or 
what  influence  their  numerous  demands  might 
have  upon  the  minds  of  those  who  were  now 
their  superiors  in  numbers  and  strength  ;||  but 


*  "Though  the  Baptists  in  England  were  at  this 
time  very  numerous,  and  as  famous  men  among  them 
for  learning  and  piety  as  most  in  the  commission, 
yet  no  regard  was  had  to  their  case,  nor  any  one  of 
that  persuasion  appointed  to  have  any  share  in  it. 
They  did  not  design  to  reform  so  far ;  for  if  they 
could  but  bring  the  Presbyterian  party  in,  which  was 
the  most  numerous  of  the  Dissenturs,  that  might  be 
sufficient  to  secure  their  power ;  though,  by  the  con- 
sequence of  this  proceeding,  it  seems  probable  there 
was  no  design  of  reformation,  but  only  to  quiet  the 
minds  of  the  people  till  they  could  gain  time."-^ 
Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  84,  85. — Ed. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  305. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  30C.  ^  p.  262. 

II  "This,"  observes  a  late  writer,  "was  precisely 
what  the  advocates  for  persecution  desired:  they 
could  say  that  the  king  had  taken  every  step  which 
the  best  policy  and  llie  tenderest  concern  for  the  hap- 
piness oi  all  his  subjects  could  suggest  to  gain  over 
and  compose  the  jarring  sects  into  a  system  of  per- 
fect harmony,  but  that  all  his  wise  and  benevolent 
endeavours  were  defeated  by  the  wilful  obstinacy 
and  perverseness  of  the  Nonconformists  ;  and  that  he 
must  therefore  now  pursue  such  measures  as  the 
safety  both  of  the  Church  and  State  required."— ««- 


228 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


when  they  were  put  in  mind  that  the  kind's  com- 
mission gave  them  no  power  to  alter  the  gov- 
ernment of  the-  Church,  nor  to  insist  upon  Arch- 
bishop Usher's  model,  nor  so  much  as  to  claim 
the  concessions  of  his  majesty's  late  declara- 
tion, they  were  quite  heartless ;  for  they  were 
now  convinced  that  all  they  were  to  expect  was 
a  few  amendments  in  the  liturgy  and  Common 
Prayer  Book.  This  was  concluded  beforehand 
at  court,  and  nothing  more  intended  than  to 
drop  the  Presbyterians  with  a  show-  of  decency. 

The  ministers  were  under  this  farther  hard- 
ship, that  they  were  to  transact  for  a  body  of 
men  from  whom  they  had  no  power,  and  tliere- 
fore  could  not  be  obliged  to  abide  by  their  decis- 
ions ;  they  told  the  king  and  the  prime  minister 
that  ihey  should  be  glad  to  consult  their  absent 
brethren,  and  receive  from  them  a  commission 
in  form,  but  this  was  denied,  and  they  were  re- 
quired to  give  in  their  own  sense  of  things,  lo 
which  they  consented,  provided  the  bishops,  at 
the  same  time,  would  bring  in  their  concessions ; 
but  these  being  content  to  abide  by  the  liturgy 
as  it  then  stood,  had  nothing  to  offer,  nor  would 
they  admit  of  any  alteiations  but  what  the  Pres- 
byterians should  make  appear  to  be  necessary. 
With  this  dark  and  melancholy  prospect  the  con- 
ference was  opened.*  It  would  interrupt  the 
course  of  this  history  too  much  to  insert  all  the 
exceptions  of  the  Presbyterians  to  the  present 
liturgy,  and  the  papers  which  passed  between 
the  commissioners,  with  the  letter  of  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  to  the  archbishop  and  bish- 
ops, and  the  report  they  made  of  the  whole  to 
the  king.  I  shall  only  take  notice  in  this  place, 
that,  instead  of  drawing  up  a  few  supplemental 
forms,  and  inaking  some  amendments  to  the 
old  liturgy,  Mr.  Baxter  composed  an  entire  new 
one  in  the  language  of  Scripture,  which  he  call- 
ed the  Reformed  Liturgy  ;  not  with  a  design 
entirely  to  set  aside  the  old  one,  but  to  give 
men  liberty  to  use  either  as  they  approved.  It 
was  drawn  up  in  a  short  compass  of  time,  and 
after  it  had  been  examined,  and  approved  by  his 
brethren,  was  presented  to  the  bishops  in  the 
conference,  together  with  their  exceptions  to 
the  old  liturgy.  This  gave  great  offence,  as 
presuming  that  a  liturgy  drawn  up  by  a  single 
hand  in  fourteen  days  was  to  be  preferred,  or 
stand  in  competition  with  one  which  had  been 
received  in  the  Church  for  a  whole  century. 
Besides,  it  was  inconsistent  with  the  commis- 
sion and  the  bishops'  declaration  of  varying  no 
farther  from  the  old  standard  than  should  ap- 
pear to  be  necessary  ;  and  therefore  the  Re- 
formed Liturgy,  as  it  was  called,  was  rejected  at 
once,  without  being  examined. 

When  the  Presbyterians  brought  in  their  ex- 
ceptions to  the  liturgy,  they  presented  at  the 
same  time  a  petition  for  peace,  beseeching  the 
bishops  to  yield  to  their  amendments  ;  to  free 
them  from  the  subscriptions  and  oaths  in  his 
majesty's  late  declaration,  and  not  to  insist  upon 
the  reordination  of  those  who  had  been  ordain- 
cret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  nf  Charles  II. ,yol: 
i.,  p.  349,  350.— Ed. 

*  N.B.  Ail  the  papers  relating  to  the  conference 
at  the  Savoy  are  collected  in  a  book,  entitled  "  The 
History  of  the  Nonconfonniiy,"  as  it  was  argued  and 
slated  by  comiuissioners  on  both  sides  al)pointed  by 
his  majesty  King  Charles  II.  in  the  year  1601.  Oc- 
tavo, second  edit.,  1708. — See,  also,  Sylvester's  Life  of 
Baxter,  folio. — C. 


ed  without  a  diocesan  bishop,  nor  upon  the  sur- 
plice, the  cross  in  baptism,  and  other  indifferent 
ceremonies  ;  for  this  purpose  they  make  use  of 
various  motives  and  arguments,  sufficient,  in 
my  judgment,  to  influence  all  who  had  any  con- 
cern for  the  honour  of  God  and  the  salvation 
of  souls.  The  bishops  gave  a  particular  an- 
swer to  these  exceptions ;  to  which  the  Pres- 
byterians made  such  a  reply  as,  in  the  opinion 
of  their  adversaries,  showed  them  to  be  men  of 
learning,  and  well  versed  in  the  practice  of  the 
ancient  Church  ;  however,  the  bishops  would 
indulge  nothing  to  their  prejudices  ;  upon  which 
they  sent  thein  a  large  expostulatory  letter, 
wherein,  after  having  repeated  their  objections, 
they  lay  the  wounds  of  the  Church  at  their  door. 
The  term  for  the  treaty  being  almost  spun 
out  in  a  paper  controversy,*  about  ten  days  be- 
fore the  commission  expired,  a  disputation  was 
agreed  on  to  argue  the  necessity  of  alterations 
in  the  present  liturgy.t  Three  of  each  party 
were  chosen  to  manage  the  argument :  Dr.  Pear- 
son, Gunning,  and  Sparrow,  on  one  side  ;  and 
Dr.  Bates,  Jaccmib,  and  Mr.  Baxter,  on  the  other. 
The  rest  were  at  liberty  to  withdraw  if  they 
pleased.  Mr.  Baxter  was  opponent,  and  began 
to  prove  the  sinfulness  of  impositions  ;  but, 
through  want  of  order,  frequent  interruptions, 
and  personal  reflections,  the  dispute  issued  in 
nothing  ;  a  number  of  young  divines  interrupt- 
ing the  Presbyterian  ininisters,  and  laughing 
them  to  scorn.  At  length  Bishop  Cosins  pro- 
duced a  papert  containing  an  expedient  to 
shorten  the  debate,  which  was,  to  put  the  min- 
isters on  distinguishing  between  those  things 
which  they  charged  as  sinful,  and  those  which 
were  only  inexpedient.  The  three  disputants 
on  the  ministers'  side  were  desired  to  draw  up 
an  answer  to  this  paper,  which  they  did,  and 
charged  the  rubric  and  injunctions  of  the  Cnurch 
with  eight  things  flatly  sinful,  and  contrary  to 
the  Word  of  God.iJ 

1.  That  no  minister  be  admitted  to  baptize 
without  using  the  sign  of  the  cross 

2.  That  no  minister  be  admitted  to  officiate 
without  wearing  a  surplice. 

3.  That  none  be  admitted  to  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per without  he  receive  it  kneeling. 

4.  That  ministers  be  obliged  to  pronounce  all 
baptized  persons  regenerated  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
whether  they  be  the  children  of  Christians  or 
not. 

5.  That  ministers  be  obliged  to  deliver  the 
sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  to 
the  unfit  both  in  health  and  sickness,  and  that, 
by  personal  application,  putting  it  into  their 
hands,  even  those  who  are  forced  to  receive  it 
against  their  wills,  through  consciousness  of 
their  impenitency. 


*  In  the  course  of  this  controversy,  many  points 
connected  with  the  doctrine  and  manner  of  baptism 
came  into  discussion  :  such  as,  the  right  of  the  chil- 
dren of  heathens,  or  of  the  excommunicated,  to  bap- 
tism ;  the  efiicacy  of  children's  baptism  ;  the  qnal- 
ifioations  of  this  ordinance;  the  use  of  godfathers 
and  godmothers,  and  of  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and 
other  questions;  the  debate  on  which,  it  is  said,  con- 
tributed much  to  encourage  and  promote  what  was 
called  Anabaptism. —  Crosby's  History  of  the  Baptists, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  85,  86.— Ed. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  337. 

X  Kennel's  Chronicle,  p.  50t. 

(ji  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  341. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


229 


6.  That  ministers  are  obliged  to  absolve  the 
unfit,  and  that  in  absolute  expressions. 

7.  That  ministers  are  forced  to  give  thanks 
for  all  whom  they  bury,  as  brethren  whom  God 
has  taken  to  himself. 

8.  That  none  may  be  preachers  who  do  not 
subscribe  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  Common 
Prayer  Book,  Book  of  Ordination,  and  the  Thir- 
ty-nine Articles,  contrary  to  the  Word  of  God. 

After  a  great  deal  of  loose  discourse,  it  was 
agreed  to  debate  the  third  article,  of  denying 
the  communion  to  such  as  could  not  kneel. 
The  ministers  proved  their  assertion  thus,  that 
It  was  denying  the  sacrament  to  such  whom  tlie 
Holy  Ghost  commanded  us  to  receive,  Rom., 
xiv.,  1-3  :  "Him  that  is  weak  in  the  faith  re- 
ceive ye,  but  not  to  doubtful  disputations  :  one 
believes  he  may  eat  all  things  ;  another,  that  is 
weak,  eateth  herbs  :  let  not  him  that  eateth, 
despise  him  that  eateth  not ;  and  let  not  him 
that  eateth  not,  judge  him  that  eateth,  for  God 
has  received  him."  The  Episcopal  divines 
would  not  understand  this  of  the  communion. 
They  also  distinguished  between  things  lawful 
in  themselves,  and  things  both  lawful  in  them- 
selves and  required  by  lawful  authority.  In 
the  former  case  they  admit  a  liberty,  but  the 
latter  being  enjoined  by  authority,  become  ne- 
cessary. The  ministers  replied,  that  things 
about  which  there  is  to  be  a  forbearance  ought 
not  to  be  enjoined  by  authority,  and  made  ne- 
cessary ;  and  for  governors  to  reject  men  by 
this  rule  is  to  defeat  the  apostle's  reasoning, 
and  so  contradict  the  law  of  God.  But  when 
Dr.  Gunning  had  read  certain  citations*  and 
authorities  for  the  other  side  of  the  question. 
Bishop  Cosins,  the  moderator,  called  out  to  the 
rest  of  the  bishops  and  doctors,  and  put  the 
question,  "  All  you  that  think  Dr.  Gunning  has 
proved  that  Romans  xiv.  speaketh  not  of  re- 
ceiving the  sacrament,  say  Ay."  Upon  which 
there  was  a  general  cry  among  the  hearers. 
Ay,  ay,  the  Episcopal  divines  having  great  num- 
bers of  their  party  in  the  hall ;  whereas  the 
ministers  had  not  above  two  or  three  gentlemen 
and  scholars  who  had  the  courage  to  appear 
with  them.  Nevertheless,  they  maintained  their 
point,  and,  as  Bishop  Burnet  observes,  insisted 
upon  it,  that  a  "  law  which  excludes  all  from 
the  sacrament  who  dare  not  kneel,  was  unlaw- 
ful, as  it  was  a  limitation  in  point  of  commu- 
nion put  upon  the  laws  of  Christ,  which  ought 
to  be  the  only  condition  of  those  that  have  a 
right  to  it." 

At  length,  the  Episcopal  divines  became  op- 
ponents upon  the  same  question,  and  argued 
thus  :  "  That  command  which  enjoins  only  an 
act  in  itself  lawful  is  not  sinful."  Which  Mr. 
Baxter  denied.  They  then  added,  "  That  com- 
mand which  enjoins  only  an  act  in  itself  lawful, 
and  no  other  act  or  circumstance  unlawful,  is 
not  sinful."  This,  also,  Mr.  Baxter  denied. 
They  then  advanced  farther.  "  That  command 
which  enjoins  only  an  act  in  itself  lawful,  and 
no  other  act  whereby  an  unjust  penalty  is  en- 
joined, or  any  circumstance  whence  directly  or 
per  accidens  any  sin  is  consequent  which  the 
commander  ought  to  provide  against,  hath  in  it 
all  things  requisite  to  the  lawfulness  of  a  com- 
mand, and  particularly  cannot  be  charged  with 

*  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  50G. 


enjoining  an  act  per  accidens  unlawful,  nor  of 
commanding  an  act  under  an  unjust  penalty." 
This  also  was  denied,  because,  though  it  does 
not  command  that  which  is  sinful,  it  may  re- 
strain from  that  which  is  lawful,  and  it  may  be 
applied  to  undue  subjects.  Other  reasons  were 
assigned  ;*  but  the  dispute  broke  off  with  noise 
and  confusion,  and  high  reflections  upon  Mr. 
Baxter's  dark  and  cloudy  imagination,  and  his 
perplexed,  scholastic,  metapiiysical  manner  of 
distinguishing,  which  tended  rather  to  confound 
than  to  clear  up  that  which  was  doubtful ;  and 
Bishop  Saunderson  being  then  in  the  chair,  pro- 
nounced that  Dr.  Gunning  had  the  better  of  the 
argument. 

Bishop  Moriey  said  that  Mr.  Baxter's  deny- 
ing that  plain  proposition  was  destructive  of  all 
authority  human  and  Divine  ;  that  it  struck  the 
Church  out  of  all  its  claims  for  making  canons, 
and  for  settling  order  and  discipline  ;  nay,  that 
it  took  away  all  legislative  power  from  the  king 
and  Parliament,  and  even  from  God  himself; 
for  no  act  can  be  so  good  in  itself,  but  may  lead 
to  a  sin  by  accident ;  and  if  to  command  such 
an  act  be  a  sin,  then  every  command  must  be 
a  sin. 

Bishop  Burnet  adds,t  "  that  Baxter  and  Gun- 
ning spent  several  days  in  logical  arguing,  to 
the  diversion  of  the  town,  who  looked  upon 
them  as  a  couple  of  fencers  engaged  in  a  dispute 
that  could  not  be  brought  to  any  end.  The 
bishops  insisted  upon  the  laws  being  still  in 
force  ;  to  which  they  would  admit  of  no  excep- 
tion, unless  it  was  proved  that  the  matter  of 
them  was  sinful.  They  charged  the  Presbyte- 
rians with  making  a  schism  for  that  which  they 
could  not  prove  to  be  sinful.  They  said  there 
was  no  reason  to  gratify  such  men  ;  that  one 
demand  granted  would  draw  on  many  more  ; 
that  all  authority  in  Church  and  State  was 
struck  at  by  the  position  they  had  insisted  on, 
namely,  that  it  was  not  lawful  to  impose  things 
indifferent,  since  these  seemed  to  be  the  only 
matters  in  which  authority  could  interfere." 
Thus  ended  the  disputation. 

From  arguments  the  ministers  descended  to 
entreaties,  and  prayed  the  bishops  to  have 
compassion  on  scrupulous  minds,  and  not  de- 
spise their  weaker  brethren.  If  the  Noncon- 
formists should  be  ejected,  they  urged  that  there 
would  not  be  clergymen  enough  to  fill  the  vacant 
pulpits  ;  they  put  them  in  mind  of  their  peacea- 
ble behaviour  in  the  late  times  ;  what  they  had 
suffered  for  the  royal  cause,  and  the  great  share 
they  had  in  restoring  the  king  ;  they  pleaded 
his  majesty's  late  declaration,  and  the  design 
of  the  present  conference.  To  all  which  the 
bishops  replied,  that  they  were  only  commis- 
sioned to  make  such  alterations  in  the  liturgy 
as  should  be  necessary,  and  such  as  should  be 
agreed  upon.  The  ministers  replied,  that  the 
word  necessary  must  refer  to  the  satisfying  ten- 
der consciences  ;  but  the  bishops  insisted  that 
they  saw  no  alterations  necessary,  and,  there- 
fore, were  not  obliged  to  make  any  till  they 
could  prove  them  so.  The  ministers  prayed 
them  to  consider  the  ill  consequence  that  might 
follow  upon  a  separation.  But  all  was  to  no 
purpose  ;  their  lordships  were  in  the  saddle,  and, 
if  we  may  believe  Mr.  Baxter,  would  not  abate 
the  smallest  ceremony,  nor  correct  the  grossest 


*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  505. 


+  Vol.  i.,  p.  264. 


230 


HISTORY  OFTHE  PURITANS. 


error,  for  the  peace  of  tlie  Church.  Thus  the 
king's  commission  expired  July  25,  and  the 
conferences  ended  without  any  prospect  of  ac- 
commodation. 

It  was  agreed,  at  the  conclusion,  that  each 
party  might  represent  to  his  majesty  that  they 
were  all  agreed  upon  the  ends  of  the  confer- 
ence, which  were  the  Church's  welfare,  unity, 
and  peace,  but  still  disagreed  as  to  the  means 
of  procuring  them.  The  bishops  thought  they 
had  no  occasion  to  represent  their  case  in  wri- 
ting ;  but  the  Presbyterian  commissioners  met 
by  themselves,  and  drew  up  an  account  of  their 
proceedings,  with  a  petition  for  that  relief  which 
they  could  not  obtain  from  the  bishops.*  They 
presented  it  to  the  king  by  Bishop  Reynolds, 
Dr.  Bates,  Dr.  Manton,  and  Mr.  Baxter  ;t  but 
received  no  answer. 

Before  we  leave  this  famous  conference  at 
the  Savoy,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  remark  the 
behaviour  of  the  commissioners  on  both  sides, 
some  of  whom  seldom  or  never  appeared,  as. 
Dr.  King,  bishop  of  Chichester.  Dr.  Heylin, 
Barwick,  and  Earle  ;t  Sheldon,  bishop  of  Lon- 
don, came  but  seldom,  though  he,  with  Hench- 
man and  Morley,  had  the  chief  management  of 
affairs  ;()  others  who  were  present,  but  did  not 
much  concern  themselves  in  the  debate,  as.  Dr. 
Frewen,  archbishop  of  York  ;  Lucy,  of  St.  Da- 
vid's ;  Warner,  of  Rochester  ;  Saunderson,  of 
Lincoln  ;  Laney,  of  Peterborough  ;  Walton,  of 
Chester  ;  Sterne,  of  Carlisle  ;  Dr.  Hacket  and 
Dr.  Sparrow.  On  the  side  of  the  Presbyteri- 
ans, Dr.  Horton  never  appeared,  nor  Dr.  Drake, 
because  of  a  misnomer  in  the  commission  ;  Dr. 
Lightfoot,  Tuckney,  and  Mr.  Woodbridge  were 
present  only  once  or  twice. 

Among  the  bishops.  Dr.  Morely  was  the  chief 

*  Mr.  Crosby  says,  "he  had  been  informed,  that 
when  the  Presbyterians  were  pleading  hard  for  such 
concessions  from  his  majesty  as  they  thought  would 
bring  about  a  union,  the  lord-chancellor  told  them 
his  majesty  had  received  petitions  from  the  Anabap- 
tists, who  desired  nothing  more  than  to  have  liberty 
to  worship  God  according  to  their  consciences.  At 
which  they  were  all  struck  dumb,  and  remained  in 
a  long  silence."  Mr.  Baxter  places  this  matter  in 
another  light :  that  petitions  having  been  received 
from  the  Independents  and  Anabaptists,  the  chan- 
cellor proposed  to  add  a  clause  to  the  king's  declar- 
ation, permitting  others  besides  the  Presbyterians 
to  meet,  if  they  did  it  peaceably,  for  religious  wor- 
ship, secure  from  molestation  by  any  civil  officer. 
On  this  the  bishops  and  the  Presbyterians,  seeing  it 
would  operate  m  favour  of  the  papists,  were  silent : 
till  Mr.  Baxter,  judging  that  consenting  to  it  would 
bring  on  theua  the  charge  of  speaking  for  the  tolera- 
tion of  papists  and  sectaries,  and  that  opposing  it 
would  draw  on  them  the  resentment  of  all  sects  and 
parties  as  the  causes  of  their  sufferings,  said,  "  that 
as  they  humbly  thanked  his  majesty  for  his  indul- 
gence to  themselves,  so  they  must  distinguish  the 
tolerable  parties  from  the  intolerable :  that  for  the 
former  they  craved  favour  and  lenity  ;  but  that  they 
could  not  request  the  toleration  of  the  latter,  such  as 
the  papists  and  Socinians,  whom  Dr.  Gimning, 
speaking  against  the  sects,  had  then  named."  To 
this  his  majesty  said,  "that  there  were  laws  enough 
against  the  papists."  Mr.  Baxter  replied,  "  They  un- 
derstood the  question  to  be,  whether  those  laws 
should  be  executed  on  them  or  not."  And  so  his 
majesty  broke  up  the  meeting  of  that  day. — Croshi/s 
History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  li.,  p.  87-89.  Baxter's 
Life,  part  ii.,  p.  277. — En. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  part  if,  p.  366.         %  Ibid.,  p.  307. 

<j  Kennet's  Chronicle,  p.  507. 


speaker  ;  his  manner  was  vehement,  and  he 
was  against  all  abatements.  He  frequently  in- 
terrupted Mr.  Baxter;*  and  when  Dr.  Bates 
said,  "  Pray,  my  lord,  give  him  leave  to  speak," 
he  could  not  obtain  it. 

Bishop  Cosins  was  there  constantly,  and 
though  he  was  inclined  to  moderate  measures, 
said  some  very  severe  things.  When  the  min- 
isters prayed  the  bishops  to  have  some  compas- 
sion on  their  brethren,  and  not  cast  such  great 
numbers  unnecessarily  out  of  the  ministry,  he 
replied,  "What,  do  you  threaten  us  with  num- 
bers 1  For  my  part,  I  think  the  king  would  do 
well  to  make  you  name  them  all."  Again, 
when  the  members  complained  that,  after  so 
inany  years'  calamity,  the  bishops  would  not 
yield  to  that  which  their  predecessors  offered 
them  before  the  war.  Bishop  Cosins  replied, 
"Do  you  threaten  us,  then,  with  a  new  war? 
It  is  time  for  the  king  to  look  to  you." 

Bishop  Gauden  often  took  part  with  the 
Presbyterian  divines,  and  was  the  only  moder- 
ator among  the  bishops,  except  Bishop  Rey- 
nolds, who  spoke  much  the  first  day  for  abate- 
ments and  moderation  ;  but  afterward,  sitting 
among  the  bishops,  he  only  spoke  now  and 
then  a  qualifying  word,  though  he  was  heartily 
grieved  for  the  fruitless  issue  of  the  conference. 

Of  the  disputants,  it  is  said  Dr.  Pearson,  af- 
terward Bishop  of  Chester,  disputed  accurately, 
soberly,  and  calmly.  The  Presbyterian  minis- 
ters had  a  great  regard  for  him,  and  believed, 
that  if  he  had  been  an  umpire  in  the  controver- 
sy, his  concessions  would  have  greatly  relieved 
them. 

Dr.  Gunning  was  the  most  forward  speaker, 
and  stuck  at  nothing.  Bishop  Burnet  sayst 
that  all  the  arts  of  sophistry  were  used  by  him 
in  as  confident  a  manner  as  if  they  had  beea 
sound  reasoning  ;  that  he  was  unweariedly  ac- 
tive to  very  little  purpose,  and  being  very  fond 
of  the  popish  rituals  and  ceremonies,  he  was 
very  much  set  upon  reconciling  the  Church  of 
England  to  Rome. 

On  the  side  of  the  Presbyterians,  Dr.  Bates  and 
Manton  behaved  with  great  modesty:  the  most 
active  disputant  was  Mr.  Baxter,  who  had  a 
very  metaphysical  head  and  fertile  invention, 
and  was  one  of  the  most  ready  men  of  his  time 
for  an  argument,  but  too  eager  and  tenacious 
of  his  own  opinions.  Next  to  him  was  Mr.  Cal- 
amy,  who  had  a  great  interest  among  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  in  city  and  country,  and  for 
his  age  and  gravity  was  respected  as  their  fa- 
ther. 

Among  the  auditors,  Mr.  Baxter  observes,^ 
there  was  with  the  bishops  a  crowd  of  young 
divines,  who  behaved  indecently;  but  mentions 
only  two  or  three  scholars  and  laymen  who,  as 
auditors,  came  in  with  the  Presbyterians,  as 
Mr.  .Miles,  Mr.  Tillotson,  &c. 

This  Mr.  Tillotson  vias  afterward  the  most 
reverend  and  learned  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  divines  and  preach- 
ers of  the  age.  We  shall  have  frequent  occa- 
sion to  mention  him  hereafter,  and,  therefore, 
I  shall  give  a  short  account  of  him  in  this  place. 
He  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  1630,  and  received 
his  first  education  among  the  Puritans  ;  and, 
though  he  had  freer  notions,  he  still  stuck  to 

*■  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p  3G3.     t  Page  2C3, 264. 
\.  Baxter's  Life,  p.  337. 


HISTORY  OF   THE    PURITANS. 


231 


the  strictness  of  life  to  which  he  was  bred,  and 
retained  a  just  value  and  a  due  tenderness  for 
men  of  that  persuasion.  He  was  admitted  stu- 
dent of  Clare  Hall,  in  Cambridge,  under  the  tu- 
ition of  Mr.  David  Clarkson,  in  the  year  1647. 
He  was  bachelor  of  arts  1650,  and  within  the 
compass  of  a  year  was  elected  fellow.  He  had 
then  a  sweetness  of  temper  which  he  retained 
as  long  as  he  lived  ;  and  in  those  early  years 
was  respected  as  a  person  of  very  great  parts 
and  prudence.*  In  the  year  1661  he  continued 
a  Nonconformist,  and  has  a  sermon  in  the  morn- 
ing exercises  on  Matt.,  vii.,  12.  He  appeared 
with  the  Presbyterians  at  the  Savoy  disputa- 
tion ;  and  though  he  conformed  upon  the  Abt  of 
Uniformity  in  1662,  he  was  always  inclined  to 
the  Puritans,  never  fond  of  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Church,  but  would  dispense  sometimes  with 
those  who  could  not  conscientiously  submit  to 
them.  He  owned  the  Dissenters  had  some  plau- 
sible objections  against  the  Common  Prayer  ; 
and,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  persuaded  men 
rather  to  bear  with  the  Church,  than  be  zealous 
for  it.  In  the  year  1663  he  was  preferred  to 
the  Rectory  of  Keddington,  in  Suffolk,  vacant 
by  the  nonsubscription  of  Mr.  Samuel  Fair- 
clough.  Next  year  he  was  chosen  preacher  to 
Lincoln's  Inn,  and  lecturer  of  St.  Lawrence's 
Church,  in  London,  where  his  excellent  ser- 
mons, delivered  in  a  most  graceful  manner, 
drew  the  attention  of  great  numbers  of  the  qual- 
ity, and  most  of  the  divines  and  gentlemen  in 
tjie  city.  In  1669  he  was  made  canon  of  Christ 
Church,  in  Canterbury;  and,  in  1672,  dean  of 
that  church,  and  residentiary  ;  but  rose  no  high- 
er till  the  revolution  of  King  William  and  Queen 
Mary,  when  he  was  first  made  clerk  of  the  clos- 
et, and  then  advanced  at  once  to  the  Archbish- 
opric of  Canterbury,  in  the  room  of  Dr.  San- 
croft,  a  nonjuror.  He  was  a  divine  of  moderate 
principles  to  the  last,  and  always  disposed  to 
promote  a  toleration,  and,  if  possible,  a  compre- 
hension of  the  Dissenters  within  the  Church. 
Upon  the  whole,  he  was  a  second  Cranmer,  and 
one  of  the  most  valuable  prelates  that  this,  or 
it  may  be  any  other,  church  ever  produced. 

Various  censures  were  passed  within  doors 
upon  the  Savoy  Conference  ;  the  Independents 
were  disgusted,  because  none  of  them  were 
consulted,  though  it  does  not  appear  to  me  what 
concern  they  could  have  in  it,  their  views  being 
only  to  a  toleration,  not  a  comprehension.  Some 
blamed  their  brethren  for  yielding  too  much, 
and  others  thought  they  might  have  yielded 
more ;  but  when  they  saw  the  fruitle-ss  end  of 
the  treaty,  and  the  papers  that  were  published, 
most  of  them  were  satisfied.  Bishop  Burnet 
sayst  the  conference  did  rather  hurt  than  good  ; 
it  heightened  the  sharpness  which  was  already 
on  people's  minds  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  need- 
ed no  addition  to  raise  it  higher.  Mr.  Robinson 
says,t  "It  was  notorious  that  the  business  of 
the  Episcopal  party  was  not  to  consult  the  in- 
terest of  religion,  but  to  cover  a  political  design, 
which  was  too  bad  to  appear  at  first  ;  nor  did 
they  mean  to  heal  the  Church's  wounds,  so 
much  as  to  revenge  their  own.  When  they 
knew  what  the  Presbyterians  scrupled,  they 
said,  now  they  knew  their  mintls  they  would 
have  matters  so  fixed  that  not  one  of  that  sort 

*  Athen.  Oxen.,  p.  968.  t  Page  365. 

t  Answer  to  Bennet,  of  Liturgies,  p.  382. 


should  be  able  to  keep  his  living.  They  did  not 
desire,  but  rather  fear,  their  compliance."* 
Nay,  so  unacceptable  was  the  publishing  the 
papers  relating  to  the  conference,  that  Bishop 
Saunderson  and  some  of  his  brethren  cautioned 
their  clergy  against  reading  them.  From  this 
time  the  Presbyterians  were  out  of  the  question, 
and  the  settlement  of  the  Church  referred  en- 
tirely to  the  Convocation  and  Parliament. 

It  had  been  debated  in  council  whether  there 
should  be  a  convocation  while  the  conference 
at  the  Savoy  was  depending  ;  but,  at  the  inter- 
cession of  Dr.  Heylin  and  others,  the  court  was 
prevailed  with  to  consent  that  there  should  ; 
and  such  care  was  taken  in  the  choice  of  mem- 
bers, as  Bishop  Burnet  observes,  that  every- 
thing went  amoiig  them  as  was  directed  by 
Bishop  Sheldon  and  Morley.  If  a  convocation 
had  been  holden  with  the  convention  Parlia- 
ment, the  majority  would  have  been  against  the 
hierarchy ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  they 
were  otherwise  now,  when  some  hundreds  of 
the  Presbyterian  clergy,  who  were  in  possession 
of  sequestered  livings,  had  been  dispossessed  ; 
and  the  necessity  of  ordination  by  a  bishop  be- 
ing urged  upon  those  who  bad  been  ordained  by 
presbyters  only,  great  numbers  were  denied 
their  votes  in  elections.  Nevertheless,  the 
Presbyterian  interest  carried  it  in  London  for 
Mr.  Baxter  and  Calamy  by  three  voices ;  but 
the  Bishop  of  London,  having  a  power  of  choos- 
ing two  out  of  four,  or  four  out  of  six,  within  a 
certain  circuit,  left  them  both  out ;  by  which 
means  the  city  of  London  had  no  clerks  in  the 
Convocation.  The  author  of  the  Conformists' 
Pleat  says,  "  That  to  frame  a  convocation  to 
their  mind,  great  care  and  pains  were  used  to 
keep  out,  and  to  get  men  in,  by  very  undue  pro- 
ceedings; and  that  protestations  were  made 
against  all  incumbents  not  ordained  by  bishops." 

The  Savoy  Conference  having  ended  without 
success,  the  king  sent  a  letter  to  the  Convoca- 
tion, November  20,  commanding  them  to  review 
the  13ook  of  Common  Prayer,  and  make  such  ad- 
ditions and  amendmentsj  as  they  thought  neces- 


•<■  When  the  lord-chamberlain,  Manchester,  told 
the  king  (while  the  Act  of  Uniformity  was  under 
debate)  that  he  was  afraid  the  terms  were  so  hard 
that  many  of  the  late  ministers  could  not  comply 
with  them,  Bishop  Sheldon,  being  present,  replied,  '  I 
am  afraid  they  will.'  " — Dr.  Bates's  Funeral  Sermon 
for  Mr.  Baxter.  "  Hence  it  is  plain  the  design  of  the 
bishops  was  to  shut  them  out  of  the  Church,  and 
then  to  reproach  and  punish  them  for  not  coming  in. 
It  is  evident,  also,  that  the  ministers  were  honester 
men  than  the  bishops  feared  they  were." — Prot.  Dis- 
senters' Catechism,  p.  15. — C.  t  Page  35. 

+  It  was  required  "  that  all  proposed  alterations 
should  be  e.vhibited  and  presented  for  his  majesty's 
farther  allowance  and  confirmation  :  this  was  accord- 
ingly done.  He  was  finally  to  pronounce  on  thepro- 
[iriety  and  truth  of  the  proposed  alterations.  All  the 
debates,  investigalions,  and  decisions  of  the  clergy 
and  bishops,  had  no  efficacy  without  the  sanction  of 
the  king.  They  might  be  mistaken,  but  he  could 
not.  Tliere  is  an  absurdity  in  ascribing  infallibility 
to  any  human  being,  necessarily  liable  to  imperfect 
views,  to  prejudices,  and  to  error.  '  But,  if  possible, 
the  absurdity  is  greater  in  attributing  it  to  the  scep- 
tred, rather  than  to  the  mitred  sovereign.  The  for- 
mer is  not  educated  to  a  reliiiious  profession  ;  and  his 
time,  from  the  moment  he  fills  the  throne,  that  is, 
from  the  moment  he  becomes  infallible,  must  be  con- 
stantly employed  in  civil  concerns :  but  yet,  as  the 
head  of  the  Church,  to  hirn  all  truth  is  known ;  to 


232 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


sary.  Letters  to  the  same  purpose  were  sent 
to  the  Archbishop  of  York,  to  be  communicated 
to  the  clergy  of  his  province,  who,  for  the  great- 
er expedition,  sent  proxies  with  procuratorial 
letters  to  those  of  Canterbury,  and  obliged  them- 
selves to  abide  by  their  voles  under  forfeiture 
of  their  goods  and  chattels. 

"  It  is  inconceivable,"  says  Dr.  Nichols,  "what 
difficulties  the  bishops  had  to  contend  with  about 
making  these  alterations ;  they  were  not  only 
to  conquer  their  own  former  resentments,  and 
the  unreasonable  demands  of  Presbyterians,  but 
they  had  the  court  to  deal  with,  who  pushed 
them  on  to  all  acts  of  severity."*  Whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  the  tide  was  strong  on  their 
side  ;  the  bishops  pushed  on  the  court,  who  were 
willing  to  give  them  the  reins,  that  when  the 
breach  was  made  as  wide  as  possible,  a  door 
might  be  opened  for  the  toleration  of  papists. 
The  review  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book  en- 
gaged the  Convocation  a  whole  month  ;  and  on 
the  20th  of  December  it  was  signed,  and  appro- 
ved by  all  the  members  of  both  houses. 

The  alterations  were  these  :t 

1.  The  rubric  for  singing  of  lessons, J  &c., 
was  omitted,  the  distinct  reading  of  them  being 
thought  more  proper. 

2.  Several  collects  for  Sundays  and  holydays 
complained  of,  were  omitted,  and  others  substi- 
tuted in  their  room. 

3.  Communicants  at  the  Lord's  Supper  were 
enjoined  to  signify  their  names  to  the  curate 
some  time  the  day  before. 

4.  The  preface  to  the  Ten  Commandments 
was  restored. <S( 

5.  The  exhortations  to  the  holy  communion 
were  amended. 

6.  The  general  confession  in  the  communion 
office  was  appointed  to  be  read  by  one  of  the 
ministers. 

7.  In  the  office  for  Christmas  Day  the  words 
"  this  day"  were  changed  for  "  as  at  this  time." 

8.  In  the  prayer  of  consecration  the  priest  is 
directed  to  break  the  bread. 

9.  The  rubric  for  explaining  the  reason  of 
kneeling  at  the  sacrament  was  restored. 

10.  Private  baptism  is  not  to  be  administered 
but  by  a  lawful  minister. 

11.  The  answer  to  the  question  in  the  cate- 
chism, "Why,  then,  are  children  baptized?"  is 
thus  amended  :  "  Because  they  promise  them 
both  by  their  sureties  ;  which  promise,  when 
they  come  to  age,  themselves  are  bound  to  per- 
form." 

12.  In  the  last  rubric  before  the  catechism 
these  words  are  expunged,  "And  that  no  man 
shall  think  that  any  detriment  shall  come  to 
children  by  deferring  of  their  confirmation,"  &c. 

hiin  ail  appeals  from  the  ecclesiasiical  courts  must 
be  made.'  " — A  Treatise  on  Heresy,  p.  73,  74. — Ed. 

*  Kennet's  Chron..  p.  574.  t  Ibid.,  p.  585. 

t  The  rubric  in  King  James's  Review  directed, 
also,  the  two  lessons  to  be  distictly  read,  but  added, 
"  To  the  end  the  people  may  better  hear,  in  such  pla- 
ces where  they  do  sing,  there  shall  the  lessons  be 
sung  in  a  plain  tune,  after  the  manner  of  distinct  read-, 
ing,  and  likewise  the  Epistle  and  Gospel." — Grey's 
Examination,  p.  308. — Ed. 

^  "  So,  indeed,  says  Bishop  Kennet,"  remarks  Dr. 
Grey;  "but  they  are  both  mistaken.  The  com- 
mandments were  not  in  King  Edward's  first  liturgy, 
but  in  King  Edward's,  1552,  and  in  the  Reviews  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James."— Grey's  Exami- 
nation, p.  309. — Ed 


[  13.  It  is  appointed  that  the  curate  of  every 
parish  shall  either  bring  or  send  in  writing,  with 
iiis  hand  subscribed  thereunto,  the  names  of  all 
such  persons  within  his  parish  as  he  shall  think 
fit  to  be  presented  to  the  bishop  to  be  confirmed. 

14.  The  rubric  after  confirmation  was  thus 
softened  :  "  None  shall  be  admitted  to  the  com- 
munion till  such  time  as  he  be  confirmed,  or  be 
ready  and  desirous  to  be  confirmed." 

15.  In  the  form  of  matrimony,  instead  of,  "till 
death  us  depart,"  it  is,  "till  death  us  do  part." 

16.  In  the  rubrics  after  the  form  of  matrimo- 
ny, it  is  thus  altered  :  "  After  which,  if  there  be 
no  sermon  declaring  the  duties  of  man  and  wife, 
the  lYiinister  shall  read  as  followeth  :"  and  in- 
stead of  the  second  rubric,  it  is  advised  to  be 
convenient,  that  the  new-married  persons  should 
receive  the  communion  at  the  time  of  marriage, 
or  at  the  first  opportunity  afterward. 

17.  In  the  order  for  visitation  of  the  sick  it  is 
thus  amended  :  "  Here  the  sick  person  shall  be 
moved  to  make  special  confession  of  his  sins,  if 
he  feel  his  conscience  troubled  with  any  weigh- 
ty matter ;  after  which  the  priest  shall  absolve 
him,  if  he  humbly  and  heartily  desire  it,  after 
this  sort." 

18.  In  the  communion  for  the  sick  the  minis- 
ter is  not  enjoined  to  administer  the  sacrament 
to  every  sick  person  that  shall  desire  it,  but  only 
as  he  shall  judge  expedient. 

19.  In  the  order  for  the  burial  of  the  dead  it 
is  thus  altered  :  The  priests  and  clerks  meeting 
the  corpse  at  the  entrance  of  the  churchyard, 
and  going  before  it  either  into  the  church,  or 
towards  the  grave,  shall  say  or  sing,  In  the 
office  itself,  these  words',  "  In  sure  and  certain 
hope- of  resurrection  to  eternal  life,"  are  thus 
altered  :  "  in  sure  and  certain  hope  of  the  resur- 
rection to  eternal  life ;"  and  to  lessen  the  ob- 
jection of  "God's  taking  to  himself  the  soul  of 
this  our  dear  brother  departed,"  &c.,  the  follow- 
ing rubric  is  added  :  "  Here  is  to  be  noted,  that 
the  office  ensuing  is  not  to  be  used  for  any  that 
die  unbaptized  or  excommunicate,  or  who  have 
laid  violent  hands  upon  themselves." 

20.  In  the  churching  of  women,  the  new  ru- 
bric directs  that  the  woman,  at  the  usual  time 
after  her  delivery,  shall  come  into  the  church 
decently  apparelled,  and  there  shall  kneel  down 
in  some  convenient  place,  as  has  been  accus- 
tomed, or  as  the  ordinary  shall  direct,  and  the 
hundred  and  sixteenth  or  hundred  and  seven- 
teenth Psalm  shall  be  read. 

Dr.  Tenison.  afterward  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, says,  "They  made  about  si.x  hundred 
small  alterations  or  additions  ;"  but  then  adds, 
"  If  there  was  reason  for  these  changes,  there 
was  equal,  if  not  greater  reason  for  some  farther 
improvements.  If  they  had  foreseen  what  is 
since  come  to  pass,  I  charitably  believe  they 
would  not  have  done  all  they  did,  and  just  so 
much  and  no  more ;  and  yet  I  also  believe,  if 
they  had  offered  to  move  much  farther, '  a  stone 
would  have  been  laid  under  their  wheel,  by  a 
secret  but  powerful  hand  ;'  for  the  mystery  of 
popery  did  even  then  work."*  Bishop  Burnet 
confesses  that  no  alterations  were  made  in  fa- 
vour of  the  Presbyterians,  for  it  was  resolved 
to  gratify  them  in  nothing. 

But  besides  the  alterations  and  amendments 
already  mentioned,  there   were   several   addi- 

*  Compl.  Hist.,  p.  252,  in  marg. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


233 


tional  forms  of  prayer,*  as  for  the  30th  of  Jan- 
uary and  the  29th  of  May  ;  forms  of  prayer  to 
be  used  at  sea ;  and  a  new  office  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  baptism  to  grown  persons. t 
Some  corrections  were  made  in  the  calendar. 
Some  new  holydays  were  added,  as  the  conver- 
sion of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Barnabas.  J  More  new 
lessons  were  taken  out  of  the  Apocrypha,  as, 
the  story  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  &c.  But  it 
was  agreed  that  no  Apocryphal  lessons  should 
be  read  on  Sundays.  These  were  all  the  con- 
cessions the  Convocation  would  admit  ;§  and 
this  was  all  the  fruit  of  the  conference  at  the 
Savoy,  by  which,  according  to  Mr.  Baxter  and 
Bishop  Burnet,  the  Common  Prayer  Book  was 
rendered  more  exceptionable,  and  the  terms  of 
conformity  much  harder  than  before  the  civil 
war. 

The  Common  Prayer  Book  thus  altered  and 
amended  was  sent  up  to  the  king  and  council, 
and  from  thence  transmitted  to  the  House  of 
Peers.  February  24,  with  this  message  :  That 
his  majesty  had  duly  considered  of  the  altera- 
tions, and  does,  with  the  advice  of  his  council, 
fully  approve  and  allow  the  same  ;  and  doth 
recommend  it  to  the  House  of  Peers,  that  "the 
said  books  of  Common  Prayer,  and  of  the  forms 
of  ordination,  and  consecration  of  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons,  with  those  additions  and 
alterations  that  have  been  made,  and  presented 
to  his  majesty  by  the  Convocation,  be  the  book 
which  in  and  by  the  intended  Act  of  Uniformity 
shall  be  appointed  to  be  used  by  all  that  officiate 
in  all  cathedral  and  collegiate  churches  and 
chapels,  &c.,  and  in  all  parish  churches  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  under  such  sanctions  or  pen- 
alties as  the  Parliament  shall  think  fit."||  When 
the  Lords  had  gone  through  the  book,  the  Lord- 
chancellor  Hyde,  by  order  of  the  House,  gave 
the  bishops  thanks,  March  15,  for  their  care  in 
this  business, IT  and  desired  their  lordships  to 
give  the  like  thanks  to  the  lower  house  of  con- 
vocation, and  acquaint  them  that  their  amend- 
ments were  well  received  and  approved,  though 
some  of  them  met  with  a  considerable  opposi- 
tion.    From  the  Lords  they  were  sent  down  to 


*  Besides  the  new  forms  specified  by  Mr.  Neal, 
there  were  also  added.  Dr.  Grey  says,  the  prayer  for 
the  High  Court  of  Parliament,  the  prayer  for  all  con- 
ditions of  men,  and  the  general  thanksgiving. — Ex- 
amiiialion,  p.  310. — Ed. 

t  This  service  was  added  because,  on  account  of 
the  spread  of  Baptistical  sentiments,  there  were  now 
many  grown  up  too  old  to  be  baptized  as  infants, 
whose  duly  it  was  to  make  a  profession  of  their  own 
faith. —  Waits  Hist,  of  Infant  Baptism,  vol.  ii.,  p.  215. 
— Ed. 

t  These  two  holydays,  though  then  first  appointed 
by  act  of  Parliament,  were  not  now  added  to  the  cal- 
eniiar  ;  for  they  stand  in  the  liturgy  of  Edward  VI. 
by  Whitchurch,  1549  ;  in  his  Review,  1552  ;  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  Review,  4to,  1601  ;  in  King  James's 
Review,  1609;  and  in  the  Scotch  liturgy  at  Edin- 
burgh, folio,  1637. —  Greys  Exa/nination,  p.  311.  It 
may  be  added,  they  are,  with  suitable  collects,  in  the 
liturgy  printed  by  Bonham  Norton  and  John  Bill, 
1629,  penes  me. — Ed. 

()  There  is  one  alteration  not  mentioned  by  Mr. 
Neal.  In  the  second  collect,  in  the  visitation  of  the 
sick,  these  words  are  omitted  :  "  Visite  him,  O  Lord, 
as  thou  didst  Peter's  wive's  mother,  and  the  captain's 
servant :"  which  were  in  King  Edward's,  Queen 
Elizabeth's,  and  King  James's  Review. — Id.,  p.  311. 
—Ed.  !I  Kennet's  Chronicle,  p.  633. 

IT  [d.,  p.  642,  613. 

Vol.  IL— G  g 


the  Commons,  and  inserted  in  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity, as  will  be  seen  under  the  next  year. 

But  before  this  famous  act  had  passed  either 
house,  the  Presbyterians  were  reduced  to  the 
utmost  distress.  In  the  month  of  March, 
1661-2,*  the  grand  jury  at  Exeter  found  above 
forty  bills  of  indictment  against  some  eminent 
Nonconformist  ministers  for  not  reading  the 
Common  Prayer  according  to  law.  They  like- 
wise presented  the  travelling  about  of  divers- 
itinerant  preachers,  ejected  out  of  sequestered 
livings,  as  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  nation. 
They  complained  of  their  teaching  sedition  and 
rebellion  in  private  houses,  and  other  congre- 
gations, tending  to  foment  a  new  war.  They 
also  presented  such  as  neglected  their  own  par- 
ish churches,  and  ran  abroad  to  hear  factious 
ministers  ;  and  such  as  walked  in  the  church- 
yards, or  other  places,  while  Divine  service  was 
reading  ;  all  which  were  the  certain  forerun- 
nerfe  of  a  general  persecution. 

In  Scotland  the  court  carried  their  measures 
with  a  high  hand  ;  for,  having  got  a  Parlia- 
ment to  their  mind,+  the  Earl  of  Middleton,  a 
most  notorious  debauchee,  opened  it,  with  pre- 
senting a  letter  of  his  majesty's  to  the  House  ; 
after  which  they  passed  an  act,  declaring  all 
leagues  not  made  with  the  king's  authority  ille- 
gal. This  struck  at  the  root  of  the  covenant 
made  with  England  in  1643.1:  They  passed  an- 
other act  rescinding  all  acts  made  since  the  late 
troubles,  and  another  empowering  the  king  to 
settle  the  government  of  the  Church  as  he  should 
please.  It  was  a  mad,  roaring  time,  says  the 
bishop,  and  no  wonder  it  was  so,  when  the  men 
of  affairs  were  almost  perpetually  drunk.  The 
king  hereupon  directed  that  the  Church  should 
be  governed  by  synods,  presbyters,  and  kirk- 
sessions,  till  he  should  appoint  another  govern- 
ment, which  he  did  by  a  letter  to  his  council  of 
Scotland,  bearing  date  August  14, 1661,  in  which 
he  recites  the  inconveniences  which  had  at- 
tended the  Presbyterian  government  for  the 
last  twenty-three  years,  and  its  inconsistency 
with  monarchy.  "  Therefore,"  says  he,  "  from 
our  respect  to  the  glory  of  God,  the  good  and 
interest  of  the  Protestant  religion,  and  the  bet- 
ter harmony  with  the  government  of  the  Church 
of  England,  we  declare  our  firm  resolution  to 
interpose  our  royal  authority  for  restoring  the 
Church  of  Scotland  to  its  right  government  by 
bishops,  as  it  was  before  the  late  troubles. 
And  our  will  and  pleasure  is,  that  you  take  ef- 
fectual care  to  restore  the  rents  belonging  to 
the  several  bishoprics ;  that  you  prohibit  the 
assembling  of  ministers  in  their  synodical  meet- 
ings till  our  farther  pleasure  ;  and  that  you  keep 
a  watchful  eye  over  those  who,  by  discourse  or 
preaching,  endeavour  to  alienate  the  affijctions 
of  our  people  from  us  or  our  government." 
Pursuant  to  these  directions,  the  lords  of  the 
council  ordered  the  heralds  to  make  public 
proclamation  at  the  market-cross  in  Edinburgh, 
September  6,  of  this  his  majesty's  royal  will 
and  pleasure.  In  the  month  of  December  a 
commission  was  issued  out  to  the  Bishops  of 
London  and  Worcesten^  to  ordain  and  conse- 
crate, according  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of 
the  Church  of  England,  Mr.  James  Sharp,  arch- 


*  Kennet's  Chronicle,  p.  647. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  16L  J  Ibid.,  p.  166. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  133,  134. 


234 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


bishop  of  St.  Andrew's,  Mr.  Andrew  Fairfoul, 
archbishop  of  Glasgow,  Mr.  Robert  Leighton, 
bishop  of  Dunblain,  and  Mr.  James  Hamilton, 
bishop  of  Galloway.  A  very  bad  choice,  says 
Bishop  Burnet.  Sharp  was  one  of  the  falsest 
and  vilest  dissemblers  in  the  world.  Fairfoul 
was  next  akin  to  a  natural.  Leighton  was  an 
excellent  prelate ;  but  Hamilton's  life  was 
scarce  free  from  scandal.*  He  had  sworn  to 
the  Covenant,  and  when  one  objected  to  him, 
that  it  went  against  his  conscience,  he  said, 
"  Such  medicines  as  could  not  be  chewed  must 
be  swallowed  whole. "t  The  English  bishops 
insisted  upon  their  renouncing  their  Presbyte- 
rian orders,  which  they  consented  to,  and  were, 
in  one  and  the  same  day,  ordained  first  dea- 
cons, then  priests,  and  last  of  all  bishops,  ac- 
cording to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England. 

Bishop  Burnet  says,  that  though  the  king 
had  a  natural  hatred  to  Presbytery,  he  went 
very  coldly  into  this  design ;  nay,  that  he  had 
a  visible  reluctancy  against  it,  because  of  the 
temper  of  the  Scots  nation,  and  his  unwilling- 
ness to  involve  his  government  in  new  troub- 
les ;  but  the  Earl  of  ClarendonJ  pushed  it  for- 
ward with  great  zeal ;  and  the  Duke  of  Ormond 
said  that  Episcopacy  could  not  be  established 
in  Ireland,  if  Presbytery  continued  in  Scotland. 
The  Earls  of  Lauderdale  and  Crawford,  indeed, 
opposed  it,  but  the  councils  of  Scotland  not  pro- 
testing, it  was  determined  ;  but  it  was  a  large 
strain  of  the  prerogative  for  a  king  by  a  royal 
proclamation  to  alter  the  government  of  a 
church  established  by  law,  without  consent  of 
Parliament,  convocation,  or  synod,  of  any  kind 
"whatsoever  :  for  it  was  not  until  May  the  next 
year  that  this  affair  was  decided  in  Parliament. 

Some  of  the  Scots  ministers  preached  boldly 
against  this  change  of  government ;  and,  among 
others,  Mr.  James  Guthrie,  minister  of  Stirling, 
for  which,  and  some  other  things,  he  was  con- 
victed of  sedition  and  treason.  Bishop  Bur- 
net, ij  who  saw  him  suffer,  says  that  he  express- 
ed, a  contempt  of  death  ;  that  he  spoke  an  hour 
upon  the  ladder  with  the  composure  of  a  man 
that  was  delivering  a  sermon  rather  than  his 
last  words ;  that  he  justified  all  he  had  done, 
exhorting  all  people  to  adhere  to  the  Covenant, 
which  he  magnified  highly.  He  was  executed 
June  14,  1661,  and  concluded  his  dying  speech 
with  these  words  :li  "  I  take  God  to  record  upon 
my  soul,  that  I  would  not  exchange  this  scaffold 
with  the  palace  or  mitre  of  the  greatest  prelate 

*  Burnet.,  p.  191,  192. 

t  It  is  here,  as  Dr.  Grey  remarks,  that  Mr.  Neal 
has  strangely  confounded  two  characters  :  ascribing 
to  Bishop  Hamilton  what  Bishop  Burnet  has  applied 
to  Bishop  Fairfoul.  It  is  singular  that  Dr.  Grey  has, 
in  the  next  paragraph,  committed  a  similar  mistake  ; 
for,  quoting  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  the  death  of  Mr. 
James  Guthrie,  who,  on  the  authority  of  Burnet,  he 
says,  "spoke  an  hour  before  his  execution  with  great 
■composedness,"  he  admits  the  correctness  of  this 
passage;  but  adds,  that  Burnet,  but  two  pages  be- 
fore, said  that  Mr.  Guthrie  spoke  for  half  an  hour 
v/ith  great  appearance  of  serenity  ;  and  observes, 
"  so  consistent  was  this  great  man  with  himself  in 
the  compass  of  two  ppges."  Now  the  inconsistency 
is  in  Dr.  Grey,  and  not  Bishop  Burnet,  who  speaks, 
in  the  fir.st  place,  not  of  Mr.  Guthrie,  but  of  the  Mar- 
quis of  Argyle,  vol.  i.,  p.  17*. — Ed. 

t  Hist.,  p.  130,  131.     Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  577. 

')  Hist,  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  144. 

II  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  459.     Burnet,  p.  181. 


in  Britain.  Blessed  be  God,  who  hath  showed 
mercy  to  such  a  wretch,  and  hath  revealed  his 
Son  in  me,  and  made  me  a  minister  of  the  ever- 
lasting Gospel ;  and  that  he  has  designed,  in 
the  midst  of  such  contradiction  from  Satan  and 
the  world,  to  seal  my  ministry  upon  the  hearts 
of  not  a  few  of  this  people,  and  especially  in 
the  congregation  and  presbytery  of  Stirling." 
There  was  with  him  on  the  same  scaflTold 
young  Captain  Govan,  whose  last  words  were 
these  :  "  I  bear  witness  with  my  blood  to  the 
persecuted  government  of  this  Church,  by  syn- 
ods and  presbyteries.  I  bear  witness  to  the 
solemn  League  and  Covenant,  and  seal  it  with 
my  blood.  I  likewise  testify  against  all  popery, 
prelacy,  idolatry,  superstition,  and  the  Service 
Book,  which  is  no  better  than  a  relic  of  the 
Romish  idolatry."*  Soon  after  this  the  rights 
of  patronages  were  restored,  and  all  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  silenced,  though  the  court 
had  not  a  supply  of  men  of  any  sort  to  fill  up 
their  vacancies. 

The  account  that  Bishop  Burnet  gives  of  the 
old  Scots  Presbyterian  ministers,  who  were  pos- 
sessed of  the  church  livings  before  the  Restora- 
tion, is  very  remarkable,  and  deserves  a  place 
in  this  history.  "  They  were,"  says  he,  "  a  brave 
and  solemn  people  ;  their  spirits  were  eager, 
and  their  tempers  sour,  but  they  had  an  appear- 
ance that  created  respect ;  they  visited  their 
parishes  much,  and  were  so  full  of  Scripture, 
and  so  ready  at  extempore  prayer,  that  from  that 
they  grew  to  practise  sermons  ;  for  the  custom 
in  Scotland  was,  after  dinner  or  supper,  to  read  a 
chapter  in  the  Bible,  and  when  they  happened  to 
come  in,  if  it  was  acceptable,  they  would  on  a 
sudden  expound  the  chapter ;  by  this  means  the 
people  had  such  a  vast  degree  of  knowledge,  that 
the  poor  cottagers  could  pray  extempore.  Their 
preachers  went  all  in  one  track  in  their  sermons, 
of  doctrine,  reason,  and  use ;  and  this  was  so 
methodical,  that  the  people  could  follow  a  ser- 
mon quite  through  every  branch  of  it.  It  can 
hardly  be  imagined  to  what  a  degree  these  min- 
isters were  loved  and  reverenced  by  their  peo- 
ple. They  kept  scandalous  persons  under  se- 
vere discipline  ;  for  breach  of  the  Sabbath,  for 
an  oath,  or  drunkenness,  they  were  cited  before 
the  kirk-sessions,  and  solemnly  rebuked  for  it ; 
for  fornication  they  stood  on  the  stool  of  repent- 
ance in  the  Church,  at  the  time  of  worship,  for 
three  days,  receiving  admonition,  and  making 
profession  of  repentance,  which  some  did  with 
many  tears,  and  exhortations  to  others  to  take 
warning  by  them  ;  for  adultery  they  sat  in  the 
same  place  six  months  covered  with  sackcloth. 
But  with  all  this,"  says  the  bishop,  "they  had 
but  a  narrow  compass  of  learning,  were  very 
affected  in  their  deportment,  and  were  apt  in. 
their  sermons  to  make  themselves  popular  by 
preaching  against  the  sins  of  princes  and  courts, 
which  the  people  delighted  to  hear,  because  they 
had  no  share  in  them."t 

The  bishops  and  clergy  who  succeeded  the 
Presbyterians  weve  of  a  quite  different  stamp ; 
most  of  them  were  very  mean  divines,  vicious 
in  their  morals,  idle  and  negligent  of  their  cures ; 
by  which  means  they  became  obnoxious  to  the 
whole  nation,  and  were  hardly  capable  of  sup- 
porting their  authority  through  the  reign  of  King 
Charles  II ,  even   with  the  assistance  of  the 


*  Burnet,  p.  152,  153. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  226,  227. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


235 


civil  power.  Bishop  Burnet  adds,*  that  they 
were  mean  and  despicable  in  all  respects ;  the 
worst  preachers  he  ever  heard, ;  ignorant  to  a  re- 
proach, and  many  of  them  openly  vicious  ;  that 
they  were  a  disgrace  to  their  order,  and  to  the 
sacred  functions,  and  were,  indeed,  the  dregs 
and  refuse  of  the  northern  parts.  The  few 
who  were  above  contempt  or  scandal  were  men 
of  such  violent  tempers,  that  they  were  as  much 
hated  as  the  others  were  despised. 

In  Ireland  the  hierarchy  was  restored  after 
the  same  manner  as  in  Scotland  ;  the  king,  by 
his  letters  patent,  in  right  of  his  power  to  ap- 
point bishops  to  the  vacant  sees,  issued  liis  royal 
mandate  to  Dr.  Bramhall,  archbishop  of  Armagh, 
and  Dr.  Taylor,  bishop  of  Down  and  Connor, 
by  virtue  of  which  they  consecrated  two  arch- 
bishops and  ten  bishops  in  one  day.t  His  grace 
insisted  on  the  reordinalion  of  those  who  had 
been  ordained  in  the  late  times  without  the 
hands  of  a  bishop,  but  with  this  softening  clause 
in  their  orders  :  "Non  annihilantes  priores  or- 
dines  (si  quos  habuit)  nee  validitatem  aut  inval- 
iditatem  eorundem  determinantes,  muito  minus 
omnes  ordines  sacros  ecclesiarum  forinsecarum 
eondemnantes,  quos  proprio  judicio  reiinqui- 
mus:  sed  solummodo  supplentes  quicquid  pnus 
defuit  per  canones  ecclesia  Anglicanae  requisi- 
tum  :"  i.  e.,  "  Not  annihilating  his  former  orders 
(if  he  had  any),  nor  determiningconcerning  their 
validity  or  invalidity,  much  less  condemning  all 
the  sacred  ordinations  of  foreign  churches, 
whom  we  leave  to  their  own  judge,  but  only 
supplying  what  was  wanting  according  to  the 
canons  of  the  Church  of  England."  Without 
such  an  explication  as  this,  few  of  the  clergy  of 
Ireland  would  have  kept  their  stations  in  the 
Church. t  On  the  17th  of  May,  the  lords  spirit- 
ual and  temporal,  and  the  commons  in  Parlia- 
ment assembled  in  Ireland,  declared  their  opin- 
ion and  high  esteem  of  Episcopal  government, 
and  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  according 
to  the  use  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and  thus 
the  old  constitution  in  Church  as  well  as  State 
was  restored  in  the  three  kingdoms. 

The  French  ministers,  who  had  been  tools  to 
persuade  the  English  Presbyterians  to  restore 
the  king  without  a  treaty,  went  along  with  the 
torrent,  and  complimented  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land upon  her  re-establishment ;  they  commend- 
ed the  liturgy,  which  they  formerly  treated  with 
contemptuous  language.  Some  few  of  them 
pretended  to  bemoan  the  want  of  Episcopacy 
among  themselves,  and  to  wonder  that  any  of 
the  English  Presbyterians  should  scruple  con- 
formity.i^  The  French  Church  at  the  Savoy 
submitted  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the 
English  hierarchy ;  and  M.  du  Bosc,  minister 
of  Caen,  writes  to  the  minister  of  the  Savoy, 
that  he  was  as  dear  to  him  under  the  surplice 
of  England  as  under  the  robe  of  France.  II  So 
complaisant  were  these  mercenary  divines  to- 
wards those  who  disallowed  their  orders,  dis- 
owned their  churches,  and  the  validity  of  all 
their  administrations. 

Lord  Clarendon  and  the  bishops  having  got 
over  the  Savoy  Conference,  and  carried  the  Ser- 
vice Book  with  the  amendments  through  the 
Convocation,  were  now  improving  the  present 
temper  of  the  Parliament  to  procure  it  the  sanc- 


*  Page  220.  t  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  440.  441. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  449.      ^  Ibid.,  p.  462.       ll  ibid.,  p.  475. 


tion  of  the  Legislature ;  for  this  purpose  the 
king,  though  a  papist,  is  made  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  a  zealous  churchman.  In  his  speech 
to  the  Parliament,  March  1st,  he  has  these 
words  :  "  Gentlemen,  I  hear  you  are  zealous  for 
the  Church,  and  very  solicitous,  and  even  jeal- 
ous, that  there  is  not  expedition  enough  used  in 
that  affair.  I  thank  you  for  it,  since  1  presume 
it  proceeds  from  a  good  root  of  piety  and  devo- 
tion ;  but  I  must  tell  you,  that  I  have  the  worst 
luck  in  the  world,  if,  after  all  the  reproaches  of 
being  a  papist,  while  I  was  abroad,  I  am  suspect- 
ed of  being  a  Presbyterian  now  I  am  come  home 
I  know  you  will  not  take  it  unkindly  if  I  tell  you 
I  am  as  zealous  for  the  Church  of  England  as 
any  of  you  can  be,  and  am  enough  acquainted 
with  the  enemies  of  it  on  all  sides.  I  am  as 
much  in  love  with  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer 
as  you  can  wish,  and  have  prejudices  enough 
against  those  who  do  not  love  it ;  who  I  hope, 
in  time,  will  be  better  informed,  and  change 
their  minds.  And  you  may  be  confident  I  do 
as  much  desire  to  see  a  uniformity  settled  as 
any  among  you  ;  and  pray  trust  me  in  that  af- 
fair, I  promise  you  to  hasten  the  despatch  of 
it  with  all  convenient  speed  ;  you  may  rely  upon 
me  in  it.  I  have  transmitted  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  with  the  amendments,  to  the  House 
of  Lords  ;  but  when  we  have  done  all  we  can, 
the  well  settling  that  affair  will  require  great 
prudence  and  discretion,  and  the  absence  of  all 
passion  and  precipitation."'* 

The  reason  of  the  king's  requiring  discretion 
in  the  Parliament,  and  the  absence  of  passion, 
was  not  in  favour  of  the  Presbyterians,  but  the 
papists,  who  went  all  the  lengths  of  the  pre- 
rogative, and  published  a  remonstrance  about 
this  time,  "  wherein  they  acknowledge  his  maj- 
esty to  be  God's  vicegerent  upon  earth  in  all 
temporal  affairs  ;  that  they  are  bound  to  obey 
him  under  pain  of  sin,  and  that  they  renounce 
all  foreign  power  and  authority,  as  incapable  of 
absolving  them  from  this  obligation."  It  was 
given  out  that  they  were  to  have  forty  chapels 
in  and  about  the  city  of  London,  and  much 
more  was  understood  by  them,  says  Archbish- 
op Tenison,  who  have  penetrated  into  the  de- 
signs of  a  certain  paper,  commonly  called  the 
Declaration  of  Somerset  House  ;  but  the  design 
miscarried,  partly  by  their  divisions  among 
themselves,  and  partly  by  the  resoluteness  of 
the  prime  minister,  who  charged  them  with 
principles  inconsistent  with  the  peace  of  the 
kingdom.!  Father  Orleans  says,  "  There  were 
great  debates  in  this  Parliament  about  liberty 
of  conscience.  The  Catholic  party  was  sup- 
ported by  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  a  man  in  great 
repute ;  the  Protestant  party  by  Chancellor 
Hyde,  chief  of  an  opposite  faction,  and  a  per- 
son of  no  less  consideration,  who,  putting  him- 
self at  the  head  of  the  prevailing  Church  of 
England  party  in  that  Parliament,  declared  not 
only  against  the  Roman  Catholics,  but  against 
the  Presbyterians,  and  all  those  the  Church  of 
J]ngland  call  Nonconformists.  The  king,  who 
was  no  good  Christian  in  his  actions,  but  a 
Catholic  in  his  heart,  did  all  that  could  be  ex- 
[)ected  from  his  easy  temper  H)  maintain  the 
common   liberty,  that  so  the  Catholics  might 


*  Rapin.  vol.  ii.,  p.  628,  Iblio 
+  Coinpl.  Hist.,  p.  252.     Kei 
498. 


Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  482, 


HISTORY    OF   THE  PURITANS. 


have  a  share  in  it ;  but  the  Church  of  England 
and  Chancellor  Hyde  were  so  hot  upon  that 
point,  that  his  majesty  was  obliged  to  yield 
rather  to  the  chancellor's  importunity  than  to 
his  reason."*  However,  by  the  favour  of  the 
queen-mother,  swarms  of  papists  came  over 
into  England,  and  settled  about  the  court ;  they 
set  up  private  seminaries  for  the  education  of 
youth  ;  and  though  they  could  not  obtain  an 
open  toleration,  they  multiplied  exceedingly, 
and  laid  the  foundation  of  all  the  dangers 
which  threatened  the  Constitution  and  Protest- 
ant religion  in  the  latter  part  of  this  and  in  the 
next  reign. 

Towards  the  latter  end  of  this  year,  the  court 
and  bishops,  not  content  with  their  triumphs 
over  the  living  Presbyterians,  descended  into 
the  grave,  and  dug  up  the  bodies  of  those  who 
had  been  deposited  in  Westminster  Abbey  in 
the  late  times,  lest  their  dust  should  one  time 
or  other  mix  with  the  Loyalists  ;  for  besides  the 
bodies  of  Cromwell,  and  others  already  men- 
tioned, his  majesty's  warrant  to  the  dean  and 
chapter  of  Westminster  was  now  obtained  to 
lake  up  the  bodies  of  such  persons  who  had 
been  unwarrantably  buried  in  the  chapel  of 
King  Henry  VII.  and  in  other  chapels  and  pla- 
ces within  the  collegiate  church  of  Westmin- 
ster since  the  year  1641,  and  to  inter  them  in 
the  churchyard  adjacent ;  by  which  warrant 
they  might  have  taken  up  all  the  bodies  that 
had  been  buried  there  for  twenty  years  past. 
Pursuant  to  these  orders,  on  the  12lh  and  14th 
of  September  they  went  to  work,  and  took  up 
about  twenty,!  among  whom  were, 

*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  498. 

+  Among  the  following  names,  the  reader  will 
find  some  who  have  not  been  noticed  in  the  prece- 
ding history,  or  in  the  notes.  The  mother  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  was  by  no  means  deserving  of  the  malev- 
olence and  indignity  with  which  her  memory  was 
treated.  For,  though  she  lavished  the  greatest 
fondness  on  her  only  son,  she  was  averse  to  his  pro- 
tectorate, seldom  troubled  hiin  with  her  advice,  and 
with  reluctance  partook  of  the  pageantry  of  sover- 
eignty. She  was  an  amiable  and  prudent  woman, 
who,  to  make  up  the  deficiency  of  a  narrow  income, 
undertook  and  managed  the  brewing  trade  on  her 
own  account,  and  from  the  profits  of  it  provided  for- 
tunes for  her  daughters  sufficient  to  marry  them 
into  good  families.  Her  an.xiety  for  her  son's  safety 
kept  her  in  such  constant  alarm,  that  she  was  dis- 
contented if  she  did  not  see  him  twice  a  day.  The 
report  of  a  gun  was  never  heard  by  her  without  her 
crying  out,  "  My  son  is  shot."  It  ought  to  have 
softened  the  resentment  of  the  Royalists  against  Mrs. 
Claypole,  though  the  daughter  of  Cromwell,  that 
she  had  importunately  interceded  for  the  life  of  Dr. 
Hewett;  and  the  denial  of  her  suit  had  so  afflicted 
her,  that  it  was  reported  to  have  been  one  cause  of 
her  death,  and  was  the  subject  of  her  e.xclamations 
to  her  father  on  her  dying  bed.  Thomas  May,  Esq., 
whose  name  appears  in  the  following  list,  was  a  po- 
lite and  classical  scholar,  the  intimate  friend  of  the 
greatest  wits  of  his  time,  anil  ranked  in  the  first 
class  of  them.  He  was  the  author  of  several  dra- 
matic pieces,  and  of  two  historical  poems  of  the 
reigns  of  Henry  II.  and  Edward  III.  But  his  prin- 
cipal work  was  a  "Translation  of  Lucan's  Pharsa- 
lia,"  and  a  continuation  of  it.  Colonel,  or  Sir  John 
Meldrum,  a  Scotsman,  displayed  his  military  prow- 
ess in  the  west,  defeated  the  Earl  of  Newcastle  be- 
fore Hull,  with  the  assistance  of  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax took  the  strong  town  of  Gainsborough  and  the 
isle  of  Axholm,  conquered  the  forces  of  the  Lords 
Byron  and  Molyneux,  near  Ormskirk,  and  took  the 


The  body  of  Eliz.  Cromwell,  mother  of  Oli- 
ver, daughter  of  Sir  Richard  Stewart,  who  died 
November  18,  1654,  and  was  buried  in  Henry 
VII. 's  chapel. 

The  body  of  Eliz.  Claypole,  daughter  of  Oli- 
ver, who  died  August  7,  1658,  and  was  buried 
in  a  vault  made  for  her  in  Henry  VII. 's  chapel. 

The  body  of  Robert  Blake,  tlie  famous  Eng- 
lish admiral,  who,  after  his  victorious  fight  at 
Santa  Cruz,  died  in  Plymouth  Sound,  August  7,. 
1G57,  and  was  buried  in  Henry  VII. 's  chapel  : 
a  man  whose  great  services  to  the  English  na- 
tion will  be  an  everlasting  monument  of  his  re- 
nown. 

The  body  of  the  famous  Mr.  John  Pym,  a 
Cornish  gentleman,  and  member  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  who  was  buried  in  the  year  1643, 
and  attended  to  his  grave  by  most  of  the  Lords 
and  Commons  in  Parliament. 

The  body  of  Dr.  Dorislaus,  employed  as  an 
assistant  in  drawing  up  the  charge  against  the 
king,  for  which  he  was  murdered  by  the  Royal- 
ists, when  he  was  ambassador  to  the  States  of 
Holland  in  1649. 

The  body  of  Sir  William  Constable,  one  of 
the  king's  judges,  governor  of  Gloucester,  and 
colonel  of  a  regiment  of  foot,  who  died  1655. 

The  body  of  Colonel  Edward  Popham,  one 
of  the  admirals  of  the  fleet,  who  died  1651. 

The  body  of  William  Stroud,  Esq.,  one  of  the 
five  members  of  Parliament  demanded  by  King 
Charles  I. 

The  body  of  Colonel  Humphrey  Mackworth, 
one  of  Oliver  Cromwell's  colonels,  buried  in 
Henry  VII. 's  chapel,  1654. 

The  body  of  Dennis  Bond,  Esq.,  one  of  the 
Council  of  State,  who  died  August  8,  16.58. 

The  body  of  Thomas  May,  Esq.,  who  com- 
piled the  history  of  the  Long  Parliament  with 
great  integrity,  and  in  a  beautiful  style.  He 
died  in  the  year  1650. 

The  body  of  Colonel  John  Meldrum,  a  Scots- 
man, who  died  in  the  wars. 

The  body  of  Colonel  Boscawen,  a  Cornish 
man. 

To  these  may  be  added  several  eminent  Pres- 
byterian divines ;  as, 

The  body  of  Dr.  William  Twisse,  prolocutor 
of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  buried  in  the  soutb 
cross  of  the  Abbey  Church,  July  24,  1645. 

The  body  of  Mr.  Stephen  Marshall,  buried  in 
the  south  aisle,  November  23,  1655. 

The  body  of  Mr.  William  Strong,  preacher  in 
the  Abbey  Church,  and  buried  there  July  4, 
1654.  These,  with  some  others  of  lesser  note, 
both  men  and  women,  were  thrown  together 
into  one  pit  in  St.  Margaret's  churchyard,  near 
the  back  door  of  one  of  .the  prebendaries  ;  but 
the  work  was  so  indecent,  and  drew  such  a  gen- 
eral odium  on  the  government,  that  a  stop  was 
put  to  any  farther  proceedings. 

Among  others  who  were  obnoxious  to  the 
ministry,  were  the  people  called  Qnakers,  who, 
having  declared  openly  against  the  lawfulness 
of  making  use  of  carnal  weapons,  even  in  self- 
defence,  had  the  courage  to  petition  the  House 
of  Lords  for  a  toleration  of  their  religion,  and 
for  a  dispensation  from  taking  the  oaths,  which 


town  and  castle  of  Scarborough. — Biogr.  Britan.,  \oL 
iv.,  p.  517.  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  4t<),  p.  257.  Gran- 
ger's History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  94,  and  vol.  if, 
p.  265. — Ed.  *  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  536. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


they  held  unlawful,  not  from  any  disaffection  to 
the  government,  or  a  belief  ihut  they  were  less 
obliged  by  an  affirmation,  but  from  a  persuasion 
that  all  oatlis  were  unlawful ;  and  that  swear- 
ing, upon  the  most  solemn  occasions,  was  for- 
bidden in  the  New  Testament.  The  Lords,  in 
a  committee,  rejected  their  petition,  and,  in- 
stead of  granting  them  relief,  passed  the  follow- 
ing act*  May  2,  the  preami)le  to  which  sets  forth, 
"  That  whereas  sundry  persons  have  taken  up 
an  opinion  that  an  oath,  even  before  a  magis- 
trate, is  unlawful,  and  contrary  to  the  Word 
of  God.  And  whereas,  under  pretence  of  reli 
gious  worship,  the  said  persons  do  assemble  in 
great  numbers  in  several  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
separating  themselves  from  the  rest  of  his  maj- 
esty's subjects,  and  from  the  public  congrega- 
tions, and  usual  places  of  Divine  worship  ;  be 
it  therefore  enacted,  that  if  any  such  persons 
after  the  24th  of  March,  1661-2,  shall  refuse  to 
take  an  oath  when  lawfully  tendered,  or  per- 
suade others  to  do  it,  or  maintain,  in  writing  or 
otherwise,  the  unlawfulness  of  taking  an  oath  ; 
or  if  they  shall  assemble  for  religious  worship 
to  the  number  of  five  or  more,  of  the  age  of  fif- 
teen, they  shall  for  the  first  offence  forfeit  £5  ; 
for  the  second,  £10  ;  and  for  the  third  shall  ab- 
jure the  realm,  or  be  transported  to  the  planta- 
tions ;  and  the  justices  of  peace,  at  their  open 
sessions,  may  hear  and  finally  determine  in  the 
affair."  The  act  was  passed  by  commission, 
and  had  a  dreadful  inlluence  upon  that  people, 
though  it  was  notorious  they  were  far  from  se- 
dition or  disaffection  to  the  government.  G. 
Fox,  in  his  address  to  the  king,  acquaints  his 
majesty,  that  three  thousand  and  sixty-eight  of 
their  iriends  had  been  imprisoned  since  his  maj- 
esiy's  restoration  ;  that  their  meetings  were 
daily  broken  up  by  men  with  clubs  and  arms, 
and  their  friends  thrown  into  the  water,  and 
trampled  under  loot,  till  the  blood  gushed  out, 
which  gave  rise  to  their  meeting  in  the  open 
streets.  Another  narrative  was  printed,  sign- 
ed by  twelve  witnesses,  which  says  that  more 
than  four  thousand  two  hundred  Quakers  were 
imprisoned  ;  and  of  them  five  hundred  were 
in  and  about  London  and  the  suburbs,  several 
of  whom  were  dead  in  the  jails.t  But  these 
were  only  the  beginning  of  sorrows. 


*  Some  of  the  society,  getting  early  intelligence 
of  this  bill,  interfered  to  stop  its  progress.  Edward 
Burrough,  Kichard  Hubbertborn,  and  George  White- 
head, attended  the  Parliament  to  solicit  against  pass- 
ing It  into  an  act ;  and  were  admitted,  but  without 
success,  to  ofter  their  reasons  against  it,  at  the  bar  of 
the  House.  "  But  political  considerations,  party  an- 
imosity, and  bigoted,  exasperated  zeal  for  the  church 
(so  called),  were  the  moving  causes  of  action  with 
the  majority.  Appeals  to  their  reason  and  hun'ianity 
were  vain."  It  aggravated  the  injustice  and  seventy 
of  this  act,  that  it  was  framed,  notwithstanding  a 
paper,  containing  the  sentiments  of  the  Quakers  re- 
specting oaths,  had  been  lately  presented  to  the  king 
and  council  by  Edward  Burrough,  entitled  "A  Just 
and  Righteous  Plea;"  which  stated  their  conscien- 
tious scruples,  e.x pressed  in  strong  terms  their  loyally, 
and  declared,  "  that  it  had  ever  been  with  them  an 
established  principle,  confirmed  by  a  consonant  prac- 
tice, to  enter  into  no  plots,  combinations,  or  rebell- 
ions against  government,  nor  to  seek  deliverance 
from  injustice  or  oppression  by  any  such  means." — 
Gouglis  History  nf  the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p.  499,  &c. — 
Ed. 

+  Sewel,  p.  346.    Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  651. 

"Some  were  put  into  such  noisome  prisons,  as 


Religion,  which  liad  been  m  vogue  in  the  late 
times,  was  now  universally  discountenanced  ; 
the  name  of  it  was  hardly  mentioned  but  with 
contempt,  in  a  health  or  a  play.  Those  who 
observed  the  Sabbath,  and  scrupled  profane 
swearing  and  drinking  healths,  were  exposed 
under  the  opprobrious  names  of  Puritans,  Fa- 
natics, Presbyterians,  Republicans,  seditious 
persons,  6cc.  The  Presbyterian  ministers  were 
everywhere  suspendeil  or  deprived,  for  some 
unguarded  expressions  in  their  sermons  or  pray- 
ers. Lord  Clarendon  was  at  the  head  of  all  this 
madness,  and  declared  in  Parliament  "  that  the 
king  could  distinguish  between  tenderness  of 
conscience  and  pride  of  conscience  ;  that  he 
v.as  a  prince  of  so  excellent  a  nature,  and  of  so 
tender  a  conscience  himself,  that  he  had  the 
liigliest  compassion  for  all  errors  of  that  kind, 
and  would  never  sufl^er  the  weak  to  undergo  the 
punishment  ordained  for  the  wicked."  Such 
was  the  deep  penetration  of  the  chancellor  ; 
and  such  the  reward  the  Presbyterians  received 
for  their  past  services  ! 

The  profligate  manners  of  the  court,  at  the 
same  time,  spread  over  the  whole  land,  and  oc- 
casioned such  a  general  licentiousness,  that  the 
king  took  notice  of  it  in  his  speech  at  the  end 
of  tills  session  of  Parliament.  "  I  cannot  but 
observe,"  says  his  majesty,  "that  the  whole 
nation  seems  to  be  a  little  corrupted  in  tbeir  ex- 
cess of  living;  sure  all  men  spend  much  more 
in  their  clotlies,  in  their  diet,  and  all  other  ex- 
penses, than  they  have  been  used  to  do  ;  I  hope 
It  has  been  only  the  excess  of  joy  after  so  long 
suffering,  that  has  transported  us  to  these  oth- 
er excesses,  but  let  us  take  heed  that  the  con- 
tinuance of  them  does  not  indeed  corrupt  our 
natures.  I  do  believe  I  have  been  faulty  myself; 
I  promise  you  I  will  reform,  and  if  you  will  join 
with  me  in  your  several  capacities,  we  shall,  by 
our  examples,  do  more  good  both  in  city  and 
country  than  any  new  laws  would  do."  This 
was  a  frank  acknowledgment  and  a  good  reso- 
lution, but  it  was  not  in  the  king's  nature  to  re- 
trench his  expenses,  or  control  his  vices,  for 
the  public  good.* 


were  owned  not  fit  for  dogs.  Some  prisons  so 
crowded  that  the  prisoners  had  not  room  to  sit  down 
altogether.  In  Cheshire,  sixty-eight  persons  were 
thus  locked  up  in  a  small  room.  No  age  or  sex  found 
any  commiseration.  Men  of  sixty,  seventy,  or  more 
years  of  age,  were,  without  pity  or  remorse,  subjected 
to  all  the  rigqurs  of  such  imprisonments  under  the 
infirmities  of  a  natural  decline ;  many  times  they 
were  forced  to  lie  on  the  cold  ground,  without  being 
permitted  the  use  of  straw,  and  kept  many  days 
without  victuals.  No  wonder  that  many  grew  sick 
and  died  by  such  barbarous  imprisonments  as  these." 
— Gough,  vol.  i.,  p.  538. — Ed. 

*  In  the  preceding  year  died,  on  the  22d  of  De- 
cember, aged  seventy-two  years,  Mr.  Thomas  Lush- 
ington,  a  scholar  of  eminence,  and  a  favourer  of  the 
sentiments  of  Socinus;  who  translated  into  English 
and  published,  Crellius's  Commentary  on  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  and  a  commentary  on  that  to  the 
Hebrews  from  the  Latin  of  the  same  author,  or  some 
other  Unitarian  writer.  He  published,  among  other 
works,  two  sermons  on  Matt.,  xxviii.,  13,  and  Acts, 
if,  1,  entitled  "The  Resurrection  rescued  from  the 
Soldier's  Calumnies."  He  was  reckoned  more  in- 
genious than  prudent,  and  was  more  apt  to  display 
his  fancy  than  to  proceed  upon  solid  reason.  At  one 
time  he  personated  in  his  sermon  a  Jewish  Pharisee 
and  persecutor  of  Christ,  descanting  on  the  whole 
hfe  of  our  Saviour  in  a  way  suited  to  draw  scorn  and 


238 


HISTORY    OF   THE   PURITANS. 


Though  the  revenues  of  the  crown  were  aug- 
mented above  double  what  they  had  been  at  any 
lime  since  the  Reformation  ;  and  though  the 
king  had  a  vast  dowry  witii  his  queen,  wiiom  he 
married  this  spring,  yet  all  was  not  suflicient  to 
defray  the  extravagance  of  the  court  ;  for  be- 
sides the  king's  own  expenses,  the  queen-molli- 
cr  maintained  a  splendid  court  of  Roman  Cath- 
olics at  Somerset  House,  and  miglit  have  done 
so  as  long  as  she  had  lived,  if  she  could  have 
kept  withm  moderate  bounds  ;  but  her  conduct 
was  so  imprudent  and  profuse,  that  she  was 
obliged  to  return  to  France  after  three  or  four 
years,  where  she  died  in  the  year  1669.  A  lady 
of  such  bigotry  in  religion,*   and  intrigue  in 


aversion  on  him  and  his  attendants :  he  then  changed 
his  character,  and  speaking  as  a  disciple  of  Christ,  he 
answered  the  cavils  and  invectives  before  thrown  out 
with  such  dexterity,  that  his  hearers  broke  into  such 
loud  and  repealed' applauses,  as  hindered  him  for  a 
good  space  from  proceeding  in  his  sermon.  He  was 
a  native  of  Sandwich,  and  matriculated  at  Broad- 
gate's  Hall,  in  Oxford,  when  he  was  seventeen,  in 
1606-7.  He  graduated,  as  master  of  arts,  in  Lincoln 
College,  in  1618.  In  1631,  Bishop  Corbet  gave  him 
the  prebendal  stall  of  Bemister  Secunda  in  the  church 
of  Salisbury;  and  afterward  bestowed  on  him  the 
rectory  of  Buriiham  Westgate,  in  Norfolk.  In  the 
rebellion  he  lost  his  spiritualities,  but  on  the  return 
of  Charles  II.  was  restored  to  them.  He  died  and 
was  buried  at  Sittingbourne,  near  Milton,  in  Kent. — 
Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  71,  72. — Ed. 

In  the  year  1 661 ,  or  soon  after  the  Restoration,  died 
also  Mr.  Henry  Denne,  whom  we  have  mentioned 
before.  He  began  his  ministry  in  the  Church  ol 
England,  and  in  1641  drew  great  attention  by  a  ser- 
mon which  he  preached  at  Baldock,  in  Hertford- 
shire; in  this  discourse  he  freely  exposed  the  sin  of 
persecution,  and  inveighed  against  the  pride  and  cov- 
etousness  of  the  clergy,  their  pluralities  and  nonresi- 
dences,  and  the  corrupt  practices  of  the  spiritual 
courts.  He  was  reckoned  by  one,  who  had  a  great 
hand  in  the  public  affairs  of  the  age,  "  to  be  the  ablest 
man  in  the  kingdom  for  prayer,  expounding,  and 
preaching."  When  the  government  declared  their 
design  to  reform  religion,  Mr.  Denne  and  many  others 
were  led  to  extend  iheir  inquiries  after  religious 
truth  to  points  which  before  they  had  only  taken  for 
granted  ;  and  it  appearing  to  him,  in  his  researches, 
that  the  practice  of  baptizing  children  was  without 
any  foundation  in  Scripture,  or  the  writings  of  the 
Christians  for  the  first  two  ages,  he  publicly  pro- 
fessed hmiself  a  Baptist,  and  was  baptized  by  immer- 
sion at  London  in  1643.  This  exposed  him  to  the 
resentment  of  those  who  sat  at  the  helm  of  ecclesi- 
astical affairs  ;  but  notwithstanding  this,  he  obtained 
the  parish  of  Elsly  in  Cambridgeshire.  Meeting 
with  opposition  and  persecution,  he  quitted  his  living 
and  went  into  the  army,  and  gained  reputation  in  the 
military  line.  In  1658  he  held  a  public  disputation 
concerning  infant  baptism  with  Dr.  Gunning,  in  St. 
Clement's  Church,  Temple  Bar,  in  which  he  is  said 
to  have  afforded  strong  proofs  of  his  abilities  and 
learning  as  a  good  scholar  and  complete  disputant. 
Mr.  Edwards  gives  him  the  character  of  "a  very 
affecting  preacher."  A  clergyman  put  on  his  grave 
this  epitaph  : 

"  To  tell  his  wisdom,  learning,  goodness,  unto  men, 
I  need  say  no  more,  but  here  lies  Ifenry  Denne." 

— Crosby's  History  of  the  English  Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p. 
297,  &c. — Ed.  For  a  much  more  full  and  satisfac- 
tory account  of  this  able  divine,  consult  "  Brook's 
Lives  of  the  Puritans,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  376,  380.— C. 

*  It  was  the  grand  argument  with  the  Duke  of 
York,  for  his  adherence  to  the  tenets  of  popery,  that 
his  mother  had,  upon  her  last  blessing,  commanded 
him  to  be  firm  and  steadfast  thereto. —iieresfty's  Mc- 
OToirs,  p.  16. 


politics,  that  her  alliance  to  this  nation  was  lit- 
tle less  than  a  judgment  from  Heaven. 

To  procure  more  ready  money  for  these  ex- 
travagances, it  was  resolved  to  sell  the  town 
of  Dunkirk  to  the  French,  for  X'500,000.  The 
Lord-chancellor  Clarendon  was  the  projector 
of  this  vile  bargain,*  as  appears  by  tiie  letters 
of  Count  d'Estrades,  published  since  his  death, 
in  one  of  which  his  lordship  acknowledges  that 
the  thought  came  from  himself  +  Several  mer- 
cenary pamphlets  were  dispersed  to  justify  this 
sale  ;  but  the  wars  with  France,  in  the  reigns 
of  King  William  and  Queen  Anne,  have  suffi- 
ciently convinced  us  that  it  was  a  fatal  stab  to 
our  trade  and  commerce  :  insomuch,  that  even 
the  queen's  last  ministry  durst  not  venture  to 
make  a  peace  with  France,  till  the  fortifications 
of  it  were  demolished. 

But  to  divert  the  people's  eyes  to  other  ob- 
jects, it  was  resolved  to  go  on  with  the  prose- 
cution of  state  criminals,  and  with  humbling 
and  crushing  the  Nonconformists  .-  three  of  the 
late  king's  judges  being  apprehended  in  Holland, 
by  the  forward  zeal  of  Sir  G.  Downing,  viz.. 
Colonel  Okey,  Corbet,  and  Berkstead,  were 
brought  over  to  England  by  permission  of  the 
States,  and  executed  on  the  Act  of  Attainder, 
April  19.  They  died  with  the  same  resolution 
and  courage  as  the  former  had  done,  declaring 
they  had  no  malice  against  the  late  king,  but  ap- 
prehended the  authority  of  Parliament  sufficient 
to  justify  their  conduct. 

Before  the  Parliament  rose,  the  House  ad- 
dressed the  king  to  bring  Colonel  Lambert  and 
Sir  Henry  Vane,  prisoners  in  the  Tower,  to  their 
trial ;  and  accordingly,  June  4,  they  were  ar- 
raigned at  the  King's  Bench  bar  ;  the  former  for 
levying  war  against  the  king,  and  the  latter  for 
compassing  his  death.  Lambert  was  convict- 
ed, but  for  his  submissive  behaviour  was  par- 
doned as  to  life,  but  confined  in  the  Isle  of 
Guernsey,  where  he  remained  a  patient  prisoner 
till  his  death,  which  happened  about  thirty  years 
after.  Sir  Henry  Vane  had  such  an  interest  in 
the  Convention  Parliament,  that  both  Lords  and 
Commons  petitioned  for  his  life,  which  his  maj- 
esty promised  ;  and  yet,  afterward,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  the  present  House  of  Commons,  he 


*  Dr.  Grey  is  much  displeased  with  Mr.  Neal  for 
imputing  the  sale  of  Dunkirk  to  Lord  Clarendon ; 
and  remarks  on  it,  that  "had  the  Count  d'Estrades 
declared  positively  that  the  Lord  Clarendon  had  no 
concern  therein,  it  is  probable  that  his  authority 
would  have  been  rejected  or  passed  over  in  silence. 
But  liord  Clarendon  was  a  great  friend  to  monar- 
chy and  Episcopacy,  and  therefore  Lord  Clarendon's 
character  must  at  all  adventures  be  run  down." 
The  reader  will  determine  concerning  the  candour 
and  fairness  of  this  censure.  The  passages  in  which 
D'Estrades  ascribes  this  transaction  to  Lord  Claren- 
don are  to  be  seen  in  Rapin,  and  iti  Dr.  Harris's  Life  of 
Charles  II.,\o].  ii.,  p.  192-198.  Dr.  Grey,  on  the  other 
hand,  refers  to  Kennet  and  Roger  Coke,  Esq.,  as  ac- 
quitting his  lordship  from  advising  the  sale  of  Dun- 
kirk. Bishop  Burnet,  it  may  be  added,  says,  on  the  in- 
formation of  his  lordship's  son,  "  that  he  kept  himself 
out  of  that  affair  entirely."  To  reconcile  the  nation 
to  the  sale  of  Dunkirk,  the  king  promised  to  lay  up 
all  the  money  in  the  Tower,  and  that  it  should  not  be 
touched  but  upon  extraordinary  occasions.  But  in 
violation  of  his  word  and  of  decency,  it  was  immedi- 
ately squandered  away  among  the  creatures  of  his 
mistress,  Barbara  Villiers. —  Burnet's  History  of  his 
Oum  Times,  vol.  i.,  p.  251. — Ed. 

t  Rapin,  p.  630,  631. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


239 


was  tried  and  executed.  Sir  Harry  made  a 
brave  defence,  but  it  was  determined  to  sacri- 
fice him  to  the  ghost  of  the  Earl  of  Strafford  ; 
and  when  his  friends  would  have  had  him  peti- 
tion for  his  life,  he  refused,  saying,  if  the  king 
had  not  a  greater  regard  for  his  word  and  hon- 
our than  he  had  for  his  life,  he  might  take  it. 
Nevertheless,  Bishop  Burnet  says,*  "  He  was 
naturally  a  fearful  man,  and  had  a  head  as  dark 
in  the  notions  of  religion  ;  but  when  he  saw  his 
death  was  determined,  he  composed  himself  to 
it  with  a  resolution  that  surprised  all  who  knew 
how  little  of  that  was  natural  to  him.  He  was 
beheaded  on  Tower  Hill,  June  14,  where  a  new 
and  very  indecent  practice  was  begun  ;  it  was 
observed  that  the  dying  speeches  of  the  regi- 
cides had  left  impressions  on  the  hearers  that 
were  not  at  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  govern- 
ment ;  and  strains  of  a  peculiar  nature  being 
expected  from  him,  drummers  were  placed  un- 
der the  scaffold,  who,  as  soon  as  he  began  to 
speak  to  the  public,  upon  a  sign  given,  struck 
up  with  their  drums.  But  this  put  him  into  no 
disorder  ;  he  desired  they  might  be  stopped,  for 
he  knew  what  was  meant  by  it.  Then  he  went 
to  his  devotion  ;  and  as  he  was  taking  leave  of 
those  about  him,  he  happened  to  say  something 
again  with  relation  to  the  times,  when  the 
drums  struck  up  a  second  time ;  so  he  gave 
over,  saying,  it  was  a  sorry  cause  that  would 
not  bear  the  words  of  a  dying  man  ;  and  died 
with  so  much  composedness,  that  it  was  gen- 
erally thought  the  government  lost  more  than  it 
gained  by  his  death."  The  Oxford  historian 
says  he  appeared  on  the  scaffold  like  an  old 
Roman,  and  died  without  the  least  symptoms 
of  concern  or  trouble.! 

But  the  grand  affair  that  employed  the  Par- 
liament this  spring  was  the  famous  Act  of  Uni- 
formity of  Public  Prayers,  &,c.,  designed  for  the 
enclosure  of  the  Church,  and  the  only  door 
of  admission  to  all  ecclesiastical  preferments. 
The  review  of  the  Common  Prayer  had  been  in 
convocation  three  or  four  months,t  and  was 
brought  into  Parliament,  with  their  alterations 
and  amendments,  before  Christmas  ;^  the  bill 
was  read  the  first  time  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons January  14,  and  passed,  after  sundry  de- 
bates, but  by  six  voices,  yeas  186,  noes  180 ;  but 
met  with  greater  obstacles  among  the  Lords, 
who  offered  several  amendments,  which  occa- 
sioned conferences  between  the  two  houses. 
The  Lords  would  have  exempted  schoolmasters, 
tutors,  and  those  who  had  the  education  of 
youth  ;  and  in  the  disabling  clause,  would  have 
included  only  livings  with  cure.ll  But  the  Com- 
mons being  supported  by  the  court,  would  abate 
nothing,^  nor  consent  to  any  provision  for  such 


*  Burnet,  p.  237,  238. 

t  See  Upham's  admirable  Life  of  Sir  Henry  Vane. 
Sylvester's  Life  of  Baxter,  part  i.,  p.  75.  Granger's 
Biog.  Diet.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  213;  vol.  iii.,  p.  109.— C. 

t  Dr.  Grey  is  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  the  Act 
of  Uniformity  could  come  into  the  Convocation,  and 
continue  there  for  three  or  lour  months  :  for  the  two 
houses  never  send  their  bills  thither  for  their  peru- 
sal and  approbation.  He  thinks,  therefore,  that  Mr. 
jSeal's  mistake  must  be  owing  to  their  review  of  the 
Common  Prayer. — Examination,  vol.  lii..  p.  320. — Ed. 

^  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  604.  ||  Ibid.,  p.  C77. 

4r  The  reason  for  extending  it  to  schoohnasters 
was,  we  are  told,  to  guard  agamst  the  influence  and 
force  of  education. — Examination,  p.  321. — Ed. 


as  should  be  ejected.  They  would  indulge  no 
latitude  in  the  surplice  or  cross  in  baptism,  for 
fear  of  establishing  a  schism,  and  weakening 
the  authority  of  the  Church  as  to  her  right 
of  imposing  indifferent  rites  and  ceremonies.* 
And  the  court  were  willing  to  shut  out  as  many 
as  they  could  from  the  Establishment,  to  make 
a  general  toleration  more  necessary.  When  the 
Lords  urged  the  king's  declaration  from  Breda, 
the  Commons  replied,  that  it  would  be  strange 
to  call  a  schismatical  conscience  a  tender  one  ; 
but  suppose  this  had  been  meant  (say  they),  his 
majesty  can  be  guilty  of  no  breach  of  promise, 
because  the  declaration  had  these  two  limita- 
tions, a  reference  to  Parliament,  and  so  far  as 
was  consistent  with  the  peace  of  the  kingdom. 
May  8,  the  result  of  the  conference  with  the 
House  of  Commons  being  reported  to  the  Lords^ 
the  House  laid  aside  their  objections  and  con- 
curred with  the  Commons,  and  the  bill  passed  ; 
but,  as  Bishop  Burnet  observes,  with  no  great 
majority.  May  19  it  received  the  royal  assent,, 
and  was  to  take  place  from  the  24th  of  August 
following.  This  act  being  prefixed  to  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  and  lying  open  to  public 
view,  I  shall  only  give  the  reader  an  abstract  of 
it.     It  is  entitled, 

"An  Act  for  the  Uniformity  of  Public  Pray- 
ers, and  Administration  of  Sacraments,  and  oth- 
er Rites  and  Ceremonies,  and  for  establishing 
the  Forms  of  making,  ordaining  and  consecra- 
ting Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons  in  the 
Church  of  England." 

The  preamble  sets  forth,  "  That  from  the  first 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  there  had  been  one  uniform 
order  of  common  service  and  prayer  enjoined 
to  be  used  by  act  of  Parliament,  which  had 
been  very  comfortable  to  all  good  people,  until 
a  great  number  of  the  people  in  divers  parts  of 
the  realm,  living  without  knowledge  and  the  due 
fear  of  God,  did  wilfully  and  scliismatically  re- 
fuse to  come  to  their  parish  churches  upon  Sun- 
days, and  other  days  appointed  to  be  kept  as 
holydays.  And  whereas,  by  the  scandalous 
neglect  of  ministers  in  using  the  liturgy  during 
the  late  unhappy  troubles,  many  people  have 
been  led  into  factions  and  schisms,  to  the  decay 
of  religion  and  the  hazard  of  many  souls ;  there- 
fore, for  preventing  the  like  for  time  to  come, 
the  king  had  granted  a  commission  to  review  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  to  those  bishops  and 
divines  who  met  at  the  Savoy  ;  and  afterward 
his  majesty  required  the  clergy  in  convocation  to 
revise  it  again  ;  which  alterations  and  amend- 
ments having  been  approved  by  his  majesty  and 
both  houses  of  Parliament,  therefore,  for  set- 
tling the  peace  of  the  nation,  for  the  honour  of 
religion,  and  to  the  intent  that  every  person 
may  know  the  rule  to  which  he  is  to  conform 
in  public  worship,  it  is  enacted  by  the  king's 
most  excellent  majesty,  &c., 

"  That  all  and  singular  ministers  shall  be 
bound  to  say  and  use  the  morning  prayer,  even- 
ing prayer,  and  all  other  common  prayers,  in 
such  order  and  form  as  is  mentioned  in  the 
book  ;  and  that  every  parson,  vicar,  or  other 
minister  whatsoever,  shall  before  the  feast  of 
St.  Bartholomew,  which  shall  be  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1602,  openly  and  publicly,  before  the 
congregation  assembled  for  religious  worship, 
declare  his  unfeigned  assent  and  consent  to  the 


+  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  679. 


.240 


HISTORY    OF  THE   PURITANS. 


use  of  all  things  contained  and  prescribed  in  the 
said  book,  in  these  words,  and  no  other  : 

"  I,  A.  B.,  do  declare  my  unfeigned  assent 
and  consent  to  all  and  everything  contained  and 
prescribed  in  and  by  the  book  entitled  'The 
Book  of  Connmon  Prayer,  and  Administration 
of  Sacraments,  and  other  Rites  and  Ceremonies 
of  the  Chureh,  according  to  the  Use  of  the 
Church  of  England,  together  with  the  Psalter 
or  Psalms  of  David,  pointed  as  they  are  to  be 
sung  or  said  in  Churches  ;'  and  the  form  and 
manner  of  making,  ordaining,  and  consecrating 
of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons."* 

The  penalty  for  neglecting  or  refusing  to  make 
this  declaration  is  deprivation,  ipso  facto,  of  all 
his  spiritual  promotions. 

"  And  it  is  farther  enacted,  that  every  dean, 
canon,  and  prebendary  ;  all  masters,  heads,  fel- 
lows, chaplains,  and  tutors,  in  any  college,  hall, 
house  of  learning,  or  hospital  ;  all  public  pro- 
fessors, readers  in  either  university,  and  in  ev- 
ery college  and  elsewhere  ;  and  all  parsons,  vic- 
ars, curates,  lecturers  ;  and  every  schoolmaster 
keeping  any  public  or  private  school  ;  and  every 
person  instructing  youth  in  any  private  fami- 
ly, shall,  before  the  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
1662,  subscribe  the  following  declaration,  viz.  s 

"  I,  A.  B.,  do  declare  that  it  is  not  lawful, 
upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  take  arms 
against  the  king  ;  and  that  I  do  abhor  that  trai- 
torous position  of  taking  arms  by  his  authority, 
against  his  person,  or  against  those  that  are 
commissioned  by  him  ;  and  that  I  will  conform 
to  the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  it  is 
now  by  law  established.  And  I  do  hold  that 
there  lies  no  obligation  upon  me.  or  on  any  oth- 
er person,  from  the  oath  commonly  called  the 
solemn  League  and  Covenant,  to  endeavour  any 
change  or  alteration  of  government,  either  in 
Church  or  State,  and  that  the  same  was  in  it- 
self an  unlawful  oath,  and  imposed  upon  the 
subjects  of  this  realm  against  the  known  laws 
and  liberties  of  this  kingdom."  , 

This  declaration  is  to  be  subscribed  by  the 
persons  above  mentioned,  before  the  archbish- 
op, bishop,  or  ordinary  of  the  diocess,  on  pain 
of  deprivation,  for  those  who  were  possessed 
of  livings  ;  and  for  schoolmasters  or  tutors, 
three  months'  imprisonment  for  the  first  of- 
fence ;  and  for  every  other  offence,  three  months' 
imprisonment,  and  the  forfeiture  of  five  pounds 
to  his  majesty.  Provided,  that  after  the  25lh 
of  March,  1682,  the  renouncing  of  the  solemn 
League  and  Covenant  shall  be  omitted. 

"  It  is  farther  enacted,  that  no  person  shall 
be  capable  of  any  benefice,  or  presume  to  con- 
secrate and  administer  the  holy  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  before  he  be  ordained  a  priest 
by  Episcopal  ordination,  on  pain  of  forfeiting 
for  every  offence  one  hundred  pounds. + 

"No  form  or  order  of  common  prayer  shall 
be  used  in  any  church,  chapel,  or  other  place  of 
public  worship,  or  in  either  of  the  universities, 
than  is  here  prescribed  and  appointed. 

'•None  shall  be  received  as  lecturers,  or  be 
permitted  to  preach,  or  read  any  sermon  or 
lecture  in  any  church  or  chapel,  unless  he  be 
approved   and   licensed  by  the  archbishop   or 


*  This  form  of  subscription  and  solemn  declara- 
tion was  inserted  by  the  Lords,  with  whom  this  Act 
of  Uniformity  began. — En. 

t  This  clause  was  also  inserted  by  the  Lords. — Ed. 


bishop,  and  shall  read  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of 
Religion,  with  a  declaration  of  his  unfeigned  as- 
sent and  consent  to  the  same  :  and  unless,  the 
first  time  he  preaches  any  lecture  or  sermon, 
he  shall  openly  read  the  Common  Prayer,  and 
declare  his  assent  to  it  ;  and  shall,  on  the  first 
lecture  day  of  every  month  afterward,  before 
lecture  or  sermon,  read  the  Common  Prayer 
and  service,  under  pain  of  being  disabled  to 
preach  ;  and  if  he  preach  while  so  disaliled,  to 
suffer  three  months'  imprisonment  for  every  of- 
fence. 

"  The  several  laws  and  statutes  formerly 
made  for  uniformity  of  prayer,  &c.,  shall  be  in 
force  fiir  confirming  the  present  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  and  shall  be  applied  for  punishing 
all  offences  contrary  to  the  said  laws,  with  re- 
lation to  the  said  book,  and  no  other. 

"  A  true  printed  copy  of  the  said  book  is  to 
be  provided  in  every  parish  church,  chapel,  col- 
lege, and  hall,  at  the  cost  and  charge  of  the 
parishioners  or  society,  before  the  feast  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  on  pain  of  forfeiting  three  pounds 
a  month  for  so  long  as  they  shall  be  unprovided 
of  it."* 

It  was  certainly  unreasonable  in  the  Legisla- 
ture to  limit  the  time  of  subscription  to  so  short 
a  period. t  it  being  next  to  impossible  that  the 
clergy  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  should  read 
and  examine  the  alterations  within  that  time. 
The  dean  and  prebendaries  of  Peterborough  de- 
clared that  they  could  not  obtain  copies  before 
August  17,  the  Sunday  immediately  preceding 
the  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew ;  so  that  all  the 
members  of  that  cathedral  did  not  and  could 
not  read  the  service  in  manner  and  form  as  the 
act  directs,  and  therefore  they  were  obliged  to 
have  recourse  to  the  favour  of  their  ordinary  to 

*  "  The  Act  of  Uniformity  and  the  Corporation 
Act,"  Mr.  Gough  observes,  "did  not  in  themselves 
materially  ati'ect  the  Quakeis,  who  aspired  to  no  pla- 
ces of  honour  or  profit,  and  who  testified  against 
preaching  for  hire,  and  sought  for  no  more  than  a 
toleration  and  protection  in  their  religious  and  civil 
rights,  to  lead  a  quiet  and  peaceable  life  in  all  god- 
liness and  honesty  ;  yet  the  Corporation  Act  in  its 
consequences  did  affect  them,  by  filling  the  city  and 
country  with  persecuting  magistrates." — History  of 
the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p.  46!). — Ed. 

t  Dr.  Grey  argues  that  this  objection  is  taken  off 
by  a  clause  e.'^empting  from  the  penalties  of  the  act 
those  who  were  prevented  subscribing  within  the 
limited  time  by  some  lawful  impediment  allowed 
and  approved  by  the  ordinary  of  the  place,  and  com- 
plying with  its  requisition  within  a  month  after  such 
impediment  was  removed  ;  and  the  doctor  adds, 
that,  in  pursuance  of  this  clause,  Dr.  Laney,  the 
Bishop  of  Peterborough,  dispensed  with  the  dean 
and  chapter  of  that  church.  He  farther  alleges  a 
public  advertisement  given  in  London,  6th  of  Au- 
gust, 1GG2,  declaring  that  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  was  then  perfectly  and  e.xactly  printed,  and 
books  in  folio  were  provided  for  all  churches  and 
chapels  in  the  kingdom ;  which  left  a  space  of  eigh- 
teen days  for  conveying  them  through  the  country. 
But  the  doctor  did  not  calculate  how  many  of  these 
days  would  be  run  out  before  this  notice  had  circu- 
lated through  the  nation,  and  had  reached  the  remo- 
ter parts  and  country  parishes  lying  at  a  distance 
from  the  great  post-roads.  Bishop  Burnet  says, 
"  The  vast  number  of  copies,  being  many  thousands, 
that  were  to  be  wrought  oft" for  all  the  parish  church- 
es of  England,  made  the  impression  go  on  so  slowly 
that  there  were  few  books  set  out  to  sale  when  the 
day  came." — Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  269.  Examination, 
vol.  i.,  p.  420-423 ;  and  vol.  lii.,  p.  322,  323.— Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


241 


dispense  with  their  default ;  however,  their 
piefeinients  were  then  legally  furfeited,  as  ap- 
pears hy  the  act  of  the  I5ui  of  Charles  II.,  cap. 
vi.,  eniitled  "  An  Act  for  the  Relief  of  such  as,  by 
Sickness  or  other  Impediments,  were  disabled 
from  subscribing  the  Declaration  of  the  Act  of 
Unilbrmity  ;"  which  says,  that  those  who  did 
not  subscribe  within  the  time  limited  were  ut- 
terly disabled,  and  ipso  fac/o  deprived,  and  their 
benefices  void,  as  if  they  were  naturally  dead. 
And  ii  this  was  the  case  at  Peterborough,  what 
must  be  the  condition  of  the  clergy  in  the  more 
noi'thern  counties'!  In  fact,  there  was  not  one 
divine  in  ten,  that  lived  at  any  considerable 
distance  from  London,  who  did  peruse  it  with- 
in that  time  ;  but  the  matter  was  driven  on 
with  so  much  precipitancy,  says  Bishop  Bur- 
net,* that  it  seems  implied  that  the  clergy 
should  subscribe  implicitly  to  a  book  they  had 
never  seen  ;  and  this  was  done  by  too  many, 
as  by  the  bishops  themselves  confessed. 

Tlie  terms  of  conformity  now  were, 

(1.)  Reordination,  if  they  had  not  been  Epis- 
<;opally  ordained  before! 

(2.)  A  declaration  of  their  unfeigned  assent 
and  consent  to  all  and  everything  prescribed 
and  contained  in  "  The  Book  of  C/ommon  Pray- 
er, and  Administration  of  Sacraments,  and  other 
Kites  and  Ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England, 
together  with  the  Psalter,"  and  the  form  and 
manner  of  making,  ordaining,  and  consecra- 
ting of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons. 

(3.)  To  take  the  oath  of  canonical  obedience. 

(4.)  To  abjure  the  solemn  League  and  Cove- 
rant,  which  many  conscientious  ministers  could 
not  disentangle  themselves  from. 

(5.)  To  abjure  the  lawfulness  of  taking  arms 
against  the  king,  or  any  commissioned  by  him, 
on  any  pretence  whatsoever. 

It  appears  from  hence,  that  the  terms  of  con- 
formity were  higher  than  before  the  civil  wars, 
and  the  Common  Prayer  Book  more  exception- 
able ;  for,  instead  of  striking  out  the  Apocry- 
phal lessons,  more  were  inserted,  as  the  story 
of  Bel  and  the  Dragon ;  and  some  new  holydays 
were  added,  as  St.  Barnabas,  and  the  conver- 
sion of  St.  Paul ;  a  few  alterations  and  new 
collects  were  made  by  the  bishops  themselves, 
but  care  was  taken,  says  Burnet, t  that  nothing 
should  be  altered  as  was  moved  by  the  Pres- 
byterians. The  validity  of  Presbyterian  ordi- 
nation was  renounced,  by  which  the  ministra- 
tions of  the  foreign  churches  were  disowned. 
Lecturers  and  schoolmasters  were  put  upon 
the  same  foot  with  incumbents  as  to  oaths  and 
subscriptions.  A  new  declaration  was  invent- 
ed, which  none  who  understood  the  Constitu- 
tion of  England  could  safely  subscribe  ;  and  to 
terrify  the  clergy  into  a  compliance,  no  settled 
provision  was  made  lor  those  who  should  be 
deprived  of  their  livings,  but  all  were  referred 
to  the  royal  clemency. i^    A  seventy,  says  Bish- 


*  Page  269. 

+  It  IS  not  only  an  absurdity,  but  a  profane  play- 
ing with  holy  things,  for  a  man  to  profess  to  be 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  take  upon  hiin  the  of- 
lice  of  deacon,  who  is  conscious  that  he  is  already 
in  a  higher  and  nobler  office.  And  it  is  another  ab- 
surdity to  ordain  a  man  to  the  ollice  of  a  deacon, 
who  is  never  intended  to  do  the  work  of  a  deacon, 
serving  tables,  hut  the  work  of  a  bishop,  to  teach  and 
watch  over  souls. — C.  t  Page  267. 

<)  This  was  done  by  a  proviso,  drawn  up  by  the 

Vol.  II.— H  h 


op  Burnet,  neither  practised  by  Queen  Eliza- 
beth in  enacting  the  liturgy,  nor  by  Cromwell 
in  ejecting  the  Royalists  ;  in  both  which  a  fifth 
of  tlie  benefice  was  reserved  for  their  subsist- 
ence. 

Mr.  Rapin  has  several  remarks  on  this  act  ; 
if  we  compare  it  with  the  king's  declaration 
from  Breda,  says  he,*  it  will  easily  be  seen  what 
care  the  ministers  about  the  king,  who  were  the 
real  authors  or  promoters  of  this  act,  had  for 
his  honour  and  promise ;  though  some,  there- 
fore, may  look  upon  this  act  as  the  great  sup- 
port and  bulwark  of  the  Church,  others,  no  less 
attached  to  its  interests,  will  perhaps  look  upon 
it  as  her  disgrace  and  scandal.  His  second  re- 
mark is,  for  the  reader  to  take  notice  of  the 
amount  of  the  promises  made  to  the  Presbyte- 
rians by  the  king's  party,  upon  the  assurance 
of  which  they  had  so  cheerfully  laboured  for  his 
restoration,  and  followed  the  directions  trans- 
mitted by  his  friends.  His  third  remark  is,  that 
by  an  artifice,  the  most  gross  conspiracies  were 
invented,  which  had  no  manner  of  reality  ;  or 
supposing  they  had,  could  no  ways  be  charged 
on  the  Presbyterians,  who  were  not  to  answer 
for  the  crimes  of  other  sects. 

On  the  other  hand.  Bishop  Kennet  says,+ 
"  The  world  has  reason  to  admire,  not  only  the 
wisdom  of  this  act,  but  even  the  moderation  of 
it,  as  being  effectually  made  for  ministerial  con- 
formity alone,  and  leaving  the  people  unable  to 
complain  of  any  imposition.  And  it  would  cer- 
tainly have  had  the  desired  and  most  happy  ef- 
fect, of  unity  and  peace,"  says  his  lordship,  "if 
the  government  had  been  in  earnest  in  the  exe- 
cution of  it."  Must  the  blessings  of  imity  and 
peace,  then,  be  built  on  the  foundation  of  perse- 
cution, plunder,  perfidy,  and  the  wastes  of  con- 
science !  If  his  majesty's  declaration  concern- 
ing ecclesiastical  affairs  breathed  the  spirit  of 
true  wisdom  and  charity,  and  ought  to  stand  for 
a  pattern  to  posterity,  whenever  they  are  dis- 
posed to  heal  the  breaches  of  the  Church,  as 
the  bishop  has  elsewhere  declared, t  where  could 
be  the  wisdom  and  moderation  of  this  act,  which 
turned  out  two  thousand  ministers  into  the 
world  to  beg  their  bread  upon  such  severe 
terms'!  And  whereas  the  bishop  says  the  peo- 
ple had  no  reason  to  complain  of  imposition, 
was  it  no  hardship  to  be  obliged  to  go  to  church, 
and  join  in  a  form  of  worship  that  went  against 
their  consciences  ■!  Does  not  the  act  revive 
and  confirm  all  the  penal  laws  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  King  James,  in  these  words  :  "Be  it 
farther  enacted,  that  the  several  good  laws  and 
statutes  of  this  realm,  which  have  been  former- 
ly made,  and  are  now  in  force  for  the  uniformity 
of  prayers  and  administration  of  the  sacraments 
within  this  realm  of  England  and  places  afore- 
said, shall  stand  in  full  force  and  strength  to  all 


Lords,  "that  such  persons  as  have  been  put  out  of 
their  livings  by  virtue  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  may 
have  such  allowances  out  of  their  livings  for  their 
subsistence  as  his  majesty  shall  think  lit." — Grey's 
Ewamiiialion,  vol.  i.,  p.  -123.  A  feeble,  inefficient 
proviso,  permitting  the  king  to  be  kind,  but  leaving 
it  to  his  option  to  be  unjust  and  cruel ;  tantalizing 
distress,  rather  than  relieving  it. — En. 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  629,  folio. 

t  The  references  are,  I  apprehend,  to  the  bishop's 
Complete  History.  There  is  a  passage  correspond- 
ent to  the  first  in  the  Chronicle,  p.  712. — £d. 

X  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  246. 


242 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


intents  and  purposes  whatsoever,  and  shall  be 
applied,  practised,  and  he  put  in  use,  for  the 
punishing  all  offences  contrary  to  ihe  said  law." 
Surely  this  must  affect  the  laity!  it  is  more  to 
be  admired,  in  my  opinion,  that  the  clergy  of 
England,  and  all  officers,  both  civil  and  milita- 
ry, could  subscribe  a  declaration  which  gave  up 
the  whole  Constitution  into  the  hands  of  an  ar- 
bitrary prince  ;  for,  if  the  king  had  abolished 
the  use  of  Parliaments,  and  coniLnanded  his  sub- 
jects to  embrace  the  popish  religion,  which  way 
could  they  have  relieved  themselves,  when  they 
had  sworn  that  it  was  not  lawful  to  take  up 
arms  against  the  king,  or  any  commissioned  by 
him,  on  any  pretence  whatsoever,  on  pain  of 
high  treason  1  It  is  hard  to  reconcile  this  doc- 
trine with  the  revolution  of  King  William  and 
Queen  Mary.  I  shall  only  add,  that  many  of 
the  most  learned  and  judicious  divines  of  the 
Church  have  wished,  for  their  own  sakes,  that 
the  act  might  be  amended  and  altered. 

Mr.  Collyer,  a  nonjuring  clergyman,  who  suf- 
fered for  his  principles,  speaks  more  like  a  gen- 
tleman and  a  Christian  than  the  bishop :  "  The 
misfortune  of  the  Presbyterians,"  says  he,  "can- 
not be  remembered  without  regret ;  those  who 
quit  their  interest  are  certainly  in  earnest,  and 
deserve  a  charitable  construction.  Mistakes  in 
religion  are  to  be  tenderly  used,  and  conscience 
ought  to  be  pitied  when  it  cannot  be  relieved." 

It  is  fit  the  authors  and  promoters  of  this 
memorable  act,  which  broke  the  peace  of  the 
Church  and  established  a  separation,  should 
stand  upon  record.  Among  these  the  Earl  of 
Clarendon  deserves  the  first  place,  who  was 
once  for  moderate  measures,  but  afterward  al- 
tered his  conduct,  says  Bishop  Burnet,-  out  of 
respect  to  bishops.  "  The  rhetoric  and  interest 
of  this  great  minister,"  says  Collyer.t  "might 
possibly  make  an  impression  upon  both  houses, 
and  occasion  the  passing  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
m  the  condition  it  now  stands."  He  entertain- 
ed the  Presbyterians  with  hopes,  while  he  was 
cutting  away  the  ground  from  under  their  feet. 
Strange !  that  one  and  the  same  hand  could, 
consistently  with  conscience  and  honour,  draw 
up  the  king's  declaration  from  Breda,  and  his 
late  declaration  concerning  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
and  this  severe  Act  of  Uuiformity. 

Next  to  Chancellor  Hyde  was  Dr.  Sheldon, 
bishop  of  London,  and  afterward  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  of  whom  notice  has  been  already 
taken  ;  he  was  a  facetious  man,  says  Bur- 
net.t  but  of  no  great  religion.  When  the  Earl 
of  Manchester  told  the  king  he  was  afraid  the 
terms  of  conformity  were  so  hard  that  many 
ministers  would  not  comply,  the  bishop  replied 
he  was  afraid  they  would,  but  now  we  know 
their  minds,  says  he,  we  will  make  them  all 
knaves  if  they  conform.  And  when  Dr.  Allen 
said,  "  It  is  pity  the  door  is  so  strait,"  he  an- 
swered, "  It  is  no  pity  at  all ;  if  we  had  thought 
so  many  of  them  would  have  conformed,  we 
would  have  made  it  straiten"^     And  Mr.  Bax- 


♦  Page  270.  +  Page  88.  t  Page  257. 

^  It  reflects  some  honour  on  the  name  of  Bishop 
Saunderson,  that  he  spoke  of  this  act  in  a  milder 
strain.  Tea  worthy  clergyman  who  was  with  him  the 
evening  after  the  king  passed  it,  he  said  "that  more 
was  imposed  on  ministers  than  he  wished  had  been." 
On  passing  the  act,  he  sent  to  Mr.  Matthew  Sylves- 
ter, whose  living  was  in  his  diocess,  and  treating  him 


ter  adds,  that  as  far  as  he  could  perceive,  it  was 
by  some  designed  it  should  be  so. 

Next  to  Bishop  Sheldon  was  Bishop  Morley, 
a  pious  man,  says  Burnet,  but  extremely  pas- 
sionate, and  very  obstinate.  Morley  was  thought 
the  honester  man,  but  Sheldon  the  abler  states- 
man. To  these  may  be  added,  Dr.  Gunning, 
bishop  of  Ely  ;  Henchman,  of  London  ;  Dolbert, 
of  Rochester ;  Stern,  of  York  ;  Dr.  Pierce, 
Sparrow,  and  Barwick,  all  creatures  of  the 
court,  and  tools  of  the  prerogative. 

But  neither  the  courtiers  nor  bishops  could 
have  accomplished  their  designs  without  tam- 
pering with  the  Parliament.  Care  was  there- 
fore taken  of  the  best  speakers,  and  men  of  in- 
fluence among  the  Commons.  The  Parliament 
was  undoubtedly  actuated  by  a  spirit  of  re- 
venge, says  llapin,*  and  being  of  principles  di- 
rectly opposite  to  the  Presbyterians,  who  were 
for  reducing  the  royal  power  within  certain  liin- 
its,  they  resolved  to  put  it  out  of  their  power 
forever  to  restrain  the  prerogative,  or  altar  the 
government  of  the  Church  ;  and  the  king,  being 
in  continual  want  of  money,  was  content  ta 
sacrifice  the  Presbyterians  for  a  large  supply  of 
the  nation's  money,  especially  when  he  knew 
he  was  serving  the  cause  of  popery  at  the  same 
time,  by  making  way  for  a  general  toleration. 

The  Presbyterian  ministers  had  only  three 
months  to  consider  what  to  do  with  themselves 
and  their  families.  There  were  several  con- 
sultations both  in  city  and  country  to  know 
each  other's  sentiments  ;  and  it  happened  here, 
as  it  did  afterward  about  taking  the  oaths  to 
King  William  and  Queen  Mary  ;  some,  who 
persuaded  their  brethren  to  dissent,  complied 
themselves,  and  got  the  others'  livings.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  they  had  all  the  same  scru- 
ples. Bishop  Kennet  says.t  that  renouncing 
the  Covenant  was  the  greatest  obstacle  of  con- 
formity to  the  Presbyterians.  But  his  lordship 
is  mistaken  ;  for  if  abjuring  the  Covenant  had 
been  omitted,  they  could  not  have  taken  the 
corporation  oath.  Some  could  not  in  con- 
science comply  with  the  very  form  of  the  hie- 
rarchy. Great  numbers  scrupled  the  business 
of  reordination,  which  implied  a  renouncing  the 
validity  of  their  former  ministrations.  But  that 
which  the  Dissenters  of  all  denominations  re- 
fused, was  giving  their  assent  and  consent  to 
all  and  everything  contained  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer.  This  they  apprehended  to  be 
more  than  was  due  to  any  human  composure. 

Mr.  Echard  represents  them  as  under  great 
difficulties  :  "  Some,"  says  he,  "  were  positive 
against  any  compliance,  but  great  numbers 
were  doubtful  and  uncertain,  and  had  great 
struggles  between  the  attractions  of  conscience 
and  honour,  interest  and  humour.  The  act 
was  strictly  penned,  and  pressed  hard  upon  late 
principles  and  practices.  A  continual  inter- 
course of  letters  passed  between  those  in  the 
city  and  the  rest  in  the  countries,  how  to  pro- 


with  great  civility,  earnestly  pressed  him  not  to  quit 
his  living,  and  patiently  heard  him  state  his  difficul- 
ties; and  when  he  found  that  he  could  not  obviate 
them  to  his  satisfaction,  he  lamented  it,  and  at  last 
signified  a  concern  that  some  things  were  carried  so 
high  in  the  ecclesiastical  settlement ;  which,  he  said, 
should  not  have  been  if  he  could  have  prevented  it. 
—  Calamy's  History  of  Hm  Orvn  Life,  vol.  ii.,  p.  Ul, 
MS.  ;  and  Church  and  Dissenters  Compared,  p.  81. 
—Ed.  »  Page  632,  &c.  t  Page  471 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


S13 


ceed  in  this  nice  affair.  Sometimes  the  chief 
of  them  were  for  compliance,  as  I  have  heen 
assured,"  says  he,  "  hy  the  hest  hands,  and  then, 
upon  farther  consideration,  they  changed  their 
minds.  They  were  under  considerahle  tempta- 
tions on  both  sides  :  on  one  side  their  livings 
and  preferments  were  no  small  inducement  to- 
wards their  compliance  ;  on  the  oilier  side,  be- 
sides their  consciences,  they  were  much  en- 
couraged by  the  greatness  of  tiicir  numbers, 
and  were  made  to  believe,  that  if  they  unani- 
mously stood  out,  the  Church  must  come  to 
them,  since  the  people  would  never  bear  so 
shocking  a  change.  Besides,  they  had  great 
expectations  from  several  friends  at  court,  and 
particularly  the  popish  party,  who  gave  them 
great  encouragement,  not  only  by  a  promise  of 
pensions  to  some,  but  also  by  a  toleration,  and 
a  suspension  of  the  act  itself,  which  not  long 
after  was  partly  made  good.  No  doubt  but  the 
jioncomplianco  of  several  proceeded  purely 
from  a  tender  conscience,  and  in  that  case 
ought  not  only  to  be  pitied,  but  rather  applaud- 
ed than  condemned."  Bishop  Burnet  adds, 
that  the  leaders  of  the  Presbyterian  party  took 
great  pains  to  have  them  all  stick  together  : 
they  said  that  if  great  numbers  stood  out,  it  was 
more  likely  to  produce  new  laws  in  their  fa- 
vour ;  so  it  was  thought,  says  his  lordship,  that 
many  went  out  in  the  crowd  to  keep  their  friends 
company. 

It  is  possible  some  noblemen,  and  others  who 
were  in  the  interest  of  the  Presbyterians,  might 
advise  them  to  adhere  to  each  other ;  but  it  is 
hardly  credible  that  men  of  abilities  and  good 
sense  should  throw  up  their  livings,  sacrifice 
their  usefulness,  and  beggar  their  families,  for 
the  sake  of  good  company. 

Some  of  the  Nonconformists  quitted  their 
stations  in  the  Church  before  the  24th  of  Au- 
gust, as  Mr.  Baxter  and  others,  with  an  intent 
to  let  all  the  ministers  in  England  know  their 
resolution  beforehand.*  Others  about  London 
preached  their  farewell  sermons  the  Sunday 
before  Bartholomew  Day ;  several  of  which 
were  afterward  collected  into  a  volume,  and 
printed  with  their  effigies  in  the  title-page ;  as 
the  Reverend  Dr.  Manton,  Bates,  Jaconib,  Cal- 
amy,  Matth.  Mead,  and  others.  The  like  was 
done  in  several  counties  of  England  ;  and  such 
a  passionate  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  their  people 
xan  through  their  sermons  as  dissolved  their  au- 
diences into  tears. 

At  length  the  fatal  St.  Bartholomew  came, 
when  about  two  thousand  relinquished  their 
preferments  in  the  Church,  or  refused  to  accept 
of  any  upon  the  terms  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ; 
an  example  hardly  to  be  paralleled  in  the  Chris- 
tian world  !  It  raised  a  grievous  cry  over  the 
nation,  for  here  were  many  men  much  valued, 
says  Bishop  Burnet,!  and  distinguished  by  their 
abilities  and  zeal,  now  cast  out  ignominiously, 
reduced  to  great  poverty,  provoked  by  such 
spiteful  usage,  and  cast  upon  those  popular  prac- 
tices, which  both  their  principles  and  their  cir- 
cumstances seemed  to  justify,  of  forming  separ- 
ate congregations,  and  of  diverting  men  from 
the  public  worship.  This  begot  esteem,  and 
raised  compassion,  as  having  a  fair  appearance 
of  suffering  persecution  for  conscience.      Mr. 


*  Ba.\ter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  384. 
t  Page  270, 2a0. 


Locke  calls  them  worthy,  learned,  pious,  orthodox 
divines,  who  did  not  throw  themselves  out  of 
service,  but  were  forcibly  ejected.  Nor  were 
they  cast  out  because  there  was  a  supply  of 
ministers  to  carry  on  the  work  of  religion,  for 
there  was  room  for  the  employment  of  more 
hands,  if  they  were  to  be  found. 

At  the  reformation  from  popery  by  Queen 
Elizabeth,  there  were  not  above  two  hundred 
deprived  of  their  livings  ;  besides,  they  were 
treated  with  great  mildness,  and  had  some  al- 
lowances out  of  their  livings  ;  whereas  these 
were  teated  with  the  utmost  severity,  and  cast 
entirely  upon  Providence  for  a  supply.  They 
were  driven  from  their  houses,  from  the  society 
of  their  friends,  and,  what  was  yet  more  affect- 
ing, from  all  their  usefulness,  though  they  had 
merited  much  from  the  king,  and  laboured  in- 
defatigably  for  his  restoration.  The  former 
were  men  of  another  faith,  and  owned  a  foreign 
head  of  the  Church  ;  whereas  these  were  of 
the  same  faith  with  the  Established  Church,  and 
differed  only  about  rites  and  ceremonies.  It 
had  been  said  that  greater  numbers  were  eject- 
ed in  the  late  times  upon  the  foot  of  the  Cove- 
nant ;*  but  if  this  were  true,  it  was  in  a  time 
of  vi'ar,  when  the  civil  and  religious  differences 
between  the  king  and  Parliament  were  so  inter- 
mixed that  it  was  impossible  to  separate  one 
from  the  other ;  the  whole  nation  was  in  con- 
fusion, and  those  who  suffered  by  the  Covenant, 
suffered  more  for  their  loyalty  than  their  reli- 
gion ;  for  when  the  war  was  ended,  the  Cove- 
nant was  relaxed,  and  such  as  would  live  peace- 
ably returned  to  their  vacant  cures,  or  were  ad- 
mitted to  others. 

Besides,  the  ingratitude  of  the  High-church- 
men upon  this  occasion  ought  to  be  taken  no- 
tice of  "  Who  can  answer  for  the  violence 
and  injustice  of  actions  in  a  civil  warl"  says  a 
divine  of  the  Church  of  England.  "  Those  suf- 
ferings were  in  a  time  of  general  calamity,  but 
these  were  ejected  not  only  in  a  time  of  peace, 
but  a  time  of  joy  to  all  the  land,  and  after  an 
act  of  oblivion,  when  all  pretended  to  be  recon- 
ciled and  made  friends,  and  to  whose  common 
rejoicings  these  suffering  ministers  had  contrib- 
uted their  earnest  prayers  and  great  endeav- 
ours."t      Another  divine  of  the  same  church 


*  Dr.  Grey  asserts  this  ;  and  there  was  a  laboured 
attempt  by  Dr.  Walker  to  prove  that  the  clergy 
ejected  or  suffering  in  the  civil  wars  exceeded  in 
numbers  those  whom  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ejected 
or  silenced  ;  and  that  the  sufferings  of  the  termer 
surpassed  in  nature  and  severity  those  of  the  latter. 
The  publication,  which  endeavoured  to  establish 
these  points,  was  a  folio,  in  small  print,  entitled  "  An 
Attempt  towards  recoveringan  Account  of  the  Num- 
bers and  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy  of  the  Churcfl  of 
England,  Heads  of  Colleges,  Fellows,  Scholars,  &c., 
who  were  sequestered,  harassed,  &c.,  in  the  late 
Times  of  the  Grand  Rebellion  :  occasioned  by  the 
ninth  Chapter  (now  the  second  volume)  of  Dr.  Cala- 
my's  Abridgment  of  the  Life  of  Mr.  Ba.xter;  together 
with  an  E.xamination  of  that  Chapter."  The  public 
was  at  first  amused  with  so  large  a  work,  but  by  de- 
grees began  to  speak  freely  of  it  in  conversation, 
where  it  had  the  fate  of  other  performances.  It  rtv 
ceived  from  the  press  two  able  replies :  one  by  Mr. 
John  VVither.s,  a  judicious  and  worthy  dissenting 
minister  in  Exeter  ;  the  other  by  Dr.  Calamy,  in  a 
tract  entitled  -'The  Church  and  Dissenters  Com- 
pared as  to  Persecution."  On  this  subject  wc  v,ou!d 
refer  the  reader  back  to  Mr.  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  487. — 
Ed.  t  Couf.  Plea  for  Nonconformity,  p.  12, 13. 


244 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


writes,  "I  must  own,  that  in  my  judgment, 
however,  both  sides  have  been  excessively  to 
blame  ;  yet,  that  the  severities  used  by  the 
Church  to  the  Dissenters  are  less  excusable 
than  those  used  by  the  Dissenters  to  the  Church. 
My  reason  is,  liiai  the  former  were  used  in  times 
of  peace  and  a  settled  government,  whereas  the 
latter  weie  afilicted  in  a  time  of  tumult  and  con- 
fusion ;  so  that  the  plunderings  and  ravagings 
endured  by  the  church  ministers  were  owing 
(many  of  them,  at  least)  to  the  rudeness  of  the 
soldiers  and  the  chances  of  war  ;  they  were 
plundered,  not  because  they  were  confortnists, 
but  Cavaliers,  and  of  the  king's  party.  The  al- 
lowing of  the  sequestered  ministers  a  fifth  part 
of  their  livings  was  a  Christian  act,*  and  what, 
I  confess,  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  seen 
imitated  at  the  Restoration.  But  no  mercy  was 
to  be  shown  to  these  unhappy  sufferers,  though 
it  was  impossible  on  a  sudden  to  fill  up  the  gap 
that  was  made  by  their  removal." 

Bishop  Burnet  says  the  old  clergy,  now  much 
enriched,  were  despised,  but  the  young  clergy 
wlio  came  from  the  imiversity  did  good  service. 
But,  though  all  the  striplings  in  botli  universi- 
ties were  employed,  a  great  many  poor  livings 
in  the  country  had  no  incumbents  lor  a  consid- 
erable time.  The  author  of  The  Five  Groans 
of  the  Church,  a  very  strict  conformist,  coin- 
plains,  with  great  warmth,  of  ai)ove  three  thou- 
sand ministers  admitted  into  the  Church,  who 
were  unfit  to  teach  because  of  their  youth  ;  of 
fifteen  hundred  debauched  men  ordained  ;  of 
the  ordination  of  many  illiterate  men  ;  of  one 
thousand  three  hundred  forty-two  factious  min- 
isters, a  little  before  ordained  ;  and  that,  of 
twelve  thousand  church  livings,  or  thereabout, 
tliree  thousand  or  more  being  impropriate,  and 
four  thousand  one  hundred  sixty-five  sinecures, 
there  was  but  a  poor  remainder  left  for  a  pain- 
ful and  honest  ministry. 

Su(-h  were  the  spoils  of  uniformity  !  and, 
though  Mr.  Echard  says  there  was  more  sense 
and  sound  doctrine  preached  in  (me  twelve- 
month after  the  Presbyterian  ministers  were 
turned  out  than  in  nigh  twenty  years  before  ; 
yet  another  church  writer,  who  knew  them  bet- 
ter, calls  the  young  clergy  '-florid  and  genteel 
preachers,  of  a  more  roinanlic  than  true  ina- 
jestic  and  divine  style,  who  tickled  and  captiva- 
ted people  at  first,  but  did  little  service  to  the 
souls  of  men,  and  in  process  of  time  had  fewer 
admirers  and  friends  than  at  first."  He  adds, 
that  "  in  the  late  times  they  all  spake  the  same 


*  Dr.  Grey  quotes  here,  from  Dr.  Fuller  (Church 
Hist.,  book  xi.,  p.  230).  a  long  detail  of  the  evasions 
on  winch  many  of  the  sequestered  clergy  were  re- 
fused their  fifths.  Dr.  Walker  has  also  complained, 
that  scarcely  cue  in  ten  ever  had  them  without  troub- 
le, and  to  the  full  value.  "  This  is  a  case  m  which," 
as  Dr.  Calamy  observes,  "  it  is  no  easy  thing  to  make 
calculation."  Supposing  it  to  have  been  paid  ever 
60  indififerenlly,  it  was  certainly  a  better  provision 
than  was  made  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  for  those 
who  were  ejected  and  silenced.  It  alfurded  the  suf- 
ferers, to  a  degree,  a  legal  remedy  for  llieir  calami- 
ties ;  and  would  doubtless,  in  many  instances,  be  effi- 
cient. Dr.  Fuller  speaks  of  it  as  an  instance  of  '•  the 
pitiful  and  pious  intentions  of  Parhameut ;  which, 
no  doubt,  desired  to  be  like  the  best  of  beings,  who 
as  closely  appheth  his  lenitive  as  corrosive  plasters, 
and  that  his  mercy  may  take  as  true  eflect  as  his  jus- 
tice." But  this  matter  has  been  before  stated  by  Mr. 
NeaL,  voL  i.,  p.  489.— Ed. 


things,  and  carried  on  the  same  work,  which 
was  the  instruction,  conversion,  consolation, 
and  edificration  of  souls  ;  not  biting  one  another, 
nor  grudging  at  one  another.  I  never  heard," 
says  he,  "  in  many  hundreds  of  sermons,  diver- 
sities of  opinions  either  set  up  by  some  or  pull- 
ed down  by  others  ;  we  heard,  indeed,  that 
some  were  Independents,  others  Presbyterians, 
and  others  Episcopal,  but  we  heard  no  such 
things  from  the  pulpits.  Some  men  think  that 
the  preaching  of  those  days  was  mere  fanati- 
cism, blessing  the  usurpation,  railing  against 
bishops,  or  deifying  Calvin  with  an  infallibility  ; 
but  Calvin  was  preached  no  farther  than  Christ 
spake  in  him  :  '  Non  Calvinum  sed  Christum 
prajdicabant.'  "* 

The  truth  of  this  observation  will  appear  far- 
ther, by  mentioning  the  names  of  some  of  those- 
ministers,  whose  learning  and  piety  were  uni- 
versally acknowledged,  and  who  were  capable 
of  preaching  and  writing  as  good  sense,  and  to 
as  good  purpose,  as  most  of  their  successors ; 
as  Dr.  Gilpin,  Bates,  Manton,  Jacomb,  Owen, 
Goodwin,  Collins,  Conant,  Grew,  Burgess,  and 
Annesly ;  Mr.  Bowles,  Baxter,  Claikson,  Wood- 
bridge,  Newcomen,  Calainy,  Jackson.  Pool,  Ca- 
ryl, Charnock,  Gouge,  Jenkins,  Gale,  Corbet, 
Cradock,  Matth.  Mead,  Howe,  Kentish,  Alsop, 
Vincent,  Greenhiil,  S.  Clark,  Flavel,  Phil.  Hen- 
ry, and  others  of  like  character,  "  whom  I  have 
heard  vilified,  and  represented  according  to  the 
fancies,  passions,  or  interests  of  men,"  says  a 
learned  Conformist ;  "  but  I  dare  not  but  be  just 
to  them,  as  to  eminent  professors  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  think  that  common  Christianity 
has  suffered  much  by  their  silencing  and  dis- 
paragement. A  great  part  of  the  world  is  made 
to  believe  that  the  Nonconformists  are  not  fit  to 
be  eimployed  in  the  Church,  nor  trusted  by  the 
State  ;  but  what  they  are  God  knows,  and  the 
world  may  know,  if  they  please  to  consult  their 
writings.  They  are  not,  to  them  that  know 
them,  what  they  are  reported  by  them  that 
know  them  not.  I  know  them  sufficiently  to 
make  me  bewail  their  condition,  and  the  vast 
damage  to  thousands  of  souls  by  their  exclu- 
sion, not  only  in  the  outskirts,  but  in  the  very 
heart  of  England,  who  are  committed  in  many 
parts  to  them  that  neither  can  nor  will  promote 
their  everlasting  interests."!  Upon  the  whole, 
though  I  do  not  pretend  that  all  the  ejected 
ministers  were  equally  learned,  pious, J  and  de- 
serving, yet,  upon  a  calm  and  sedate  view  of 
things,  I  cannot  help  concluding  that,  in  the 
main,  they  were  a  body  of  as  eminent  confes- 
sors for  truth  and  liberty  as  this  or  any  other 
nation  has  produced. 

Many  complied  with  the  terms  of  conformity, 
not  because  they  approved  them,  but  for  the 
sake  of  their  families,  or  because  they  were  un- 
willing to  be  buried  in  silence,  as  Bishop  Rey- 
nolds, Wilkins,  Hopkins,  Fowler,  &c.  Several 
young  students,  who  were  designed  for  the  pul- 

*  Conformist  Plea,  part  i.,  in  pref ,  and  p.  53. 

t  Conform.  Plea,  in  pref,  part  i. 

t  To  suppose  that  more  than  two  thousand  men 
could  be  equal  in  worth  and  piety,  would  be  to  ad- 
mit an  impossibility  :  but  it  deserves  notice,  that 
Bishop  Kennel  is  so  candid  as  to  linut  the  charge  of 
scandalous  lives  and  characters,  or  of  a  conduct 
which  was,  at  least,  no  credit  to  the  cause  for  which 
they  suffered,  to  some  few  only. — Grey's  Examina- 
tion, p.  332. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


pit,  applied  themselves  to  law  or  physic,  or  di- 
verted to  some  secular  employment.  Bisliop 
Kennet,  in  order  to  extenuate  their  calamities,* 
has  taken  pains  to  point  out  the  favours  the 
ejected  ministers  received  from  private  per- 
sons.! "  Some,"  says  he,  "  found  friends  among 
the  nobility  and  gentry,  who  relieved  their  ne- 
cessities ;  some  were  taken  as  chaplains  into 
good  families,  or  officiated  in  hospitals,  prisons, 
or  chapels  of  ease  ;  some  became  tutors  or 
schoolmasters  ;  some  who  went  beyond  sea 
were  well  received  in  foreign  parts ;  some  be- 
came eminent  physicians  and  lawyers  ;  some 
had  good  estates  of  their  own,  and  others  mar- 
ried great  fortunes  ;"  but  how  does  this  exten- 
uate the  guilt  of  the  Church  or  Legislature,  who 
■would  have  deprived  them  of  these  retreats  if  it 
had  been  in  their  power  1  The  bishop  adds, 
"  Therefore  we  do  ill  to  charge  the  Church 
with  persecution,  when  the  laws  were  made  by 
the  civil  government  with  a  view  to  the  peace 
and  safety  of  the  State,  rather  than  to  any  hon- 
our or  interest  of  the  Church."  It  seems,  there- 
fore, the  load  of  persecution  must  lie  wholly 
upon  the  Legislature  ;  but  had  the  bishops  and 
clergy  no  hand  in  this  affair  1  did  they  not  push 
the  civil  government  upon  these  extremities, 
and  not  only  conc;:r,  but  prosecute,  the  penal 
laws  with  unrelenting  rigour  throughout  the 
greatest  part  of  this  reign!  The  Cliurch  and 
State  are  said  lo  be  so  incorporated  as  to  make 
but  one  constitution,  and  the  penal  laws  are 
shifted  from  one  to  the  other  till  they  are  quite 
lost ;  the  Church  cannot  be  charged  with  perse- 
cution, because  it  makes  no  laws  ;  nor  can  the 
civil  government  be  charged  with  it,  because  it 
makes  them  not  against  conscience,  but  with  a 
view  to  the  safety  of  the  State.  With  such  idle 
sophisms  are  men  to  be  amused,  when  it  is  to 
cover  a  reproach ! 

Dr.  Bates  says,  "  They  (the  ministers)  fell  a 
sacrifice  to  the  wrath  and  revenge  of  the  old 
clergy,  and  to  the  servile  compliance  of  the 
young  gentry  with  the  court,  and  their  distaste 
of  serious  religion. t  That  this  is  no  rash  im- 
putation upon  the  ruling  clergy  is  evident,"  says 
the  doctor,  "  not  only  from  their  concurrence 
in  passing  these  laws  (for  actions  have  a  lan- 
guage as  convincing  as  those  of  words),  but 
from  Dr.  Sheldon,  their  great  leader,  who  ex- 
pressed his  fears  to  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  lest 
the  Presbyterians  should  comply.  The  act  was 
passed  after  the  king  had  engaged  his  faith  and 
honour,  in  his  declaration  from  Breda,  to  pre- 
serve liberty  of  conscience  inviolable,  which 
promise  opened  the  way  for  his  restoration, 
and  after  the  Royalists  had  given  public  assu- 
rance that  all  former  animosities  should  be  laid 
aside  as  rubbish,  under  the  foundation  of  uni- 
versal concord." 

Sad  were  the  calamities  of  far  the  greater  part 
of  these   unhappy  sufferers,  who,  with  their 


*  Rennet's  Chron.,  p.  888,  &c. 

t  Dr.  Grey  has  given  this  passage  of  Bishop  Ken- 
net  at  length,  which  Mr.  Neal  has  here  noticed.  But 
the  amount  of  the  bishop's  statement,  which  runs 
out  into  thirty-one  particulars,  only  shovv.s  that  some 
men  were  more  equitable  and  kind  than  was  the  Le- 
gislature ;  and  that  they  who  suffered  under  the  oper- 
ation of  an  iniquitous  law,  met  with  relief  from  the 
kind  disposals  of  Divine  Providence. — Ed. 

t  Baxter,  p.  101. 


families,  must  have  perished,  if  private  collec- 
tions in  London,  and  divers  places  in  the  coun- 
try, had  not  been  made  for  their  subsistence.* 
Bishop  Burnet  says,  they  cast  themselves  on 
the  providence  of  God  and  the  charity  of  friends. 
The  reverend  and  pious  Mr.  Thomas  Gouge, 
late  of  St.  Sepulchre's,  was  their  advocate,  who, 
with  two  or  three  of  his  brethren,  made  fre- 
quent application  to  several  worthy  citizens, 
of  whom  they  received  considerable  sums  of 
money  for  some  years,  till  that  charity  was  di- 
verted into  another  channel ;  but,  nevertheless, 
"  many  hundreds  of  them,"  according  to  Mr. 
Baxter,!  "with  their  wives  and  children,  had 
neither  house  nor  bread  ;t  the  people  they  left 
were  not  able  to  relieve  them,  nor  durst  they 
if  they  had  been  able,  because  it  would  have 
been  called  a  maintenance  of  schism  or  faction. 
Many  of  the  ministers,  being  afraid  to  lay  down 
their  ministry  after  they  had  been  ordained  to 
it.  preached  to  such  as  would  hear  them,  in 
fields  and  private  houses,  till  they  were  appre- 
hended and  cast  into  jails,  where  many  of  them 
perished.  The  people  were  no  less  divided  : 
some  conformed,  and  others  were  driven  to  a 
greater  distance  from  the  Church,  and  resolved 
to  abide  by  their  faithful  pastors  at  all  events  : 
they  murmured  at  the  government,  and  called 
the  bishops  and  conforming  clergy  cruel  perse- 
cutors ;  for  which,  and  for  their  frequenting  the 
private  assemblies  of  their  ministers,  they  were 
lined  and  imprisoned,  till  many  families  left 
their  native  country  and  settled  in  the  planta- 
tions." 

The  Presbyterian  ministers,  though  men  of 
gravity  and  far  advanced  in  years,  were  rallied 
in  the  pulpits  under  the  opprobrious  names  of 
Schismatics  and  Fanatics  ;  they  were  exposed 
in  the  playhouse  and  insulted  by  the  mob,  inso- 
much that  they  were  obliged  to  lay  aside  their 
habits  and  walk  in  disguise.  "  Such  magis- 
trates were  put  into  commission  as  executed 
the  penal  laws  with  severity.  InfiJrmers  were 
encouraged  and  rewarded.  It  is  impossible," 
says  the  Conformist  Plea  for  the  Nonconform- 
ist, <5  "to  relate  the  number  of  the  sufferings 
both  of  ministers  and  people  ;  the  great  trials, 
with  hardships  upon  their  persons,  estates,  and 
families,  by  uncomfortable  separations,  disper- 
sions, unsettlements,  and  removes  ;  disgraces, 
reproaches,  imprisonments,  chargeable  jour- 
neys, expenses  in  law,  tedious  sicknesses,  and 
incurable  diseases  ending  in  tieath  ;  great  dis- 
quietments  and  frights  to  the  wives  and  fami- 
lies, and  their  doleful  effects  upon  them.  Their 
congregations  had  enough  to  do,  besides  a  small 
maintenance,  to  help  them  out  of  prisons,  or 
maintain  thein  there.  Though  they  were  as 
frugal  as  possible,  they  could  hardly  live  :  some 
lived  on  little  more  than  brown  bread  and  wa- 


*  Kennet's  Chron.,  p.  838,  192. 

t  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  385. 

i  The  observation  made,  not  long  before  he  died, 
by  the  excellent  Mr.  Philip  Henry,  who  survived 
these  times,  deserves  to  be  mentioned  here.  It  was, 
that  "  though  many  of  the  ejected  ministers  were 
brought  very  low,  had  many  children,  were  greatly 
harassed  by  persecution,  and  their  friends  generally 
poor  and  unable  to  support  them,  yet,  in  all  his  ac- 
quaintance, he  never  knew,  nor  could  remember  to 
have  heard  of,  any  Nonconformist  minister  in  prison 
for  debt."— P.  Henry's  Life,  p.  74,  second  edition. — Ed. 

<J  Part  iv.,  p.  40. 


246 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


ter ;  many  had  but  £8  or  £10  a  year  to  main- 
tain a  fiunily,  so  tliat  a  piece  of  flesh  has  not 
come  to  one  of  their  tables  in  six  weeks'  time  ; 
their  allowance  could  scarcely  afford  them  bread 
and  cheese.  One  went  to  plough  six  days  and 
preached  on  the  Lord's  Day.  Another  was 
forced  to  cut  tobacco  for  a  livelihood.  Tne 
zealous  justices  of  peace  knew  the  calamities 
of  the  ministers,  when  they  issued  out  warrants 
upon  some  of  the  hearers,  because  of  the  pover- 
ty of  the  preachers.  Out  of  respect  to  the  worth 
and  modesty  of  some  of  them,"  says  my  au- 
thor,* "I  forbear  their  names."  Upon  these 
foundations,  and  with  these  triumphs,  was  the 
present  constitution  of  llie  Church  of  England 
restored.  I  shall  make  no  farther  remarks  upon 
it,  but  leave  it  to  the  censure  o(  the  reader. 

Among  the  Presbyterian  divines  who  died 
this  year  was  Mr.  John  Ley,  M.A.,  born  at 
Warwick,  February  4,  1583,  and  educated  in 
Christ  Church,  Oxibrd,  where  he  took  the  de- 
grees in  arts,  and  was  presented  to  the  living 
of  Great  Budworth  in  Cheshire.  He  was  after- 
ward prebendary  of  Chester,  and  sub  dean  and 
clerk  of  the  Convocation  once  or  twice.  In  the 
year  1641  he  took  part  with  the  Parliament, 
was  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  chairman 
of  the  committee  for  examination  of  ministers, 
and  president  of  Sion  College.  In  the  year 
1645  he  succeeded  Dr.  Hyde  in  the  rich  par- 
sonage of  Brightwell,  Berks.  In  1653  he  was 
one  of  the  triers,  and  at  length  obtained  the 
rectory  of  Solyhull,  in  Warwickshire,  but  hav- 
ing broken  a  vein  by  overstraining  himself  in 
speaking,  he  resigned  his  living,  and  retired  to 
Sutton  Colfield,  where  he  died.  May  16,  1662, 
in  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
a  very  learned  person,  well  read  in  the  fathers 
and  councils,  a  popular  preacher,  a  pious  and 
devout  Christian,  and  one  of  the  main  pillars 
(says  Mr.  Woodt)  of  the  Presbyterian  cause. t 

Mr.  Henry  Jeanes,  M.A.,  was  horn  in  Somer- 
setshire about  the  year  1611,  and  educated  in 
New  Inn,  and  afterward  in  Hart  Hall,  Oxon, 
where  he  took  the  degrees  in  arts,  and  entered 
into  holy  orders.  He  was  an  admired  preacher 
in  the  university,  and  was  quickly  preferred  to 
the  rectory  of  Beercrocomb,  and  the  vicarage 
of  Kingston  in  Somersetshire.  In  the  year 
1641  he  closed  with  the  Parliament,  and  became 
rector  of  Chedsoy,  near  Bridgewater.  Here  he 
took  into  his  family  several  young  persons,  and 
instructed  them  in  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences  ; 
he  was  a  most  excellent  philosopher,  a  noted 
metaphysician,  and  well  versed  in  polemical  di- 
vinity. With  all  these  qualifications  (says  Mr. 
Woodi^i),  he  was  a  contenmer  of  the  world,  gen- 
erous, free-hearted,  jolly,  witty,  and  facetious. 
He  wrote  many  books,ll  and  died  in  the  city  of 
Wells  a  little  before  the  fatal  day  of  St.  IJar- 
tholomew,  and  was  buried  in  the  cathedral 
church  there,  retatis  fifty-two. 

Dr.  Humphrey  Chambers  was  born  in  Somer- 


*  Conformist  Plea,  part  iv..  p.  43. 

f  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  190-4. 

t  Mr.  Loy  was  a  voluminous  writer.  There  are 
tvventy-ninc  pieces  of  his  extant.  His  best  works 
are  on  the  Sabbath,  and  annotations  upon  the  Penta- 
teuch and  four  evangelists,  in  the  Assembly's  annota- 
tions.— O.  I)  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  193. 

II  One  of  his  most  famous  pieces  is  entitled 
"Want  of  Church  Government  no  Warrant  for  a 
total  Omission  of  the  Lord's  Supper." — C 


setshire,  and  educated  in  University  College, 
Oxon.  In  the  year  1623  he  was  made  rector 
of  Claverton  in  Somersetshire,  but  was  after- 
ward silenced  by  his  diocesan.  Bishop  Piers, 
for  preaching  up  the  morality  of  the  Sabbath, 
and  imprisoned  for  two  years.  He  was  created 
one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  In  the  year 
1648  he  was  created  D  D.,  and  had  the  rich  rec- 
tory of  Pewsey  given  hiin  by  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke. After  the  king's  restoration  he  kept  his 
living  till  the  very  day  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
took  jjlace,  when,  having  preached  his  farewell 
sermon  on  Psal.  cxxvi.,  6,  he  went  home,  fell 
sick  and  died,  and  was  buried  in  his  church  at 
Pewsey,  September  8,  without  the  service  of 
the  church,  which  had  just  then  taken  place.* 

Mr.  Simeon  Ash  was  educated  in  Emanuel 
College,  Cambridge.  His  first  station  in  the 
Church  was  in  Staffordshire,  where  he  contract- 
ed an  acquaintance  with  the  most  eminent  Puri- 
tans. He  was  displaced  from  his  living  for  re- 
fusing to  read  the  Book  of  Sports,  and  not  con- 
forming to  the  ceremonies.  After  some  time 
he  got  liberty  to  preach  in  an  exeinpt  church  at 
Wroxhall,  under  the  protection  of  Sir  John  Bur- 
goign  ;  and  elsewhere,  under  the  Lord  Brook, 
in  Warwickshire.  Upon  the  breaking  out  of 
the  civil  war  he  became  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of 
Manchester,  and  had  a  considerable  part  in  the 
Cambridge  visitation.  After  the  king's  death 
he  vigorously  opposed  the  new  commonwealth, 
and  declaimed  publicly  against  the  Engagement. 
He  was  concerned  in  all  the  designs  for  bring- 
ing in  the  king,  and  went  with  other  London 
divines  to  congratulate  his  majesty  at  Breda. 
He  was  a  Christian  of  primitive  simplicity,  and 
a  Nonconformist  of  the  old  stamp,  being  emi- 
nently sincere,  charitable,  holy,  and  of  a  cheer- 
ful spirit.  He  had  a  good  paternal  estate,  and 
was  very  hospitable,  his  house  being  much  fre- 
quented by  his  brethren,  by  wiiom  he  was  high- 
ly esteemed.!  He  died  in  an  advanced  age  on 
the  very  evening  before  Bartholomew  Day,  in  a 
cheerful  and  firm  expectation  of  a  future  happi- 
ness.t 

Mr.  Edward  Bowles,  M.A.,  born  1613,  and 
educated  in  Katherine  Hall,  Cambridge,  under 
Dr.  Sibbes  and  Dr.  Brownrigge.  He  was  first 
chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  and  upon 
the  reduction  of  York  to  the  Parliament,  settled 
in  that  city.  He  was  a  wise  and  prudent  man, 
having  a  clear  head  and  a  wanu  heart ;  an  ex- 
cellent scholar,  and  a  useful  preacher.  He  at- 
tended Lord  Fairfiix  when  f  ieneral  Monk  passed 
through  Yorkshire,  and  presented  an  address  to 
the  general  for  a  free  Parliainent.  He  was  very 
zealous  and  active  in  promoting  the  king's  res- 
toration, and  waited  on  his  majesty  with  Lord 
Fairfax  at  Breda.  It  is  credibly  reported  that 
the  deanery  of  York  was  offered  to  him,  but 
not  being  satisfied  with  conformity,  he  was  ex- 
cluded the  minster,  though  he  continued  preach- 
ing at  Allhallows,  and  afterward  at  St.  Martin's, 


'  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  754;  or  Palmer's  Noncunf. 
Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  509. 

t  Mr.  Ash  was  a  member  of  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly, and  one  of  the  Corn  Hill  lecturers.  His  fu- 
neral sermons  for  Whitaker,  Ralph  Robinson,  Gata- 
ker,  Vines,  and  the  Countess  of  Manchester  are  admi- 
rable, and  his  prelaces  have  been  greatly  praised, 
especially  that  to  Ball's  Covenant  of  Grace. — 0. 

t  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,p.  1 ;  or  Palmer's  Nonncoform- 
ists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  85. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


247 


as  he  had  opportunity.*  When  the  fatal  Bar- 
tholomew Day  approached  he  grew  siok  of  the 
times,  and  died  in  the  flower  of  his  life,  aged 
forty-nine,  and  was  buried  on  the  eve  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew, 1662. t 

[In  the  preceding  year  there  passed  an  act 
for  regulating  the  press,  enacting  "  that  no  pri- 
vate person  or  persons  should  print,  or  cause  to 
be  printed,  any  book  or  pamphlet  whatsoever, 
unless  the  same  was  first  lawfully  licensed  and 
authorized  to  be  printed  by  certain  persons  ap- 
pointed by  the  act  to  license  the  same:  viz., 
law-books  by  the  lord-chancellor,  or  one  of  the 
chief-justices,  or  by  the  chief  baron  ;  books  of 
history,  or  concerning  state  aifairs,  by  one  of 
the  principal  secretaries  of  state  ;  on  heraldry, 
by  tiie  earl-marshal ;  and  all  other  books,  i.  e., 
to  say  all  novels,  romances,  and  fairy  tales,  and 
all  books  about  philosophy,  mathematics,  physic, 
divinity,  or  love,  by  the  Lord-archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, or  the  Bishop  of  London  for  the  time 
being."  "  The  framers  of  this  curious  act," 
observes  Lord  Stanhope,  "no  doubt,  supposing 
that  these  right  reverend  prelates  were,  of  all 
men  in  the  kingdom,  most  conversant  with  all 
these  subjects."  This  act  commenced  in  June, 
1662,  and  passed  only  for  two  years.     It  was 

'    continued  by  an  act  of  the  I6th  of  Charles  II., 
■and  by  another   act   of  the  17th  of  the  same 

^  reign  ;  and  in  a  few  months  afterward  it  ex- 
■  pired.  We  may  form  some  idea  of  the  private 
instructions  given  to  the  licenser,  as  well  as  of 
his  excessive  caution  and  ignorant  zeal,  when 
■we  are  assured,  that  on  his  taking  exception  to 
the  following  lines  in  Milton's  Paradise  Lost, 
that  admirable  poem  had  like  to  have  been  sup- 
pressed. 

"  As  when  the  sun,  new  risen. 
Looks  through  the  horizontal  misty  air 
Shorn  of  his  beams  ;  or  from  behind  the  moon 
In  dim  eclipse,  disastrous  twilight  sheds 
On  half  the  nations,  and  with  fear  of  change 
Perplexes  monarchs." 

— Stanhope  on  the  Rights  of  Juries,  p.  64,  &c. 
Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of  Charles 
II.,  vol.  !.,  p.  441,  note  ;  and  Dr.  Harris's  Life 
of  Charles  II.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  263-274.— Ed.] 


^' 

CHAPTER  VII. 

FROM  THE  ACT  OF  UNIFORMITY  TO  THE  B.\NISH- 
MENT  OF  THE  EARL  OF  CLARENDON,  IN  THE 
YEAR  1067. 

1662. 

At  this  time,  says  Bishop  Burnet,  the  name 
■of  Puritans  was  changed  into  that  of  Protest- 
ant Nonconformists,  who  were  subdivided  into 
Presbyterians,  Independents,  Anabaptists,  and 
Quakers  ;  these  being  shut  out  of  the  Establish- 


*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  779-782 ;  or  Palmer's  ]Non- 
conformists'  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  580. 

t  A  MS.  of  that  day  has  this  anecdote.  "One 
evening  Mr.  Bowles  visiting  Sir  Henry  Vane,  at  his 
taking  leave.  Sir  Henry  followed  with  a  candle  in 
his  hand  to  the  head  of  the  stairs.  Mr.  Bowles  de- 
sired him  not  to  give  himself  that  trouble.  '  Nay, 
sir,'  says  Sir  Henry, '  1  will  see  you  down.'  '  Indeed, 
Sir  Henry,'  says  Mr.  Bowles,  '  1  bplievo  you  will  see 
Its  down.'  Merrily  intending,  that  if  Sir  Henry  V'ane 
might  hold  the  candle,  all  ordinances,  orders,  and 
forms  of  worship  shouki  go  down." — U. 


ment,  had  nothing  now  in  view  but  a  toleration, 
which  the  credulous  Presbyterians  said  they  had 
strong  assurances  of  before  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity passed  into  a  law  ;  but  in  this  they  were 
disappointed,  as  well  as  in  everything  else  ;  for 
which  the  Independents  told  them  they  might 
thank  themselves,  because  their  managers  bad 
protested  against  including  the  papists ;  whereas, 
the  Legislature  and  the  bishops  were  concerned 
to  prevent  any  mischief  from  that  quarter,  and 
to  their  care  the  Pn  sbyterians  should  have  left 
it.*  Some  observing  how  much  the  court  and 
Parliament  were  set  against  them,  were  for  re- 
moving, with  their  ministers,  to  Holland;  and 
others  proposed  New-England  ;  but  the  papists, 
at  a  meeting  at  the  Earl  of  Bristol's  house, 
agreed  to  do  whatever  they  could  to  keep  the 
Nonconformists  in  England,  and  buoy  them  up 
with  hopes  of  a  toleration. 

The  king  was  a  concealed  Roman  Catholic, 
and  had  swarms  of  that  persuasion  about  his 
person  and  court,  who  had  fought  for  his  father 
in  the  wars,  or  been  civil  to  him  in  his  exile; 
their  design  was  to  introduce  a  toleration  of 
their  religion,  by  the  royal  indulgence,  in  com- 
mon with  other  Dissenters  from  the  Establish- 
ment ;  and  the  king  was  so  far  in  their  meas- 
ures, that  he  declared  openly  he  would  give 
liberty  to  all  or  none.  The  court  was  therefore 
content  that  the  Act  of  Uniformity  should  pass 
in  the  severest  terms,  on  purpose  to  make  the 
number  of  Dissenters  more  considerable  ;  and 
when  this  was  objected,  it  was  replied,  the  more 
Dissenters  the  better,  because  it  will  make  a 
toleration  more  needful,  in  which  the  papists 
will  be  included.!  The  papists  had  two  max- 
ims from  which  they  never  departed  :  one  was, 
to  keep  themselves  united,  and  promote  a  gen- 
eral toleration,  or  a  general  prosecution.  The 
other,  to  divide  the  Protestants  as  much  as 
possible  among  themselves.  For  this  reason, 
the  sword  was  put  into  the  hands  of  such  ma- 
gistrates as  would  inflame  the  differences,  and 
exasperate  their  spirits  one  against  the  other. 
Nor  were  there  wanting  some  hot-headed  young 
clergymen,  who  ran  greedily  into  the  snare, 
and  became  the  tools  of  popery  and  arbitrary 
power,  till  the  Protestant  religion  was  expiring, 
and  must  inevitably  have  been  lost,  had  it  not 
been  revived  almost  by  miracle.  With  a  like 
view,  the  laws  against  profaneness  and  immo- 
rality were  relaxed,  men's  morals  were  neglect- 
ed, interludes,  masquerades,  promiscuous  dan- 
cing, profane  swearing,  drunkenness,  and  a  uni- 
versal dissolution  of  manners,  were  connived 
at,  and  the  very  name  of  godliness  became  a 
reproach. 

The  Parliament,  being  made  up  of  a  set  of 
pensioners  and  mercenaries,  went  into  all  the 
court  measures,  and  enacted  more  penal  laws 
for  religion  than,  it  may  be,  all  the  Parliaments 
put  together  since  the  Reformation.  They 
pressed  the  Act  of  Uniformity  with  inflexible 
rigour,  and  enforced  it  with  so  many  other  pe- 
nal laws,  that  under  their  wing  [)<)pery  grew  to 
such  a  height  as  to  threaten  the  extirpation 
of  the  northern  heresy.  At  length,  many  of  the 
members  being  dead,  and  others  grown  fat  with 
the  spoils  of  the  public,  they  would  have  retriev- 
ed their  errors,  and  distinguished  between  Prot- 
estant Nonconformists  and   popish  recusants, 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  282. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  285. 


248 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


but  it  was  too  late  ;  ami  the  king  having  found 
ways  and  means  to  subsist  wiihoui  Parliamfnts, 
resolved  to  adhere  Ly  his  standing  maxim,  to 
give  ease  to  all  Dissenters  or  to  none. 

It  is  impossible  to  excuse  the  clergy  from 
their  sliare  in  tiie  troubles  of  this  reign  If  the 
Convocation  c)l  1662,  in  their  review  of  the  litur- 
gy, had  made  any  amendments  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  Presbyterians,  tliey  would  undoubt- 
edly have  passed  both  houses  of  Parliament, 
and  healed,  in  some  measure,  the  divisions  of 
the  Church  ;  but  they  were  actuated  by  a  spirit 
of  revenge,  and  not  only  promoted  such  laws 
as  might  deprive  the  Presbyterians  of  the  pow- 
er of  hurting  them  for  the  future,  but  assisted 
m  putting  them  in  execution.  None  had  a  great- 
er share  in  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  people, 
and  in  sounding  the  trumpet  to  persecution. 
But  here  the  reader  must  distinguish  between 
those  zealots  who,  from  resentment,  bigotry,  or 
sinister  viev's  set  themselves  to  encourage  and 
promote  all  the  methods  of  oppression  and  tyr- 
anny, and  those  who,  though  they  complied 
with  the  terms  of  conformity  themselves,  were 
disposed  to  an  accommodation  with  the  Prot- 
estant Nonconformists  upon  moderate  terms. 

The  bishops  were  generally  of  the  former 
sort ;  they  were  old  and  exasperated,  fond  of 
their  persecuting  principles,  and  fearful  of  ev- 
erything that  tended  to  relieve  the  Presbyteri- 
ans. They  went  with  zeal  into  all  the  slavish 
doctrines  of  the  prerogative,  and  voted  with  the 
court  in  everything  they  required.  But  even 
some  of  these  bishops,  who  at  first  were  very 
zealous  to  throw  the  Presbyterians  out  of  the 
Church,  afterward  grew  more  temperate.  Dr. 
Laney,  bishop  of  Peterborough,  who  made  a 
great  bustle  in  the  Savoy  Conference,  was  will- 
ing at  length  to  wipe  his  hands  of  the  dirty 
work,  and,  to  use  his  own  expression,  could  look 
through  his  fingers  and  sufler  a  worthy  Non- 
conformist to  preach  publicly  near  him  for  years 
together.  Bishop  Saunderson  had  a  roll  of  Non- 
conformist ministers  under  his  angry  eye,  de- 
signed for  discipline,  but  when  he  was  near  his 
end,  he  ordered  the  roll  to  be  burned,  and  said 
he  would  die  in  peace.  And  most  remarkable 
is  the  passage  in  the  last  will  and  testament  of 
Dr.  Cosins,  bishop  of  Durham,  a  zealous  enemy 
of  the  Presbyterians,  and  who  had  met  with  ill 
usage  in  the  late  times  :  "  I  take  it  to  be  my 
duty,"  says  he,  "  and  that  of  all  the  bishops  and 
ministers  of  the  Church,  to  do  our  utmost  en- 
deavour, that  at  last  an  end  may  be  put  to  the 
differences  of  religion,  or,  at  least,  that  they  may 
be  lessened."  Such  was  the  different  temper 
of  this  learned  prelate  in  the  vigour  of  life,  and 
when  he  came  to  review  things  calmly  on  his 
dying  bed.  To  these  may  be  added  Bishop 
Gauden,  Wilkins,  lleynolds,  and  a  fev/  others, 
who  were  always  moderate,  and  are  said  to 
carry  the  wounds  of  the  Church  in  their  hearts 
to  the  grave;  but  the  far  greater  imajority  of 
the  bench,  especially  those  who  frequented  the 
court,  were  of  different  principles. 

The  like  may  be  observed  of  the  inferior  cler- 
gy, who  were  divided,  a  few  years  after,  into 
those  of  the  court  and  the  country  ;  the  former 
■were  of  an  angry,  superstitious  spirit,  and  far 
more  strenuous  for  a  few  indifferent  ceremo- 
nies than  for  the  peace  of  the  Church,  or  its 
more  important  articles  ;  their  sermons  were 


filled  with  reverence  due  to  their  holy  mother,, 
with  the  sacred  dignity  of  their  own  indelible 
characters,  with  the  slavish  doctrines  of  jjas- 
sive  obedience  and  nonresisianee,  and  with  the 
most  bitter  raillery  and  invectives  against  th© 
routed  Presbyterians  ;  they  encouraged  the  en- 
acting severe  laws,  and  carried  them  into  exe- 
cution as  long  as  their  superiors  would  permit,, 
without  any  regard  to  mercy  or  merit ;  but  took 
comparatively  little  or  no  care,  by  their  doctrine 
or  example,  of  the  morals  of  the  people,  which 
were  shamefully  neglected  throughout  the  na- 
tion. The  clergy  of  this  character  were  by  far 
the  more  numerous  for  twenty  years  after  the 
Restoration  ;  the  tide  of  church  preferments 
running  in  tliis  channel,  and  their  doctrines  be- 
ing the  most  fashionable. 

The  country  clergy  were  of  a  quite  different 
spirit ;  they  were  determined  Protestants  and 
true  churchmen,  but  more  disposed  to  a  coali- 
tion with  Protestant  Dissenters  than  with  pa- 
pists ;  among  these  were  the  Tillutsons,  Slil- 
Imgjlecls,  WlncJicolcs,  Wilkins,  Cudworlhs,  &.C., 
men  of  the  first  rank  for  learning,  sobriety,  and 
virtue  ;  they  were  the  most  eminent  preachers 
of  the  age,  whose  sermons  and  writings  did 
honour  to  the  Church  of  England,  and  support- 
ed its  character  in  the  worst  of  times.  They 
lamented  the  corruptions  and  vices  of  the  people, 
and  stood  in  the  gap  against  an  inundation  of 
popery  and  tyranny  ;  but  their  numbers  were 
small,  because  the  road  to  preferment  lay  an- 
other way  ;  and  when  the  High-church  clergy 
had  betrayed  the  liberties  of  their  country,  and 
the  cause  of  the  Protestant  religion  into  the 
hands  of  the  papists,  these  appeared  boldly  in 
their  defence,  disarmed  their  adversaries,  and. 
saved  the  nation. 

When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  the  furious  pro- 
ceedings of  the  bishops  and  clergy,  it  must  not 
be  understood  of  the  whole  body,  but  only  of 
those  who  were  tools  of  a  corrupt  court  and 
ministry,  and  who,  out  of  ignorance  or  other 
private  and  personal  motives,  went  blindfold 
into  all  their  destructive  measures. 

Bishop  Burnet,  in  his  book  against  the  author 
of  Parliamentum  Paciticuin,  has  the  following 
remarkable  passage  :  "  It  is  well  known  that 
those  who  were  secretly  papists,  and  disguised 
their  religion,  as  the  king  himself  did,  animated 
the  chief  men  of  the  Church  to  carry  the  points 
of  uniformity  as  high  as  possible,  that  there 
might  be  many  Nonconformists,  and  great  oc- 
casion for  a  toleration,  under  which  popery 
might  creep  in  ;  for  if  the  king's  declaration 
from  Breda  had  taken  place,  of  two  thousand 
ministers  that  were  turned  out,  about  seventeen 
hundred  had  stayed  in  ;  but  the  practice  of  the 
papists  had  too  great  an  influence  on  the  church- 
men, whose  spirits  were  too  much  soured  by 
their  ill  usage  during  the  war;  nor  were  they 
without  success  on  the  Dissenters,  who  were 
secretly  encouraged  to  stand  out,  and  were  told 
that  the  king's  temper  and  principles,  and  the 
consideration  of  trade,  would  certainly  procure 
them  a  toleration.  Thus  they  tampered  with 
both  parties  ;  liberty  of  conscience  was  their 
profession  ;  but  when  a  session  of  Parliament 
came,  and  the  king  wanted  money,  then  a  new 
severe  law  against  the  Dissenters  was  offered 
to  the  angry  men  of  the  Church  party  as  the 
price  of  it  ;  and  this  seldom  failed  to  have  its. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


249 


effect ;  so  that  they  were  like  the  jewels  of  the 
crown,  pawned  when  the  king  needed  money, 
but  redeemed  at  the  next  prorogation." 

Tlie  same  prelate  observes  m  another  per- 
formance, "  that  the  first  spirit  of  severity  was 
heightened  by  the  practices  of  the  papists. 
That  many  churchmen,  who  understood  not  the 
principles  of  human  society,  and  the  rules  of 
the  English  government,  wrote  several  extrav- 
agant treatises  about  the  measures  of  submis- 
sion ;  that  the  Dissenters  were  put  to  great 
hardships  in  many  parts  of  England."  But  con- 
cludes that  "he  must  have  the  brow  of  a  Jesuit 
that  can  cast  this  wholly  upon  the  Church  of 
England,  and  free  the  court  of  it.  Upon  the 
■whole  matter,"  says  his  lordship,  "  it  is  evident 
that  the  passions  and  infirmities  of  some  of  the 
Church  of  England  being  unhappily  stirred  up 
by  the  Dissenters,  they  were  fatally  conducted 
by  the  popish  party  to  be  the  instruments  of 
doing  a  great  deal  of  mischief" 

But  to  go  on  with  the  history :  three  days 
after  the  Act  of  Uniformity  took  place,  the 
silenced  ministers  presented  a  petition  to  his 
majesty  for  a  toleration,  by  the  hands  of  Dr. 
Manton,  Dr.  Bates,  and  Mr.  Calamy,  to  this  ef- 
fect :  "That  having  had  former  experience  of 
his  majesty's  clemency  and  indulgence,  some 
of  the  London  ministers,  who  are  like  to  be  de- 
prived of  all  future  usefulness  by  the  late  Act 
of  Uniformity,  humbly  cast  themselves  at  his 
majesty's  feet,  desiring  him  of  his  princely  wis- 
dom to  take  some  effectual  course  that  they 
may  be  continued  in  their  ministry,  to  teach  his 
people  obedience  to  God  and  his  majesty ;  and 
they  doubt  not  but,  by  their  dutiful  and  peacea- 
ble behaviour,  they  shall  render  themselves 
not  altogether  unworthy  of  so  great  a  favour."* 
The  matter  being  debated  next  day  in  council, 
his  majesty  gave  his  opinion  for  an  indulgence 
if  it  was  feasible.  Others  were  for  conniving 
at  the  more  eminent  divines,  and  putting  cu- 
rates into  their  churches  to  read  the  service 
till  they  should  die  off:t  this  was  the  opinion 
of  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  wjio  urged!  it  with 
a  great  deal  of  earnestness  ;  but  Lord  Claren- 
don was  for  the  strict  execution  of  the  law  .- 
"  Surely,"  says  he,  "  there  cannot  be  too  intent 
a  care  in  kings  and  princes  to  preserve  and 
maintain  all  decent  forms  and  ceremonies  both 
in  Church  and  State,  which  keeps  up  the  rev- 
erence due  to  religion,  as  well  as  the  duty  and 
dignity  due  to  the  government  and  the  majesty 
of  kings. "t  Bishop  Sheldon  was  of  the  same 
side,  and  declared  that  if  the  act  was  suspend- 
ed, he  could  not  maintain  his  Episcopal  author- 
ity ;  that  this  would  render  the  Legislature 
ridiculous,  and  be  the  occasion  of  endless  dis- 
tractions ij  England  is  accustomed  to  obey 
laws,  says  he,  so  that  while  we  stand  on  that 
ground  we  are  safe  ;  and,  to  answer  all  objec- 
tions, he  undertook  to  fill  the  vacant  pulpits 
more  to  the  people's  satisfaction.  By  such  ar- 
guments, delivered  with  great  earnestness  and 
zeal,  they  prevailed  with  the  council  to  let  the 
law  take  place  for  the  present. 

Nevertheless,  about  four  months  after,  his 
majesty  published  a  declaration  to  all  his  loving 
subjects,  by  advice  of  his  privy  council,  dated 


*  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  753. 
t  Parker's  History,  p.  29. 
^  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  d.  5i79. 
Vol.  IL— I  i 


t  Ibid.,  p.  730,  742. 


December  2G,  1662,  in  which,  after  reciting 
those  words  of  his  declaration  from  Breda  re- 
lating to  his  giving  liberty  to  tender  conscien- 
ces, and  bis  readiness  to  consent  to  an  act  ot 
Parliament  for  that  purpose,  his  majesty  adds, 
"As  all  these  things  are  fresh  in  our  memory, 
so  are  we  stUl  firm  in  the  resolution  of  per- 
forming them  to  the  full.  But  it  must  not  be 
wondered  at,  since  that  Parliament  to  which 
those  promises  were  made  never  thought  fit  to- 
offer  us  an  act  for  that  purpose,  that  we,  being 
so  zealous  as  we  are  (and  by  the  grace  of  God 
shall  ever  be)  for  the  maintenance  of  the  true 
Protestant  religion,  should  give  its  establish- 
ment the  precedency  before  matters  of  indul- 
gence to  dissenters  from  it ;  but  that  being 
done,  we  are  glad  to  renew  to  all  our  subjects 
concerned  in  those  promises  of  indulgence  this 
assurance,  That,  as  for  what  concerns  the  pen- 
alties upon  those  who,  living  peaceably,  do  not 
conform  to  the  Church  of  England  through  scru- 
ple or  tenderness  of  misguided  conscience,  but 
modestly,  and  without  scandal,  perform  their 
devotions  in  their  own  way,  we  shall  make  it 
our  special  care,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  without 
invading  the  freedom  of  Parliament,  to  incline 
their  wisdom  at  the  next  approaching  sessions, 
to  concur  with  us  in  making  some  act  for  that 
purpose,  as  may  enable  us  to  exercise  with  a 
more  universal  satisfaction  that  power  of  dis- 
p^ensing  which  we  conceive  to  be  inherent  in 
us  ;  nor  can  we  doubt  of  their  cheerful  co-oper- 
ating with  us  in  a  thing  wherein  we  conceive 
ourselves  so  far  engaged,  both  in  honour,  and 
in  what  we  owe  to  the  peace  of  our  dominions,, 
which  we  profess  we  can  never  tlunk  secure 
while  there  shall  be  a  colour  left  to  disaffected 
persons  to  inflame  the  minds  of  so  many  multi- 
tudes upon  the  score  of  conscience,  with  despair 
of  ever  obtaining  any  effect  of  our  promises  for 
their  ease." 

His  majesty  then  proceeds  to  obviate  the  ob- 
jection of  his  favouring  papists  ;  and,  after  hav- 
ing avowed  to  the  world  the  due  sense  he  had 
of  their  having  deserved  well  from  his  royal  fa- 
ther, and  from  himself,  and  even  from  the  Prot- 
estant religion,  in  adhering  to  them  with  their 
lives  and  fortunes,  for  the  maintenance  of  their 
crown  in  the  religion  established,  he  declares, 
that  "  it  is  not  in  his  intention  to  exclude  them 
from  all  benefit  from  such  an  act  of  indulgence, 
but  that  they  are  not  to  expect  an  open  tolera- 
tion ;  but  refers  the  manner  to  the  approaching 
sessions  of  Parliament,  which  he  doubts  not 
will  concur  with  him  in  the  performance  of  his 
promises."  He  concludes  "  with  hoping  that 
all  his  subjects,  with  minds  happily  composed 
by  his  clemency  and  indulgence  (instead  of  ta- 
king up  thoughts  of  deserting  their  professions, 
or  transplantmg),  will  apply  themselves  com- 
fortably, and  with  redoubled  industry,  to  their 
several  vocations,  in  such  manner  as  the  private 
interest  of  every  one  in  particular  may  encour- 
age him  to  contribute  cheerfully  to  the  general 
prosperity. 

"  Given  at  our  court  at  Whitehall,  this  26th 
of  December,  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  our 
reign." 

This  declaration  was  thought  to  be  framed  at 
Somerset  House,  where  the  queen-mother  kepi; 
her  court,  without  the  knowledge  of  Lord  Clar- 
endon or  Bishop  Sheldon  ;    and,  according  to 


250 


HISTORY    OF   THE   PURITANS. 


Burnet,  was  the  result  of  a  council  of  papists 
at  the  Earl  of  Bristol's  (who  were  under  an 
oath  of  secrecy),  and  of  the  king  himself*  It 
is  modestly  expressed  ;  and,  though  it  carries 
in  it  a  claim  of  the  dispensing  power,  and  of 
good-will  to  popery,  yet  it  refers  all  to  the  Par- 
liament. Accordingly,  his  majesty,  in  his  speech 
at  the  opening  the  next  sessions,  February  28, 
1663,  supported  his  declaration  in  the  following 
words  :  "  That  though  he  was,  in  his  nature,  an 
«nemy  to  all  severity  in  religion,  he  would  not 
have  them  infer  from  thence  that  he  meant  to 
favour  popery,  though  several  of  that  profes- 
sion, who  had  served  him  and  his  lather  well, 
miglit  justly  claim  a  share  in  that  indulgence 
he  would  willingly  afford  to  other  Dissenters  ; 
not  that  I  intend  them  to  hold  any  place  in  the 
government,"  says  his  majesty,  "  for  I  will 
not  yield  to  any,  no,  not  to  the  bishops  them- 
selves, in  my  zeal  for  the  Protestant  religion, 
and  my  liking  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ;  and  yet, 
if  the  Dissenters  will  behave  themselves  peacea- 
bly and  modestly  under  the  government,  I  could 
heartily  wish  I  had  such  a  power  of  indulgence 
to  use  upon  all  occasions,  as  might  not  need- 
lessly force  them  out  of  the  kingdom,  or,  slay- 
ing here,  give  them  cause  to  conspire  against 
the  peace  of  it."  This  was  the  first  open  claim 
of  a  dispensing  power,  which,  the  reader  will 
observe,  did  not  propose  a  law  for  liberty  of 
conscience,  but  that  his  majesty  might  have 
a  legal  power  of  indulgence  vested  in  himself, 
"Which  he  might  use  or  recall  as  he  thought  tit. 
This  alarmed  the  House  of  Commons,  who  vo- 
ted the  thanks  of  the  House  for  his  majesty's 
resolution  to  maintain  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ; 
■but  that  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  House  that 
no  indulgence  be  granted  to  dissenters  from  it ; 
and  an  address  was  appointed  to  be  drawn  up, 
and  presented  to  his  majesty,  with  the  follow- 
ing reasons  : 

"  We  have  considered,"  say  they,  "  your  maj- 
esty's declaration  from  Breda,  and  are  of  opin- 
ion that  it  was  not  a  promise,  but  a  gracious 
declaration  to  comply  with  the  advice  of  your 
Parliament,  whereas  no  such  advice  has  been 
given. t  They  who  pretend  a  right  to  the  sup- 
posed promise,  put  the  right  into  the  hands 
■of  their  representatives,  who  have  passed  the 
Act  of  Uniformity.t  If  any  shall  say  a  right  to 
the  benefit  of  the  declaration  still  remains,  it 
tends  to  dissolve  the  very  bond  of  government, 
and  to  suppose  a  disability  in  the  whole  Legisla- 
ture to  make  a  law  contrary  to  your  majesty's 
declaration.  We  have  also  considered  the  na- 
ture of  the  indulgence  proposed,  and  are  of  opin- 
ion, 1.  That  it  will  establish  schism  by  a  law, 
and  make  the  censures  of  the  Church  of  no  con- 
tsideralion.  2.  That  it  is  unbecoming  the  wis- 
dom of  Parliament  to  pass  a  law  in  one  session 
for  uniformity,  and  in  another  session  to  pass  a 

*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  282,  283. 

+  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  634. 

i  According  to  this  curious  mode  of  reasoning, 
the  authority  of  a  trust  justifies  the  aliuse  of  it,  and 
persons  elected  for  the  general  welfare  are  not  ac- 
countalile  for  acting  contrary  to  the  interests  of  their 
constituents.  Such  a  position  is  just  as  absurd,  to 
use  the  simile  of  a  late  writer,  as  to  imagine  "  that 
piiysicians,  chosen  to  superintend  and  cure  the  sick 
in  hospitals,  have  a  right  to  kill  their  patients  il  they 
please." — Secret  Hislnry  of  the  Reign  of  Charles  II., 
vol.  ii.,  p.  7,  note. — Ed. 


law  to  frustrate  or  weaken  it,  the  reasons  con- 
tinuing the  same.  3.  That  it  will  expose  your 
majesty  to  the  restless  importunities  of  every 
sect  who  shall  dissent  from  the  Established 
Church.  4.  That  it  will  increase  sectaries, 
which  will  weaken  the  Protestant  profession, 
and  be  troublesome  to  the  government ;  and,  in 
time,  some  prevalent  sect  may  contend  for  an 
establishment,  which  may  end  in  popery.  5. 
That  it  is  unprecedented,  and  may  take  away 
the  means  of  convicting  recusants.  6.  That 
the  indulgence  proposed  will  not  tend  to  the 
peace,  but  to  the  disturbance  of  the  kingdom  ; 
the  best  way,  therefore,  to  produce  a  settled 
peace,  is  to  press  vigorously  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity." 

The  reader  will  judge  of  the  force  of  these 
reasons,  which,  in  my  opinion,  would  justify  the 
severest  persecution  in  the  world  ;  however, 
the  king  was  convinced  with  a  sum  of  money, 
and  therefore  made  no  other  reply,  but  tliat  he 
had  been  ill  understood.  The  House  then  ad- 
dressed him  to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against 
papists  ;  and  a  proclamation  was  issued  out  for 
that  purpose,  but  little  regarded.  However, 
this  opposition  to  the  king  and  the  Roman 
Catholics  by  Lord  Clarendon,  and  his  friends  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  laid  the  foundation  of 
his  impeachment  the  next  year,  and  of  his  ruin 
some  time  after.  Bishop  Kennet  adinits  that 
the  king  was  inclined  to  a  general  indulgence,* 
"  though,  whether  it  was  from  his  good-nature, 
or  a  secret  inclination  to  introduce  popery,  is 
not  very  decent  to  determine  ;"  but  both  he 
and  Echard  are  of  opiniont  "  that  the  king's 
clemency  hardened  the  Dissenters  against  the 
Church  ;  whereas,  if  they  had  lost  all  depend- 
ance  on  a  court  interest,  and  had  found  the 
king  and  his  ministry  intent  upon  the  strict  exe- 
cution of  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  most  of  them," 
say  they,  "would,  at  this  juncture,  have  con- 
formed." A  notorious  mistake  !  the  contrary  to 
this  being  evident  to  a  demonstration  through- 
out the  course  of  this  reign.  The  conformity 
of  honest  men  does  not  depend  up  the  will,  but 
the  understanding,  and  it  is  very  ungenerous 
at  this  distance  to  impeach  men's  integrity, 
who  underwent  a  long  course  of  the  severest 
trials  to  retain  it. 

Some  of  the  ejected  Presbyterians,  who  were 
men  of  piety  and  learning,  complied  as  far  as 
they  could,  and  made  a  distinction  between  lay- 
conformity  and  ministerial :  they  practised  the 
former,  and  went  sometimes  to  their  parish 
churches  before  or  after  the  exercise  of  their 
ministry  in  some  private  houses  ;  and  this  they 
did,  not  for  interest  or  advantage,  but,  to  all 
appearance,  to  express  their  Catholicism  and 
brotherly  love.t  Here  was  the  rise  of  occa- 
sional conformity,  practised  by  Dr,  Bates,  Mr. 
Baxter,  and  others,  to  their  death  ;  but  this, 
instead  of  being  well  taken,  was  the  occasion 
of  bringing  some  of  them  into  trouble  ;  for  Mr. 
Calamy,  late  minister  of  Aldermanbury,  being 
at  his  parish  church,  December  28,  the  preach- 
er happened  to  disappoint  them  ;  upon  which, 
at  the  importunity  of  the  parishioners,  Mr.  Cal- 
amy went  up  into  the  pulpit,  and  preached  a 
sermon    upon  "  Eli's   concern   for  the  ark  of 


*  Page  258.  t  Echard,  p.  806. 

%  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  436.    Compl.  Hist.,  p. 
267. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


251 


God  ;"  a  subject  much  upon  their  thoughts  at 
that  time  :  but  this  was  so  highly  resented  at 
court,  that  he  was  sent  to  Newgate  next  week 
for  sedition  in  breaking  the  king's  laws.*  It 
was  done  in  Icrrorem,  says  my  author,  but  there 
was  such  a  clamour  among  the  people,  and  such 
a  resort  of  persons  of  distinction  to  visit  the 
prisoner,  that  his  majesty  thought  fit  to  release 
him  in  a  few  days  ;  which  not  being  done  by 
due  course  of  law,  the  Commons  resented  it, 
and  presented  an  address  that  the  laws  for  the 
future  might  have  their  free  course.  This  dis- 
gusted the  king,  who  was  willing  to  assert  his 
prerogative,  and  show  some  favour  to  the  Pres- 
byterians, that  he  might  cover  the  papists  ;  but 
Lord  Clarendon,  who  was  their  implacable  en- 
emy, and  at  the  head  of  that  parly  which  med- 
itated their  ruin,  opposed  the  court  measures, 
and  encouraged  his  friends  in  both  houses  to 
abide  by  the  lavvs.t 

The  following  summer  [1663]  there  was  a 
fresh  discourse  of  liberty  for  the  silenced  min- 
isters ;  and  the  court  was  so  far  in  the  design 
as  to  encourage  them  to  petition  for  a  general 
toleration,  insinuating  this  to  be  the  only  way 
of  relief,  and  that  the  Legislature  would  go  on 
to  increase  their  burdens,  and  lay  them  in  jails 
till  they  complied.  The  Independents  went  up 
to  court  to  speak  for  themselves,  but  the  Pres- 
byterians refused ;  upon  which  Mr.  Baxter 
says,  the  Independent  br'ethren  thought  it  ow- 
ing to  them  that  they  missed  of  their  intended 
liberty. t  The  court  being  displeased.  Lord 
Clarendon  and  his  friends  took  the  opportunity 
to  awaken  their  resentments,  by  fathering  upon 
the  Nonconformists  some  new  plots  against 
the  government.  There  was  said  to  be  a  con- 
spiracy in  the  north  among  the  Republicans 
and  Separatists,  to  restore  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, and  put  Lambert  and  Ludlow  at  their 
head,  though  the  former  was  shut  up  in  prison 
in  a  remote  island,  and  the  other  gone  into  ban- 
ishment. There  had  been  some  unadvised  and 
angry  conversation  among  the  meaner  sort  of 
people  of  republican  principles,  but  it  was  not 
pretended  that  any  gentleman  of  character, 
much  less  that  the  body  of  the  English  Non- 
conformists, were  acquainted  with  it  ;  howev- 
er, about  twenty  were  tried  and  condemned  at 
York  and  Leeds,  and  several  executed.  Some 
very  mean  persons  were  indicted  at  the  Old 
Bailey  for  a  branch  of  the  same  design,  as, 
Tongue,  Phillips,  Stubbes,  Hind,  Sellars,  and 
Gibbes  ;  they  were  not  tried  separately,  but  set 
at  the  bar  together,  and  condemned  in  the 
lump.  It  was  pretended  that  the  fifth-mon- 
archy men,  Anabaptists,  Independents,  and 
some  Quakers,  were  consenting  to  some  des- 
perate designs,  but  the  authors  were  never  dis- 
covered ;  however,  four  of  these  pretended  con- 
spirators  were   executed,   who    confessed,  at 


against  the  Nonconformists,  in  order  to  bring 
on  them  greater  severities. 

An  act  was  passed  this  summer  "  for  the  re- 
lief of  such  persons  as  by  sickness,  or  other 
impediments,  were  disabled  from  subscribing 
the  declaration  in  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  ex- 
planation of  the  said  act."  The  preamble  sets 
forth,  "  that  divers  persons  of  eminent  loyalty, 
and  known  affection  to  the  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  England,  were  out  of  the  kingdom  ; 
and  others,  by  reason  of  sickness,  disability  of 
body,  or  otherwise,  could  not  subscribe  within 
the  time  limited,  and  were  therefore  disabled, 
and  ipso  facto  deprived  of  their  prebendaries,  or 
other  livings,  therefore  farther  time  is  given 
them  to  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  of  our  Lord 
next  ensuing;  or  if  out  of  England,  forty  days 
after  their  return  :'"*  which  shows  that  the 
time  limited  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  was  not 
sufficient.  The  journal  of  the  House  of  Lords 
mentions  a  clause  inserted  by  their  lordships, 
explaining  the  subscription  and  declaration  to 
relate  only  to  practice  and  obedience  to  the 
law,  which  passed  the  Upper  House,  though 
several  temporal  lords  protested  against  it,  as 
destructive  to  the  Church  of  England  ;  howev- 
er, when  it  came  down  to  the  Commons,  the 
clause  was  rejected,  and  the  Lords  did  not  think 
fit  to  insist  upon  its  being  restored. t 

While  the  Parliament  were  relieving  the 
Loyalists,  they  increased  the  burdens  of  the 
Nonconformists  ;  for  under  colour  of  the  late 
pretended  plots,  they  passed  an  act  for  sup- 
pressing seditious  conventicles  ;  the  preamble 
to  which  having  set  forth,  that  the  sectaries, 
under  pretence  of  tender  consciences,  at  their 
meetings  had  contrived  insurrections,  the  act 
declares  the  35th  of  Queen  Elizabeth  to  be  in 
full  force,  which  condemns  all  persons  refusing 
peremptorily  to  come  to  church,  after  convic- 
tion, to  banishment,  and  in  case  of  return,  to 
death  without  benefit  of  clergy.  It  enacts  far- 
ther,t  "  that  if  any  person  above  the  age  of  six- 
teen, after  the  first  of  July,  1C64,  shall  be  pres- 
ent at  any  meeting,  under  colour  or  pretence 
of  any  exercise  of  religion,  in  other  manner 
than  is  allowed  by  the  liturgy  or  practice  of  the 
Church  of  England,  where  shall  be  five  or  more 
persons  than  the  household,  shall  for  the  first 
offence  suffer  three  months'  imprisonment, 
upon  record  made  upon  oath  under  the  hand 
and  seal  of  a  justice  of  peace,  or  pay  a  sum  not 
exceeding  five  pounds  ;  for  the  second  offence 
six  months'  imprisonment,  or  ten  pounds  ;  and 
for  the  third  offence  the  offender  to  be  banish- 
ed to  some  of  the  American  plantations  for  sev- 
en years,  excepting  New-England  and  Virginia, 
or  pay  one  hundred  pounds ;  and  in  case  they 
return,  or  make  their  escape,  such  persons  are 
to  be  adjudged  felons,  and  suffer  death  without 
benefit  of  clergy.     Sheriffs,  or  justices  of  peace, 


the  place  of  execution,  that  they  had  heard  i  or  others  commissioned  by  them,  arc  empow- 
some  treasonable  expressions  in  company,  but '  cred  to  dissolve,  dissipate,  and  break  up,  all  un- 


denied  to  the  last  that  they  were  acquainted 
with  any  conspiracy  against  the  king ;  and 
whoever  reads  their  trials  will  be  inclined  to 
think  that  it  was  a  design  of  those  who  were 
at  the  head  of  affairs  to  inflame  the  populaceij 


lawful  conventicles,  and  to  take  into  custody 
such  of  their  number  as  they  think  fit.     They 


*  15  Car.  II.,  cap.  vi. 

t  "  Thus  it  is  the  declared  sense  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, that  the  uni'eigned  assent  and  consent  relates 
*  Calainy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  6.  t  Rapin,  p.  312,  313.  |  not  only  to  the  use,  but  to  the  inward  and  entire  ap- 

X  Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  430,  433.  probation  of  all  and  everything  as  expressed  in  the 

<j  Kennet's  Chron  ,  p.  840,  841.    Calamy,  vol.  i., !  subscription." — Fowler's  French  Consriiutinn,  p.  352, 
p.  305.     Rapin,  p.  035.  |  note.  X  IC  Car.  II.,  cap.  iv, 


252 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


who  suffer  such  conventicles  in  their  houses  or 
barns  are  liable  to  the  same  forfeitures  as  other 
offenders.  The  prosecution  is  to  he  witiiin 
three  months.  Married  women  tal<on  at  con- 
venticles are  to  be  imprisoned  for  twelve 
months,  unless  their  husbands  pay  forty  shil- 
lings for  their  redemption.  This  act  to  contin- 
ue in  force  for  three  years  after  the  next  ses- 
sion of  Parliament." 

This  was  a  terrible  scourge  over  the  laity, 
put  into  the  hands  of  a  single  justice  of  the 
peace,  without  the  verdict  of  a  jury,  the  oath 
of  the  informer  being  sufficient.  The  design  of 
the  Parliament  (says  Ilapin)  was  to  drive  them 
to  despair,  and  to  force  them  into  real  crimes 
against  the  government.  By  virtue  of  this  act, 
the  jails  in  the  several  counties  were  quickly 
■filled  with  dissenting  Protestants,  while  the 
papists  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  covered  un- 
der the  wing  of  the  prerogative.  Some  of  the 
ministers  who  went  to  church  in  sermon  time 
were  disturbed  for  preaching  to  a  few  of  their 
parishioners  after  the  public  service  was  over; 
their  houses  were  broke  open,  and  their  hear- 
ers taken  into  custody ;  warrants  were  issued 
out  for  levying  £20  on  the  minister,  ,£20  upon 
the  house,  and  5s.  upon  each  hearer.  If  the 
money  was  not  immediately  j)aid,  there  w-as  a 
seizure  of  their  effects,  the  goods  and  wares 
were  taken  out  of  the  shops  ;  and  in  the  coun- 
try, cattle  were  driven  away  and  sold  for  half 
their  value.  If  the  seizure  did  not  answer  the 
fne,  the  minister  and  people  were  hurried  to 
prison,  and  held  under  close  confinement  for 
three  or  six  months.  The  trade  of  an  informer 
began  to  be  very  gainful,  by  the  encouragement 
of  the  spiritual  courts.  At  every  quarter  ses- 
sions several  were  fined  for  not  coming  to 
church,  and  others  excommunicated :  nay,  some 
have  been  sentenced  to  abjure  the  realm,  and 
fined  in  a  sum  much  larger  than  all  they  were 
worth  in  the  world. 

Before  the  Conventicle  Act  took  place,  the 
laity  were  courageous,*  and  exhorted  their  min- 
isters to  preach  till  they  went  to  prison  ;  but 
when  it  came  home  to  themselves,  and  they 
had  been  once  in  jail,  they  began  to  be  more 
cautious,  and  consulted  among  themselves  how 
to  avoid  the  edge  of  the  law  in  the  best  manner 
they  could  ;  for  this  purpose  their  assemblies 
were  frequently  held  at  midnight,  and  in  the 
most  private  places ;  and  yet.  notwithstanding  all 
their  caution,  they  were  fre(iuently  disturbed ;  but 
it  is  remarkable  that,  under  all  their  hardships, 
they  never  made  tbe  least  resistance,  but  went 
quietly  along  with  the  soldiers  or  officers  when 
they  could  not  fly  from  them.  The  distress  of 
so  many  families  luade  some  confine  themselves 
within  their  own  houses,  some  remove  to  the 
plantations,  and  others  have  recourse  to  occa- 
sional conformity,  to  avoid  the  penalty  for  not 
coming  to  church  :  but  the  Independents,  Ana- 
baptists, and  Quakers  declined  the  practice ;  for 
they  said.  If  persecution  was  the  mark  of  a  false 
church,  it  must  be  absolutely  unlawful  to  join 
with  one  that  was  so  notoriously  guilty. 

Indeed,  the  Quakers  gloried  in  their  suffer- 
ings, and  were  so  resolute  as  to  assemble  open- 
ly at  the  BuU-and-Mouth,  near  Aldersgate,t 
from  whence  the  soldiers  and  other  officers  drag- 


Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  436.      f  Sewel,  p.  445. 


god  them  to  prison,  till  Newgate  was  filled,  and 
multitudes  died  by  close  confinement  in  the 
several  jails.  The  account  published  about  this 
time  says,  there  were  six  hundred  of  them  in 
prison,  merely  for  religion's  sake,  of  whom  sev- 
eral were  banished  to  the  plantations.  Some- 
times the  Quakers  met  and  continued  silent, 
upon  which  it  was  questioned  whether  such  an 
assembly  was  a  conventicle  for  religious  exer- 
cise ;  and  when  some  were  tried  for  it  in  order 
to  banishment,  they  were  acquitted  of  the  ban- 
ishment, and  came  off"  with  a  fine,  which  they 
seldom  paid,  and  were,  therefore,  continued  ia 
prison.*  In  short,  the  Quakers  about  London 
gave  such  full  employment  to  the  informers, 
that  they  had  less  leisure  to  attend  the  meet- 
ings of  other  Dissenters. 

So  great  w'as  the  severity  of  these  times,  and 
the  arbitrary  proceedings  of  the  justices,  that 
many  were  afraid  to  pray  in  their  families,  if 
above  four  of  their  acquaintance  who  came  only 
to  visit  them  were  present.  Some  families  scru- 
pled asking  a  blessing  on  their  meat,  if  five 
strangers  were  at  table.  In  London,  where  the 
houses  join,  it  was  thought  the  law  might  be 
evaded  if  the  people  met  in  several  houses,  and 
heard  the  minister  through  a  window  or  hole  in 
the  wall ;  but  it  seems  this  was  overruled,  the 
determination  being  (as  has  been  observed)  in 
the  breast  of  a  single  mercenary  justice  of  the 
peace.  And  while  acmscientious  people  were 
thus  oppressed,  the  common  people  gave  them- 
selves up  to  drunkenness,  profane  swearing, 
gaming,  lewdness,  and  all  kinds  of  debauchery, 
which  brought  down  the  judgments  of  Heaven 
upon  the  nation. 

The  first  general  calamity  that  befell  the  king- 
dom was  a  war  with  the  Dutch,  which  the 
king  entered  into  this  winter  by  the  instigation 
of  the  young  French  monarch,  Lou  is  .XIV.,  who, 
being  grown  rich  by  a  long  peace,  sought  for  an 
opportunity  to  make  new  conquests  in  the  Span- 
ish Flanders  ;  for  this  purpose,  he  engaged  the 
maritime  powers  in  a  war,  that,  by  w^eakening 
each  other's  hands,  they  might  not  be  at  leis- 
ure to  assist  the  Spaniards,  whom  he  intend- 
ed to  attack.  The  English  made  complaints  of 
the  encroachments  of  the  Dutch  upon  their 
trade,  and  indignities  offered  to  his  majesty's 
subjects  in  India,  Africa,  and  elsewhere  ;  the 
French  promoted  these  misunderstandings,  and 
promised  to  supply  the  king  with  what  sums  of 
money  he  wanted  ;  till  at  length  war  was  pro- 
claimed, February  22,  1664-5,  in  the  course  of 
which  sundry  bloody  engagements  happened  at 
sea  ;  the  two  nations  were  drained  of  their  blood 
and  their  treasure,  and  the  Protestant  interest 
almost  ruined,  while  the  French  were  little  more 
than  spectators.  The  war  continued  about  two 
years  and  a  half,  and  then  ended  with  no  man- 
ner of  advantage  to  either  nation. 

[In  the  year  1G63  there  was  obtamed,  by  the 
interest  of  Mr.  Baxter  and  Mr.  Ashurst  with 
the  Lord-chancellor  Hyde,  a  charter  fcu"  the  in- 
corporating "  A  Society  or  Company  for  Prop- 
agation of  the  Gospel  in  New-England,  and  the 
Parts  adjacent  in  America."  Such  a  society 
had  been  formed  under  the  sanction  of  an  act 
of  Parliament  in  1646 ;  and  by  a  collection  made 
in  all  the  parishes  in  England,  there  had  been 


Baxter's  Life,  part  ii.,  p.  430. 


HI  ST  oil  Y    OF  THE    PURITANS. 


253 


raised  a  sum  sufficient  to  purchase  an  estate  in 
land  of  between  £500  and  £600  a  year.  Upon 
the  restoration  of  King  Charles  II.  the  charter 
hecame  void,  and  Colonel  Beddingfield,  a  Ro- 
man Catholic  officer  in  the  army,  of  whom  a 
considerable  part  of  the  land  was  bought,  seized 
it  for  his  own  use  ;  pretending  he  had  sold  it 
under  the  value,  in  hopes  of  recovering  it  upon 
the  king's  return.  The  society  being  re-estab- 
lished at  great  trouble  and  expense,  were  again 
put  in  possession  of  the  estate  by  a  decree  of 
Chancery,  which  the  Honourable  Mr.  Boyle  was 
very  instrumental  in  obtaining.*  He  was  ap- 
pointed the  first  governor  of  the  company. t 

On  the  4th  of  June  this  year  died,  aged  eigh- 
ty-one. Dr.  William  Juxon,  archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, whose  elevation  to  the  post  of  Lord- 
high-treasurer  of  England,  and  other  early  pref- 
erments, have  been  mentioned  before,  vol.  i., 
p.  326.  He  was  born  in  Chichester,  received 
his  grammar  learning  at  Merchant  Tailors' 
School,  became  fellow  of  St.  John's  College, 
Oxford,  in  1598,  and  bachelor  of  the  civil  law 
in  1603,  being  about  that  time  a  student  in 
Grey's  Inn.  Soon  after  he  entered  into  holy 
orders,  and  in  1609  was  made  vicar  of  St.  Giles, 
Oxiord.  In  1626  he  executed  the  office  of  vice- 
chancellor.  After  the  death  of  Charles  I.  he 
retired  to  his  paternal  manor  of  Little  Compton, 
in  Gloucestershire,  and  devoted  himself  to  lib- 
eral studies.  On  the  Restoration  he  was  ad- 
vanced, September  4,  1660,  to  the  see  of  Can- 
terbury. He  was  buried  with  great  funeral 
pomp  in  St.  John's  College,  Oxon.  He  is  said 
to  have  acted,  at  a  very  critical  time,  with  a 
prudence,  moderation,  and  integrity  which  en- 
mity could  not  impeach  in  his  arduous  office  as 
high-treasurer.  He  left  many  monuments  of 
his  munificence  and  liberality.  "  The  mildness 
ol  his  temper,  the  gentleness  of  his  manners, 
and  the  integrity  of  his  life,"  says  Mr.  Granger, 


*  The  Honourable  Robert  Boyle  was  a  man  dis- 
tinguished alike  by  birth,  genius,  and  learning,  and 
thai  which  infinitely  surpassed  them  all,,  by  unfeign- 
ed and  fervent  pieiy.  He  could  not,  therefore,  be 
content  to  live  to  himself.  He  was  a  son  of  the  Earl 
of  Cork,  and  educated  at  the  University  of  Oxiord, 
where,  after  his  travels,  he  fixed  his  residence,  on  ac- 
count of  the  disorders  of  the  times.  Here  he  collect- 
ed around  him  a  select  circle  of  men  devoted,  like 
himself,  to  science  and  philosophy.  This  society  at 
first  styled  themselves  "  the  Philosophical  College," 
and  from  which  arose,  after  the  Restoration,  "  the 
Royal  Society  of  London."  Mr.  Boyle  wrote  numer- 
ous' valuable  treatises  on  philosophical,  critical,  mor- 
al, and  religious  subjects.  His  spirit  was  truly  cath- 
olic and  Christian ;  leading  him  to  esteem  as  breth- 
ren the  excellent  Nonconlormists  of  his  day  and  the 
pious  Conformists.  He  was  largely  imbued  with  the 
missionary  spirit.  To  the  labours  of  John  Eliot  and 
his  colleagues  among  the  Indians  atRoxbury,  Massa- 
chusetls,  he  contributed  between  £300  and  £100 
sterling  per  annum.  At  his  expense  a  translation 
was  inada  of  the  New  Testament  into  the  Ma- 
layan tongue.  He  procured  a  translation  of  the  New 
Testament  also  into  the  Turkish  language,  contrib- 
uted largely  to  an  edition  of  tlie  Welsh  Bible,  and 
gave  £7U0  towards  an  edition  of  the  1  rish  Bible.  He 
founded  a  Lecture  in  England  in  defence  of  the  Gos- 
pel, against  the  daring  infidels  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
II.,  and,  according  to  Bishop  Burnet,  who  preached 
his  funeral  sermon,  he  devoted  more  than  £1000  a 
year  to  advance  the  interests  of  pure  religion.  He 
died  1691.— C. 

t  Neal's  History  of  New-England,  vol.  i.,  p.  202. 


"  gained  him  universal  esteem  ;  and  even  the 
haters  of  prelacy  could  never  hate  Juxon."* 

Mr.  Henry  Jessey,  an  eminent  divine  among 
the  Puritans,  died  also  on  the  4th  of  September, 
this  year.  He  was  born  on  the  3d  of  Septem- 
ber, 1601,  at  West  Rowton,  near  Cleveland  in 
Yorkshire,  where  his  father  was  minister.  At 
seventeen  years  of  age  he  was  sent  to  St.  John's 
College  in  Cambridge  ;  he  continued  six  years 
at  the  university,  where  he  commenced  first 
bachelor,  then  master  of  arts.  In  1623  died  his 
father,  who  had  hitherto  supplied  him  according 
to  his  ability  ;  which  event  left  him  in  such 
strait  circumstances  that  he  had  not  above 
threepence  a  day  for  his  maintenance,  yet  he 
so  economically  managed  this  small  pittance 
as  to  spare  some  of  it  for  hiring  books.  He 
pursued  his  studies  with  diligence,  and,  not 
contenting  himself  with  the  ipse  dixit  of  author- 
ity, he  investigated  science  freely.  He  left  the 
university  well  versed  in  the  Hebrew  and  the 
writings  of  the  rabbles,  with  a  knowledge  of 
Syriac  and  Chaldee.  During  this  period  his 
mind  imbibed  a  strong  sense  of  religion,  and  he 
determined  to  devote  himself  to  the  ministry. 
He  spent  nine  years  after  leaving  the  universi- 
ty as  chaplain  in  the  family  of  Mr.  Brampton 
Gurdon,  at  Assington  in  Suffolk,  improving  his 
time,  and,  among  other  studies,  giving  his  at- 
tention to  physic.  In  1627  he  received  Episco- 
pal ordination,  but  could  not  be  prevailed  upon 
to  accept  any  promotion  until  1633,  when  the 
living  of  Aughton,  in  Yorkshire,  was  given  to 
him.  But  he  was  removed  the  very  next  year 
for  not  using  the  ceremonies,  and  for  taking 
down  a  crucifix.  On  this  he  was  received  into 
the  family  of  Sir  Matthew  Boinion,  in  the  same 
county,  and  preached  frequently  at  two  parishes 
in  the  neighbourhood.  In  1635,  accompanying 
his  patron  to  London,  he  was  invited  to  be  pas- 
tor of  the  congregation  formed  in  1616  by  Mr. 
Henry  Jacob  ;  this  his  modesty  led  him  to  de- 
cline for  some  time,  but,  after  many  prayers 
and  much  consideration,  he  accepted  the  invi- 
tation, and  continued  in  this  post  until  his  death. 
Soon  after,  the  sentiments  of  the  Baptists  were 
embraced  by  many  of  this  society.  This  put 
him  upon  studying  the  controversy  ;  and  the  re- 
sult was,  that  after  great  deliberation,  many 
prayers,  and  frequent  conferences  with  pious 
and  learned  friends,  he  altered  his  sentiments, 
first  concerning  the  mode,  and  then  the  sub- 
jects, of  baptism.  But  he  maintained  the  same 
temper  of  friendship  and  charity  towards  other 
Christians,  not  only  as  to  conversation,  hut 
church  communion.  When  he  visited  the 
churches  in  the  north  and  west  of  England,  he 
laboured  to  promote  the  spirit  of  love  and  union 
among  them,  and  was  a  principal  person  in  set- 
ting up  and  maintaining  for  some  time  a  meet- 
ing of  some  eminent  men  of  each  denomination 
in  London.  He  divided  his  labcnirs  according 
to  the  liberality  of  his  temper.  In  the  aflernoon 
of  every  Lord's  Day  he  was  among  his  own  peo- 
ple. In  the  morning  he  usually  preached  at  St. 
George's  Church,  Soulhwark,  and  once  in  the 
week  at  Ely  House,  and  at  the  Savoy  to  the 
maimed  soldiers.  The  master  study  of  his  life 
was  a  new  translation  of  the  Bible  ;  in  this  de- 


»  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  109, 
154.  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  6G2,  C63  ;  and 
Richardson,  de  Praesulibus,  p.  1C2. 


254 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


sign  he  engaged  the  assistance  of  many  persons 
of  note.  It  was  almost  completed,  when  the 
great  turn  given  to  public  affairs  at  the  Resto- 
ration rendered  it  ahortive.*  The  benevolence 
of  his  exertions  formed  a  most  distinguishing 
trait  in  his  character.  He  chose  a  single  life, 
that  he  might  be  more  at  liberty  for  such  la- 
bours. Besides  his  own  alms,  he  was  a  con- 
stant solicitor  and  agent  for  the  poor,  and  car- 
ried about  with  him  a  list  and  description  of  the 
most  peculiar  objects  of  charity  which  he  knew. 
Thirty  families  had  all  their  subsistence  from 
him.  But  his  charity  was  not  limited  to  his 
own  congregation  ;  and  where  he  thought  it  no 
charity  to  give,  he  would  often  lend  without  in- 
terest or  security.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
instances  of  his  charity,  which  had  scarcely  a 
precedent,  was  what  he  showed  to  the  Jews  at 
Jerusalem,  who,  by  a  war  between  the  Swedes 
and  Poles,  which  cut  off  their  subsistence  from 
their  rich  brethren  in  other  countries,  were  re- 
duced to  great  extremities.  Mr.  Jessey  collect- 
ed for  them  £300,  arid  sent  with  it  letters,  with 
a  view  to  their  conversion  to  Christianity.  In 
the  year  1650  he  hail  written  a  treatise  to  re- 
move their  prejudices,  and  convince  them  of  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus,  recommended  by  several 
of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  afterward 
translated  into  Hebrew,  to  be  dispersed  among 
the  Jews  of  all  nations.  He  was  exposed  to  a 
great  number  of  visiters,  which  occasioned  him 
to  have  it  written  over  his  study  door, 

AMICE,  QUISQUIS  HUG  ADES  ; 
AUT  AGITO  PAUCIS,  AUT  ABI, 
AUT   ME    LABORANTEM  ADJUVA. 

WHATEVER   FRIEND   COMES   HITHER, 

DESPATCH    IN   BRIEF,  OR    GO, 

OR    HELP    ME    BUSIED    TOO.  H.  J. 

When  he  went  long  journeys,  he  laid  down 
rules  to  regulate  the  conversation  for  his  fel- 
low-travellers, which  were  enforced  by  small 
pecuniary  mulcts  on  the  violation  of  them.  He 
was  meek  and  humble,  and  very  plain  in  speech, 
dress,  and  demeanour.  He  was  so  great  a 
scripturist,  that  if  one  began  to  rehearse  any 
passage,  he  could  go  on  with  it,  and  name  the 
book,  chapter,  and  verse,  where  it  might  be 
found.  The  original  languages  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  were  as  familiar  to  him  as  his 
mother  tongue.  He  was  several  times  appre- 
hended at  meetings  for  religious  worship 
Upon  the  Restoration  he  was  ejected  from  his 
living  at  St.  George's,  silenced  from  his  minis- 
try, and  committed  to  prison.  About  five  or  six 
months  after  his  last  release,  he  died  full  of 
peace  and  joy ;  lamented  by  persons  of  differ- 
ent persuasions,  several  thousands  of  whom 
attended  his  funeral. —  Crosby's  History  of  the 
Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p.  307-321.     Palmer's  Noncon- 


*  In  reference  to  his  translation  he  would  often  ex- 
claim, "Oh  that  I  may  see  this  done  before  1  die!" 
To  show  the  necessity  of  amending  the  common 
translation,  he  observed  that  (as  Dr.  Hill  declared  in 
a  great  assembly)  Archbishop  Bancroft,  who  was  a 
supervisor  of  this  work,  altered  it  in  fourteen  places  to 
make  it  speak  the  prelalical  language.  Dr.  Smith,  also, 
who  was  one  of  the  translators  of  the  Bible,  and  wrote 
the  preface,  who  was  afterward  made  Bishop  of  Glou- 
cester, complained  to  a  minister  of  tiiat  county  of 
the  archbisliop's  unwarrantable  alterations.  "  But," 
says  he,  "  he  is  so  potent,  there  is  no  contradicting 
him."--C. 


formists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  108-113.  The 
Life  and  Death  of  Mr.  Jessty,  1671  ;  where  are 
the  letters  written  to  the  Jews,  remarks  on  our 
translation  of  the  Bible,  and  rules  for  a  new  ver- 
sion.— Ed.]  (Toulmin). 

The  next  judgment  which  befell  the  nation 
was  the  most  dreadful  plague  that  had  been 
known  within  the  memory  of  man.  This  was 
preceded  by  an  unusual  drought ;  the  meadows 
were  parched  and  burned  up  like  the  highways, 
insomuch  that  there  was  no  food  for  the  cattle, 
which  occasioned  first  a  murrain  among  them, 
and  then  a  general  contagion  among  the  human 
species,  which  increased  in  the  city  and  sub- 
urbs of  London  until  eight  or  ten  thousand  died 
in  a  week.*  The  richer  inhabitants  fled  into 
the  remoter  counties  ;  but  the  calamities  of 
those  who  stayed  behind,  and  of  the  poorer 
sort,  are  not  to  be  expressed.  Trade  was  at  a 
full  stand  ;  all  commerce  between  London  and 
the  country  was  entirely  cut  off,  lest  the  infec- 
tion should  be  propagated  thereby.  Nay,  the 
country  housekeepers  and  fanners  durst  not 
entertain  their  city  friends  or  relations  till  they 
had  performed  quarantine  in  the  fields  or  out- 
houses. If  a  stranger  passed  through  the 
neighbourhood,  they  fled  from  him  as  an  ene- 
my. In  London  the  shops  and  houses  were 
quite  shut  up,  and  many  of  them  marked  with  a 
red  cross,  and  an  inscription  over  the  door. 
Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us  !  Grass  grew  in  the 
streets ;  and  every  night  the  bellman  went  his 
rounds  with  a  cart,  crying,  Bring  out  your  dead. 
From  London  the  plague  spread  into  the  neigh- 
bouring towns  and  villages,  and  continued  near 
three  quarters  of  a  year,  till  it  had  swept  away 
almost  one  hundred  thousand  of  the  inhabi- 
tants.t 

Some  of  the  established  clergy,  with  a  com- 
mendable zeal,  ventured  to  continue  in  their 
stations,  and  preach  to  their  parishioners 
throughout  the  course  of  the  plague,  as  Dr. 
Walker,  Dr.  Horton,  Dr.  Meriton,  and  a  few 
others  ;$  but  most  of  them  fled,  and  deserted 


*  Dr.  Grey  has  introduced  here  a  full  and  affect- 
ing narrative  of  the  progress  of  this  calamity,  and  of 
the  mortality  it  produced ;  drawn  up  by  the  pen  of 
Mr.  Vincent,  one  who  charitably  gave  his  assistance 
at  that  time,  as  copied  by  Dr.  Calamy,  in  his  Contin- 
uation, p.  33.  It  was  usual  for  people,  as  they  went 
about  their  business,  to  drop  down  in  the  street.  A 
bagpiper,  who,  excessively  overcome  with  liquor, 
had  fallen  down  and  lay  asleep  in  the  street,  was 
taken  up  and  thrown  into  a  cart,  and  betimes  the 
ne.xt  morning  carried  away  with  some  dead  bodies. 
At  daybreak  he  awoke,  and,  rising,  began  to  play  a 
tune  :  which  so  surprised  those  who  drove  the  cart, 
and  could  see  nothing  distinctly,  that  in  a  fright  they 
betook  them  to  iheir  heels,  and  would  have  it  they 
had  taken  up  the  devil  in  the  disguise  of  a  dead  man. 
—  Sir  John  Reresby's  Memoirs,  p.  10,  11. — Ed. 

t  De  Foe  has  recorded  this  awful  visitation  in  a 
most  graphic  volume. — C. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  2.  Baxter,  in  another 
place,  says,  "  It  is  scarcely  possible  for  people  that 
live  in  times  of  health  and  security  to  apprehend  the 
dieaiifulness  of  the  pestilence!  How  fearful  were 
people,  even  a  hundred  miles  from  London,  of  any- 
thing bought  in  a  draper's  shop  there,  or  of  any  per- 
son that  came  to  their  houses !  How  they  would 
shut  their  doors  against  their  friends,  and  if  men  met 
one  another  in  the  fields,  how  they  would  avoid  each 
other."  Baxter  says  that  only  three  Nonconformist 
ministers  died  of  the  plague. — Baxter's  Life,  part  ii., 
p.  448.— C. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


255- 


their  parishes  at  a  time  when  their  assistance 
was  most  wanted  ;  upon  this  some  of  the  eject- 
ed ministers  ventured  to  preach  in  the  vacant 
pulpits,  imagining  that  so  extraordinary  a  case 
would  justily  their  disregard  to  the  laws.  The 
ministers  who  embarked  in  this  service  were, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Tiiomas  Vincent,  Mr.  Ches- 
ter, Mr.  Janeway,  Mr.  Turner,  Grimes,  Frank- 
Jin,  and  others.  The  face  of  death,  and  the 
arrows  ttiat  fled  among  the  people  in  darkness 
at  noonday,  awakened  both  preachers  and 
hearers :  many  who  were  at  church  one  day 
were  tlirown  into  their  graves  the  next ;  the 
cry  of  great  numbers  was,  "  What  shall  we  do 
to  be  saved]"  A  more  awful  time  England  had 
never  seen. 

But  it  will  amaze  all  posterity,  that  in  a  time 
both  of  war  and  pestilence,  and  when  the  Non- 
conformist ministers  were  hazarding  their  lives 
in  the  service  of  the  souls  of  the  distressed  and 
dying  citizens  of  London,  that  the  prime  minis- 
ter and  his  creatures,*  instead  of  mourning  for 
the  nation's  sins,  and  meditating  a  reformation 
of  manners,  should  pour  out  all  their  vengeance 
upon    the  Nonconformists,   in  order  to   make 
their  condition  more  insupportable.    One  would 
have  thought  such  a  judgment  from  Heaven,  and 
such  a  generous  compassion  in  the  ejected  min- 
isters, should  have  softened  the  hearts  of  their 
most  cruel  enemies  ;  but  the  Presbyterians  must 
be  crushed,  in  defiance  of  the  rebukes  of  Prov- 
idence.    Bishop  Kennet  and  Mr.  Echard  would 
excuse  the  ministry,  by  alleging  that  some  of 
the  old  Oliverian  officers  were  enlisted  in  the 
Dutch  service,!  which,  if  true,  was  nothing  to 
the   body  of  the   Presbyterians,   though   Lord 
Clarendon  did  what  he  could  to  incense  the 
Parliament,  and  make  them  believe  they  were 
in  confederacy  with  the  enemies  of  the  govern- 
ment.    In  his  harangue  to  the  House,  he  says. 
"Their  countenances  were  more  erect,  and  more 
insolent,  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  than 
before  ;  that  they  were  ready,  if  any  misfortune 
had  befallen  the  king's  fleet,  to  have  brought 
the  war  into  our  fields  and  houses.    The  hornd 
murderers  of  our  late  royal  master  have  been 
received  into  the  most  sacred  councils  in  Hol- 
land ;  and  other  infamous  persons  of  our  nation 
are  admitted  to  a  share  in  the  conduct  of  their 
affairs,   with  liberal  pensions.     Too  many  of 
his  majesty's  subjects  have  been  enlisted  in 
their  service  for  a  maintenance.     Their  friends 
at  home  made  no  doubt  of  doing  the  business 
themselves,  if  they  could  pitch  upon  a  lucky 
day  to  begin  the  work.     If  you  carefully  pro- 
vide for  suppressing  your  enemies  at  home,  you 
will  find  your  enemies  abroad  more  inclined  to 
peace."     Is   it    possible   that   such    a  speech 
could  proceed  from  the  lips  of  a  wise  and  faith- 
ful counsellor,  who  was  to  ask  for  money  to 
carry  on  the  vvarl     Could  the  chancellor  think 
that  the  way  to  conquer  abroad  was  to  divide 
and  harass  the  king's  subjects  at  home,  in  the 
midst  of  the  distress  of  a  terrible  plague!     He 
confessed,  afterward,  that  he  was  most  averse 
to  this  war,  and  abhorred  it  from  his  very  soul ; 
and  yet  he  makes  a  handle  of  it  to  rain  down 
vengeance  on  the  Presbyterians,  who  had  no 
concern  in  it.     But  it  happened  to  them  as  in 
popish  countries :  when  any  general  calamity 
befalls  the  people,  it  is  imputed  to  too  great  an 

*  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  3.        t  Echard,  p.  824. 


indulgence  to  heretics,  and  the  vengeance  is  re- 
turned upon  their  heads.*  Bishop  Burnet  is  of 
opinion  that  the  Oxford  act  was  rather  owing 
to  the  liberty  the  Nonconformists  took  in  their 
sermons  to  complain  of  their  own  hardships, 
and  to  lament  the  vices  of  the  court,  as  the 
causes  of  the  present  calamities.  And  suppo- 
sing this  to  be  true,  their  complaints  were  not 
without  reason. 

However,  the  load  was  to  he  on  the  dissent- 
ing ministers,  and  therefore  an  act  was  brought 
into  the  House  to  banish  them  from  their  friends, 
which  had  the  royal  assent,  October  31,  1665. 
It  was  entitled,  "An  Act  to  restrain  Noncon- 
formists from  inhabiting  Corporations ;"  the  pre- 
amble to  which  sets  forth,  "that  divers  par- 
sons, and  others  in  holy  orders,  nut  having  sub- 
scribed the  Act  of  Uniformity,  have  taken  upon 
them  to  preach  in  unlawful  assemblies,  and  to 
instil  the  poisonous  principles  of  schism  and 
rebellion  into  the  hearts  of  his  majesty's  sub- 
jects, to  the  great  danger  of  the  Church  and 
kingdom.  Be  it  therefore  enacted,  that  all  such 
Nonconformist  ministers  shall  take  the  follow- 
ing oath  :  I,  A.  B.,  do  swear  that  it  is  not  law- 
ful, upon  any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  take  arms 
against  the  king;t  and  that  I  do  abhor  that 
traitorous  position  of  taking  arms  by  his  author- 
ity against  his  person,  or  against  those  that  are 
commissioned  by  him,  in  pursuance  of  such 
commissions  ;  and  that  I  will  not  at  any  time 
endeavour  any  alteration  of  government  either 
in  Church  or  State.  And  all  such  Nonconform- 
ist ministers  shall  not,  after  the  24th  of  March, 
166.'),  unless  in  passing  the  road,  come,  or  be 
within  five  miles  of  any  city,  town  corporate,  or 
borough,  that  sends  burgesses  to  Parliament ; 
or  within  five  miles  of  any  parish,  town,  or 
place,  wherein  they  have  since  the  Act  of  Obliv- 
ion been  parson,  vicar,  or  lecturer,  &;c.,  or 
where  they  have  preached  in  any  conventicle, 
on  any  pretence  whatsoever,  before  they  have 
taken  and  subscribed  the  aforesaid  oath  before 
the  justices  of  peace  at  their  quarter  sessions 
for  the  county,  in  open  court ;  upon  forfeiture 
for  every  such  offence  of  the  sum  of  forty 
pounds,  one  third  to  the  king,  another  third  to 
the  poor,  and  a  third  to  him  that  shall  sue  for 
it.  And  it  is  farther  enacted,  that  such  as  shall 
refuse  the  oath  aforesaid  shall  be  incapable  of 
teaching  any  public  or  private  schools,  or  of  ta- 
king any  boarderst  or  tablers  to  be  taught  or 
instructed,  under  pain  of  forty  pounds,  to  be 
distributed  as  above.  Any  two  justices  of 
peace,  upon  oath  made  before  them  of  any  of- 
fence committed  against  this  act,  are  empower- 
ed to  commit  the  offender  to  prison  for  six 
months,  without  bail  or  mainprize." 

The  Earl  of  Southampton,  Lord  Wharton, 
Ashley,  Dr.  Earl,  bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  oth- 


*  Echard,  p.  84G. 

t  A  project  was  fonned  of  imposing  this  clause  on 
the  vvhole  nation,  by  requiring  this  oath  of  every 
subject.  The  point  was  so  near  carried,  that  the  bill 
brought  in  for  the  purpose  was  rejected  by  three 
voices  only. — Secret  HmtoTij  of  the  Reign,  of  Charles 
II.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  172,  note. — Ed. 

+  "This  act  seemed  (it  is  justly  observed)  to  be 
the  last  step  in  the  climax  of  intolerance  ;  for  to  de- 
prive men  of  the  means  of  subsistence  implies  more 
deliberate  cruelty,  though  it  does  not  excite  so  much 
horror  as  fire  and  fagots." — Hecret  History  of  the  Reign 
of  Charles  II.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  171,  note. — Ed. 


256 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


ers,  vehemently  opposed  this  bill,  out  of  com- 
passion to  the  Nonconformists,  and  as  it  en- 
forced an  unlawful  and  unjustifiable  oath,  which 
(as  the  Earl  of  Southampton  observed)  no  hon- 
est man  could  take ;  but  the  madness  of  the 
times  prevailed  against  all  reason  and  humani- 
ty.* The  promoters  of  the  act  were,  Lord- 
chancellor  Clarendon,  Archbishop  Sheldon, 
Ward,  the  new  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  their 
creatures,  with  all  that  were  secret  favourites 
of  popery,  says  Bishop  Bnrnet.  It  was  moved 
that  the  word  legally  might  be  inserted  in  the 
■oath,  before  the  word  "  commissioned ;"  and 
that  before  the  words  "  endeavoured  to  change 
the  government,"  might  be  inserted  the  word 
uiilau-fulhj ;  but  all  amendments  were  reject- 
ed ;t  however,  Bridgeman,  chief  justice  of  the 
Common  Pleas,  declarmg  that  the  oath  must  be 
€0  understood.  Dr.  Bales  and  about  twenty  oth- 
ers took  it,  to  avoid  the  imputation  of  sedition  ; 
but  they  had  such  a  lecture  afterward  from  the 
bench  for  their  scruples,  that  they  repented  of 
what  they  had  done  before  they  went  out  of 
court.  Mr.  Howe,  and  about  twelve  in  Devon- 
shire, and  a  few  in  Dorsetshire,  took  the  oath, 
■with  a  de(;laration  in  what  sense  and  with  what 
limitations  they  understood  it.J 

But  the  body  of  the  Nonconformist  ministers 
refused  the  oath,  choosing  rather  to  forsake  their 
habitations,  their  relations,  and  friends,  and  all 
visible  support,  than  destroy  the  peace  of  their 
consciences.  Those  ministers  who  had  some 
little  estate  or  substance  of  their  own,  retired  to 
some  remote  and  obscure  villages,  or  such  little 
market-towns  as  were  not  corporations,  and 
more  than  five  miles  from  the  places  where  they 
had  preached  ;  but  in  many  counties  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  find  such  places  of  retirement ;  for  either 
there  were  no  houses  untenanted,  or  they  were 
annexed  to  farms  which  the  ministers  were  not 
capable  of  using;  or  the  people  were  afraid  to 
admit  the  ministers  into  their  houses,  lest  they 
should  be  suspected  as  favourers  of  noncon- 
formity."^ Some  took  advantage  of  the  minis- 
ters' necessities,  and  raised  their  rents  beyond 
what  they  could  afford  to  give.  Great  num- 
bers were  thus  buried  in  obscurity,  while  oth- 
ers, who  had  neither  money  nor  friends,  went 
on  preaching  as  they  could,  till  they  were  sent 
to  prison,  thmking  it  more  eligible  to  perish  in 
a  jail  than  to  starve  out  of  one  ;  especially  when 
by  this  means  they  had  some  occasional  relief 
from  their  hearers,  and  hopes  that  their  wives 
and  children  might  be  supported  after  their 
death. II  Many  who  lay  concealed  in  distant 
places  from  their  flecks  in  the  daytime,  rode 
thirty  or  forty  miles  to  preach  to  them  in  the 
right,  and  retired  again  before  daylight.  These 
hardships  tempted  some  few  to  conform,  says 
Mr.  Baxter,  contrary  to  their  former  judg- 
ments ;  but  the  body  of  Dissenters  remained 
steadfast  to  their  principles,  and  the  Church 
gained  neither  reputation  nor  numbers.  The 
informers  were  very  diligent  in  hunting  after 
their  game,  and  the  soldiers  and  officers  be- 
haved with  great  rudeness  and  violence.  When 
they  missed   of  the  ministers,  they  went  mto 


the  barns  and  out-houses,  and  sometimes  thrust 
their  swords  up  to  the  hilts  in  the  hay  and 
straw,  where  they  supposed  they  might  lie  con- 
cealed ;  they  made  havoc  of  their  goods,  and 
terrified  the  women  and  children  almost  out  of 
their  lives.  These  methods  of  cruelly  reduced 
many  ministers,  with  their  families,  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  living  upon  brown  rye  bread  and  wa- 
ter; but  few  were  reduced  to  public  beggary, 
says  Mr.  Baxter,*  the  providence  of  God  ap- 
pearing wonderfully  for  their  relief  in  their 
greatest  extremities. 

And  as  if  the  judginenta  of  Heaven  upon  this 
nation  were  not  heavy  enough,  nor  the  Legisla- 
ture sufficiently  severe,  the  bishops  must  throw 
their  weight  into  the  scale  ;  for  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  plague,  July  7,  1665,  Archbishop 
Sheldon  sent  orders  to  the  several  bishops  of 
his  province  to  return  the  names  of  all  ejected 
Nonconformist  ministers,  with  their  places  of 
abode  and  manner  of  life;  and  the  returns  of  the 
several  bishops  are  still  preserved  in  the  Lam- 
beth library.!  The  design  of  this  inquiry  was 
to  gird  the  laws  closer  upon  the  Dissenters,  and 
to  know  by  what  means  they  earned  their  bread  ; 
and  if  this  tender  hearted  archbishop  could  have 
had  his  will,  they  must  have  starved,  or  sought 
a  livelihood  in  foreign  countries. 

This  year  put  an  end  to  the  life  of  Dr.  Cor- 
nelius Burgess,  a  tiivine  of  the  Puritan  stamp,t 


*  Baxter,  part  iii.,  p.  3.     Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  329. 

t  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  15. 

%  Howes  Life,  p.  41. 

})  Baxter,  pari  in  ,  p.  4.     Burnet,  p.  331. 

II  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  15. 


*■  Page  4  t  Compl.  Hist.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  279. 

X  "  If  all  the  Puritans,"  says  Dr.  Grey,  "  had  been 
of  his  rebellious  stamp,  they  had  certainly  l)een  a 
wicked  crew  ;  but  there  was  a  great  difference  in 
Puritans,  some  very  good,  and  some  very  bad,  as  is 
justly  observed  by  Mr.  Fuller."  In  his  first  volume, 
also,  p.  2C8,  the  doctor  impeaches  the  character  of 
this  divine,  in  the  words  of  Echard,  who  calls  him 
"the  seditious  Dr.  Burgess,  and  one  of  the  greatest; 
boutefeus  of  the  whole  party,  being  the  perpetual 
Iruinpeter  to  the  most  violent  proceedings,  a  great 
instrument  in  bringing  on  the  miseries  of  the  nation  ; 
who  died  in  great  want  and  poverty,  tormented  and 
eaten  up  by  a  cancer  in  his  neck  and  cheek^— a  fear- 
ful instance  of  rebellion  and  sacrilege."  To  these 
and  other  invectives  of  the  Archdeacon  Echard 
against  Dr.  Burgess,  Dr.  Calamy  replied  ;  but  the 
reply  goes  chiefly  to  show  the  archdeacon's  partiali- 
ty, by  inveighing  in  this  manner  against  Burgess, 
when  the  characters  of  some  on  the  other  side  were 
open  to  similar  charges.  The  fact,  which  seems  to 
bear  hard  on  the  name  of  this  divine,  is,  that  though 
he  declared  it  "  by  no  means  lawful  to  alienate  the 
bishops'  lands  from  public  and  pious  uses,  or  to  con- 
vert them  to  any  private  person's  property,"  yet  he 
gained  so  much  as  to  grow  rich  by  the  purchase  of 
them.  After  the  Restoration  he  lost  all.  This,  Dr. 
Calamy  thinks,  might  be  allowed  a  sufficient  pun- 
ishment without  branding  his  memon,-.  What  in- 
consistency or  faults  soever  might  be  chargeable  on 
Dr.  Burgess,  the  interpretation  which  the  archdea- 
con puts  on  his  death  deserves  severe  censure,  as 
"rash  and  presuming."  This  method  gives  a  par- 
ticular and  invidious  constructicn  to  events  that  arise 
from  general  laws,  and  equally  befall  the  righteous 
and  the  wicked ;  and  it  shows  how  they  who  use  it 
would  direct,  if  it  were  in  their  power,  the  evils  and 
calamities  of  life.  It  indicates  as  much  a  want  of 
candour  and  generosity  as  of  sound  judgment.  It 
appears  from  a  MS.  history  drawn  np  by  Dr.  Henry 
Sampson,  a  noted  physician,  that  Dr.  Burgess  was 
deemed  a  man  of  solid  parts  and  great  learning;  that 
no  temptations  could  induce  him  to  return  to  the  Epis- 
copal side;  th;it  in  the  year  1G18  he  preached  a  ser- 
mon fuller  of  loyally  than  the  boldest  at  that  time 
would  dare  to  express;  that  he  was  against  imposing 
the  Covenant,  and  refused  to  take  it  till  he  was  sus- 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


257 


educated  at  Oxford,  and  chaplain  to  King 
Charles  I.  He  suflt-red  much  by  the  High 
Commission  Court ;  but,  tai<ing  part  with  the 
Parliament,  was  chosen  one  ot  the  pacific  di- 
vines, who  met  at  the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  to 
accommodate  differences  in  the  Church  :  he 
often  preached  before  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  was  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  but 
refused  to  take  the  Covenant  till  he  was  sus- 
pended. He  was  ejected  at  the  Restoration 
from  St.  Andrew's,  in  the  city  of  Wells,  in  Som- 
ersetshire, and  having  laid  out  all  his  money  in 
the  purchase  of  bishops'  lands,  he  was  reduced 
to  absolute  poverty.*  He  appeared  at  the  head 
■of  the  London  divines,  against  bringing  the  king 
to  his  trial,  and  was  esteemed  a  very  learned 
and  able  divine. t  He  died  at  his  house  at 
Watford,  June,  16G5. 

We  have  already  remembered  Dr.  Cheynel 
among  the  Oxford  professors,  a  man  of  great 
abilities,  and  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines. He  quitted  his  preferments  in  the  Uni- 
versity for  refusing  to  take  the  Engagement, 
and  was  ejected  from  the  living  of  Petworth  at 
the  Restoration,  without  having  enriched  him- 
self by  any  of  his  preferments.!  It  is  reported 
that  he  was  sometimes  disordered  in  his  head, 
but  he  was  perfectly  recovered  some  years  be- 
fore his  death,  which  happened  at  his  house  near 
Brighthelmstone,  in  Sussex,  September,  1665. <J 

[There  died  in  prison  this  year,  Mr.  Samuel 
Fisher,  a  man  of  great  parts  and  literature,  of 
eminent  piety  and  virtue,  who  reflected  honour 
on  each  denomination  of  Christians,  with  which, 
through  the  change  of  his  sentiments,  he  be- 
came successively  connected.  His  father  was 
a  haberdasher  of  hats,  and  Mayor  of  Northamp- 
ton. In  1623,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  he  be- 
came a  student  in  Trinity  College,  Oxford, 
■where  he  took  the  degree  of  master  of  arts,  and 
then  removed  to  New  Inn.  At  the  University 
he  distinguished  himself,  by  his  application  and 


pended.  He  was  excellently  skilled  in  the  liturgical 
•controversies,  and  those  of  church  government,  and 
was  possessed  of  all  the  books  of  Common  Prayer 
that  were  ever  printed  in  England,  and  bestowed 
them  upon  Oxford  library. — Dr.  Calamy's  Letter  to 
Mr.  Archdeacon  Echard,  p.  107-111. — En. 

*  Wood's  Alhen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  235.  Calamy, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  586;  or  Palmer's  Nonconformists'  Me- 
morial, vol.  ii.,  p.  384. 

t  He  was  author  of  many  small  tracts ;  one  of  his 
works  IS  entitled  "  The  Baptismal  Regeneration  of 
Elect  Infants."  1629.  His  sermons  were  numerous 
before  the  House  of  Commons.  He  was  also  the 
author  of  a  treatise  "  On  the  Necessity  of  Reforma- 
tion, in  Doctrine,  Discipline,  and  Worship  :"  this 
was  published  anonymously,  but  Baxter  says  it  was 
iis. — Baxter's  Life,  part  li.,  p.  205. — C. 

I  For  he  was  remarkable  throughout  his  life  for 
liospitalily  and  contempt  of  money.  Dr.  Johnson 
published  an  account  of  this  extraordinary  man,  that 
a|)peared  first  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for 
March  and  April,  1775  ;  which,  Mr.  Palmer  remarks, 
is  a  satire  both  upon  Dr.  Cheynel  and  the  times.  Dr. 
Cheynel,  this  narrative  says,  "  had  an  intrepidity 
which  was  never  to  be  shaken  by  any  danger,  and  a 
spirit  of  enterprise  not  to  be  discouraged  by  diflicully  ; 
which  were  sufiported  by  an  unusual  degree  of  bod- 
ily strength.  VVhatever  he  believed  he  thought  him- 
self obliged  to  profess,  and  what  he  professed  he  was 
ready  to  defend." — En. 

()  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  245.  Calamy, 
■vol.  ii.,  p.  675 ;  and  Palmer's  Nonconformists'  Me- 
morial, vol.  ii,,  p.  467. 

Vol.  II.— K  k 


proficiency  gained  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
Greek  and  Roman  antiquities,  and  was  particu- 
larly given  to  the  study  of  rhetoric  and  poetry. 
When  he  had  finished  his  academic  course,  he 
became  chaplain  to  Sir  Arthur  Haslerigge.  la 
1633  he  was  presented  to  the  vicarage  of  Lidd, 
in  Kent,  a  living  of  £500  a  year.  Here  he  had 
the  character  of  a  very  powerful  preacher,  uni- 
ted with  humility  and  affability  of  carriage. 
While  in  this  situation,  in  consequence  of  fre- 
quent conversation  with  a  Baptist  minister,  he 
was  led  into  an  examination  of  the  questions 
concerning  baptism,  which  ended  in  his  em- 
bracing the  opinions  of  the  Baptists,  being  bap- 
tized by  immersion,  and  taking  the  pastoral 
care  of  a  congregation  of  that  people,  having 
freely  resigned  his  living  and  returned  his  di- 
ploma to  the  bishop;  which  those  who  differ 
from  him  must  applaud  as  a  singular  instance 
of  sincerity  and  self-denial.  On  this  he  rented 
a  farm  and  commenced  grazier  ;  "  by  which  he 
procured  a  decent  competency,  enhanced,"  says 
Mr.  Gough,  "  by  the  consolation  of  solid  con- 
tent, and  the  internal  testimony  <fC  an  approving 
heart."  During  his  connexion  with  the  Bap- 
tists, he  baptized  some  hundreds,  and  was  fre- 
quently engaged  in  public  disputes  in  vindica- 
tion of  their  sentiments,  to  the  number  of  nine, 
in  the  course  of  three  years,  with  several  noted 
ministers,  sometimes  in  the  presence  of  two 
thousand  auditors,  and  once  with  Dr.  Cheynel. 
He  published  also  a  treatise,  entitled  "Baby- 
baptism  mere  Babism,"  which  is  represented 
as  containing  the  whole  slate  of  the  controversy 
as  it  was  then  managed.  He  was  deemed  an 
ornament  to  the  sect,  and  was  one  of  the  chief 
defenders  of  their  doctrine.  In  1665  he  em- 
braced the  principles  of  the  Quakers,  and  be- 
came an  active  and  laborious  minister  among 
them.  He  preached  at  Dunkirk  against  the 
idolatry  of  the  priests  and  friars  ;  and,  in  com- 
pany with  another  friend,  travelled  on  foot  over 
the  Alps  to  Rome  ;  where  they  testified  against 
the  superstitions  of  the  place,  and  distributed 
some  books  among  the  ecclesiastics,  and  left 
it  without  molestation.  After  his  return,  he 
suffered  among  Protestants  the  persecution  he 
escaped  among  the  Romanists.  The  great  part 
of  the  last  four  years  of  his  life  was  spent  in 
prison  ;  and,  after  two  years'  confinement  in 
the  White  Lion  prison  in  Southwark,  he  died 
"  in  perfect  peace  with  God  ;  in  good  esteem 
both  with  his  friends  and  many  others,  on  ac- 
count of  the  eminence  of  his  natural  parts  and 
acquired  abilities  as  a  scholar,  and  of  his  ex- 
emplary humility,  social  virtues,  and  circum- 
spect conversation  as  a  Christian  ;  in  meekness 
instructing  those  who  opposed  him,  and  labour- 
ing incessantly,  by  his  discourses  and  by  his 
writings,  to  propagate  and  promote  true  Chris- 
tian practice  and  piety." — Wood's  Allien.  Oxon., 
vol.  ii.,  p.  243.  Crosbi/'s  History  of  the  Baptists, 
vol.  i.,  p.  361,  &c.  ;  and  Gough's  History  of  ihc 
Quaker.-!,  vol.  i.,  p.  163;  and  vol.  ii.,  p.  lil. — 
Ed.]  (Toui.min). 

The  vices  of  the  nation  not  being  sufficiently 
punished  by  pestilence  and  war,  it  pleased  Al- 
mighty God  this  year  to  suffer  tlie  city  of  Lon- 
don to  be  laid  in  ashes  by  a  dreadful  conflagra- 
tion, which  broke  out  in  Pudding  Lane  behind 
the  Monument,  September  2,  1666,  and  within 
three  or   four  days   consumed   thirteen  thou- 


258 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


sand  two  hundred  dwelling-houses,  eighty-nine 
churches,  among  which  was  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  Paul's  ;  many  public  structures,  schools, 
libraries,  and  stately  edifices.  Multitudes  lost 
their  goods  and  merchandise,  and  the  greatest 
part  of  their  substance,  and  some  few  their 
lives  ;*  the  king,  the  Duke  of  York,  and  many  of 
the  nobility,  were  spectators  of  the  desolation, 
but  had  not  the  power  to  stop  its  progress,  till 
at  length  it  ceased  almost  as  wonderfully  as  it 
began.  Moorfields  was  filled  with  household 
goods,  and  the  people  were  forced  to  lodge  in 
huts  and  tents  :  many  families  who  were  last 
week  in  prosperity,  were  now  reduced  to  beg- 
gary, and  obliged  to  begin  the  world  again. 
The  authors  of  this  fire  were  said  to  be  the  pa- 
pists, as  appears  by  the  inscription  upon  the 
Monument.  The  Parliament  being  of  this  opin- 
ion, petitioned  the  king  to  issue  out  a  procla- 
mation, requiring  all  popish  priests  and  Jesuits 
to  depart  the  kingdom  within  a  month,  and  ap- 
pointed a  committee  who  received  evidence  of 
some  papists  who  were  seen  to  throw  fire-balls 
into  houses,  3nd  of  others  who  had  materials 
for  it  in  their  pockets  ;  but  the  men  were  fled, 
and  none  suffered  but  one  Hubert,  a  French- 
man, by  his  own  confession. t 

In  this  general  confusion,  the  churches  being 
burned,  and  many  of  the  parish  ministers  with- 
drawn, for  want  of  habitations  or  places  of  wor- 
ship, the  Nonconformists  resolved  again  to  sup- 
ply the  necessities  of  the  people,  depending  upon 
it,  that  in  such  an  extremity  they  should  escape 
persecution.  Some  churches  were  erected  of 
boards,  which  they  called  tabernacles,  and  the 
Dissenters  fitted  up  large  rooms  with  pulpits, 
seats,  and  galleries,  for  the  reception  of  all  who 
would  come.  Dr.  Manton  had  his  rooms  full 
in  Covent  Garden  ;  Mr.  Thomas  Vincent,  Mr. 
Doolittle,  Dr.  Turner,  Mr.  Grimes,  Mr.  Jenkyns, 
Mr.  Nathaniel  Vincent,  Dr.  Jacomb,  Mr.  Wat- 
son, had  their  separate  meetings  in  other  pla- 
ces. The  Independents,  also,  as  Dr.  Owen,  Dr. 
Goodwin,  Mr.  Griffiths,  Brooks,  Caryl,  Baker, 
Nye,  and  others,  began  the  same  practice  ;  many 
citizens  frequented  the  meetings,  where  the  lit- 
urgy was  not  read  ;  though  the  few  parish  pul- 
pits that  remained  were  filled  with  very  able 
preachers,  as  Dr.  Tillotson,  Stillingfleet,  Pat- 
rick, White,  Gifford,  Whichcote,  Horton,  Meri- 
ton,  &c.  But  none  of  these  calamities  had  any 
farther  influence  upon  the  court  prelates,  than 
that  they  durst  not  prosecute  the  preachers  so 
severely  for  the  present. t 

Among  the  Nonconformist  ministers  who  died 
this  year  were  the  Rev.  Mr.  Edward  Calamy, 
B.D.,iii  the  ejected  minister  of  Aldermanbury, 
born  in  London,  1600,  and  bred  in  Pembroke 
Hall,  Cambridge  ;  he  was  first  chaplain  to  Dr. 
Felton,  bishop  of  Ely,  and  afterward  settled  at 
St.  Edmundsbury,  from  whence,  after  ten  years, 


*  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  only  six  lives  were 
lost.- — See  Burners  Own  Times,  vol.  i.,  p.  321-326. 
Hume,  vol.  vii.,  p.  415. — C. 

t  Hubert  was  a  French  Huguenot,  of  Rouen  in 
Normandy.  Though  he  confessed  the  fact,  yet,  ac- 
cording to  Echard,  he  sulfered  unjustly ;  for  he  was 
a  sort  of  lunatic,  and  had  not  landed  in  England  till 
two  days  after  the  fire,  as  appeared  by  the  evidence 
of  the  master  of  the  ship  who  had  him  on  board. 
—  Grey's  Examination,  vol.  iii.,  p.  439. — Ed. 

X  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  19. 

%  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  ii.,  p.  4. 


he,  with  thirty  other  ministers,  was  driven  out 
of  the  diocess  of  Bishop  Wren's  Visitation  Ar- 
ticle and  the  Book  of  Sports.  Upon  the  death  of 
Dr.  Stoughton,  1639,  he  was  chosen  to  Alder- 
manbury, where  he  soon  gained  a  vast  reputa- 
tion. He  was  one  of  the  divines  who  met  in 
the  Jerusalem  Chamber  for  accommodating  ec- 
clesiastical matters  in  the  year  1641.  He  was 
afterward  a  member  of  the  Assembly  at  West- 
minster, and  an  active  man  in  all  their  proceed- 
ings. He  was  one  of  the  most  popular  preach- 
ers in  the  city,*  and  had  a  great  hand  in  the 
king's  restoration,  but  soon  repented  having 
done  it  without  a  previous  treaty.  He  refused 
a  bishopric,  because  he  could  not  have  it  upon 
the  terms  of  the  king's  declaration  ;  and  soon 
after  the  Bartholomew  Act,  was  imprisoned  in 
Newgate  for  preaching  an  occasional  sermon  to 
his  parishioners. t  He  afterward  lived  pretty 
much  retired  till  this  year,  when,  being  driven 
in  a  coach  through  the  ruins  of  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, it  so  affected  him  that  he  went  home  and 
never  came  out  of  his  chamber  more,  dying 
within  a  month,  in  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his 
age.t 

Mr.  Arthur  Jackson,  M.A.,  the  ejected  minis- 
ter of  St.  Faith's,  was  born  about  the  year  1593, 
and  educated*  in  Cambridge.  He  became  min- 
ister of  St.  Michael's,  Wood-street,  in  the  year 
1625,  when  the  pestilence  raged  in  the  city, 
and  continued  with  his  parish  throughout  the 
whole  course  of  the  distemper.^     He  was  fined 


*  His  week-day  lecture  was  constantly  attended, 
for  twenty  years  together,  by  persons  of  the  greatest 
quality,  there  being  seldom  so  few  as  twenty  coach- 
es. He  was  president  in  meetings  of  the  city  minis- 
ters, and  qualified,  by  natural  and  acquired  abilities, 
to  be  the  leader  of  the  Presbyterians.  He  dared  to 
censure  the  conduct  of  Cromwell  to  his  face,  and  was 
never  known  to  be  intimidated,  where  he  thought  his 
duty  was  concerned  ;  of  which  his  grandson  gives  a 
remarkable  proof*  He  was  one  of  the  writers 
against  the  liturgy.  The  title  of  one  of  the  answers 
to  him  and  his  brethren  is  a  curious  specimen  of  the 
taste  and  spirit  of  the  times.  It  was  called  "  A  Throat 
Hapse  for  the  Frogs  and  Toads  that  crept  abroad 
croaking  against  the  Common  Prayer  Book." — 
Granger  s  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.,  p.  184,  octavo, 
and  note. — Ed. 

t  This  case  has  already  been  alluded  to.  This 
confinement  made  no  small  noise,  Mr.  Calamy  was 
a  man  so  generally  beloved  and  respected.  Dr.  Wilde 
published  a  copy  of  verses  on  the  occasion,  which 
was  spread  through  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.  And 
the  passage  through  Newgate-street  was  obstructed 
by  the  coaches  of  those  who  visited  him  in  his  im- 
prisonment. A  popish  lady,  who  had  been  stopped 
by  them,  finding  what  alarm  and  disturbance  this 
proceeding  against  Mr.  Calamy  had  produced,  took 
the  first  opportunity  to  wait  upon  the  king  at  White- 
hall, and  communicate  the  whole  matter  to  him,  ex- 
pressing her  fear  that  if  such  steps  as  these  were  ta- 
ken, he  would  lose  the  atfections  of  the  city,  which 
might  be  of  very  ill  consequence.  On  this  remon- 
strance, and  for  some  other  reasons,  Mr.  Calamy  was 
in  a  little  time  discharged  by  the  express  order  of 
his  m^iesU.— Memoirs  of  Dr.  Edmund  Calamy,  MS. 
— C.         i  Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  73. 

^  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  ii..  p,  3;  or  Palm- 
er's Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  104. 


'  Preaching  before  General  Monk,  soon  after  the  Resto- 
ration, having  occasion  to  speak  of  filthy  lucre,  he  said, 
"  Some  men  will  betray  threo  kingdoms  for  filthy  lucre's 
sake  ;"  and  immediately  threw  his  handkerchief,  which  lie 
usually  waved  up  and  down  while  he  was  preaching,  to- 
wards the  general's  pew. — Palmer  and  Granger,  ut  supra. 
—Ed. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


£500  for  refusing  to  give  evidence  against  Mr. 
Love,  and  committed  prisoner  to  the  Fleet, 
where  he  remained  seventeen  weeks.  At  the 
Restoration  he  was  chosen,  by  tiie  Provincial 
Assembly  of  London,  to  present  a  Bible  to  the 
king  at  his  public  entrance.*  He  was  after- 
ward one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Savoy  ; 
and  when  the  Uniformity  Act  look  place,  being 
old,  he  retired  to  a  private  life,  and  died  with 
great  satisfaction  in  his  nonconformity,  August 
5,  1665,  in  the  seventy-fourth  year  of  his  age.f 

Dr.  William  Spurstow,  the  ejected  minister 
of  Hackney,  was  some  time  master  of  Katherine 
Hall,  Cambridge,  but  ejected  for  refusing  the 
Engagement.  He  was  one  of  the  authors  of 
Smectymnuus,  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of 
Divines,  and  afterward  one  of  the  commission- 
ers of  the  Savoy;  a  man  of  great  learning,  hu- 
mility, and  charity,  and  of  a  cheerful  conversa- 
tion :  he  lived  through  the  sickness-year,  but 
died  the  following,  in  an  advanced  age.f 

This  year  was  memorable  for  the  fall  of  the 
great  Earl  of  Clarendon,  lord-high-chancellor  of 
England,  who  attended  the  king  in  his  exile, 
and  upon  his  majesty's  restoration  was  created 
a  peer,  and  advanced  to  the  high  dignity  of 
Chancellor  of  England.  He  governed  with  a 
sovereign  and  absolute  sway  as  prime  minister 
for  about  two  years ;  but,  in  the  year  16G3,  he 
was  impeached  of  high  treason  by  the  Earl  of 
Bristol,  and,  though  the  impeachment  was  drop- 
ped for  want  of  form,  his  interest  at  court  de- 
clined from  that  time,  and,  after  the  Oxford 
Parliament  of  1665,  his  lordship  was  out  of  all 
credit.  This  summer  the  king  took  the  seals 
from  him,  and,  on  the  12th  of  November,  Sir 
Edward  Seymour  impeached  him  of  high  trea- 
san  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Peers,  in  the 
name  of  all  the  commons  of  England,  for  sun- 
dry arbitrary  and  tyrannical  proceedings  con- 
trary to  law,  by  which  he  had  acquired  a  great- 
er estate  than  could  be  honestly  gotten  in  that 
time ;  for  procuring  grants  of  the  king's  lands 


*  "  There  was,"  Mr.  Granger  observes,  "  a  par- 
ticular propriety  in  assigning  this  office  to  him,  as 
he  had  written  a  commentary  on  several  parts  of  the 
Bible."  He  was  a  man  of  prodigious  application ;  at 
the  university  he  studied  fourteen  or  sixteen  hours  a 
day,  and  to  the  day  of  his  death  constantly  rose,  sum- 
mer and  winter,  at  three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing.—  Granger'' s  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  43,  oc- 
tavo.— En. 

I  Not  long  after  his  coming  to  London  the  Cloth- 
worker's  Company,  of  which  his  father  an^  uncle 
were  members  and  governors,  chose  him  to  be  their 
chaplain,  to  whom  he  preached  once  eveiy  quarter, 
where,  also,  he  sometunes  dispensed  the  communion 
on  a  turn-up  table,  which  was  used  at  other  times 
for  different  purposes.  Laud,  then  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don, hearing  of  this,  sent  for  Mr.  Jackson,  and  ex- 
pressed his  dislike  of  it,  saying,  "  I  know  ifct  what 
you  young  divines  think,  but,  for  my  own  part,  I 
know  no  other  place  of  residence  that  God  hath  on 
earth  but  the  high  altai ;"  forgetting  the  doctrines  of 
Scripture,  and  of  the  homily  concerning  the  bodies 
and  souls  of  true  Christians  as  the  special  temples 
of  God. — Palmer's  Noticojformists'  Memorial,  vol.  i., 
p.  121.  His  works  are  Annotations  on  parts  of  the 
Bible,  in  four  volumes,  quarto. — ^C. 

t  Caiamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  471 ;  or  Palmer's  Noncon- 
formists' Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  173.  Dr.  Spurstow 
was  chaplain  to  the  regiment  commanded  by  John 
Hampden,  and  attended  that  pious  patriot  on  his 
deathbed. — Forster's  Statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth, 
■vol.  li.,  p.  373.— C. 


to  his  relations,  contrary  to  law  ;  for  corre- 
sponding with  Cromwell  in  his  exile;*  for  ad- 
vising and  effecting  the  sale  of  Dunkirk  ;  for 
issuing  out  '/uo  warranlos  to  obtain  great  sums 
of  money  from  the  corporations  ;  for  determin- 
ing people's  title  to  their  lands  at  the  council- 
table,  and  stopping  proceedings  at  law,  &c. 
The  earl  had  made  himself  obnoxious  at  court 
by  his  magisterial  carriage  to  the  king,t  and 
was  grown  very  unpopular  by  his  superb  and 
magnificent  palace  at  St.  James's,  erected  in 
the  time  of  war  and  pestilence,  which  cost  him 
£50,000. t  Some  called  it  Dunkirk  House,  as 
being  built  with  his  share  of  the  price  of  that 
fortress  ;  and  others  Holland  House,  as  if  he 
had  received  money  from  the  king's  enemies  in 
time  of  war.  The  king's  second  marriage, 
which  proved  barren,  was  laid  to  his  charge, 
and  said  to  be. contrived  for  the  advancement 
of  his  grandchildren  by  the  Duchess  of  York, 
who  was  the  earl's  daughter.  When  his  maj- 
esty inclined  to  part  with  his  queen,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, to  legitimate  his  addresses  to  Miss  Stew- 
ard, the  chancellor  got  her  married  privately  to 
the  Duke  of  Richmond,  without  the  king's 
knowledge,  which  his  majesty  was  told  was  to 
secure  the  succession  of  the  crown  to  his  own 
family.  This  intriguing,  together  with  his  high 
opposition  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  to  all 
who  were  not  of  his  principles,  procured  him 
many  enemies,  and  struck  him  quite  out  of  the 
king's  favour.  The  earl  did  not  think  lit  to 
abide  the  storm,  but  withdrew  to  France,  leav- 
ing a  paper  behind  him,  in  which  he  denies  al- 
most every  article  of  his  charge  ;^  but  the  Par- 


*  Dr.  Grey  supposes  that  Mr.  Neal  could  not  but 
know  that  Lord  Clarendon  had  cleared  himself  from 
this  charge  to  the  king's  satisfaction  tluring  las  e.xiie, 
who  declared  "  that  he  was  sorry  that  he  was  not  in 
a  condition  to  do  him  more  justice  than  to  declare 
him  innocent,  which  he  did,  and  commanded  the 
clerk  of  the  council  to  draw  up  a  full  order  for  his 
justification,  which  his  majesty  himself  would  sign." 
—Ed.  ,  t  Burnet,  p.  365, 369,  370. 

X  Mr.  Echard  says  that  this  palace  was  built  in 
the  absence  of  the  chancellor,  principally  at  the  e.x- 
pense  of  the  Vintners'  Company  :  and  that,  when  he 
came  to  see  the  case  of  it,  he  rather  submitted  than 
consented,  and  with  a  sigh  said,  "  This  house  will 
one  day  be  my  luin." — Grey's  Examination,  vol.  iii., 
p.  352,  note.  The  doctor  fills  two  pages  here  with 
quoting  Lord  Clarendon's  vindication  of  himself — 
Ed. 

(j  The  articles  of  the  charge  stated  by  Mr.  Neal 
were,  if  you  credit  Dr.  Welwood,  the  ostensible  caus- 
es only  of  the  chancellor's  fall.  The  true  reason  why 
he  was  abandoned  to  his  enemies  was,  that  he  secret- 
ly opposed  the  design  of  the  Parliament  to  settle 
such  a  revenue  upon  the  king  during  hfe  as  would 
place  him  beyond  the  necessity  of  asking  more,  ex- 
cept on  some  extraordinary  occasion ;  and  he  drew 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  into  his  views,  urging  that 
he  knew  the  king  so  well,  that  if  such  a  revenue 
were  once  settled  upon  him  for  life,  neither  of  them 
two  would  be  of  any  farther  u.se  ;  and  there  would  be 
no  probability  of  seeing  many  more  sessions  of  Par- 
liament during  that  reign.  This  came  to  the  king's 
ears.  —  Memoirs,  p.  109,  110,  sixth  edition.  Lord 
Cornbury,  in  a  letter  to  the  DiiKe  of  Ormond,  pre- 
served by  Carte,  said  that  his  father  never  stirred  as 
long  as  he  saw  any  probability  of  being  brought  to 
his  trial  in  Parliament,  though  all  his  friends  per- 
suaded him  to  leave  the  kingdom,  fearing  that  his 
innocence  v/ould  not  protect  him  against  the  malice 
of  his  enemies.  When  he  found  that  tuere  was  a 
design  to  prorogue  the  Parliament  on  purpose  to  try 


260 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


liamcnt  voted  his  dofcnct^  scandalous,  and  or- 1  while  the  others,  whom  he  had  persecuted,  were 
dercd  il  to  be  burned  by  the  hands  of  the  com-  most  moderate  in  his  case,  and  many  of  them 
ition  hangman.  December  18,  his  lordship  was  for  him.  It  was  a  great  ease  tiiat  befell  good 
banished  the  king's  dominions  for  life  by  act  of  men  by  his  fall,"  says  he,  "  for  his  way  was  to 
Parliament.  He  spent  the  remaining  seven  !  decoy  men  into  conspiracies,  or  pretended  plots, 
years  of  his  life  at  Rouen  in  Normandy,  among  and  upon  those  rumours  innocent  people  were 
papists  and  Presbyterians,  whom  he  would  laid  in  prison,  so  that  no  man  knew  when  he 
hardly  suffer  to  live  in  his  own  country,  and  was  safe;  whereas,  since  his  time,  though  the 
employed  the  chief  of  his  time  in  writing  the  laws  have  been  made  more  severe,  yet  men  are 
History  of  the  Grand  llebellion,*  which  is  in  more  safe."*  His  lordship  was  undoubtedly  a 
every  one's  hands.  |  personof  very  considerable  abilities,  which  have 

The  Earl  of  Clarendon  was  a  Protestant  of  j  been  sufficiently  celebrated  by  his  admirers,  but 
Laudean  principles  in  Church  and  State,  and  at  |  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  any  great  or 
the  head  of  all  the  penal  laws  against  the  Non-  [  generous  exploits  for  the  service  of  the  public  ; 
conformists  to  this  time.  Bishop  Burnet  says,t  j  and  how  far  his  conduct  with  regard  to  the  Non- 
"  He  was  a  good  chancellor,t  but  a  little  too  conformists  was  consistent  with  humanity,  reli- 
rough  ;  that  he  meddled  too  much  in  foreign  af-  j  gion,  or  honour,  must  be  left  with  the  reader, 
fairs,  which  he  never  understood  well ;  that  he 
had  too  much  levity  in  his  wit,  and  did  not  ob- 
serve the  decorum  of  his  post."  Mr.  Rapin 
adds,«J  "  that  from  him  came  all  the  blows  aimed 
at  the  Nonconformists  since  the  beginning  of  this 
reign.  His  immoderate  passion  against  Pres- 
byterianism  was  this  great  man's  foible. II  He 
gloried  in  his  hatred  of  that  people;  and,  per- 
haps, contributed  more  than  any  other  person  to 
that  excess  of  animosity  which  subsists  against 
them  at  this  day  among  the  followers  of  his 
maxims  and  principles."  Mr.  Echard  says, 
"  His  reinoval  was  a  great  satisfaction  to  the 
Dissenters  (directly  contrary  to  Mr.  Baxter) ; 
who  observes  a  remarkable  providence  of  God, 
that  he  who  had  dealt  so  cruelly  by  the  Noncon- 
formists should  be  banished  by  his  own  friends. 


him  by  a  jury  of  peers,  by  which  means  he  might  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  protesting  lords,  he  resolved  to 
avail  himself  of  an  opportunity  of  going  over  to  Ca- 
lais.—  Grey's  Examination,\o\.  iii.,  p.  355,  356. — Ed. 
*  He  also  read  over  Livy  and  Tacitus,  and  almost 
all  Tuliy's  works;  and  "was  a  much  greater,  per- 
haps a  happier  man,  alone  and  in  exile,"  says  Mr. 
Granger,  "than  Charles  II.  upon  his  throne." — His- 
tory of  Engiand,  vol.  ill.,  p.  3G0,  and  vol.  iv.,  p.  64, 
note. — Ed. 
t  Page  33. 

Dr.  Grey  gives  Bishop  Burnet's  character  of  the 
lord-chancellor  more  at  length,  and  perti.xes  another 
character  of  his  lordship  drawn  by  the  pen  of  Mr. 
Carte,  to  "obviate  (as  he  expresses  himself)  the  ill- 
natured  reflection  cast  upon  him  by  Mr.  Neal,  bo- 
cause  he  adhered  to  the  interest  of  his  king  and 
country,  and  would  not  give  up  the  Church  establish- 
ed into  the  hands  of  unreasonable  fanatics." — Ed. 

X  A  domestic  incident,  related  by  Bishop  Burnet, 
is  stippused  to  have  fixed  and  heightened  the  chan- 
cellor's zeal  for  the  constitutional  liberties  of  his 
country,  in  civil  matters.     On  a  visit  which  he  paid 
to  his  father,  a  gentleman  of  Wiltshire,  when  he  be- 
gan to  grow  eminent  in  his  profession,  as  they  were 
ivalking  one  day  in  a  field,  his  father  observed  to 
him,  "  that  men  of  his  profession  did  often  stretch 
law  and  prerogative  to  the  prejudice  of  the  liberty 
of  the  subject,  to  recommend  and  advance  them- 
selves ;"  and  charged  him,  that  he  should  "  never  sac- 
rifice the  laws  and  liberties  of  his  country  to  his  own 
interest,  or  to  the  will  of  a  prince."    He  repeated 
this  twice,  and  immediately  fell  mto  a  fit  of  apoplexy, 
of  which  he  died  in  a  few  honts.— Burnet's  History 
of  his  Own  Times,  vol.  i.,  p.  231. 
^  Vol.  ii.,  p.  050,  folio  edition. 
II  Clarendon  was  banished  in  1667,  and  observes 
himself,  that  his  "  affairs  vcvcr  prospered  after  the  Ox- 
ford .4e/."     No  one  should  read  his  history  without 
remembering  that  he  was  the  arch-enemy  of  the  Non- 
conforiniste,  and  that  his  works  afford  about  as  faith- 
ful a  picture  of  those  good  men.  as  Bonner  would 
have  drawn  of  the  Reformers.— 0. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FROM  THE  B.\NIs'hMENT  OF    THE    E.\KL  OF  CLAREN- 
DON   TO    THE     king's    DECLARATION     OF    INDUL- 
GENCE   IN    THE    YEAR     1672. 
1667. 

Upon  the  fall  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon,  the 
discourse  of  a  toleration  began  to  revive  ;  the 
king,  in  his  speech  to  his  Parliament,  February 
10,  has  this  passage  :  "  One  thing  more  I  hold 
myself  obliged  to  recommend  to  you  at  this 
present,  that  is,  that  you  would  serjously  think 
of  some  course  to  beget  a  better  union  and  com- 
posure in  the  minds  of  my  Protestant  subjects 
in  matters  of  religion,  whereby  they  may  be  in- 
duced not  only  to  submit  quietly  to  the  govern- 
ment, but  also  cheerfully  give  their  assistance 
to  the  support  of  it."t  Sundry  pamphlets  were 
published  upon  this  head  ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  being  now  prime  minister,  the  Non- 
conformists about  London  were  connived  at, 
and  people  went  openly  and  boldly  to  their  meet- 
ings. 

But  the  House  of  Commons,  who  were  yet 
influenced  by  the  pernicious  maxims  of  the  late 
chancellor,  petitioned  the  king  to  issue  out  his 
proclamation  for  enforcing  the  laws  against 
conventicles,  and  for  preserving  the  peace  of 
the  kingdom  against  unlawful  assemblies  of  pa- 
pists and  Nonconformists.  Accordingly,  his 
majesty  issued  out  his  proclamation,  that  "  upon 
consideration  of  the  late  petition,  and  upon  in- 
formation that  divers  persons  in  several  parts 
of  the  realm  (abusing  his  clemency,  even  while 
it  was  under  consideration  to  find  out  a  way  for 
the  better  union  of  his  Protestant  subjects) 
have,  of  late,  frequently  and  openly,  in  great 
numbers,  and  to  the  great  disturbance  of  the 
peace,  held  unlawful  assemblies  and  conventi- 
cles, hii  majesty  declares  that  he  will  not  suffer 
such  notorious  contempt  of  the  laws  to  go  un- 
punished, but  requires,  charges,  and  commands 
all  officers  to  he  circumspect  and  vigilant  in 
their  several  jurisdictions,  to  enforce  and  put 
the  laws  in  execution  against  unlawful  conven- 
ticles, commanding  them  to  take  particular  care 
to  preserve  the  peace." 

The  sufferings  of  the  Dissenters  began  to  ex- 
cite compassion  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  in- 
somuch  that  their   numbers  visibly  increased, 


*  Baxter,  part  iii.,  p.  20,  21. 

t  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  316. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


261 


partly  through  the  indulgence  of  the  court,  and 
the  want  of  churches  since  the  fire  in  London, 
and  partly  through  the  poverty  of  the  common 
people,  who,  having  little  to  lose,  ventured  to  go 
publicly  to  meetings  in  defiance  of  the  laws. 
The  indolence  of  the  established  clergy,  and  the 
diligence  of  the  Nonconformist  ministers,  con- 
tributed very  much  to  the  increase  of  Noncon- 
formists. Bishop  Burnet  says,*  "The  king  was 
highly  offended  at  the  behaviour  of  most  of 
the  bishops  ;  Archbishop  Sheldon  and  Morley, 
who  kept  close  by  Lord  Clarendon,  the  great 
patron  of  persecuting  power,  lost  the  king's  fa- 
vour ;  the  former  never  recovered  it,  and  the 
latter  was  sent  from  court  into  his  diocess. 
When  complaint  was  made  of  some  disorders 
and  conventicles,  the  king  said  the  clergi/  were 
chiefly  to  blame  ;  for  if  they  had  lived  well,+  and 
gone  about  their  parishes,  and  taken  pains  to 
convince  the  Nonconformists,  the  nation  might 
have  been  well  settled  ;  but  they  thought  of  no- 
thing but  to  get  good  benefices,  and  keep  a  good 
table."  In  another  conversation  with  the  bish- 
op, about  the  ill  state  of  the  Church,!  his  maj- 
esty said,  "  If  the  clergy  had  done  their  parts, 
it  had  been  easy  to  run  down  the  Nonconform- 
ists, but  they  will  do  nothing,"  says  the  king, 
"  and  will  have  me  do  everything  ;  and  most  of 
them  do  icorse  than  if  Ihcij  did  nothing.  I  have  a 
very  honest  chaplain,"  says  he,  "  to  whom  I  have 
given  a  living  in  Suffolk,  but  he  is  a  very  great 
blockhead,  and  yet  has  brought  all  his  parish  to 
church  ;  I  cannot  imagine  what  he  could  say  to 
them,  for  he  is  a  very  silly  fellow  ;  but  he  has 
been  about  from  house  to  house,  and  I  suppose 
his  nonsense  has  suited  their  nonsense  ;  and  in 
reward  of  his  diligence  I  have  given  him  a  bish- 
opric in  Ireland."  About  this  time  Ralph  Wal- 
lis,  a  cobbler  of  Gloucester,  published  an  ac- 
count of  a  great  number  of  scandalous  Conform- 
ist ministers,  and  enumerated  their  scandals, 
to  the  great  displeasure  of  the  clergy ;  and  I 
fear,  says  Mr.  Baxter,<5  to  the  temptation  of 
many  Nonconformists,  who  might  be  glad  of 
anything  to  humble  the  Prelatists. 

The  learned  Dr.  Lazarus  Seaman,  the  eject- 
ed minister  of  Allhallows,  Bread-street,  died 
this  year,  of  whom  we  have  given  some  account 
among  the  Cambridge  professors  ;  he  was  edu- 
cated in  Emanuel  College,  and  by  his  indefati- 
gable industry  rose  to  high  reputation  in  the 
learned  world  for  his  exact  acquaintance  with 
the  Oriental  languages  ;  he  was  an  able  divine, 
an  active  member  of  the  Assembly  at  Westmin- 
ster, and  was  taken  notice  of  by  King  Charles  I. 
at  the  treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  for  his  singu- 
lar abilities  in  the  debates  about  church  govern- 
ment. II  He  was  also  master  of  Peter  House, 
Cambridge,  but  lost  all  at  the  Restoration  ;  he 
underwent  strong  pains  with  admirable  patience, 
and  at  length  died  in  peace  in  tlie  month  of 
September,  1667.ir 

*  Vol.  i.,p.  371,379. 

t  The  very  charge  of  the  Nonconformists  is  here 
granted  and  confessed ! — C. 

}  Page  380.  ^  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  23. 

II  Calainy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  17  ;  and  Pahner's  Noncon- 
lomiists'  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  70. 

^  He  left  a  very  valuable  library,  which  yielded 
X700,  and  was  the  first  sold  by  auction  in  England. — 
Ed.  The  catalogue  of  this  library  is  preserved  in 
the  Library  and  Museum  of  the  Baptist  College, 
Bristol,  England. — C. 


Mr.  George  Hughes,  B.D.,  the  ejected  minis- 
ter of  Plyinouth,  born  in  Southwark,*  and  edu- 
cated in  Corpus  Christi  College,  in  Cambridge. 
He  was  called  to  a  lecture  in  London,  but  was 
silenced  for  nonconformity  by  Archbishop  Laud. 
After  some  time  he  went  to  Tavistock,  and,  last 
of  all,  settled  at  Plymouth,  having  institution 
and  induction  from  Dr.  Brownrigge,  bishop  of 
Exeter,  in  the  year  1644.  Here  he  continued 
till  the  year  1662,  whence  he  was  ejected  a 
week  before  the  Act  of  Uniformity  took  place. 
He  was  afterward  imprisoned  in  St.  Nicholas 
Island,  where  he  contracted  an  incurable  scurvy 
and  dropsy,  which  at  length  put  an  end  to  his 
life.  He  was  well  read  in  the  fathers,  an  acute 
disputant,  a  most  faithful  pastor  to  a  large  flock 
under  his  care,  and  a  most  holy,  pious,  and  ex- 
emplary Christian.  He  had  the  greatest  inter- 
est and  influence  of  any  minister  in  the  west 
country,  and  refused  a  rich  bishopric  at  the 
Restoration.  He  was  both  charitable  and  hos- 
pitable when  it  was  in  his  power,  and  died  at 
length  in  a  most  heavenly  manner,  in  the  montU 
of  July,  1667,  and  in  the  si.xty-fourth  year  of 
his  age.t  The  Reverend  Mr.  John  Howe,  his 
son-in-law,  composed  a  Latin  epitaph  for  him, 
which  is  inscribed  on  his  loiiib.t 

The  kingdom  was  at  this  time  full  of  factions 
and  discontents,  arising  from  the  late  calamities 
of  fire  and  plague,  as  well  as  the  burden  of  the 
Dutch  war  ;  trade  was  at  a  stand,  and  great 
numbers  of  his  majesty's  subjects  were  both 
dispirited  and  impoverished  by  the  penal  laws ; 
but  that  which  struck  all  considerate  men  with 
a  panic,  was  the  danger  of  the  Protestant  inter- 
est, and  the  liberties  of  Europe,  from  the  formi- 
dable progress  of  the  French  armies,  which  this 
very  summer  overrun  the  Spanish  Flanders,  and 
took  the  strong  towns  of  Charleroy.  Bergues, 
Ath,  Douay,  Tournay,  Audenard,  Lisle,  Cour- 
tray,  Furnes,  &c.,  which,  with  their  dependan- 
ces,  were  yielded  in  full  sovereignty  to  France 
by  the  treaty  of  Aix  la-Chapelle.  The  English 
court  seemed  unconcerned  at  the  French  con- 
quests, till  they  were  awakened  by  the  clamours 
of  the  whole  nation  ;  upon  this.  Sir  William  Tem- 
ple was  sent  into  Holland,  who  in  a  few  weeks 
concluded  a  triple  alliance  between  England, 
Holland,  and  Sweden,  which  strengthened  the 
Protestant  interest  wliile  it  subsisted  ;  but  the 
French  mistresses  and  money  could  dissolve 
the  strongest  bonds. 

In  this  critical  situation  of  affairs  abroad, 
some  attempts  were  made  to  quiet  the  minds 
of  his  majesty's  Protestant  subjects  at  home, 
for  men  began  to  think  it  high  time  for  Protest- 
ants to  put  a  stop  to  the  pulling  down  their 
neighbours'  houses,  when  the  common  enemy 
was  threatening  the  destruction  of  them  all; 
therefore.  Lord-keeper  Bridgman,  Lord-chief- 
justice  Hales,  Bishop  Wilkins,  Reynolds,  Dr. 
Burton,  Tillotson,  Stillingfleet,  and  others,  set 
on  foot  a  comprelien.sion  of  such  as  could  be 
brought  into  the  Church  by  some  abatements. 


*  In  1603,  when  his  mother,  who  had  never  had  a 
child  before,  though  she  was  now  married  to  her 
fourth  husband,  was  fifty-two  years  of  age.  She  liv- 
ed to  her  ninety-sixth  year. — Ed. 

t  The  slanders  of  Wood  against  this  e.xcellent 
minister  are  amply  refuted  by  Dr.  Calamy  {Account, 
p.  228-231).— C. 

X  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  222 ;  or  Palmer's  Noncon- 
formists' Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  387. 


202 


HISTORY    OF    THE  PURITANS. 


and  a  toleration  for  the  rest.     But  the  project 

was  blasted  by  the  court  bishops,  arid  Lord 
Clarendon's  friends,  who  took  the  alarm,  and 
raised  a  miffhty  outcry  of  tiie  danger  of  the 
Church.*  Nobody  (say  they)  knows  where  the 
demands  of  the  Presbyterians  will  end  ;  the 
cause  of  the  hierarchy  will  be  given  up,  if  any 
of  those  points  are  yielded  which  have  been  so 
much  contested  ;  besides,  it  is  unworthy  of  the 
Church  to  court  or  even  treat  with  her  enemies, 
when  there  is  so  little  reason  to  apprehend  that 
we  should  gain  any  considerable  niiml)ers  there- 
by. But  to  this  it  was  replied,  that  the  prodi- 
gious increase  of  popery  and  infidelity  was  a 
loud  call  of  Providence,  to  attempt  everything 
that  could  be  done  without  sin  for  healing  our 
divisions.  That  though  the  Nonconformists 
could  not  legally  meet  together  to  bring  in  their 
concessions  in  the  name  of  the  body,  it  was 
well  enough  known  what  they  scrupled,  and 
what  would  bring  most  of  them  into  the  Church. 
That  a  compliance  in  some  lesser  matters  of 
indifference  would  be  no  reproach,  hut  an  hon- 
our to  the  Church,  how  superior  soever  she 
might  be  in  argument  or  power. t 

The  proposals  were  drawn  up  by  Bishop  Wil- 
kins  and  Dr.  Burton,  and  communicated  by  the 
lord-keeper  to  Dr.  Bates,  Manton,  and  Baxter, 
and  by  them  to  their  brethren,  under  the  ibllow- 
ing  particulars  : 

1.  That  such  ministers  who  in  the  late  times 
had  been  ordained  only  by  presbyters,  should 
have  the  imposition  of  the  hands  of  a  bishop, 
with  this  form  of  words :  "  Take  thou  authority 
to  preach  the  Word  of  God,  and  administer  the 
sacraments  in  any  congregation  of  the  Church 
of  England,  when  thou  shalt  be  lawfully  ap- 
pointed thereunto." 

2.  That  instead  of  all  former  subscriptions, 
after  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy, 
they  subscribe  the  following  declaration  :  I,  A. 
B.,  do  hereby  profess  and  declare  that  I  approve 
the  doctrine,  worship,  and  government  estab- 
lished in  the  Church  of  England,  as  containing 
all  things  necessary  to  salvation  ;  and  that  I 
will  not  endeavour,  by  myself  or  any  other,  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  to  bring  in  any  doctrine 
contrary  to  that  which  is  so  established.  And 
I  do  hereby  promise  that  I  will  continue  in  the 
communion  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  will 
not  do  anything  to  disturb  the  peace  thereof 

3.  That  the  gesture  of  kneeling  at  the  sacra- 
ment, the  cross  in  baptism,  and  bowing  at  the 
name  of  Jesus,  be  left  indifferent,  or  taken  away. 

4.  That  if  the  liturgy  and  canons  be  altered 
in  favour  of  Dissenters,  then  every  preacher, 
upon  his  institution,  shall  declare  his  assent  to 
the  lawfulness  of  the  use  of  it,  and  promise  that 
it  shall  be  constantly  used  at  the  time  and  place 
accustomed. 

The  alterations  proposed  to  be  made  in  the 
liturgy  were  these  : 

To  read  the  Psalms  in  the  new  translation. 

To  appoint  lessons  out  of  the  canonical  Scrip- 
ture instead  of  the  Apocrypha. 

Not  to  enjoin  godfathers  and  godmothers, 
when  either  of  the  parents  are  ready  to  answer 
for  the  child  in  baptism.  To  omit  that  expres- 
sion in  the  prayer,  "  By  spiritual  regeneration." 
To  change  the  question,  "  Wilt  thou  be  bap- 

*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  380,  &c. 
t  Baxter's  Life,  part  lii.,  p.  25. 


tized?"  into,  "Wilt  thou  have  this  child  bap- 
tized]" To  omit  those  words  in  the  thanks- 
giving, "To  regenerate  this  infant  by  the  Holy- 
Spirit,  and  to  receive  him  for  thy  child  by  adop- 
tion." And  the  first  rubric  after  baptism,  "It 
is  certain  by  God's  Word,"  &c.  In  the  exhor- 
tation alter  baptism,  instead  of,  "  Regenerate 
and  grafted  into  the  body,"  to  say,  "  Received 
into  the  Church  of  Christ."  No  part  of  the 
office  of  baptism  to  be  repeated  in  public  when 
the  child  has  been  lawfully  baptized  in  private. 
To  omit  this  passage  in  the  office  of  confirm- 
ation :  "  After  the  example  of  thy  holy  apostles, 
and  to  certify  them  by  this  sign  of  thy  favour 
and  gracious  goodness  towards  them."  And 
instead  of,  "  Vouchsafe  to  regenerate,"  read, 
"  Vouchsafe  to  receive  into  thy  Church  by  bap- 
tism." 

To  omit  the  expressions  in  matrimony, 
"With  my  body  I  thee  worship;"  and  that  in 
the  Collect,  "  Thou  hast  consecrated,"  &c. 

In  the  visitation  of  the  sick,  ministers  to  be 
allowed  to  make  use  of  such  prayers  as  they 
judge  expedient.* 

In  the  burial  of  the  dead,  instead  of,  "  Foras- 
much as  it  has  pleased  Almighty  God,  of  his 
great  mercy,  to  take  unto  himself,"  &c.,  read, 
"  Forasmuch  as  it  hath  pleased  Almighty  God 
to  take  out  of  this  world  the  soul,"  &c.  In- 
stead of,  "  In  sure  and  certain  hope,"  to  read, 
"  In  a  full  assurance  of  the  resurrection  by  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  To  omit  the  following 
words  :  "  We  give  thee  hearty  thanks,  for  that  it 
has  pleased  thee  to  deliver  this  our  brother  out 
of  the  miseries  of  this  sinful  world  ;"  and  these 
other,  "  As  our  hope  is  this  our  brother  doth." 
In  the  communion  service,  to  change,  "That 
our  sinful  bodies  may  be  made  clean  by  his 
body,"  into,  "  Our  sinful  souls  and  bodies  may 
be  cleansed  by  his  precious  body  and  blood." 
The  commination  not  to  be  enjoined. 
1'he  liturgy  to  be  abbreviated,  especially  as 
to  the  morning  service,  by  omitting  all  the  re- 
sponsal  prayers,  from  "  0  Lord,  open  thou," 
&.C.,  to  the  litany;  and  the  litany,  and  all  the 
prayers,  from,  "  Son  of  God,  we  beseech  thee," 
&c.,  to,  "  We  humbly  beseech  thee,  O  Father." 
The  Lord's  Prayer  not  to  be  enjoined  more 
than  once,  viz.,  after  the  absolution,  except  after 
the  minister's  prayer  before  sermon. 

The  Gloria  Patri  to  be  used  but  once,  after 
reading  the  Psalms. 

I'he  Venite  exullcmus  to  be  omitted,  unless  it 
be  thought  fit  to  put  any  or  all  of  the  first  seven 
among  the  sentences  at  the  beginning. 

The  communion  service  to  be  omitted  when 
there  are  no  communion  days,  except  the  Ten 
Couimandments,  which  may  be  read  after  the 
Creed  ;  and  enjoining  the  prayer,  "  Lord,  have 
mercy  upon  us,  and  mcline  our  hearts  to  keep 
these  laws,"  only  once,  at  the  end. 

The  Collects,  Epistles,  and  Gospels  to  be 
omitted,  except  on  particular  holydays. 

The  prayers  for  the  Parliament  to  be  insert- 
ed immediately  after  the  prayer  for  the  royal 
family,  in  this  or  the  like  form  :  "  That  it  may 
please  thee  to  direct  and  prosper  all  the  consult- 
ations of  the  high  court  of  Parliament,  to  the 
advantage  of  thy  glory,  the  good  of  the  Church, 
the  safety,  honour,  and  welfare  of  our  sovereign 
and  his  kingdoms." 


Ba.xter's  Life,  p.  34. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


263 


To  omit  the  two  hymns  in  the  consecration 
of  bishops  and  ordination  ol'  priests. 

In  the  catechism,  after  the  first  question, 
"What  is  thy  name  1"  it  may  follow,  "When 
was  this  name  given  thee !"  After  that,  "  What 
was  promised  for  you  in  baptism  !"  Answer, 
"  Tlnee  things  were  promised  for  me."'  In  the 
question  belbre  the  commandments,  it  may  be 
altered  thus :  "  You  said  it  was  promised  for 
you."  To  the  fourteenth  question,  "  How  many 
sacraments  hath  Christ  ordained  1"  the  answer 
may  be,  "Two  only,  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper." 

Mr.  Baxter  proposed,  farther,  that  the  sub- 
scription might  be  only  to  the  doctrinal  articles 
of  the  Church.  That  the  power  of  bishops, 
and  their  courts,  to  suspend  and  silence  men, 
might  be  limited.  That  the  baptismal  covenant 
might  be  explicitly  owned  by  all  who  come  to 
the  sacrament.  But  it  was  replied,  that  more 
than  what  was  above  mentioned  would  not  pass 
^vith  the  Parliament. 

The  proposals  for  a  toleration  were  commu- 
nicated by  Mr.  Baxter  to  the  Presbyterians,  to 
the  Independents  by  Dr.  Owen,  and  were  to  the 
following  effect : 

1.  That  such  Protestants  who  could  not  ac- 
cept of  the  proposals  for  a  comprehension,  might 
have  liberty  for  the  exercise  of  their  religion  in 
public,  and  to  build  or  to  procure  places  for  their 
public  worship  at  their  own  charges,  either 
within  or  near  towns,  as  shall  be  thought  most 
expedient. 

2.  That  the  names  of  all  such  persons  who 
are  to  have  this  liberty  to  be  registered,  togeth- 
er with  the  congregations  to  which  they  be- 
long, and  the  names  of  their  teachers. 

3.  That  every  one  admitted  to  this  liberty  be 
disabled  from  bearing  any  public  office,  but  shall 
fine  for  offices  of  burden. 

4.  Upon  showing  a  certificate  of  being  listed 
among  those  that  are  indulged,  they  shall  be 
freed  from  such  legal  penalties  as  are  to  be  in- 
flicted on  those  who  do  not  frequent  their  par- 
ish churches. 

5.  Such  persons  so  indulged  shall  not,  for  their 
meeting  in  conventicles,  be  punished  by  confis- 
cation of  estates. 

6.  Provided  they  pay  all  public  duties  to  the 
parish  where  they  inhabit,  under  penalty  of 

7.  This  indulgence  to  continue  three  years.* 
According  to  these  heads  of  agreement,  a  bill 

was  prepared  for  the  Parliament  by  Lord-chief- 
justice  Hales  ;  but  Bishop  Wilkins,  an  honest 
and  opened-hearted  man,  having  disclosed  the 
affair  to  Bishop  Ward,  in  liopes  of  his  assist- 
ance, alarmed  the  bishops,  who,  instead  of  pro- 
moting the  design,  concerted  measures  to  de- 
feat it ;  for  as  soon  as  the  Parliament  met,  no- 
tice was  taken  that  there  were  rumours  with- 
out doors  of  an  act  to  be  offered  for  compre- 
hension and  indulgence,  upon  which  a  vote  was 
passed,  that  no  man  should  bring  such  an  act 
into  the  House.  And,  to  crush  the  Noncon- 
formists more  effectually.  Archbishop  Sheldon 
wrote  a  circular  letter  to  the  bishops  of  his 
province,  dated  June  8,  to  send  him  a  particular 
account  of  the  conventicles  in  their  several  di- 
ocessus,  and  of  the  numbers  that  frequented 
them;    and  whether  they  thought  they  might 

*  Baxter's  Life  part  iii.,  p.  25. 


be  easily  suppressed  by  the  civil  magistrate.* 
When  he  was  provided  with  this  information, 
he  went  to  tiie  king,  and  obtained  a  proclama- 
tion to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  the 
Nonconformists,  and  particularly  against  the 
preachers,  according  to  the  statute  of  17th  King 
Charles  II.,  which  forbids  their  inhabiting  cor- 
porations. 

Thus  the  persecution  was  renewed  ;  and  the 
Parliament,  still  bent  on  severities,  appointed  a 
committee  to  inquire  into  the  betiaviour  of  the 
Nonconformists,  who  reported  to  the  House 
that  divers  conventicles,  and  other  seditious 
meetings,  were  held  in  their  very  neighbourhood, 
in  defiance  of  the  laws,  and  to  the  danger  of  the 
peace  -of  the  kingdom. t  General  Monk,  who 
was  near  his  end,  and  sunk  almost  into  con- 
tempt, was  employed  to  disperse  them,  and  re- 
ceived the  thanks  of  the  House  for  his  zeal  in 
that  important  service,  wherein  he  was  sure  to 
meet  with  no  opposition.  They  also  returned 
his  majesty  thanks  for  his  proclamation  for  sup- 
pressing conventicles,  desiring  him  to  take  the 
same  care  for  the  future.  By  this  means  the 
private  meetings  of  the  Dissenters,  which  had 
been  held  by  connivance,  were  broken  up  again. 
Mr.  Baxter  was  committed  to  Clerkenwell  pris- 
on for  preaching  to  his  neighbours  in  his  own 
house  at  Acton,  and  for  refusing  the  Oxford 
oath  ;  but  upon  demanding  a  habeas  corpus, 
his  mittimus  was  declared  invalid  for  want 
of  naming  the  witnesses^.  The  justices  would 
have  mended  their  mittimus  and  sent  him  to 
Newgate,  but  Mr.  Baxter,  being  released,  wise- 
ly kept  out  of  the  way.  Air.  Taverner,  of  Ux- 
bridge,  was  sentenced  to  Newgate  for  teaching 
a  few  children  at  Brentford.  Mr.  Button,  late 
university  orator,  was  sent  to  prison  for  teach- 
ing two  knights'  sons  in  his  own  house  ;  and 
multitudes  in  many  counties  had  the  like  usage, 
suffering  imprisonment  for  six  months. ij 

But  this  was  contrary  to  the  king's  inclina- 
tions, who  was  only  for  playing  the  Dissenters 
against  the  Parliament  for  a  sum  of  money  ; 
when  the  House,  therefore,  was  up,  his  majesty 
ordered  some  of  the  Nonconformists  to  be  told 
that  he  was  desirous  to  make  them  easy,  and 
that  if  they  would  petition  for  relief,  they  should 
be  favourably  heard  II  Sir  J.  Barber,  secretary 
of  state,  acquainted  Dr.  Manton  with  the  king's 
intention,  upon  which  an  address  was  drawn 
up  and  presented  to  his  majesty  at  the  Earl  of 
Arlington's  lodgings  by  Dr.  Jacomb,  Manton, 
and  Bates  ;  the  king  received  them  jealously, 
and  promised  to  do  iiis  utmost  to  get  them 
comprehended  withint  he  Establishment.  He 
wished  there  had  been  no  bars  at  all,  but  that 
he  was  forced  to  comply  for  peace'  sake,  and 
that  he  would  endeavour  to  remove  them, 
though  it  was  a  work  of  difficulty.  He  com- 
plained of  the  umbrage  that  their  numerous  as- 
semblies gave  to  clamorous  people,  and  advised 
them  to  use  their  liberty  with  more  discretion 
hereafter.  When  the  ministers  promised  obe- 
dience, and  assured  his  majesty  of  their  steady 
loyalty,  and  constant  prayers  for  the  prosperity 
of  his  person  and  government,  he  dismissed 
them  with  a  smile,  and  told  them  that  he  was 
against  persecution,  and  hoped  ere  long  to  be 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  382.         t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  139. 
t  Baxter's  Life,  part  lii.,  p.  49.  <J  Ibid.,  p.  36. 

I      1!  Ibid,  part  iii.,  p.  37,  87. 


264 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


able  to  stand  upon  his  own  legs.  But  his  maj- 
esty's promises  were  always  to  be  bought  off 
by  a  sum  of  money  to  support  his  pleasures. 

The  controversy  of  the  reasonableness  of 
toleration  was  now  warmly  debated  without 
doors;  many  ill-natured  books  were  written  to 
expose  the  doctrine  of  the  Presbyterians,  as 
leading  to  Antinomianism  and  licentiousness  of 
manners.*  Others  exposed  their  characters 
and  manner  of  preaching.  Among  these  must 
be  reckoned  the  Friendly  Debate,  which,  though 
written  by  a  good  man,  says  Bishop  Burnet, t 
had  an  ill  effect  in  sharpening  people's  spirits 
too  much  against  the  Dissenters :  the  author 
was  Dr.  Simon  Patrick,  afterward  Bishop  of 
Ely,  but  now  in  the  heat  of  his  youth,  who,  by 
aggravating  some  weak  and  unguarded  expres- 
sions, endeavoured  to  expose  the  whole  body 
of  Nonconformist  ministers  to  contempt.  But 
T  must  do  this  prelate  so  much  justice  as  to  in- 
form the  reader,  that  in  his  advanced  age  he 
expressed  his  dissatisfaction  with  this  part  of 
his  conduct ;  and,  in  a  debate  in  the  House  of 
Lords  about  the  Occasional  Bill,  declared,  "  he 
had  been  known  to  write  against  the  Dissenters 
with  some  warmth  in  his  younger  years,  but 
that  he  had  lived  long  enough  to  see  reason  to 
alter  his  opinion  of  that  people,  and  that  way 
of  writing."  A  rare  instance  of  ingenuity  and 
candour  !  We  shall  have  occasion  to  mention 
Sir  Roger  I'Estrange  hereafter. 

But  one  of  the  most  virulent  writers  of  his 
time,  under  the  form  of  a  clergyman,  was  Sam- 
uel Parker,  afterward  Bisliop  of  Oxford,  a  man 
of  considerable  learning  and  great  smartness, 
but  of  no  judgment,  and  as  little  virtue  ;  and 
as  to  religion,  says  Bishop  Burnet, J  rather  im- 
pious than  otherwise.!^  At  length,  Andrew 
Marvel,  the  liveliest  wit  of  the  age,  attacked 
him  in  a  burlesque  strain,  and  with  so  peculiar 
and  entertaining  an  address,  that  from  the  king 
down  to  the  tradesman,  his  books  were  read 
with  the  highest  pleasure.  He  had  all  the  men 
of  wit  on  his  side,  and  not  only  humbled  Par- 
ker more  than  the  serious  and  grave  writings 
of  Dr.  Owen,  but  silenced  tiie  whole  party  ; 
one  of  whom  concludes  his  letter  to  Mr.  Mar- 
vel with  tliese  words  :  "  If  thou  darest  to  print 
or  publish  any  lie  or  libel  against  Dr.  Parker, 
by  the  Eternal  God  I  will  cut  thy  throat." 
Subscribed  J.  G. 

All  sober  men  were  of  opinion  that  it  was 
ungenerous  and  cruel  to  treat  a  number  of 
peaceable  men,  whom  the  laws  had  put  al- 
most out  of  their  protection,  in  so  ludicrous 
a  manner. II  Religion  itself  suffered  by  it. 
I  remember,  says  Lord-cliief-justice  Hales, 
that  when  Ben  Jonson,  in  his  play  of  the  Al- 
chymist,  introduced  Anartus  in  derision  of  the 
Puritans,  with  many  of  their  phrases  taken  out 
of  Scripture,  in  order  to  render  that  people  ri- 
diculous, the  play  was  detested  and  abhorred, 
because  it  seemed  to  reproach  religion  itself; 
but  now,  when  the  Presbyterians  were  brought 
upon  the  stage  in  their  peculiar  habits,  and 
with  their  distinguishing  phrases  of  Scripture, 
exposed  to  the  laughter  of  spectators,  it  met 
with  approbation  and  applause. 

*  Baxter's  Life,  part  lii.,  p.  .SO. 
t  Vol.  i.,  p.  .382.  J   Page  562. 

^  This  was  no  hindcrance  to  his  imparting  a  holy 
apostohcal  succe-ssion  ! — C.  |i  Rapin,  p.  406. 


But  such  was  the  complexion  of  the  court, 
that  they  bid  defiance  to  viitue,  and  even  to  de- 
cency, giving  countenance  to  all  manner  ol  li- 
centiousness. The  play-houses  were  become 
nests  of  pro.stitution,  says  Burnet,*  and  tho 
stage  was  defiled  beyond  example  :  the  king, 
queen,  and  courtiers  went  about  in  masks,  and 
came  into  citizens'  houses  unknown,  wliere 
they  danced  with  a  great  deal  of  wild  frolic^ 
and  committed  indecencies  not  to  be  mention- 
ed. They  were  carried  about  in  hackney- 
chairs,  and  none  could  distinguish  them  except 
those  who  were  in  the  secret.  Once  ibo 
queen's  chairman,  not  knowing  who  she  was, 
left  her  to  come  home  in  a  hackney-coach,, 
some  say  in  a  cart.f  Buckingham,  who  glo- 
ried in  his  debaucheries,  and  Wilmot,  earl  of 
Rochester,  the  greatest  wit  and  libertine  of  his 
age,  were  the  principal  favourites.  To  support 
these  extravagances,  the  House  of  Commons- 
supplied  the  king  with  what  money  he  wanted^ 
and  were  themselves  so  mercenary,  that  tho 
purchase  of  every  man's  vote  was  known  ;  for 
as  a  man  rose  in  credit  in  the  House,  he  ad- 
vanced his  price,  and  expected  to  be  treated  ac- 
cordingly. 

The  university  was  no  less  corrupt ;  there 
was  a  general  licentiousness  of  luanners  among 
the  students  :  the  sermons  of  the  younger  di- 
vines were  filled  with  encomiums  upon  the 
Church,  and  satires  against  the  Nonconform- 
ists ;  the  evangelical  doctrines  of  repentance, 
faith,  charity,  and  practical  religion  were  un- 
fashionable. The  speeches  and  panegyrics 
pronounced  by  the  orators  and  terrce.  fiUi,  on 
public  occasions,  were  scurrilous,  and  little 
less  than  blas|)hemous  ;  as  appears  by  the  let- 
ler  in  the  margin  from  Mr.  Wallis  to  the  Hon- 
ourable Robert  Boyle,  Esq., J  of  the  proceed? 


♦  Burnet,  p.  267,  386.     Rapin,  p.  652. 

t  A  sad  picture  of  Charles's  court,  and  the  general 
morals  of  the  courtiers,  is  furnished  by  Jesse,  in  his 
Court  of  the  Stuarts.     See  vol.  iii. — C. 

X  A  Letter  from  Mr.  John  Wallis  to  the  Honour?..- 
ble  Robert  Boyle,  Esq.,  dated  from  Oxford,  July  17, 
1669. 

Sir — After  my  humble  thanks  for  the  honour  of 
yours  of  July  3,  I  thought  it  not  unfit  to  give  you 
some  account  of  our  late  proceedings  here.  Friday, 
July  9.  vjas  the  dedication  of  our  new  theatre.  In 
the  morning  was  held  a  convocation  in  it,  for  enten- 
ing  upon  the  possession  of  it ;  wherein  was  read,  first, 
the  archbishop's  instrument  of  donation  (sealed  with 
his  archiepiscopal  seal)  of  the  theatre,  with  all  its 
furniture,  to  the  end  that  St.  Mary's  Church  may 
not  be  farther  profaned  by  holding  the  act  in  it.  Next, 
a  letter  of  his,  declaring  his  intention  to  lay  out 
.£2000  for  a  purchase  to  endow  it.  Then  a  letter  of 
thanks  to  be  sent  from  the  university  to  him,  where- 
in he  is  acknowledged  to  be  both  our  creator  and  re- 
deemer, for  having  not  only  built  a  theatre  for  the 
act,  but,  which  is  more,  delivered  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin from  being  so  profaned  for  the  future  :  he  doth^ 
as  the  words  of  the  letter  are.  "  not)  tantuin  condere, 
hoc  est  creare,  sed  eiiam  redimere."  These  words, 
1  confess,  stopped  my  mouih  from  giving  a  placet 
to  that  letter  when  it  was  put  to  the  vote.  I  have 
since  desired  Mr.  Vicechaiicellor  tocon.sider  whether 
they  were  not  liable  to  a  just  exception.  He  did  at 
first  excuse  it:  but,  upon  farther  thoughts,!  suppose 
he  will  think  fit  to  alter  them,  before  the  letter  be- 
sent  and  registered.  Al'ter  the  voting  of  this  letter. 
Dr.  South,  as  university  orator,  made  a  long  oration  ; 
the  first  part  of  which  consisted  of  satirical  invec- 
tives against  Cromwell,  fanatics,  the  Royal  Society, 
and  new  philosophy.     The  next,  of  encomiastics,  ia 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


265 


ings  at  the  opening  of  Archbishop  Sheldon's 
theatre,  which  is  copied  verbatim  from  the 
original  under  his  own  hand. 

About  this  time  died  the  Reverend  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Newcomen,  M.A.,  the  ejected  minister  of 
Dedham,  in  Essex ;  he  was  educated  in  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge,  and  succeeded  the 
famous  Mr.  John  Rogers.  He  was  a  most  ac- 
complished scholar  and  Christian,  a  member  of 
the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and,  together  with  Dr. 
Arrowsmith  and  Tuckney,  drew  up  their  cate- 
chism.* He  was  one  of  the  commissioners  of 
the  Savoy,  and  had  many  offers  of  preferment 
in  the  late  times,  but  would  not  desert  his 
church  at  Dedham,  till  he  was  displaced  by  the 
Act  of  Uniformity  ;  after  which  he  retired  to 
Holland,   and   became   pastor  of  the   English 


praise  of  the  archbishop,  the  theatre,  the  vice-chan- 
cellor, the  archilect,  and  tlie  painter.  The  last,  of 
execrations,  against  fanatics,  conventicles,  compre- 
hension, and  new  philosophy  ;  damning  them,  ad  in- 
feros ad  gehennam.  The  oration  being  ended,  some 
honorary  degrees  were  conferred,  and  the  convoca- 
tion dissolved.  The  afternoon  was  spent  in  pane- 
gyric orations,  and  reciting  of  poems  in  several  sorts 
of  verse,  composed  in  praise  of  the  archbishop,  the 
theatre,  &c.,  and  crying  down  fanatics.  The  whole 
action  began  and  ended  with  a  noise  of  trumpets; 
and  twice  was  interposed  variety  of  music,  vocal  and 
instrumental,  purposely  composed  for  this  occasion. 
On  Saturday  and  Monday,  those  exercises  appertain- 
ing to  the  act  and  vespers,  which  were  wont  to  be 
performed  in  St.  Mary's  Church,  were  had  in  the 
theatre;  in  which,  besides  the  number  of  proceeding 
doctors  (nine  in  divinity,  four  in  law,  five  in  physic, 
and  one  in  music),  there  was  little  extraordinary ; 
but  only  that  the  terras  filii  for  both  days  were  abom- 
inably scurrilous ;  and  so  suffered  to  proceed  without 
the  least  check  or  interruption  from  vice-chancellor, 
pro-vice  chancellors,  proctors,  curators,  or  any  of 
those  who  were  to  govern  the  exercises  ;  which  gave 
so  general  offence  to  all  honest  spectators,  that  I  be- 
heve  the  university  hath  thereby  lost  more  reputation 
than  they  have  gained  by  all  the  rest ;  all  or  most  of 
the  heads  of  houses,  and  eminent  persons  in  the  uni- 
versity, with  their  relations,  being  represented  as  a 
company  of  whoremasters,  whores,  and  dunces. 
And,  among  the  rest,  the  excellent  lady,  which  your 
letter  mentions,  was,  m  the  broadest  language,  rep- 
resented as  guilty  of  those  crimes,  of  which  (if  there 
were  occasion)  you  might  not  stick  to  be  her  com- 
purgator; and  (if  it  had  been  so)  she  might  (yet) 
have  been  called  whore  in  much  more  civil  language. 
During  this  solemnity  (and  for  some  days  before  and 
since)  have  been  constantly  acted  (by  the  vice-chan- 
cellor's allowance)  two  stage-plays  in  a  day  (by  those 
of  the  Duke  of  York's  house)  at  a  theatre  erected  for 
that  purpose  at  the  town-hall ;  which  (for  aught  I 
hear)  was  much  the  more  innocent  theatre  of  the 
two.  It  hath  been  here  a  common  fame  for  divers 
weeks  (before,  at,  and  since  the  act)  that  the  vice- 
chancellor  had  given  £300  bond  (some  say  £500 
bond)  to  the  terra  filii,  to  save  them  harmless,  what- 
ever they  should  say,  provided  it  were  neither  blas- 
phemy nor  treason.  But  this  I  take  to  be  a  slander. 
A  less  encouragement  would  serve  the  turn  with 
such  persons.  Since  the  act  (to  satisfy  the  common 
clamour)  the  vice-chancellor  hath  imprisoned  both 
of  them  ;  and  it  is  said  he  means  to  expel  them. 

I  am,  sir,  your  honour's  very  humble  and  affec- 
tionate servant,  John'  Wai.lis. 

*  I  have  by  me  a  copy  of  Mr.  Neal's  History, 
which  was  formerly  the  property  of  the  Rev.  John 
Waldron,  a  dissenting  minister  in  Exeter,  who  has 
written  in  the  margin,  here,  this  note :  "I  have  been 
assured  by  Mr.  Edward  Parr,  an  ejected  minister, 
who  lived  vvith  Dr.  Gouge,  that  he  drew  up  the  cat- 
echism.   J.  W.'" — Ed. 

Vol.  n.— L  l 


church  at  Leyden,  where  he  died  about  this 
time,  universally  lamented  by  the  professors  for 
his  humble  and  pleasant  conversation,  as  well 
as  his  universal  learning  and  piety.* 

Mr.  Joseph  Allein,  the  ejected  ministert  of 
Taunton,  and  author  of  the  Call  to  the  Uncon- 
verted, was  born  at  Devizes,  in  Wiltshire,  and 
educated  in  Lincoln  College,  Oxon.  He  was 
public  preacher  in  the  church  of  Taunton  about 
seven  years,  and  was  universally  beloved  for 
his  great  piety  and  devotion.  After  his  eject- 
ment, he  preached  as  he  had  opportunity  six  or 
seven  times  a  week.  May  26,  1663,  he  was 
committed  to  Ilchester  jail  for  singing  psalms 
in  his  own  house,  and  preaching  to  his  family^ 
others  being  present;  here  he  continued  a  year, 
but  upon  his  enlargement  he  returned  again  to 
his  work,  which  he  followed  with  unwearied 
diligence.  July  10,  166.5,  he  was  committed  a 
second  time  to  jail,  with  several  other  minis- 
ters, and  forty  private  persons  ;  where  he  con- 
tracted such  distempers  and  weaknesses  as 
brought  him  to  his  grave  before  he  was  thirty- 
six  years  of  age. t  He  was  an  awakening,  live- 
ly preacher,  zealous  and  successful  in  his  Mas- 
ter's work,  and  withal  of  a  peaceable  and  quieS 
spirit.     He  died  in  the  year  1668  or  1669. ij 

The  tide  in  the  House  of  Commons  still  run 
very  strong  on  the  side  of  persecution,  as  ap- 
pears by  two  extraordinary  clauses  added  to 
the  Conventicle  Act,  which,  having  expired 
some  time  since,  was  now  revived  by  the  Par- 
liament which  met  October  19.  The  court  went 
into  it  with  a  view  of  reducing  the  Presbyterians 
to  the  necessity  of  petitioning  for  a  general  tol- 
eration. "  If  we  would  have  opened  the  doov 
to  let  in  popery,"  says  Mr.  Baxter,||  "  that  their 
toleration  might  have  been  charged  upon  us,  as 
done  for  our  sakes,  and  by  our  procurement, 
we  might  in  all  likelihood  have  had  our  part  in 

*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  594.  Palmer's  Nonconform- 
ists' Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  503.  Mr.  Newcomen  was 
the  author  of  Irenicum,awork  which  received  great 
commendation.  He  was  eminent  for  his  gift  in 
prayer.  Mr.  Fairfax  preached  his  funeral  sermon, 
and  entitled  it  "  The  Dead  Saint  Speaking." — C. 

t  To  speak  with  accuracy,  .Mr.  Allein  was  only 
assistant  to  Mr.  George  Newton,  the  minister  of 
Taunton. — Dr.  Grey. — Ed. 

t  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  574.     Palmer,  vol.  ii.,  p.  377. 

i)  Mr.  Allein  was  so  covetous  of  time  that  he  could 
scarcely  spare  any  for  sleep,  so  neither  for  food. 
During  the  time  of  his  health,  he  rose  constantly  at 
about  four  o'clock.  He  would  be  much  troubled  if 
he  heard  any  smiths,  shoemakers,  &c.,  at  work  ia 
their  trades  before  he  was  in  his  duties  with  God, 
saying,  "  Oh .'  how  the  noise  shames  me.  Doth  not  my 
Ma.iter  deserve  more  than  theirs  .'"  He  would  often  say, 
"  Give  me  that  Christian  that  accounts  his  time  mort 
preciuiis  than  sold."  When  he  had  left  the  University 
and  was  married,  an  intimate  friend  of  his,  who  had 
thoughts  of  changing  his  condition,  wrote  to  him 
for  the  inconveniences  of  marriage,  to  whom  he 
merrily  returned  this  answer:  "Thou  wouldst  know 
the  inconveniences  of  a  wife,  and  I  will  tell  thee 
some  of  them  :  whereas  thou  now  risest  constantly 
at  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  wife  will  keep 
thee  till  about  six  ;  whereas  thou  usest  to  study 
about  fourteen  hours  a  day,  she  will  bring  thee  to 
eight  or  nine  ;  and  whereas  thou  art  wont  to  forbear 
one  meal  a  day  at  least  for  thy  studies,  she  will  bring 
thee  to  thy  meat ;  and  if  these  be  not  mischiefs  enow 
to  affright  thee  from  marriage,  I  know  not  what 
viiW."— Clark's  Lives,  folio,  1673,  p.  138,  157.— C. 

II  Part  lii.,  p.  36. 


t2C6 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


it ;  but  I  never  shall  be  one  of  them  who,  by 
any  new  pressures,  shall  consent  to  petition  for 
the  papists'  liberty  ;  no  craft  of  Jesuits  or  prel- 
ates shall  make  me  believe  that  it  is  necessary 
for  the  Nonconformists  to  take  this  odium  upon 


themselves."*    The  court  bishops  were  for  the    this  act,  he  shall  forfeit  five  pounds 


they  think  necessary,  to  dissolve,  dissipate,  and 
disperse  such  unlawful  meetings,  and  take  the 
persons  into  custody."  Then  follow  two  ex- 
traordinary clauses  :  "  That  if  any  justice  of 
peace  refuse  to  do  his  duty  in  the  execution  of 


bill,  but  the  moderate  clergy  were  against  it 
Bishop  Wilkins  spoke  against  it  in  the  House ; 
and,  when  the  king  desired  hiui  in  private  to 
be  quiet,  he  replied  that  he  thought  it  an  ill 
thing  both  in  conscience  and  policy  ;  therefore, 
as  he  was  an  Englishman  and  a  bishop,  he  was 
bound  to  oppose  it ;  and  since,  by  the  laws  and 
Constitution  of  England,  and  by  his  majesty's 
favour,  he  had  a  riglit  to  debate  and  vote,  he 
was  neither  afraid  nor  ashamed  to  own  his 
opinion  in  that  matter.  However,  the  bill  pass- 
ed both  houses,  and  received  the  royal  assent 
April  11,  1670.1  It  was  to  the  following  effect : 
"That  if  any  persons  upward  of  sixteen  years 
shall  be  present  at  any  assembly,  conventicle, 
or  meeting,  under  colour  or  pretence  of  any  ex- 
ercise of  religion,  in  any  other  manner  than  ac- 
cording to  the  liturgy  and  practice  of  the  Church 
of  England,  where  there  are  five  persons  or 
more  present,  besides  those  of  the  said  house- 
hold, in  such  cases  the  offender  shall  pay  five 
shillings  for  the  first  offence,  and  ten  shillings 
for  the  second.  And  the  preachers  or  teachers 
in  any  such  meetings  shall  forfeit  twenty  pounds 
for  the  first,  and  forty  for  the  second  offence. 
And  lastly,  those  who  knowingly  suffer  any 
such  conventicles  in  their  houses,  barns,  yards, 
&c.,  shall  forfeit  twenty  pounds.  Any  justice 
of  peace,  on  the  oath  of  two  witnesses,  or  any 
other  sufficient  proof,  may  record  the  offence 
under  his  hand  and  seal,  which  record  shall  be 
taken  in  law  for  a  full  and  perfect  conviction, 
and  shall  be  certified  at  the  next  quarter  ses- 
sions. The  fines  above  mentioned  may  be  lev- 
ied by  distress  and  sale  of  the  offender's  goods 
and  chattels  ;  and,  in  case  of  the  poverty  of 
such  offender,  upon  the  goods  and  chattels  of 
any  other  person  or  persons,  that  shall  be  con- 
victed of  having  been  present  at  the  said  con- 
venticle, at  the  discretion  of  the  justice  of 
peace,  so  as  the  sum  to  be  levied  on  any  one 
person,  in  case  of  the  poverty  of  others,  do  not 
amount  to  above  ten  pounds  for  any  one  meet- 
ing :  the  constables,  headboroughs,  &c.,  are  to 
levy  the  same  by  warrant  from  the  justice,  and 
to  be  divided,  one  third  for  the  use  of  the  king, 
another  third  for  the  poor,  and  the  other  third 
to  the  informer  or  his  assistants,  regard  being 
had  to  their  diligence  and  industry  in  discover- 
ing, dispersing,  and  punishing  the  said  conven- 
ticles. The  fines  upon  ministers  for  preaching 
are  to  be  levied  also  by  distress  ;  and,  in  case 
of  poverty,  upon  the  goods  and  chattels  of  any 
other  present ;  and  the  like  upon  the  house 
where  the  conventicle  is  held,  and  the  money 
to  be  divided  as  above. 

"And  it  is  farther  enacted,  that  the  justice  or 
iustices  of  peace,  constables,  headboroughs,  &c., 
may,  by  warrant,  with  what  aid,  force,  and  as- 
sistance they  shall  think  necessary,  break  open 
and  enter  into  any  house  or  place  where  they 
shall  be  informed  of  the  conventicle,  and  take 
the  persons  into  custody.  And  the  lieutenants, 
or  other  commissioned  officers  of  the  militia, 
may  get  together  such  force  and  assistance  as 


.\nd  be  it  farther  enacted,  that  all  clauses 
in  this  act  shall  be  construed  most  largely  and 
beneficially  for  the  suppressing  conventicles, 
and  for  tlie  justification  and  encouragement  of 
all  persons  to  be  employed  in  the  execution 
thereof  No  warrant  or  mittimus  shall  be  made 
void,  or  reversed,  for  any  default  in  the  form; 
and  if  a  person  fly  from  one  county  or  corpora- 
tion to  another,  his  goods  and  chattels  shall  be 
seizable  wherever  they  are  found.  If  the  party 
offending  be  a  wife  cohabiting  with  her  husband, 
the  fine  shall  be  levied  on  the  goods  and  chat- 
tels of  the  husband,  provided  the  prosecution  be 
within  three  months." 

The  wit  of  man  could  hardly  invent  any- 
thing, short  of  capital  punishment,  more  cruel 
and  inhuman.*  One  would  have  thought  a 
prince  of  so  much  clemency  as  Charles  II.,  who 
had  often  declared  against  persecution,  should 
not  have  consented  to  it,  and  that  no  Christian 
bishop  should  have  concurred  in  the  passing  it. 
Men's  houses  are  to  be  plundered,  their  persons 
imprisoned,  their  goods  and  chattels  carried 
away,  and  sold  to  those  who  would  bid  for  them. 
Encouragement  is  given  to  a  vile  set  of  inform- 
ers, and  others,  to  live  upon  the  labour  and  in- 
dustry of  their  conscientious  neighbours. t  Mul- 
titudes of  these  infamous  wretches  spent  their 
profits  in  ill  houses,  and  upon  lewd  women,  and 
then  went  about  the  streets  again  to  hunt  for 
farther  prey.  The  law  is  to  be  construed  in 
their  favour,  and  the  power  to  be  lodged  in  the 
hand  of  every  individual  justice  of  peace,  who 
is  to  be  fined  £5  if  he  refuses  his  warrant. 
Upon  this,  many  honest  men,  who  would  not  be 
the  instruments  of  such  severities,  quitted  the 
bench.  Mr.  Echard,  being  ashamed  to  ascribe 
these  cruelties  to  the  influence  of  the  bishop, 
says,  "  that  this  and  all  the  penal  laws  made 
against  the  Dissenters  were  the  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  not  of  the  Church,  and  were  made 
more  on  a  civil  and  political,  than  upon  amoral 
or  religious  account ;  and  always  upon  some 
fresh  provocation  in  reality  or  appearance." 
This  is  the  language  by  which  the  patrons  of 
High-church  cruelty  endeavour  to  excuse  them- 
selves from  the  guilt  of  persecution  ;  but  it 
must  fall  somewhere  ;  and  that  it  may  not  fall 
too  heavy  upon  the  Church,  it  is  artfully,  and 
with  great  good  manners,  cast  entirely  upon 
the  Legislature,  and  put  upon  the  score  of  sedi- 


Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  400. 


t  Rapin,  p.  655. 


*  This  iniquitous  law,  by  the  power  with  which 
it  invested  a  single  justice,  destroyed  the  bulwark  of 
English  liberty,  the  trial  by  jury.  It  punished  the 
innocent  for  the  guilty,  by  subjecting  the  husband  to 
a  penalty  for  the  conduct  of  the  wife,  and  the  goods 
of  any  person  present  to  fines,  which  other  offenders 
were  incompetent  to  discharge.  The  mode  of  con- 
viction was  clandestine.  Its  natural  tendency  was 
10  influence  magistrates  to  partiality  in  judgment, 
and  to  reverse  the  scriptural  qualification  for  magis- 
tracy to  the  encouragement  of  evildoers,  and  the 
punishment  of  those  who  do  well;  by  the  fines  it 
imposed  on  justices  and  on  officers,  and  by  the  sanc- 
tion it  gave  to  informers. — Gou^h's  History  of  the 
QnakeTs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  298,  299.— Ed. 

t  Burnet,  p.  308. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


267 


tion,  whereas  it  vyas  well  known  the  Dissenters 
behaved  peaceably,  and  were  very  far  from  dis- 
turbing the  State.  Nor  does  the  preamble  to 
the  act  charge  them  with  disloyalty,  but  only 
says,  '■  That  for  the  providing  speedy  remedies 
against  the  practice  of  seditious  sectaries,  and 
others,  who,  under  pretence  of  tender  conscien- 
ces, have,  or  may  at  their  meetings  contrive  in- 
surrections,* be  it  enacted,"  dec.  ;  as  if  it  was 
possible  to  do  this  in  the  company  oiioomen  and 
servants,  who  were  always  present  in  their  as- 
semblies. It  is  therefore  evident  that  the  act 
was  levelled  purely  against  libertj/  of  conscience, 
and  was  so  severely  executed  that,  as  Sir  Har- 
ry Capel  observes,  there  was  hardly  a  conven- 
ticle to  be  heard  of  all  over  England.  The  two 
houses,  says  our  Church  historian,!  were  ex- 
press for  the  execution  of  these  laws  ;  the  bish- 
ops and  clergy  were  sincerely  zealous  in  it,  and 
the  honest  justices  and  magistrates,  as  he  calls 
them,  bore  the  more  hard  upon  them,  because 
they  saw  them  so  bold  in  despising  and  evading 
the  justice  of  the  nation. 

Great  numbers  were  prosecuted  on  this  act, 
and  many  industrious  families  reduced  to  pov- 
erty. Many  ministers  were  confined  in  jails 
and  close  prisons  ;  and  warrants  were  issued 
out  against  them  and  their  hearers,  whereby 
great  sums  of  money  were  levied.  In  the  dio- 
cess  of  Salisbury  the  persecution  was  hottest, 
by  the  instigation  of  Bishop  Ward  ;  many  hun- 
dreds being  pursued  with  great  industry,  and 
driven  from  their  families  and  trades.t  The 
act  was  executed  with  such  severity  in  Star- 
ling's mayoralty,  that  many  of  the  trading  men 
in  the  city  were  removing,  with  their  effects,  to 
Holland,  till  the  king  put  a  stop  to  it.ij  Inform- 
ers were  everywhere  at  work,  and  having  crept 
into  religious  assemblies  in  disguise,  levied  great 
sums  of  money  upon  ministers  and  people.  Sol- 
diers broke  into  the  houses  of  honest  farmers, 
under  pretence  of  searching  for  conventicles, 
and  where  ready  money  was  wanting,  they 
plundered  their  goods,  drove  away  their  cattle, 
and  sold  them  for  half  price.  Many  were  plun- 
dered of  their  household  furniture  ;  the  sick 
had  their  beds  taken  from  under  them,  and  them- 
selves laid  on  the  floor.  Should  I  sum  up  all 
the  particulars,  and  the  accounts  I  have  receiv- 
ed, says  Mr.  Sevvel,ll  it  would  make  a  volume  of 
itself  These  vile  creatures  were  not  only  en- 
couraged, but  pushed  on  vehemently  by  their 
spiritual  guides :  for  this  purpose.  Archbishop 
Sheldon  sent  another  circular  letter  to  all  the 

*  "These  words,  as  laie  experience  has  shown, 
were  slyly  omitted,"  says  Dr.  Grey,  who  adds,  "  Here 
he  (Mr.  Neal)  injuriously  lays  the  blame  upon  the 
bishops,  as  if  the  king  and  the  two  houses  were 
wholly  under  their  direction  and  influence  ;  and  treats 
Mr.  Archdeacon  Echard  not  over-civilly  for  being  of 
a  contrary  opinion."  The  first  censure  in  this  par- 
agraph is  not  very  civil  in  Dr.  Grey ;  nor  does  it  ap- 
pear well  grounded,  since  Mr.  Neal  has  inserted  so 
much  of  the  paragraph  as  charges  the  sectaries  with 
■having  contrived  insurrections.  Nor  does  Mr.  Neal 
lay  the  whole  blame  upon  the  bishops,  for  he  says, 
"the  two  houses  were  for  the  execution  of  these 
laws;"  though  it  is  true,  indeed,  he  is  not  willing 
that  the  guilt  should  be  cast  entirely  upon  the  Legis- 
lature; for  "  the  bishops  and  clergy  were  siiwercly  zeal- 
ous in  this  business  of  persecution." — Ed. 

t  Page  286. 

t  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  332. 

§  Burnet,  p.  398.  |;  Sevvel,  p  493. 


bishops  in  his  province,  dated  May  7,  1670,  in 
which  he  directs  all  ecclesiastical  judges  and 
officers  "  to  take  notice  of  all  Nonconformists, 
holders,  frequenters,  maintainers,  and  abetters 
of  conventicles,  especially  of  the  preachers  or 
teachers  in  them,  and  of  the  places  wherein 
they  are  held  ;  ever  keeping  a  more  watchful 
eye  over  the  cities  and  greater  towns,  from 
whence  the  mischief  is  for  the  most  part  de- 
rived, unto  the  lesser  villages  and  hamlets.  And 
wheresoever  they  find  such  wilful  offenders, 
that  then,  with  a  hearty  affection  to  the  worship 
of  God,  the  honour  of  the  king  and  his  laws, 
and  the  peace  of  the  king  and  his  laws,  and 
the  peace  of  the  Church  and  kingdom,  they  do 
address  themselves  to  the  civil  magistrate,  justi- 
ces, and  others  concerned,  imploring  their  help 
and  assistance  for  preventing  and  suppressing 
the  same,  according  to  the  late  act  in  that  be- 
half made  and  set  forth.  And  now,  my  lord, 
what  the  success  will  be  we  must  leave  to  God 
Almighty  ;  yet,  my  lord,  I  have  this  confidence 
under  God,  that  if  we  do  our  parts  now  at  first 
seriously,  by  God's  help,  and  the  assistance  of 
the  civil  power,  considering  the  abundant  care 
and  provision  the  act  contains  for  our  advan- 
tage, we  shall  in  a  few  months  see  so  great  an 
alteration  in  the  di.straction  of  these  times,  as 
that  the  seduced  people,  returning  from  their  se- 
ditious and  self-seeking  teachers  to  the  unity  of 
the  Church,  and  uniformity  of  God's  worship,  it 
will  be  to  the  glory  of  God,  the  welfare  of  the 
Church,  the  praise  of  his  majesty  and  govern- 
ment, and  the  happiness  of  the  whole  kingdom." 
Can  this  be  the  language  of  a  Christian  and 
Protestant  bishop  ;  or  is  it  not  more  like  a  fa- 
ther of  the  Inquisition,  or  the  dragooning  com- 
mission of  Lewis  XIV.  when  he  revoked  the 
Edict  of  Nantzl* 

Copies  of  this  letter  were  sent  by  the  arch- 
deacons to  the  officers  of  the  several  parishes 
within  their  jurisdictions,  earnestly  exhorting 
them  to  take  especial  care  to  perform  whatso- 
ever is  therein  required,  and  to  give  an  account 
at  the  next  visitation.  Many  of  the  bishops 
chose  to  lie  behind  the  curtain,  and  throw  off 
the  odium  from  themselves  to  the  civil  magis- 
trate ;  but  some  of  the  more  zealous  could  not 
forbear  appearing  in  person,  as  Bishop  Ward, 
already  mentioned,  and  Bishop  Gunning,!  who 
often  disturbed  the  meetings  in  person  ;  once 
finding  the  doors  shut,  he  ordered  the  constable 
to  break  them  open  with  a  sledge  ;  another  time 
he  sat  upon  the  bench  at  the  quarter  sessions, 
upon  which  the  chairman  desired  his  lordship  to 
give  the  charge,  which  he  refusing,  received  a 
very  handsome  rebuke  ;  it  being  hardly  consist- 
ent with  one  that  is  an  ambassador  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  conscien- 

*  Calamy's  Abridg.,  vol.  i.,  p.  328.' 

t  Henshaw,  the  bishop  of  Peterborough,  declared 
publicly  in  the  church  at  Kovifel,  after  he  had  com- 
manded the  officers  to  ))ut  this  act  in  execution, 
"  Against  all  fanatics  it  lialli  done  its  business,  ex- 
cept the  Quakers ;  but  when  the  Parliament  sits 
again,  a  stronger  law  will  he  made,  not  only  to  take 
away  their  lands  and  goods,  but  also  to  sell  them  for 
bondslaves."  On  this,  Mr.  Gough  properly  asks, 
"  Who  can  acquit  the  Church,  so  called,  of  their 
share  in  the  persecution,  when  the  rulers  thereof 
were  so  intemperately  warm  and  active  in  it,  and  still 
insatiate  with  all  these  severities,  inhumanly  planning 
more  and  greater?" — History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  303. — Ed. 


268 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


ces  of  his  poor  countrymen  and  neighbours,  in 
order  to  phinder  and  tear  them  to  pieces.*  The 
bishop  was  so  zealous  in  the  cause,  that  he  sunk 
his  character  by  giving  a  public  challenge  to  the 
Presbyterians,  Independents,  Anabaptists,  and 
Quakers,  and  appointed  three  days  for  tlie  dis- 
putation ;  on  the  first  of  which  his  lordship 
went  into  the  pulpit  in  the  church,  where  was 
a  considerable  congregation,  and  charged  the 
fornaer  with  sedition  and  rebellion  out  of  their 
books,  but  would  hear  no  reply. +  When  the 
day  came  to  dispute  with  the  Quakers,  they 
summoned  their  friends,  and  when  the  bishop 
railed,  they  paid  him  in  his  own  coin  ;  and  fol- 
lowed him  to  his  very  house,  with  repeated 
shouts,  "The  hireling  flicth." 

The  Nonconformist  ministers  did  what  they 
could  to  keep  themselves  within  the  compass 
of  the  law ;  they  preached  frequently  twice  a 
day  in  large  families,  with  only  four  strangers, 
and  as  many  under  the  age  of  sixteen  as  would 
come  :  and  at  other  times,  in  places  where  peo- 
ple might  hear  in  several  adjoining  houses  ;  but, 
after  all,  infinite  mischiefs  ensued,  families 
were  impoverished  and  divided  ;  friendship  be- 
tween neighbours  was  interrupted  ;  there  was 
a  general  distrust  and  jealousy  of  each  other; 
and  siimetimcs,  upon  little  quarrels,  servants 
would  betray  their  masters,  and  throw  their 
affairs  into  distraction.  Among  others  that 
suffered  at  this  time  was  Dr.  Manton,  who  was 
apprehended  on  a  Lord's  Day  in  the  afternoon, 
just  as  he  had  done  sermon  ;  the  door  being 
opened  to  let  a  gentleman  out,  the  justice  and 
his  attendants  rushed  in,  and  went  up  stairs  ; 
they  staid  till  the  doctor  had  ended  his  prayer, 
and  then  wrote  down  the  names  of  the  principal 
persons  present,  and  took  the  doctor's  promise 
to  come  to  them  at  a  house  in  the  piazzas  of 
Covent  Garden,  wliere  they  tendered  him  the 
Oxford  oath,  upon  his  refusal  of  which,  he  was 
committed  prisoner  to  the  Gate-house,  where 
he  continued  till  he  was  released  by  the  indul- 
gence. At  another  time  his  meeting-house  in 
White  Hart  Yard  was  broken  up ;  the  place 
was  fined  £40  and  the  minister  £20,  which  was 
paid  by  Lord  Wharton,  who  was  then  present ; 
they  also  took  down  the  names  of  the  hearers, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  justices  of  peace  and  spir- 
itual courts. 

The  behaviour  of  the  Quakers  was  very  ex- 
traordinary, and  had  something  in  it  that  look- 
ed like  the  spirit  of  martyrdoin.J  They  met  at 
the  same  place  and  hour  as  in  times  of  liberty, 
and  when  the  officers  came  to  seize  them,  none 
of  them  would  stir  ;  they  went  all  together  to 
prison  ;  they  stayed  there  till  they  were  dis- 
missed, for  they  would  not  petition  to  be  set  at 
liberty,  nor  pay  the  fines  set  upon  them,  nor  so 
much  as  the  prison  fees.  When  they  were  dis- 
charged, they  went  to  their  meeting-house 
again,  as  before  ;  and  when  the  doors  were 
shut  up  by  order,  they  assembled  in  great  num- 
bers in  the  street  before  the  doors,  saying,  they 
"would  not  be  ashamed  nor  afraid  to  disown 
their  meeting  together  in  a  peaceable  manner  to 
worship  God  ;  but,  in  imitation  of  the  Prophet 
Daniel,  they  would  do  it  more  publicly,  because 
they  were  forbid.  Some  called  this  obstinacy, 
others  firmness,  but  by  it  they  carried  tb^ir 

■»  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  692.         +  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  33  J. 
t  Burnet,  p.  398. 


point,  the  government  being  weary  of  contend- 
ing against  so  much  perverscnp.ss.* 

On  the  1st  of  September,  1670,  two  of  their 
principal  speakers,  Wm.  Penn  and  Wm.  Mead, 
were  tried  at  the  Old  Bailey  for  an  unlawful 
and  tumultuous  assembly  in  the  open  street, 
wherein  they  spake  or  preached  to  the  people, 
who  were  assembled  in  Gracechurch-street,  to 
the  number  of  three  or  four  hundred,  in  con- 
tempt of  the  king's  laws,  and  to  the  disturbance 
of  the  peace.  The  prisoners  pleaded  Not  Guil- 
ty, but  met  with  some  of  the  severest  usage 
that  has  been  known  in  an  English  court  of 
justice.  They  were  fined  forty  marks  apiece 
for  coming  into  court  with  their  hats  on,  though 
it  was  not  done  out  of  contempt,  but  from  a 
principle  of  their  religion.  It  appeared  by  the 
witnesses,  that  there  was  an  assembly  in  Grace- 
church-street, hut  there  was  neither  riot,  nor 
tumult,  nor  force  of  arms.  Mr.  Penn  confessed 
they  were  so  far  froiri  recanting,  or  declining  to 
vindicate  the  assembling  theinselves  to  preach, 
pray,  or  worship  the  eternal,  holy,  just  God. 
that  they  declared  to  all  the  world,  they  believ- 
ed it  to  be  their  duty,  and  that  all  the  powers 
on  earth  should  not  be  able  to  divert  them 
from  it.  When  it  was  said  they  were  not  ar- 
raigned for  v.'orshipping  God,  but  for  breaking 
the  law,  William  Penn  affirmed  he  had  broken 
no  law,  and  challenged  the  recorder  to  tell  him 
upon  what  law  he  was  prosecuted.  The  re- 
corder answered,  upon  the  common  lavr,  but 
could  not  tell  where  that  common  law  was  to 
be  found.  Penn  insisted  upon  his  producing 
the  law,  but  the  court  overruled  him,  and  called 
him  a  troublesome  fellow.  Penn  replied,  "I 
design  no  affront  to  the  court,  but  if  you  deny 
to  acquaint  me  with  the  law  you  say  I  have 
broken,  you  deny  me  the  right  that  is  due  to 
every  Englishman,  and  evidence  to  the  whole 
world  that  your  designs  are  arbitrary.''  Upoa 
which  he  was  haled  from  the  bar  into  the  bail- 
dock.  As  he  was  going  out  he  said  to  the  jury, 
"If  these  fundamental  laws  which  relate  to  lib- 
erty and  property  must  not  be  indispensably 
maintained,  who  can  say  he  has  a  right  to  the 
coat  upon  his  back  1  Certainly,  then,  our  liber- 
ties are  openly  to  be  invaded,  our  wives  to  be 
ravished,  our  children  enslaved,  and  our  estates 
led  away  in  triumph,  by  every  sturdy  beggar 
and  malicious  informer,  as  their  trophies." 

William  Mead  being  left  alone  at  the  bar,  said,. 
"  You  men  of  the  jury,  I  am  accused  of  meet- 
ing by  force  of  arms,  in  a  tumultuous  manner. 
Time  was  when  I  had  freedom  to  use  a  carnal 
weapon,  and  then  I  feared  no  man  ;  but  now  I 


*  A  respectable  member  of  the  society  of  Quakers 
has  remarked,  with  propriety  and  force,  on  this  lan- 
guage of  Bishop  Burnet,  "  that  had  he  concluded 
with  the  word  perseverance  instead  of  perverseness, 
his  description  had  been  less  objectionable,  as  being 
nearer  the  truth.  The  prejudice  discovered  by  that 
dignified  prelate  against  this  peojile  tarnished  his 
reputation  as  a  faithful  historian  and  as  a  man;  as  a 
true  son  of  the  Church,  it  is  not  much  to  be  wonder- 
ed, when  it  is  considered  that  they,  rejecting  its  hon- 
ours and  its  revenues,  struck  at  the  root  of  the  hie- 
rarchy :  while  oiher  Dissenters,  in  general,  contend- 
ing chiefiy  about  rites  and  ceremonies,  manifested 
httle  or  no  objection  to  that  grand  support,  pecuniary 
emolument;  as  their  practice  in  common,  particu- 
larly during  the  interregnum,  inconteslably  proved." 
— A  Letter  to  the  Editor. — Ed. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


269 


fear  the  living  God,  and  dare  not  make  use  there- 
of, nor  hurt  any  man.  I  am  a  peaceable  man, 
and  therefore  demand  to  know  upon  what  law 
my  indictment  is  founded  ;  if  the  recorder  will 
not  tell  what  makes  a  riot.  Coke  will  tell  him 
that  it  is  when  three  or  more  are  met  together 
to  beat  a  man,  or  to  enter  forcibly  into  another 
man's  lands  to  cut  his  grass  or  wood,  or  break 
down  his  pales."  Upon  this  the  recorder,  hav- 
ing lost  all  patience,  pulled  off  his  hat,  and  said. 
I  thank  you,  sir,  for  telling  me  what  the  law  is. 
Mead  replied,  Thou  mayest  put  on  thy  hat,  I 
have  no  fee  for  thee  now.  The  Mayor  Starling 
told  him  he  deserved  to  have  his  tongue  cut  out, 
and  ordered  him  likewise  to  be  carried  to  the 
bail-dock. 

When  the  prisoners  were  gone,  the  recorder 
gave  the  jury  their  charge,  upon  which  William 
Penn  stood  up,  and  with  a  loud  voice  said,  "  I 
appeal  to  tKe  jury,  and  this  great  assembly, 
whether  it  be  not  contrary  to  the  undoubted 
right  of  every  Englishman  to  give  the  jury  their 
charge  in  the  absence  of  the  prisoners  T'  The 
recorder  answered,  with  a  sneer,  Ye  are  present ; 
ye  do  hear,  do  ye  noti  Penn  answered,  "No 
thanks  to  the  court ;  I  have  ten  or  twelve  ma- 
terial points  to  offer  in  order  to  invalidate  the 
indictment,  but  am  not  heard."  The  recorder 
said,  "  Pull  him  down  ;  pull  the  fellow  down." 
Mead  replied,  these  were  barbarous  and  unjust 
proceedings ;  and  then  they  were  both  thrust 
into  the  hole. 

After  the  jury  had  withdrawn  an  hour  and  a 
half,  the  prisoners  were  brought  to  the  bar  to 
hear  their  verdict ;  eight  of  them  came  down 
agreed,  but  four  remained  above,  to  whom  they 
used  many  unworthy  threats,  and  in  particular 
to  >Ir.  Bushel,  whom  they  charged  with  being 
the  cause  of  the  disagreement.  At  length,  after 
withdrawing  a  second  lime,  they  agreed  to  bring 
them  in  guilty  of  speaking  in  Gracechurch- 
street ;  which  the  court  would  not  accept  for  a 
verdict,  but  after  many  menaces  told  them  they 
should  be  locked  uj)  without  meat,  drink,  fire,  or 
tobacco  ;  nay,  they  should  starve,  unless  they 
brought  in  a  proper  verdict.  William  Penn  be- 
ing at  the  bar,  said,  '-My  jury  ought  not  to  be 
thus  threatened.  We  were  by  force  of  arms 
kept  out  of  our  meeting-house,  and  met  as  near 
it  as  the  soldiers  would  give  us  leave.  We  are 
a  peaceable  people,  and  cannot  offer  violence  to 
any  man."  And  looking  upon  the  jury,  he  said, 
■"  You  are  Englishmen,  mind  your  privilege,  give 
not  away  your  right."  To  which  some  of  them 
answered,  "Nor  will  we  ever  do  it."  Upon 
this  they  were  shut  up  all  night  without  victu- 
als or  file,  or  so  much  as  a  chamber-pot,  though 
desired.  Next  morning  they  brought  in  the 
same  verdict ;  upon  which  they  were  threaten- 
ed the  utmost  resentments.  The  mayor  said  he 
would  cut  Bushel's  throat  as  soon  as  he  could. 
The  recorder  said  he  never  knew  the  benefit  of 
an  inquisition  till  now;  and  that  the  next  ses- 
sions of  Parliament,  a  law  would  be  made, 
wherein  tiiose  that  would  not  conform  should 
not  have  the  benefits  of  the  law  *     The  court 


*  This  speech  of  the  recorder,  it  appears  by  a  quo- 
tation from  the  •'  Stale  Trials"  in  a  late  publicaiion, 
wai  fuller  and  stronger  than  Mr.  Ncal's  abiridged 
form  represents  it.  "  Till  now,"  said  this  advocate 
for  arbitrary  power,  "  I  never  understood  the  reason 
of  the  policy  and  prudence  of  the  Spaniards  ia  sufTcr- 


having  obliged  the  jury  to  withdraw  again,  they 
were  kept  without  meat  and  drink  till  next  morn- 
ing, when  they  brought  in  the  prisoners  not 
guilty;  lor  which  they  were  fined  forty  marks 
a  man,  and  to  be  imprisoned  till  paid.  The  pris- 
oners were  also  remanded  to  Newgate  for  their 
fines  in  not  pulling  off  their  hats.*  The  jury, 
after  some  time,  were  discharged  by  habea.s  cor- 
pus returnable  in  the  Common  Pleas,  where  their 
commitment  was  judged  illegal.  This  was  a 
noble  stand  for  the  liberty  of  the  subject  in  very 
dangerous  times,  when  neither  law  nor  equity 
availed  anything.  The  Conventicle  Act  was 
made  to  encourage  prosecutions  ;  and  a  narra- 
tive was  published  next  year,  of  the  oppressions 
of  many  honest  people  in  Devonshire,  and  other 
parts,  by  the  informers  and  justices  ;  but  the 
courts  of  justice  outran  the  law  itself 

Hitherto  the  king  and  Parliament  had  agreed 
pretty  well  by  means  of  the  large  supplies  of 
money  the  Parliament  had  given  to  support  his 
majesty's  pleasures ;  but  now  having  assuran- 
ces of  large  remittances  from  France,  his  maj- 
esty resolved  to  govern  by  the  prerogative,  and 
stand  upon  his  own  legs.t  His  prime  counsel- 
lors were  Lord  Clifford,  Anthony  Ashley  Coop- 
er, afterward  Lord  Shaftesbury,  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  Earl  of  Arlington,  and  Duke  Lau- 
derdale, who.  from  the  initial  letters  of  their 
names,  were  called  the  CAB.AL.  Lord  Clifford 
was  an  open  papist,  and  the  Earl  of  Arlington  a 
concealed  one.  Buckingham  was  a  debauchee, 
and  reputed  a  downright  Atheist ;  he  was  a  man 
of  great  wit  and  parts,  and  of  sounder  principles 
in  the  interests  of  humanity,  says  Mr.  Baxter, 
than  the  rest  of  the  court.  Shaftesbury  had  a 
vast  genius,  but,  according  to  Burnet,  at  best 
was  a  Deist ;  he  had  great  knowledge  of  men 
and  things,  but  would  often  change  sides  as  his 
interest  directed.  Lauderdale  was  a  man  of 
learning,  and  from  an  almost  Republican  was 
become  a  perfect  tool  of  the  prerogative,  and 
would  offer  at  the  most  desperate  councils.  He 
had  scarcely  any  traces  of  religion  remaining, 
though  he  called  himself  a  Presbyterian,  and  had 


ing  the  Inquisition  among  them,  and  certainly  it  will 
never  be  well  with  us  till  something  like  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  be  in  England." — Stuart's  Peace  and  Re- 
fiirm  agairifit  War  and  Corruption,  p.  63,  note;  and 
Gough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  3.36  — Ed. 

*■  The  prisoners  excepted  to  this  fine,  as  being  ar- 
bitrarily imposed,  in  violation  of  the  great  charter  of 
England,  which  saith.  "  No  man  ought  to  be  amer- 
ced but  by  the  oath  of  good  and  lawful  men  of  the 
vicinage  "  The  name  of  the  judge  before  whom  the 
case  of  the  jury  was  solemnly  argued  in  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  and  by  whom  it  was  judged  ille- 
gal, was  Sir  John  Vaughan,  then  chief-justice:  a 
name  which  deserves  to  be  mentioned  in  this  connex- 
ion with  peculiar  respect,  and  to  be  perpetuated  by 
Englishmen  with  gratitude;  for  this  adjudication 
confirmed  in  the  strongest  manner  the  rights  of  juries, 
and  secured  them  from  the  attack  of  arbitrary  and 
unprincipled  judges.  Sir  John  Vaughan  was  a  man 
of  excellent  parts,  and  not  only  versed  in  all  the 
knowledge  requisite  to  make  a  figure  in  his  profes- 
sion, but  he  was  also  a  very  considerable  master  of 
the  pohter  kinds  of  learning.  He  was  the  intimate 
friend  of  the  great  Sclden,  and  was  buried  in  the 
Temple  Church,  as  near  as  possible  to  his  reinains. 
He  died  in  IUT-1.  His  son  published  his  Reports,  in 
which  is  the  above  case. — Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  336. 
British  Biography,  vol.  vii.,  p.  130,  131  ;  and  Granger's 
History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  36D. — Ed. 

t  Echard,  p.  8(M.     Rapin,  p.  655. 


270 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


an  aversion  to  King  Charles  I.  to  the  last.  By 
these  five  ministers  of  state  the  king  and  Duke 
of  York  drove  on  their  designs  of  introducing 
popery  and  arbitrary  power  ;  in  order  to  which, 
a  secret  treaty  was  concluded  with  France  ;  the 
triple  alliance  was  broken,  and  a  new  war  de- 
clared with  the  Dutch  to  destroy  their  common- 
wealth, as  will  be  seen  presently.  By  this 
means  the  king  had  a  plausible  pretence  to  keep 
up  a  standing  army,  which  might  secure  him  in 
the  exercise  of  an  absolute  authority  over  his 
subjects,  to  set  aside  the  use  of  Parliaments, 
and  settle  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  in  the 
three  kingdoms.  These  were  the  maxims  the 
court  pursued  tliroughout  the  remaining  part  of 
this  reign. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  year  died  Dr.  Antho- 
ny Tuckney,*  born  in  September,  1599,  and 
educated  in  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge.  He 
was  afterward  Vicar  of  Boston  in  Lincolnshire, 
where  he  continued  till  he  was  called  to  sit  in 
the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster.  In 
the  year  1645  he  was  made  master  of  his  col- 
lege, and  in  the  year  1648,  being  chosen  vice- 
chancellor,  he  removed  to  Cambridge  with  his 
family.  He  was  afterward  master  of  St.  John's 
and  regius  professor,  which  he  held  to  the 
Restoration,  when  the  king  sent  him  a  letter, 
desiring  him  to  resign  his  professorship,  which 
if  he  did,  his  majesty,  in  consideration  of  the 
great  pains  and  diligence  of  the  said  doctor  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duty,  would  oblige  his  suc- 
cessor to  give  him  sufficient  security  in  law,  to 
pay  him  .£100  a  year  during  his  natural  life. 
Upon  this  notice  the  doctor  immediately  resign- 
ed, and  had  his  annuity  paid  him  by  Dr.  Gun- 
ning, who  succeeded  him.  After  the  coming 
out  of  the  Five-mile  Act  he  shifted  about  in 
several  counties,  and  at  last  died  in  Spittle- 
yard,  London,  February,  1669,  in  the  seventy- 
first  year  of  his  age,  leaving  behind  him  tlie 
character  of  an  eminently  learned  and  pious 
man,  an  indefatigable  student,  a  candid  dispu- 
tant, and  an  earnest  promoter  of  truth  and  god- 
liness, t 


*  To  what  is  said  concerning  Dr.  Tuckney  by 
Mr.  Neal,  and  before  in  the  note  to  p.  255,  vol.  ii.,  it 
is  proper  to  add  two  facts  which  are  much  to  his 
honour.  One  is,  that  in  his  elecdons  at  St.  John's, 
when  the  president,  according  to  the  language  and 
spirit  of  the  times,  would  call  upon  him  to  have  re- 
gard to  the  godly,  his  answer  was,  "No  one  should 
have  a  greater  regard  to  the  truly  godly  than  him- 
self; but  he  was  determined  to  choose  none  but 
scholars  ;"  adding  very  wisely,  "  They  may  deceive 
me  in  their  godliness  ;  they  cannot  in  their  scholar- 
ship.'" The  other  fact  is,  that  though  he  is  said  to 
have  had  a  great  hand  in  composing  the  Confession 
and  Catechisms  of  the  Assembly  at  Westmmster,  and 
in  particular  drew  up  the  exposition  of  the  command- 
ments in  the  larger  Catechism,  yet  he  voted  against 
subscribing  or  swearing  to  the  Confession,  &c.,  set 
out  by  authority.  This  conduct  the  more  deserves 
notice  and  commendation,  because  the  instances  of 
a  consistent  adherence  to  the  principles  of  religious 
liberty  among  those  who  were  struggling  for  liberty 
were  so  few  and  rare  in  that  age.  In  the  year  1753, 
Dr.  Samuel  Salter,  prebendary  of  Norwich,  publish- 
ed a  correspondence  between  Dr.  Tuckney  and  Dr. 
Benjamin  Whichcote,  on  several  very  interesting 
subjects.  —  See  Whichcote's  Moral  and  Religiotis 
Aphorisms,  Prtface  the  second,  p.  15. — Ed. 

t  Calaniy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  77 ;  or  Palmer's  Noncon- 
formists' Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  205.     Many  of  the  an- 


About  the  same  time  died  Mr.  Williara 
Bridge,  M.A.,  the  ejected  minister  of  Yar- 
mouth ;  he  was  student  in  Cambridge  thirteen 
years,  and  fellow  of  Emanuel  College.  He 
afterward  settled  in  Norwich,  where  he  was 
silenced  by  Bishop  Wren  for  nonconformity, 
1G37.  He  was  afterward  excommunicated  ; 
and  when  the  writ  de  cxcoimnunicato  capiendo 
came  out  against  him  he  withdrew  to  Holland, 
and  became  pastor  to  the  English  church  at 
Rotterdam,  where  Mr.  Jer.  Burroughs  was 
preacher.  In  1642  he  returned  to  England,  and 
was  one  of  the  dissenting  brethren  in  the  As- 
sembly of  Divines.  He  was  chosen  after  some 
time  minister  of  Great  Yarmouth,  where  he 
continued  his  labours  till  the  Bartholomew  Act 
ejected  him  with  his  brethren.*  He  was  a 
good  scholar,  and  had  a  well-furnished  library,! 
was  a  hard  student,  and  rose  every  morning, 
winter  and  summer,  at  four  of  the  clock.  He 
was  also  a  good  preacher,  a  candid  and  charita- 
ble man,  and  did  much  good  by  his  ministry.^ 
He  died  at  Yarmouth,  March  12,  1670,  setat. 
seventy.<J 

While  the  Protestant  Dissenters  were  har- 
assed in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  the  Roman 
Catholics  were  at  ease  under  the  wing  of  the 
prerogative ;  there  were  few  or  no  processes 
against  them,  for  they  had  the  liberty  of  resort- 
ing to  mass  at  the  houses  of  foreign  ambassa- 
dors, and  other  chapels,  both  in  town  and  coun- 
try :  nor  did  the  bishops  complain  of  them  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  by  which  means  they  be- 
gan in  a  few  years  to  rival  the  Protestants  both 
in  strength  and  numbers.  The  Commons  rep- 
resented the  causes  of  this  misfortune  in  an  ad- 
dress to  the  king,  together  with  the  rem^dies,. 
which,  if  the  reader  will  carefully  consider,  he 
will  easily  discover  the  different  usage  of  Prot- 
estant Nonconformists  and  popish  recusants.il 

The  causes  of  the  increase  of  popery  were,  1 . 
The  great  number  of  Jesuits  who  were  all  over 
the  kingdom.  2.  The  chapels  in  great  towns 
for  saying  mass,  besides  ambassadors'  houses, 
whither  great  numbers  of  his  majesty's  subjects 
resorted  without  control.  3.  The  fraternities 
or  convents  of  priests  and  Jesuits  at  St. 
James's,  and  in  several  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
besides  their  schools  for  the  educating  youth. 

4.  The  public  sale  of  popish  catechisms,  &e. 

5.  The  general  remissness  of  magistrates,  and 


swers  in  the  larger  Catechism  are  his,  particularly 
on  the  commandments. — C. 

*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  478.     Palmer,  vol.  ii.,  p.  208.. 

t  This  library  is  spoken  of  by  his  personal  friends 
as  rich  in  the  fathers  and  schoolmen. — C. 

X  In  Peck's  Desiderata  Curiosa  is  a  letter  of  Will- 
iam Bridge  to  Henry  Scobel,  Esq.,  clerk  of  the  coun- 
cil, about  augmenting  the  income  of  preachers,  with 
the  names  of  the  Independent  ministers  of  prime 
note  in  the  county  of  Norfolk.  This  shows  that  he 
was  a  leading  man  among  the  Independents. — Gran- 
ger's History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  44.  Dr.  Grey 
imputes  to  Mr.  Bridge  a  republican  spirit,  because, 
in  a  sermon  before  the  Commons,  he  said,  "  The 
king  must  not  only  command  according  to  God's 
law,  but  man's  laws ;  and  if  he  don't  so  command, 
resistance  is  not  resistance  of  power,  but  of  will .  To 
say  that  such  resistance  must  only  be  defensive,  is 
nonsense ;  for  so  a  man  may  be  ever  resisting,  and 
never  resist." — Grey,  vol.  i.,  p.  187. — Ed. 

(^  Two  of  his  works,  two  volumes  in  4to,  were 
published  in  1657,  and  he  was  author  of  more  than 
thirty  sermons. — C.  jl  Rapin,  vol.  ii.,  p.  653. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


271 


other  officers,  in  not  convicting  papists  accord- 
ing to  law.  6.  Suspected  recusants  enjoying 
offices  by  themselves  or  their  deputies.  7. 
Presentations  to  livings  by  popish  recusants,  or 
by  others  as  they  direct.  8.  Sending  youth  be- 
yond sea  under  tutors,  to  be  educated  in  the 
popish  religion.  9.  The  few  exchequer  pro- 
cesses that  have  been  issued  forth,  though 
many  have  been  certified  thither.  10.  The 
great  insolence  of  papists  in  Ireland,  where 
arciibishops  and  bishops  of  the  pope's  creation 
ajjpear  publicly,  mass  being  said  openly  in  Dub- 
lin and  other  parts  of  the  kingdom. 

The  remedies  which  the  House  proposed 
against  these  growing  mischiefs  were, 

1.  That  a  proclamation  be  issued  out  to  ban- 
ish all  popish  priests  and  Jesuits  out  of  the 
realm,  except  such  as  attend  the  queen  and 
foreign  ambassadors.  2.  Tiiat  the  king's  sub- 
jects he  forbid  going  to  hear  mass  and  other  ex- 
ercises of  the  Romish  religion.  3.  That  no 
office  or  employment  of  public  authority  be  put 
into  the  hands  of  popish  recusants.  4.  That  all 
fraternities,  convents,  and  popish  schools  be 
abolished,  and  the  Jesuits,  priests,  friars,  and 
schoolmasters,  punished.  5.  That  his  majesty 
require  all  the  officers  of  the  exchequer  to  issue 
out  processes  against  popish  recusants  convict, 
certified  thither.  6.  That  Plunket,  the  pretend- 
ed primate  of  Ireland,  and  Talbot,  archbishop  of 
Dublin,  be  sent  for  into  England,  to  answer 
such  matters  as  should  be  objected  against 
them. 

The  king  promised  to  consider  the  address, 
but  hoped  they  would  allow  him  to  distinguish 
between  new  converts,  and  those  who  had  been 
bred  up  in  the  popish  religion,  and  served  him 
and  his  father  in  the  late  wars.  After  some 
time  a  proclamation  was  issued,  in  which  his 
majesty  declares  that  he  had  always  adhered 
to  the  true  religion  established  in  this  kingdom 
against  all  temptations  whatsoever ;  and  that 
he  would  employ  his  utmost  care  and  zeal  in 
its  defence.  But  the  magistrates,  knowing  his 
majesty's  inclinations,  took  no  care  of  the  ex- 
ecution of  it.  Nay,  the  Duke  of  York,  the 
king's  brother,  having  lately  lost  his  duchess. 
Lord  Clarendon's  daughter,  who  died  a  papist,* 
made  a  formal  abjuration  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion at  this  time  before  Father  Simon,  an  Eng- 
lish Jesuit,  publicly  declaring  himself  a  Roman 
Catholic ;  the  reason  of  which  was,  that  the 
present  queen  having  no  children,  the  papists 
gave  the  duke  to  understand  that  they  were 
capable  to  effect  his  majesty's  divorce,  and  to 
set  aside  his  succession,  by  providing  him  with 


*  This  Dr.  Grey  is  unwilling  to  admit,  though  he 
owns  that  Monsieur  Mainborough  published,  m 
French,  her  declaration  for  renouncing  the  Protest- 
ant religion,  and  he  quotes  largely  from  Dr.  Richard 
Watson,  a  celebrated  English  divine,  who  published 
an  answer  to  it.  The  amount  of  his  defence  of  the 
duchess,  as  it  appears  in  this  quotation,  is,  that  when, 
on  account  of  her  illness,  the  worship  of  her  oratory 
had  been  deserted,  it  was  renewed  again  by  her  or- 
der, and  the  doors  of  her  chamber,  which  were  ad- 
joining to  it,  were  opened  that  she  might  hear  the 
prayers  ;  and  that  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  was  sent  for 
to  administer  the  sacrament  to  her.  In  opposition 
to  this,  which  rises  to  presumptive  evidence  only, 
and  in  support  of  Mr.  Neal,  it  may  be  added,  that  Sir 
John  Rercsby  says  that  she  died  with  her  last  breath 
declaring  herself  a  papist." — Memoirs,  p.  19. — Ed. 


another  queen,  which  they  would  certainly  at- 
tempt unless  he  would  make  an  open  profession 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  which  he  did 
accordingly. 

The  House  of  Commons  was  very  lavish  of 
the  nation's  money  this  session,  for  though 
there  was  no  danger  of  an  invasion  from  abroad, 
they  voted  the  king  £2,500,000,  with  which  his 
majesty  maintained  a  standing  army,  and  called 
the  Parliament  no  more  together  for  almost  two 
years.  After  the  houses  were  up,  the  Cabal 
began  to  prosecute  their  scheme  of  making  the 
king  absolute ;  in  order  to  which,  besides  the 
£2,500,000  granted  by  Parliament,  they  receiv- 
ed from  France  the  sum  of  .£700,000  in  two 
years,  which  not  being  sufficient  to  embark  in 
a  war  with  the  Dutch,  the  king  declared  in 
council,  by  the  advice  of  Clifford,  that  he  was 
resolved  to  shut  up  the  exchequer,  wherein  the 
bankers  of  London  (who  had  furnished  the  king 
with  money  on  all  occasions  at  great  interest) 
had  lodged  vast  suins  of  other  people's  cash 
deposited  in  their  hands.  By  this  means  the 
hankers  were  obliged  to  make  a  stop,  which  in- 
terrupted the  course  of  trade,  and  raised  a  great 
clamour  over  the  whole  kingdom.  The  king 
endeavoured  to  soften  the  bankers,  by  tellings 
them  it  should  be  only  for  a  year,  and  that  he 
would  pay  the  arrears  out  of  the  next  subsidies 
of  Parliament ;  but  he  vvas  worse  than  his 
word  ;  so  that  great  numbers  of  families  and 
orphans  were  reduced  to  beggary,  while  the 
king  gained  about  £1,400,000. 

A  second  advance  of  the  Cabal  towards  arbi- 
trary power  was  to  destroy  the  Dutch  com- 
monwealth ;  for  this  purpose  the  triple  alliance 
was  to  be  broken,  and  pretences  to  be  found  out 
for  quarrelling  with  that  trading  people.  The 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury  used  this  expression  in  his 
speech  to  the  Parliament  for  justifying  the  war  : 
Delenda  est  Carthago;  that  is,  "  The  Dutch  com- 
monwealth must  be  destroyed  ;"  but  an  occa- 
sion was  wanting  to  justify  it  to  the  world. 
There  had  been  a  few  scurrilous  prints  and 
rnedals  struck  in  Holland,  reflecting  on  the 
kmg's  amours,  below  the  notice  of  the  English 
court,  which  the  Dutch,  however,  caused  to  be 
destroyed.  Complaints  were  also  revived  of 
the  insolence  of  the  Dutch  in  the  East  Indies, 
and  of  the  neglect  of  striking  the  flag  in  the 
narrow  seas  to  the  king's  yacht,  passing  by  the 
Dutch  fleet.  The  Cabal  managed  these  com- 
plaints like  men  who  were  afraid  of  receiving 
satisfaction,  or  of  giving  the  adversary  any  um- 
brage to  prepare  for  the  storm.  The  Dutch, 
therefore,  relying  on  the  faith  of  treaties,  pur- 
sued their  traffic  without  fear  ;  but  when  their 
rich  Smyrna  fleet  of  merchantmen,  consisting 
of  seventy-two  sail  under  convoy  of  six  men- 
of-war,  passed  by  the  Isle  of  Wight,  the  English 
fleet  fell  upon  them  and  took  several  of  their 
ships,  without  any  previous  declaration  of  war ; 
a  breach  of  faith,  says  Burnet,  which  .Moham- 
medans and  pirates  would  have  been  ashamed 
of* 

Two  days  after  the  attempt  upon  the  Smyrna 
fleet,  the  Cabal  made  the  third  advance  towards 
popery  and  absolute  power,  by  advising  the  king 
to  suspend  the  penal  laws  against  all  sorts  of 
Nonconformists.     It  was  now  resolved  to  set 


*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  16,  12mo. 


272 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


the  Dissenters  against  the  Church,  and  to  offer 
them  the  protection  of  the  crown  to  make  way 
for  a  general  toleration.  Lord  Shaftesbury  first 
proposed  it  in  council,  wliich  the  majority  read- 
ily complied  with,  provided  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics might  be  included  ;  hut  when  the  declara- 
tion was  prepared,  the  lord-keeper,  Bridgman, 
refused  to  put  the  seal  to  it,  as  judging  it  con- 
trary to  law,  for  which  he  was  dismissed,  and 
the  seals  given  to  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  who 
maintained  that  the  indulgence  was  for  the 
service  of  the  Church  of  England.*  "  As  for  the 
Church,"  says  his  lordship,  "I  conceive  the 
declaration  is  extremely  for  their  interest ;  for 
the  narrow  bottom  they  have  placed  themselves 
upon,  and  the  measures  they  have  proceeded 
by,  so  contrary  to  the  properties  and  liberties 
of  the  nation,  must  needs  in  a  short  time  prove 
fatal  to  them ;  whereas,  this  leads  them  into 
another  way,  to  live  peaceably  with  the  Dis- 
senting and  different  Protestants,  both  at  home 
and  abroad  ;"  which  was  true  if  both  had  not 
been  undermined  by  the  papists. t  Archbishop 
Sheldon,  Morley,  and  the  rest  of  their  party, 
exclaimed  loudly  against  the  indulgence,  and 
alarmed  the  whole  nation,  insomuch  that  many 
sober  and  good  men,  who  had  long  feared  the 
growth  of  popery,  began  to  think  their  eyes  were 
open,  and  that  they  were  in  good  earnest ;  but 
it  appeared  afterward  that  their  chief  concern 
was  for  the  spiritual  power ;  for,  though  they 
murmured  against  the  dispensing  power,  they 
fell  in  with  all  their  other  proceedings;  which, 
if  Providence  had  not  miraculously  interposed, 
must  have  been  fatal  to  the  Protestant  religion 
and  the  liberties  of  Europe. 

At  length,  the  declaration  having  been  com- 
municated to  the  French  king,  and  received  his 
approbation,  was  published,  bearing  date  March 
15,  1671-2,  to  the  following  effect  :t 
"  Charles  Rex. 

"  Our  care  and  endeavours  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  Church 
iiave  been  sufficiently  manifested  to  the  world, 
by  the  wbole;course  of  our  government  since 
our  happy  restoration,  and  by  the  many  and 
frequent  ways  of  coercion  that  we  have  used  for 
reducing  all  erring  or  dissenting  persons,  and 
for  composing  the  unhappy  differences  in  mat- 
ters of  religion,  which  we  found  among  our  sub- 
jects upon  our  return  ;  but  it  being  evident,  by 
the  sad  experience  of  twelve  years,  that  there 
is  very  little  fruit  of  all  these  forcible  courses, 
we  think  ourselves  obliged  to  make  use  of  that 


*  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  56G. 
t  Des  Maiz.  Col,  p.  C77,  &c. 
The  bishops  took  the  alarm  at  this  declaration, 
and  charged  tlieir  clergy  to  preach  against  popery. 
The  pulpits  were  full  ol  a  new  strain  ;  it  was  every- 
where preached  against,  and  the  authority  of  the 
laws  was  magnified,  "^rhe  king  complained  to  Shel- 
don that  controversy  was  preached,  as  if  on  purpose 
to  inflame  the  people,  and  alienate  thein  from  him 
and  his  government  ;  and  Sheldon,  apprehensive  that 
the  king  might  again  press  him  on  this  subject,  con- 
vened some  of  the  clergy,  to  consult  with  them  what 
answer  to  make  to  his  majesty.  Dr.  Tillotson  sug- 
gested this  reply  :  "  That  since  the  king  himself  pro- 
fessed the  Protestant  religion,  it  would  be  a  thing 
without  a  precedent  that  he  should  forbid  his  clergy 
to  preach  in  defence  of  a  religion  which  they  believ- 
ed, while  ho  himself  said  he  was  of  it." — Barnci's 
History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  17,  12rno  ed. ;  and  Birch's  Life  of 
Tillotson,  p.  41. — Ed. 


supreme  power  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  which 
is  not  only  inherent  in  us,  but  hath  been  decla- 
red and  recognised  to  be  so  by  several  statutes 
and  acts  of  Parliament  ;  and  therefore  we  do 
now  accordingly  issue  this  our  declaration,  as 
well  for  the  quieting  of  our  good  subjects  in 
these  points,  as  for  inviting  strangers  in  this 
conjuncture  to  come  and  live  under  us  ;  and  for 
the  better  encouragement  of  all  to  a  cheerful 
following  of  their  trades  and  callings,  from 
whence  we  hope,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  to 
have  many  good  and  happy  advantages  to  our 
government ;  as,  also,  for  preventing  for  the 
future  the  danger  that  might  otherwise  arise 
from  private  meetings  and  seditious  conventi- 
cles. 

•'  And,  in  the  first  place,  we  declare  our  ex- 
press resolution,  meaning,  and  intention,  to  be, 
that  the  Church  of  England  be  preserved,  and 
remain  entire  in  its  doctrine,  discipline,  and 
government,  as  now  it  stands  established  by 
law;  and  that  this  be  taken  to  be,  as  it  is,  the 
basis,  rule,  and  standard  of  the  general  and 
public  worship  of  God,  and  that  the  orthodox 
conformable  clergy  do  receive  and  enjoy  the 
revenues  belonging  thereunto,  and  that  no  per- 
son, though  of  a  different  opinion  and  persua- 
sion, shall  be  exempt  from  paying  his  tithes,  or 
otherdues  whatsoever.  And  farther  we  declare, 
that  no  person  shall  be  capable  of  holding  any 
benefice,  living,  or  ecclesiastical  dignity  or  pref- 
erment of  any  kind,  in  this  our  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land, who  is  not  exactly  conformable. 

"  We  do,  in  the  next  place,  declare  our  will 
and  pleasure  to  be,  that  the  execution  of  all, 
and  all  manner  of  penal  laws  in  matters  eccle- 
siastical, against  whatsoever  sort  of  Noncon- 
formists or  recusants,  be  immediately  suspend- 
ed, and  they  are  hereby  suspended  ;  and  all 
judges,  judges  of  assize,  and  jail  delivery,  sher- 
iffs, justices  of  peace,  mayors,  bailiffs,  and  oth- 
er officers  whatsoever,  whether  ecclesiastical  or 
civil,  are  to  take  notice  of  it,  and  pay  due  obe- 
dience thereto. 

"  And  that  there  inay  be  no  pretence  for  any 
of  our  subjects  to  continue  their  illegal  meet- 
ings and  conventicles,  we  do  declare  that  we 
shall,  from  time  to  time,  allow  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  places,  as  they  shall  be  desired,  in  all 
parts  of  this  our  kingdom,  for  the  use  of  such 
as  do  not  conform  to  the  Church  of  England,  to 
meet  and  assemble  in  order  to  their  public  wor- 
ship and  devotion,  which  places  shall  be  open 
and  free  to  all  persons. 

"  But  to  prevent  such  disorders  and  incon- 
veniences as  may  happen  by  this  our  indulgence, 
if  not  duly  regulated,  and  that  they  may  be  the 
better  protected  by  the  civil  magistrate,  our 
express  will  and  pleasure  is,  that  nime  of  our 
subjects  do  presume  to  meet  in  any  place,  until 
such  places  be  allowed,  and  the  teacher  of  that 
congregation  be  approved  by  ns. 

"  And  lest  any  should  apprehend  that  this  re- 
striction should  make  our  said  allowance  and 
approbation  difficult  to  be  obtained,  we  do  far- 
ther declare,  that  this  our  indulgence,  as  to  the 
allowance  of  the  public  places  of  worship,  and 
approbation  of  the  preachers,  shall  extend  to  all 
sorts  of  Nonconformists  and  recusants  except 
the  recusants  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  to 
whom  we  shall  in  nowise  allow  public  places 
of  worship,  but  only  indulge  them  their  share  in 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


273 


the  common  exemption  from  the  penal  laws, 
and  the  exercise  of  their  worslup  in  their  pri- 
vate houses  only. 

"And  if,  after  this  onr  clemency  and  imhil- 
gence,  any  ofour  sulijeets  shall  pretend  to  abuse 
this  lil)erty,  and  shall  preach  seditiously,  or  to 
the  derogation  of  the  doctrine,  discipline,  or  gov- 
ernment oltlie  Established  Church,  or  shall  meet 
in  places  not  allowed  by  us,  we  do  hereby  give 
them  warning,  and  declare  we  will  proceed 
against  them  with  all  imaginable  severity.  And 
■we  will  let  them  see  we  can  be  as  severe 
to  punish  such  offenders,  when  so  justly  pro- 
voked, as  we  are  indulgent  to  truly  tender  con- 
sciences. 

"Given  at  our  court  at  Wliitehall,  this  I5th 
day  of  March,  in  the  four-and-twentielh  year  of 
our  reign." 

The  Protestant  Nonconformists  had  no  opin- 
ion of  the  dispensmg  power,  and  were  not  for- 
ward to  accept  of  liberty  in  this  way  ;  they 
were  sensible  the  indulgence  was  not  granted 
out  of  love  10  them,  nor  would  continue  any 
longer  than  it  would  serve  the  interest  of  po- 
pery. "  The  beginning  of  the  Dutch  war,"  says 
one  of  their  writers,  "made  the  court  think  it 
necessary  to  grant  them  an  indulgence,  that 
there  might  be  peace  at  home  while  there  was 
war  abioad,  though  much  to  the  dissatisfaction 
of  those  who  had  a  hand  in  framing  all  the  se- 
vere laws  against  them  "*  Many  pamphlets 
were  written  for  and  against  the  Dissenters  ac- 
cepting it,  because  it  was  grafted  on  the  dis- 
pensing power.  Some  maintained  that  it  was 
setting  up  altar  against  altar,  and  that  they 
should  accept  of  nothing  but  a  comprehension. 
Others  endeavoured  to  prove  that  it  was  the 
<]uty  of  the  Presbyterians  to  make  use  of  the 
liberty  granted  them  by  the  king,  because  it 
was  their  natural  right,  which  no  legislative 
power  upon  earth  had  a  right  to  deprive  them  of, 
as  long  as  they  remained  dutiful  subjects  ;  that 
meeting  in  separate  congregations,  distinct  from 
the  parochial  assemblies,  in  the  present  circum- 
stances, was  neither  schismatical  nor  sinful. t 
Accordingly,  most  of  the  ministers,  both  in  Lon- 
don and  in  the  country,  took  out  licenses,  a  copy 
of  which  I  have  transcribed  from  under  tlie 
king's  own  hand  and  seal  in  the  margin. t  Great 
numbers  of  people  attended  the  meetings,  and 


*  Baxter,  part  iii.,  p.  99.    Welwood's  Mem.,  p.  190. 
+  Baxter,  part  iii.,  p.  99.    Welwood's  Mem.,  p. 

102.* 

t      Charles  Rex. 

Charles,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  Enjtland, 
Scotland,  P'rance,  and  Ireland,  defender  of  the  laiih, 
&c.,  to  all  mayor.s,  bailitl's,  constables,  and  others, 
our  officers  and  ministers,  civil  and  military,  whom 
it  may  concern,  greeting  ;  In  pursuance  of  our  dec- 
laration of  the  15lh  of  March,  1C71-2,  we  do  hereby 

permit  and  license  G.  S ,  of  the  Congregational 

persuasion,  to  be  a  teacher  of  the  congregation  al- 
lowed by  us,  in  a  room  or  rooms  <.)f  his  house  in , 

for  the  use  of  such  as  do  not  conform  to  the  Church 
of  England,  who  are  of  that  persuasion  commonly 
called  Congregational,  with  farther  license  and  per- 

niis;<ion  to  him,  the  said  G.  S ,  to  tench  in  any 

place  licensed  and  allowed  by  us,  according  to  our 
said  declaration. 

tiiven  at  our  court  at  Whitehall,  the  second  day  of 
May,  in  the  twenty -fourth  year  of  our  reign.  1C72. 
By  his  majesty's  command.  Arlinoton. 

*  TJve  editor  cunnot  meet  with  these  passages  in  Wel- 
wond's  Memoirs,  6tb  edition. 

Vol.  II. ~M  m 


a  cautious  and  moderate  address  of  thanks  was 
presented  to  the  king  for  their  liberty,  but  all 
were  afraid  of  the  consequences. 

It  was  reported,  farther,  that  the  court  en- 
couraged the  Nonconformists,  by  some  small 
pensions  of  £50  and  £100  to  the  chief  of  their 
party  ;  that  Mr.  Baxter  returned  the  money, 
but  that  Mr.  Pool  acknowledged  he  had  receiv- 
ed £50  for  two  years,  and  that  the  rest  accept- 
ed it.*  This  was  reported  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  Dissenters,  by  Dr.  Stillingfleet  and  oth- 
ers, with  an  insinuation  that  it  was  to  bribe 
them  to  be  silent,  and  join  interest  with  the 
papists;  but  Dr.  Owen,  in  answer  to  this  part 
of  the  charge,  in  his  preface  to  a  book  entitled 
"  An  Inquiry,  &c.,  against  Dr.  Stillingfleet,"  de- 
clares, that  "  it  is  such  a  frontless,  malicious 
lie,  as  impudence  itself  would  blush  at ;  that, 
however  the  Dissenters  may  be  traduced,  they 
are  ready  to  give  the  highest  security  that  can 
be  of  their  stability  in  the  Protestant  cause  ; 
and  for  myself,"  says  he,  "  never  any  person 
in  authority,  dignity,  or  power  in  the  nation,  nor 
any  from  them,  papist  or  Protestant,  did  ever 
speak  or  advise  with  me  about  any  indulgence 
or  toleration  to  be  granted  to  papists,  and  I 
challenge  the  whole  world  to  prove  the  contra- 
ry." From  this  indulgence  Dr.  Stillingfleet  dates 
the  beginning  of  the  Presbyterian  separation.' 

This  year  died  Dr.  Edmund  Staunton,  the 
ejected  minister  of  Kingston-upon-Thames,  ono 
of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and  scune  time 
president  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  in  Oxford. 
He  was  son  of  Sir  Francis  Staunton,  born  at 
Woburn,  in  Bedfordshire,  1601,  and  educated 
in  Wadham  College,  of  which  he  was  a  fellow. f 
Upon  his  taking  orders,  he  became  minister  of 
Bushy,  in  Hertfordshire,  but  changed  it  after- 
ward for  Kingston-upon-Thames.  In  1634  he 
took  the  degrees  in  divinity,  and  in  1648  was 
made  president  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  which 
he  kept  till  he  was  silenced  for  ntmconformity. 
He  then  retired  to  Rickmansworth,  in  Hert- 
fordshire, and  afterward  to  a  village  in  that 
county  called  Bovingden,  where  he  preached  as 
often  as  he  had  opportunity.  He  was  a  learned, 
pious,  and  peaceable  divine.  In  his  last  sick- 
ness he  said  he  neither  feared  death  nor  desired 
life,  but  was  w-illing  to  be  at  God's  disposal. 
He  died  July  14,  1671,  and  was  buried  in  the 
church  belonging  to  the  parish. + 

Mr.  Vavasor  Powell  was  born  in  Radnorshire, 
and  educated  in  Jesus  College,  Oxon.  When 
he  left  the  university,  he  preached  up  and  down 
in  Wales,  till,  being  driven  from  thence  for  want 
of  Preshyterial  ordination,  which  he  scrupled, 
he  came  to  London,  and  soon  after  settled  at 
Dartford,  in  Kent.  In  the  year  1646  be  obtain- 
ed a  testimonial  of  his  religious  and  blameless 
conversation,  and  of  his  abilities  for  the  work 
of  the  ministry,  signed  by  Mr.  Herle  and  seven- 
teen of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  Furnished 
with  these  testimonials,  he  returned  to  Wales, 


*  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  l(i,  17. 

t  Dr.  Siaunloii,  in  1G15,  became  a  commoner  of 
Wadham  College;  ontheHh  of  October,  in  the  same 
year,  was  admit  led  scholar  of  Corpus  Christi  College; 
and  afterward  fellow,  and  A.-M. —  Wood's  Athen. 
Oxnn.,  vol.  ii.,  [).  3.')2  ;  and  Dr.  Grey. — En. 

%  Calamy's  Abridg.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  63.  Palmer's  Non- 
conformists' Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  173.  Clarke's  Lives, 
1C73,  folio,  p.  160.— C. 


274 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


and  became  a  most  indefatigable  and  active  in- 
strument of  propagating  the  Gospel  in  those 
parts.  There  were  few,  if  any,  of  the  churches 
or  chapels  in  Wales  in  which  he  did  not  preach  ; 
yea,  very  often  he  preached  to  the  poor  Welsh 
jn  the  mountains,  at  fairs,  and  in  market-places  ; 
for  which  he  had  no  more  than  a  stipend  of 
£100  per  annum,  besides  the  advantage  of  some 
sequestered  livings  in  North  Wales  (says  my  au- 
thor), which,  in  those  times  of  confusion,  turned 
but  to  a  very  poor  account.  Mr.  Powell  was  a 
bold  man,  and  of  Republican  principles,  preach- 
ing against  the  protectorship  of  Cromwell,  and 
wrote  letters  to  him,  for  which  he  was  impris- 
oned, to  prevent  his  spreading  disalfection  in 
the  state.  At  the  dawn  of  the  Restoration,  be- 
ing known  to  be  a  fifth-monarchy  man,  he  was 
secured  first  at  Shrewsbury,  afterward  in  Wales, 
and  at  last  in  the  Fleet.  In  the  year  1662  he 
was  shut  up  in  South-Sea  Castle,  near  Ports- 
mouth, where  he  continued  five  years.  In  1667 
he  was  released,  but  venturing  to  preach  again 
in  his  own  country,  he  was  imprisoned  at  Car- 
diff, and  in  the  year  1669  gent  up  to  London, 
and  confined  a  prisoner  in  the  Fleet,  where  he 
died,  and  was  buried  in  Bunhill  Fields,  in  the 
presence  of  an  innumerable  crowd  of  Dissent- 
er^,.who  attended  him  to  his  grave.  He  was 
of.an  unconquerable  resolution,  and  of  a  mind 
unshaken  under  all  his  troubles.  The  inscrip- 
tion on  his  tomb  calls  him  "  a  successful  teach- 
er of  the  past,  a  sincere  witness  of  the  present, 
and  a  useful  example  to  the  future  age  ;  who, 
in  the  defection  of  many,  found  mercy  to  be 
faithful,  for  which,  being  called  to  many  prisons, 
he  was  there  tried,  and  would  not  accept  deliv- 
erance, expecting  a  better  resurrection."  He 
died  October  27,  1671,  in  the  fifty-third  year  of 
his  age,  and  the  eleventh  year  of  his  imprison- 
ment.* 

*  To  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  Mr.  Vavasor  Powell 
it  may  be  added,  that  he  was  born  in  1617,  and  de- 
scended from  an  ancient  and  honourable  stock  :  on 
his  father's  side,  from  the  Powells  of  Knocklas  in 
Radnorshire ;  and  on  his  mother's,  from  the  Vavasors, 
a  family  of  great  antiquity,  that  came  out  of  York- 
shire into  Wales,  and  was  related  to  the  principal 
gentry  in  North  Wales.  So  active  and  laborious 
was  he  in  the  duties  of  the  ministry,  that  he  fre- 
quently preached  in  two  or  three  places  in  a  day,  and 
was  seldom  two  days  in  the  week,  throughout  the 
year,  out  of  the  pulpit.  He  would  sometimes  ride  a 
hundred  miles  in  the  week,  and  preach  in  every 
place  where  he  could  gain  admittance,  either  by 
night  or  day.  He  would  often  alight  from  his  horse, 
and  set  on  it  any  aged  person  whom  he  met  with  on 
the  road  on  foot,  and  walk  by  the  side  for  miles  to- 
gether. He  was  exceedingly  hospitable  and  gener- 
ous, and  would  not  only  entertain  and  lodge,  but 
clothe  the  poor  and  aged.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
humility,  very  conscientious  and  exeniplary  in  all  rel- 
ative duties,  and  very  punctual  to  his  word.  He 
was  a  scholar,  and  his  general  deportment  was  that 
of  a  gentleman.  His  sentiments  were  those  of  a  Sab- 
batarian Baptist.  In  1C42,  when  he  left  Wales,  there 
was  not  then  above  one  or  two  gathered  churches ; 
but  before  the  Restoration,  there  were  above  twenty 
distinct  societies,  consisting  of  from  two  to  live  hun- 
dred members,  chiefly  planted  and  formed  by  his 
care  and  industry,  in  the  principles  of  the  Baptists. 
They  were  also  for  the  ordination  of  elders,  singing 
of  psalms  and  hymns  in  public  worship  ;  laying  on  of 
hands  on  the  nev^ly  baptized,  and  anohiting  the  sick 
with  oil,  and  did  not  limit  their  communion  to  an 
agreement  with  them  in  their  sentiments  on  baptism. 
He  bore  his  last  illness  with  great  patience,  and 


CHAPTER  IX 

FROM    THE    king's    DECLARATION    OF    INDULGENCE 

TO    THE    POPISH    PLOT    IN    THE    YEAR    1678. 

1672. 

The  French  king  having  prevailed  with  the 
English  court  to  break  the  triple  alliance,  and 
make  war  with  the  Dutch,  published  a  declara- 
tion at  Paris,  signifying  that  he  could  not,  with- 
out diminution  of  his  glory,  any  longer  dissem- 
ble the  indignation  raised  in  him  by  the  unhand- 
some carriage  of  the  States-General  of  the  Uni- 
ted Provinces,  and  therefore  proclaimed  war 
against  them  both  by  sea  and  land.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  May,  he  drew  together  an  army  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men,  witli  which 
he  took  the  principal  places  in  Flanders,  and 
with  a  rapid  fury  overran  the  greatest  part  of  the 
Netherlands.  In  the  beginning  of  July  he  took 
possession  of  Utrecht,  a  city  in  the  heart  of  the 
United  Provinces,  where  he  held  his  court,  and 
threatened  to  besiege  Amsterdam  itself.  In 
this  extremity  the  Dutch  opened  their  sluices, 
and  laid  a  great  part  of  their  country  under  wa- 
ter ;  the  populace  rose,  and  having  obliged  the 
states  to  elect  the  young  Prince  of  Orange  stadt- 
holder,  they  fell  upon  the  two  brothers  Corne- 
lius and  John  dc  Wit,  their  late  pensionary,  and 
tore  them  to  pieces  in  a  barbarous  manner. 
The  young  prince,  who  was  then  but  twenty- 
two  years  old,  used  all  imaginable  vigdance  and 
activity  to  save  the  remainder  of  his  country; 
and  like  a  true  patriot,  declared  he  would  die  in 
the  last  dike  rather  than  become  tributary  tO' 
any  foreign  power.  At  length,  their  allies  came 
to  their  assistance,  when  the  young  prince,  like 
another  Scipio,  abandoning  his  own  country, 
besieged  and  took  the  important  town  of  Bonn^ 
which  opened  a  passage  for  the  Germans  into 
Flanders,  and  struck  such  a  surprise  into  the 
French,  whose  enemies  were  now  behind  them, 
that  they  abandoned  all  their  conquests  in  Hol- 
land, except  Maestricht  and  Grave,  with  as 
much  precipitance  as  they  had  made  them. 

These  rapid  conquests  of  the  French  opened 
people's  mouths  against  the  court,  and  raised 
such  discontents  in  England,  that  his  majesty 
was  obliged  to  issue  out  his  proclamation  ta 
suppress  all  unlawful  and  undutiful  conversa- 
tion, threatening  a  severe  prosecution  of  such 
who  should  spread  false  news,  or  intermeddle 
with  affairs  of  state,  or  promote  scandal  against 
his  majesty's  counsellors,  by  their  common  dis- 
course in  coffee-houses  or  places  of  public  re- 
sort. He  was  obliged,  also,  to  continue  the  ex- 
chequer shut  up,  contrary  to  his  royal  promise, 
and  to  prorogue  his  Parliament  till  next  year, 
which,  he  foresaw,  would  be  in  a  flame  at  their 
meeting. 

During  this  interval  of  Parliament,  the  decla- 
ration of  Indulgence  continued  in  force,  and  the 
Dissenters  had  rest ;  when  the  Presbyterians 
and  Independents,  to  show  their  agreement 
among  themselves,  as  well  as  to  support  the 


under  the  acutest  pains  would  bless  God,  and  say, 
"  he  would  not  entertain  one  bard  thought  of  God 
for  all  the  world,"  and  could  scarcely  be  restrained 
from  acts  of  devotion,  and  from  expressing  his  senti- 
ments of  zeal  and  piety.  Dr.  Grey,  after  Wood,  has 
vilified  Mr.  Powell  by  retailing  the  falsehoods  of  a 
piece  entitled  Strena  Vavasoriensis. — Crosby's  His- 
tory, vol.  i.,  p.  373,  &c.  Life  and  Death  of  Vavasor 
Pou'tU.—Eo.  (TOULMIN). 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


275 


doctrines  of  the  Reformation  against  the  pre- 
vailing errors  of  popery,  Socinianism,  and  in- 
fidelity, set  up  a  weekly  lecture  at  Pinners' 
Hall,  in  Broad-street,  on  Tuesday  mornings, 
under  the  encouragement  of  the  principal  mer- 
chants and  tradesmen  of  their  persuasion  in  the 
city.  Four  Presbyterians  were  joined  by  two 
Independents,  to  preach  by  turns,  and,  to  give 
it  the  greater  reputation,  the  principal  ministers 
for  learning  and  popularity  were  chosen  as  lec- 
turers ;  as  Dr.  Bates,  Dr.  Manton,  Dr.  Owen, 
Mr.  Baxter,  Mr.  Collins,  Jenkins,  Mead,  and, 
afterward,  Mr.  Alsop,  Howe,  Cole,  and  others  ; 
and,  though  there  were  some  little  misunder- 
standings at  their  first  setting  out,  about  some 
high  pomts  of  Calvinism,  occasioned  by  one  of 
Mr.  Baxter's  first  sermons,  yet  the  lecture  con- 
tinued in  this  form  till  the  year  1695,  when  it 
split  upon  the  same  rock,  occasioned  by  the  re- 
printing Dr.  Crisp's  works.  The  four  Presby- 
terians removed  to  Salters'  Hall,  and  set  up  a 
lecture  on  the  same  day  and  hour.  The  two 
Independents  remained  at  Pinners'  Hall,  and, 
when  there  was  no  prospect  of  an  accommoda- 
tion, each  party  filled  up  their  numbers  out  of 
their  respective  denominations,  and  they  are 
both  subsisting  to  this  day. 

Among  the  Puritan  divines  who  died  this 
year.  Bishop  Wilkins  deserves  the  first  place. 
He  was  born  at  Fawsley,  in  Northamptonshire, 
in  the  house  of  his  mother's  father,  Mr.  J.  Dod, 
the  decalogist.  in  the  year  1614,  and  educated 
in  Magdalen  Hall  under  Mr.  Tombes.*  He  was 
some  time  warden  of  Wadham  College,  Oxford, 
and  afterward  master  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, of  which  he  was  deprived  at  the  Resto- 
ration, though  he  conformed.  He  married  a 
sister  of  the  protector's,  Oliver  Cromwell,  and 
complied  with  all  the  changes  of  the  late  times, 
being,  as  Wood  observes,  always  Puritanically 
affected  ;  but,  for  his  admirable  abilities  and  ex- 
traordinary genius,  he  had  scarce  his  equal. 
He  was  made  Bishop  of  Chester  166  ;  and 
surely,  says  Mr.  Echard,  the  court  could  not 
have  found  out  a  man  of  greater  ingenuity  and 
capacity,  or  of  more  universal  knowledge  and 
understanding  in  all  parts  of  polite  learning. 
Archbishop  Tillotson  and  Bishop  Burnet,  who 
were  his  intimates,  give  him  the  highest  enco- 
mium ;  as,  that  he  was  a  pious  Christian,  an 
admirable  preacher,  a  rare  mathematician,  and 
mechanical  philosopher  ;  and  a  man  of  as  great 
a  mind,  as  true  judgment,  as  eminent  virtues, 
and  of  as  great  a  soul,  as  any  they  ever  knew. 
He  was  a  person  of  universal  charity  and  mod- 
eration of  spirit ;  and  was  concerned  in  all  at- 
tempts for  a  comprehension  with  the  Dissent- 
ers. He  died  of  the  stone,  in  Dr.  Tillotson's 
house  in  Chancery  Lane,  November  19,  1672,  in 
the  fifty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 

Mr.  Joseph  Caryl,  M.A.,  the  ejected  minister 
of  St.  Magnus,  London  Bridge,  was  born  of  gen- 
teel parents  in  London,  1602,  educated  in  Exe- 
ler  College,  and  afterward  preacher  of  Lincoln's 
Inn  ;  he  was  a  member  of  the  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines, and  afterward  one  of  the  triors  for  ap- 
probation of  ministers  ;  in  all  which  stations  he 
appeared  a  man  of  great  learning,  pietj',  and 
modesty.  He  was  sent  by  the  Parliament  to 
attend  the  king  at  Holml)y  House,  and  was  one 
of  their  commissioners  In  the  treaty  of  the  Isle 


*  Athen.  Oxon.,  p.  505. 


of  Wight.  After  his  ejectment  in  1662,  he  lived 
privately  in  London,  and  preached  to  his  con- 
gregation as  the  times  would  permit ;  he  was  a 
moderate  Independent,  and  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  learned  exposition  upon  the  Book  of 
Job.*  He  died,  universally  lamented  by  all  his 
acquaintance,  February  7,  1672-3,  and  in  the 
seventy-first  year  of  his  age.t 

Mr.  Philip  Nye,  M.  A.,  was  a  divine  of  a  warm- 
er spirit.  He  was  born  of  a  genteel  family, 
1596,  and  was  educated  in  Magdalen  College,  j 
Oxford,  where  he  took  the  degrees.  In  1630  he 
was  curate  of  St.  Michael's,  Cornhill,  and  three 
years  after  iled  from  Bisliop  Laud's  persecution 
into  Holland,  but  returned  about  the  beginning 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  became  minister 
of  Kimbolton  in  Huntingdonshire.  He  was  one 
of  the  dissenting  brethren  in  the  Assembly,  one 
of  the  triers  in  the  protector's  time,  and  a  prin- 
cipal manager  of  the  meeting  of  the  Congrega- 
tional ministers  at  the  Savoy.  He  was  a  great 
politician,  insomuch  that  it  was  debated  in 
council,  after  the  Restoration,  whether  he 
should  not  be  excepted  for  life  ■,^  and  it  was 
concluded,  that  if  he  should  accept  or  exercise 
any  office,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  he  should,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  in  law,  stand  as  if  he 
had  been  totally  excepted.  He  was  ejected 
from  St.  Bartholomew  behind  the  Exchange, 
and  preached  privately,  as  opportunity  offered, 
to  a  congregation  of  Dissenters  till  the  present 
year,  when  he  died  in  the  month  of  September, 
about  seventy-six  years  old,  and  lies  buried  in 
the  church  of  St.  Michael's,  Cornhill,  leaving 
behind  him  the  character  of  a  man  of  uncom- 
mon depth,  and  of  one  who  was  seldom  if  ever 
outreached.il 

When  the  king  met  his  Parliament  Februa- 
ry 4,  1673,  after  a  recess  of  a  year  and  nme 
months,  he  acquainted  them  with  the  reasona- 
bleness and  necessity  of  the  war  with  the 
Dutch,  and  having  asked  a  supply,  told  them, 
"  he  had  found  the  good  effect  of  his  indul- 
gence to  Dissenters,  but  that  it  was  a  mistake 
in  those  who  said  more  liberty  was  given  to 


+  This  work  was  printed  in  two  volumes  folio, 
consisting  of  upward  of  si.^  auiidred  sheets :  and 
there  was  also  an  edition  in  twelve  volumes  4to. 
"One  just  remark,"  says  Mr.  Granger,  "has  been 
made  on  its  utility,  that  it  is  a  very  sufficient  exer- 
cise for  the  virtue  of  patience,  which  it  was  chiefly 
intended  to  inculcate  and  improve." — Granirer's  His- 
tory of  Evgland,  vol.  iii.,  p.  313, 8vo,  note. — En.  It  is 
not  amiss  to  add,  that  very  few  works  of  equal  magni- 
tude contain  so  much  piety  and  good  sense.  This 
commentary,  for  such  it  may  be  termed,  is  highly 
prized,  and  a  copy  is  never  to  be  met  with  in  a  Lon- 
don catalogue  but  at  a  very  high  price.  It  is  one  of 
the  scarcest  theological  books,  and,  on  account  of  its 
size,  not  likely  to  meet  a  reprint. — C. 

t  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  7.  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mein., 
vol.  i.,  p.  121. 

t  Mr.  Nye  was  entered  a  commoner  of  Brazen 
Nose  July,  1615,  aged  about  nineteen  years;  but 
making  no  long  stay  there,  he  removed  to  Magdalen 
Hall,  not  Magdalen  College. — Dr.  Grey ;  and  Wood's 
Alhcn.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2G8. — Ed. 

()  With  John  Goodwin  and  Hugh  Peters.  Soon 
after  the  Restoration,  there  was  an  order  of  Parlia- 
ment for  lodging  his  papers  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  at  Lambeth,  where  they  yet  remain.  Mr. 
Nye  had  drawn  up  a  complete  history  of  the  old  Pu- 
ritan Dissenters,  but  the  MS.  was,  unfortunately, 
burned  in  the  fire  of  London. — C. 

II  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  29.    Palmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  86. 


276 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


papists  than  others,  because  they  had  only  free- 
dom in  their  own  liouaes,  and  no  pubhc  assem- 
blies ;  he  should  therelore  lake  it  ill  to  receive 
contradiction  in  what  he  had  done  ;  and  to  deal 
plainly  with  you,"  said  his  majesty,  "I  am  re- 
solved to  stick  to  my  declaration."  Lord- 
chancellor  Shaftesbury  seconded  the  king's 
speech,  and  having  vindicated  ihe  indulgence, 
magnitied  the  king's  zeal  for  the  Church  of 
tiigland  and  the  Protestant  religion.  But  the 
House  of  Commons  declared  against  the  dis- 
pensing power,  and  argued  that  though  the 
king  had  a  power  to  pardon  offenders,  he  had 
not  a  right  to  authorize  men  to  break  the  laws, 
for  this  would  infer  a  power  to  alter  the  gov- 
ernment ;  and  if  the  king  could  secure  offend- 
ers by  indemnifying  them  beforehand,  it  was  m 
vain  to  make  any  laws  at  all,  because,  accord- 
ing to  this  maxim,  they  had  no  force  but  at  the 
king's  discretion.  But  it  was  objected,  on  the 
other  side,  that  a  difference  was  to  be  made 
between  penal  laws  in  spiritual  matters  and 
others  ;  that  the  king's  supremacy  gave  him  a 
peculiar  authority  over  these,  as  was  evident 
by  his  tolerating  the  Jews,  and  the  churches  ol 
foreign  Protestants.  To  which  it  was  replied, 
that  the  mtent  of  the  law  in  asserting  the  su- 
premacy was  only  to  exclude  all  foreign  juris- 
diction, and  to  lodge  the  whole  authority  vvilh 
the  king  ;  but  that  was  still  bounded  and  regu- 
lated by  law ;  the  Jews  were  still  at  mercy, 
and  only  connived  at,  but  the  foreign  churches 
were  excepted  by  a  particular  clause  in  the  Act 
of  Uniloriiuty  ;  and  therefore,  upon  the  whole, 
they  came  to  this  resolution  February  10, 
"  That  penal  statutes  in  matters  ecclesiastical 
cannot,  be  suspended  but  by  act  of  Parliament ; 
lliat  no  such  power  had  ever  been  claimed  l)y 
any  of  Ins  majesty's  predecessors,  and  there- 
fore his  majesty's  indulgence  was  contrary  to 
law,  and  tended  to  subvert  the  legislative  pow- 
er, wluch  had  always  been  acknowledged  to  re- 
side in  the  king  and  his  two  houses  of  Parlia- 
ment." Pursuant  to  this  resolution,  they  ad- 
dressed the  king  February  19,  to  recall  his  dec- 
laration. The  king  answered,  that  he  was 
sorry  they  should  question  his  power  in  eccle- 
siastics, which  had  not  been  done  in  the  reigns 
of  his  ancestors ;  that  he  did  not  pretend  to 
suspend  laws  wherein  the  properties,  rights, 
or  ht)erties  of  his  subjects  were  concerned,  nor 
to  alter  anything  in  the  established  religion,  but 
only  to  take  off  the  penalties  inflicted  on  Dis- 
senters, which  he  believed  they  tliemselves 
would  not  wish  executed  according  to  the  rig- 
our of  the  law.*  The  Commons,  perceiving 
his  majesty  was  not  inclined  to  desist  from  his 
declaration,  stopped  the  money  bill.t  and  pre- 


♦  Kchard,  p.  889.     Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  72,  73. 

t  The  remarks  of  Mr.  Uoiigh  here  are  just  and 
weighty  :  "  The  conduct  of  the  Commons  in  this  case 
hatli  procured  the  general  voice  of  our  historians  in 
their  lavour ;  and  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  they 
acted  consistently  with  their  duty  in  opposing  the  iii- 
fnngeuient  of  the  Constitution.  Yet,  as  the  king's 
apparent  inclination  to  have  the  Dissenters  e.xempt- 
ed  from  penal  laws  would  have  merited  praise,  it  it 
had  been  sincere,  and  attempted  in  a  legal  way,  so 
the  op|)osiUon  of  the  Parliament  would  have  been 
entitled  to  ihe  claim  of  greater  nieril.  d  it  had  nut 
originated,  with  many  of  them,  in  an  aversion  to  the 
principles  ot  the  duclaraiion  (impunity  to  the  Non- 
conlormisls)  as  much  ,is  (he  grounds  upon  which  it 


sented  a  second  address,  insisting  upon  a  full 
and  satisfactory  assurance  that  Ins  majesty's 
conduct  m  this  affair  might  not  be  drawn  into 
example  for  the  future,  which  at  length  they 
obtained. 

The  Parliament  was  now  first  disposed  to 
distinguish  between  Protestant  Dissenters  and 
J-'opibh  recusants,  and  to  give  ease  to  the  lor- 
mer  without  including  the  latter,  especially 
when  the  Dissenters  in  the  House  disavowed 
the  dispensing  power,  tliough  it  had  been  exer- 
cised in  their  favour.  Alderman  Love,  mem- 
ber for  the  city  of  London,  stood  up,  and  in  a 
handsome  speech  declared,  "  that  he  had  rather 
go  without  his  own  desired  lil)erty,  than  have 
it  in  a  way  so  destructive  of  the  liberties  of  his 
country  and  the  Protestant  interest ;  and  that 
this  was  the  sense  of  the  main  body  of  Dissent- 
ers ."  which  surprised  the  whole  House,  and 
gave  a  turn  to  those  very  men  who,  for  tea 
years  together,  had  been  loading  the  Noncon- 
formists with  one  penal  law  after  another:  but 
things  were  now  at  a  crisis ;  Pojiery  and  sla- 
very were  at  the  door;  the  triple  alliance  bro- 
ken ;  the  Protestant  powers  ravaging  one  an- 
other;  theexchequershut  up;  the  heir  presump- 
tive of  the  crown  an  open  papist ;  and  an  army 
encamped  near  London  under  popish  officers 
ready  to  be  transported  into  Holland  to  complete 
their  ruin.  When  the  Dissenters,  at  such  a 
time,  laid  aside  their  resentments  against  their 
persecutors,  and  renounced  their  own  liberty 
for  the  salety  of  the  Protestant  religion  and 
the  liberties  of  their  country,  all  sober  men 
began  to  think  it  was  high  time  to  put  a  mark 
of  distinction  between  them  and  the  llwmaa 
Catholics. 

But  the  king  was  of  another  mind;  yet,  be- 
ing in  want  ol  money,  he  was  easily  persuaded 
by  his  mistresses  to  give  up  Ins  indulgence,  con- 
trary to  the  advice  of  the  Cabdl,  who  told  him, 
if  he  would  make  a  bold  stanu  for  h:s  preroga- 
tive, all  would  be  well.  But  he  came  to  the 
House  March  8,  and  having  pressed  the  Com- 
mons to  despatch  the  money  bill,  he  added,  "  If 
there  be  any  scruple  yet  remaining  with  you 
touching  the  suspension  of  the  penal  laws,  I 
here  faithfully  promise  you  that  what  has  been 
done  in  that  particular  shall  not  for  the  future  be 
drawn  into  example  and  consequence  ;  and  as 
I  daily  expect  from  you  a  bill  for  my  sup|)ly,  so 
I  assure  you  I  shall  as  willingly  receive  and  pass 
any  other  you  shall  offer  me,  that  may  tend  to 
the  givingyou  satisfaction  in  all  your  just  griev- 
ances." Accordingly,  he  called  for  the  decla- 
ration, and  broke  the  seal  with  his  own  hands, 
by  which  means  all  the  licenses  for  meeting- 
houses were  called  in.  Our  historian^*  observe, 
that  this  proceeding  of  the  king  made  a  surpri- 
sing alteration  in  J^ord  Shaftesbury,  who  had 
been  the  soul  of  the  Cabal,  and  the  niastei-build- 
er  of  the  scheme  'for  making  the  king  absolute  ; 


was  published  ;  and  if  they  had  not  laid  the  founda- 
tions tor  this  contest  in  the  various  penal  laws, 
which,  under  the  intluciice  of  parly  pique,  they  had 
universally  enacted  and  received  ;  and  on  all  occa- 
sions manifested  a  determined  enmiiy  lo  all  dissent- 
ers from  the  established  religion  ;  for  if  they  had  not 
an  aversion  to  the  principles  of  thK  declaration,  thev 
had  now  a  lair  opportunity  of  legalizing  it.  by  con- 
vertin"  it  into  an  act  of  Pariiaineat." — History  of  the 
Qu/i/.«j,  vol.  if,  p.  374. — Ei>. 

*  Echard,  p.  8i)l.     Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  75. 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


bat  that  when  his  majesty  was  so  unsteady  as 
to  desert  him  in  the  project  of  an  indui^'Ciice 
"  after  he  had  promised  to  stand  by  him,  he  con- 
cluded the  king  was  not  to  he  trusted,  and  ap- 
peared afterward  at  the  head  of  the  country 
party. 

The  Nonconformists  were  now  in  some  hopes 
of  a  legal  toleration  by  Parliament,  for  the 
Commons  resolved,  ncmine  contradicente,  that  a 
bill  be  brought  in  for  the  ease  of  his  majesty's 
Protestant  subjects,  who  are  dissenters  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  from  the  Church  of  England. 
The  substance  of  the  bill  was, 

"  1.  That  ease  be  given  to  his  majesty's  Prot- 
estant subjects  dissenting  in  matters  of  religion, 
who  shall  subscribe  the  articles  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  shall  take  the 
oaths  of  allegience  and  supremacy.*  2.  That 
the  said  Protestant  subjects  be  eased  from  all 
pains  and  penalties  for  not  coming  to  church. 
3.  Tiiat  the  clause  in  the  late  Act  of  Uniformity 
fordeclaiing  the  assent  and  consent  be  taken 
away  by  this  bill.  4.  That  the  said  Protestant 
subjects  be  eased  from  all  pains  and  penalties, 
for  meeting  together  for  performance  of  any 
religious  exercises.  5.  That  every  teacher  shall 
give  notice  of  the  place  where  he  intends  to 
hold  such  his  meetings  to  the  quarter  sessions, 
"Where  in  open  court  he  shall  first  make  such 
Bubscription,  and  take  such  oaths  as  aforesaid, 
and  receive  from  thence  a  certificate  thereof, 
where  all  such  proceedings  shall  remain  upon 
record.  6.  That  any  such  teacher  may  exercise 
as  aforesaid,  until  the  next  respective  quarter 
sessions,  and  no  longer,  in  case  he  shall  not  first 
take  the  oaths,  and  make  such  subscription  be- 
fore two  of  the  neighbouring  justices  of  the 
peace,  and  shall  first  give  them  notice  of  the 
place  of  his  intended  meeting,  and  take  a  certifi- 
cate thereof  under  the  said  justices'  hands,  a  du- 
plicate whereof  they  are  to  return  into  the  next 
quarter  sessions.  7.  The  doors  and  passages 
of  all  houses  and  places  where  the  said  Dissent- 
ers do  meet  shall  be  always  open  and  free  du- 
ring the  time  of  such  exercise.  8.  If  any  Dis- 
senter refuses  to  take  the  church-wardens'  oath, 
he  shall  then  find  another  fit  person,  who  is  not 
a  Dissenter,  to  execute  that  office,  and  shall  pay 
him  for  it."  But  though  all  agreed  in  bringing 
in  a  hill,  there  was  neither  time  nor  unanimity 
enough  in  the  House  this  sessions  to  agree  upon 
particulars  ;  for  according  to  Bishop  Burnet,  it 
■went  no  farther  than  a  second  reading.  Mr. 
Echard  says  it  was  dropped  in  the  House  of 
Lords  on  account  of  some  amendments,  till  the 
Parliament  was  prorogued  ;  but  Mr.  Coke  says, 
more  truly,  that  it  was  because  the  dead  weight 
of  bishops  joined  with  the  king  and  the  cabal- 
ling party  against  it.t 

While  this  was  depending,  the  Commons  ad- 
dressed the  king  against  papists  and  Jesuits, 
,  expressing  their  great  concern  to  see  such  per- 
sons admitted  into  employments  and  places  of 
great  trust  and  profit,  and  especially  into  mili- 
tary commands,  and  therefore  pray  that  the 
laws  against  them  may  be  put  in  execution. 
Upon  which  a  proclamation  was  issued,  though 
to  very  little  purpose,  enjoining  all  popish  priests 
and  Jesuits  to  depart  the  realm,  and  the  laws 
to  be  put  in  execution  against  all  popish  recu- 
sants. 


•  Echard,  p.  889. 


t  Detect.,  p.  490. 


But  his  majesty  making  no  mention  of  remo- 
ving them  from  places  of  profit  and  trust,  the 
Conmions,  knowing  where  their  strength  lay, 
suspended  their  money  bill,  and  ordered  a  bdl 
to  be  brought  in  to  confine  all  places  of  profit 
and  trust  to  those  only  who  are  of  the  commu- 
nion of  the  Church  of  England  :  this  is  com- 
monly called  the  Test  Act,  and  was  levelled 
against  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  present  min- 
istry, who  were  chiefly  of  his  persuasion.  When 
it  was  brought  into  the  House,  the  court  opposed 
it  with  all  their  might,  and  endeavoured  to  di- 
vide the  church  party,  by  proposing  that  some 
regard  might  be  had  to  Protestant  Dissenters, 
hoping  by  this  means  to  clog  the  bill,  and  throw 
it  out  of  the  House;  upon  which  Alderman 
Love,  a  Dissenter,  and  representative  for  the 
city,  stood  up  again,  and  said  he  hoped  the  clause 
in  favour  of  Protestant  Dissenters  would  occa- 
sion no  intemperate  heats  ;  and  moved  that 
since  it  was  likely  to  prove  so  considerable  a 
barrier  against  popery,  the  bill  might  pass  with- 
out any  alteration,  and  that  nothing  might  inter- 
pose till  it  was  finished ;  and  then  (says  the  al- 
derman) we  [Dissenters]  will  try  if  the  Parlia- 
ment will  not  distinguish  us  from  popish  recu- 
sants, by  some  marks  of  their  favour ;  but  we 
are  willing  to  lie  under  the  severity  of  the  laws 
for  a  time,  rather  than  clog  a  more  necessary 
work  with  our  concerns.  These  being  the 
sentiments  of  the  leading  Dissenters  both  in  the 
House  and  without  doors,  the  bill  passed  the 
Commons  with  little  opposition  ;  but  when  it 
came  to  be  debated  in  the  House  of  Peers,  in 
the  king's  presence,  March  15,  the  whole  court 
was  against  it,  except  the  Earl  of  Bristol ;  and 
maintained  that  it  was  his  majesty's  prerogative 
to  employ  whom  he  pleased  in  his  service. 
Some  were  for  having  the  king  stand  his  ground 
against  the  Parliament.  The  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham and  Lord  Berkley*  proposed  bringing 
the  army  to  town,  and  taking  out  of  both  houses 
the  members  who  made  opposition.  Lauder- 
dale offered  to  bring  an  army  from  Scotland  ; 
and  Lord  Clifford  told  the  king  that  the  people 
now  saw  through  his  designs,  and  therefore  he 
must  resolve  to  make  himself  master  at  once, 
or  be  forever  subject  to  much  jealousy  and  con- 
tempt. But  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  having 
changed  sides,  pressed  the  king  to  give  the 
Parliament  full  content,  and  then  they  would 
undertake  to  procure  him  the  supply  he  wanted. 
This  suited  the  king's  easy  temper,  who,  not 
being  willing  to  risk  a  second  civil  war,  went 
into  these  measures,  and,  out  of  mere  necessity 
for  money,  gave  up  the  papists,  in  hopes  that  he 
might  afterward  recover  what  in  the  present 
extremity  he  was  forced  to  resign.  This  effect- 
ually  broke  the  Cabal,  and  put  the  Roman 
Catholics  upon  pursuing  other  measures  to  in- 
troduce their  religion,  which  was  the  making 
way  for  a  p(jpish  successor  of  more  resolute 
principles  ;  and  from  hence  we  may  date  the 
beginning  of  the  popish  plot,  which  did  not 
break  out  till  1678,  as  appears  by  Mr.  Coleman's 
letters.  The  bill  received  the  royal  assent 
March  25,  together  with  the  money  bill  of 
£1,200,000,  and  then  the  Parliament  was  pro- 
rogued to  October  20,  after  a  short  session  of 
seven  weeks. 

The  Test  Act  is  entitled,  "  An  Act  to  prevent 


Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  75,  76. 


278 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


Dangers  which  happen  from  Popish  Recusants." 
It  requires,  "  that  all  persons  bearing  any  office 
of  trust  or  prolit  shall  take  the  oaths  of  suprem- 
acy and  allegiance  in  public  and  open  court,  and 
shall  also  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Church 
of  England,  in  some  parish  church,  on  some 
Lord's  Day,  immediately  after  Divine  service 
and  serinon,  and  deliver  a  certificate  of  having 
so  received  the  sacrament,  under  the  hands  of 
the  respective  ministers  and  church-wardens, 
proved  by  two  credible  witnesses  upon  oath, 
and  upon  record  in  court.  And  that  all  persons 
taking  the  said  oaths  of  supremacy  and  alle- 
gience  shall  likewise  make  and  subscribe  this 
following  declaration  :  '  I,  .\.B.,  do  declare  that 
I  believe  there  is  no  transubslantiation  in  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  in  the  ele- 
ments of  bread  and  wine,  at  or  after  the  conse- 
cration thereof  by  any  person  whatsoever.' 
The  penalty  of  breaking  through  this  act  is  a 
disabUity  of  suing  in  any  court  of  law  or  equity, 
being  guardian  of  any  child,  executor  or  admm- 
istrator  to  any  person,  or  of  taking  any  legacy, 
or  deed  of  gift,  or  of  bearing  any  public  office  : 
besides  a  fine  of  five  hundred  pounds." 

Mr.  Echard  observes  well,  that  this  act  was 
principally,  if  not  solely,  levelled  at  the  Roman 
Catholics,  as  appears  from  the  title  ;  and  this 
is  farther  evident  from  the  disposition  of  the 
House  of  Commons  at  this  time  to  ease  the 
Protestant  Dissenters  of  some  of  their  burdens. 
If  the  Dissenters  had  fallen  in  with  the  court 
measures,  they  might  have  prevented  the  bill's 
passing.  But  they  left  their  own  liberties  in  a 
state  of  uncertainty,  to  secure  those  of  the  na- 
tion. However,  though  the  intention  was  good, 
the  act  itself  is,  in  my  opinion,  very  unjustifia- 
ble, because  it  founds  dominion  in  grace.  A 
man  cannot  be  an  exciseman,  a  custom-house 
officer,  a  lieutenant  in  the  army  or  navy,  no,  not 
so  much  as  a  tide-waiter,  without  putting  on  the 
most  distinguishing  badge  of  Christianity,  ac- 
cording to  the  usage  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Is  not  this  a  strong  temptation  to  profanation 
and  hypocrisy  !  Does  it  not  pervert  one  of  the 
most  solemn  institutions  of  religion  to  purposes 
for  which  it  was  never  intended  !  And  is  it 
not  easy  to  find  securities  of  a  civil  nature  suf- 
ficient for  the  preservation  both  of  Church  and 
State  1  When  the  act  took  place,  the  Duke  of 
York,  lord-high-admiral  of  England,  Lord  Clif- 
ford, lord-high-treasurer,  and  a  great  many  other 
popish  officers,  resigned  their  preferments  ;  but 
not  one  Protestant  Dissenter,  there  not  being 
one  such  in  the  administration  ;  however,  as 
the  Church  party  showed  a  noble  zeal  for  their 
religion.  Bishop  Burnet  observes,  that  the  Dis- 
senters got  great  reputation  by  their  silent  de- 
portment ;  though  the  king  and  the  court  bish- 
ops resolved  to  stick  in  their  skirts.* 

This  being  the  last  penal  law  made  against 
the  Nonconformists  in  this  reign,  it  may  not  be 
improper  to  put  them  all  together,  that  the  read- 
er may  have  a  full  view  of  their  distressed  cir- 
cumstances :  for  besides  the  penal  laws  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  which  were  confirmed  by  this 
Parliament,  one  of  which  was  no  less  than 
banishment,  and  another  a  mulct  on  every  one 
for  not  coming  to  church, 

There  were  in  force. 


Vol.  ii.,  p.  80. 


1st.  An  act  for  well  governing  and  regulating 
corporations,  13  Car.  II.,  c.  i.  Whereby  all  who 
bear  office  in  any  city,  corporation,  town,  or 
borough,  are  required  to  take  the  oaths  and 
subscribe  the  declaration  therein  mentioned, 
and  to  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of 
England.  This  effectually  turned  the  Dissent- 
ers out  of  the  government  of  all  corporations. 

2d.  The  Act  of  Uniformity,  14  Car.  II.,  c.  \r. 
Whereby  all  parsons,  vicars,  and  ministers  who 
enjoyed  any  preferment  in  the  Church,  were 
obliged  to  declare  their  unfeigned  assent  and 
consent  to  everything  contained  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  &c.,  or  heipso  facto  deprived  ; 
and  all  schoolmasters  and  tutors  are  prohibited 
from  teaching  youlli  without  license  from  the 
archbisliop  or  bishop,  u  nder  pain  of  three  months' 
imprisonment. 

3d.  An  act  to  prevent  and  suppress  seditious 
conventicles,  16  Car.  II.,  c.  iv.  Whereby  it  is 
declared  unlawful  to  be  present  at  any  meeting 
for  religious  worship,  except  according  to  the 
usage  of  the  Church  of  England,  where  five 
besides  the  family  should  be  assembled  ;  in 
which  case  the  first  and  second  offences  are 
made  subject  to  a  certain  fine,  or  three  months' 
imprisonment,  on  conviction  before  a  justice  of 
the  peace  on  the  oath  of  a  single  witness  ;  and 
the  third  offence,  on  conviction  at  the  sessions, 
or  before  the  justices  of  assize,  is  punishable 
by  transportation  for  seven  years. 

4th.  An  act  for  restraining  Nonconfcrrtlists 
from  inhabiting  in  corporations,  17  Car.  II.,  c.  ii. 
Whereby  all  dissenting  ministers,  who  would 
not  take  an  oath  therein  specified  against  the 
lawfulness  of  taking  up  arms  against  the  king  on 
any  pretence  whatsoever,  and  that  they  would 
never  attempt  any  alteration  of  government  in 
Church  and  State,  are  banished  five  miles  from 
all  corporation  towns,  and  subject  to  a  fine  of  .£40 
in  case  they  should  preach  in  any  conventicle. 

5th.  Another  act  to  prevent  and  suppress  se- 
ditious conventicles,  22  Car.  II.,  c.  v.  Where- 
by any  persons  who  teach  in  such  conventicles, 
are  subject  to  a  penalty  of  £20  for  the  first,  and 
£40  for  every  subsequent  offence  ;  and  any 
person  who  permits  such  a  conventicle  to  be 
held  in  their  house,  is  liable  to  a  fine  of  £20  ; 
and  justices  of  peace  are  empowered  to  break 
open  doors  where  they  are  informed  such  con- 
venticles are  held,  and  take  the  offenders  into 
custody. 

6th.  An  act  for  preventing  dangers  which 
may  happen  from  popish  recusants,  commonly 
called  the  Test  Act,  whereby  (as  afore-mention- 
ed) every  person  is  incapacitated  from  holding 
a  place  of  trust  under  the  government,  without 
taking  the  sacrament  according  to  the  rites  of 
the  Church  of  England. 

By  the  rigorous  execution  of  these  laws,  the 
Nonconformist  ministers  were  separated  from 
their  congregations,  from  their  maintenance, 
from  their  houses  and  families,  and  their  people 
reduced  to  distress  and  misery,  or  obliged  to 
worship  God  in  a  manner  contrary  to  the  dic- 
tates of  their  consciences,  on  a  penalty  of  heavy 
fines,  or  of  being  shut  up  in  a  prison  among 
thieves  and  robbers.  Great  numbers  retired  to 
the  plantations  ;  but  Dr.  Owen,  who  was  ship- 
ping off  his  effects  for  New-England,  was  forbid 
to  leave  the  kingdom  by  express  orders  from 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PU1!,ITA^'S. 


279 


King  Charles  himself.  If  there  had  been  trea- 
son or  rebellion  in  the  case,  it  had  been  justifia- 
ble ;  but  when  it  was  purely  for  nonconformity 
to  certain  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  a  form  of 
'Church  government,  it  can  deserve  no  better 
name  than  that  of  persecution. 

The  House  of  Commons,  from  their  appre- 
hensions of  the  growth  of  popery  and  of  a  po- 
pish successor  to  the  crown,  petitioned  the  king 
against  the  duke's  second  marriage  with  the 
Princess  of  Modena,  an  Italian  papist,  but  his 
majesty  told  them  they  were  too  late.  Upon 
which  the  Commons  stopped  their  money  bill, 
voted  the  standing  army  a  grievance,  and  were 
proceeding  to  other  vigorous  resolutions,  when 
the  king  sent  for  them  to  the  House  of  Peers, 
and  vviih  a  short  speech  prorogued  them  to 
January  7,  after  they  had  sat  only  nine  days. 
In  the  mean  time  the  duke's  marriage  was  con- 
summated, with  the  consent  of  the  French 
king,  which  raised  the  expectation  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  higher  than  ever. 

This  induced  the  more  zealous  Protestants 
to  think  of  a  firmer  union  with  the  Dissenters  ; 
accordingly,  Mr.  Baxter,  at  the  request  of  the 
Earl  of  Orrery,  drew  up  some  proposals  for  a 
comprehension,  agreeably  to  those  already  men- 
tioned.* "  He  proposed  that  the  meeting-hous- 
es of  Dissenters  should  be  allowed  as  chapels, 
till  there  were  vacancies  for  them  in  the  church- 
es ;  and  that  those  who  had  no  meeting-houses 
should  be  schoolmasters  or  lecturers  till  such 
time  ;  that  none  should  be  obliged  to  read  the 
Apocrypha  ;  that  parents  might  have  liberty  to 
dedicate  their  own  children  in  baptism  ;  that 
ministers  might  preach  where  somebody  else 
who  had  the  room  might  read  the  Common 
Prayer  ;  that  ministers  be  not  obliged  to  give 
the  sacrament  to  such  as  are  guilty  of  scanda- 
lous immoralities,  nor  to  refuse  it  to  those  who 
■.scruple  kneeling  ;  that  persons  excommunica- 
ted may  not  be  imprisoned  and  ruined  ;  and 
that  toleration  be  given  to  all  conscientious 
Dissenters."  These  proposals  being  communi- 
cated to  the  Earl  of  Orrery,  were  put  into  the 
hands  of  Bishop  Morley,t  who  returned  them 
■without  yielding  to  anything  of  importance. 
The  motion  was  also  revived  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  but  the  shortness  of  the  sessions 
put  a  stop  to  its  progress.  Besides,  the  court 
bishops  seemed  altogether  indisposed  to  any 
concessions.! 

This  year  put  an  end  to  the  lives  of  two  con- 
siderable Nonconformist  divines:  Mr.  William 
Whitaker,  the  ejected  minister  of  St.  Mary 
Magdalen,  Bermondsey,  son  of  Mr.  Jer.  Whita- 
ker, a  divine  of  great  learning  in  the  Oriental 
languages.  He  was  an  elegant  preacher,  and 
a  good  man  from  his  youth.  While  he  was  at 
Emanuel  College,  he  was  universally  beloved  ; 
and  when  he  came  to  London,  generally  esteem- 
ed for  his  sweet  disposition.  He  was  first 
preacher  at  Hornchurch,  and  then  at  the  place 
from  whence  he  was  ejected.  He  afterward 
preached  to  a  separate  congregation,  as  the  times 
would  permit,  and  died  in  the  year  1673.iJ 

♦  Baxter,  part  iii.,  p.  110.  t  Page  109. 

t  Ibid.,  part  lii.,  p.  140. 

()  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  25.  Palmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  l.'i". 
— Dr.  Annesley  preached  his  funeral  sermon,  and  lit. 
Jacomb  wrote  an  account  of  his  life.  He  printed 
two  sermons  in  the  morning  exercises. — C. 


Mr.  James  Janeway,  M.A..  was  born  in  Hert- 
fordshire, and  a  student  of  Christ  Church,  Ox- 
ford. He  was  afterward  tutor  in  the  house  of 
Mr.  Stringer  at  Windsor  ;  but  not  being  satis- 
fied with  conformity,  he  opened  a  separate  meet- 
ing at  Ilotherhithe,  where  he  preached  to  a  nu- 
merous congregation  with  great  success.*  He 
was  a  zealous  preacher,  and  fervent  in  prayer  ; 
but  being  weakly,  his  indefatigable  labours  broke 
his  constitution,  so  that  he  died  of  a  consump- 
tion March  16,  1673-4,  in  the  thirty-eighth  year 
of  his  age.t 

The  revocation  of  the  indulgence,  and  the 
displeasure  of  the  court  against  the  Dissenters 
for  deserting  them  in  their  designs  to  prevent 
the  passing  the  Test  Act,  let  loose  the  whole 
tribe  of  informers.  The  papists  being  excluded 
from  places  of  trust,  the  court  had  no  tenderness 
for  Protestant  Nonconformists ;  the  judges, 
therefore,  had  orders  to  quicken  the  execution 
of  the  laws  against  them.  The  estates  of  those 
of  the  best  quality  in  each  county  were  ordered 
to  be  seized.  The  mouths  of  the  High-church 
pulpiteers  were  encouraged  to  open  as  loud  as 
possible ;  one,  in  his  sermon  before  the  House 
of  Commons,  told  them  that  the  Nonconform- 
ists ought  not  to  be  tolerated,  but  to  be  cured  by 
vengeance.  He  urged  them  to  set  fire  to  the 
fagot,  and  to  teach  them  by  scourges  or  scor- 
pions, and  open  their  eyes  with  gall.  The  king 
himself  issued  out  a  proclamation  for  putting 
the  penal  laws  in  full  execution,  which  had  its 
effect,  t 

Mr.  Baxter  was  one  of  the  first  upon  whom 
the  storm  fell,  being  apprehended  as  he  was 
preaching  his  Thursday  lecture  at  Mr.  Turner's. 
He  went  with  a  constable  and  Keting  the  in- 
former to  Sir  WiUiam  Pulteney's,  who  demand- 
ing the  warrant,  found  it  signed  by  Henry 
Montague,  Esq.,  bailiff  of  Westminster.  Sir 
William  told  the  constable  that  none  but  a  city 
justice  could  give  a  warrant  to  apprehend  a  man 
for  preaching  in  the  city,  whereupon  he  was 
dismissed."^  Endeavours  were  used  to  surprise 
Dr.  Manton,  and  send  him  to  prison  upon  the 
Oxford  or  Five-mile  Act,  but  Mr.  Bedford  preach- 
ing for  him  was  accidentally  apprehended  in  his 
stead  ;  and  though  he  had  taken  the  oath  in  the 
Five-mile  Act,  was  fined  £20,  and  the  place 
£40,  which  was  paid  by  the  hearers. II 

The  like  ravages  were  made  in  most  parts  of 
England ;  Mr.  Joseph  Swaffield,  of  Salisbury, 
was  seized  preaching  in  his  own  house,  and 
bound  over  to  the  assizes,  and  imprisoned  in  the 
county  jail  almost  a  year.  Twenty-five  persons, 
men  and  women,  were  indicted  for  a  riot,  that  is, 
for  a  conventicle,  and  suffered  the  penalty  of  the 
law.f  The  informers  were  Roman  Catholics, 
one  of  whom  was  executed  for  treason  in  the 
popish  plot.  At  East  Salcomb,  in  Devonon- 
shire,  lived  one  Joan  Boston,  an  old  blind  wid- 
ow, who,  for  a  supposed  conventicle  held  at  her 
house,  was  fined  £12,  and  for  nonpayment  of  it 
threatened  with  a  jail.  After  some  weeks,  the 
officers  broke  open  her  doors,  and  carried  away 


*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  838.     Palmer,  p.  684. 

t  Mr.  Janeway  had  four  brothers  who  were  eject- 
ed in  Hertfordshire  ;  they  were  all  consumptive,  and 
died  under  forty. — C. 

t  State  Tracts,  vol.  iii.,  p.  42.  Baxter,  part  iii., 
p.  153.  /)  State  Tracts,  part  iii.,  p.  155. 

II  Conf.  Pica,  part  iv.,  p.  75.    "H  Ibid.,  part  iv.,  p.  75. 


280 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


her  goods  to  above  tlic  value  of  the  fine.  They 
sold  as  many  goods  as  were  worth  .£13  for  50j.  ; 
six  hogsheads  valued  at  AOs.  for  9s.  ;  and  pew- 
ter, feather-beds,  &c.,  for  20s.,  besides  the  rent 
which  they  demanded  of  her  tenants.  Mr.  John 
Thompson,  minister  in  Bristol,  was  apprehend- 
ed, and  refusing  to  take  the  Oxford  oath,  was 
committed  to  prison,  where  he  was  seized  witli 
a  fever  through  the  noisomeness  of  the  place ; 
a  physician  being  sent  for,  advised  his  removal ; 
and  a  bond  of  £500  was  oflered  the  sheriff  for 
his  security  ;  application  was  also  made  to  the 
bishop  without  success  ;  so  he  died  in  prison, 
March  4,  declaring,  that  if  he  had  known  when 
he  came  to  prison  that  he  should  die  there,  he 
would  have  done  no  otherwise  than  he  did. 
Numberless  examples  of  the  like  kind  might  he 
produced  during  the  recess  of  the  Parliament. 
But  the  king's  want  of  money,  and  the  discon- 
tents of  his  people,  obliged  him  to  put  an  end  to 
the  war  with  th.e  Dutch,  with  no  other  advan- 
tage than  a  sum  of  2  or  .£:5000  for  his  expenses. 

His  majesty  was  unwilling  to  meet  his  Par- 
liament, who  were  now  full  of  zeal  against  po- 
pery, and  began  to  consider  the  Nonconformists 
as  auxiliaries  to  the  Protestant  cause  ;  but  ne- 
cessity obliged  him  to  covene  them  ;  and  as 
soon  as  they  met,  January  7,  1674,  they  address- 
ed his  majesty  to  banish  all  papists,  who  were 
not  housekeepers  nor  menial  servants  to  peers, 
ten  miles  from  London  ;  and  to  appoint  a  fast 
for  the  calamities  of  the  nation.  They  attacked 
the  remaining  members  of  the  Cabal,  and  voted 
an  address  for  removing  them  from  his  majes- 
ty's council ;  upon  which  the  king  prorogued 
them  for  above  a  year,  after  they  had  sat  six 
v/eeks,  without  giving  any  money,  or  passing 
one  single  act :  which  was  an  indication  of  ill 
blood  between  the  king  and  Parliament,  and  a 
certain  forerunner  of  vengeance  upon  the  Dis- 
senters. But,  to  stifle  the  clamours  of  the  peo- 
ple, his  majesty  republished  his  proclamation,* 
forbidding  their  meddling  in  state  affairs,  or 
talking  seditiously  in  cofTee-houses  ;  and  then 
commanded  an  order  to  be  made  public,  "  that 
effectual  care  be  taken  for  the  suppressing  of 
conventicles  :  and  whereas,  divers  pretend  old 
licenses  from  his  majesty,  and  would  support 
themselves  by  that  pretence,  his  majesty  de- 
clares that  all  his  licenses  were  long  since  re- 
called, and  that  no  conventicle  has  any  author- 
ity, allowance,  or  encouragement  from  him."t 

This  year  put  an  end  to  the  life  of  that  great 
man,  John  Milton,  born  in  London,  and  educa- 
ted in  Christ  College,  Cambridge,  where  he 
discovered  an  uncommon  genius,  which  was 
very  much  improved  by  his  travels.  He  was 
Latin  secretary  to  the  Long  Parliament,  and 
wroteindefenceofthemurderof  KingCharlesI., 
against  Salmasius  and  others,  with  great  spirit, 
and  in  a  pure  and  elegant  Latin  style.  He  was 
afterward  secretary  to  the  Protector  Cromwell, 
and  lost  the  sight  of  both  his  eyes  by  hard  study. 
At  the  Restoration  some  of  his  books  were  burn- 
ed, and  himself  in  danger  ;  but  he  was  happily 
included  in  the  Act  of  Indemnity,  and  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  life  in  retirement.  He  was  a 
man  of  an  unequalled  genius,  and  acquired  im- 
mortal fame  by  his  incomparable  poem  of  Para- 
dise Lost ;  in  which  he  manifi  sled  such  a  sub- 
limity of  thought,  and  such  elegance  of  diftion. 


♦  Gazette,  No.  883 


t  Ibid.,  No.  962,  905. 


as  perhaps  were  never  exceeded  in  any  age  or 
nation  of  the  world.  His  daughters  read  to  him, 
after  he  was  blind,  the  Greek  poms,  though  they 
understood  not  the  language.  He  died  in  meaa 
circumstances,  at  BunhiU  Row,  London,  in  the 
sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age.* 

Though  the  Protestant  religion  stood  in  need 
of  the  united  strength  of  all  its  professors  against 
the  advances  of  popery,  and  the  Parliament  had 
moved  for  a  toleration  of  Protestant  Dissenters, 
yet  the  bishops  continued  to  prosecute  them  in 
common  with  the  papists.  Archbishop  Sheldon 
directed  circular  letters  to  the  bishops  of  his 
province,  enjoining  them  to  give  directions  to 
their  archdeacons  and  commissaries  to  procure 
particular  information  from  the  church-wardens 
of  their  several  parishes  on  the  following  inqui- 
ries, and  transmit  them  to  him  after  the  next 
visitation  :  1.  What  number  of  persons  are 
there,  by  common  estimation,  inhabiting  with- 
in each  parish  subject  to  your  jurisdiction  1  2 
What  number  of  popish  recusants,  or  persons 
suspected  of  recusancy,  are  resident  among  the 
inhabitants  aforesaid  ?  3.  What  number  of  oth- 
er Dissenters  are  there  in  each  parish,  of  what 
sect  soever,  which  either  obstinately  refuse  or 
wholly  absent  themselves  from  the  communion 
of  the  Church  of  England,  at  such  times  as  by 
law  they  are  required  1  Some  of  the  clergy 
were  grieved  at  these  proceedings,  and  Dr.  Til- 
lotson  and  Stillingfleet  met  privately  with  Dr. 
Manton,  Bates,  Pool,  and  Baxter,  to  consider 
of  terms  of  accommodation,  which,  when  they 
had  agreed  upon  and  communicated  to  the  bish- 
ops, they  were  disallowed  ;  so  that,  when  Til- 
lotson  saw  how  things  were  going,  he  cautious- 
ly withdrew  from  the  odium,  and  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  Mr.  Baxter,  April  II,  1675: 
"  That  he  was  unwilling  his  name  should  be 
made  public  in  the  affair,  since  it  was  come  to 
nothing  :  not  but  that  I  do  heartily  desire  an 
accommodation,"  says  he,  "  and  shall  always 
endeavour  it ;  but  I  am  sure  it  will  be  a  prejudice 


*  It  is  but  a  piece  of  justice  to  the  memory  and 
virtues  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  characters 
of  the  Conformists  and  Nonconformists  of  this  peri- 
od, to  record  here  their  pious  exertions  for  the  reli- 
gious instruction  of  the  Welsh.  A  subscription  was 
opened,  and  an  association  was  formed  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  Bibles,  Testaments,  and  practical  trea- 
tises, and  fur  opening  schools  in  the  ])rincipality  of 
Wales.  At  the  head  of  this  institution  was  Dr.  Til- 
lotson,  then  Dean  of  Canterbury.  The  gentlemen 
who  were  the  chief  contributors  to  this  design  were, 
Whichcote,  Ford,  Bates,  Outram,  Patrick,  Durham, 
Stillingfleet,  Meriton,  Burton,  Baxter,  Gouge,  Poole, 
Fowler,  Newman,  Reading,  Griffith,  Short,  Gape, 
and  ihebenelicent  Firmin.  From  Midsummer,  1C71,, 
to  Lady  Day,  1675,  they  had  distributed  thirty-two 
Welsh  Bibles,  which  were  all  that  could  be  procured 
in  Wales  or  London  ;  two  hundred  and  forty  New 
Testaments,  and  five  hundred  Whole  Duty  of  Man, 
in  Welsh,  in  the  preceding  year  eight  hundred  and 
twelve  poor  children  had,  by  the  charity  of  others, 
been  put  to  school  in  fifly-otie  of  the  chief  towns  in 
Wales.  The  distribution  of  the.se  books  provoked 
others  to  that  charitable  work,  so  that  the  children 
placed  at  schools  by  these  gentleinen,  and  others, 
from  their  own  purse,  amounted  to  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  fifty.  It  appears  as  if  this  under- 
taking gave  birth  to  an  edition  of  the  Bible  and  litur- 
gy in  the  Welsh  tongue,  in  which  .Mr.  Gouge  had  a 
principal  concern,  and  to  which  Dr.  Tiilolson  gave 
.£50.  The  im[)ression  extended  to  eight  thousand 
copies. — Life  of  Mr.  Janifs  O'.ven,  p.  10-12  ;  and  Zri/e- 
of  Mr.  Thomas  Firmin,  p.  50. — Ed. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


281 


to  me,  and  signify  nothing  to  the  effecting  the 
thing,  which,  as  circumslances  are.  cannot  pass 
in  either  House  without  the  concurrence  of  a 
considerahle  part  of  the  bisiiops,  and  the  coun- 
tenance of  his  majesty,  which  at  present  I  see 
little  reason  to  expect."* 

But  the  bishops'  conduct  made  them  unpopu- 
lar, and  drew  on  them  many  mortifications. 
People's  compassion  began  to  move  towards 
their  dissenting  brethren,  whom  they  frequently 
saw  carried  in  great  numbers  to  prison,  and 
spoiled  of  their  goods,  for  no  other  crime  than 
a  tender  conscience.  The  very  name  of  an  in- 
former became  as  odious  as  their  behaviour  was 
infamous  The  aldermen  of  London  often  went 
out  of  their  way  when  they  heard  of  their  com- 
ing ;  and  some  denied  them  their  warrants, 
though  by  the  act  they  forfeited  £100.  Alder- 
man Forth  bound  over  an  informer  to  his  good 
behaviour,  for  breaking  into  his  chamber  with- 
out leave. t  When  twelve  or  thirteen  bishops 
came  into  the  city  to  dine  with  Sir  Nathaniel 
Heme,  one  of  the  sheriffs  of  London,  and  ex- 
horted him  to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against 
the  Nonconformists,  he  told  them  jilainly,  they 
could  not  trade  with  their  fellow-citizens  one 
day  and  put  them  in  prison  the  next. 

The  moderate  churchmen  showing  a  disposi- 
tion to  unite  with  the  Nonconformists  against 
popery,  the  court  resolved  to  take  in  the  old 
ranting  Cavaliers,  to  strengthen  the  opposition  ; 
for  this  purpose,  Morley  and  some  other  bishops 
were  sent  for  to  court,  and  told  it  was  a  great 
misfortune  that  the  Church  party  and  Dissenters 
■were  so  disposed  to  unite,  and  run  into  one  ;  the 
court  was  therefore  willing  to  make  the  Church 
easy,  and  to  secure  to  the  king  the  allegiance 
of  all  his  subjects  at  the  same  time  ;  for  this 
purpose  a  bill  was  brought  into  the  House  of 
Lords,  entitled,  "  An  Act  to  prevent  the  Dan- 
gers that  may  arise  from  Persons  disaffected  to 
the  Government ;"  by  which  all  such  as  enjoyed 
any  beneficial  office  or  employment,  ecclesiasti- 
cal, civil,  or  military  ;  iall  who  voted  in  elections 
of  Parliament  men  ;  all  privy  counsellors,  and 
members  of  Parliament  themselves,  were  under 
a  penalty  to  take  the  following  oath,  being  the 
same  as  was  required  by  the  Five-mile  Act  : 
"  I,  A.  B  ,  do  declare  that  it  is  not  lawful,  upon 
any  pretence  whatsoever,  to  take  up  arms 
against  the  king;  and  that  I  do  abhor  that  trai- 
torous position  of  taking  arms  by  his  authority 
against  his  person,  or  against  those  that  are 
commissioned  by  him  in  pursuance  of  such 
commission.  And  I  do  swear  that  I  will  not  at 
any  time  endeavour  the  alteration  of  the  gov- 
ernment either  in  Church  or  State.  So  help  me 
God."  The  design  of  the  bill  was  to  enable  the 
ministry  to  prosecute  their  destructive  schemes 
against  the  Constitution  and  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion, without  fear  of  opposition  even  from  the 
Parliament  itself  t  The  chief  speakers  for  the 
bill  were,  the  lord-treasurer  and  the  lord-keep- 
er, Lord  Danby  and  Finch,  with  Bishop  Morley 
and  Ward  ;  but  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  Duke 
of  Buckingham,  Lord  Hollis,  and  Halifax,  laid 
open  the  mischievous  designs  and  consequences 
of  it ;  It  was  considered  as  disinheriting  men 


*  Haxter,  part  iii.,  p.  157,  158. 
t  Compl.  History,  p.  338. 

%  Baxter's  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  167.     Bumet,  vol.  ii., 
p.  130-13-1. 

Vol.  H.— N  n 


of  their  birthright  to  shut  them  out  from  the 
right  of  election  by  an  insnaring  oath,  as  well 
as  destructive  of  the  privilege  of  Parliament, 
which  was  to  vote  freely  in  all  cases  without 
any  previous  obligation  ;  that  the  peace  of  the 
nation  would  be  best  secured  by  making  good 
laws  ;  and  that  oaths  and  tests  without  these 
would  be  no  real  security  ;  scrupulous  men 
might  be  fettered  by  them,  but  that  the  bulk  of 
mankind  would  boldly  take  any  test,  and  as  easi- 
ly break  through  it,  as  had  appeared  in  the  late 
times.  The  bill  was  committed,  and  debated 
paragraph  by  paragraph,  but  the  heats  occasion- 
ed by  it  were  so  violent,  that  the  king  came 
unexpectedly  to  the  House  June  9,  and  pro- 
rogued the  Parliament ;"  so  the  bill  was  drop- 
ped ;  but  the  debates  of  the  Lords  upon  the  in- 
tended oath  being  made  public,  were  ordered  to 
be  burned.  Two  proclamations  were  republish- 
ed on  this  occasion  ;  one  to  prevent  seditious 
discourses  in  coffee-houses,  the  other  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  publishing  seditious  libels. 

The  court  had  reason  to  desire  the  passing 
this  bill,  because  the  oath  had  been  already  im- 
posed upon  the  Nonconformists  ;  and  the  court 
clergy  had  been  preaching  in  their  churches, 
for  several  years,  that  passive  obedience  and 
nonresisiance  were  the  received  doctrines  of 
the  Church  of  England  ;  the  bishops  had  pos- 
sessed the  king  and  his  brother  with  the  belief 
of  it,  and  if  it  had  now  passed  into  a  law,  the 
whole  nation  had  been  bound  in  chains,  and 
the  court  might  have  done  as  they  pleased. 
But  the  Parliament  saw  through  the  design; 
and  Dr.  Burnet  says,t  he  opened  the  reserve 
to  the  Duke  of  York,  by  telling  him  "  that 
there  was  no  trusting  to  disputable  opinions; 
that  there  were  distmctions  and  reserves  ia 
those  who  had  maintained  these  points  ;  and 
that  when  men  saw  a  visible  danger  of  being 
first  undone,  and  then  burned,  they  would  be  in- 
clined to  the  shortest  way  of  arguing,  and  save 
themselves  the  best  way  they  could  ;  interest 
and  self-preservation  being  powerful  motives." 
This  might  be  wholesome  advice  to  the  duke, 
but  implies  such  a  secret  reserve  as  may  cover 
the  most  wicked  designs,  and  is  not  fit  for  the 
lips  of  a  Protestant  divine,  nor  even  of  an  hon- 
est man. 

The  daring  insolence  of  the  papists,  who  had 
their  regular  clergy  in  every  corner  of  the 
town,  was  so  great,  that  they  not  only  chal- 
lenged the  Protestant  divines  to  disputations, 
but  threatened  to  assassinate  such  as  preached 
openly  against  their  tenets  ;  which  confirmed 
the  Lords  and  Commons  in  their  persuasion  of 


*  The  immediate  occasion  of  the  king's  breaking 
up  the  sessions  was  a  dispute  concerning  privilege 
between  the  two  houses,  to  which  another  question 
gave  birth,  while  the  bill  for  the  new  test  was  pend- 
ing. Of  this  bill  it  was  justly  said,  "No  conveyan- 
cer could  have  drawn  up  a  dissettlement  of  the  whole 
birthrifiht  of  England  in  more  compendious  terms." 
The  debate  on  it  lasted  five  several  days,  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  before  the  bill  was  conuiiittcd  to  a  commit- 
tee of  the  whole  House,  and  eleven  or  twelve  days 
afterward  ;  and  ihe  House  sat  many  days  till  eight 
or  nine  at  night,  and  sometimes  till  midnight.  But, 
through  the  inteiruplion  given  to  it  by  the  matter 
just  mentioned,  the  bill  was  never  reported  from  the 
committee  to  the  House  ;  a  most  happy  escape  I — 
Burnet's  History,  Vol.  ii.,  p.  133;  and  Dr.  Calamy's 
Historical  Accmmt  of  his  own  Life,  MS.,  p.  03. — Eo 

t  Page  91. 


282 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


the  absolute  necessity  of  entering  into  more 
moderate  and  healing  measures  with  Protest- 
ant Dissenters,  notwithstanding  the  inflexible 
steadiness  of  the  bishops  against  it.  Upon 
this  occasion,  the  Duke  of  Buci\ingham,  lately 
commenced  patriot,  made  the  following  speecli 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  which  is  inserted  in 
the  Commons'  Journal :  "  My  lords,  there  is  a 
thing  called  liberty,  wliich,  whatsoever  some 
men.  may  think,  is  that  the  people  of  England 
•are  fondest  of,  it  is  that  they  will  never  part 
with,  and  is  that  his  majesty,  in  his  speech,  has 
promised  to  take  particular  care  of  This,  my 
lords,  in  my  opinion,  can  never  be  done  with- 
out giving  an  indulgence  to  all  Protestant  Dis 
senters.  It  is  certainly  a  very  uneasy  kind  of 
life  to  any  man.  that  has  either  Christian  char- 
ity, humanity,  or  good-nature,  to  see  his  fellow- 
subjects  daily  abused,  divested  of  their  liberty 
and  birthrights,  and  miserably  thrown  out  of 
their  possessions  and  freeholds,  only  because 
they  cannot  agree  with  others  in  some  opin- 
ions and  niceties  of  religion,  which  their  con- 
sciences will  not  give  them  leave  to  consent 
to,  and  which,  even  by  the  confession  of  those 
who  would  impose  them,  are  noways  necessa- 
ry to  salvation. 

"But,  my  lords,  besides  this,  and  all  that 
may  be  said  upon  it,  in  order  to  the  improve- 
ment of  our  trade  and  increase  of  the  wealth, 
strength,  and  greatness  of  this  nation  (which, 
with  your  leave,  I  shall  presume  to  discourse 
of  some  other  time),  there  is,  methinks.  in  this 
notion  of  persecution,  a  very  gross  mistake 
both  as  to  the  point  of  government  and  the 
point  of  religion  :  there  is  so  as  to  the  point  of 
government,  because  it  makes  every  man's 
safety  depend  upon  the  wrong  place,  not  upon 
the  governors,  or  man's  living  well  towards 
the  civil  government  established  by  law,  but 
upon  his  being  transported  with  zeal  for  every 
■opinion  that  is  held  by  those  that  have  power 
in  the  Church  that  is  in  fashion  ;  and  I  con- 
ceive it  is  a  mistake  in  religion,  because  it  is 
positively  against  the  express  doctrine  and  ex- 
ample of  Jesus  Christ.  Nay,  my  lords,  as  to 
our  Protestant  religion,  there  is  something  in 
it  yet  worse ;  for  we  Protestants  maintain 
that  none  of  those  opinions  which  Christians 
-differ  about  are  infallible,  and  therefore  in  us  it 
is  somewhat  an  inexcusable  conception,  that 
jnen  ought  to  be  deprived  of  their  inheritance, 
and  all  the  certain  conveniences  and  advanta- 
ges of  life,  because  they  will  not  agree  with  us 
in  our  uncertain  opinions  of  religion. 

"  My  humble  motion,  therefore,  to  your  lord- 
ships is,  that  you  will  give  leave  to  bring  in  a 
-bill  of  indulgence  to  all  Protestant  Dissenters. 
I  know  very  well  that  every  peer  in  this  realm 
has  a  right  to  bring  into  Parliament  any  bill  he 
conceives  to  be  useful  to  his  nation  ;  but  I 
thought  it  more  respectful  to  your  lordships  to 
ask  your  leave  before  ;  and  I  cannot  think  the 
doing  it  will  be  any  prejudice  to  the  bill,  be- 
cause I  am  confident  the  reason,  the  prudence, 
and  the  charitableness  of  it,  will  be  able  to 
justify  it  to  this  House,  and  to  the  whole  world." 
Accordingly,  the  House  gave  his  grace  leave  to 
bring  in  a  bill  to  this  purpose  ;  but  this  and 
some  others  were  lost  by  the  warm  debates 
which  arose  in  the  House  upon  the  impeach- 
ment of  the  Earl  of  Danby,  and  which  occa- 


sioned the  sudden  prorogation  of  the  Parlia- 
ment June  9,  without  having  passed  one  publu; 
bill  ;  after  which  his  majesty,  upon  farther  dis- 
content, prorogued  them  for  fifteen  months, 
which  gave  occasion  to  a  question  in  the  ensu- 
ing session,  whether  they  were  not  legally  dis- 
solved. 

From  this  time  to  the  discovery  of  the  Po- 
pish Plot,  Parliaments  were  called  and  adjourn- 
ed, says  Mr.  Coke,  by  order  from  France  to 
French  ministers  and  pensioners,  to  carry  on 
the  design  of  promoting  the  Catholic  cause  in 
masquerade.*  The  king  himself  was  a  known 
pensioner  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  had  appropria- 
ted a  fund  of  twenty  millions  of  livres  for  the 
service  of  these  kingdoms,  out  of  which  the 
Duke  of  York,  and  the  prime  ministers  and 
leaders  of  parties,  received  the  wages  of  their 
commission,  according  as  the  French  ambassa- 
dor represented  their  merit.  The  pensioners 
made  it  their  business  to  raise  the  cry  of  the 
Church's  danger,  and  of  the  return  of  forty-one. 
This  was  spread  over  the  whole  nation  in  a  va- 
riety of  pamphlets  and  newspapers,  &.c.,  writ- 
ten by  their  own  hirelings;  and  if  they  met 
with  opposition  from  the  friends  of  the  country, 
the  authors  and  printers  were  sure  to  be  fined 
and  imprisoned.  A  reward  of  £50  was  offered 
for  the  prmter  of  a  pamphlet  supposed  to  be 
written  by  Andrew  Marvel,  entitled  "  An  Ac- 
count of  the  Growth  of  Power,  and  a  seasona- 
ble Argument  to  all  Grand  Juries;"  and  £100 
for  the  persons  who  conveyed  it  to  the  press. 
No  man  could  publish  anything  on  the  side  of 
liberty  and  the  Protestant  religion  but  with  the 
hazard  of  a  prison  and  a  considerable  fine  ; 
nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  considering  that 
Sir  Roger  I'Estrange  was  the  sole  licenser  of 
the  press. 

This  gentleman  was  a  pensioner  of  the 
court,  and  a  champion  for  the  prerogative ;  he 
was  a  younger  son  of  Sir  Hammond  I'Estrange, 
of  Norfolk,  who,  having  conceived  hopes  of 
surprising  the  town  of  Lynn  for  his  majesty  in 
the  year  1644,  obtained  a  commission  from  the 
king  for  that  purpose,  but  being  apprehended 
and  tried  by  a  court-martial,  for  coming  into 
the  Parliament's  quarters  as  a  spy,  he  was 
condemned,  and  ordered  to  be  executed  in 
Smithfield  January  2,  1644-5;  but  by  the  in- 
tercession of  some  powerful  friends  he  was  re- 
prieved, and  kept  in  Newgate  several  years. 
His  sufferings  made  such  an  impression  on  his 
spirit,  that  on  the  king's  restoration,  he  was 
resolved  to  make  reprisals  on  the  whole  party. 
He  was  master  of  a  fine  English  style,  and  of  a 
great  deal  of  keen  wit,  which  he  employed, 
without  any  regard  to  truth  or  candour,  in  the 
service  of  popery  and  arbitrary  power,  and  in 
vilifying  the  best  and  most  undoubted  patriots. 
Never  did  man  fight  so  to  force  the  Dissenters 
into  the  Church,  says  Coke  ;  and  when  he  had 
got  them  there,  branded  them  for  trimmers, 
and  would  turn  them  out  again.  He  was  a 
most  mercenary  writer,  and  had  a  pen  at  the 
service  of  those  who  would  pay  him  best. 
Forly-onc  was  his  retreat  against  all  who  durst 
contend  against  him  and  the  prerogative.  Sir 
Roger  observed  no  measures  with  his  adversa- 
ries in  his  Weekly  Observators,  Citt  and  Bump- 

*  Detect.,  p.  500. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


283 


kin,  Foxes  and  Firebrands,*  and  other  pam- 
phlets ;  and  when  the  falseness  of  his  reason- 
ing and  insolence  of  his  sarcasm  were  exposed, 
like  a  second  Don  Quixote,  he  called  aloud  to 
the  civil  magistrate  to  come  in  to  his  aid.  He 
represented  the  religion  of  the  Dissenters  as  a 
medley  of  folly  and  enthusiasm ;  their  princi- 
ples and  tempers  as  turbulent,  seditious,  and 
utterly  inconsistent  with  the  peace  of  the 
state  ;  their  pretences  as  frivolous,  and  often 
hypocritical.  He  excited  the  government  to 
use  the  utmost  severities  to  extirpate  them  out 
of  the  kingdom. t  He  furnished  the  clergy 
with  pulpit  materials  to  rail  at  them,  which 
they  improved  with  equal  eagerness  and  indis- 
cretion ;  so  that  popery  was  forgot,  and  no- 
thing so  common  in  their  mouths  as  forty-one. 
L'Estrange  published  some  of  the  incautious 
expressions  of  some  of  the  Dissenters  in  the 
late  times,  which  he  picked  out  of  their  wri- 
tings, to  excite  the  populace  against  the  whole 
party,  as  if  it  had  not  been  easy  to  make  repri- 
sals from  the  ranting  expressions  of  the  Tories 
of  this  reign  :  for  these  exploits  he  was  main- 
tained by  the  court,  and  knighted  ;  and  yet, 
when  the  tide  turned  in  the  reign  of  King 
James  II.,  he  forgot  his  raillery  against  the 
principles  of  the  Nonconformists,  and  wrote  as 
zealously  for  liberty  of  conscience,  on  the  foot 
of  the  dispensing  power,  as  any  man  in  the 
kingdom. 

But  in  answer  to  the  invectives  of  this  venial 
tribe,  a  pamphlet  was  published  with  the  appro- 
bation of  several  ministers,  entitled  "The  Prin- 
ciples and  Practices  of  several  Nonconformists," 
showing  that  their  religion  is  no  other  than  what 
is  professed  in  the  Church  of  England.  The 
authors  declare^  that  they  heartily  own  the 
Protestant  Reformation  in  doctrine,  as  contain- 
ed in  the  articles  of  the  Church  of  England  ; 
that  they  are  willing  to  embrace  Bishop  Ush- 
er's model  of  church  government,  which  King 


*  Dr.  Grey  says  that  Sir  Roger  I'Estrange  was 
not  the  author  of  this  work  :  that  the  first  part  was 
written  by  Dr.  Nalson,  and  the  other  parts,  if  he 
mistook  not,  by  Mr.  Ware,  the  son  of  Sir  James 
Ware,  the  great  antiquarian.  The  most  valuable  of 
Sir  Roger  I'Estrange's  publications  is  reckoned  to 
be  his  translation  of  Josephus.  His  style,  which 
Mr.  Neal  commends,  has  been  severely  censured  by 
•other  writers.  Mr.  Gordon  says  that  "his  produc- 
tions are  not  fit  to  be  read  by  any  who  have  taste 
and  good-breedmg  :  they  are  full  of  technical  term.s, 
of  phrases  picked  up  in  the  streets  from  apprentices 
and  porters,  and  nothing  can  be  more  low  and  nau- 
seous." Mr.  Granger  observes,  that  L'Estrange  was 
one  of  the  great  corrupters  of  our  language,  by  ex- 
cluding vowels  and  other  letters  commonly  pro- 
nounced, and  introducing  "  pert  and  affected  phra- 
ses." He  was  licenser  of  the  press  to  Charles  and 
James  II.,  and  died  11th  of  December,  1701,  astat. 
eighty-eight.  Queen  Mary,  we  are  told,  made  this 
anagram  on  his  name  : 

Roger  I'Estrange, 
"Lying  Strange  Roger." 
— British  Bintrruphy,  vol.  vi.,  p.  317.      Granger's  His- 
tory  of  Ens;hmd,  vol.  iv.,  p.  70.  —  En. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  252.     Rapin. 

I  To  discredit  Mr.  Corbet's  piece,  Dr.  Grey  refers 
to  Anthony  Wood's  character  of  him,  as  a  preacher 
of  sedition,  and  a  viUfier  of  the  king  and  his  party. 
But  with  such  writers  every  sentiment  that  does  not 
breathe  the  spirit  of  passive  obedience  is  seditious. 
Besides,  Mr.  Corbet's  vindication  turned  on  notorious 
facts. — Ed. 


Charles  I.  admitted  ;  they  hold  it  unlawful,  by 
the  Constitution  and  laws  of  this  kingdom,  for 
subjects  to  take  arms  against  the  king,  his  of- 
fice, authority,  or  person,  or  those  legally  com- 
missioned and  authorized  by  him  ;  nor  will  they 
endeavour  any  alteration  in  Church  or  State  by 
any  other  means  than  by  prayer  to  God,  and  by 
petitioning  their  superiors  ;  they  acknowledge 
the  king's  supremacy  over  all  persons,  &c., 
within  his  dominions  ;  they  declare  that  their 
d  trine  tends  to  no  unquietness  or  confusion, 
any  more  than  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  of 
England.  And  they  think  it  not  fair  dealing 
in  their  adversaries  to  repeat  and  aggravate  all 
intemperate  passages  vented  in  the  late  times, 
when  impetuous  actings  hurried  men  into  ex- 
tremities ;  and  they  apprehend  it  would  not  tend 
to  the  advantage  of  the  conforming  clergy  if 
collections  should  be  published  of  all  their  im- 
prudences and  weaknesses,  as  has  been  done 
on  the  other  side  ;  they  abhor  seditions  con- 
venticles, and  affirm  that  insurrections  were 
never  contrived  in  their  meetings,  nor  in  any 
whereof  they  are  conscious.  Experience,  say 
they,  hath  witnessed  our  peaceableness,  and  that 
disloyalty  or  sedition  is  not  to  be  found  among 
us,  by  the  most  inquisitive  of  our  adversaries. 
They  desire  the  Church  of  England  to  take  no- 
tice that  they  have  no  rnind  to  promote  popish  de- 
signs ;  that  they  are  aware  of  the  advantage  that 
papists  make  of  the  divisions  of  Protestants  ; 
that  the  invectives  thrown  out  against  them  are 
made  np  only  of  big  and  swelling  words,  or  of 
the  indiscretions  of  the  few,  with  which  they 
are  not  chargeable  ;  they  do  not  pretend  to  be 
courtiers  or  philosophers,  but  they  teach  their 
people  to  fear  God  and  honour  the  king  ;  to  love 
the  brotherhood,  to  bridle  their  tongues,  to  be 
meek  and  lowly,  and  do  their  own  work  with 
quietness.* 

Though  the  persecution  continued  very  fierce, 
the  Nonconformists  ventured  to  assemble  in 
private,  and  several  pamphlets  were  published 
about  this  time  [1676]  in  their  defence  ;  as, 
"  The  Peaceable  Design  ;  or,  an  Account  of  the 
Nonconformist  Meetings,"  by  some  London 
ministers,  designed,  says  Dr.  Stillingfleet,  to  be 
presented  to  Parliament ;  "  Reasons  which  pre- 
vailed with  the  Dissenters  in  Bristol  to  continue 
their  Meetings,  however  prosecuted  or  disturb- 
ed ;"  "  Separation  no  Schism  ;"  "  A  Rebuke  to 
Informers  ;  with  a  Plea  for  the  Ministers  of  the 
Gospel  called  Nonconformists,  and  their  Meet- 
ings ;  with  Advice  to  those  to  whom  the  In- 
formers apply  for  Assistance  in  their  Underta- 
king." 

Informers  were  now  become  the  terror  of  the 
Nonconformists,  and  the  reproach  of  a  civilized 
nation. t     They  w-ent  abroad  in  disguise,  and, 


*  On  the  15th  of  January,  1075-6,  died  Dorothy, 
the  wife  of  Richard  Cromwell,  in  the  forty-ninth  year 
of  her  age,  who,  it  is  thought,  never  saw  her  husband 
after  he  retired  into  France.  She  was  the  daughtei 
of  Richard  Major,  Esq.,  of  Hursly  in  Hampshire 
where  she  was  married  on  the  1st  of  May,  1649 
The  character  given  of  her  is,  "  that  she  was  a  pru 
dent,  godly,  practical  Christian."  So  far,  it  is  ob 
served,  this  lady  has  been  happy,  that,  "  among  tha 
illiberal  tilings  that  have  been  levelled  against  thp 
protectoral  house  of  Cromwell,  her  character  is  al 
most  the  only  one  that  scandal  has  left  untouched.' 
— Bintrraphia  Britan.,  second  edition,  vol.  iv.,  p.  538. 

t  Conform.  Plea,  part  iii.,  p.  8-10. 


264 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


like  wandering  strollers,  lived  upon  ihe  plunder 
of  industrious  laniilies.  They  are  a  select  com- 
pany (says  the  Conformists'  Plea  for  the  Non- 
conformists), whom  the  long  suffering  of  God 
permits  for  a  time  ;  they  arc  of  no  good  reputa- 
tion ;  they  do  not  so  much  as  know  the  names 
or  persons  in  the  country  whom  tliey  molest, 
but  go  hy  report  of  their  under-servants  and 
accomplices.  They  come  from  two  or  three 
counties  otf,  to  set  up  this  new  trade  ;  whether 
they  are  papists  or  nominal  Protestants,  who 
can  tell  1  They  never  go  to  their  parish  church- 
es, nor  any  other,  hut  lie  in  wail  and  ambush 
for  their  prey  ;  their  estate  is  invisible,  their 
country  unknown  to  many,  and  their  morals 
are  as  bad  as  the  very  dregs  of  the  age  :  these 
are  the  men  who  direct  and  rule  many  of  the 
magistrates  ;  who  live  upon  the  spoil  of  better 
Christians  and  subjects  than  themselves,  and 
go  away  with  honest  men's  goods  honestly  got- 
ten.* Tliey  are  generally  poor,  says  another 
writer,  as  are  many  of  the  justices,  so  that  they 
shared  the  booty  belonging  to  the  king  as  well 
as  the  poor  among  themselves  :  by  which  means 
the  king  and  the  poor  got  but  little. t 

Their  practice  was  to  insinuate  themselves 
into  an  acquaintance  with  .some  under-servants 
or  lodgers  in  a  Nonconformist's  family,  under 
the  cloak  of  religion,  in  order  to  disco  ver  the  place 
of  their  meeting.  They  walked  the  streets  on 
the  Lord's  Day,  to  observe  which  way  any  sus- 
pected persons  went.  They  frequently  sat  down 
in  coffee-houses  and  places  of  public  resort,  to 
listen  to  conversation.  They  could  turn  them- 
selves into  any  shape,  and  counterfeit  any  prin- 
ciples, to  obtain  their  ends.  When  they  had 
discovered  a  conventicle,  they  immediately  got 
a  warrant  from  some  who  were  called  confi- 
ding justices  to  break  open  the  house.  If  the 
minister  was  in  the  midst  of  his  sermon  or 
prayer,  they  commanded  him  in  the  king's  name 
to  come  down  from  his  pulpit ;  and  if  he  did  not 
immediately  obey,  a  file  of  musketeers  was  usu- 
ally sent  up  to  pull  him  down  by  force,  and  to 
take  him  into  custody  ;  the  congregation  was 
broke  up,  and  the  people  guarded  along  the 
street  to  a  magistrate,  and  from  him  to  a  pris- 
on, unless  they  immediately  paid  their  fines  ; 
the  goods  of  the  house  were  rifled,  and  frequent- 
ly carried  off  as  a  security  for  the  large  fine  set 
upon  it. 

This  was  a  new  way  of  raising  contributions, 
but  it  seldom  or  never  prospered  ;  that  which 
was  ill  gotten  was  as  ill  spent,  upon  lewd  wom- 
en, or  in  taverns  and  alehouses,  in  gaming,  or 
some  kind  of  debauchery.  An  informer  was 
but  one  degree  above  a  beggar  ;  there  was  a 
remarkable  blast  of  Providence  upon  their  per- 
sons and  substance  ;  most  of  them  died  in  pov- 
erty and  extreme  misery  ;  and  as  they  lived  in 
disgrace,  they  seemed  to  die  by  a  remarkable 
hand  of  God.  Stroud  and  Marshal,  with  all 
their  plunder,  could  not  keepout  of  prison  ;  and 
when  Keting,  another  informer,  was  confined 
for  debt,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Baxter  to  endeavour 

*  Sewel,  p.  493. 

■f  Dr.  Grey  is  angry  with  Mr.  Neal  for  not  quoting 
the  remainder  of  the  paragraph  from  Sewel ;  in  which 
that  writer  owns  that  some  honest  justices  discour- 
aged the  practices  of  the  informers,  and  availed  them- 
selves of  any  defect  or  failure  in  their  evidence  to 
clear  those  against  whom  thev  informed. — Ed. 


his  deliverance,  confessing  he  believed  God  hail 
sent  that  calamity  upon  him  for  giving  him  so 
much  trouble.  Another  died  in  the  Compter 
for  debt ;  and  great  numbers,  hy  their  vices, 
came  to  miserable  and  untimely  ends. 

But  as  some  died  off  others  succeeded,  who, 
hy  the  instigation  of  the  court,  disturbed  all  the 
meetings  they  could  find.  The  king  command- 
ed the  judges  and  justices  of  London  to  put  the 
penal  laws  in  strict  execution  ;  and  Sir  Jos. 
Sheldon,  lord-mayor,  and  kinsman  to  the  arch- 
bishop, did  not  fail  to  do  his  part.  Sir  Tho. 
Davies  issued  a  warrant  to  distrain  on  Mr.  Bax- 
ter for  £50  on  account  of  his  lecture  in  New- 
street  ;  and  when  he  had  built  a  little  cliapel  in 
Oxenden-.street,  the  doors  were  shut  up  after 
he  had  preached  in  it  once.  In  April  this  year 
[1676]  he  was  disturbed  by  a  company  of  con- 
stables and  officers,  as  he  was  preaching  m 
Swallow-street,  who  beat  drums  under  the  win- 
dows, to  interrupt  the  service,  because  they  had 
not  a  warrant  to  break  open  the  house. 

The  court  bishops,  as  has  been  observed  more 
than  once,  pushed  on  the  informers  to  do  all  the 
mischief  they  could  to  the  Nonconformists  : 
"The  prelates  will  not  suffer  them  to  be  quiet 
in  their  families,"*  says  a  considerable  Writer 
of  these  times,  "  though  they  have  given  large 
and  ample  testimonies  that  they  are  willing  to 
live  quietly  by  their  church  neighbours — ''  The 
dissenting  Protestants  have  been  reputed  the 
only  enemies  of  the  nation,  and  therefore  only 
persecuted,  says  a  noble  writer,  while  the  pa- 
pists remain  undisturbed,  being  by  the  court 
thought  loyal,  and  hy  our  great  bishops  not  dan- 
gerous. Mr.  Locke,  Bishop  Burnet,  and  others 
have  set  a  mark  upon  the  names  of  Archbishop 
Sheldon,  Bishop  Morley,  Gunning,  Henchman, 
Ward,  &.C.,  which  will  not  be  easily  erased; 
but  I  mention  no  more,  because  there  were 
others  of  a  better  spirit,  who  resided  in  their 
diocesses,  and  had  np  concern  with  the  court. 

Among  these  we  may  reckon  Dr.  Edward 
Reynolds,  bishop  of  Norwich,  born  in  South- 
ampton 1599,  and  educated  in  Merton  College, 
Oxford  ;  he  was  preacher  to  the  society  of  Lin- 
coln's Inn,  and  reckoned  one  of  the  most  elo- 
quent preachers  of  his  age,  though  he  had  some 
hoarseness  in  his  voice. t  In  the  time  of  the 
civil  wars  he  took  part  with  the  Parliament, 
and  was  one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  In 
the  year  1646  he  was  appointed  one  of  the 
preachers  to  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  after- 
ward a  visiter.  Upon  the  reform  of  the  univer- 
sity, he  was  made  dean  of  Christ  Church,  and 
vice-chancellor.  After  the  king's  death  he  lost 
his  deanery  for  refusing  the  Engagement,  but 
complied  with  all  the  other  changes  till  the 
king's  restoration,  when  he  appeared  with  the 
Presbyterians,  but  was  prevailed  with  to  accept 
a  bishopric  on  the  terms  of  the  king's  declara- 
tion, which  never  took  place.  He  was  a  person 
of  singular  affability,  meekness,  and  humility, 
and  a  frequent  preacher.t     He  was  a  constant 


*  State  Tracts,  -vol.  ii.,  p.  54,  55 ;  vol.  iii.,  p.  42, 
&c.  t  Wood's  Athen.  Oxon.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  420. 

X  "He  was  universally  allowed,"  says  Mr.  Gran- 
ger, "  to  be  a  man  of  extraordinary  parts,  and  discov- 
ers in  his  writings  a  richness  of  fancy  as  well  as  a 
solidity  of  judgment."  He  was  buried  in  the  new 
chapel  belonging  to  his  palace,  which  he  built  at  his 
own  expense. — History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  241. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


255 


resident  in  his  diocess,  and  a  good  old  Puritan, 
who  never  concerned  himself  with  the  politics 
of  the  court.  He  died  at  Norwich  January  16, 
1676,  ffitalis  seventy-six. 

[On  May  the  22d,  1676.  died,  aged  seventy- 
three,  the  pious  and  learned  Mr.  John  Tombes, 
B.D.,  ejected  from  the  living  of  Leominster  in 
Herefordshire.  He  was  born  in  1603,  at  Bewd- 
ley  in  Worcestershire.  At  fifteen  years  of  age, 
having  made  a  good  proficiency  in  grammar 
learning,  he  was  sent  to  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxford, 
where  he  studied  under  the  celebrated  Mr.  Will- 
iam Pemble,  upon  whose  decease  he  was  cho- 
sen, though  but  twenty-one  years  of  age,  such 
was  the  reputation  of  his  parts  and  learning,  to 
succeed  him  in  the  catechetical  lecture  in  that 
hall.  He  held  this  lecture  about  seven  years, 
and  then  removed  first  to  Worcester,  and  then 
to  Leominster  ;  in  both  places  he  had  the  name 
of  a  very  popular  preacher  ;  and  of  the  latter 
living  he  was,  soon  after,  possessed ;  and  as 
the  emolument  of  it  was  small,  Lord-viscount 
Scudamore,  out  of  respect  to  Mr.  Tombes,  made 
an  additifm  to  it.  In  1641  he  was,  through  the 
spirit  of  the  Church  party,  obliged  to  leave  this 
town,  and  fled  to  Bristol,  where  General  Fien- 
nes  gave  him  the  living  of  All  Saints.  The  city 
being  taken  by  the  king's  party,  his  wife  and 
children  being  plundered,  and  a  special  warrant 
being  out  to  apprehend  him,  he  escaped  vvitii 
difficulty,  and  got  to  London  with  his  family, 
September  22,  1643.  Here  he  was  some  time 
minister  of  Fenciuirch.  till  hisstipend  was  taken 
away  lor  not  practising  the  baptism  of  infants. 
He  was  then  chosen  preacher  to  the  honourable 
socieiies  at  the  Temple,  on  condition  that  he 
would  not  touch  on  the  controversy  about  it  in 
the  pulpit.  Here  he  continued  fjur  years,  and 
was  then  dismissed  for  having  publislied  a  trea- 
tise im  the  subject.  He  was,  after  this,  chosen 
minister  in  the  town  of  his  nativity,  and  had 
al.so  the  parsonage  of  Ross  given  him,  but  he 
gave  up  his  interest  in  the  latter,  to  accept  the 
mastership  of  the  hospital  at  Ledbury.  When 
the  affections  of  the  people  at  Bewdley  were 
alienated  from  him,  on  account  of  his  senti 
menls  on  baptism,  he  was  restored  to  his  livmg 
at  Loom.insier.  In  1653  he  was  appointed  a 
trier  for  candidates  for  the  ministry.  After  the 
Restoration  he  quitted  his  places,  and  laid  down 
the  ministry,  and  went  to  reside  at  Salisbury  ; 
from  whence  he  had  not  long  before  married  a 
rich  widow,  and  conformed  to  the  (Jhurch  as  a 
lay  communicant.  He  was  held  in  great  respect 
by  Lord-chancellor  Hyde,  Bishop  Sanderson, 
Bislioj)  Barlow,  and  Dr.  Ward,  bishop  of  Salis- 
bury, whom,  during  his  residence  in  the  city,  he 
often  visited.  Mr.  Wood  says  "  that  there  were 
few  better  disputants  in  his  age  than  he  was." 
Mr.  Wall  speaks  of  him  as  "  a  man  of  the  best 
parts  in  our  nation,  and  perhaps  in  any."  Dr. 
(yalamy  represents  him  as  one  "  whom  all  the 
world  must  own  to  have  been  a  very  consider- 
able man  and  an  excellent  scholar."  And  it 
perpetuates  his  memory  with  honour,  that  the 
J>or(ls,  in  their  conference  with  the  Commons, 
in  1702,  on  the  bill  to  prevent  occasional  con- 
formity, supported  their  argument,  that  receiv- 
ing the  sacrament  in  church  did  not  necessarily 
import  an  entire  conformity,  by  an  appeal  to  his 
example:  "There  was  a  very  learne.l  and  fa- 
mous man,"  they  said,  "  that  lived  al  Salisbury, 


Mr.  Tombes,  who  was  a  very  zealous  Conform- 
ist in  all  points  hut  in  one,  infant  baptism," 
Mr.  Tombes  was  one  of  the  first  of  his  day  who 
attempted  a  reformation  in  the  Church,  and  to 
remove  all  human  inventions  in  the  worship  of 
God:  with  this  view  he  preached  a  sermon, 
which  he  was  commanded  by  the  House  of 
Commons  to  print.  So  early  as  the  year  1627, 
being  led,  in  the  course  of  his  lectures,  to  dis- 
cuss the  subject  of  baptism,  he  was  brought  into 
doubts  concerning  the  authority  for  that  of  in- 
fants, which  for  some  years  he  continued  to 
practise  only  on  the  ground  of  the  apostle's 
words,  1  Cor.,  vii.,  xiv.  But  the  answer  he 
received  to  that  argument  from  an  ingenious 
Baptist  at  Bristol  put  him  to  stand  as  to  that 
text.  When  he  was  in  London,  he  consulted 
some  of  the  learned  ministers  there  on  the 
question,  and  at  a  particular  conference  debated 
the  matters  with  them  ;  but  it  broke  up  without 
obviating  his  objections.  He  afterward  laid  his 
reasons  for  doubling  the  lawfulness  of  the  com- 
mon practice  in  Latin  before  the  Westminster 
Assembly  :  after  waiting  many  months,  though 
he  had  been  informed  that  a  committee  was  to 
be  appointed  to  consider  the  point,  he  could 
obtain  no  answer,  nor  hear  that  it  was  so  much 
as  admitted  to  a  debate  ;  but  his  papers  were 
tossed  up  and  down  from  one  to  another  to 
expose  him.  On  being  dismissed  from  tho 
Temple,  he  printed  his  Apology;  of  which  Mr. 
Batchiler  says.  ''Having  perused  this  mild  Apol- 
ogy, I  conceive  that  the  ingenuity,  learning,  and 
piety  therein  contained  deserve  the  press."  He 
repeatedly  took  up  his  pen  in  this  controversy, 
of  which  he  was  judged  to  be  a  perfect  master, 
and  he  was  often  drawn  into  public  disputations 
on  it,  particularly  with  Mr  Baxter,  at  Bewdley. 
"The  victory,  as  usual,"  says  Mr.  Nelson,  "was 
claimed  on  both  sides  :  but  some  of  the  learned, 
who  were  far  from  approving  his  cause,  yielded 
the  advantage  both  of  learning  and  argument 
to  Mr.  Tombes."*  He  wrote  more  books  on 
the  subject  than  any  one  man  in  England  ;  and, 
continuing  minister  of  the  parish  of  Bewdley, 
he  gathered  a  separate  church  of  those  of  his 
own  persuasion;  which,  though  not  large,  con- 
sisted of  some  members  distinguished  for  their 
piety  and  solid  judgment ;  and  three,  who  were 
afterward  eminent  ministers  of  that  persuasion, 
were  trained  up  in  it,  viz  ,  Mr.  Richard  .Adams, 
Mr.  John  Eccles,  and  Captain  Boylston.  It  con- 
tinued till  about  the  time  of  the  king's  restora- 
tion.—  Crosby's  History  of  the  Biiptists,  vol.  !., 
p.  278-293.  Palmer's  Nonconformisfs'  Memori- 
al, vol.  ii.,  p  33-37;  and  Nelson's  Life  of  Bish- 
op Bull,  p.  249-253.— Ed],  (Toui,min).+ 


♦  Nelson's  Life  of  Bishop  Bull,  p.  251. 

t  Mr.  Tombes's  works  are,  "Christ's  Commina- 
tion  against  Scandalizers,"  in  two  treatises  ;  "  Fer- 
ineiilum  Pharisseorum  ;  or.  The  Leaven  of  Pharisai- 
cal Worship,"  a  sermon  on  .Malt.,  xv,,  9  ;  "  Jehovah 
Jireh,"  a  thanksfiiving  sermon;  '  Anthropolalria ; 
or,  The  Sin  of  glorying  in  Man  ;"  "  Animaiiversionea 
qiix'dain  in  Apliorismos  R.  Baxtori  de  jnstificat  ;'* 
"True  Old  Light  exnlted  above  protended  New 
Lijiht,"  against  the  Quakers  ;  '■  Romanism  Discuss- 
ed" (recoinineiuifcd  by  Baxter);  "  Serious  Consider- 
ation of  the  Oath  of  Supremacy  ;"  Supplement  to 
ditto;  "  Septer  Sheba."  a  treatise  on  swearing; 
"Saints  no  Smiters,"  against  fillhrnonarchy  men; 
"Theodulia,"  m  defence  ol  hearing  ministers  in  the 
Church  of  England;  "Emanuel,"  against  the  So- 


286 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


The  murmurs  of  the  people  against  the  gov- 
ernment increased  rather  than  diminished. 
"When  the  ParUannent  met,  tliey  addressed  the 
king  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  the  Dutch, 
and  other  confederates,  for  preserving  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  as  ihe  only  means  to 
save  Great  Britain  from  popery  and  slavery.* 
But  his  majesty  declared  he  would  not  suffer 
his  prerogative  of  making  war  and  peace  to  he 
invaded,  nor  be  prescribed  to  as  to  his  allian- 
ces. However,  he  consented  to  a  separate 
peace  with  the  Dutch,  and  then  prorogued  the 
Parliament  to  the  middle  of  July,  by  which 
time  the  French  had  almost  completed  their 
conquests  of  the  Spanish  Flanders.  The  chief 
thing  the  Parliament  could  obtain  was  the  re- 
peal of  the  popish  act  dc  JuEretico  combxircndoA 

But  when  the  campaign  was  over,  his  maj- 
esty did  one  of  the  most  popular  actions  of  his 
reign,  which  was  marrying  the  Princess  Mary, 
eldest  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York,  to  the 
Prince  of  Orange.  The  king  imagined  he 
could  oblige  the  Dutch,  by  this  family  alliance, 
to  submit  to  a  disadvantageous  peace  with  the 
French  ;  but  when  the  prince  declared  roundly 
that  he  would  not  sacrifice  his  honour,  nor  the 
liberties  of  Europe,  for  a  wife,  his  majesty  said 
he  was  an  honest  man,  and  gave  him  the  prin- 
cess without  any  conditions,  to  the  great  joy  of 
all  the  true  friends  of  their  country,  who  had 
now  a  Protestant  heir  to  the  crown  in  view, 
though  at  some  distance.  The  nuptials  were 
solemnized  November  4,  1677,  and  the  royal 
pair  soon  after  embarked  privately  for  Holland. 

This  year  died  Archbishop  Sheldon,  one  of 

cinians;  "  Animadversiones  in  librum  G.  Bulli,  cui 
titulum  fecit,  Harmonia  apostolica."  The  following 
upon  Baptism  :  "  An  Exercit.  about  Infant  Bajitism," 
presented  to  the  chairman  of  committee  of  Assem- 
bly of  Divines  at  Westminster  ;  "  Examen  of  Mr.  S. 
Marshal's  Sermon  ;"  "  Apology"  for  ditto ;  "Addi- 
tion" to  ditto,  against  Baihe ;  "  Antidote  against  a 
Passage  in  Dedication  of  Baxter's  Saint's  Rest ;" 
•' Prsecursor  ;"  "  Antipaedobaptism  ;"  Ditto,  part  ii. ; 
Ditto,  part  iii.  ;  "A  Plea  for  the  Antipasdobaptists ;" 
"An  Answer  to  the  Anabaptists  silenced;"  "Short 
Catechism  about  Baptism  ;"  "  Felo  de  se,"  against 
Baxter;  "Just  Reply  to  WiUs  and  Blinman." — C. 

*  Notwithstanding  this  alarm,  on  a  calculation 
that  was  made  in  the  preceding  year,  the  Noncon- 
formists of  all  sorts,  and  papists  included,  were 
found  to  be  in  proportion  to  the  members  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  one  to  twenty  ;  "  which  was 
a  number,"  says  Bishop  Sherlock,  "too  small  to 
hurt  the  Constitution."— J/ia-  Test  Act  vindicated,  as 
quoted  by  Dr.  Calamy,  Own  Life,  p.  63,  M.S.— Ed. 

t  This  writ  was  taken  away  on  the  principle  of 
the  wisdom  of  prevention,  under  the  apprehension 
of  popery,  "to  preclude  the  risk  of  being  burned 
themselves,  not  to  exempt  others  from  the  possibili- 
ty of  being  burned."  The  conduct  of  administra- 
tion, in  this  instance,  "  was  the  effect  of  fear,  not  of 
general  and  enlarged  principles."— i/oiAowse's  Trea- 
tise on  Heresy,  p.  29,  7iote. 

Another  modern  writer  observes,  that  "  though 
the  State,  in  this  instance,  showed  some  modera- 
tion, neither  then,  nor  at  any  subsequent  time,  has 
any  alteration  been  made  in  the  constitution  of  the 
Church."  It  still  assumes  exclusively  to  itself  all 
truth,  and  may  persecute  some  sectaries  as  heretics, 
and  punish  them  by  "excommunication,  degrada- 
tion, and  other  ecclesiastical  censures,  not  extend- 
ing to  dcn'li"  It  is  not  clear  that  ecclesiastical 
judges  may  not,  even  now,  doom  them  to  the  flames, 
though  the  civil  power  will  not  execute  the  sen- 
tence.— High  Church  Politics,  p.  64. — Ed. 


the  most  inveterate  enemies  of  the  Noncon- 
formists, a  man  of  persecuting  principles  and  a 
tool  of  the  prerogative,  who  made  a  jest  of  re- 
ligion, any  farther  than  it  was  a  political  engino 
of  state.*  He  was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Sancroft, 
who  was  deprived  for  Jacobitism  at  the  Revo- 
lution.t  Dr.  ComptoD  was  promoted  to  the  see 
of  London,  in  the  room  of  Dr.  Henchman,  a 
man  of  weak  but  arbitrary  principles,  till  it 
came  to  his  turn  to  he  a  sufferer.t     Many  of 


*  "  I  scarce  believe,"  s.ays  Dr.  Grey,  "  that  Iho 
moderate,  the  impartial,  the  peaceable  Mr.  Neal, 
could  write  down  so  many  untruths,  in  one  para- 
graph, without  blushing."  The  doctor  expresses 
himself  in  another  place,  vol.  ii.,  p.  320,  displeased 
with  Mr.  Neal  for  saying  that  Dr.  Sheldon  "never 
gave  any  great  specimens  of  his  piety  or  learning  to 
the  world,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  388.  In  reply  to  this  he 
quotes  Bishop  Burnet,  who  allows  that  Sheldoa 
"  was  esteemed  a  learned  man  before  the  wars." 
Here  the  doctor  refers  to  Bishop  Kennet,  who  says 
that  Sheldon  "  withdrew  from  all  state  affairs  some 
years  before  his  death ;"  and  to  Echard,  who  extols 
his  learning  and  piety,  as  well  as  his  munificent 
benefactions,  which  we  have  specified,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
217,  note.  Dr.  Samuel  Parker,  who  had  been  his 
chaplain,  says,  "  He  was  a  man  of  undoubted  piety  ; 
but  though  he  was  very  assiduous  at  prayers,  yet  he 
did  not  set  so  great  a  value  upon  them  as  others  did, 
nor  regarded  so  much  worship  as  the  use  of  wor- 
ship, placing  the  chief  point  of  religion  in  the  prac- 
tice of  a  good  life."  Mr.  Granger  represents  him  .is 
"meriting,  by  his  benevolent  heart,  public  spirit, 
prudent  conduct,  and  exemplary  piety,  the  highest 
and  most  conspicuous  station  in  the  Church." 
These  characters  of  his  grace  appear  to  contradict 
Mr.  Neal.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  supported  by 
the  testimony  of  Bishop  Burnet,  who  says,  "  He 
seemed  not  to  have  a  deep  sense  of  religion,  if  any 
at  all,  and  spoke  of  it  most  commonly  as  of  an  en- 
gine of  government,  and  a  matter  of  policy :"  and 
the  facts  adduced  above  show  his  intolerant  spirit. 
But  all  agree  in  describing  him  as  a  man  whose  gen- 
erous and  munificent  deeds  displayed  a  benevolent 
and  liberal  mind,  and  whose  pleasantness  and  affa- 
bility of  manner  were  truly  ingratiating.  "  His  con- 
versation (as  Dr.  Parker  draws  his  character)  was 
easy  ;  he  never  sent  any  man  away  discontented  ; 
among  his  domestics  he  was  both  pleasant  and 
grave,  and  governed  his  family  with  authority  and 
courtesy."  His  advice  to  young  noblemen  and  gen- 
tlemen, who,  by  the  order  of  their  parents,  daily  re- 
sorted to  him,  deserves  to  be  mentioned.  It  was  al- 
ways this  :  "  Let  it  be  your  principal  care  to  become 
honest  men,  and  afterward  be  as  devout  and  reli- 
gious as  you  will.  No  piety  will  be  of  any  advan- 
tage to  yourselves  or  anybody  else,  unless  you  are 
honest  and  moral  men." — Granger,  vol.  iii.,  p.  230. 
British  Biography,  vol.  v.,  p.  25,  26,  note ;  and  Bur- 
net, vol.  i,,  p.  257. — Ed. 

t  "  The  bare  mention  of  this  is  sufficient  to  ex- 
pose Mr.  Neal's  sneer  upon  one  of  the  greatest,  the 
best,  and  most  conscientious  prelates." — Dr.  Grey, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  376.— Ed. 

t  Dr.  Grey  affects  to  doubt  whether  Mr.  Neal  de- 
signed this  character  for  Bishop  Henchman  or  Bish- 
op Compton ;  though  Henchman  is  the  immediate 
antecedent  whose  character  more  properly  follows 
the  mention  of  his  death.  The  doctor  appeals  from 
Mr.  Neal  to  Mr.  Echard,  who  commends  Bishop 
Henchman's  wisdom  and  prudence,  and  his  admira- 
ble management  of  the  king's  escape  after  the  battle 
of  Worcester.  Mr.  Neal,  in- speaking  of  his  arbitra- 
ry principles,  till  he  was  pinched,  undoubtedly  re- 
fers to  his  conduct  when  the  declaration  for  liberty 
of  conscience  was  published.  On  this  occasion  he 
was  much  alarmed,  and  strictly  enjoined  his  clergy 
to  preach  against  popery,  though  it  offended  the 
king.  This  prelate  was  lord-almoner,  and  he  was 
the  editor  of  "  Gentleman's  Calling,"  supposed  to  be 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


2ST 


the  bishops  waited  on  the  king  this  summer  for 
his  commands  to  put  the  penal  laws  into  exe- 
cution, which  they  did  with  so  much  diligence, 
that  Mr.  Baxter  says  he  was  so  weary  of  keep- 
ing his  doors  sliut  against  persons  who  came 
to  distrain  his  goods  for  preaching,  that  lie  was 
forced  to  leave  his  house,  to  sell  his  goods,  and 
part  with  his  very  books.*  About  twelve 
years,  says  he,  I  have  been  driven  one  hun- 
dred miles  from  them,  and  when  I  had  paid 
dear  for  the  carriage,  after  two  or  three  years 
I  was  forced  to  sell  them.  This  was  the  case 
of  many  others,  who,  being  separated  from 
their  families  and  friends,  and  having  no  way 
of  subsistence,  were  forced  to  sell  their  books 
and  household  furniture,  to  keep  them  from 
starving. 

This  year  [1677]  died  the  Rev.  Dr.  Tho. 
Manton,  ejected  from  Covent  Garden  :  he  was 
born  in  Somersetshire,  1620,  educated  at  Tiv- 
erton School,  and  from  thence  placed  at  Wad- 
ham  College,  Oxon.  He  was  ordained  by  Dr. 
Hall,  bishop  of  Exeter,!  when  he  was  not  more 
than  twenty  years  of  age  :  his  first  settlement 
was  at  Stoke  Newington,  near  London,  where 
he  continued  seven  years,  being  generally  es- 
teemed an  excellent  preacher,  and  a  learned 
expositor  of  Scripture.  Upon  the  death  or  res- 
ignation of  Mr.  Obadiah  Sedgwick,  he  was  pre- 
sented to  the  living  of  Covent  Garden  by  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  and  preached  to  a  numerous 
congregation.  The  doctor  was  appointed  one 
of  the  protector's  chaplains,  and  one  of  the  tri- 
ers of  persons'  qualifications  for  the  ministry  ; 
which  service  he  constantly  attended.  In  the 
year  1660,  he  was  very  forward,  in  concert 
witli  the  Presbyterian  ministers,  to  accomplish 
the  king's  restoration,  and  was  one  of  the  com- 
missioners at  the  Savoy  Conference  ;  he  was 
then  created  doctor  of  divinity,  and  offered  the 
deanery  of  Rochester,  but  declined  it.  After 
he  was  turned  out  of  his  living  in  1662,  he  held 
a  private  meeting  in  his  own  house,  but  was 
imprisoned,  and  met  with  several  disturbances 
in  his  ministerial  work.  He  was  consulted  in 
all  the  treaties  for  a  comprehension  with  the 
Established  Church,  and  was  high  in  the  es- 
teem of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Earl  of  Manches- 
ter, and  other  noble  persons.  At  length,  find- 
ing his  constitution  breaking,  he  resigned  him- 
self to  God's  wise  disposal,  and  being  seized 
with  a  kind  of  lethargy,  he  died  October  18, 
1677,  in  the  fifty-seventh  year  of  his  age,  and 
was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church  of 
Stoke  Newington.  Dr.  Bates,  in  his  funeral 
sermon,  says  he  was  a  divine  of  a  rich  fancy,  a 
strong  memory,  and  happy  elocution,  improved 
by  diligent  study.  He  was  an  excellent  Chris- 
tian, a  fervent  preacher,  and  every  way  a 
blessing  to  the  Church  of  God.  J  His  practical 
works  were  published  in  five  voluities  in  folio, 

written  by  the  author  of  the  "  Whole  Duty  of  Man." 
— Granger,  vol.  iii.,  p.  233.  Bishop  Compton's  char- 
acter will  appear  in  the  succeeding  part  of  this  his- 
tory.— Ed.  *  Baiter,  part  in.,  p.  171,  172. 

t  He  never  took  any  other  than  deacon's  orders, 
and  never  would  submit  to  any  other  ordination,  for 
it  was  his  judgment  that  he  was  properly  ordained 
to  the  ministerial  oflice,  and  that  no  earthly  power 
had  any  right  to  divide  and  parcel  that  out  at  their 
pleasure.— Pa/mer,  vol.  i.,  p.  17G.— C. 

t  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  42  :  and  Palmer's  Noncon. 
Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  138. 


at  several  times  after  his  death,  and  are  in 
great  esteem  among  the  Dissenters  to  this 
day.* 

About  the  same  time  died  Mr.  John  Rowe,. 
M.A.,  born  in  the  year  1626,  and  educated  for 
some  time  at  Cambridge,  but  translated  to  Ox- 
ford about  the  time  of  the  visitation  in  the  year 
1648.  Here  he  was  admitted  M.A.  and  fellow 
of  Corpus  Christi  College.  He  was  first  lec- 
turer at  Witney,  in  Oxfordshire ;  afterward 
preacher  at  Tiverton,  in  Devonshire,  and  one 
of  the  commissioners  for  ejecting  ignorant  and 
insufficient  ministers  in  that  county.  Upon 
the  death  of  Mr.  William  Strong,  in  the  year 
lOrii,  he  was  called  to  succeed  him  in  the  Ab- 
bey Church  of  Westminster  ;  at  which  place, 
as  in  all  others,  his  sermons  were  very- much 
attended  to  by  persons  of  all  persuasions,  t  On 
the  14th  of  March,  1659,  he  was  appointed  one 
of  the  approvers  of  ministers  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  on  the  king's  restoration  he  gave 
way  to  the  change  of  the  times,  and  was  si- 
lenced with  his  brethren  by  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity. He  was  a  divine  of  great  gravity  and  pi- 
ety ;  his  sermons  were  judicious  and  well  stud- 
ied, fit  for  the  audience  of  inen  of  the  best  qual- 
ity in  those  times.  After  the  Bartholomew 
Act,  he  continued  with  his  people,  and  preach- 
to  them  in  Bartholomew  Close,  and  elsewhere, 
as  the  times  would  permit,  till  his  death,  which 
happened  October  12,  1677,  in  the  fifty-second 
year  of  his  age.  He  lies  buried  in  Bunhill 
Fields,  under  an  altar  monument  of  a  brick- 
foundation. t     The  words  with  which  he  con- 


*  Dr.  Manton  was  also  in  great  estimation  for  his 
activity  and  address  in  the  management  of  pubHc  af- 
fairs, and  was  generally  in  the  chair  in  meetings  of 
the  dissenting  ministers  in  the  city.  Dr.  Grey  ques- 
tions the  truth  of  Mr.  Neal's  assertion  that  he  was 
ordained  at  the  age  of  twenty  years,  especially  as  he 
gives  no  authority  for  it.  "  Bishop  Hall,"  he  says, 
'■  was  too  canonical  a  man  to  admit  any  person  into- 
deacon's  orders  at  that  age."  If  the  fact  be  missta- 
ted, he  must  be  destitute  of  all  candour  who  can 
impute  this  to  a  wilful  falsification.  Archbishop 
Usher  used  to  call  Dr.  Manton  a  voluminous  preach- 
er, meaning  that  he  had  the  art  of  reducing  the  sub- 
stance of  volumes  of  divinity  into  a  narrow  compass. 
But  it  was  true,  in  the  literal  sense,  he  was  volumi- 
nous as  an  author:  for  his  sermons  run  into  several 
folios,  one  of  which  contains  one  hundred  and  nine- 
ty sermons  on  the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth 
Psalm.  The  task  of  reading  these,  when  he  was  a 
youth,  to  his  aunt,  had  an  unhappy  effect  on  the 
mind  of  Lord  Boli'ngbroke.  In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Swift, 
he  writes,  "  My  next  shall  be  as  long  as  one  of  Dr. 
Manton's  sermons,  who  taught  my  youth  to  yawn, 
and  prepared  me  to  be  a  High-churchman,  that  I 
might  never  hear  him  read,  nor  read  him  more."— 
Granger's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  304,  note. — En.  The 
works  of  Dr,  Mar)ton  are  at  present  in  very  high  re- 
pute. His  five  folios  arc  only  to  be  purchased  in 
London  at  fourteen  or  fifteen  pounds  ;  and  several  of 
his  minor  works  have  lately  been  republished.  His 
theology  is  sound,  and  the  preacher  who  possesses 
his  works  has  access  to  immense  treasures. — C. 

t  Mr.  Rowe  was  a  good  scholar,  and  well  read  in 
the  fathers ;  and  had  such  a  knowledge  of  Greefi., 
that  he  began  very  young  to  keep  a  diary  in  that ' 
language,  which  he  continued  till  his  death  ;  but  he 
burned  most  of  it  in  his  last  illness. — Palmer.  His 
works  are  very  e.xcellent,  especially  the  "Love  of 
Christ  in  his  Incarnation,"  in  thirty  sermons,  and 
I  the  "  Saint's  Triumph." — 0. 

t  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  39.  Palmer's  Noncon.  Merc, 
vol.  i.,  p.  142. 


283 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


eluded  his  last  sermon  were  these  :  "  We 
should  not  desire  to  continue  longer  in  this 
•world  than  to  glorify  God.  to  tiiiisli  our  work, 
and  to  be  ready  to  say,  Farewell,  time ;  wel- 
come, blessed  eternity  ;  even  so ;  come.  Lord 
Jesus !" 


CHAPTER  X. 

7R0M  THE  POPISH  PLOT  TO  THE  DEATH  OF  KINO 

CHARLES  II.,  IN  THE  YEAR  1684-5. 

1678. 

The  king  having  concluded  a  peace  with  the 
Dutch,  became  mediator  between  the  French 
and  the  confederates,  at  the  treaty  of  Nime- 
guen  ;  where  the  former  managed  the  English 
court  so  dexterously,  that  the  emperor  and 
Spaniards  were  obliged  to  buy  their  peace, 
at  the  expense  of  the  best  part  of  Flanders. 

From  this  time  to  the  end  of  the  king's  reign, 
we  meet  with  little  else  but  domestic  quarrels 
between  the  king  and  his  Parliament  ;  sham 
plots,  and  furious  sallies  of  rage  and  revenge, 
between  the  court  and  country  parties.  The 
Nonconformists  were  very  great  sufferers  by 
these  contests ;  the  penal  laws  being  in  full 
force,  and  the  execution  of  them  in  the  hands 
of  their  avowed  enemies. 

No  sooner  was  the  nation  at  peace  abroad 
but  a  formidable  plot  broke  out  at  home,  to 
take  away  the  king's  life,  to  subvert  the  Con- 
stitution, to  introduce  popery,  and  to  extirpate 
the  Prot  stant  religion  root  and  branch.  It 
was  called  the  Popish  Plot,  from  the  nature  of 
the  design,  and  the  quality  of  the  conspirators, 
who  were  no  less  than  Pope  Innocent  XI ,  Car- 
dinal Howard,  his  legate,  and  the  generals  of 
the  Jesuits  in  Spain  and  at  Rome  *  When  the 
king  was  taken  off,  the  Duke  of  York  was  to 
receive  the  crown  as  a  gift  from  the  pope,  and 
hold  it  in  fee.  If  there  happened  any  disturb- 
ance, the  city  of  London  was  to  be  fired,  and 
the  infamy  of  the  whole  affair  to  be  laid  upon 
the  Presbyterians  and  fanatics,  in  hopes  that 
the  churchmen,  in  the  heat  of  their  fury,  would 
cut  them  in  pieces,  which  would  make  way  for 
the  more  easy  subversion  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion. Thus  an  insurrection,  and  perhaps  a 
second  massacre  of  the  ProiestaiUs,  was  in- 
tended ;  for  this  purpose  they  had  great  num- 
bers of  popish  officers  in  pay,  and  some  thou- 
sands of  men  secretly  listed  to-appear  as  occa- 
sion required,  as  was  deposed  by  the  oaths  of 
Bedloe,  Tongue,  Dr.  Dales,  and  others. 

The  discovery  of  this  plot  spread  a  prodigious 
alarm  over  the  nation,  and  awakened  the  fears 
of  those  who  had  been  lulled  into  a  fatal  security. 
The  king's  life  was  the  more  valuable,  as  the 
popish  successor  was  willing  to  run  all  risks 
for  the  introducing  of  his  icligion.  The  murder 
of  Sir  Edmundbury  Godfreyt  at  this  juncture. 


*  F.chaid.  p.  934. 

t  The  dealh  of  this  gentleman,  an  a'ole  magistrate 
and  of  a  lair  character,  was  deemed  a  much  stronger 
evidence  of  the  reality  of  the  plot  than  the  oath  of 
Oaies.  The  foolish  circumstance  oi  his  name  being 
anagramalized  to  "  1  find  murdered  by  rogues,"  help- 
ed lo  conlirin  llie  opimon  of  his  being  murdered  by 
papists.  His  funeral  was  celebrated  vvilh  the  inosl 
eolemn  pomp.  Seventy-two  clergymen  preceded  the 
corpse,  which  was  foUowed  by  a  thousand  persons. 


a  zealous  and  active  Protestant  justice  of  peace, 
increased  men's  suspicions  of  a  plot,  and  the 
depositions  upon  oath  of  the  above-mentioned 
witnesses  seemed  to  put  it  beyond  all  doubt; 
for  upon  their  impeachment,  -Sir  G  Wakeman, 
the  queen's  i)hysician,  Mr.  Ed.  Coleman,  the 
Duke  of  York's  secretary,  Mr.  Richard  Lang- 
horne,  and  eight  other  Romish  priests  and  Jes- 
uits, were  apprehended  and  secured.  When 
the  Parliament  met,  they  voted  that  there  was 
a  damnable  and  hellish  plot  contrived  and  car- 
ried on  by  popish  recusants  against  the  life  of 
the  king  and  the  Protestant  religion.  Five  po- 
pish lords  were  ordered  into  custody,  viz..  Lord 
Stafford,  Powis,  Arundel,  Pctre,  and  Bellasys. 
A  proclamation  was  issued  against  papists,  and 
the  king  was  addressed  to  remove  the  Duke  of 
York  from  his  person  and  councils. 

Though  the  king  gave  himself  no  credit  to 
the  plot,  yet  finding  it  impracticable  to  stem 
the  tide  of  the  people's  zeal,  he  consented  to 
the  execution  of  the  law  upon  several  of  the 
condemned  criminals  ;  Mr.  Coleman,  and  five 
of  the  Jesuits,  were  executed  at  Tyburn,  who 
protested  their  innocence  to  the  last ;  and  a 
year  or  two  forward.  Lord  Stafford  was  behead- 
ed on  Tower  Hill.  But  the  court  parly  turned 
the  plot  into  ridicule  ;  the  king  told  Lord  Hali- 
fax "that  it  was  not  probable  that  the  papists 
should  conspire  to  kill  him,  for  have  I  not  been 
kind  enough  to  them]"  says  his  majesty. 
"  Yes,"  says  his  lordship,  '-you  have  been  loo 
kind,  indeed,  to  them  ;  but  they  know  you  will 
only  trot,  and  they  want  a  prince  that  will  gal- 
lop."    The  court  employed  their  tool.  Sir  Roger 

most  of  whom  were  of  eminence  and  rank. — Gran- 
gtr's  History  uf  England,  vol.  iii  ,  p.  400,  8vo. 

This  shows  the  interest  which  the  public  took  in 
this  event.  So  great  was  the  alarm  this  plot  raised, 
thai  posts  and  chains  were  put  up  in  all  parts  of  the 
city,  and  a  considerable  number  of  the  trained  bands 
drawn  out  night  after  night,  well  armed,  and  watch- 
ing with  as  much  care  as  if  a  great  insurrection  were 
expected  before  the  morning.  The  general  topics 
of  conversation  were  designed  massacres,  to  be  per- 
petrated by  assassins  ready  for  the  purpose,  and  by 
recruits  from  abroad.  A  sudden  darkness  at  eleven 
o'clock,  on  the  Sunday  after  the  murder  of  Sir  Ed- 
mundbury Godfrey,  so  that  the  ministers  could  not 
read  their  notes  in  the  pulpit  without  candles,  was 
looked  upon  as  awfully  ominous.  The  minds  of 
people  were  kept  in  agitation  and  terror  by  dismal 
stories  and  frequent  executions.  Young  and  old 
quaked  with  fear.  Not  a  house  was  unprovided  with 
arms.  No  one  went  to  rest  at  night  without  the  ap- 
prehension of  some  tragical  event  lo  happen  before 
the  morning.  This  slate  of  alarm  and  terror  lasted 
not  for  a  few  weeks  only,  but  months.  The  pagean- 
try of  mock-processions  employed  on  this  occasion 
heightened  the  aversion  lo  popery,  and  intlamed  re- 
sentment against  the  conspirators.  In  one  of  these, 
amid  a  vast  crowd  of  spectators,  who  rilled  the  air 
with  their  acclamations,  and  expressed  great  salis- 
laclion  in  the  show,  there  were  carried  on  men's 
should'TS,  through  the  principal  streets,  the  effigies 
of  the  pope  and  the  rcpn'seiitaiivf;  of  the  devil  behind 
him.  whispering  in  his  ear  and  caressing  him  (though 
he  afterward  deserted  him,  before  he  was  committed 
to  the  flames),  together  with  the  likeness  of  the  dead 
body  of  Sir  Edmundbury  Ciodfrcy,  carried  before  him 
by  a  man  on  horseback,  to  remind  the  people  of  his 
execrable  murder.  A  great  numlier  of  dignitaries  ii: 
their  copes,  with  crosses  of  monks,  friars,  Jesuits, 
and  popish  bishops  with  their  mil  res,  trinkets,  and 
appurtenances,  formed  the  rest  of  the  proce-^sion. — 
Dr.  Calamij'a  Oum  Life,  MSS.,  p.  C7,  68.— Eo. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


289 


I'Estrange,*  to  write  a  weekly  paper  against  the 
.plot ;  and  the  country  party  encouraged  Mr. 
Car  to  write  a  weekly  packet  of  advice  from 
Rome,  discovering  the  frauds  and  superstitions 
of  that  court ;  for  which  he  was  arraigned, 
convicted,  and  fined  in  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  and  his  papers  forbid  to  be  printed.  An 
admirable  order  for  a  Protestant  court  of  judi- 
cature ! 

But  it  was  impossible  to  allay  the  fears  of 
the  Parliament,  who  had  a  quick  sense  of  the 
dangers  of  popery,  and  therefore  passed  a  bill  to 
disable  all  persons  of  that  religion  from  sitting 
in  either  house  of  Parliament,  which  is  still  in 
force,  being  excepted  out  of  the  Act  of  Tolera- 
tion t  The  act  requires  all  members  of  Parlia- 
ment to  renounce  by  oath  the  doctrine  of  tran- 
substantiation.  and  to  declare  the  worship  of 
the  Virgin  Mary  and  of  the  saints,  practised  in 
the  Church  of  Rtne,  to  be  idolatrous.  Bishop 
Gunning  argued  against  charging  the  Church 
of  Rome  with  idolatry  ;  but  the  House  paid  him 
little  regard  ;  and  when  the  bill  was  passed,  he 
took  the  oath  in  common  with  the  rest. 

The  Duke  of  York  got  himself  excepted  out 
of  the  bill,l  but  the  fears  of  his  accession  to  the 
crown  were  so  great,  that  there  was  a  loud 
talk  of  bringing  a  bill  into  the  House  to  exclude 
him  from  the  succession  as  a  papist ;  upon  which 
the  king  came  to  the  House  November  9,  and 
assured  them  that  he  would  consent  to  any  bills 
for  securing  the  Protestant  religion,  provided 
they  did  not  impeach  the  right  of  succession, 
nor  the  descent  of  the  crown  in  the  true  line, 
nor  the  just  rights  of  any  Protestant  successor. 
But  this  not  giving  satisfaction,  his  majesty, 
towards  the  end  of  December,  first  prorogued, 
and  then  dissolved  the  Parliament,  after  they 
had  been  chosen  almost  eighteen  years. 

It  may  be  proper  to  observe  concerning  the 
Popish  Plot.iJ  that  though  the  king's  life  might 
not  be  immediately  struck  at,  yet  there  was 
such  strong  evidence  to  prove  the  reality  of  a 
plot  to  subvert  the  Constitution  and  introduce 
popery,  that  no  disinterested  person  can  doubt 
it.  Mr.  Rapin,  who  had  carefully  considered 
the  evidence,  concludes  that  there  was  a  medi- 

*  This  person,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken, 
formerly  called  "Oliver's  Fiddler,"  was  now  the  ad- 
mired "  Buffoon  of  High  Church."  He  called  the 
shows,  mentioned  in  our  last  note,  "  hobby-horsing 
processions." — Calamy's  MSS.,  p.  67. — Ed. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  li.,  p.  211. 

X  This  point  was  carried  in  favour  of  the  duke  by 
no  more  than  two  votes.  Had  it  been  negatived,  he 
would,  in  the  next  place,  have  been  voted  away  from 
the  king's  presence. — Sir  John  Reresby's  Memoirs,  p. 
72.— Ed. 

%  It  was  a  happy  effect  of  the  discovery  of  this 
plot,  that  while  it  raised  in  the  whole  body  of  the 
English  Prolestants  alarming  apprehensions  of  the 
dangers  to  wliich  their  civil  and  religious  liberties 
were  exposed,  it  united  them  ngainst  their  common 
enemy.  Mutual  prejudices  were  softened  :  animos- 
ities subsided  .  the  Dissenters  were  regarded  as  the 
true  friends  of  their  country,  and  their  assemblies 
began  to  be  more  public  and  numerous.  At  this  time 
an  evening  lecture  was  set  up  in  a  large  room  of  a 
coff'ee-house  in  Exchange  Alley  ;  it  was  conducted 
by  Mr.  John  Shower,  .Mr.  Lambert,  Mr.  Dorrington. 
and  .Mr.  Thomas  Goodwin  ;  and  it  was  supported 
and  al'.euded  by  some  of  the  principal  merchants, 
and  by  several  who  afterward  filled  the  most  eminent 
posts  in  the  city  of  London. —  Tang's  Life  of  Shower, 
p.  17,  18.— Ed. 
Vol.  II.— 0  o 


tated  design,  supported  by  the  king  and  the  Duke 
of  York,  to  render  the  king  absolute,  and  intro- 
duce the  popish  religion  ;  for  this  is  precisely 
what  was  meant  by  the  plot ;  the  design  of  kill- 
ing the  king  was  only  an  appendage  to  it,  and 
an  efTect  of  the  zeal  of  some  private  persons, 
who  thought  the  plot  would  be  crowned  with 
the  surer  success  by  speedily  setting  the  Duke 
of  York  upon  the  throne.  Bishop  Burnet  adds,* 
that  though  the  king  and  he  agreed  in  private 
conversation  that  the  greatest  part  of  the  evi- 
dence was  a  contrivance,  yet  he  confesses  it 
appeared,  by  Coleman's  letters,  that  the  design 
of  converting  the  nation,  and  of  rooting  out  the 
northern  heresy,  was  very  near  being  execu- 
ted.t  To  which  I  beg  leave  to  add,  that  though 
the  design  of  killing  the  king  did  not  take  place 
at  this  time,  his  majesty  felt  the  effects  of  it, 
in  his  violent  death,  four  or  five  years  afterward. 
This  year  died  Mr.  Thomas  Vincent,  M.A.. 
the  ejected  minister  of  Milk-street,  born  at  Hert- 
ford May,  1634,  and  educated  in  Christ  Church, 
Oxford. t  He  was  chaplain  to  Robert,  earl  of 
Leicester,  and  afterward  minister  of  Milk-street, 
London,  till  the  Act  of  Uniformity  took  place. 
He  was  an  humble  and  a  zealous  preacher,  of 
moderate  principles,  and  an  unspotted  life.  He 
continued  in  the  city  throughout  the  whole 
plague,  the  awfulness  of  which  gave  him  a  pe- 
culiar fervency  and  zeal  in  his  ministerial  work. 
On  this  occasion  he  published  some  very  awa- 
kening treatises  ;  as,  "  A  Spiritual  Antidote  for 
a  dymg  Soul,"  and  "  God's  terrible  Voice  in  the 
City."i^  He  not  only  preached  in  public,  but 
visited  all  the  sick  who  sent  for  him  in  their  in- 
fected houses,  being  void  of  all  fear  of  death. 
He  continued  in  health  during  the  whole  of  that 
dreadful  calamity,  and  was  afterward  useful,  as 
the  times  would  permit,  to  a  numerous  congre- 
gation, being  generally  respected  by  men  of  all 
persuasions  ;  but  his  excessive  labours  put  an 
end  to  his  life  October  15,  1678,  in  the  forty-fifth 
year  of  his  age.  II 


*  This  corresponds  with  his  declarations  to  Sir 
John  Reresby  ;  whom  at  one  time  he  told,  in  the 
presence  of  the  lord-treasurer,  at  the  Duchess  of 
Portsmouth's  lodgings,  "  he  look  it  to  be  some  arti- 
fice, and  that  he  did  not  believe  one  word  of  the 
whole  story."  At  another  time  his  majesty  said  to 
him,  "  Bedloe  was  a  rogue,  and  that  he  was  satisfied 
he  had  given  some  false  evidence  concerning  the 
death  of  Sir  Edmundbury  Godfrey." — Memoirs,  p. 
67,  72. 

Dr.  Grey  refers  to  Echard  and  Bishop  Burnet,  as 
fully  discrediting  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  this  plot ; 
and,  with  this  view,  gives  a  long  passage  from  Carte's 
History  of  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  vol.  ii.,  p.  517. 

The  reader  may  see  the  evidence  both  for  and 
against  it  fully  and  fairly  stated  by  Dr.  Harris,  Life 
of  Charles  11.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  137-157. — Ed. 

t  Page  198-214. 

t  His  father,  a  pious  minister,  who  died  in  the  Ti- 
cinity  of  Durham,  was  so  harassed  for  his  noncon- 
formity, that  though  he  had  a  large  family,  not  two 
of  his  children  were  born  in  the  same  county  ! — C. 

•Ji  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  32.  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem., 
vol.  i.,  p.  125. 

Il  Mr.  Thomas  Vincent  had  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment and  Psalms  by  heart.  He  took  this  pains,  as 
he  often  said,  "  not  knowing  but  they  who  took  from 
him  his  pulpit,  might  in  tune  demand  his  Bible  also." 
— Calamy.  Besides  his  publications  enumerated  by 
this  writer.  Mr.  Vmcent,  on  occasion  of  an  eruption 
of  Mount  JEinn.  published  a  book  entitled  "  P^ireand 
Brimstone  :  1.  From  heaven  in  the  burning  of  Sodom 


290 


HISTORY   OF  THE  PURITANS. 


Mr.  Theophilus  Gale,  M.A.,  and  fellow  of 
Magdalen  Collt-ge,  Oxford,  was  ejected  from 
Wmuliesier,  where  he  had  heen  staled  preacher 
for  some  time  ;  alter  which  he  travelled  abroad 
as  tutor  to  the  son  of  Philip,  lord  Whartcm. 
Upon  his  return,  lie  settled  with  Mr.  John  Kowe 
as  an  assistant,  in  which  station  he  died.  The 
Oxford  historian  allows  that  he  was  a  man  of 
great  reading,  an  e.xact  philologist  and  philoso- 
pher, a  learned  and  industrious  divine,  as  appears 
by  his  Court  of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  Vanity  of 
Pagan  Philosophy.  He  kept  a  little  academy 
for  the  instruction  of  youth,  and  was  well  versed 
in  the  fathers,  being,  at  the  same  lime,  a  good 
metaphysician  and  school  divine.*  He  died  of 
a  consumption  this  year  [1678],  in  the  forty- 
ninth  year  of  his  age.t 

The  king  having  summoned  a  new  Parliament 
to  meet  in  March,  all  parties  exerted  themselves 
in  the  elections  ;  the  Nonconformists  appeared 
generally  for  those  who  were  for  prosecuting 
tlie  Popish  Plot  and  securing  a  Protestant  suc- 
cession :  these  being  esteemed  patriots  and 
friends  of  liberty,  in  opposition  to  those  who 
made  a  loud  cry  for  the  Church,  and  favoured 
the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  court,  and  the 
personal  interest  of  the  Duke  of  York.  The 
elections  in  many  places  were  the  occasion  of 
great  heat,  but  were  carried  almost  everywhere 
against  the  court.  Mr.  Rapin  says  that  the 
Presbyterians,  though  long  oppressed,  were  still 
numerous  incorporations.  The  semi-conform- 
ists, as  Mr.  Echard  calls  the  moderate  church- 
men, and  the  Dissenters  were  on  one  side,  and 
the  High-churchmen  and  papists  on  the  other. 
Before  the  Parliament  assembled,  the  Duke  of 
York  was  sent  out  of  the  way  to  Flanders,  but 
with  this  positive  assurance,  that  his  majesty 
would  consent  to  nothing  in  prejudice  of  his 
right  of  succession.  And  farther  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  the  people,  and  make  a  show  of 
moderation,  a  new  privy  council  was  chosen 
out  of  the  Low  Church  party  ;  but  this  not  sat- 
isfying as  long  as  the  duke's  succession  vi'as  in 
view,  the  Commons,  soon  after  the  opening  the 
sessions,  ordered  in  a  bill  to  disable  the  Duke 
of  York  from  inheriting  the  imperial  crown  of 
England,  and  carried  it  through  the  House  with 
a  high  hand.  Upon  which,  his  majesty  came 
to  the  House  and  dissolved  them,  before  they 


and  Gomorrah  formerly.  2.  From  earth,  in  the  burn- 
ing of  Mount  iEuia  lately.  3.  From  hell,  in  burn- 
ing of  the  wicked  eternally,"  1670,  Bvo. — Granger's 
Hixtory,  vol.  ill.,  p.  329,  note. — Eo.  Mr.  Vincent's 
naost  popular  work,  and  that  by  which  he  is  now 
best  known,  is  his  most  excellent  explanation  of  the 
Assembly's  Catechism. — C. 

■»  Mr.  Gale  was  a  irequeiit  preacher  in  the  Univer- 
sity, and  a  considerable  tutor  ;  Bishop  Hopkins  was 
one  of  his  pupils.  He  left  all  his  real  and  personal 
estate  for  the  education  and  benefit  of  poor  students, 
and  his  library  to  the  college  in  New-England,  ex- 
cept the  philosophical  part,  which  lie  reserved  for 
the  use  of  students  in  England.  The  world  had  like 
to  have  lost  his  great  and  learned  work.  The  Court 
of  the  Gentiles,  in  the  fire  of  London.  A  friend,  to 
whose  care  he  left  his  desk  while  he  was  travelling. 
threw  It  into  the  cart  merely  to  make  the  load,  when 
he  was  removing  his  own  goods. — Bni.  Biog.,  vol. 
v.,  p.  I82-1H6.  — Kn.  No  theological  library  of  any 
pretensions  can  be  without  this  incomparable  work 
of  Gale's.  He,  left  his  valuable  theological  library 
to  Harvard  University. — Palmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  245. — C. 

t  Calainy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  Of     Palmer,  vol.  i.,  p  189. 


had  sat  three  months.  This  threw  the  nation 
into  new  convulsions,  and  produced  a  great 
number  of  pamphlets  against  the  government, 
the  act  for  restraining  the  press  being  lately  ex- 
pired. 

The  Popish  Plot  having  fi.xed  a  brand  of  in- 
famy and  ingratitude  on  the  whole  body  of 
Roman  Catholics,  the  courtiers  attempted  to 
relieve  them  by  setting  on  foot  a  sham  Protest- 
ant plot,  and  fathering  it  upon  the  Presbyteri- 
ans ;*  for  this  purpose,  spies  and  other  mercena- 
ries were  employed  to  bring  news  from  all  parts 
of  the  town,  which  was  then  full  of  cabals. 
At  length  a  plot  was  formed  by  one  Dangerfield, 
a  subtle  and  dangerous  papist,  but  a  very  villain, 
who  had  been  lately  got  out  of  jail  by  the  as- 
sistance of  one  Mrs.  Collier,  a  midwife,  a  lewd 
woman,  who  carried  him  to  the  Countess  of 
Powis,  whose  husband  was  in  the  Tower  for 
the  Popish  Plot ;  with  her  he  formed  his  scheme, 
and  having  got  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  chief 
Protestant  nobility  and  gentry,  he  wrote  trea- 
sonable letters  to  them,  to  be  left  at  the  houses 
of  the  Nonconformists  and  other  active  Protest- 
ants in  several  parts  of  England,  that  search 
being  made  upon  some  other  pretences,  when 
the  letters  were  found,  they  might  be  appre- 
hended for  treason.  At  the  same  time,  he  in- 
truded into  the  company  of  some  of  the  most 
zealous  enemies  of  popery  about  town,  and 
informed  the  king  and  the  Duke  of  York  that  he 
had  been  invited  to  accept  of  a  commission  ; 
that  a  new  form  of  government  was  to  be  set 
up  ;  and  that  the  king  and  royal  family  were  to 
be  banished.  The  story  was  received  with 
pleasure,  and  Dangerfield  had  a  present,  and  a 
pension  of  £3  a  week,  to  carry  on  his  corre- 
spondence. Having  got  some  little  acquaint- 
ance with  Colonel  Mansel  in  Westminster,  he 
made  up  a  bundle  of  seditious  letters,  with  the 
assistance  of  Mrs.  Cellier,  and  having  laid  them 
in  a  dark  corner  of  Mansel's  room  behind  the 
bed,  he  sent  for  officers  from  the  custom-house 
to  search  for  prohibited  goods  while  he  was  out 
of  town  ;  but  none  were  found  except  the  bun- 
dle of  letters,  which,  upon  examination  of  the 
parties  concerned  before  the  king  and  council, 
were  proved  to  be  counterfeit ;  upon  which  the 
court  disowned  the  plot,  and  having  taken  away 
Dangerfield's  pension,  sent  him  to  Newgate. 
Search  being  made  into  Mrs.  Cellier's  house, 
there  was  found  a  little  book  in  a  meal-tub, 
written  very  fair,  and  tied  up  with  ribands, 
which  contained  the  whole  scheme  of  the  fic- 
tion. It  was  dictated  by  Lady  Powis,  and 
proved  by  her  maid  to  be  laid  there  by  her  or- 
der, from  whence  it  obtained  the  name  of  the 
Meal-tub  Plot.  Dangerfield,  who  was  a  notori- 
ous liar,  finding  himself  undone  if  he  persisted 
in  what  he  could  not  support,  made  an  ample 
confession,  and  published  a  narrative,  wherein 
he  declared  that  he  was  employed  by  the  popish 
party  ;  and  chiefly  by  the  popish  lords  in  the 
Tower,  with  the  Countess  of  Powis,  to  invent 
the  Meal-tub  Plot,  whii^h  was  to  have  thrown 
the  Popish  Plot  wholly  upon  the  Presbyterians. 
It  was  printed  by  order  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  the  year  16S0.  Dangerfield  being  par- 
doned, went  out  of  the  way  into  Flanders  ;  but 
returning  to  England  in  King  James's  reign,  he 
was  tried  for  it,  and  sentenced  to  be  whipped 


*  Burnet,  vol.  ii,  p.  272.     Rapin,  vol.  if,  p.  741, 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


291 


at  the  cart's  tail  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn  ;  in 
his  return  from  whence  he  was  murdered  by 
one  Frances  in  the  coach.  Mrs.  Ceilier  was 
tried  June  II,  1680,  before  Lord-chief-justice 
Scroggs,  and  acquitted  for  want  of  evidence. 
But  the  discovery,  instead  of  relieving  the  pa- 
pists from  the  charge  of  the  Popish  Plot,  turned 
very  much  to  their  disadvantage  ;  for  when  the 
next  Parliament  met,  the  House  of  Commons 
resolved  that  Sir  Robert  Car  be  expelled  the 
House,  and  sent  to  the  Tower,  for  declaring 
publicly  in  the  city  of  Bristol  that  there  was  no 
popish,  but  a  Presbyterian  plot.*  Sir  Robert 
Yeomans  was  sent  into  custody  on  the  same 
account ;  and  Mr.  Richard  Thompson,  a  clergy- 
man, was  impeached  for  decrying  the  Popish 
Plot  in  his  sermon,  January  30,  1679,  and  for 
turning  the  same  upon  the  Protestants  ;  for 
which,  and  for  preaching  against  the  liberty  and 
property  of  the  subject,  and  the  privileges  of 
Parliament,  the  House  declared  him  a  scandal 
and  reproach  to  his  profession. 

This  year  [1679]  died  the  reverend  and  learn- 
ed Mr.  Matt.  Pool,  M.A.,  the  ejected  minister 
of  St.  Michael's  Querne  ;  he  was  born  in  the 
city  of  York,  and  educated  in  Emanuel  College, 
Cambridge,  a  divine  of  great  piety,  charity,  and 
literature.  He  was  indefatigable  in  his  labours, 
and  left  behind  him  (says  the  Oxford  historian) 
the  character  of  a  most  celebrated  critic  and 
casuist.  After  ten  years'  close  application,  he 
published  his  Synopsis  Criticorum.t  in  five  fo- 


*  State  Tracts,  vol.  li.,  p.  217. 

+  "The  plan  of  this  work,"  says  Mr.  Granger, 
"  was  judicious,  and  the  execution  more  free  froui 
errors  than  seems  consistent  with  so  great  a  work, 
finished  in  so  short  a  time,  by  one  man."  It  includes 
not  only  an  abridgement  of  the  "Crilici  Saeri,"  and 
other  expositors,  but  extracts  from  a  great  iiumbei 
of  treatises  and  pamphlets  that  would  have  been  oth- 
erwise lost.  It  was  undertaken  by  the  advice  of  the 
learned  Bishop  Lloyd ;  it  was  encouraged  and  pat- 
ronised by  Tillotson,  and  the  king  granted  a  patent 
for  the  privilege  of  printing  it.  Mr.  Pool  formed  and 
completed  a  scheme  for  maintaining  young  men  of 
eminent  parts  at  the  University  of  Cambridge  for  the 
study  of  divinity  ;  and,  by  his  solicitations,  in  a  short 
time  raised  £900  a  year  for  that  purpose.  The 
scheme  sunk  at  the  Restoration  ;  but  to  it  the  world 
is  said,  in  some  measure,  to  owe  Dr.  Sherlock,  after- 
ward Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  While  he  was  drawing  up 
his  Synopsis,  it  was  his  custom  to  rise  at  three  or 
four  o'clock,  and  take  a  raw  egg  about  eight  or  nine, 
and  another  about  twelve ;  then  to  continue  his  stud- 
ies till  the  afternoon  was  far  advanced.  He  spent 
the  evening  at  some  friend's  house,  particularly  Al- 
derman Ashurst's,  and  would  be  exceedingly,  but  in- 
nocently, merry  :  when  it  was  nearly  time  to  go  home, 
he  would  give  the  conversation  a  serious  turn,  say- 
ing, "  Let  us  now  call  for  a  reckoning."  His  "An- 
notations" were  completed  by  other  hands  ;  the  fifty- 
ninth  and  sixtieth  chapters  of  Isaiah  by  Mr.  Jackson, 
of  Moulsey.  Dr.  Colllnges  wrote  the  noics  on  the 
remainder  of  that  prophet,  on  Jeremiah,  Lamenta- 
tions, the  four  Kvangelists,  the  Epistles  to  the  Co- 
rinthians and  Galatians.  to  Timothy.  Titus,  and 
Philemon,  and  on  the  Book  of  Revelations.  The 
annotations  on  Ezckiel  and  the  minor  prophets 
were  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Hurst,  and  on  Daniel,  by  Mr. 
"William  Cooper.  Mr.  Vinke  commented  on  the  Acts, 
Mr.  Mayo  on  the  Romans.  The  notes  on  the  Epiie- 
sians,  and  the  Epistles  of  James,  Peter,  and  Jude, 
were  composed  by  Mr.  Viel;  on  Phihppians  and 
Colossians,  by  Mr.  Thomas  Adams;  on  the  Thes 
salonians,  by  Mr.  B;irker;  on  the  Hebrews,  by  Mr 
Obad.  Hughes.  Mr.  Howe  undertook  the  three  Epis- 
tles of  John. — Caliimy  and  Palmer,  ut  supra.     Gran- 


lios.  He  afterward  entered  on  a  commentary 
upon  the  whole  Bible,  but  proceeded  no  farther 
than  the  fifty-eighth  chapter  of  Isaiah  :  how- 
ever, the  design,  being  valuable,  was  carried 
on,  and  completed  by  other  hands.  Mr.  Pool 
published  several  excellent  treatises,  as  "The 
Nullity  of  the  Romish  Faith,"  &c.,  for  which  he 
was  threatened  to  be  assassinated,*  his  name 
being  in  Dr.  Gates's  list:  he  therefore  retired 
to  Holland,  but  died,  as  it  is  thought,  by  poison 
at  Amsterdam,  in  the  month  of  October,  1679, 
aetat.  fifty-six. 

Dr.  Thomas  Goodwin,  born  at  Rolisby  in 
Norfolk,  and  educated  in  Catherine  Hall,  Cam- 
bridge. He  was  a  great  admirer  of  Dr.  Pres- 
ton, and  afterward  himself  a  famous  preacher 
in  Cambridge.  In  1034  he  left  the  university, 
being  dissatisfied  with  the  terms  of  conformity. 
In  1639  he  went  into  Holland,  and  became  pas- 
tor of  an  Independent  congregation  at  .^rnheim. 
He  returned  to  London  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  and  was  one  of  the  dis- 
senting brethren  in  the  .Assembly  of  Divines. 
After  the  king's  death  he  was  made  president 
of  Magdalen  College,  and  one  of  the  triers  of 
ministers.  He  was  in  high  esteem  with  Oliver 
("romwell,  and  attended  him  on  his  deathbed. t 
In  the  commcm  register  of  the  university  he  is 
said  to  be  "  in  scriptis  theologicis  quam  pluri- 
mis  orbi  notus,"  i.  e.,  well  known  to  the  world 
by  many  theological  writings.  After  the  Res- 
toration he  resigned  his  presidentship,  and  re- 
tired to  London,  where  he  continued  the  exer- 
cise of  his  ministry  till  his  death,  which  hap- 
pened February  23,  1679-80,  in  the  eightieth 
year  of  his  age.  He  was  a  good  scholar,  an 
eminent  divine  and  textuary.  His  works  are 
since  printed  in  five  folios. t 


ger's  Hiatory,  vol.  iii.,  p.  311  ;  and  Birch's  Life  of  Til- 
lotson, p.  3fi. — Ed. 

*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  14.  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem., 
vol.  i.,  p.  133. 

t  On  which  occasion  he  was  overheard  by  Dr. 
Tillotson  to  express  himself,  boldly  and  enthusiasti- 
cally, confident  of  the  protector's  recovery ;  and 
when  he  found  himself  mistaken,  to  exclaim,  in  a 
subsequent  address  to  God,  "Thou  hast  deceived 
us,  and  we  were  deceived."  He  was  a  man  much 
addicted  to  retirement  and  deep  contemplation, 
which  dispose  the  mind  to  enthusiastical  confidence. 
He  and  Dr.  Owen  are  called  by  Wood  "  the  two  At- 
lasses  and  Patriarchs  of  Independency."  In  the  fire 
of  London  he  lost  half  of  his  library,  to  the  value  of 
£500,  but  he  was  thankful  that  the  loss  fell  on  the 
books  of  human  learning  only,  those  on  divinity  be- 
ing preserved.  He  is  supposed  to  be  the  Independ- 
ent minister  and  head  of  a  college  described  by  the 
"  Spectator,"  No.  A9^.— Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  16. 
Crrey,  vol.  i.,  p.  185.      Granger,  vol.  iii.,  p.  303.— Ed. 

X  Calamy's  Account,  vol.  ii.,  p.  61.  PgJmer^s 
Non.  Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  236-241.  Goodwin's  works  are 
exceedingly  rare.  He  was  a  Calvinist  of  the  Supra- 
lapsarian  cast,  but  did  not  put  doctrinal  sentiment  in 
place  of  practical  holiness. 

1  cannot  omit  to  notice  that,  in  the  second  volume 
of  Dr.  Goodwin's  works,  in  his  exposition  on  the 
Revelations,  written  in  1639  and  printed  in  1683, 
there  is  a  prophetic  description  of  the  Oxford  Tract 
Heresy  (see  OCth  and  67th  pages),  it  conveys  a  re- 
markable anticipation  of  the  rise,  progress,  object, 
and  ultimate  fall  of  this  popish  device,  which  v/e 
now  see  spreading  in  the  Episcopal  Church  both  in 
England  and  America.  As  very  few  of  the  readers 
of  this  History  can  obtain  access  to  Goodwin,  i  sub- 
join it. 

"  Now  take  the  times  of  popery  before  the  Refor- 


292 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


The  last  Parliament  being  dissolved  abruptly, 
a  new  one  was  convened  fur  October  17,  1680, 
in  which  the  elections  went  pretty  much  as  in 

mation  (that  is,  before  the  time  the  Protestant  king- 
doms did  first  begin  to  cast  oft'  the  pope),  and  there 
were  none  that  were  sntiered  to  have  such  a  remiss 
(no  nor  any  lesser)  kind  of  owning  the  Beast,  but 
must  all  (as  liiey  did)  receive  his  mark  or  his  name, 
and  be  professed  pajusts,  coming  to  mass,  acknowl- 
edging the  pope,  and  worshipping  his  image,  or  tiiey 
might  not  buy  and  sell,  they  might  not  live  quietly 
as  others  did.  Therefore,  those  that  receive  the 
number  of  his  name  must  be  some  generation  of 
men  risen  up  since,  and  that  also  within  those  king- 
doms (some  of  them)  that  have  reno\inced  the 
pope  ;  for  within  the  popish  dominions  (unto  this 
day)  either  the  Inquisition  suffers  none  to  profess  | 
less  than  the  receiving  his  name  at  least,  or  in  oth- 
ers, those  that  are  of  papists  the  most  moderate,  yet 
receive  the  name  of  the  Beast  at  least,  and  so,  more 
than  the  number  of  his  name.  But  this  number  of 
his  name  seems  to  be  a  company  that  proceed  not  so 
far  as  to  receive  his  character,  for  they  do  not  pro- 
fess themselves  to  be  papists,  and  yet  are  of  the 
number  of  his  name ;  that  is,  do  hold  and  bring  in 
such  doctrines  and  opinions,  and  such  rites  in  wor- 
ship, as  shall  make  all  men  reckon  or  number  them 
among  pajusts  in  heart  and  affecticn ;  and  so  they 
are  of  the  number  of  his  name,  that  is,  in  account 
such,  they  behave  themselves  to  be  so  as  they  are, 
and  deserved  to  be  accounted  and  esteemed  papists, 
and  to  aim  at  popery,  in  the  judgment  of  all  ortho- 
dox and  Reformed  Protestants,  and  that  justly  ;  for 
although  their  profession  deny  it,  yet,  when  their 
actions,  and  their  corrupting  of  doctrine  and  worship, 
shall  speak  it  to  all  men's  minds,  they  cannot  but 
judge  that  the  pope,  and  the  fear  of  him,  is  before 
their  eyes  (as  David  speaks  of  wicked  men),  and  as 
those  m  Titus,  that  profess  they  know  God,  yet  in 
their  works  deny  him,  are  justly  accounted  Athe- 
ists ;  so  those  that  shall  proless  the  Reformed  reli- 
gion, yet  in  all  their  practices,  and  underhand  policks, 
depress  it,  and  advance  the  popish  party,  are  justly  to 
be  accounted  papists,  and  to  have  received  the  num- 
ber of  his  name. 

"  The  phrase  (number  of  a  name)  is  not  only  ta- 
ken for  a  name  consisting  of  numeral  letters,  and  so, 
not  only  for   number  arithmetical,  but  the   word 
(number)  is  in  many  languages  put  for  the  account 
reckoning  or  esteem  that  is  commonly  had  of  men  ; 
as  in  Latin  we  say.  He  is  one  nulUus  numeri,  of  no 
number  or  account.     So,  then,  number  of  a  name  is 
a  common  esteem  or  account  to  be  such  or  such  a 
one  ;  and  so  the  number  of  the  Beast's  name  here  is 
the  common  repute  or  esteem  to  be  a  papist,  procured 
through  underhand  advancing  of  the  popish  cause. 
It  being,  therefore,  spoken  in  a  distinct  and  lower 
degree  from   receiving  his  name  or  mark  (which 
note  out  an  open  expression),  doth  yet  necessarily 
import    so   much    inclining   and   cleaving   to    him 
(though  secretly)  as  shall  deserve  that  account  and 
repute  to  be  so  numbered,  as  being,  indeed,  tacitly 
and  in  heart,  as  truly  of  his  company  as  those  that 
receive  his  name.     Now  if,  in  opening  the  meaning 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  phrase  here,  this  descrip- 
tion shall  see  to  the  life  to  picture  out  a  generation 
of  such  kind  of  popish  persons  as  these  in  any  (even 
the  most  famous)  of  the  Reformed  churches,  •  i.  c, 
the  Church  of  England'  certainly  there  will  not  want 
good  ground  for  it ;  for  though  they,  with  an  impu- 
dent forehead,  renounce   the  pope's  character,  and 
the  name  of  pnpisis.  and  will  by  no  means  be  called 
priexis  nf  Baal   (though   priests   they  affect  to   fie 
called).  l)nt  boast  themselves  to  be  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  opposites  to  the  papal  faction,  yet  with  as 
much  impudence  do  they  bring  in  image  of  popish 
worship  and  ceremonies,  added  to  some  old  limbs, 
never  cast  out,  other  substantial  parts,  of  altars,  cru- 
cifixes, second  sen'ice,  and  the  like,  so  as  to  make 
up  a  full  likeness  of  the  public  service  to  that  of  the 


the  last,  the  cry  of  the  people  being.  No  popery, 
no  pensioners,  no  arbitrary  government.  But 
the  king  prorogued  them  from  time  to  time  for 


Popish  Church ;  they  bring  in  the  carcass  first, 
which  may  afterward  be  inspired  with  the  same 
opinions.  All  this,  not  as  popery,  or  with  annexa- 
tion of  popish  idolatrous  opinions,  but  upon  such 
grounds  only  as  Protestants  themselves  have  contin- 
ued other  ceremonies.  And  as  in  worship,  so  in 
doctrine,  they  seek  to  bring  in  a  presence  in  the  sac- 
rament of  the  Lord's  Supper,  beyond  that  which  is 
spiritual,  to  faith,  which  yet  is  not  popish  transub- 
stantiation ;  a  power  in  priests  to  forgive  sins,  be- 
yond that  which  is  declarative,  yet  not  that  which 
mass-priests  arrogate  ;  justification  by  works,  yet 
not  so  grossly  as  in  the  way  of  pojiish  merit,  but  as 
a  condition  of  the  Gospel  as  well  as  faith  ;  and  many 
the  like  to  these ;  thus  truly  setting  up  an  image  of 
old  popery  in  a  Protestant  Reformed  way,  even  as 
popery  is  an  image  of  heathenish  worship  in  a  Chris- 
tian way.  Say  these  men  what  they  will,  that  they 
hold  not  of  the  pope,  nor  any  way  intend  him,  or  the 
introducing  of  his  religion  into  these  churches,  yet 
their  actions  do  (and  cannot  but)  make  all  men  num- 
ber them  as  such  ;  and  therefore  we  say.  They  have 
gained  that  esteem  at  home  and  abroad  in  all  the 
churches;  and  it  is  no  more  than  what  the  Holy 
Ghost  prophesied  of,  who  hath  fitted  them  with  a 
description  so  characteristical,  as  nothing  is  more 
like  them,  who  are  said  to  receive  the  mimber  of  his 
name.  And  they  doing  this  in  a  way  of  apostacy 
from  their  former  profession  and  religion  in  which 
they  were  trained  up,  and  in  a  church  so  full  of 
light,  where  God  hath  more  witnesses  than  in  all 
the  rest  of  the  churches,  and  with  an  intention  and 
conspiracy  in  the  end  to  make  way  for  the  Beast 
(this  going  before,  as  the  twilight  doth  serve  to  ush- 
er in  darkness),  therefore  the  Holy  Ghost  thought 
them  worthy  of^  this  character  (in  this  prophecy), 
and  of  a  discovery  of  them  unto  whom  they  do  be- 
long, especially  seeing  they  would  so  professedly 
deny  it.  And  though,  happily,  but  in  one  of  the  ten 
kingdoms  (although  the  Lutherans  look  very  like 
this  description  also),  yet,  seeing  they  were  to  grow 
so  potent  a  faction  as  to  have  power  to  hinder  the 
{buying  and  selling)  quiet  living  of  others  among 
them  who  will  not  receive  this  worship  and  doc- 
trine (which  is  a  new  refined  popery),  and  with  it 
the  number  of  his  name ;  that  is,  those  opinions  and 
practices  which  do  deserve  that  esteem  :  and  farther, 
because  they  were  to  be  the  pope's  last  champions 
before  his  fall,  when  those  that  are  the  true  saints 
(of  whom  the  greatest  number  in  the  last  age  before 
the  pope's  ruin  is  in  or  belonging  to  that  one  king- 
dom) are  to  encounter  and  overcome  before  the  ruin 
of  Rome,  therefore  the  Holy  Ghost  thought  not  fit 
to  leave  such  a  company  out  of  the  Beast's  number 
and  followers,  and  that,  also,  although  they  were  to 
continue  but  a  short  time;  for  the  doom  of  these 
men  we  have  in  another  prophecy  (as  their  descrip- 
tion also),  2  Tiin.,iii.,  from  the  1st  verse  to  the  10th, 
the  prophecy  there  being  of  a  generation  of  men  to 
arise  in  the  last  days  (the  papists  arising  is  attribu- 
ted to  the  latter  days,  in  1  Tim.,  chap,  iv.,  but  the 
rise  of  these  to  thelast  of  the  last  days),  who  shall 
set  themselves  principally  against  the  power  and 
spirit  of  true  worship,  and  .set  up  a  form  or  image  in- 
stead of  it,  verse  5 ;  but  their  doom  is  (verse  9), 
These  shall  proceed  no  farther,  they  shall  have  a  stop  ; 
and  their  folly,  and  madness,  and  hvpocrisv  (to  at- 
tempt to  bring  in  popery  with  (len\ mg  it ;  and  when 
it  is  going  down,  then  to  htild  this  Babel  again) 
shall  appear  to  all  men;  and  being  discovered,  will 
be  their  overthrow;  but  notwithstanding,  they  must 
proceed  farther  than  as  yet  th''y  have  done,  even  to 
the  killing  of  the  witnesses  in  th.it  kiiv^'dom,  or  tenth 
part  of  the  city  (as  chap.  xi.  will  show,  when,  in 
its  due  order,  it  shall  be  opened) ;  and  liecause  these 
last  champions  of  the  Beast,  and  healers  of  the 
wound  given  him,  should  come  in  the  last  days  of 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


293 


above  a  twelvemonth,  without  permitting  them 
to  finish  any  business.  His  majesty  falhng 
sick  in  the  summer,  the  Dulie  of  ^ork  returned 
immediately  to  court  without  the  king's  leave,* 
which  alarmed  the  people,  and  made  them  ea- 
ger for  the  sitting  of  the  Parliament  to  regulate 
the  succession.!  This  gave  rise  to  sundry  pe- 
titions,t  signed  by  a  great  number  of  hands 
both  in  city  and  country,  which  the  king  re- 
ceived with  the  utmost  displeasure,  tellmg  the 
petitioners  that  he  was  sole  judge  of  what  was 
fit  to  be  done:  "You  would  not  take  it  well,'' 
says  he,  "  if  I  should  meddle  with  your  affairs, 
and  I  desire  you  will  not  meddle  with  mine." 
After  this  the  king  issued  out  his  proclamation, 
declaring  them  to  be  illegal,  and  forbidding  his 
subjects  to  promote  any  subscriptions,  or  to 
join  in  any  petitions  of  this  kind,  upon  peril  of 
the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law.  Warrants  were 
issued  against  several  of  the  petitioners,  and 
indictments  preferred  against  others.  But  at 
the  next  sessions  of  the  Common  Council  of 
London,  January  21,  the  court  agreed  that  no 
such  petition  should  be  presented  from  them  ; 
and  the  king  returned  them  thanks  for  it.^ 
Upon  which,  addresses  were  procured  from  di- 
vers parts  of  the  nation,  expressing  their  detes- 
tation and  abhorrence  of  the  seditious  practice 
of  the  late  petitioners,  and  referring  the  sitting 
of  the  Parliament  al)Solute]y  to  the  king's  sov- 
ereign pleasure,  from  whence  they  obtained  the 
name  of  Abhorrers.  In  these  addresses,  they 
offer  their  lives  and  fortunes  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  majesty's  person  and  government, 
and  for  the  succession  of  the  Duke  of  York. 
They  renounce  the  right  of  the  subject's  peti- 
tioning or  interm-eddling  in  affairs  of  state,  and 
lay  their  liberties  at  the  feet  of  the  prerogative, 
promising  to  stand  by  it,  and  to  be  obedient 
without  reserve  to  his  majesty's  commands  ; 
which  addresses  were  printed  in  the  Gazettes, 
and  dispersed  over  the  kingdom.  These  pro- 
ceedings threw  the  people  into  a  ferment :  sev- 
eral of  the  privy  council  deserted  their  stations, 
and  desired  to  be  excused  their  attendance  at 
council ;  some  in  the  admiralty  resigned,  and 
because  they  might  not  petition,  an  association 
was  formed  by  sundry  persons,  and  copied  af- 


all,  they  are  therefore  last  named,  and  are  said  to  be 
last  overcome  by  the  witnesses  and  pourers  forth  of 
the  vials,  as  chap,  xv.,  2." 

Who  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear  this  remark- 
able prediction. — C. 

*  If  we  may  credit  Sir  John  Reresby,  who  says 
he  had  the  whole  storj'  from  Feversham,  to  whose 
intervention  the  revocation  of  the  duke  was  princi- 
pally owing,  the  king's  illness  was  pretended,  and 
the  duke  was  sent  for  with  his  privity,  though  not 
above  four  persons  knew  anything  of  the  matter. 
The  Duke  of  Monmouth,  who  thought  be  bad  the 
king  to  himself,  knew  nothmg  of  it  till  his  highness 
actually  arrived  at  Windsor:  "So  close  and  reserv- 
ed," says  Sir  John,  "could  the  king  be,  when  he 
conceived  it  to  be  necessary."— ilffmoiV.s,  p.  97, 98. — 
Ed.  t  Echard.  p.  9''2,  987. 

t  Dr.  Orey,  by  a  quotation  from  Hornby's  "Ca- 
veat against  the  Whigs,"  brings  a  chartre  aeainst 
these  petitions,  that  the  signatures  were  obtained  by 
bribes  and  impositions.  Such  practices,  if  truly 
stated  in  this  instance,  have  not  been  confined  to 
that  occasion  or  those  times;  but  it  is  not  easy  to 
conceive  that  a  man  of  integrity,  in  any  party,  can 
have  recourse  to  them.  The  proposal  of  adopting 
them  ouffht  to  be  rejected  with  contempt  and  indig- 
nation.—Ed.  f)  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  276. 


ter  the  example  of  that  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time,  for  the  defence  of  his  majesty's  person 
and  the  security  of  the  Protestant  religion,  and 
to  revenge  his  majesty's  death  upon  the  papists, 
if  he  should  come  to  any  violent  death,  a  model 
of  which  was  said  to  be  found  among  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury's  papers.  This  was  resented 
very  highly  at  court,  as  done  without  the  royal 
authority,  and  produced  the  next  year  another 
.set  of  ranting  addresses  from  all  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  in  which  their  lives  and  fortunes 
were  given  up  to  the  king,  and  the  associations 
branded  with  the  names  of  damnable,  cursed, 
execrable,  traitorous,  seditious,  and  a  bond  of 
rebellion,  wliich  they  detest  and  abhor  from 
their  very  souls ;  in  most  of  which  the  Non- 
conformists are  marked  as  enemies  of  the  king 
and  his  government,  and  their  conventicles  as 
the  encouragement  and  life  of  the  associations. 
They  promise  to  stand  by  tlie  duke's  succes- 
sion, and  to  choose  such  meinhers  for  the  next 
Parliament  as  shall  do  the  king's  business  ac- 
cording to  his  mind.  But  notwithstanding  the 
uttnosl  efforts  of  the  court,  the  near  approach 
of  a  popish  successor  awakened  men's  fears, 
and  kept  them  upon  their  guard. 

The  petitioners  for  the  sitting  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  their  adversaries,  the  Abhorrers  of 
such  petitions,  gave  rise  to  the  two  grand  par- 
ties which  have  since  divided  the  natron,  under 
the  distinguishing  names  of  Whig  and  Tory. 

The  Whigs  or  Low  churchmen  were  the 
more  zealous  Protestants,  declared  enemies  of 
popery,  and  willing  to  remove  to  a  farther  dis- 
tance from  their  superstitions  ;  they  were  firm 
to  the  Constitution  and  liberties  of  their  coun- 
try ;  and  for  a  union,  or,  at  Jpast,  a  toleration, 
of  dissenting  Protestants.  The  clergy  of  this 
persuasion  were  generally  ineii  of  larger  prin- 
ciples, and  therefore  were  distinguished  by  the 
name  of  liatitudinarian  divines;  their  laity 
were  remarkable  for  their  zeal  in  promoting 
the  Bill  of  Exclusion,  as  the  only  expedient  to 
secure  the  Protestant  establishment  in  this 
kingdom.  They  were  for  confining  the  royal 
prerogative  within  the  limits  of  the  law,  for 
which  reason  their  adversaries  charged  them 
with  Republican  principles,  and  gave  them  the 
reproachful  name  of  Whigs,  or  sour  milk,  a 
name  first  given  to  the  most  rigid  Scots  cove- 
nanters. 

The  Tories  or  High-churchmen  stood  on  the 
side  of  the  prerogative,  and  were  for  advancing 
the  king  above  law  ;  they  went  into  all  tlie  ar- 
bitrary court  measures,  and  adopted  into  our 
religion,  says  Dr.  Welwood,*  a  Mohainmedan 
principle,  under  the  names  of  passive  obedience 
and  nonresistance,  which,  since  the  times  of 
that  impostor  who  first  broached  it,  has  been 
the  means  to  enslave  a  great  part  of  the 
world.  These  gentlemen  leaned  more  to  a  co- 
alition with  the  papists  than  with  the  Presbyte- 
rians.t  They  cried  up  the  name  and  authority 
of  the  Church,  were  for  forcing  the  Dissenters 
to  conformity,  by  all  kinds  of  coercive  meth- 
ods ;  but,  with  all  their  zeal,  they  were  many 
of  them  persons  of  lax  and  dissolute  morals, 
and  would  risk  the  whole  Protestant  religion 
rather  than  go  into  any  measures  of  exclusion, 
or  limitation  of  a  popish  successor.     Most  of 

*  Memoirs,  p.  125. 

t  Burnet,  Collect.  Debates,  p.  163. 


294 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


the  clergy,  snys  a  member  of  Parliament,  are 
infected  wiih  the  Laudean  principles  of  raising 
money  witlioul  Parliament ;  one  or  two  bish- 
ops give  measures  to  the  rest,  and  they  to  their 
clergy,  so  that  all  derive  llieir  politics  from  one 
or  two,  and  are  under  the  influence  of  an  over- 
awing power.  No  men  did  more  to  enslave  the 
nation,  and  introduce  popery  into  the  establish- 
ment, than  they  :  their  adversaries,  therefore, 
gave  them  the  name  of  Tories,  a  title  first  given 
to  Irish  robbers,  who  lived  upon  plunder,  and 
were  prepared  for  any  daring  or  viUanous  en- 
terprise. 

The  Nonconformists  fell  in  unanimously  with 
the  Whigs  or  Low-churchmen  in  all  points  re- 
lating to  liberty  and  the  civil  constitution,  as 
they  must  always  do  if  they  are  consistent  with 
themselves ;  but  these,  with  their  allies,  were 
not  a  sufficient  balance  for  the  Tories,  the  road 
to  preferment  lying  through  the  territories  of 
power ;  but  they  were  kept  in  heart  with  some 
secret  hopes  that,  by  a  steady  adherence  to  the 
Constitution,  they  should  one  time  or  other  ob- 
tain a  legal  toleration.  But  the  superior  influ- 
ence of  the  Tories  above  the  Whigs  was  the 
occasion  of  the  severities  which  befell  the  Non- 
conformists in  the  latter  part  of  this  reign. 

When  Parliament  met,  October  21,  1680,  the 
Commons  were  very  warm  in  maintaining  the 
Protestant  religion  and  the  privileges  of  Parlia- 
ment.* They  asserted  the  rights  of  the  people 
to  petition  for  the  sitting  of  Parliaments,  and 
■voted  the  Abhorrers  betrayers  of  the  liberties 
of  the  nation.  Among  other  grievances,  they 
complained  that  the  edge  of  the  penal  laws  was 
turned  against  Protestant  Dissenters,  while  the 
papists  remained  in  a  manner  untouched  ;  that 
the  Test  Act  had  little  effect,  because  the  pa- 
pists, either  by  dispensation  obtained  from 
Rome,  submitted  to  those  tests,  and  held  their 
offices  themselves  ;  or  those  put  in  their  places 
were  so  favourable  to  the  same  interest,  that 
popery  itself  had  rather  gained  than  lost  ground 
by  that  act.  They  declared  for  that  very  asso- 
ciation, to  revenge  the  king's  death  upon  the 
papists,  if  his  majesty  should  happen  to  be  as- 
sassinated, which  the  Tories  had  abhorred  ; 
and  in  the  month  of  November  revived  the  bill 
to  disable  the  Duke  of  York  from  inheriting  the 
imperial  crown  of  these  realms.  It  was  intro- 
duced by  Lord  Russel,  and  passed  the  Commons 
by  a  great  majority,  but  was  thrown  out  of  the 
House  of  Lords  by  a  majority  of  thirty  voices,! 
noes  63,  yeas  33,  the  bench  of  bishops  being  in 
the  negative,  and  the  king  present  during  the 
whole  debate.  It  has  been  said  King  Charles 
came  into  the  bill  at  first,  the  favourite  mis- 
tress having  prevailed  with  him  to  abandon  his 
brother  for  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  for  an 


*  Rapin.  vol.  ii.,  p.  714.     Kchard,  p.  995. 

t  Lord  Halifax,  a  man  of  the  clearest  head,  finest 
wit,  and  fairest  eloquence,  who  was  in  judgment 
against  the  bill,  appeared  as  leader  in  opposition  to 
it,  and  made  so  powerful  a  defence,  that  he  alone, 
by  the  confession  of  all,  influenced  the  House,  and 
persuaded  them  to  throw  out  the  bill.  "  One  woild 
have  thought,"  says  Sir  John  Reresby,  "that  so  sig- 
nal a  piece  of  service  had  been  of  a  degree  and  na- 
ture never  to  be  forgotten."  But  when  the  duke  af- 
terward came  to  be  king,  he  removed  Lord  Halifax 
from  the  privy  seal  to  the  presidency  of  t"he  council, 
purely  to  make  room  for  another,  and  in  the  end 
quite  laid  hmi  aside.— Memoirs,  p.  104,  105.— Ed. 


act  of  Parliament  to  enable  bim  to  dispose  of 
the  crown  by  will,  under  certain  restricticms  ; 
but  a  foreign  popish  court  offering  more  money, 
be  opposed  it  to  the  last  * 

The  Parliament  being  inclined  to  relieve  the 
Nonconformists,  appointed  a  committee  No- 
vember 18,  who  agreed  upon  a  comprehension 
with  the  Dissenters,  upon  much  the  same  terms 
with  those  already  mentioned  ;  they  were  to 
subscribe  the  doctrinal  articles  of  ihe  Church  ; 
the  surplice  was  to  be  omitted,  except  in  ca- 
thedrals and  the  king's  chapel ;  the  ceremonies 
to  be  left  indifferent.  And  as  for  such  Prot- 
estants as  could  not  be  comprehended  within 
these  terms,  they  were  to  have  a  toleration, 
and  freedom  from  the  penal  statutes,  upon  con- 
dition of  subscribing  a  declaration  of  allegiance, 
&c.,  and  of  assembling  with  open  doors.  Bish- 
op Burnet  says,  the  bill  for  a  comprehension 
was  offered  by  the  Episcopal  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  but  that  the  friends  of  the  Dis- 
senters did  not  seem  forward  to  promote  it,  be- 
cause, as  Mr.  Baxter  observes,  they  found  the 
bill  would  not  go  ;  or  if  it  had  passed  the  Com- 
mons, it  would  have  been  thrown  out  by  the 
bishops  in  the  House  of  Lords  ;  the  clergy, 
says  Kennet,  being  no  farther  in  earnest  than  as 
they  apprehended  the  knife  of  the  papists  at 
their  throats. 

When  the  above-mentioned  bill  was  brought 
in  the  House  December  21, entitled  "  An  Act  for 
uniting  his  Majesty's  Protestant  Subjects,"  the 
first  gentleman  of  the  court  party  who  spoke 
against  it  observed,  "  that  there  were  a  sort  of 
men  who  would  neither  be  advised  nor  over- 
ruled, but  under  the  pretence  of  conscience 
break  violently  through  all  laws  whatsoever,  to 
the  great  disturbance  both  of  Church  and  State  ; 
therefore  he  thought  it  more  convenient  to  have 
a  law  for  forcing  the  Dissenters  to  yield  to  the 
Church,  and  not  to  fi)rce  the  Church  to  yield  to 
them."  Another  said,  "he  was  afraid,  that  if 
once  the  government  should  begin  to  yield  to 
the  Dissenters,  it  would  be  as  in  forty-one,  no- 
thing would  serve  but  an  utter  subversion  :  the 
receiving  of  one  thing  would  give  occasion  for 
demanding  more ;  and  it  would  be  impossible 
to  give  them  any  satisfaction,  without  laying 
all  open,  and  running  into  confusion. "t  This 
was  the  common  language  of  the  Tories.  And 
there  has  been  a  loud  cry  against  the  Dissent- 
ers, for  their  obstinacy  and  perverseness,  though 
not  a  single  concession  had  been  offered  since 
the  Restoration,  to  let  the  world  see  how  far 
they  would  yield ;  or,  by  receiving  a  denial,  to 
get  an  opportunity  to  reproach  them  with  great- 
er advantage.  But  in  favour  of  the  bill  it  was 
urged  by  others,  "that  it  was  intended  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Church,  and  the  best  bill 
that  could  be  made  in  order  thereto,  all  circum- 
stances considered.  If  we  are  to  deal  with  a 
stubborn  sort  of  people,  who  in  many  things 
prefer  their  humour  before  reason,  or  their  own 
safety,  or  the  public  good,  this  is  a  very  good 
time  to  see  whether  they  will  be  drawn  by  the 
cords  of  love  or  no.  The  bill  will  be  very 
agreeable  to  the  Christian  charity  which  our 
Church  professes ;  and  it  may  be  hoped,  that 
in  the  time  of  this  imminent  danger,  they  will 
consider  their  own  safety,  and  the  safety  of  the 


*  Welvvood's  Mem.,  p.  127.         t  Echard,  p.  999. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


295 


Protestant  religion,  and  no  longer  keep  afoot 
the  unhappy  divisions  among  us,  on  which  the 
papists  ground  their  hopes ;  but  when  they  see 
the  Church  so  far  condescend  as  to  dispense 
with  the  surplice,  and  those  other  things  they 
scruple,  that  they  will  submit  to  the  rest  which 
are  enjoined  by  law,  that  so  we  may  unite 
against  the  common  enemy.  But  if  this  bill 
should  not  have  the  desired  effect,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  Dissenters  should  continue  their 
animosities  and  disobedience  to  the  Church,  I 
think  still  the  Church  will  gain  very  much 
hereby,  and  leave  the  party  without  excuse." 
This  seems  agreeable  to  reason. 

Although  the  bill  for  a  comprehension  was 
committed,  it  did  not  pass  the  House,  being 
changed  for  another,  entitled  "An  Act  to  ex- 
empt his  Majesty's  Protestant  Subjects,  dis- 
senting from  the  Church  of  England,  from  the 
Penalties  imposed  upon  the  Papists  by  the  Act 
of  35ih  Eliz.'"*  By  which  act  Nonconformists 
were  adjudged  to  perpetual  imprisonment,  or 
obliged  to  abjure,  that  is,  depart  the  realm  nev- 
er to  return.  This  terrible  law  had  lain  dor- 
mant ainnost  eighty  years,  hut  was  now  revived, 
and  threatened  to  be  put  in  execution  by  the 
Tories.  The  repeal  passed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons with  a  high  hand,  but  went  heavily  through 
the  House  of  Lords,  the  bishops  apprehending 
that  the  terror  of  the  law  might  be  of  some  use  ; 
but  when  it  should  have  been  offered  to  the 
king  for  the  royal  assent  at  the  close  of  the 
session,  it  was  missing,  and  never  heard  of  any 
more,  the  clerk  of  the  crown  having  withdrawn 
it  from  the  table  by  the  king's  particular  order. 
The  king  (says  Burnett)  had  no  mind  openly  to 
deny  the  bill,  but  less  mind  to  pass  it;  and 
therefore  this  illegal  method  was  taken,  which 
was  a  high  offence  in  the  officer  of  the  House, 
and  would  have  been  severely  punished  in  the 
next  session,  if  the  Parliament  had  not  been 
abruptly  dissolved.  Thus  the  Nonconformists 
were  sawn  to  pieces  between  the  king,  the  bish- 
ops, and  the  Parliament ;  when  one  party  was 
willing:  to  give  them  relief,  the  other  always 
stood  in  the  way.  The  Parliament  was  their 
enemy  for  about  twelve  years,  and  now  they 
are  softened,  the  king  and  the  court  bishops 
are  inflexible  ;  and  his  majesty  will  rather  sac- 
rifice the  Constitution  to  his  despotic  will,  than 
exempt  them  from  an  old  law,  which  subjected 
them  to  banishment  and  death. 

However,  the  morning  before  the  House  was 
prorogued,  January  10,  two  votes  were  passed 
of  a  very  extraordinary  nature  :  "  1.  Resolved 
tiemine  co-nlradiccnte.  That  it  is  the  opinion  of 
this  House,  that  the  acts  of  Parliament  made  \n 
the  reigns  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James 
against  popish  recusants  ought  not  to  be  ex- 
tended against  Protestant  Dissenters.  2.  Re- 
solved, That  it  is  the  opinon  of  this  House, 
that  the  prosecution  of  Protestant  Dissenters 
upon  the  penal  laws  is  at  this  time  grievous  to 
the  subject,  a  weakening  of  the  Protestant  in- 
terest, an  encouragement  to  popery,  and  dan- 
gerous to  the  peace  of  the  kingdom."  Bishop 
Burnett  says  these  resolutions  were  thought 
an  invasion  of  the  Legislature,  when  one  house 
pretended  to  suspend  the  execution  of  the  laws, 
which  was  to  act  like  dictators  in  the  state. 


♦  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  300. 
X  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  301. 


+  Ibid. 


But,  with  all  due  submission,  I  should  think  that 
this  cannot  be  construed  a  suspension  of  those 
laws,  and  that  a  House  of  Commons  which  is 
not  suffered  to  sit  and  repeal  laws,  or  when 
they  have  repealed  them,  have  their  bills  with- 
drawn illegally  by  the  crown,  may  have  liberty 
to  declare  their  judgment  that  the  continuance 
of  those  laws  is  burdensome  to  the  state.  They 
must  do  so,  says  Mr.  Coke,*  in  order  to  a  re- 
peal. If  the  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  old  popish 
act  dc  hcEvelico  comburaido,  for  burning  heretics, 
which  the  Parliament  were  afraid  might  be  re- 
vived in  a  popish  reign,  had  been  lost  in  this 
manner,  might  not  the  Parliament  have  decla- 
red the  execution  of  tliat  law  a  weakening  to 
the  Protestant  interest,  or  dangerous  to  the 
peace  of  the  kingdom  1 

While  the  Parliament  was  endeavouring  to  ^ 
relieve  the  Dissenters,  and  charging  the  miser- 
ies of  the  kingdom  upon  the  papists,  many  of 
the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land were  pleased  to  see  the  court  inclined  to 
prosecute  the  Nonconformists.  The  clergy  in 
general,  says  Rapin,  t  were  attached  to  the 
court ;  men  of  doubtful  religion  were  promoted, 
and  there  was  reason  to  charge  them  with  lean- 
ing to  popery.  Even  some  able  champions 
against  popery  went  so  far  into  the  court  meas- 
ures as  to  impute  the  calamities  of  the  times  to 
the  Nonconformists,  and  to  raise  the  cry  of  the 
populace  against  them.  Dr.  Edward  Stilling- 
fleet,  who  had  written  an  Irenicum  in  favour 
of  liberty,  and  against  impositions,  in  his  ser- 
mon before  the  lord-mayor.  May  2,  this  year,  en- 
titled "The  Mischief  of  Separation,"  condemn- 
ed all  the  Dissenters  as  schismatics,  and  very 
gravely  advised  them  not  to  complain  of  perse- 
cution. When  the  sermon  was  published,  it 
brought  upon  the  doctor  several  learned  adver- 
saries, as  Mr.  Baxter,  Mr.  Alsop,  Mr.  Howe,  Mr. 
Barrett,  and  Dr.  Owen,  from  which  last  divine, 
who  wrote  with  great  temper  and  seriousness, 
I  will  venture  to  transcribe  the  following  pas- 
sage, without  entering  into  the  argument  :t 
"  After  so  many  of  the  Nonconformists  have 
died  in  common  jails,"  says  the  doctor,  "so 
many  have  endured  long  imprisonments,  not  a 
few  being  at  this  day  in  the  same  durance  ;  so 
many  driven  from  their  habitations  into  a  wan- 
dering condition,  to  preserve  for  a  while  the 
liberty  of  their  persons  ;  so  many  have  been  re- 
duced to  want  and  penury,  by  the  taking  away 
their  goods,  and  from  some  the  very  instru- 
ments of  their  livelihood  ;  after  the  prosecu- 
tion that  has  been  against  them  in  all  courts  of 
justice  in  this  nation,  on  informations,  indict- 
ments, and  suits,  to  the  great  charge  of  all  who 
have  been  so  persecuted,  and  tlie  ruin  of  some  ; 
after  so  many  ministers  and  their  families  have 
been  brought  into  the  utmost  outward  straits 
which  nature  can  subsist  under;  after  all  their 
perpetual  fears  and  dangers  wherewith  they 
have  been  exercised  and  disquieted,  they  think 
it  hard  to  be  censured  for  complaining,  by  them 
who  are  at  ease."  The  doctor  endeavoured  to 
support  his  charge  by  the  suffrage  of  the  French 
Presbyterians  ;  and  Compton,  bishop  of  Lr)ndon, 
applied  to  Monsieur  le  Moyne,  and  several  oth- 
ers,<J  for  their  opinions  ;  as  if  truth  were  to  be 
determined  by  numbers  ;  or  as  if  the  English 

♦  Page  661.        t  Page  711.        %  Page  53,54. 
(i  Collyer,  p.  900. 


296 


HISTORY    OF   THE   PURITANS. 


Presbyterians  could  pay  a  vast  deference  to 
Ihrir  judgments,  who  had  so  deceived  them  at 
the  Resioralion.  The  ministers,  bred  up  in 
French  complaisance  and  under  French  sla- 
very, afler  high  strains  of  compliment  to  the 
English  bishops,  declared  that  they  were  of 
opinion  their  brethren  might  comply,*  and  that 
they  were  not  for  pushing  things  to  extremity 
only  for  a  different  form  of  government,  which 
the  doctor  and  his  friends  interpreted  as  a  de- 
cision in  their  favour.  But  did  not  the  bishops 
exasperate  the  spirits  of  their  dissenting  breth- 
ren by  enforcing  the  sanguinary  laws  ;  Were 
these  Protestant  methods  of  conversion,  or  like- 
ly to  bring  them  to  temper !  The  French  minis- 
ters complained  sufficiently  of  this  about  five 
years  after,  at  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantz.  Bishop  Burnet  remarks  of  Dr.  Stilling- 
*  fleet  on  this  occasion, t  that  he  not  only  retract- 
ed his  "  Irenicum,"  but  went  into  the  humours 
of  the  high  sort  of  people  beyond  what  became 
him,  perhaps  beyond  his  own  sense  of  things. 

This  year  [1680]  died  Mr.  Stephen  Charnock, 
B.D.,  first  of  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge,  and 
afterward  lellow  of  New  College,  Oxford.  He 
was  chaplain  to  Henry  Cromwell,  lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  and  was  much  respected  by  persons  of 
the  best  quality  in  the  city  of  Dublm  for  his  po- 
lite behaviour.  After  the  Restoration  he  re- 
turned into  England,  and  became  pastor  of  a 
separate  congregation  in  London,  where  he  was 
admired  by  the  more  judicious  part  of  his  hear- 
ers, though  not  popular,  because  of  his  disad- 
vantageous way  of  reading  with  a  glass  ;t  he 
was  an  eminent  divine,  and  had  a  good  judg- 
ment, a  curious  imagination,  and  a  strong  man- 
ner of  reasoning,  as  ai)pears  by  his  works  print- 
ed since  his  death  in  two  volumes  folio,  which 
■were  no  other  than  his  common  sermons  trans- 
cribed from  his  notes  \^  his  style  is  manly  and 
lofty,  and  his  thoughts  sublime :  his  love  and 
charity  were  very  extensive,  and  there  was  no 


*■  Mr.  Neal,  it  seems,  has  fallen  into  a  mistake,  by 
supposing  that  the  French  Presbyterians  favoured 
English  Episcopacy.  Their  answers  were  complai- 
sant, but  wary.  Yet  Stillinglleet  published  iheir 
letters  as  suffrages  for  Episcopacy,  and  annexed 
them  to  his  Treatise  on  Schism.  Mr.  Claude,  one 
of  those  written  to,  complained  of  this  treatment; 
but  the  letters  which  contained  these  complaints 
were  concealed  till  his  death,  when  his  son  printed 
them.  In  one  of  them  to  Bishop  Gompton,  April, 
1681,  he  freely  told  him  that  the  bishops  were  bla- 
med for  their  eagerness  to  i)ersecute  others  by  penal 
laws ;  for  their  arbitrary  and  despotic  government ; 
for  their  rigid  attachment  to  offensive  ceremonies ; 
for  requiring  foreign  Protestant  ministers  to  be  reor- 
dained;  and  for  not  admitting  any  to  the  ministry 
without  making  an  oath  that  Episcopacy  is  of  Di- 
viie- right,  which  Mr.  Claude  called  a  cruel  rack  for 
conscience.  He  solemnly  called  on  the  bishops,  in 
the  name  of  God,  to  remove  these  grounds  of  com- 
plaint, to  give  no  cause,  no  pretext,  for  separation,  to 
do  all  in  their  power  to  prevent  it,  and,  instead  of 
chafing  and  irritating  people's  minds,  by  all  gentle 
methods  to  conciliate  them.  This  was  excellent  ad- 
vice, but  the  public  were  not  informed  that  it  had 
been  given  by  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed. — 
Eobinson's  Life  of  Claude,  jirelixed  to  his  translation 
of  an  Essay  on  the  Con.position  of  Sermons,  p.  65-07. 
—Ed.  t  Vol.  i.,  p.  276. 

%  In  his  early  ministry  he  used  no  notes,  and  was 
very  popular  as  a  preacher. — C. 

()  Calamy,  vol.  li.,  p.  56.  Palmer's  Non.  Mem., 
vol.  i.,  p.  159. 


part  of  learning  to  which  he  was  a  stranger.* 
He  died  .Inly  20,  1680,  aged  fifty-two. 

[On  December  26,  1680,  died  at  London, 
where  he  came  to  be  cut  for  the  stone,  with 
which  he  was  many  years  afflicted,  Mr.  John 
Corbet,  ejected  from  Bramshot  in  Hants  ;  a. 
man  every  way  great.  He  was  a  native  of  the 
city  of  Gloucester,  and  a  student  in  Magdalen 
Hall,  Ox(m.  He  began  his  ministry  in  the  place 
of  his  nativity,  and  lived  many  years  there,  and. 
during  the  civil  wars,  of  whicli  he  was  a  spec- 
tator. He  wrote  the  history  of  the  siege  of  the 
city,  and  is  thought  to  have  given  as  good  an 
insight  into  the  rise  and  springs  of  the  civil  war 
as  can  be  met  with  in  so  narrow  a  compass. 
He  removed  from  thence  to  Chichester,  and 
then  to  the  living  from  which  he  was  ejected. 
After  this  he  lived  privately  in  and  about  Lon- 
don, till  King  Charles's  indulgence  in  1671, 
when  part  of  his  flock  invited  him  to  return  to 
Chichester,  where  he  continued  his  ministra- 
tions with  great  assiduity  and  success.  It  was 
during  his  residence  there  that  Bishop  Gunning; 
gave  a  public  challenge  to  the  Presbyterians,. 
Independents,  Baptists,  and  Quakers.  (See 
chapter  viii.,  part  iv.)  Mr.  Corbet  accepted  it 
on  behalf  of  the  first  ;  but,  after  the  bishop  had 
fired  his  own  volley  of  invectives,  Mr.  Corbet 
was  not  permitted  to  enter  into  a  defence  ;  nor, 
though  he  proposed  to  do  it  at  any  other  time 
and  waited  on  the  bishop  at  his  palace,  coulcl 
he  afterward  obtain  a  hearing.  He  was  a  maa 
of  great  moderation,  a  lover  of  peace,  an  advo- 
cate for  catholic  communion  and  union  of  saints,, 
and  of  blameless  conversation.  He  saw  some 
things  to  approve  and  some  things  to  dislike  in 
all  parties,  and  valued  not  the  interest  of  a  party 
or  faction.  True  to  his  conscience,  he  had  no 
worldly  designs  to  carry  on,  but  was  eminent 
in  self-denial,  and  managed  his  ministry  with 
faithfulness  and  prudence.  He  was  tender  of 
the  reputation  of  his  brethren,  and  rejoiced  in 
the  success  of  their  labours  as  well  as  of  his 
own.  Nor  was  he  apt  to  speak  against  those 
by  whom  he  suffered.  He  was  very  free  in  ac- 
knowledging by  whom  he  profiled,  and  prefer- 
ring others  before  himself  He  was  much  in. 
the  study  of  his  own  heart,  had  the  comfort  or 
sensible  improvements  in  faith  and  holiness,  hu- 
mility and  heavenly-mindednes.s,  and  died  at 
last  in  great  serenity  and  peace.  He  had  a  con- 
siderable hand  in  compiling  Mr.  Rushworth's 
first  voluine  of  "  Collections,"  which  is  reckon- 
ed by  good  judges  a  masterpiece  of  the  kind. 
His  "  Self-employment  in  Secret,"  an  excellent- 
small  piece,  recommended  lately  by  Mr.  Bulk- 
ley  in  his  "  Christian  Minister,"  has  gone 
through  various  editions.  Mr.  Howe  wrote  a 
preface  to  it.  Dr.  Wright  reprinted  it  in  1741, 
and  the  Rev.  William  Unwin,  rector  of  Stock 
cum  Ramsden  Belhouse,  Essex,  published  it 
again  in  1773  with  the  encomiums  of  a  celebra- 
ted minister  of  the  Church  of  England  upon  it, 


*  Mr.  Johnson,  who  preached  his  funeral  sermon, 
.says,  "he  never  knew  a  man  in  all  his  life  who  had 
attained  near  to  that  skill  Mr.  Charnock  had,  in  the 
originals  ot  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  except  Mr. 
Thomas  Cawton."— (^'a/'g-tr,  vol.  ill.,  p.  308.— Ed. 
One  of  the  ablest  preachers  of  the  present  century  in 
the  United  States  used  to  advise  his  students  to  be- 
come masters  of  Charnock's  works,  and  stated  that 
he  had  read  them  with  deeper  mterest  than  those  of 
any  other  English  divine. — C. 


Erwraved, by  Gwiber.ijvnv  a,  /jz^»  fri/u 


ii.ij-pi'i-icRroLhers. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


297 


as  "  the  beet  manual  he  knew  for  a  Christian 
or  a  minister,  furnishing  excellent  materials  for 
addressing  conscience,  and  directing  men  to 
judge  of  their  spiritual  state." — Calamy,  vol.  ii., 
p.  333.  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  4. 
—Ed.] 

The  king  having  parted  with  his  last  Parlia- 
ment in  displeasure,  without  being  able  to  ob- 
tain any  money,  resolved  once  more  to  try  a 
new  one  ;*  and  apprehending  that  the  malecon- 
tents  were  encouraged  by  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  city  of  London,  he  summoned  them  to  meet 
at  Oxford  :  the  same  representatives  being  re- 
chosen  for  London,  had  a  paper  put  into  their 
hands  by  four  merchants,  in  the  name  of  all  the 
citizens  then  assembled  in  the  Coinmon  Hall, 
containing  a  return  of  their  most  hearty  thanks 
for  their  faithful  and  unwearied  endeavours  in 
the  last  two  Parliaments,  to  search  into  the 
depth  of  the  Popish  Plot,  to  preserve  the  Prot- 
estant religion,  to  promote  a  union  among  his 
majesty's  Protestant  subjects,  to  repeal  the 
35th  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  Corporation  Act,  and 
to  promote  the  Bill  of  Exchision,  and  to  request 
their  continuance  of  the  same.  The  members 
being  afraid  of  violence,  were  attended  to  Ox- 
ford with  a  numerous  body  of  horse,  having 
ribands  in  their  hats  with  this  motto,  "No  po- 
pery— no  slavery,"  the  citizens  having  promised 
to  stand  by  them  with  their  lives  and  fortunes. 
Many  other  papers  of  the  like  nature  were  pre- 
sented to  the  members  in  the  several  counties. 
The  king,  in  his  speech  at  the  opening  of  the 
session,  March  21,  reflected  severely  on  the  last 
Parliament,  and  said,  He  was  resolved  to  main- 
tain the  succession  of  the  crown  in  the  right 
line,  and  for  quieting  people's  fears,  he  was  will- 
ing to  put  the  administration  into  the  hands  of 
a  Protestant  regent ;  but  the  Commons  rejected 
the  proposal,  to  the  inexpressible  joy  of  the 
duke's  party,  and  ordered  the  Bill  of  Exclusion 
to  be  brought  in  again.  In  the  mean  time,  a 
motion  was  made  to  consider  of  the  loss  of  the 
bill  in  favour  of  the  Dissenters  last  Parliament. 
Sir  William  Jones  said,  "  The  bill  was  of  great 
moment  and  service  to  the  country,  and  might 
be  to  their  lives,  in  the  time  of  a  popish  succes- 
sor ;  but  be  the  bill  what  it  will,  the  precedent 
was  of  the  highest  consequence  ;  the  king  has 
a  negative  to  all  bills,  but  surely  the  clerk  of  the 
Parliament  has  not.  If  this  way  be  found  out, 
that  bills  shall  be  thrown  by,  it  may  hereafter 
be  said  they  were  forgot  and  laid  by,  and  so  we 
shall  never  know  whether  the  king  passed  them 
or  no  :  if  this  be  suffered,  'tis  in  vain  to  spend 
time  here."  In  conclusion,  this  affair  was  re- 
ferred to  a  conference  with  the  House  of  Lords, 
which  was  frustrated  by  the  hasty  dissolution 
of  the  Parliament. 

The  next  went  upon  the  libel  of  one  Fitz- 
Harris,  an  Irish  papist,  which  was  a  second 
Meal-tub  Plot,  promoted  in  the  name  of  the 
Nonconformists  ;t  the  libel  was  to  be  sent  by 
penny-post  letters  to  the  Lords  who  had  pro- 
tested in  favour  of  the  Bill  of  liixclusion,  and  to 
the  leading  men  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
who  were  immediately  to  be  apprehended  and 
searched.  Everard,  who  was  Filz  Harris's  con- 
fidant, and  betrayed  the  secret,  afiirmed  that 
the  king  himself  was  privy  to  it,  as  Fitz- Harris's 


King  nimseii  was  privy  lo  ii,  as  r 

♦  Echard,  p.  1002.     Kapin,  vol.  ii., 
t  Burnet,  p.  303,  304. 


p.  720. 


T  Durnei,  y 
Vol   II.— P 


wife  averred  to  a  person  of  worth  many  years 
after  ;  that  his  majesty  had  given  Fitz-Harri." 
money,  and  promised  him  more  if  it  met  wiih 
success.  The  libel  was  to  traduce  the  king  and 
the  royal  family  as  papists,  and  arbitrarily  af- 
fected from  the  beginning,  and  says  that  King 
Charles  I.  had  a  hand  in  the  Irish  rebellion  ; 
that  the  act  forbidding  to  call  the  king  a  papist 
was  only  to  stop  men's  mouths,  and  that  it 
was  as  much  in  the  power  of  the  people  to  de 
pose  a  popish  possessor  as  a  popish  successor. 
It  was  entitled  "  The  True  Englishman  speak- 
ing Plain  English  ;"  and  adds,  "  If  James  be 
conscious  and  guilty,  Charles  is  so  too  ;  be- 
lieve me,  these  two  brothers  in  iniquity  are  irr 
confederacy  with  the  pope  and  the  French  to 
introduce  popery  and  arbitrary  government,  and 
to  cast  off  Parliaments,  Magna  Charta,  and  the 
liberty  of  the  subject,  as  heavy  yokes,  and  to 
be  as  arbitrary  as  the  King  of  France.  Let  the 
English  move  and  rise  as  one  man  to  self  de- 
fence ;  blow  the  trumpet,  stand  on  your  guard, 
and  withstand  them  as  bears  and  tigers.  Trust 
to  your  swords  in  defence  of  your  lives,  liber- 
ties, and  religion,  like  the  stout  earl  of  old,  who 
told  his  king  if  he  could  not  be  defended  by 
Magna  Charta,  he  would  be  relieved  by  longa, 
spada."  He  goes  on  to  reproach  the  king  with 
the  breach  of  his  Scots  oaths,  Breda  prom- 
ises, Protestant  profession,  liberty  of  con- 
science, as  designed  only  to  delude  Protest- 
ants ;  and  puts  him  in  mind  of  all  his  political 
and  moral  vices,  as  intended  to  debauch  the 
nation,  to  promote  the  popish  religion  and  arbi- 
trary government,  &c.  Thus  were  the  Non- 
conlbrmists  to  be  exposed  again  to  the  resent- 
ments of  the  nation  ;  but  when  the  sham  was 
discovered  to  the  House  of  Commons  by  Sir 
William  Waller,  he  received  the  thanks  of  the 
House,  and  Fitz-Harris,  though  impeached  in 
Parliament,  was  tried  by  a  jury,  and  executed 
with  Dr.  Plunket,  the  titular  primate  of  Ireland. 
The  Whigs  would  have  saved  Fitz-Harris, 
though  a  papist,  in  hopes  of  his  being  an  evi- 
dence in  the  Popish  Plot ;  but  the  court  was 
resolved  to  despatch  him  out  of  the  way,  that 
he  might  tell  no  more  tales. 

His  majesty,  hearing  that  the  Bill  of  Exclu- 
sion was  to  be  brought  into  the  House  again, 
went  suddenly,  and  not  very  decently,  says 
Burnet,*  to  the  House  of  Lords  in  a  sedan,  with 
the  crown  between  his  feet,  and  having  put  on 
his  robes  in  haste,  called  up  the  Commons,  and 
dissolved  his  fifth  and  last  Parliament,  after 
they  had  sat  only  seven  days.  As  soon  as  his 
majesty  got  out  of  the  House,  he  posted  away  in 
all  haste  to  Windsor,  as  one  that  was  glad  he 
had  got  rid  of  his  Parliament,  which  was  the 
last  that  he  ever  convened,  though  he  lived 
three  or  four  years  after.  .\nd  here  was  an 
end  of  the  Constitution  and  liberties  of  England 
for  the  present ;  all  that  followed,  to  the  king's 
death,  was  no  more  than  the  convulsions  and 
struggles  of  a  dying  man.  The  king  raised 
what  money  he  wanted  without  Parliaments  ; 
he  took  away  all  the  charters  of  England,  and 
governed  absolutely  by  dint  of  prerogative. 
April  the  8th,  the  king  published  a  declaration^ 


«   Burnet,  p.  306. 

+  It  was  observed,  Dr.  Calamy  says,  that  "  this 
declaration  was  known  by  M.  Barillon,  the  French 
ambassador,  and  by  the  Duchess  of  Mazarine,  soon- 


208 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


to  all  his  loving  subjects  touching  the  causes 
and  reasons  that  moved  him  to  dissolve  the 
last-  two  Parliaments,  and  ordered  it  to  be  read 
in  all  the  ciiiircbes  and  chapels  throughout  Eng- 
Jand.  It  contams  a  recital  of  his  majesty's 
condescensions  (or  the  security  of  the  Protest- 
ant religion,  as  far  as  was  consistent  with  the 
succession  of  the  crown  in  the  lineal  descent, 
and  a  large  rehearsal  of  the  unsuitable  returns 
of  tiie  (Jommons.  But  notwithstanding  all  this, 
says  his  majesty,  let  not  those  men  who  are 
labouring  to  poison  our  people  with  common- 
wealth principles  persuade  any  of  our  subjects 
that  we  intend  to  lay  aside  the  use  of  Parlia- 
ments, for  we  still  declare  that  no  irregularities 
in  Parliaments  shall  make  us  out  of  love  with 
them  ;  and  we  are  resolved,  by  the  blessing  of 
God.  to  have  frequent  Parliaments;"  although 
he  never  called  another.  Several  anonymous 
remarks  were  made  upon  this  declaration,  to 
weaken  its  influence.  But  the  court  used  all 
its  interest  among  the  people  to  support  its 
credit  :  addresses  were  sent  from  all  parts, 
thanking  his  majesty  for  his  declaration,  prom- 
ising to  support  his  person  and  government 
with  their  lives  and  fortunes.  Most  of  them 
declared  against  the  Bill  of  Exclusion,  and  for 
the  duke's  succession,*  as  has  been  observed. 
Some  ventured  to  arraign  the  late  Parliament 
as  guilty  of  sedition  and  treason,  and  to  pray 
his  majesty  to  put  in  execution  the  statute  of 
3.')  Elizabeth  against  the  Nonconformists.  The 
grand  juries,  the  justices  at  their  sessions,  di- 
vers boroughs  and  corporations,  the  companies 
in  towns,  and  at  last  the  very  apprentices,  sent 
up  addresses.  Tliose  who  presented  or  pro- 
cured them  were  well  treated  at  court,  and 
some  of  them  knighted.  Many  zealous  healths 
were  drank,  and  in  their  cups  the  swaggerings 
of  the  old  Cavaliers  seemed  to  be  revived.  One 
of  the  most  celebrated  addresses  was  from  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  presented  by  Dr.  Cow- 
er, master  of  St.  John's,  which  I  shall  give  the 
reader  as  a  specimen  of  the  rest.  It  begins 
thus  :  "  Sacred  sir  !  We,  your  majesty's  most 
faithful  and  obedient  subjects,  have  long,  with 
the  greatest  and  sincerest  joy,  beheld  the  gen- 
erous emulation  of  our  fellow-subjects,  contend- 
ing who  should  best  express  their  duty  to  their 
sovereign  at  this  time,  when  the  seditious  en- 
deavours of  unreasonable  men  have  made  it 
necessary  to  assert  the  ancient  loyalty  of  the 
English  nation.  It  is  at  present  the  great  hon- 
our ol'  this  your  university,  not  only  to  be  stead- 
fast and  constant  in  our  duty,  but  to  be  emi- 
nently so,  and  to  sufTer  for  it  as  much  as  the 
calumnies  and  reproaches  of  factious  and  mali- 
ci()us  men  can  inflict  upon  us.  And  that  they 
have  not  proceeded  to  sequestration  and  plun- 
der, as  heretofore,  ne.xt  to  the  overruling  ()rovi- 
dence  of  Almighty  God,  is  only  due  to  the  royal 
care  and  prudence  of  your  most  sacred  majes- 
ty, who  gave  so  seasonable  a  check  to  their 
arbitrary  and  insolent  undertakings.  We  still 
believe  and  maintain  that  our  kings  derive  not 
their  power  from  the  people,  but  from  God  ; 

er  than  by  the  king's  council,  and  that  it  was  evi- 
denced to  be  of  French  extraction  by  the  Gallici.sms 
in  It;  and,  withal,  it  had  no  broad  seal  to  it,  and 
was  sifjned  only  by  a  clerk  of  the  council."— Ou)n 
Life,  MS.,  p.  74.— Ed. 

*  Burnei,  vol.  ii..  p.  308,  309. 


that  to  him  only  they  are  accountable ;  that  it 
belongs  not  to  subjects  either  to  create  or  cen- 
sure, hut  to  honour  and  obey  their  sovereign, 
who  comes  to  be  so  by  a  fundamental, Xieredi- 
tary  right  of  succession,  which  no  religion,  no 
law,  no  fault  or  forfeiture,  can  alter  or  dimin- 
ish ;  nor  will  we  abate  of  our  well- instructed 
zeal  for  the  Church  of  England  as  by  law  es- 
tablished. Thus  we  have  learned  our  own,  and 
thus  we  teach  others  their  duty  to  God  and  the 
king."  His  majesty  discovered  an  unusual  sat- 
isfaction on  this  occasion  ;  and,  having  return- 
ed them  thanks,  was  pleased  to  add,  that  no 
other  church  in  the  world  taught  and  practised 
loyalty  so  conscientiously  as  they  did. 

As  such  abject  and  servile  flattery  could  not 
fail  of  pleasing  the  king,  it  must  necessarily 
draw  down  vengeance  on  the  Nonconformists, 
who  joined  in  n(me  of  their  addresses,  but  were 
doomed  to  suffer  under  a  double  character,  as 
Whigs  and  as  Dissenters.  "This,"  says  Bish- 
op Burnet,*  "  was  set  on  by  the  papists,  and  it 
was  wisely  done  of  them,  for  they  knew  how 
much  the  Nonconformists  were  set  against 
them.  They  made  use,  also,  of  the  indiscreet 
zeal  of  the  High  Church  clergymen  to  ruin 
them,  which  they  knew  would  render  the  cler- 
gy odious,  and  give  the  papist  great  advantage 
when  opportunity  offered."  The  times  were 
boisterous  and  stormy  ;  sham  plots  were  con- 
trived, and  warrants  issued  against  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Wliig  party  for  seditious  language  ; 
Shaftesbury,  now  called  the  Protestant  earl, 
was  sent  to  the  Tower,  and  Stephen  College, 
the  Protestant  joiner,  was  carried  to  Oxford, 
and  hanged,  after  the  grand  jury  in  London  had 
brought  in  a  bill  of  indictment  against  him  ig/io- 
ramits.  W^itnesses  were  imported  from  Ireland, 
and  employed  to  swear  away  men's  lives.  "  The 
court  intended  to  set  them  to  swear  against  all 
the  hot  party,  which  was  plainly  murder  in 
them  who  believed  them  false  witnesses,"  says 
Burnet, t  "  and  yet  made  use  of  them  to  destroy 
others."'  Spies  were  planted  in  all  coffee-hous- 
es to  furnish  out  evidence  for  the  witnesses. 
Mercenary  justices  were  put  into  commission 
all  over  the  kingdom  ;  juries  were  packed  ;  and, 
with  regard  to  the  Nonconformists,  informers 
of  the  vilest  of  the  people  were  countenanced 
to  a  shameful  degree,  insomuch  that  the  jails 
were  quickly  filled  with  prisoners,  and  large 
sums  of  money  extorted  from  the  industrious 
and  conscientious,  and  played  into  the  hands  ol 
the  most  profligate  wretches  in  the  nation. 

The  justices  of  Middlesex  showed  great  for- 
wardness, and  represented  to  his  majesty  in 
December,  "that  an  intimation  of  his  pleasure 
was  necessary  at  this  time  to  the  putting  the 
laws  in  execution  against  conventicles,  because, 
when  a  charge  was  lately  given  at  the  council- 
board  to  put  the  laws  in  execution  against  po- 
pish recusants,  no  mention  was  made  of  sup- 
pressing conventicles."  Upon  this,  his  majesty 
commanded  the  lord-mayor,  aldermen,  and  jus- 
tices to  use  their  utmost  endeavour  to  suppress 
all  conventicles  and  unlawful  meetings,  upon 
pretence  of  religious  worship  ;  for  it  was  his  ex- 
press pleasure  that  the  laws  be  effectually  put 
in  execution  against  them,  both  in  city  and 
country.  Accordingly,  the  justices  of  peace,  at 
their  sessions  at  Hicks's  Hall,  January  i:}.  or- 


*  Page  306. 


t  Page  315. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


299 


dered,  "  that  whereas  the  constables  and  church- 
wardens, &c.,  of  every  parish  and  precinct  with- 
in the  said  county  had  been  enjoined  last  ses- 
sions to  make  a  return  the  first  of  this  of  the 
names  of  the  preachers  in  conventicles,  and 
the  most  considerable  frequenters  of  the  same 
within  their  several  limiis  ;  which  order  not  be- 
ing obeyed,  but  contemned  by  some,  it  was 
therefore  by  the  justices  then  assembled  desired 
that  the  Lord-bishop  of  London  will  please  to 
direct  those  officers  which  are  under  his  juris- 
diction to  use  their  utmost  diligence  that  all 
such  persons  may  be  excommunicated  who  com- 
mit crimes  deserving  the  ecclesiastical  censure ; 
and  that  the  said  excommunications  may  be 
published  in  the  parishes  where  the  persons  live, 
that  they  may  be  taken  notice  of,  and  be  obvi- 
ous to  the  penalties  that  belong  to  persons  ex- 
communicated, viz.,  not  to  be  admitted  for  a 
■witness,  or  returned  upon  juries,  or  capable  of 
suing  for  any  debt."  They  farther  ordered,  at 
the  same  time,  "that  the  statute  of  the  first  of 
Elizabeth  and  third  of  King  James  be  put  in  due 
execution,  for  the  levying  of  twelve-pence  per 
Sunday  upon  such  persons  who  repaired  not  to 
Divine  service  and  sermons  at  their  parish  or 
some  other  public  church."  All  which,  says 
Mr.  Echard,  made  way  for  all  sorts  of  prosecu- 
tions both  in  city  and  country,  which  in  many 
places  were  carried  on  with  great  spite  and  se- 
verity, where  there  never  wanted  busy  agents 
and  informers,  of  which  a  few  were  sufficient 
to  put  the  laws  in  execution  ;  so  that  the  Dis- 
senters this  year,  and  much  longer,  says  he.  met 
with  cruel  and  unchristian  usage  ;  which  occa- 
sioned great  complaints  among  the  people,  and 
some  severe  reflections  on  the  king  himself. 

It  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  Church  Whigs 
to  relieve  the  Nonconformists,  nor  screen  them 
from  the  edge  of  the  penal  laws,  which  were  in 
the  hands  of  their  enemies.  AH  that  could  be 
done  was  to  encourage  their  constancy,  and  to 
write  some  compassionate  treatises  to  move  the 
people  in  their  favour,  by  showing  them,  that 
■while  they  were  plundering  and  destroying  their 
Protestant  dissenting  neighbours,  they  were 
cutting  the  throat  of  the  Reformed  religion,  and 
making  way  for  the  triumphs  of  popery  upon  its 
ruins.  Among  other  writings  of  this  sort,  the 
most  famous  was,  "The  Conlbrmists'  Plea  for 
the  Nonconformists,"  in  four  parts,  by  a  bene- 
ficed minister  and  a  regular  son  of  the  Church 
o(  England.  In  which  the  author  undertakes 
to  show,  L  The  greatness  of  their  sufTerings. 
2.  The  hardships  of  their  case.  3.  The  reason- 
ableness and  equity  of  their  proposals  for  union. 
4.  The  qualifications  and  worth  of  their  minis- 
'ters.  5.  Their  peaceable  behaviour.  6.  Their 
agreement  with  the  Church  of  England  in  the 
articles  of  her  faith.  7.  The  prejudice  to  the 
Church  by  their  exclusion  ;  and  then  concludes 
with  the  infamous  lives  and  lamentable  deaths 
of  several  of  the  informers.  It  was  a  sensible 
and  moving  performance,  but  had  no  influence 
on  the  Tory  justices  and  tribe  of  informers. 
There  was  no  stemming  the  tide ;  every  one 
■who  was  not  a  furious  Tory,  says  Ilapin,  was 
reputed  a  Presbyterian. 

Most  of  the  clergy  were  with  the  court,  and 
distmguished  themselves  on  the  side  of  perse- 
cution. The  pulpits  everywhere  resounded  with 
the  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and  nonre- 


sistance,  which  were  carried  to  all  the  heights 
of  King  Charles  I.  No  Eastern  monarch,  ac- 
cording to  them,  was  more  absolute  than  the 
Kuig  of  England.*  They  expressed  such  a 
zeal  for  the  duke's  succession,  as  if  a  popish 
king  over  a  Protestant  country  had  been  a  spe- 
cial blessing  from  Heaven.  They  likewise  gave 
themselves  such  a  loose  against  Protestant  Non- 
conformists, as  if  nothing  was  so  formidable  as 
that  party.  In  all  their  sermons  popery  was 
quite  lorgot,  says  Burnet,  and  the  force  of  their 
zeal  was  turned  almost  wholly  against  Protest- 
ant Dissenters.  In  many  country  places  the 
parson  of  the  parish,  who  could  bully,  and  drink, 
and  swear,  was  put  into  the  commission  of  the 
peace,  and  made  a  confiding  justice,  by  which 
ineans  he  was  both  judge  and  party  in  his  own 
cause.  If  any  of  his  sober  parishioners  did  not 
appear  at  church,  they  were  sure  to  be  sum- 
moned, and  instead  of  the  mildness  and  gentle- 
ness of  a  Christian  clergyman,  they  usually  met 
with  haughty  and  abusive  language,  and  the 
utmost  rigour  the  law  could  inflict.  There  was 
also  a  great  change  made  in  the  commissions 
throughout  England.  A  set  of  confiding  magis- 
trates was  appointed  ;  and  none  were  left  on 
the  bench,  or  in  the  militia,  that  did  not  declare 
for  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  court ;  and 
such  of  the  clergy  as  were  averse  to  thi-s  fury 
were  declaimed  against  as  betrayers  of  the 
Church,  and  secret  favourers  of  the  Dissenters ; 
but  the  truth  is,  says  the  bishop,  the  number  of 
sober,  honest  clergymen  was  not  great,  for  where 
the  carcass  is,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered 
together.  The  scent  of  preferment  will  draw 
aspiring  men  after  it.  Upon  the  whole,  the 
present  times  were  very  lowering,  and  the  pros- 
pect under  a  popish  successor  still  more  threat- 
ening. 

It  would  fill  a  volume  to  enter  into  all  the  par- 
ticulars of  these  unchristian  proceedings,  which 
even  the  black  registers  of  the  spiritual  courts 
cannot  fully  unfold.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Edward 
Bury,  assisting  at  a  private  fast,  on  account  of 
the  extraordinary  drought,  was  apprehended 
June  14,  and  fined  £20 ;  and  refusing  to  pay  it, 
because  he  did  not  preach,  they  took  away  his 
goods,  books,  and  even  the  bed  he  lay  upon. 
The  Rev.  Mr.  Philip  Henry  was  apprehended  at 
the  same  time,  and  fined  £40,  and  for  nonpay- 
ment, they  carried  away  thirty-three  loads  of 
corn  ■which  lay  cut  upon  the  ground,  together 
with  hay,  coals,  and  other  chattels.  The  in- 
formers took  the  names  of  one  hundred  and  fif- 
ty more  who  were  at  the  meeting :  they  fined 
the  master  of  the  house  £20,  and  .£5  more  as 
being  constable  that  year,  and  exacted  5s.  a 
head  from  all  who  were  present.  Examples  of 
this  usage  in  London,  Middlesex,  and  most  of 
the  counties  of  England,  arc  innumerable. 

The  Quakers  published  a  narrative  of  the  suf- 
ferings of  their  friends  since  the  Restoration,  by 
which  it  appeared  that  great  numbers  had  been 
fined  by  the  bishops"  courts,  robbed  of  their  sub- 
stance, and  perished  in  prison  t  Many  had  been 
so  beaten  and  wounded  for  attending  their  meet- 
ings, that  they  died  of  their  wounds.  An  ac- 
count vvas  also  published  of  the  unjust  proceed- 
ings of  the  informers,  showing  that  at  their  in- 
stance many  had  been  plundered  without  a  jurid- 

«  Rapin.  p.  725.     Burnet,  p.  309 
t  Sewel,  p.  574,  581. 


300 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


ical  process  ;  that  seven  hundred  of  them  were 
now  in  prison  in  several  parts  of  England,  and 
especially  about  Bristol ;  but  remonstrances  and 
complaints  availed  nothing. 

In  tlie  midst  of  this  furious  persecution,  the 
famous  Mr.  Thomas  Gouge,  son  of  Dr.  Gouge, 
of  Blackfriars,  and  the  ejected  minister  of  St. 
Sepulchre's,  was  taken  out  of  this  world  :  he 
was  born  at  Bow,  near  Stratford,  1605,  bred  at 
Eton  School,  and  educated  in  King's  College, 
Cambridge.*  He  settled  at  St.  Sepulchre's  in 
the  year  1638,  and  for  twenty-four  years  dis- 
charged all  the  parts  of  a  vigilant  and  faithful 
pastor.  He  was  a  wonder  of  piety,  charity, 
humility,  and  moderation,  making  it  his  study 
to  keep  a  conscience  void  of  offence  towards 
God  and  man.  Mr.  Baxter  says  he  never  heard 
any  man  speak  to  his  dishonour,  except  that  he 
did  not  conform.  He  was  possessed  of  a  good 
estate,  and  devoted  the  chief  of  it  to  charity. 
He  settled  schools  to  the  number  of  three  or 
four  hundred,  and  gave  money  to  teach  children 
to  read  in  the  mountainous  parts  of  Wales, 
where  he  travelled  annually,  and  preached, 
till  he  was  forbid  by  the  bishops,  and  excom- 
municated, though  he  still  went  as  a  hearer 
to  the  parish  churches.  He  printed  eight  thou- 
sand Welsh  Bibles, t  a  thousand  of  which  were 
given  to  the  poor,  and  the  rest  sent  to  the  prin- 
cipal towns  of  Wales,  to  be  sold  at  an  under 
rate.  He  printed  five  hundred  of  the  "  Whole 
Duty  of  Man"  in  Welsh,  and  gave  them  away  ; 
two  hundred  and  forty  New  Testaments  ;  and 
kept  almost  two  thousand  Welsh  children  at 
school  to  learn  English.  Archbishop  Tillotson, 
in  his  funeral  sermon,  says  that,  all  things  con- 
sidered, there  has  not  since  the  primitive  times 
of  Christianity  been  any  among  the  sons  of 
men  to  whom  that  glorious  character  of  the 
Son  of  God  might  be  better  applied,  that  he 
■went  about  doing  good.J  He  was  a  divine  of 
a  cheerful  spirit,  and  went  away  quietly  in  his 
sleep,  October  29,  1681,  in  the  seventy-seventh 
year  of  his  age.i) 


*  Tillotson's  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  265. 

t  In  these  charitable  works,  as  we  have  seen  be- 
fore, he  was  assisted  by  his  friends.  The  great  busi- 
ness of  his  life  was  to  do  good.  He  annually  trav- 
elled over  Wales,  inspecting  the  schools  and  in- 
structing the  people  both  in  public  and  private,  till 
he  was  between  sixty  and  seventy  years  of  age.  He 
sustained  great  loss  by  the  fire  of  London,  and  after 
the  death  of  his  wife  and  the  settlement  of  his  chil- 
dren, his  fortune  was  reduced  to  £150  per  annum, 
out  of  which  he  constantly  expended  £100  in  works 
of  charity.  He  had  a  singular  sagacity  and  pru- 
dence in  devising  the  most  effectual  ways  of  doing 
good ;  and  his  example  gave  the  first  hint  to  Mr.  T. 
Firmin  of  that  plan  of  furnishing  the  poor  with  em- 
ployment, which  he  so  extensively  and  so  generous- 
ly pursued.  His  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by 
Doctor,  afterward  Archbishop  Tillotson. — Palmer.— 
Ed. 

X  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  8.  He  used  often  to  say, 
with  pleasure,  that  he  had  two  livings  which  he 
would  not  exchange  for  any  in  England,  viz.,  Christ's 
Hospital,  where  he  used  to  catechise  the  children; 
and  VVales,  where  he  travelled  to  spread  knowledge, 
piety,  and  charity. — C. 

1^  The  learned  and  excellent  Dr.  William  Lloyd, 
then  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  who  endeavoured  by  ar- 
gument to  remove  the  scruples  of  the  Dissenters, 
and  to  bring  them  back  into  the  Church  by  mild  and 
Christian  methods,  after  some  private  conferences, 
called  on  Mr.  James  Owen  to  produce  his  reasons 


While  the  Tories  and  High  Church  clergy 
were  ravaging  the  Dissenters,  the  court  was 
intent  upon  subverting  the  Constitution,  and 
getting  the  government  of  the  city  into  their 
hands.  June  24,  1G82,  there  was  a  contest 
about  the  election  of  sheriffs,  which  occasioned 
a  considerable  tumult.  And  when  the  election 
of  a  lord-mayor  came  on  at  Michaelmas,  the 
citizens  were  again  in  an  uproar,  the  lord-may- 
or pretending  a  right  to  adjourn  the  court,  while 
the  sheriffs,  to  whom  the  right  belonged,  con- 
tinued the  poll  till  night ;  when  the  books  were 
cast  up,  each  party  idaimed  the  majority  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  books.  The  contest 
rose  so  high,  that  Sir  William  Pritchard,  lord- 
mayor,  was  afterward  arrested  at  the  suit  of 
Mr.  Papillon  and  Dubois,  and  detained  prisoner 
in  Skinners'  Hall  till  midnight.  But  when  the 
affair  came  to  a  trial,  the  election  was  vacated, 
Papillon  and  Dubois  were  imprisoned,  and  the 
leading  men  of  the  Whig  party,  who  had  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  contest,  were  fined 
in  large  sums  of  money,  which  made  way  for 
the  loss  of  the  charter. 

The  court  would  have  persuaded  the  Com- 
mon Council  to  make  a  voluntary  surrender  of 
it  to  the  crown,  to  put  an  end  to  all  contests 
for  the  future  ;*  but  not  being  able  to  prevail, 
they  resolved  to  condemn  it  by  law  ;  according- 
ly, a  quo  loiirranlo  was  issued  out  of  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench,  to  see  whether  its  charter  had 
been  duly  observed,  because  the  Common  Coun- 
cil, in  one  of  their  addresses,  had  petitioned  for 
the  sitting  of  the  Parliament,  and  had  taxed  the 
prorogation  as  a  delay  of  justice,  and  because 
they  had  laid  taxes  on  their  wharfs  and  mar- 
kets contrary  to  law.  After  trial  upon  these 
two  points,  the  chief-justice  delivered  it  as  th« 
unanimous  opinion  of  the  court,  that  the  liber- 
ties and  franchises  of  the  city  of  London  had 
been  forfeited,  and  might  be  seized  into  the 
king's  hands,  but  judgment  was  not  to  be  en- 
tered till  the  king's  pleasure  was  farther  known. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  lord-mayor  and  Common 
Council,  who  are  the  representatives  of  the 
city,  agreed  to  submit  to  the  king's  mercy,  and. 
sent  a  deputation  to  Windsor,  June  18,  1683,  to 
beg  pardon  ;  which  the  king  was  pleased  to 
grant  on  condition  that  his  majesty  might  have 
a  negative  in  the  choice  of  all  the  chief  magis- 
trates ;  that  if  his  majesty  disapproved  of  their 
choice  of  a  lord-mayor,  they  should  choose  an- 
other within  a  week ;  and  that  if  his  majesty 
disapproved  their  second  choice,  he  should  him- 


for  preaching  without  ordination  by  diocesan  bish- 
ops, at  the  public  hall  of  Oswestry,  on  the  27th  of 
September  of  the  year  1681.  The  bishop  was  at- 
tended by  the  learned  Mr.  Henry  Dodwell;  Mr. 
Owen's  supporters  were,  Mr.  Philip  Henry,  Mr.  Jon- 
athan Roberts,  of  Slainvair,  in  Dcnl)ighshire,  an  ex- 
cellent scholar  and  warm  disputant.  The  dispute 
began  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  and  ended  between 
eight  and  nine.  Several  points  connecied  with  the 
main  question,  "concerning  the  necessity  of  ordina- 
tion by  diocesan  bishops,  in  uninterrupted  succes- 
sion from  the  apostles,"  were  debated.  The  effects 
of  this  discussion  were  various,  but  no  converts  were 
made  by  it.  The  bishop  procured  respect  by  his  ex- 
emplary candour  ;  and  Mr.  PhiliiJ  Henry,  by  his  pru- 
dent and  primitive  temper,  and  the  mildness  of  his 
manner,  recommended  himself  to  the  high  esteem  of 
the  prelate  and  the  company.— .V/r.  James  Oweris 
Life,  p.  2S-35.--En. 
*  Burnet,  p.  354-357.     Rapin,  p.  727. 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS, 


301 


self  nominate  a  mayor  for  the  year  ensuing; 
and  the  like  as  to  sheriffs,  aldermen,  &c.* 
When  this  was  reported  to  the  Common  Coun- 
cil, it  was  put  to  tlie  vote,  and  upon  a  division, 
the  hundred  and  four  were  for  accepting  the 
king's  regulation,  and  eighty-six  against  it ;  but 
even  these  concessions  continued  no  longer 
than  a  year.  The  charter  of  London  being  lost, 
the  ciiies  and  corporations  in  general  were  pre- 
vailed with  to  deliver  up  their  charters,  andac- 
cept  of  such  new  ones  as  the  court  would  grant, 
which  was  the  highest  degree  of  perfidy  and 
baseness  in  those  who  were  intrusted  with 
them,  especially  when  they  knew  that  the  de- 
■  sign  was  to  pack  a  Parliament,  in  order  to  make 
way  for  a  popish  successor. 

Thus  the  liberties  of  England  were  delivered 
up  to  the  crown  ;  and  though  the  forms  of  law 
remained,  men's  lives  and  estates  were  at  the 
mercy  of  a  set  of  profligate  creatures,  who 
would  swear  anything  for  hire.  Juries,  says 
Burnet, t  were  a  shame  to  the  nation  and  a  re- 
proach to  religion,  for  they  were  packed  and 
prepared  to  brmg  in  verdicts  as  they  were  di- 
rected, and  not  as  matters  appeared  upon  the 
evidence.  Zeal  against  popery  was  decried  as 
'the  voice  of  a  faction,  who  were  enemies  to  the 
king  and  his  government.  All  rejoicings  on 
the  5th  of  November  were  forbid,  and  strict  or- 
ders given  to  all  constables  and  other  officers 
to  keep  the  peace ;  but  the  populace  not  being 
so  orderly  as  they  should  have  been,  several 
London  apprentices  were  fined  twenty  marks  for 
a  riot,  and  set  in  the  pillory.  These  were  the 
triumphs  of  a  Tory  and  popish  administration. 

A  litlle  before  this  died  old  Mr.  Thomas  Case, 
MA,  educated  in  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  and 
one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  :  he  was  pecu- 
liarly zealous  in  promoting  the  morning  exerci- 
ses, but  was  turned  out  of  his  living  at  St.  Mary 
Magdalen,  Milk-street,  for  refusing  the  Engage- 
ment, and  nnprisoned  for  Mr.  Love's  plot ;  he 
was  afterward  rector  of  St.  Giles's,  and  waited 
on  the  king  at  Breda. t  He  was  one  of  the 
commissioners  at  the  Savoy,  and  silenced  with 
his  brethren  in  1662.  He  was  an  open,  plain- 
hearted  man,  an  excellent  preacher,  of  a  warm 
spirit,  and  a  hearty  lover  of  all  good  men.  He 
died  May  30,  1682,  aged  eighty-four. i^i 

Mr.  Samuel  Clarke,  the  ejected  minister  of 


•■  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  403.     Gazette,  No.  — ,  1835. 

t  Page  359. 

t  Calainy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  13.  Palmer's  Non.  Mem., 
■vol.  i.,  p.  121. 

/)  He  survived  every  one  of  the  Dissenters  that  sat 
in  the  Assembly  of  Divines.  Mr.  Baxter  styles  him 
"a  holy,  faithful  servant  of  God."  It  is  painful, 
however,  to  reflect  that  a  man  whose  character  ap- 
pears in  general  to  have  been  venerable  and  amiable, 
should  be  so  transported  by  the  heat  of  the  times, 
as,  in  a  sermon  preached  before  the  court-martial  in 
ICH,  10  say,  "  Noble  sirs,  imitate  God,  and  be  mer- 
ciful to  none  that  have  sinned  of  malicious  wicked- 
ness ;"  meaning  the  Royalist;;,  who  were  frequently 
styled  inalignaiits.  This,  as  Mr.  Granger  observes, 
is  sanguinary.  It  may  be  added,  that  it  conveyed 
also  a  false  idea  of  the  Divine  clemency,  which  ex- 
tends its  exercise,  on  repentance,  to  all  characters ; 
to  sins  of  malignity  as  well  as  of  infirmity. — Gran- 
^er'.,-  Ilixtnry  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  317,  318. — El). 
Walker  reflecis  severely  upon  this  same  sermon,  but 
the  cruelties  which  Mr.  Case  and  his  brethren  en- 
dured from  Bishop  Wren  ought  to  plead  a  little  in 
his  excuse.  Mr.  Case  took  an  active  part  in  the  at- 
tempt 10  save  Charles  I.  from  a  trial. — C. 


St.  Bene't  Fink,  was  an  indefatigable  student, 
as  appears  by  his  "  Martyrology,"  his  "Lives 
of  Emment  Divines," and  other  historical  works; 
he  was  a  good  scholar,  and  had  been  a  useful 
preacher  in  Cheshire  and  Warwickshire,  helbre 
he  came  to  London  ;  he  was  one  of  the  com- 
missi(mers  at  the  Savoy,  and  presented  the 
Presbyterian  ministers'  address  of  thanks  to 
the  king  for  his  declaration  concerning  ecclesi- 
astical affairs;  and  though  he  could  not  con- 
form as  a  preacher,  he  frequently  attended  the 
service  of  the  Church  as  a  hearer  and  com- 
municant. He  died  December  25,  1682,  aetat. 
eighty.* 

While  the  liberties  of  England  lay  bleeding, 
the  fury  of  the  court  raged  higher  than  ever 
against  the  Nonconformists,  as  inflexible  ene- 
mies of  their  arbitrary  measures.!  Mr.  Baxter 
was  surprised  in  his  own  house  by  a  company 
of  constables  and  other  peace-officers,  who  ar- 
rested him  for  coming  within  five  miles  of  a  cor- 
poration, and  brought  warrants  to  distrain  upon 
iiim  for  five  sermons,  amounting  to  .£195.  Tliey 
took  him  out  of  his  bed,  to  which  he  had  been 
confined  for  some  time,  and  were  carrying  him 
to  jail;  but  Dr.  Cox,  the  physician,  meeting 
him  in  the  way,  went  and  made  oath  before  a 
justice  of  peace  that  he  could  not  be  removed 
to  prison  without  danger  of  his  life,  so  he  was 
permitted  to  go  home  again  to  bed  ;  but  the 
officers  rifled  his  house,  took  away  such  books 
as  he  had,  and  sold  even  the  bed  from  under 
him.  Dr.  .Annesley,  and  several  other  minis- 
ters, had  their  goods  distrained  for  latent  con- 
victions ;  that  is,  upon  the  oaths  of  persons 
they  never  saw,  nor  received  summons  to  an- 
swer for  themselves  before  a  justice  of  peace. 
This  was  stabbing  men  in  the  dark.  Some 
were  imprisoned  on  the  Corporation  Act.  The 
Rev.  Mr.  Vincent  was  tried  and  convicted  at 
the  Surrey  Assizes  on  the  Soth  of  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth, already  mentioned  :    he  lay   in   prison 

*  When  Mr.  Clarke  was  ejected,  he  had  been 
forty  years  in  the  ministry,  during  which  time  he 
had  been  seven  or  eight  years  a  governor,  and  two 
years  a  president  of  Sion  College.  The  most  valu- 
able of  his  numerous  works  are  reckoned  to  be 
"  Lives  of  the  Puritan  Divines  and  other  Persons  of 
Note."  "The  author  and  the  bookseller,"  says  Mr. 
Granger,  "  seem  to  have  been  thoroughly  informed 
of  this  secret,  that  a  taking  title-page  become,?  much 
more  taking  with  an  engraved  frontispiece  before  it, 
and  that  little  pictures  in  the  body  of  the  book  are 
great  embellishments  to  style  and  matter."  He  was 
more  a  compiler  than  an  author.  His  name  wa.s 
anagratnmatized  to  Sa{c)kall  Cream,  alluding  to  his 
taking  the  best  parts  of  those  books  from  which  he 
collected.  One  is  sorry  to  find  in  the  list  of  his  pub 
lications  "  A  Discourse  against  Toleration."  He  en 
joyed  about  nine  years  the  living  of  Alcesterin  War 
wickshire,  where  his  preaching  was  very  useful,  and 
the  town  became  exemplary  for  sobriety,  which  h.id 
borne  the  character  of  "drunken  Alcester."  He 
met  death  with  a  lively  sense  of  eternity  upon  his 
mind,  and  a  comfortable  assurance  of  his  own  title 
to  future  blessedness. — Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem.,  vol. 
;.,  p.  88,  &C.     Granger's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  321.— Kl). 

Mr  Clarke  was  the  great-grandfather  of  Dr.  Sam- 
uel Clarke,  of  St.  Alban's,  the  patron  of  Dr.  Dod- 
dridge's youthful  studies. — En.  Almo.st  all  we  know 
of  some  of  the  holiest  and  greatest  men  of  Enulnnd 
we  owe  to  the  painstaking  and  laborious  efforts  of 
this  most  industrious  man.  "  Clarke's  Martyrology" 
is  deservedly  valued,  and  is  now  very  rare. — C. 

t  Part  iii ,  p.  191. 


302 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


many  months,  but  was  at  last  released  by  the 
intercession  of  some  great  men.  Tlie  dissent- 
ing laity  were  harassed  everywhere  in  the 
spiritual  courts,  warrants  were  signed  for  dis- 
tresses, in  the  village  of  Hackney  alone,  to  the 
sum  of  £1400,  one  of  whicii  was  £500.  The 
reader  will,  then,  judge  what  must  have  been 
the  case  of  the  interest  in  general.* 

But,  in  the  midst  of  this  oppression  and  vio- 
lence, the  court  found  that  the  spirit  of  English 
liberty  was  not  easily  to  be  subdued  :  there 
were  a  set  of  patriots  who  stood  in  their  way, 
and  were  determined  to  hazard  their  lives  and 
fortunes  for  the  Constitution  ;  these  were,  there- 
fore, to  be  removed  or  cut  olT,  by  bringing  them 
within  the  compass  of  some  pretended  plot 
against  the  government.  Some,  who  were  more 
zealous  than  prudent,  met  together  in  clubs  at 
the  taverns  and  other  places,  to  talk  over  the 
common  danger,  and  what  might  be  done  to 
secure  their  religion  and  liberties  in  case  of  the 
king's  death  ;  but  there  was  no  formed  design 
in  any  of  them  against  the  king  or  the  present 
government.  The  court,  however,  laid  hold  of 
this  occasion,  and,  as  Mr.  Coke  says,  set  on 
foot  three  plots :  one,  to  assassinate  the  king 
and  duke  as  they  came  from  Newmarket;  an- 
other, to  seize  the  guards  ;  and  a  third  was 
called  the  Blackheath  Plot ;  in  all  which,  for 
aught  I  can  find,  says  he,  the  fox  was  the  find- 
er. Dr.  Welwood  adds,t  that  the  shattered 
remains  of  English  ]il)erty  were  attacked  on 
every  side,  and  some  of  the  noblest  blood  in  the 
nation  offered  up  a  sacrifice  to  the  manes  of 
popish  martyrs.  Swearing  came  into  fashion, 
and  an  evidence  office  was  set  up  at  Whitehall ; 
the  witnesses  were  highly  encouraged,  and,  in- 
stead of  judges  and  juries  that  might  boggle  at 
half  evidence,  care  was  taken  to  pick  out  such 
as  should  stick  at  nothing  to  serve  a  turn.  The 
plot  which  the  court  made  use  of  was  called 
the  Ryehouse  Plot,t  from  the  name  of  the  house 
where  the  two  royal  brothers  were  to  be  shot  ; 
it  was  within  two  miles  of  Hodsdon  in  Hert- 
fordshire, and  was  first  discovered  by  one  Keel- 
ing, an  Anabaptist ;  after  him  Goodenough, 
Rumsey,  and  West  made  themselves  witness- 
es, and  framed  a  story  out  of  their  own  heads, 
of  lopping  off  the  two  brothers  as  they  came 
from  Newmarket ;  and  having  heard  of  confer- 
ences between  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  Lord 
Russel,  and  others,  concerning  securing  the 
Protestant  religion  upon  the  king's  decease, 
they  impeached  them  to  the  council,  upon  which 


*  The  temjier  of  the  court  and  Church  at  this 
time  inclined  Mr.  John  Shower  to  attend  the  nephew 
of  Sir  Samuel  Barnardi-ston  on  his  travels,  in  compli- 
ance with  the  earnest  request  of  his  uncle,  in  com- 
pany with  several  other  gentlemen,  which  we  men- 
tion here  to  introduce  the  followmg  passage.  When 
they  were  at  Geneva,  where  they  continued  for  some 
time,  they  contracted  an  acquaintance  with  Turrelin, 
the  younger.  On  iheir  first  conversation,  they  foimd 
tliis  learned  divine  and  the  rest  of  the  city  possessed 
with  very  unfavourable  sentiments  concerning  the 
English  Nonconformists.  Uut  when  Mr.  Shower  and 
his  companions  had  stated  their  case,  and  the  terms 
required  of  them,  Turrelin  and  the  others  declared 
themselves  well  satisfied  with  the  grounds  of  their 
dissent,  ami  treated  them,  during  the  remainder  of 
their  residence  in  the  city,  with  a  very  particular  re- 
spect.—  Tons'x  Life  of  Shower,  p.  43.— Eo. 

t  Memoirs,  p.  j:i2. 

i  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p  368-373. 


Lord  Russel,  Algernon  Sidney,  the  Earl  of  Es- 
sex, and  Mr.  Houblon,  were  apprehended  and 
sent  to  the  Tower.  Warrants  were  issued  out 
for  several  others,  who,  knowing  that  inno- 
cence was  no  protection,  absconded,  and  went 
out  of  the  way  ;  but  several  were  tried,  and  ex- 
ecuted upon  the  court  evidence  ;  as  Mr.  Rum- 
bold,  the  master  of  the  house  where  the  plot 
was  to  take  place,  who  declared,  at  his  execu- 
tion in  King  James's  reign,  that  he  never  knew 
of  any  design  against  the  king;  as  did  Captain 
Walcot  and  Sir  Thomas  Armstrong,  Rouse, 
and  the  rest.  Lord  Russel  was  condemned, 
and  beheaded,  for  being  within  the  hearing  of 
some  treasonable  words  at  Mr.  Shepherd's,  a 
wine-cooper  in  Abchurch  Lane.*  The  Earl  of 
Essex's  throat  was  cut  in  the  Towert  during 
Lord  Russel's  trial  ;t  and  Algernon  Sidney 
was  executed  for  having  a  seditious  libel  in  his 
study  ;'J  of  the  injustice  of  which  the  Parliament 
at  the  Revolution  was  so  sensible,  that  they  re- 
versed the  judgments.  A  proclamation  was  is- 
sued out  against  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  though 
the  king  knew  where  he  was  ;  and  alter  the  fer- 
ment, brought  him  to  court.  Mr.  Echard  ob- 
serves, that  some  have  called  this  the  Fanatic, 
the  Protestant,  the  Whigish,  or  Presbyterian 
plot  ;  others  have  called  it,  with  more  justice, 
a  piece  of  state  policy,  and  no  better  than  an 
imposture,  for  it  had  no  other  foundation  than 


*  P.  392. 

t  Dr.  Grey  censures  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  the 
Ryehouse  Plot  as  very  faulty,  if  not  false  ;  "  as  ap- 
pears," he  says,  "from  the  very  best  of  our  histo- 
rians, and  the  confession  of  several  that  suffered  for 
it."  The  historians  to  whom,  the  doctor  refers  are 
Echard,  Kennet,  &c.,  and  principally  Bishop  Sprat's 
History  of  the  Ryehouse  Plot.  As  to  this  work, 
the  most  partial  to  it  must  own  it  detracts  greatly 
from  its  credit ;  that  it  was  drawn  up  to  please  the 
court,  by  one  that  was  wholly  in  ihat  interest,  and 
the  author,  it  seems,  acknowledges  "  that  King 
James  11.  called  for  his  papers,  and  having  read  them, 
altered  divers  passages,  and  caused  them  to  be  print- 
ed by  his  own  authority." — Cala/ny's  Letter  to  Arch- 
deacon Echard,  p.  55.  Dr.  Grey  ironically  calls  Mr. 
Neal's  account  of  the  Earl  of  Essex's  death  a  candid 
remark  ;  and  then  refers  to,  and  quotes  largely. 
Carte's  and  Echard's  representations  of  that  event, 
to  show  that  the  earl  was/efo  de  se.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  discuss  the  question  concerning  his  lord- 
ship's death,  whether  he  comtnitfed  an  act  of  suicide 
or  was  murdered  by  others.  Dr.  Harris  has  fully 
and  impartially  stated  the  arguments  on  both  sides. — 
History  of  Charles  II.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  371-370.  The  same 
judicious  writej-  has  also  investigated  the  evidence 
concerning  the  Ryehouse  Plot,  p.  355-370. — En. 

t  Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  161. 

i)  This  was  an  answer  to  Filmer's  book,  writ- 
ten to  prove  the  absolute  and  unlimited  power  of 
kings.  The  leading  principle  of  this  MS.  was,  ■•that 
power  is  delegated  from  the  people  to  the  prince,  and 
that  he  is  accountable  to  them  for  the  abuse  of  it." 
It  was  urged  that  he  was  not  proved  to  have  written 
the  piece;  that  if  he  were  the  author,  it  contained 
only  his  private  speculations;  that  it  could  not  be 
admitted  as  a  proof  of  the  plot,  for  it  was  written 
years  before,  and  that,  as  it  was  not  a  finished  piece. 
It  could  not  be  known  how  it  would  end;  and  no 
general  conclusion  ought  to  be  drawn  from  any  par- 
ticular chapter  of  a  work.  The  book  was,  however, 
considered  by  Jefl'eries  as  an  overt  act,  on  this  prin- 
ciple, Scribere  est  agere.  It  is  remarkable  that,  with- 
in a  few  years,  the  energy  and  truth  of  the  above 
principle  removed  James  II  from  the  throne,  and 
placed  on  it  the  Prince  of  Orange.  So  vain  is  it  to 
fight  against  just  princioles  .'—En. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


303 


the  rash  and  imprudent  discourse  of  some  warm 
Whigs,  which,  in  so  critical  a  conjuncture,  was 
very  hazardous  ;  but  no  scheme  of  a  plot  had 
been  agreed  upon,  no  preparations  made,  no 
arms  nor  horses  purchased,  nor  persons  ap- 
pointed to  execute  any  design  against  the  king 
or  government*  However,  the  court  had  their 
ends  in  striking  terror  into  the  whole  party. 

Great  mdustry  was  used  by  the  court  to  bring 
the  body  of  Nonconformists  into  this  plot ;  it 
was  given  out  that  Dr.  Owen,  Mr.  Mead,  and 
Mr.  Griffith  were  acquainted  with  it  ;t  Mr.  Mead 
was  summoned  before  the  Council,  and  gave 
such  satisfactory  answers  to  all  questions,  that 
the  king  himself  ordered  him  to  be  discharged. 
The  Rev.  Mr  Carslaires,  a  Scots  divine,  was  put 
to  the  torture  of  the  thummikins  in  Scotland,  to 
extort  a  confession,  both  his  thumbs  being  bruis- 
ed between  two  irons  till  the  marrow  was  almost 
forced  out  of  the  hones  :  this  he  bore  for  an  hour 
and  a  half  without  making  any  confession.  Next 
day  they  brought  him  to  undergo  the  torture  of 
the  boot,  hut  his  arms  being  svi'elled  with  the 
late  torture,  and  he  already  in  a  fever,  made  a 
declaration  of  all  that  he  knew,  which  amounted 
to  no  more  than  some  loose  discourse  of  what 
might  befit  to  be  done  to  preserve  their  liberties 
and  the  Protestant  religion,  if  there  should  be  a 
crisis  ;t  but  he  vindicated  himself  and  his  breth- 
ren in  England  from  all  assassinating  designs, 

*  "Mr.  Neal  must  think  his  readers,"  says  Dr. 
Grey,  "  very  easy  of  belief  to  swallow  down  such 
gross  untruths  as  these,  which  the  smallest  dabbler 
in  thehistoryofthose  times  can  easily  confute."  The 
reader  who  is  not  a  dabbler  in  the  history  of  those 
times  IS  referred  to  Dr.  Harris,  as  before  quoted,  for 
materials  on  which  to  form  his  judgment  of  the  truth 
of  this  remark.  In  the  ine-Tn  time,  he  may  not  be 
displeased  with  the  following  plain  lines  on  the  death 
of  Sidney : 

"  Algernori  Sidney  fills  this  tomb, 

All  Atheist  for  disclaiiuing  Rome  ; 

A  reliel  bold  for  striving;  still 

To  keep  the  l.iws  above  the  will  ; 

Crimes  damn'd  by  Church  and  goveniment, 

Alas  !  where  must  his  ghost  l)e  sent  ? 

Of  heaven  it  cannot  but  despair, 

If  holy  pope  be  turnkey  there  ; 

And  hell  it  ne'er  must  entertain, 

For  there  is  all  tyrannic  reig-n. 

Where  goes  it,  then  !     Where  't  ought  to  g.5 — 

Where  pope  nor  devil  have  to  do.'' 
—  Bennetts  Memorial,  p.  359. — Ed. 

t  Dr.  Grey  refers  to  -'copies  of  informations,"  in 
the  appendi.x  to  Sprat's  account  for  a  deposition  sign- 
ed by  Mr.  Carslaires,  saying,  "The  deponent  did 
communicate  the  design  on  loot  to  Dr.  Owen,  Mr. 
Griffith,  and  Mr.  Mead,  at  Stepney,  who  all  concur- 
red in  promoting  of  it,  and  desired  it  might  take  ef 
feet."  Dr.  Grey,  by  this  quotation,  means  to  impli- 
cate those  gentlemen  m  the  most  atrocious  part  of 
this  plot.  But  the  question  returns.  What  was  the 
design  on  foot  ?  what  were  the  nature  and  extent  of 
it  ?  Mr.  Ne.il  immediately  informs  us,  in  his  report 
of  the  amount  of  Carstaire's  confession,  that  it  did 
not  go  to  any  assassination,  but  only  to  preserving 
their  liberties  and  the  Protestant  religion.  As  to  .Mr 
Mead,  in  particular,  he  went  into  lioliaiid  on  this  oc- 
casion ;  and  after  his  return  to  England,  he  was  sum- 
moned to  appear  before  King  Cliarles  at  the  privy 
coiinml,  where  he  folly  vindicated  his  innocence, 
and  was  perfectly  discharged. — Pierce's  Vindication 
of  the  DisxeiitiT'i,  part  i.,  p.  25*^.  Mr.  Mead  carried 
with  him  into  Holland  llie  son  (the  eleventh  of  thir- 
teen children),  whom  he  placed  under  an  excellent 
master  who  afterward  rose  to  the  first  eminence  as 
a  schoiiir  ami  physician. — Griifrer'a  History,  vol.  lii., 
p.  333.— El).        '  I   Burnet,  vol.  ii ,  p.  42G-430. 


which,  he  said,  they  abhorred.  Dr.  South  was 
desired  to  write  the  history  of  this  plot  ;  but 
Dr.  Sjjrat,  afterward  Bishop  of  Rocliester,  per- 
formed it,  though  at  the  Revolution  he  disowned 
It  so  far  as  to  declare  that  King  Janiea  had  alter- 
ed several  passages  in  it  before  it  was  publish- 
ed. Bishop  Burnet  adds,  that  when  the  con- 
gratulatory addresses  for  the  discovery  of  this 
plot  had  gone  all  round  England,  the  grand  juries 
made  high  presentments  against  all  who  were 
accounted  Whigs  and  Nonconformists.  Great 
pains  were  taken  to  find  out  more  witnesses  ; 
pardons  and  rewards  were  otfered  very  freely  to 
the  guilty,  but  none  came  in,  which  made  it  ev- 
ident, says  his  lordship,  that  nothing  was  so  well 
laid,  or  brought  so  near  execution,  as  the  wit- 
nesses had  deposed,  otherwise  the  people  would 
have  crowded  in  for  pardons.  Bishop  Kennet 
says*  that  the  Dissenters  bore  all  the  odium, 
and  were  not  only  branded  for  express  rebels 
and  villains,  in  multitudes  of  congratulatory  and 
Tory  addresses  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom, 
but  were  severally  arraigned  by  the  king  him- 
self, in  a  declaration  to  all  his  loving  subjects, 
read  in  all  the  churches  on  Sunday,  September 
9,  which  was  appointed  as  a  day  of  thanksgiv- 
ing, and  solemnized,  after  an  extraordinary 
manner,  with  mighty  pomp  and  magnificence. 
There  was  hardly  a  parish  in  England  that  was 
not  at  a  considerable  expense  to  testify  their 
joy  and  satisfaction:  nay,  the  papists  celebrated 
in  all  their  chapels  in  London  an  extraordinary 
service  on  that  account ;  so  that  these  had  their 
places  of  public  worship,  though  the  Protestant 
Dissenters  were  denied  them. 

The  Quakers  avowed  their  innocence  of  the 
plot  in  an  address  to  the  king  at  Windsor,!  pre- 
sented by  G.  Whitehead,  Parker,  and  two  more, 
wherein  they  appeal  to  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts, 
that  "  their  principles  do  not  allow  them  to  take 
up  defensive  arms,  much  less  to  avenge  them- 
selves for  the  injuries  they  receive  from  others. 
That  they  continually  pray  for  the  king's  safety 
and  preservation,  and  therefore  take  this  occa- 
sion humbly  to  beseech  his  majesty  to  compas- 
sionate their  suffering  friends,  with  whom  the 
jails  are  so  filled  that  they  want  air,  to  the  ap- 
parent hazard  of  their  lives,  and  to  the  endan- 
gering an  infectiim  in  divers  places.  Besides, 
many  houses,  shops,  barns,  and  fields  are  ran- 
sacked, and  the  goods,  corn,  and  cattle  swept 
away,  to  the  discouraging  of  trade  and  husband- 
ry, and  impoverishing  great  numbers  of  quiet 
and  industrious  people  ;  and  this  lor  no  other 
cause  but  for  the  e.xercise  of  a  tender  con- 
science m  the  worship  of  Almighty  God,  who  is 
sovereign  Lord  and  King  in  men's  consciences." 

But  this  address  made  no  impression,!  all 
things  proceeding  triumphantly  on  the  side  of 
the  prerogative;!)  the  court  did  what  they  pleas- 
ed ;  the  king  assumed  the  government  of  the 

*  Page  ■102.  f  Sewel,  p.  585. 

t  The  king  was  touched,  for  the  moment,  with 
the  exhibition  it  gave  of  the  unreasonable  and  unmer- 
ited sufferings  of  the  Quakers  and  said  to  one  of  his 
courtiers  standing  by,  •■  What  shall  wo  do  for  this' 
people  !  the  prisons  are  full  of  them."  The  party  to 
whom  this  query  was  |int,  to  divert  his  attention, 
drew  him  into  conversation  upon  seme  other  topic, 
so  that  little  or  no  relaxation  of  the  op|ires.sive  meas- 
ures resulted  from  this  address,  nor  during  the  re- 
muinder  of  the  king's  rei  jn.—  Gough's  History  of  the 
Quakers,  vol.  iii.,  p.  8,  9.— Eo.         ij  Kennet,  p.  410. 


S04 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


city  of  London  into  his  own  hands,  and  ap- 
pointed a  mayiir,  sheriffs,  and  aldermen,  witli- 
out  the  election  of  tlie  people  ;  sermons  were 
ifiUed  with  the  prineiples  of  absolute  obedience 
and  nonresislaiioe,  which  were  carried  hi>;hcr 
than  ever  their  forelatheis  had  thought  of  or 
practised.  The  University  of  Oxford  passed 
a  decree,*  in  full  (-onvocation.  July  21,  1683, 
against  certain  pernicious  books  and  dannnable 
doctrines,  destructive  to  the  sacred  persons  of 
princes,  their  state  and  government,  and  all  hu- 
man society.!  It  consists  of  twenty-seven 
propositions,  extracted  from  the  writings  of  Bu- 
chanan, Baxter,  Owen,  Milton,  .1.  Goodwin, 
Hobbs,  Cartwright,  Travers,  and  others,  who 
had  maintained  that  there  was  an  original  con- 
tract between  king  and  people  ;  and  that  when 
kings  subvert  the  constitution  of  their  country, 
and  become  absolute  tyrants,  they  forfeit  their 
right  to  the  government,  and  may  be  resisted  : 
these,  and  other  propositions  of  a  like  nature, 
they  declare  to  be  impious,  seditious,  scanda- 
lous, damnable,  heretical,  blasphemous,  and  in- 
famous to  the  Christian  rehgion.  They  forbid 
their  students  to  read  those  writers,  and  ordered 
their  books  to  he  burned.  But  how  well  they 
practised  their  own  doctrines  at  the  Revolution 
will  be  seen  in  its  proper  place  ;  and  one  of 
Queen  Anne"s  Parliaments  ordered  the  decree 
itself  to  be  burned  by  the  hands  of  the  common 
hangman. t 


*  This  decree  was  drawn  \ip  by  Dr.  Jane,  dean  of 
Gloucester,  and  the  king's  professor  of  divinity,  and 
sul)scribed  by  the  whole  coiivocalian.  It  was  pre- 
senled  to  the  king,  with  great  solemnity,  on  the  24lh 
of  July  following,  and  very  graciously  received.  It 
was  ordereil,  in  perpetual  memory  of  it,  to  be  entered 
in  the  registry  of  the  convocation,  and  to  be  stuck  up 
in  the  different  colleges  and  halls.  Farther  to  coun- 
teract the  spread  and  influence  of  the  propositions 
against  which  it  was  levelled,  all  readers,  tutors,  cat- 
echists,  and  others  to  whom  the  instruction  and  care 
of  youth  w-eie  committed,  were  commanded  to  in- 
struct and  ground  their  scholars  in  "  that  most  ne- 
cessary doctrine,  which,  in  a  manner,  is  the  badge 
and  character  of  the  Church  of  England,  of  submit- 
ting to  every  ordinance  of  man  lot  the  Lord's  sake, 
whether  it  be  to  the  king  as  supreme,  or  unto  gov- 
ernors, as  unto  them  that  are  sent  by  him,  for  the 
punishment  of  evildoers,  and  for  the  praise  of  thein 
that  do  well ;  teaching  tliat  this  submission  is  to  be 
clear,  absolute,  and  without  any  exception  of  any 
state  or  order  of  men." — High  Church  Politics,  p.  89. 
t  Another  proof  of  the  intolerant  spirit  which  dic- 
tated the  decrees  of  the  i  niversity  at  this  time,  of- 
fers in  its  treatment  of  Dr.  Whitby,  precentor  of  the 
Church  of  Sarum.  This  learned  writer  published 
in  this  year,  1083,  without  his  name,  his  "  Protest- 
ant Reconciler,"  humbly  pleading  for  condescension 
to  dissenting  brethren,  in  things  indifferent  and  un- 
necessary, for  the  sake  of  peace ;  and  showing  how 
unreasonable  it  is  to  make  such  things  the  necessary 
conditions  of  communion.  This  book  gave  such 
high  offence,  that  it  was  condemned  by  the  univer- 
sity on  the  aliove mentioned  day,  and  burned  by  Ihe 
hands  of  the  marshal  in  the  schools'  quadrangle. 
The  author  was  also  obliged  by  Dr.  Selh  Ward,  to 
whom  he  was  chaplain,  to  make  a  public  retractation 
of  it  on  the  9th  of  the  ensuing  October.  And  in  the 
same  year,  to  remove  the  clamour  his  piece  had 
raised,  he  published  a  second  part,  "  earnestly  per- 
euading  the  dissenting  laity  to  join  in  full  commu- 
nion with  the  Church  of  England,  and  answering  all 
the  objections  of  the  Nonconformists  against  the  law- 
fulness ol  the  Kubmission  to  the  rites  and  constitu- 
tions of  that  church."— Ziirc/i's  Life  of  Archbishop 
Tdlotsnn.  p.  10.'3-105.— Eo.  %  'Collyer,  902. 


Dr.  Benjamin  Calamy,  rector  of  St.  Lawrence 
Jewry,  in  one  of  his  printed  sermons  entitled 
"  .\  Scrupulous  Conscience,"  invited  the  Non- 
conformists to  examine  what  each  party  had  to 
say  for  themselves  with  respect  to  the  ceremo- 
nies imposed  by  the  (Jhurch,  and  enforced  by 
the  penal  lawd,  calling  upon  them  modestly  to 
propose  their  doubts,  and  meekly  to  hearken  to 
and  receive  instruction.  In  compliance  with 
tins  invitation,  Mr.  Thomas  Delaune,  an  Ana- 
baptist schoolmaster,  and  a  learned  man,*  print- 
ed a  "  Plea  for  the  Nonconlbrmisls,"  showing 
the  true  state  of  their  case,  and  justifying  theii 
separation.  But  before  it  was  published,  he 
was  apprehended  by  a  messenger  from  the 
press,  and  shut  up  close  prisoner  in  Newgale, 
by  warrant  from  the  Recorder  Jenner,  dated 
November  30,  1683.  Mr.  Delaune  wrote  to  Dr. 
Calamy  to  endeavour  his  enlargement  :  "  My 
confinement,"  says  he,  "  is  for  accepting  your 
invitation  ;  I  look  upon  you  obliged  in  honour 
to  procure  my  sheets,  yet  unfinished,  a  public 
passport,!  and  to  me  my  liberty  :  there  is  no- 
thing in  them  but  a  fair  examination  of  those 
things  your  sermon  invited  to,  and  1  cannot  Hnd 
that  Christ  and  his  disciples  ever  forced  scrupu- 
lous consciences  to  conformity  by  such  methods 
as  sending  them  to  Newgate  ;  I  beseech  you, 
therefore,  in  the  fear  of  God,  as  you  will  answer 
it  to  our  great  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ, 
that  you  would  endeavour  to  convince  a  stran- 
ger by  something  more  like  reason  and  divinity 
than  a  prison."  The  doctor  at  first  said  he 
would  do  him  all  the  kindness  that  became  him.t 

*  Mr.  Delaune  was  born  at  Brim  in  Ireland,  about 
three  miles  from  Kiggsdale.  His  parents  were  pa- 
pists, and  very  poor,  and  rented  part  of  the  estate  of 

Riggs,  Esq.     This  gentleman,  observing   the 

early  and  forward  parts  of  the  young  Delaune,  placed 
him  in  a  friary  at  Kilcrash,  seven  miles  from  Cork, 
where  he  received  his  education  ;  when  he  was  about 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age,  he  removed  to  Kin- 
sale,  and  met  with  Mr.  Bainpfield,  who,  discovering 
his  genius  and  learning,  made  him  clerk  of  his  pil- 
chard fishery  there,  and  was  the  means  of  giving  his 
mind  a  pious  and  virtuous  turn.  After  some  years, 
during  which  he  enjoyed  the  high  esteem  and  friend- 
ship of  Major  Riggs  and  Mr.  Bampfield,  persecution 
and  troubles  induced  him  to  leave  Ireland  and  come 
over  into  England,  where  he  married  the  daughter 
of  Mr.  Edward  Hutchinson,  who  had  been  pastor  of 
a  congregation  at  Ormond,  but  was  also  come  to 
England  on  account  of  the  troubles  of  the  times. 
After  this,  Mr.  Delaune  "went  to  London,  kept  a  | 
grammar-school  there,  and  fell  into  an  intimacy  and 
strict  friendship  with  Mr.  Benjamin  Keach,  and 
translated  the  "  Philologia  Sacra,"  prefixed  to  his 
celebrated  work  entitled  "  A  Key  to  open  Scripture 
Metaphors."  The  narrative  published  with  the  sub- 
sequent editions  of  his  "  Plea  for  the  Nonconform- 
ists" fully  represents  the  series  of  sufferings  under 
which  he  sunk,  and  the  process  of  the  iniquitous 
prosecution  to  which  he,  his  wife  and  children,  be- 
came a  sacrifice. — E 

t  It  is  to  be  observed  that,  notwithstanding  all  the 
attempts  used  to  suppress  Mr.  Delaune's  tract,  to  ob- 
struct its  reception,  and  to  prevent  its  effect  on  the 
public  mind,  by  severities  against  its  author,  and  by 
committing  the  piece  itself  to  the  Haines,  there  was 
a  great  demand  for  it,  and  before  the  year  1~:J;5  there 
had  been  seventeen  impressions  of  it.— En.  An 
American  edition  of  this  valuable  work,  now  quite 
scarce,  is  a  desideratum. — ('. 

%  Mr.  Neal's  account  of  Dr.  Calamy's  conduct  to- 
wards Mr.  Delaune  is  drawn  from  the  injured  suffer- 
er's narrative  ;  and  it  must  be  allowed  that  it  reflects 
on  the  doctor's  character  and  memory.     But  though, 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


305 


But  in  answer  to  a  second  letter,  he  said  he 
looked  upon  himself  as  unconcerned,  because 
he  was  not  mentioned  in  that  sheet  he  saw 
with  the  recorder.  Mr.  Deiaune  insisted  that 
his  honour  was  at  stake  for  his  deliverance,  and 
prayed  him  at  least  to  perform  the  office  of  a 
divine,  in  visiting  him  in  prison,  to  argue  him 
out  of  his  doubts  ;  but  the  doctor,  like  an  ungen- 
erous adversary,  deserted  him.  Mr.  Deiaune, 
therefore,  was  to  be  convinced  by  an  indictment 
at  law;  for  that,  on  November  30,  he  did,  by 
force  of  arms,  &c.,  unlawfully,  seditiously,  and 
maliciously  write,  print,  and  publish  a  certain 
false,  seditious,  and  scandalous  libel,  of  and 
concerning  our  lord  the  king,  and  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  entitled  "  A  Plea  for  the  Non- 
conformists." For  which  offence  he  was  fined 
one  hundred  marks,  and  to  be  kept  prisoner  till 
he  paid  it  ;  to  find  security  for  his  good  behav- 
iour for  one  year,  and  his  books  to  be  burned 
before  the  Royal  Exchange.  The  court  told 
him  that,  in  respect  of  his  being  a  scholar,  he 
should  not  be  pilloried,  though  he  deserved  it. 
Mr.  Deiaune,  not  being  able  to  pay  his  fine,  lay 
in  prison  fifteen  months,  and  suffered  great 
hardships  by  extreme  poverty,  having  no  sub- 
sistence but  on  charity.  He  had  a  wife  and  two 
small  children  with  him,  who  all  died  in  the 
jail,  through  the  length  and  closeness  of  the  con- 
finement, and  other  inconveniences  they  endu- 
red ;*  and  at  length  Mr.  Deiaune  himself  sunk 


by  not  replying  to  his  book,  nor  visiting  him,  he  ap- 
peared to  desert  him,  yet  it  appears  that  the  behaviour 
which  Mr.  Deiaune,  in  his  afflicted  situation,  felt  as 
a  severe  neglect,  was  tempered  with  more  attention 
to  his  case  and  kindness  than  he  seems  to  have 
known  of  For  Dr.  Edmund  Calamy  says,  "  that  his 
■uncle  took  pains  with  JeB'eries  to  get  him  released, 
but  could  not  prevail,  which  was  no  small  trouble  to 
him."  Dr.  Calamy  was  a  man  greatly  respected  ; 
and,  though  a  true  son  of  the  Church,  averse  to  per- 
secution. He  was  a  man  of  great  humanity,  courte- 
ous and  affable  in  his  deportment,  and  exemplary  in 
his  life.  His  sermons  were  reckoned  to  possess  great 
merit.  No  books  in  his  study  appear  to  have  been 
as  much  used  as  Mr.  Perkins's  works,  especially  his 
"  Cases  of  Conscience,"  which  were  full  of  marks 
and  scores.  He  died  when  a  little  turned  of  forty 
years  of  age.  The  treatment  which  his  neighbour 
and  particular  friend.  Alderman  Cornish,  received, 
greatly  affected  him,  and  is  thought  to  have  hastened 
his  end. — Dr.  Calnmy's  Oivn  Life,  MS.,  and  Bio- 
graphia  Britannica,  vol.  iii.,  second  edit. — Ed. 

*  The  story  of  Mr.  Deiaune  is  very  affecting,  and 
cannot  but,  at  this  distance  of  time,  move  pity  and 
resentment.  "  The  fate  of  himself  and  family,  per- 
ishing in  Newgate  for  want  of  £70,"  observes  the 
candid  editor  of  the  "  Biographia  Britannica,"  second 
edition,  "  is  not  only  a  disgrace  to  the  general  spirit 
of  the  times,  but  casts  peculiar  dishonour  on  the 
Nonconformists  of  that  period.  Though  there  was 
probably  something  in  his  disposition  which  occa- 
sioned his  having  but  few  friends,  a  man  of  his 
knowledge,  learning,  and  integrity  ought  not  to  have 
been  so  fatally  neglected.  Perhaps  the  only  apology 
which  can  be  made  for  the  Dissenters  of  King 
Charles  II. 's  reign  is,  that  while  so  many  of  their 
ministers  were  in  a  persecuted  state,  it  was  impossi- 
ble for  everi/  case  of  distress  to  be  duly  regarded." 
To  this  may  be  added  the  great  number  of  cases  of 
distress  arising  from  the  prosecution  and  sufferings 
of  the  lay  Dissenters.  Mr.  Jeremy  White  iold  Mr. 
John  Waldron,  of  Exeter,  that  the  computation  of 
those  who  suffered  for  nonconformity  between  the 
Restoration  and  the  Revolution  amounted  to  seventy 
thousand  families  ruined,  and  eight  thousand  persons 
destroyed ;  and  the  computation  was  not  finished 
Vol.  II.— Q  q 


under  his  sufferings,  and  died  in  Newgate,  a 
martyr  to  the  challenge  of  this  High  Church 
champion. 

Mr.  Francis  Bampfield  suffered  the  like,  or 
greater  hardships  ;  he  had  been  educated  in 
Wadham  College,  Oxford,  and  was  minister  of 
Sherborne,  in  Dorsetshire.*  After  the  Act  of 
Uniformity,  he  continued  preaching,  as  he  had 
opportunity,  in  private,  till  he  was  imprisoned 
for  five  days  and  nights,  with  twenty-five  of  his 
hearers,  in  one  room,  with  only  one  bed,  where 
they  spent  their  time  in  religious  exercises  ; 
but  after  some  time  he  was  released  t  Soon 
after  he  was  apprehended  again,  and  lay  nine 
years  in  Dorchester  jail,  though  he  was  a  person 
of  unshaken  loyalty  to  the  king,  and  against  the 
Parliament  war  ;  but  this  availed  nothing  to  his 
being  a  Nonconformist.  He  afterward  retired 
to  London,  where,  being  again  apprehended,  he 
was  shut  up  in  Newgate,  and  there  died  Febru- 
ary 16,  1683-4.  He  was  for  the  seventh-day 
Sabbath,  but  a  person  of  unquestionable  serious- 
ness and  piety. 

With  him  might  be  mentioned  Mr.  Ralphson, 
a  learned  man,  and  a  fellow-sufferer  with  Mr. 
Deiaune  in  Newgate.  On  the  10th  of  Decem- 
ber, a  bill  was  found  against  him  by  the  grand 
jury  of  London  ;  on  the  13th  of  the  same  month 
he  pleaded  Not  guilty  at  the  Old  Bailey.  On  the 
16th  of  January  he  was  called  to  the  sessions- 
house,  but  other  trials  proving  tedious,  his  did 
not  come  on.  The  next  day  he  was  brought  to 
the  outer  bar  ;  ami  after  an  attendance  of  divers 
hours  in  a  place  not  very  agreeable,  and  in  the 
sharpest  winter  that  had  been  known,  he  con- 
tracted a  violent  cold,  which  issued  in  a  fever, 
that  carried  him  as  well  as  Mr.  Bampfield  be- 
yond the  reach  of  tyrants,  or  the  restraint  of 
bail-docks  and  press-yards,  to  the  mansions  of 
everlasting  rest.t  Mr.  Philips,  partner  with 
Mr.  Bampfield,  suffered  eleven  months'  imprison- 


when  this  number  was  ascertained.  The  sources  of 
beneficence  were  also  diminished  by  the  effect  of  the 
measures  pursued  on  trade;  for  the  customs  paid  in 
Bristol  only  arose,  in  Charles's  persecution,  not  to 
£30,000  per  annum  ;  but  in  King  William's  reign 
they  advanced  to  near  £100,000. —  Waldron' s  Copy 
of  Neal,  pc7ies  vie. — Ed. 

*  Mr.  Bampfield  was  descended  from  an  ancient 
and  honourable  family  in  Devonshire.  The  first 
living  he  held  was  more  valuable  than  that  of  Sher- 
borne, being  about  £100  per  annum  ;  and  having 
an  annuity  of  £80  per  annum  settled  on  him  for 
life,  he  spent  all  the  income  of  his  place  in  acts  of 
charity,  by  employing  tlie  poor  that  could  work, 
relieving  the  necessities  of  those  who  were  incapa- 
ble of  any  labour,  and  distributing  Bibles  and  practi- 
cal books.  Soon  after  his  ejectment  he  was  impris- 
oned for  worshipping  God  in  his  own  family;  and 
it  is  remarkable  that,  notwithstanding  he  was  prose- 
cuted with  severity,  he  had  been  zealous  against  the 
Parliament's  army  and  Oliver's  usurpation,  and  al- 
ways a  strenuous  advocate  for  the  Royal  cause. 
When  he  resided  in  London  he  formed  a  church  on 
the  principles  of  the  Sabbatarian  Baptists  at  Pinners' 
Hall,  of  which  principles  he  was  a  zealous  asserter. 
He  was  a  celebrated  preacher,  and  a  man  of  serious 
piety.  He  bore  his  long  imprisonment  with  great 
courage  and  patience,  and  gathered  a  church  even 
in  the  place  of  confinement.  His  fellow-prisoners  la- 
mented him,  as  well  as  his  acquaintance  and  friends. 
— Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  468-472.  Cros- 
by's History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  1.,  p.  363-368  ;  vol. 
ii.,  p.  355-'36l.— Ed.  t  Calamy,  vol.  if,  p.  260. 

t  Calamy's  Abridg.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  259-377. 


306 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


ment  in  Ilchester  jail,  in  a  nasty,  stinking  hole, 
to  the  great  hazard  of  his  hfe.  Mr.  French,  of 
Town  Mauiin,  was  confined  six  months  in  Maid- 
stone common  jail,  in  a  hard  winter,  without 
fire  or  candle,  or  any  private  apartment. 

Mr.  Salkeld,  the  ejected  nimister  of  Worling- 
ton  in  Suffolk,  was  fined  £100,  and  committed 
to  the  common  jail  of  St.  Edinundsl)ury,*  for 
saying  popery  was  coming  into  the  nation  apace, 
and  no  care  taken  to  prevent  it.  He  lay  in 
prison  thiee  years,  and  was  not  discharged  tdl 
the  year  1686. 

Mr.  Richard  Stretton  suffered  six  months'  im- 
prisonment tills  year  for  refusing  the  Oxford 
oath,  in  company  with  ten  ministers  more,  who 
were  also  his  fellow-prisoners,  t  Most  of  the  dis- 
senting ministers  were  forced  to  shift  their  pla- 
ces of  abode  to  avoid  discovery,  and  travel  in 
long  nights  and  cold  weather  from  one  village 
to  another,  to  preach  to  their  people.  If  at  any 
time  they  ventured  to  visit  their  families  in  a 
dark  night,  they  durst  not  stir  abroad,  but  went 
away  before  morning.  Some  spent  their  time 
in  woods  and  solitary  places  ;  others,  being  ex- 
communicated, removed  with  their  effects  into 
other  diocesses  :  great  numbers  of  the  common 
people,  taken  at  private  meetings,  were  con- 
victed as  rioters,  and  fined  £10  apiece  ;  and  not 
being  able  to  pay,  were  obliged  to  remove  into 
other  counties,  by  which  they  lost  their  busi- 
ness, and  their  families  were  reduced  to  want. 
I  forbear  to  mention  the  rudeness  offered  to 
young  women,  some  of  whom  were  sent  to 
Bridewell,  to  beat  hemp  among  rogues  and 
thieves:  others,  that  were  married  and  with 
child,  received  irreparable  damages  ;  even  chil- 
dren were  terrified  with  constables  and  halber- 
deers  breaking  open  houses,  of  whom  I  myself, 
says  Mr.  Peirce,  being  very  young,  was  one  ex- 
ample ;  and  the  writer  of  this  history  could  men- 
tion others. 

In  the  midst  of  these  violent  proceedings,  the 
divines  of  the  Church  of  England  published  the 
"  London  Cases  against  the  Nonconformists," 
as  if  the  danger  of  religion  arose  from  that 
quarter ;  they  were  twenty-three  in  number, 
and  have  since  been  abridged  by  Dr.  Bennet. 
These  champions  of  the  Church  were  very  se- 
cure from  being  answered,  after  Mr.  Delaune 
had  so  lately  lost  his  life  for  accepting  such  a 
challenge. J  They  must,  therefore,  have  the 
field  to  themselves,  for  if  their  adversaries  wrote, 
they  were  sure  to  be  rewarded  with  fines  and  a 
prison  ;  but  since  the  return  of  liberty,  they  have 
been  answered  separately  by  Mr.  Nathaniel  Tay- 
lor, Mr.  James  Peirce,  and  others. 

This  year  [1GS3]  died  Dr.  John  Owen,  one  of 
the  most  learned  of  the  Independent  divines ; 

*  It  aggravated  the  iniquity  as  well  as  severity  of 
this  sentence,  that  many  hundreds  of  Dr.  Salkeld's 
hearers  could  testify  that  what  he  said  was  not  said  as 
his  own  language,  but  that  of  the  Parliament.  Du- 
ring his  conrtneinent  he  was  helpful  to  his  fellow- 
prisoaers,  both  as  a  ministei*aiid  a  cheerful  Christian. 
His  table  was  furnished  by  his  friends  at  Bury,  and 
his  fine  afterward  remitted  by  King  William.  But 
his  estate  was  much  weakened,  and  his  health  al- 
most ruined  by  his  imprisonment.  After  his  libera- 
tion he  continued  his  ministry  at  Walsham  in  the 
Willows,  and  died  December  'iO,  1699,  aged  seventy- 
seven. — Palmer's  Non.  Mem.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  442,  443. — 
Ed.  t  Calamy,  vol.  li.,  p.  676. 

X  Peirce,  p,  250. 


he  was  educated  in  Queen's  College,  Oxford, 
but  left  the  university  in  1637,  being  dissatisfied 
with  Laud's  innovations  *  He  was  a  strict 
Calvinist,  and  published  his  "Display  of  Ar- 
minianlsm"  in  1642,  for  which  the  committee 
of  religion  presented  him  to  the  living  of  Ford- 
ham  in  Essex.  In  1643  he  removed  toCogges- 
hall  in  the  same  county,  where  he  first  declared 
himself  an  Independent,  and  gathered  a  church 
according  to  the  discipline  of  that  people.  He 
often  preached  before  the  Long  Parliament,  even 
about  the  time  the  king  was  beheaded,  but  al- 
ways kept  his  sentiments  in  reserve  upon  such  a 
subject.  Soon  after.  Lieutenant-general  Crom- 
well took  him  into  his  service  as  a  chaplain  in 
his  expedition  to  Ireland  ;  and  when  the  gener- 
al marched  to  Scotland,  he  obtained  an  order 
of  Parliament  for  the  doctor  to  attend  him  thith- 
er. Upon  his  return,  he  was  preferred  to  the 
deanery  of  Christ  Church,  and  next  year  to  the 
vice-chancellorship  of  Oxford,  where  he  presi- 
ded with  great  reputation  and  prudence  for  five 
years.  He  always  behaved  like  a  gentleman 
and  scholar,  and  maintained  the  dignity  of  his 
character.  The  writer  of  his  life  says,  that 
though  he  was  an  Independent  himself,  he  gave 
most  of  the  vacant  livings  in  his  disposal  among 
the  Presbyterians,  and  obliged  the  Episcopal 
party,  by  conniving  at  an  assembly  of  about 
three  hundred  of  them,  almost  over  against  his 
own  doors.  The  Oxford  historian, t  after  hav- 
ing treated  his  memory  with  the  most  opprobri- 
ous language,  confesses  that  he  was  well  skilled 
in  the  tongues,  in  rabbinical  learning,  and  in 

*  Calamy,  vol.  ii.,  p.  58.  Palmer's  Non.  Mem., 
vol.  i.,  p.  152-158. 

t  Mr.  Wood  represents  Dr.  Owen  as  a  perjured 
person,  a  time-server,  a  hypocrite,  whose  godliness 
was  g:;iiii,  and  a  blasphemer ;  and,  as  if  this  were  not 
sufficient,  he  has  also  made  him  a  fop.  "All  which," 
observes  Mr.  Granger,  with  equal  judgment  and  can- 
dour, "  means  no  more  than  this  :  that  when  Dr.  Ow- 
en entered  himself  a  member  of  the  University  of 
Oxford,  he  was  of  the  Established  Church,  and  took 
tlie  usual  oaths  ;  that  he  turned  Independent,  preach- 
ed and  acted  as  Independents  did,  took  the  oath 
called  the  Engagement,  and  accepted  of  preferment 
from  Cromwell  ;  that  he  was  a  man  of  goofl  person 
and  behaviour,  and  liked  to  go  well  dressed."  "  We 
must  be  extremely  cautious,"  adds  this  author,  "how 
we  form  our  judgments  of  characters  at  this  period; 
the  difference  of  a  few  modes  or  ceremonies  in  reli- 
gious worship  has  be*'n  the  source  of  infinite  preju- 
dice and  misrepresentation.  The  practice  of  some 
of  the  splenetic  writers  of  this  period  reminds  me  of 
the  painter,  well  known  by  the  appellation  of  Hel- 
lish Bruegheli,  who  so  accustomed  himself  to  paint- 
ing of  witches,  imps,  and  devils,  that  he  sometimes 
made  but  little  difference  between  his  human  and 
infernal  figures"  To  Mr.  Neal's  delineation  of  Dr. 
Owen's  character  may  be  added,  that  he  was  hospi- 
table in  his  house,  generous  in  his  favours,  and  char 
itable  to  the  poor,  especially  to  poor  scholars,  some 
of  whom  he  took  into  his  own  family,  maintained  at 
his  own  charge,  and  educated  in  an  academical  learn- 
ing. When  he  was  at  Tunbridge,  the  Duke  of  York 
several  times  sent  for  him,  and  conversed  with  him 
concerning  the  Dissenters.  On  his  return  to  London, 
King  Charles  himself  sent  for  him,  and  discoursed 
with  him  two  hours  ;  assuring  him  of  his  favour  and 
respect,  expressing  himself  a  friend  to  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  his  sense  of  the  wrong  done  to  the  Dis- 
senters. At  the  same  time  he  gave  him  a  thousand 
guineas  to  distribute  among  those  who  had  suffered 
most. —  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  301, 
302,  note ;  and  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  154, 
155.— Ed. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


20? 


the  Jewish  rites  and  customs,  and  that  he  was 
one  of  the  most  genteel  and  fairest  writers  that 
appeared  against  the  Church  of  England.  The 
doctor  had  a  great  reputation  among  foreign 
Protestants  ;  and  when  he  was  ejected  by  the 
Act  of  Uniformity,  was  invited  to  a  professor- 
ship in  the  United  Provinces.  He  was  once 
also  determined  to  settle  in  New-England,  but 
•was  stopped  by  express  order  from  the  Council 
He  was  pastor  of  a  considerable  congregation 
in  London,  and  died  with  great  calmness  and 
composure  of  mind,  on  Bartholomew  Day,  1683. 
His  works  are  very  numerous,  and  still  in  es- 
teem among  the  Dissenters,  though  his  style  is 
a  little  intricate  and  perplexed,* 

[In  this  year  died,  aged  seventy-two,  Dr. 
Benjamin  Whichcote,  the  friend  of  Tillotson. 
He  was  of  an  ancient  and  honourable  family  in 
the  county  of  Salop,  and  was  born  at  Which- 
eote  Hall,  in  the  parish  of  Stoke,  March  II, 
1609.  He  was  admitted  in  Emanuel  College, 
Cambridge,  1626,  and  graduated  bachelor  of 
arts  I62i),  master  of  arts  163:3,  and  bachelor  in 
divinity  1640.  In  the  same  year  that  he  took 
his  second  degree  he  was  elected  fellow  of  the 
College,  and  his  tutor,  Mr.  Thomas  Hill,  leaving 
the  university  the  year  after,  Mr.  Whichcote 
took  pupils,  and  became  very  considerable  for 
his  learning  and  worth,  his  prudence  and  tem- 
per, his  wisdom  and  moderation,  in  those  times 
of  trial ;  nor  was  he  less  famous  for  the  num- 
ber, rank,  and  character  of  his  pupils,  and  the 
care  he  took  of  them.  Wallis,  Smith,  Worth- 
ington,  Cradock,  &c.,  studied  under  him.  In 
1626  he  set  up  an  afternoon  lecture  in  Trinity 
Church  at  Cambridge,  which  he  served  twenty 
years.  In  1643  the  master  and  fellows  of  his 
college  presented  him  to  the  living  of  North 
Cadbury,  in  Somersetshire.  But  he  was  soon 
called  back  to  Cambridge,  and  admitted  provost 
of  King's  College,  March  19,  1644.t  In  1649 
he  was  created  doctor  in  divinity.  Here  he 
employed  his  credit,  weight,  and  influence  to 
advance  and  spread  a  free  and  generous  way 
of  thinking,  and  to  promote  a  spirit  of  sober 
piety  and  rational  religion.  Many,  whose  tal- 
ents and  learning  raised  them  to  great  eminence 
as  divines  after  the  Restoration,  were  formed 
by  him.  To  his  predecessor  in  the  provostship 
he  was  generous.  His  spirit  was  too  noble 
servilely  to  follow  a  party.  At  the  Restoration 
he  was  removed  from  his  post,  on  accepting  of 
which  he  had  resigned  the  living  of  Cadbury, 
and  he  was  elected  and  licensed  to  the  cure  of 
St.  Anne's  Blackfriars.  November,  1662.  This 
church  was  burned  down  in  the  fire  of  1665,  and 
he  retired  for  a  while  to  Milton,  a  living  given 
to  him  by  his  college.  He  was  after  this  pre- 
sented, by  the  crown,  to  the  vicarage  of  St. 
Lawrence  Jury,  which  was  his  last  stage. 
Here  he  continued,  in  high  and  general  esteem, 
preaching  twice  every  week,  till  his  death  in 
1683.  One  volume  of  his  sermons,  entitled 
"  Select  Discourses,"  was  published,  after  his 

*  Owen's  entire  works  have  been  republished  in 
twenty-one  volumes,  not  inclusive  of  his  Notes  and 
Exercitations  on  the  Hebrews ;  but  such  has  been 
the  demand  for  the  writings  of  this  divine,  that  they 
are  again  become  scarce. — C. 

■f  See  before,  vol.  i..  p.  483,  text  and  note,  where 
we  have  already  made  respectful  mention  of  Dr. 
Wiiichcote. 


death,  by  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  author  of  the 
"Characteristics,"  in  1698.  Three  others  by 
Dr.  John  Jeffery,  archdeacon  of  Norwich,  in 
1701  and  1702,  and  a  fourth  by  Dr.  Samue! 
Clarke.  A  collection  of  his  "Aphorisms"  was. 
printed  by  Dr.  S  Salter,  in  1753.  See  the  sec- 
ond preface  to  which,  p.  16-27. — En  ] 

This  year  the  king,  by  the  assistance  of  the 
Tories  and  Roman  Catholics,  completed  the 
ruin  of  the  Constitution,  and  assumed  the  whole 
government  into  his  own  hands.  The  Whig& 
and  Nonconformists  were  struck  with  terror  by 
the  severe  prosecutions  of  the  heads  of  their 
party.*  Mr.  Hampden  was  fined  £40,000,  Sir 
Samuel  Barnardiston  £10,000,  for  defaming  the 
evidence  in  the  Ryehouse  Plot.  Mr.  Speke 
£2000,  and  Mr.  Braddon  £1000,  for  reporting 
that  the  Earl  of  Essex  had  been  murdered  iti 
the  Tower.  Mr.  John  Duttoncolt  £100,000,  for ■ 
scandalum  magnatum  against  the  Duke  of  York,, 
who  now  ruled  all  at  court.  Gates  was  fined 
for  the  same  crime  £100,000,  and  never  releas- 
ed till  after  the  Revolution.  Thirty-two  others 
were  fined  or  pilloried  for  libelling  the  king  or 
the  Duke  of  York.  In  short,  the  greatest  part 
of  the  history  of  this  year  consists  of  prosecu- 
tions, penalties,  and  punishments,  says  Mr. 
Echard.  At  the  same  time,  the  Earl  of  Danby 
and  the  popish  lords  were  released  out  of  the 
Tower  on  bail,  the  garrison  of  Tangier  was 
brought  over  into  England,  and  augmented  to  a 
standing  army  of  four  or  five  thousand  resolute 
men,  fit  for  any  service  the  court  should  em- 
ploy them  in.  And  the  corporations  through- 
out England,  having  been  prevailed  with,  by 
promises  or  threatenings,  to  surrender  their 
charters,!  after  the  example  of  London,  the 
whole  kingdom  was  divested  of  its  privileges, 
and  reduced  to  an  absolute  monarchy.!   Whole 


*  Rapin,  p.  733,  and  note.    Echard,  p.  1043.  1044. 

t  Among  others,  the  charter  of  the  city  of  Chester 
was  surrendered,  and  a  new  one  joyfully  accepted;, 
by  which  a  power  was  reserved  to  the  crown  to  put 
out  magistrates  and  put  in  at  pleasure.   This  is  men- 
tioned to  introduce  an  instance  of  the  conduct  of  the 
Dissenters  of  lliat  day,  which  reflects  honour  on  their 
integrity,  and  shows  how  far  they  were  from  the  af- 
fectation of  power  ;  as  it  was  also  a  proof  of  a  disin- 
terested and  inviolable  attachment  to  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  their  country.     About  August,  1688,  one 
Mr.  Trinder  was  sent  to  Chester  to  new  model  the 
corporation  according  to  the  power  above  mentioned. 
He  applied  to  Mr.  Henry,  in  the  king's  name,  and 
told  him  that  "  his  majesty  thought  the  government 
of  the  city  needed  reformation,  and  if  he  would  say 
who  should  be  put  out,  it  should  be  done."    Mr; 
Henry  said,  "  He  begged  his  pardon,  but  it- was  nono 
of  his  business,  nor  would  he  in  the  least  inlermsdi- 
dle  in  a  thing  of  that  nature."    Trinder,  however 
got  instructions  from  others.     The  charter  was  can- 
celled, and  another  of  the  same  import  was  made 
out  and  sent  down,  nominating  to  the  government 
all  the  Dissenters  of  note  in  the  city,  the  seniors  ta 
be  aldermen,  and  the  juniors  common-council-men 
When  the  persons  named  in  it  were  called  together 
to  have  notice  of  it,  and  to  have  the  time  fi.xed  for 
their  being  sworn,  like  true   Englishmen,  they  re- 
fu.seii  it,  and  desired  that  the  ancient  charter  might 
be  re-establishe(),  though  they  knew  that  none  of 
thern  would  conic  into  power  l)v  that,  but  many  of 
those  who  were  their  bitter  enemies  would  be  re- 
.stored.     Accordingly,  the  old  charter  was  renewed 
in  the  same  .state  wherein  it  was  when  the  Tories 
surrendered  it.— .Vr.   Thampsm's  MS.   Collections, 
under  the  word  Chester. — Ed. 
t  Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  130. 


303 


HISTORY    OF   THE   PURITANS. 


peals  of  anathemas  were  rung  out  against  those 
patriots  who  stood  in  the  way  against  this  inun- 
dation of  power.  The  Scriptures  were  wrested 
to  prove  the  Divine  right  of  tyrants.  The  ab- 
sohite  government  of  the  Jewish  kings  was 
preached  up  as  a  pattern  for  ours.*  And  Heav- 
en Itself  was  ranked  on  that  side,  by  some  who 
pretended  to  expound  its  will.  Instead  of  drop- 
ping a  tear  over  our  expiring  laws,  liberties,  and 
Parliaments,  fulsome  panegyrics  were  made 
upon  their  murderers,  and  curses  denounced  on 
those  who  would  have  saved  them  from  destruc- 
tion. 

In  this  melancholy  situation  of  public  affairs, 
the  prosecution  of  the  Nonconformists  was  con- 
tinued, and  egged  on  with  an  infatuation  hard- 
ly to  be  paralleled  in  any  Protestant  nation. 
Dr.  Barlow,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  published  a  let- 
ter for  spiriting  up  the  magistrates  against  the 
Dissenters,  in  concurrence  with  another  drawn 
up  by  the  justices  of  peace  of  Bedford,  bear- 
ing date  January  14,  1684.  Many  were  cited 
into  the  spiritual  courts,  excommunicated,  and 
ruined.  Two  hundred  warrants  of  distress 
were  issued  out  upon  private  persons  and  fam- 
ilies, in  the  town  and  neighbourhood  of  Ux- 
bridge,  for  frequenting  conventicles  or  not  re- 
sorting to  church. t  An  order  was  made  by  the 
justices  of  Exeter,  promising  a  reward  of  iOs. 
to  any  one  who  should  apprehend  a  Noncon- 
formist minister,  which  the  bishop  of  the  dio- 
cess.  Dr.  Lamplugh,  commanded  to  be  publish- 
ed in  all  the  churches,  by  his  clergy,  on  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Bates,  Dr.  An- 
nesley,  and  many  of  their  brethren  in  the  min- 
istry, had  their  goods  seized  and  confiscated. 
Mr.  Mayot,  of  Oxford,  a  moderate  Con- 
formist, having  left  Mr.  Baxter  £600  to  distrib- 
ute among  sixty  poor  ejected  ministers,  the 
Lord-keeper  North  took  it  from  him,  as  given 
to  a  superstitious  use  ;  but  it  lying  unappropri- 
ated in  the  Court  of  Chancery  till  after  the 
Revolution,  it  was  restored  by  the  commission- 
ers of  the  great  seal  under  King  William.  Soon 
after  the  justices  sent  warrants  to  apprehend 
M. .  Baxter,  as  being  one  in  a  list  of  a  thousand 
names  who  were  to  be  bound  to  their  good  be- 
haviour upon  latent  convictions,  that  is,  with- 
out seeing  their  accusers,  or  being  made  ac- 
quainted with  their  charge.^  Mr.  Baxter  refu- 
sing to  open  his  doors,  the  officers  forced  into 
his  house,  and  finding  him  locked  up  in  his 
study,  they  resolved  to  starve  him  from  thence 
by  setting  six  men  at  the  door,  to  whom  he  was 
obliged  next  day  to  surrender.  They  then  car- 
ried him  to  the  sessions  house  two  or  three 
times,  and  bound  him  in  a  bond  of  £400  ;  so 
that  if  his  friends  had  not  been  sureties  for  him, 
contrary  to  his  desire,  he  must  have  died  in 
prison,  as  many  excellent  persons  did  about 
this  tune. 

Jefferies,  now  Lord-chief-justice  of  England, 
who  was  scandalously  vicious,  and  drunk  every 
day,  besides  a  drunkenness  of  fury  in  his  temper 
that  looked  like  madness,  was  prepared  for  any 


*  Mr.  Waldron,  of  Exeter,  has  written  here  m  his 
copy  of  Mr.  Neal's  work  the  following  note:  ''The 
public  orator  of  Cambridge,  in  a  speecli  to  the  king 
at  Newmarket,  told  him  that  they  hoped  to  see  the 
King  of  England  as  absolute  as  the  kings  of  Israel  : 
as  Thomas  Quicks,  Esq.,  told  me,  who  stood  behind 
him."— J.  W.  t  Howe's  Life,  p.  80. 

X  Baxter,  part  iu.,  p.  198. 


dirty  work  the  court  should  put  him  upon.* 
Septeinber  23,  1684,  Mr.  Thomas  Rosewel,  the 
dissenting  minister  at  Rotherhithe,  was  impris- 
oned in  the  Gate-house,  Westminster,  fur  high 
treason  ;  and  a  bill  was  found  against  him  at 
the  quarter  sessions,  upon  which  he  was  tried 
November  8,  at  the  King's  Bench  bar,  by  a 
Surrey  jury,  before  Lord-chief-justice  Jefferies, 
and  his  brethren,  viz.,  Withins,  HoUoway,  and 
Walcot.  He  was  indicted  for  the  following 
expressions  in  his  sermon,  September  14  :  That 
the  king  could  not  cure  the  king's  evil,  but  that 
priests  and  prophets  by  their  prayers  could  heal 
the  griefs  of  the  people  ;  that  we  had  had  two 
wicked  kings  (meaning  the  present  king  and 
his  father),  whom  we  can  resemble  to  no  other 
person  but  to  the  most  wicked  Jeroboam  ;  and 
that  if  they  (meaning  his  hearers)  would  stand 
to  their  principles,  he  did  not  doubt  but  they 
should  overcome  their  enemies  (meaning  the 
king),  as  in  former  times,  with  rams'  horns, 
broken  platters,  and  a  stone  in  a  sling.  The 
witnesses  were  three  infamous  women,  who 
swore  to  the  words  without  the  mnuctidocs  ; 
they  were  laden  with  the  guilt  of  many  perju- 
ries already,  and  such  of  them  as  could  be 
found  afterward  were  convicted,  and  the  chief 
of  them  pilloried  before  the  Exchange.  The 
trial  lasted  seven  hours,  and  .Mr.  Rosewel  be- 
haved with  all  the  decency  and  respect  to  the 
court  that  could  be  expected,  and  made  a  de- 
fence that  was  applauded  by  most  of  the  hear- 
ers. He  said  it  was  impossible  the  witnesses 
should  remember,  and  be  able  to  pronounce  so 
long  a  period,  when  they  could  not  so  much  as 
tell  the  text,  nor  anything  else  in  the  sermon, 
besides  the  words  they  had  sworn :  several 
who  heard  the  sermon,  and  wrote  it  in  short- 
hand, declared  they  heard  no  such  words.  Mr. 
Rosewel  offered  his  own  notes  to  prove  it,  but 
no  regard  was  had  to  them.  The  women  could 
not  prove,  says  Burnet,  by  any  one  circum- 
stance, that  they  were  at  the  meeting,  or  that 
any  person  saw  them  there  on  that  day  :  the 
words  they  swore  were  so  gross,  that  it  was 
not  to  be  imagined  that  any  man  in  his  wits 
would  express  himself  so  before  a  mixed  as- 
sembly ;  yet  Jefferies  urged  the  matter  with 
his  usual  vehemence.  He  laid  it  for  a  founda- 
tion, that  all  preaching  at  conventicles  was 
treasonable,  and  that  this  ought  to  dispose  the 
jury  to  believe  any  evidence  upon  that  head, 
so  the  jury  brought  him  in  guilty  ;t  upon  which, 


*  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  444,  445. 

t  As  soon  as  Mr.  Rosewel  was  convicted.  Sir 
John  Talbot,  who  was  present  at  the  trial,  went  to 
the  king,  and  urged  on  his  majesty,  that  if  such  evi- 
dence as  had  appeared  against  Mr.  Rosewel  were 
admitted,  no  one  ofhis  subjects  would  be  safe.  Upon 
this,  when  Jefferies  soon  after  came  into  the  royal 
presence,  with  an  air  of  exultation  and  triumph,  to 
congratulate  his  majesty  on  the  conviction  of  a  trai- 
tor, the  king  gave  him  a  cold  reception,  which  damp- 
ed his  ardour  in  the  business.  When  the  court  met 
to  hear  Mr.  Rosevvel's  counsel,  this  corrupt  judge, 
who  on  the  trial  had  intermingled  with  the  exami- 
nation of  the  witnesses  virulent  invectives  against 
him,  and  with  his  usual  vehemence  had  endeavoured 
to  prejudice  and  inflame  ihe  jury,  now  assumed  a 
tone  of  moderation,  and  strongly  recommended  to 
the  king's  counsel  caution  and  deliberation,  where 
the  life  of  a  man  was  depending. — See  the  Trial. — Ed. 

N.B.  This  trial  has  been  reprinted  m  the  Protest- 
ant Dissenters'  Magazine. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


309 


says  the  bishop,*  there  was  a  shameful  rejoi- 
cing ;  and  it  was  now  thought  all  conventicles 
must  be  suppressed,  when  such  evidence  could 
be  received  against  such  a  defence.  But  when 
the  words  came  to  be  examined  by  men  learned 
in  the  law,  they  were  found  not  to  be  treason 
by  any  statute.  So  Mr.  Rosewel  moved  an  ar- 
rest of  judgment  till  counsel  should  be  heard  ; 
and  though  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  motion 
was  proper  on  this  foundation  after  the  verdict, 
yet  the  king  was  so  out  of  countenance  at  the 
accounts  he  heard  of  the  witnesses,  that  he 
gave  orders  to  yield  to  it ;  and  in  the  end  he 
was  pardoned. t  The  court  lost  a  great  deal  of 
reputation  by  this  trial ;  for  besides  that  Rose- 
wel made  a  strong  defence,  he  proved  that  he 
had  always  been  a  loyal  man  even  in  Crom- 
well's days,  that  he  prayed  constantly  for  the 
king  in  his  family,  and  that  in  his  sermons  he 
often  insisted  upon  the  obligations  to  loyalty. 

Among  other  sufferers  for  nonconformity,  we 
must  not  forget  the  Rev.  Mr.  William  Jenkyns, 
M.A.,  the  ejected  minister  of  Christ  Church, 
who  died  this  year  in  Newgate  :  he  was  edu- 
cated in  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge  ;  and 
about  the  year  1641  was  chosen  minister  of  this 
place,  and  lecturer  of  Blackfriars,  both  which 
pulpits  he  filled  with  great  acceptance  till  the 
destruction  of  monarchy,  after  which  he  was 
sequestered,  for  refusing  to  comply  with  the 
orders  of  Parliament. $  He  was  sent  to  the 
Tower  for  Love's  plot,  hut  upon  his  humble 
petition,  and  promise  of  submission  to  th^  pow- 
ers in  being,  he  was  pardoned,  and  his  seques- 
tration taken  off,  but  he  carefully  avoided  med- 
dling in  politics  afterward.  He  was  summon- 
ed before  the  Council  January  2,  1661,  and  rep- 
rimanded, because  he  forgot  to  pray  for  the 
king  ;ij  and  being  ejected  with  his  brethren  in 
1662,  he  retired  into  the  country  ;  but  upon  the 
indulgence  in  1671,  he  had  a  new  meeting- 
house erected  for  him  in  Jewin-street,  where 
he  preached  to  a  crowded  audience.  He  was 
one  of  the  merchant's  lecturers  at  Pinners' 
Hall ;  and  when  the  indulgence  was  revoked. 


♦  Page  446. 

+  Calamy,  vol.  it.,  p.  756.  Palmer's  Non.  Mem., 
vol.  ii.,  p.  512. 

J  Mr.  Jenkyns  was,  by  his  mother,  the  grandson 
of  Mr.  John  Rogers,  the  protomartyr  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Mary.  The  order  of  Parliament  to  which  he 
refused  obedience  was  one  that  enjoined  a  public 
thanksgiving.  The  brethren  with  whom  he  was 
keeping  a  fast  when  he  was  apprehended  in  1684, 
wero  Mr.  Reynolds,  Mr.  Keeling,  and  Mr.  Flavel, 
who  made  their  escape,  which  Mr.  Jenkyns  might 
have  done,  had  it  not  been  for  a  piece  of  vanity  in  a 
lady,  whose  long  train  hindered  his  going  down 
stairs;  Mr.  Jenkyns,  in  his  great  civility,  having  let 
her  pass  before  him.  At  his  funeral,  which  was  at- 
tended by  many  eminent  persons,  and  some  scores 
of  mourning  coaches,  his  son  gave  rings  with  this 
motto,  "  William  Jenkyns,  murdered  in  NewgatQ." 
Upon  his  death,  a  nobleman  said  to  the  king,  "  May 
it  please  your  majesty,  Jenkyns  has  got  his  lib- 
erty." On  which  he  asked,  with  eagerness,  "Ay! 
who  gave  it  him  ?"  The  nobleman  replied,  "  A 
greater  than  your  majesty,  the  King  of  kings ;"  with 
which  the  king  seemed  greatly  struck,  and  remain- 
ed silent. — Granger,  vol.  iii.,  p.  317.  Palmer,  vol.  i., 
p.  98-100;  and  History  of  the  Town  of  Taunton,  p. 
157.  Turner's  History  of  Providence,  chap,  cxliii.,  p. 
117. — Ed.  Bfr.  Jenkyns's  son  suftered  in  the  west  on 
account  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth.  His  death  was 
uiost  triumphant. — C.       ()  Kennel's  Chron.,  p.  601. 


he  continued  preaching,  as  he  could,  till  this 
year  ;  but  September  2,  1684,  being  at  a  private 
fast  with  some  of  his  brethren,  the  soldiers 
broke  in  and  carried  Mr.  Jenkyns  before  two 
aldermen,  who  treated  him  very  rudely,  and, 
upon  his  refusing  the  Oxford  oath,  committed 
him  to  Newgate;  while  he  was  there,  he  pe- 
titioned the  king  for  a  release,  his  physicians 
declaring  that  his  life  was  in  danger  from  his 
close  confinement ;  but  no  security  would  be 
accepted.  So  that  he  soon  declined  in  his  health, 
and  died  in  Newgate  in  the  seventy-third  year 
of  his  age,  January  19,  1684-5,  having  been  a 
prisoner  four  months  and  one  week.  A  little 
before  his  death  he  said,  a  man  might  be  as  ef- 
fectually murdered  in  Newgate  as  at  Tyburn. 
He  was  buried  by  his  friends  in  Bunhill  Fields 
with  great  honour,  many  eminent  persons,  and 
some  scores  of  coaches,  attending  his  funeral.* 

This  was  the  usage  the  Dissenters  met  with 
from  the  Church  of  England  at  this  time,  which 
has  hardly  a  parallel  in  the  Christian  world  : 
remarkable  are  the  words  of  the  Earl  of  Cas- 
tlemain,  a  Roman  Catholic,  on  this  occasion  : 
■'  'Twas  never  known,"  says  he,  "  that  Rome 
persecuted,  as  the  bishops  do,  those  who  adhere 
to  the  same  faith  with  themselves  ;  and  estab- 
lished an  inquisition  against  the  professors  of 
the  strictest  piety  among  themselves,  and,  how- 
ever the  prelates  complain  of  the  bloody  perse- 
cution of  Queen  Mary,  it  is  manifest  that  their 
persecution  exceeds  it  ;  for  under  her  there 
were  not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  put 
to  death,  whereas,  under  their  persecution, 
above  treble  that  number  have  been  rifled,  de- 
stroyed, and  ruined  in  their  estates,  lives,  and 
liberties,  being  (as  is  most  remarkable)  men, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  same  spirit  with  those 
Protestants  who  suffered  under  the  prelates  in 
Queen  Mary's  time."t 

This  year  died  Mr.  Benjamin  Woodbridge, 
M.A.,  the  ejected  minister  of  Newbury.  He 
was  bred  up  in  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxford ;  from 
thence  he  went  to  New-England,  and  was  the 
first  graduate  of  the  college  there.  On  his  re- 
turn to  England,  he  succeeded  Dr.  Twisse  at 
Newbury,  where  he  had  a  mighty  reputation  as 
a  scholar,  a  preacher,  a  casuist,  and  a  Christian, 
He  was  a  great  instrument  of  reducing  the  whole 
town  to  sobriety,  and  to  family,  as  well  as  pub- 
lic religion.  Upon  the  Restoration,  he  was 
made  one  of  the  king's  chaplains  in  ordinary, 
and  preached  once  before  him.  He  was  one  of 
the  commissioners  at  the  Savoy,  and  very  de- 
sirous of  an  accommodation  with  the  Church 
party.  He  was  offered  a  canonry  of  Windsor, 
but  refused  it,  and  afterward  suffered  many 
ways  for  his  nonconformity,  though  he  was 
generally  respected  and  beloved  by  all  who 
were  judges  of  real  worth.  He  had  a  sound 
judgment,  and  was  a  fine  preacher,  having  a 
commanding  voice  and  aspect.  His  temper 
was  cheerful,  and  his  behaviour  obliging;  he 
was  exemplary  for  his  moderation,  and  of  con- 
siderable learning.  When  the  Five-mile  Act 
took  place,  he  removed  from  Newbury  to  a 
small  distance,  where  he  preached  as  he  had 


*  Mr.  Jenkyns's  chief  work  is  his  exposition  of 
Jude,  in  two  small  quartos,  one  of  the  best  speci- 
mens of  commentary  in  the  language.  It  has  lately 
been  reprinted. — C,  t  Peirce,  p.  259, 


310 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


opportunity.*  He  was  liberal  to  the  poor,  and 
in  all  respects  a  good  and  great  man.  He  died 
at  Ingiefield,  November  I,  1684,  in  a  good  old 
age,  after  he  had  been  a  minister  in  those  parts 
almost  forty  years. 

The  sufferings  of  the  Presbyterians  in  Scot- 
land run  parallel  with  those  of  England  during 
ihe  whole  course  of  this  reign,  but  the  people 
were  not  quite  so  tame  and  submissive  :t  the 
same,  or  greater  acts  of  severity  than  those 
which  were  made  against  the  Nonconformists 
in  England,  were  enacted  in  Scotland.  Episco- 
pacy was  restored  May  8,  1662,  and  the  Cov- 
enant declared  to  be  an  unlawful  oath.  All  per- 
sons in  office  were  to  sign  a  declaration  of  the 
unlawfulness  of  taking  up  arms  against  the 
Jving,  or  any  commissioned  by  him,  on  any  pre- 
tence whatsoever.  The  English  act  against 
conventicles  was  copied,  and  passed  almost  in 
the  same  terms  in  Scotland.  The  bishops  were 
some  ol  the  worst  of  men,  and  hated  by  the 
people  as  they  deserved,  for  their  deportment 
was  unbecoming  their  function,  says  Bishop 
Burnet  ;t  some  did  not  live  within  their  diocess- 
•es,  and  those  who  did  seemed  to  take  no  care 
•of  them  :  they  showed  no  zeal  against  vice  ; 
the  most  eminently  vicious  in  the  country  were 
their  peculiar  confidants  :  nor  had  they  any 
concern  to  keep  their  clergy  to  their  duty,  but 
■were  themselves  guilty  of  levity  and  great  sen- 
suality. 

The  people  were  generally  of  the  Presbyteri- 
an persuasion,  and  stood  firm  by  each  other.  In 
many  places  they  were  fierce  and  untractable, 
and  generally  forsook  the  churches  ;  the  whole 
■country  complained  of  the  new  Episcopal  cler- 
gy, as  immoray  stupid,  ignorant,  and  greedy  of 
gain  ;  and  treated  them  with  an  aversion  that 
sometimes  proceeded  to  violence.  Many  were 
brought  before  the  Council  and  ecclesiastical 
commission  for  not  coming  to  church  ;  but  the 
proofs  were  generally  defective,  for  the  people 
"would  not  give  evidence  one  against  another. 
However,  great  numbers  were  cast  into  prison, 
and  ill  used  ;  some  were  fined,  and  the  young- 
er sort  whipped  publicly  about  the  streets ;  so 
that  great  numbers  transported  their  families 
to  Ulster  in  Ireland,  where  they  were  well  re- 
ceived. 

The  government  observed  no  measures  with 
this  people ;  they  exacted  exorbitant  fines  for 
their  not  coming  to  church,  and  quartered  sol- 
diers upon  them  till  they  were  ruined.  The 
truth  is,  says  Burnet,iJ  the  whole  face  of  the 
government  looked  more  like  the  proceedings  of 
an  inquisition  than  of  legal  courts.  At  length, 
in  the  year  1666,  Sir  James  Turner  being  sent 
into  the  west  to  levy  fines  at  discretion,  the 
people  rose  up  in  arms,  and  published  a  mani- 
festo that  they  did  not  take  arms  against  the 
king,  but  only  that  they  might  be  delivered  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  bishops,  and  that  Presbytery 
and  the  Covenant  might  be  set  up,  and  their  old 
ministers  restored.  Turner  and  all  his  soldiers 
were  made  prisoners,  but  marching  out  of  their 
own  country,  they  were  dispersed  by  the  king's 
forces,  about  forty  being  killed,  and  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  taken  ;   many  of  whom  were 

*  Calamy,  vol.  u.,  p.  956.  Palmer's  Non.  Mem., 
■vol.  i.,  p.  229. 

+  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  206-211. 

i  Page  317.  ^  Page  307,  309,  310. 


hanged  before  their  own  doors,  and  died  with 
great  firmness  and  joy.*  Mr.  Maccail,  their 
minister,  underwent  the  torture,  and  died  witk 
great  constancy  ;  his  last  words  were,  "Fare- 
well sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  farewell  kindrei 
and  friends,  world  and  time,  and  this  weak  an4 
frail  body  ;  and  welcome  eternity,  welcome  an- 
gels and  saints,  welcome  Saviour  of  the  world, 
and  God  the  judge  of  all !"  which  he  spoke  ia 
such  a  manner  as  struck  all  who  heard  him. 
The  commander  of  the  king's  forces  killed  some 
in  cold  blood,  and  threatened  to  spit  others  and 
roast  them  alive. 

When  the  indulgence  was  published  in  Eng- 
land the  Scots  had  the  benefit  of  it,  but  when  it 
was  taken  away  the  persecution  revived,  with, 
inexpressible  severity,  under  the  administration 
of  Duke  Lauderdale.  Conventicles  abounded 
in  all  parts  of  the  country;  the  Presbyterian 
ministers  preached  in  their  own  houses  to  num- 
bers of  people  that  stood  without  doors  to  hear 
thein  ;  and  when  they  were  dispersed  by  the 
magistrates,  they  retreated  into  the  fields  with 
their  ministers  to  hear  the  Word  of  God  ;  and, 
to  prevent  being  disturbed,  carried  arms  suffi- 
cient for  their  defence.  Upon  which,  a  very 
severe  act  was  passed  against  house  conventi- 
cles and  field  conventicles,  declaring  them  trea- 
sonable ;  and  the  landlords  in  whose  grounds 
they  were  held  were  to  be  severely  fined,  unless  , 
they  discovered  the  persons  present.  But  still 
this  did  not  terrify  the  people,  who  met  together 
in  defiance  of  the  law.t  Writs  were  issued 
against  many  who  were  called  Cameronians, 
who  were  outlawed,  and  therefore  left  their 
houses,  and  travelled  about  the  country,  and  at 
length  they  collected  into  a  body,  and  declared 
that  the  king  had  forfeited  the  crown  of  that 
kingdom  by  renouncing  the  Covenant ;  but  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  being  sent  to  disperse  them, 
routed  them  at  Bothwell  Bridge,  killing  four 
hundred,  and  taking  twelve  hundred  prisoners  ; 
two  ministers  were  hanged,  and  two  hundred 
banished  to  the  plantations,  who  were  all  lost 
at  sea.t  Cameron,  their  preacher,  fell  in  bat- 
tle, but  Hackston  and  Cargili,  the  two  other 
preachers,  died  with  invincible  courage  ;  as  did 
all  the  rest,  who  were  offered  their  lives  if  they 
would  say,  God  bless  the  king !  Hackston  had 
both  his  hands  cut  off,  which  he  suffered  with  a 
constancy  and  rapture  that  were  truly  amazing. 
When  both  his  hands  were  cut  off,  he  asked 
whether  they  would  cut  off  his  feet  too.  And 
notwithstanding  all  his  loss  of  blood,  after  he 
was  hanged,  and  his  heart  taken  out  of  his  body, 
it  was  alive  upon  the  hangman's  knife. ^ 

At  length,  says  Bishop  Burnet,||  things  came 
to  that  extremity,  that  the  people  saw  thej 
must  come  to  church  or  be  undone  ;  but  they 
came  in  so  awkward  a  manner,  that  it  was  vis- 
ible they  did  not  come  to  serve  God,  but  to  save 
their  substance,  for  they  were  talking  or  sleep- 
ing during  the  whole  service.  This  introduced 
a  sort  of  atheism  among  the  younger  people. 
But  the  inquisition  was  so  terrible,  that  numbers 
fled  from  their  native  country,  and  settled  in 


*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  348. 

+  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p  64,  155,  182,  266,  268,  269. 

i  Page  223,  221. 

()  For  a  minute  account,  see  Dr.  Hetherington's 
very  interesting  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
page  262  (Carter's  edition).— C.  Il  P.  341 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


311 


the  plantations.  These  methods  of  conversion 
were  subversive  of  Christianity,  and  a  reproach 
to  a  Protestant  church  and  nation  ;  but  oppres- 
sion and  tyranny  had  overspread  the  English 
dominions  ;  the  hearts  of  all  good  men  failed 
them  for  fear,  and  for  looking  after  those  things 
that  were  coming  on  the  land  ;  the  clouds  were 
gathering  thick  over  their  heads,  and  there  was 
no  other  defence  against  an  inundation  of  po- 
pery and  slavery  but  the  thin  security  of  the 
king's  life. 

To  return  to  England :  when  the  king  had 
made  way  for  a  popish  successor,  by  introdu- 
cing an  arbitrary  and  tyrannical  government,  his 
majesty  began  to  think  himself  neglected,  all 
the  court  being  made  to  the  rising  sun ;  upon 
which  he  was  heard  to  say,  in  some  passion, 
that  if  he  lived  a  month  longer,  he  would  find  a 
way  to  make  himself  easy  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life.*  This  was  interpreted  as  a  design  to 
change  hands,  by  sending  abroad  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  recalling  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  ; 
which  struck  terror  into  the  popish  party,  and 
is  thought  to  have  hastened  his  death,  for  he 
was  seized  with  a  kind  of  apoplexy  February 
2,  and  died  on  the  Friday  following,  February 
6,  1684-5,  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  not 
without  violent  suspicion  of  poison,  either  by 
snuff  or  an  infusion  in  broth,  as  Bishop  Burnet 
and  others  of  undoubted  credit  have  assured 
us,  the  body  not  being  suffered  to  be  thoroughly 
examined. t 

King  Charles  II.  was  a  gentleman  of  wit  and 
good-nature,t  till  his  temper  was  soured  in  the 
latter  part  of  his  life  by  his  popish  counsellors. 
His  court  was  a  scene  of  luxury  and  all  kinds 
of  lewdness,  and  his  profuse  expenses  upon  un- 


*  Welwood's  Mem.,  p.  123,  sixth  ed. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  ii.,  p.  4C0. 

t  Charles  the  Second,  "  as  a  gentleman,"  says 
Dr.  Warner,  "  was  liked  by  everybody,  but  beloved 
by  nobody  ;  and  as  a  prince,  though  he  might  be  re- 
spected for  his  station,  yet  his  death  could  not  be 
lamented  by  a  lover  of  his  country  upon  any  other 
motive  but  that  it  introduced  a  much  worse  monarch 
on  the  throne  than  he  was  himself"  There  was 
ground,  in  this  view,  for  the  remark  of  Dr.  Gregory 
Sharpe,  "  that  if  the  English  were  in  tears  when  the 
king  died  in  1685,  it  was  more  to  lament  the  succes- 
sion than  the  funeral." — Ecclesiastical  History,  vol. 
ii.,p.  929.  Sharpe's  Introduction  to  Universal  History, 
p.  256,  second  ed. 


lawful  pleasures  reduced  him  to  the  necessity 
of  becoming  a  pensioner  of  France.  If  he  had 
any  religion,  it  was  that  of  a  disguised  papist, 
or,  rather,  a  Deist ;  but  he  was  strangely  en- 
tangled, during  his  whole  life,  with  the  obliga- 
tions he  had  been  brought  under  by  the  Roman 
Catholics.  He  aimed  at  being  an  absolute  mon- 
arch, but  would  be  at  no  farther  trouble  to  ac- 
complish it  than  to  give  his  corrupt  ministry- 
liberty  to  do  what  they  pleased.  The  king  had 
a  great  many  vices,  says  Burnet,*  but  few  vir- 
tues to  correct  themt  Religion  was  with  him 
no  more  than  an  engine  of  state.  He  hated  the 
Nonconformists,  because  they  appeared  against 
the  prerogative,  and  received  the  fire  of  all  the 
enemies  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  Protest- 
ant religion  with  an  unshaken  firmness.  His 
majesty's  chief  concern,  at  last,  was  for  his 
brother's  succession ;  and  when  he  came  to  die, 
he  spoke  not  a  word  of  religion,  nor  showed  any 
remorse  for  his  ill-spent  life  :  he  expressed  no 
tenderness  for  his  subjects,  nor  any  concern  for 
his  queen,  hut  only  recommended  his  mistress- 
es and  their  children  to  his  brother's  regard. t 
So  that  no  Englishman  or  friend  of  his  country 
could  weep  at  his  death  from  any  other  motive 
than  his  keeping  out  a  successor  who  was  worse 
than  himself. 


*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  165. 

To  this  it  may  be  added,  that  Charles  It.  was  char- 
acterized as  having  never  said  a  foolish  thing  nor  done 
a  wise  one.  A  late  writer  of  dramatical  history,  Mr. 
Thomas  Davis,  is  supposed  to  have  contradicted  this 
by  an  anecdote  he  has  given.  Mrs.  Marshall,  the 
first  actress  on  the  king's  theatre,  and  a  woman  of 
virtue,  having  been  tricked  into  a  sham  marriage  by 
a  nobleman.  King  Charles  II.  obliged  him  to  settle 
an  annual  income  on  her.  This  indicated  equity  of 
mind  as  well  as  wisdom. — Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  19, 
24,  in  the  Literary  Mmeum,  8vo,  printed  1792. — Ep. 

t  Long  since  Mr.  Neal's  history  was  published,  it 
has  appeared  that  there  was  a  design  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  II.  to  place  a  bishop  in  Virginia  ;  and  that 
the  letters  patent  for  that  purpose  were  actually  made 
out,  and  are  extant.  The  design  failed,  because  the 
whole  endowment  was  fixed  on  the  customs. — Seek- 
er''s  Letter  to  Mr.  Horatio  Walpole,  p.  17. — Ed. 

X  Charles  had  fifteen  children  of  whom  we  have 
accurate  knowledge,  but  there  were  probably  others 
who  died  in  infancy.  Charles  was  father  to  six 
dukes,  who  were  alive  at  the  same  time,  and  each 
had  a  maintenance  becoming  his  dignity. — Jesse,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  382.— C. 


ADVERTISEMENT 
TO  VOL.  V.  OF  DR.  TOULMIN'S  EDITION. 


This  edition  of  Mr.  Neal's  "History  of  the  Puritans,"  after  many  interrupt 
tions,  being  at  length  completed,  and  the  last  volume  being  now  presented  to 
the  public,  the  editor  embraces  this  occasion  to  make  his  acknowledgments 
to  the  gentlemen  who  have  assisted  and  encouraged  his  design.  He  feels  his 
obligations  to  those  who  by  their  names  and  subscriptions  have  patronised  it ; 
and  he  is  much  indebted  to  some  who,  by  the  communication  of  books  and  manu- 
scripts, have  aided  the  execution  of  it.  Situated,  as  he  is,  at  a  great  distance 
from  the  metropolis,  and  the  hbraries  there  open  to  the  studious,  he  sees  not 
how  he  could  have  enjoyed  the  means  of  examining  Mr.  Neal's  authorities,  in 
any  extensive  degree,  and  of  ascertaiping  the  accuracy  of  the  statements  by 
an  inspection  of  the  writers  of  the  last  century,  had  not  his  grace  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  most  handsomely  offered,  and  most  readily  supplied,  a  great  number 
of  books  necessary  to  that  purpose,  from  his  large  and  valuable  libraries. 

Some  books  of  great  authority  were  obligingly  handed  to  him  by  Henry 
Waymouth,  Esq.,  of  Exeter.  His  thanks  are  also  due  to  the  Rev.  Josiah 
Thompson,  of  Clapham,  and  to  Edmund  Calamy,  Esq.  To  the  former,  for 
the  free  use  of  his  manuscript  collections,  relative  to  the  history  of  the  dis- 
senting churches ;  and  to  the  latter,  for  the  opportunity  of  perusing  a  manu- 
script of  his  worthy  and  learned  ancestor.  Dr.  Edmund  Calamy,  entitled  "An 
Historical  Account  of  my  own  Life,  with  some  Reflections  on  the  Times  I  have 
lived  in."  He  has  been  hkewise  much  indebted  to  a  respectable  mem- 
ber of  the  society  of  Quakers,  Mr.  Morris  Birkbeck,  of  Wanborough,  Surrey, 
for  his  judicious  remarks  on  Mr.  Neal,  and  for  furnishing  him  with  Gough's 
valuable  history  of  that  people. 
Taunton,  August  Uth,  1796. 


PART    V. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FBOM  THE  DEATH  OF  KING  CHARLBS  II.  TO  KING 
JAMES  II. 's  DECLARATION  FOR  LIBERTY  OF  CON- 
SCIENCE.     1685. 

When  the  news  of  King  Charles's  decease 
was  spread  over  the  city,  a  pensive  sadness 
■was  visible  in  most  countenances  for  the  fate 
of  the  kingdom.*  His  brother  James,  who  suc- 
ceeded him,  told  the  privy  council  at  his  first 
meeting  them,  that  "  as  he  would  never  depart 
from  any  branch  of  the  prerogative,  so  he  would 
not  invade  any  man's  property,  but  would  pre- 
serve the  government  as  by  law  established  in 
Church  and  State  ;"1  which  gratified  the  clergy 
so  much,  that  the  pulpits  throughout  England 
resounded  with  thaniisgivings  ;  and  a  numerous 
set  of  addresses  flattered  his  majesty,  in  the 
strongest  expressions,  with  assurances  of  un- 
shaken loyalty  and  obedience,  without  limita- 
tion or  reserve.  Among  others,  was  the  hum- 
ble address  of  the  University  of  Oxford  ;  in 
which,  after  expressing  their  sorrow  for  the 
death  of  the  late  king,  they  add, J  that  they  can 
never  swerve  from  the  principles  of  their  insti- 
tution, and  their  religion  by  law  established, 


*  Bishop  Burnet  says  that  the  proclamation  of  the 
king  "  was  a  heavy  solemnity  ;  few  tears  were  shed 
for  the  former,  nor  were  there  any  shouts  of  joy  for 
the  present  king."  It  appears  that  the  bishop,  who 
"was  then  abroad,  was  misinformed  in  this  matter : 
for  Dr.  Calamy,  who  heard  the  king  proclaimed,  as- 
sures us  that  his  heart  ached  within  him  at  the  ac- 
clamations made  upon  the  occasion,  which,  as  far  as 
he  could  observe,  were  very  general:  though  he 
never  saw  so  universal  a  concern  as  was  visible  in 
all  men's  countenances  at  that  time  ;  for  great  num- 
bers had  very  terrifying  apprehensions  of  what  was 
to  be  expected.  The  doctor  observes,  that  it,  how- 
ever, very  sensibly  discovered  the  changeableness  of 
this  world,  that  King  James  should  so  quietly  suc- 
ceed his  brother  without  anything  like  a  dispute  or 
contest;  when,  but  five  years  before,  a  majority  of 
three  Houses  of  Commons  were  so  bent  upon  exclu- 
ding him,  that  nothing  could  satisfy  them  if  this  were 
not  compassed.^-Ca/amv's  Historical  Account  vf  his 
Own  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  95,  MS.— Ed. 

t  "This  speech,"  Bishop  Burnet  adds,  "was  mag- 
nified as  a  security  far  greater  than  any  that  laws 
■could  give."  The  common  phrase  was,  "  We  have 
•now  the  word  of  a  king,  and  a  word  never  yet  bro- 
ken." Of  this  Dr.  Calamy  gives  a  confirmation  on 
the  authority  of  a  person  of  character  and  worth,  who 
heard  Dr.  Sharp,  afterward  Archbishop  of  York,  as 
lie  was  preaching  at  St.  Lawreuce  Jewry  at  the 
time,  when  King  James  gave  this  assurance,  break 
out  into  language  to  this  eft'ect ;  "  As  to  our  religion, 
we  have  the  word  of  the  king,  which  (with  reverence 
be  it  spoken)  is  as  sacred  as  my  text."  This  high 
flight  was  much  noticed  then,  and  often  recollected 
afterward.  The  doctor  had  cause  to  reflect  on  it  with 
regret,  when  he  was,  for  preaching  against  popery  at 
iiis  own  parish  church  at  Sf.  Giles,  the  first  of  the 
clergy  that  fell  under  the  king's  displeasure,  and  felt 
the  weight  and  pressure  of  his  arbitrary  power. — 
.Historical  Account,  p.  96.     Burnet,  p.  620.— Ed. 

t  Gazette.  No.  2018. 


which  indispensably  binds  them  to  bear  faith 
and  true  obedience  to  their  sovereign,  without 
any  limitation  or  restriction,  and  that  no  con- 
sideration whatever  should  shake  their  loyalty 
and  allegiance.  And  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge add,  that  loyalty  [or  unlimited  obedience] 
is  a  duty  flowing  from  the  very  principle  of  their 
religion,  by  which  they  have  been  enabled  to 
breed  up  as  true  and  steady  subjects  as  the 
world  can  show,  as  well  in  doctrine  as  practice, 
from  which  they  can  never  depart.  The  Qua- 
kers' address  was  more  simple  and  honest  :* 
"  We  are  come,"  say  they,t  "  to  testify  our  sor- 
row for  the  death  of  our  good  friend  Charles, 
and  our  joy  for  thy  being  made  our  governor. 
We  are  told  thou  art  not  of  the  persuasion  of 
the  Church  of  England  no  more  than  we,  there- 
fore we  hope  thou  wilt  grant  us  the  same  liber- 
ty which  thou  allowest  thyself;  which  doing, 
we  wish  thee  all  manner  of  happiness. "t 

The  king  began  his  reign  with  a  frank  and 
open  profession  of  his  religion  ;  for,  the  first 
Sunday  after  his  accession,  he  went  publicly  to 
mass,  and  obliged  Father  Huddleston,  who  at- 
tended his  brother  in  his  last  hours,  to  declai"e 
to  the  world  that  he  died  a  Roman  Catholic.  His 
majesty  acted  the  part  of  an  absolute  sovereiga 
from  the  very  first ;  and,  though  he  had  declared 
he  would  invade  no  man's  property,  yet  he  is- 
sued out  a  proclamation  for  collecting  the  du- 
ties of  tonnage  and  poundage,  &;c.,  which  were 
given  to  the  late  king  only  for  life  ;  and  in  his 
letter  to  the  Scots  Parliament,  which  met  March 
28,  he  says,  "  I  am  resolved  to  maintain  my  pow- 
er in  its  greatest  lustre,  that  I  may  be  better 
able  to  defend  your  religion  against  fanatics." 

Before  the  king  had   been  two  months  on 

*  Sewel,  p.  594.  t  Echard,  p.  1051. 

t  Mr.  Neal  refers,  as  one  authority  for  giving  this 
address  of  the  Quakers,  to  Sewel ;  but  it  is  not  to  be 
found  there.  A  modern  hist:>rian,  who  censures  it 
for  the  "uncouthness  and  blunt  familiarity  of  ex- 
pression," calls  it  "  a  fictitious  address  ;"  the  mem- 
bers of  this  society,  he  observes,  "  were  not  in  the 
custom  of  paying  complimentary  addresses  to  any 
man :"  if  the  sufferings  of  their  friends  impelled  them 
to  apply  to  their  superiors  for  relief,  "  their  address- 
es, though  expressed  in  their  plain  manner,  were  com- 
prised in  respectful  terms ;  void  of  flattery,  but  not 
indecent ;  unceremonious,  but  not  uncivil."  There 
is  no  account  of  their  being  in  the  number  of  the  c»n- 
gratulatory  addresses  en  the  accession  of  James. 
Their  first  application  to  hnii  was  to  recommend 
their  suffering  friends  to  his  clemency.  At  the  death 
of  Charles,  notwithstanding  that  petition  upon  peti- 
tion had  been  presented  to  him  for  relief  one  thou- 
sand five  hundred  of  this  society  were  in  prison  on 
various  prosecutions.  "  So  that  a  people  paying  a 
strict  regard  to  truth  could  hardly  term  hiin  their 
good  friend."  The  above  address  was  first  publish- 
ed by  Echard,  from  whom  it  should  seem  Mr.  Neal 
took  it,  trusting,  probably,  to  the  exactness  of  his 
reference  ;  if  he  did  quote  Sewel  for  it.  Hume  and 
others  have  since  published  it. — Gough's  History  of 
the  Quakers,  vol.  iii.,  p.  160,  161. — Ed. 


316 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


his  throne,  he  discovered  severe  resentments 
against  the  enemies  of  his  religion,  and  of  his 
succession  to  the  crown.*  Dr.  Gates  was 
brought  out  of  prison,  and  tried  for  perjury  in 
the  affair  of  the  Popish  Plot,  for  which  he  was 
sentenced  to  stand  in  the  pillory  several  times, 
to  be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to  Newgate,  and 
from  thence  to  Tyburn  ;  which  was  exercised 
with  a  severity  unknown  to  the  English  nation.! 
And  Dangerfield,  who  invented  the  Meal-tub 
Plot,  for  which  he  declared  he  had  received 
money  from  the  Duke  of  York,  was  indicted  for 
a  libel,  and  was  fined  £500.  He  was  also  senten- 
ced to  be  pilloried,  and  whipped  from  Newgate 
to  Tyburn,  and  in  his  return  home  was  murder- 
ed in  the  coach  by  one  Frances,  a  barrister  at 
law,  who  was  afterward  hanged  for  it.  The 
Whigs,  who  went  to  court  to  pay  their  duty  to 
the  king,  were  received  but  coldly  ;  some  were 
reproached,  and  others  denied  access,  especial- 
ly those  who  had  distinguished  themselves  for 
the  Bill  of  Exclusion. t     In  the  election  of  a 


*  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  p.  29,  Edin.  edition. 

t  Gates  was  whipped  a  second  time,  while  his  back 
was  most  miserably  swelled  with  his  first  whipping, 
and  looked  as  if  it  had  been  flayed.  He  was  a  man 
of  undaunted  resolution,  and  endured  what  would 
have  killed  a  great  many  others.  He  was,  in  his  re- 
ligious profession,  a  mere  Proteus,  but  appears  to 
have  been  uniformly  capable  of  villany.  His  first 
education  was  at  Merchant  Tailors'  School,  from 
whence  he  removed  to  Cambridge.  When  he  left 
that  university  he  gained  orders  in  the  Church  of 
England,  and  after  having  officiated  for  a  time  as  cu- 
rate to  his  father,  he  held  a  vicarage  first  in  Kent  and 
then  in  Sussex.  But  previously  to  this,  he  was,  in 
his  youth,  a  member  of  a  Baptist  church  in  Virginia- 
street,  Radcliffe  Highway.  In  1677  he  reconciled 
himself  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  is  reported  to 
have  entered  into  the  society  of  Jesuits.  After  hav- 
ing left  the  whole  body  of  Dissenters  for  thirty  years, 
he  applied  to  be  again  admitted  into  the  communion 
of  the  Baptists,  having  first  returned  to  the  Church 
of  England,  and  continued  in  it  about  si.xteen  years. 
The  Baptists,  through  a  prudent  jealousy  of  him, 
spent  almost  three  years  in  trial  of  his  sincerity  be- 
fore they  received  him  again  :  so  that  he  complained 
it  "  was  keeping  him  on  the  rack ;  it  was  worse 
than  death,  in  his  circumstances,  to  be  so  long  de- 
layed." He  was  restored  to  their  communion  in 
1698  or  1699,  but  in  less  than  a  year  was  again  ex- 
cluded as  a  disorderly  person  and  a  hypocrite.  He 
then  became  a  Conformist  again.  "  He  was  a  man 
of  some  cunning,"  says  Granger,  "  more  effrontery, 
and  the  most  consummate  falsehood."  At  one  time 
he  was  a  frequent  auditor  of  Mr.  Alsop  at  Westmin- 
ster, after  the  Revolution  ;  and  moved  for  leave  to 
come  to  the  Lord's  Table,  but  was  refused  on  ac- 
count of  his  character.  Crosby  has  detailed  a  long 
story  of  a  villanous  transaction,  to  ruin  a  gentleman, 
to  which  he  was  instigated  by  the  spirit  of  revenge. 
Dr.  Calamy  says,  "  that  he  was  but  a  very  sorry, 
foul-mouthed  wretch,  I  myself  can  attest  from  what 
1  once  heard  from  him,  when  I  was  in  his  company." 
The  Parliament,  after  the  Revolution,  left  him  under 
a  brand,  and  incapacitated  him  for  being  a  witness 
in  future.  But  a  pension  of  £400  a  year  was  given 
him  by  King  William.  "The  era  of  Gates's  Plot," 
remarks  Mr.  Granger,  "was  the  grand  era  of  Whig 
and  Tory."  Whatever  infamy  rests  upon  his  name, 
he  was,  observes  Dr.  Calamy,  the  instrument  of 
Providence  of  good  to  this  nation  by  awakening  it 
out  of  sleep,  and  giving  a  turn  to  the  national  affairs 
after  a  lethargy  of  some  years.  — Calamy' s  Historical 
Account  of  his  Own  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  98,  99.  Grnnser's 
History  of  England,  vol.  iv.,  p.  201,  349  ;  and  Crosby's 
History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  iii.,  p.  166-182. — Ed. 

X  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  p.  12,  13,  Edin.  edition. 


new  Parliament,  all  methods  of  corruption  and 
violence  were  used  to  get  such  members  return- 
ed as  might  be  supple  to  the  king's  arbitrary  de- 
signs.* When  the  houses  met,  May  23,  the 
king  repeated  what  he  had  declared  in  council, 
that  he  would  preserve  the  government  in 
Church  and  State  as  by  law  established  ;  which, 
Rapin  says,  he  never  intended  ;  for  he  insinua- 
ted in  his  speech,  that  he  would  not  depend  on 
the  precarious  aids  of  Parliament,  nor  meet 
them  often,  if  they  did  not  use  him  well.t  But 
the  Parliament  unanimously  settled  all  the  rev- 
enues of  his  late  majesty  upon  the  king  for  life, 
which  amounted  to  more  than  two  millions  a 
year  it  and  presented  an  address,  May  27,  to 
desire  him  to  issue  forth  his  royal  proclamation, 
to  cause  the  penal  laws  to  be  put  in  execution 
against  dissenters  from  the  Church  of  England. 
This  brought  down  the  storm,  and  revived 
the  persecution,  which  had  slackened  a  little 
upon  the  late  king's  death.  His  majesty  was 
now  encouraged  to  pursue  his  brother's  meas- 
ures. The  Tories,  who  adhered  firmly  to  the 
prerogative,  were  gratified  with  full  license  to 
distress  the  Dissenters,  who  were  to  be  sacri- 
ficed over  again  to  a  bigoted  clergy  and  an  in- 
censed king,  zealous  for  their  destruction,  says 
Bishop  Kennet,  in  order  to  unite  and.  increase 
the  strength  of  popery,  which  he  favoured  with- 
out reserve.  Upon  this,  all  meeting-houses  of 
Protestant  Dissenters  were  shut  up,  the  old 
trade  of  informing  revived  and  flourished  ;  the 
spiritual  courts  were  crowded  with  business  : 
private  conventicles  were  disturbed  in  all  parts 
of  the  city  and  country.  If  they  surprised  the 
minister,  he  was  pulled  out  of  his  pulpit  by 
constables  or  soldiers,  and,  together  with  his 
people,  carried  before  a  confiding  justice  of 
peace,  who  obliged  them,  to  pay  their  fines,  or 
dragged  them  to  prison.  If  the  minister  es- 
caped, they  ransacked  the  house  from  top  to 
bottom  ;  tore  down  hangings,  broke  open  cham- 
bers and  closets  ;  entered  the  rooms  of  those 
who  were  sick  ;  and  offered  all  kinds  of  rude- 
ness and  incivilities  to  the  family,  though  they 
met  with  no  manner  of  opposition  or  resistance. 
Shopkeepers  were  separated  from  their  trades 
and  business,  and  sometimes  wives  from  their 
husbands  and  children  ;  several  families  were 
obliged  to  remove  to  distant  places,  to  avoid  the 
direful  effects  of  an  excommunication  from  the 
Commons  ;  and  great  sums  of  njoney  were  lev- 
ied as  forfeitures,  which  had  been  earned  by 
honest  labour.  Dissenting  ministers  could  nei- 
ther travel  the  road,  nor  appear  in  public  but  in 
disguise ;  nay,  they  were  afraid  to  be  seen  in 
the  houses  of  their  friends,  pursuivants  from 
the  spiritual  courts  being  always  abroad  upon 
the  watch. 


*  Dr.  Grey  quotes  here  Echard  and  Carte,  to  prove 
that  the  new  Parliament  consisted  of  as  many  wor- 
thy and  great,  rich,  and  wise  men  as  ever  sat  in  the 
House.— Ed.  t  Gazette,  No.  2036. 

t  "The  Commons,  charmed  with  these  promises, 
and  bigoted  as  much  to  iheir  principles  of  govern- 
ment as  the  king  was  to  his  religion,  in  about  two 
hours  voted  him  such  an  immense  revenue  for  life  as 
enabled  him  to  maintain  a  fleet  and  army  without 
the  aid  of  Parliament,  and,  consequently,  to  subdue 
those  who  should  dare  to  oppose  his  will.  In  this 
manner,  and  without  any  farther  ceremony,  did  thi.i 
House  of  Commons  deliver  up  the  liberties  of  the 
nation  to  a  popish,  arbitrary  prince." — Warner's  Ec- 
clesiastical History,  vol.  if,  p.  631. — Ed. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


317 


One  of  the  first  who  came  into  trouble  was 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Baxter,  who  was  committed  to  the 
Kmg's  Bench  prison  February  28,  tor  some  ex- 
ceptional passages  in  his  paraphrase  on  the 
New  Testament,  reflecting  on  the  order  of  dio- 
cesan bishops,  and  the  lawfulness  of  resistance 
in  some  possible  cases.  The  passages  were  in 
his  paraphrase  on  Matt.,  v.,  19.  Mark,  ix.,  39  ; 
xi ,  31  ;  and  xii.,  38-40.  Luke,  x.,  2.  .John,  xi., 
57  ;  and  Acts,  xv.,  2.  They  were  collected  by 
Sir  Roger  I'Estrange ;  and  a  certain  etninent 

clergyman,  reported  to  be  Dr.  Sh ck,  put 

into  the  hands  of  his  enemies  some  accusations 
from  Rom.,  xiii.,  that  might  touch  his  life,  but 
no  use  was  made  of  them.  Mr.  Baxter  being 
ill,  moved  by  his  counsel  for  time  ;  but  JefTeries 
said  he  would  not  give  him  a  minute's  time  to 
save  his  life.  "  Yonder  stands  Gates  in  the 
|)illory,"  says  he,  "  and  if  Mr.  Baxter  stood  on 
the  other  side,  I  would  say  two  of  the  greatest 
.rogues  in  England  stood  there."  He  was 
brought  to  his  trial  May  30,  but  the  chief-justice 
would  not  admit  his  counsel  to  plead  for  their 
client.  When  Mr.  Baxter  offered  to  speak  for 
himself,  JefTeries  called  him  a  snivelling,  cant- 
ing Presbyterian,  and  said,  "  Richard,  Richard, 
don't  thou  think  we  will  hear  thee  poison  the 
court.  Richard,  thou  art  an  old  fellow,  and  an 
old  knave ;  thou  hast  written  books  enough  to 
load  a  cart,  every  one  as  full  of  sedition,  I  might 
say  of  treason,  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat ;  hadst 
thou  been  whipped  out  of  thy  writing  trade  for- 
ty years  ago,  it  had  been  happy.  Thou  pre- 
tendest  to  be  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  of  peace ; 
as  thou  hast  one  foot  in  the  grf.ve,  'tis  time  for 
thee  to  begin  to  think  what  account  thou  in- 
tcndest  to  give  ,  but  leave  thee  to  thyself,  and 
I  see  thou  wilt  go  on  as  thou  hast  begun  ;  but, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  I  will  look  after  thee.  I 
know  thou  hast  a  mighty  party,  and  I  see  a 
great  many  of  the  brotherhood  in  corners,  wait- 
ing to  see  what  will  become  of  their  mighty 
don,  and  a  doctor  of  the  party  [Doctor  Bates] 
at  your  elbow,  but,  by  the  grace  of  Almighty 
God,  I  will  crush  you  all."  The  chief-justice 
having  directed  the  jury,  they  found  him  guilty 
■without  going  from  the  bar,  and  fined  him  five 
hundred  marks,  to  lay  in  prison  till  he  paid  it, 
and  be  bound  to  his  good  behaviour  for  seven 
years.     Mr.  Baxter  continued  in  prison*  about 

*  Dr.  Grey  has  given  us,  with  apparent  approba- 
tion, what  he  calls  a  characteristical  epitaph,  drawn 
up  for  Mr.  Baxter  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Long,  preb- 
endary of  Exeter.  It  shows  what  different  colours 
a  character  can  receive,  according  to  the  dispositions 
of  those  who  draw  the  picture  ;  and  how  obnoxious 
Mr.  Baxter  was  to  some,  whose  calumnies  and  cen- 
sure the  reader,  perhaps,  will  think  was  true  praise. 
It  runs  thus  :  "  Hie  jacet  Ricardus  Baxter,  Iheologus 
armatus,  Loyolita  reformatus,  heresiarciia  srianus, 
schismaiicorum  antesignanns;  cujus  pruritus  dispu- 
tandi*  peperit,  scriptandi  cacoethes  nuirivit,  praedi- 


*  "These  words,"  says  the  author  of  the  article  Bax- 
ter, in  the  "  Biogiaphia  Britarmira,"  " are  an  allusion  to 
Sir  Henry  Wotton's  nionuniental  inscription  in  Eton  Chap- 
el, '  Hie  jacet  hujus  sententia;  primus  author,  disputandi 
pruritus  ecclesanim  scabies  ;'  i.  e.,  '  Here  lies  the  first  au- 
thor of  this  opinion.  The  itch  of  disputing  is  the  leprosy  of 
the  churches.'"  This  writer  has  given  the  above  epitaph 
in  English,  thus  ;  "Here  lies  Richard  Baxter,  a  militant 
divine,  a  reformed  Jesuit,  a  brazen  heresiarch,  and  the 
chief  of  schismatics,  whose  itch  of  disputing  begat,  whose 
humour  of  writing  nourished,  and  whose  intemperate  zeal 
in  preaching  brought  to  its  utmost  height,  the  leprosy  of 
the  Church  :  who  dissented  from  those  with  whom  he  most 
agreed  ;  from  himself,  as  well  as  all  other  Nonconformists, 


two  years,  and  when  the  court  changed  its 
measures,  his  fine  was  remitted,  and  he  was 
released. 

The  rebellion  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  fur- 
nished the  court  with  a  plausible  handle  to  car- 
ry ihe  prosecution  of  the  Whigs  and  Dissenters 
to  a  farther  extremity.  There  was  a  consider- 
able number  of  English  fugitives  in  Holland  at 
this  time,  some  on  political  accounts,  and  oth- 
ers on  the  score  of  religion.  The  king,  being 
apprehensive  of  danger  from  thence,  obliged  the 
Prince  of  Orange  to  dismiss  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth from  his  court,  and  to  break  all  those 
officers  who  had  waited  upon  him,  and  who 
were  in  his  service  :  this  precipitated  the  coun- 
sels of  the  malecontents,  and  made  them  re- 
solve upon  a  rash  and  ill-concerted  invasion, 
which  proved  their  ruin.  The  Earl  of  Argyle, 
imagining  all  the  Scots  Presbyterians  would  re- 
volt, sailed  to  the  north  of  Scotland  with  a  very 
small  force,  and  was  defeated  with  the  effusion 
of  very  little  blood,  before  the  declaration* 
which  he  brought  with  him  could  have  any  ef- 
fect. After  him,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  with 
the  like  precipitate  rashness,  landed  June  11, 
with  an  inconsiderable  force,  at  Lyme  in  Dor- 
setshire ;  and  though  he  was  joined  by  great 
numbers  in  the  west  country,  he  was  defeated 
by  the  king's  forces,  made  prisoner,  and  execu- 
ted on  Tower  Hill ;  as  was  the  Earl  of  Argyle 
at  Edinburgh. 

Though  the  body  of  the  Dissenters  were  not 
concerned  in  either  of  these  invasions,  they 
suffered  considerably  on  this  occasion  ;  great 
numbers  of  their  chief  merchants  and  trades- 
men in  tho  city  being  taken  up  by  warrants, 
and  secured  in  jails,  and  in  the  [uiblic  halls  ;  as 
were  many  country  Whig  gentlemen,  in  \'ork 
Castle,  Hull,  and  the  prisons  in  all  parts  ol 
England  ;  which  had  this  good  effect,  that  it 
kept  them  out  of  harm's  way,  while  many  of 
their  friends  were  ruined  by  joining  the  duke  ; 


candi  zelus  intcmperatus  inaturavit,  ecclesia  scabi- 
em.  Qui  dissentit  ab  iis  quibuscum  consentit  max- 
imo :  turn  sibi,  cum  aliis  nonconformis  prsetenlis, 
praesentibus  et  futuris  :  regum  et  episcoporum  jura- 
tus  hostis  :  ipsumq;  rebellium  solenine  foedus.  Qui 
natus  erat  per  septuaginti  annus,  et  octoginta  libros, 
ad  perturbandas  regrii  respublicas,  et  ad  bis  perden- 
dam  ecclesiam  Anglicanam ;  magnis  tamen  excidit 
ausis.  Deo  gratias." — Grey's  Examination,  voi.ii., 
p.  281,  note. — Ed. 

*  A  full  view  of  the  assertions  and  purport  of  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth's  manifesto  is  given  in  my  His- 
tory of  the  Town  of  Taunton,  p.  133-135.  It  was 
secretly  printed  in  a  private  house  hired  for  that  pur- 
pose at  Lambeth  by  W.  C,  a  man  of  good  sense  and 
spirit,  and  a  stationer  in  Paternoster  Kow,  who  im- 
ported the  paper.  His  assistant  at  the  press  was  ap- 
prehended and  suffered ;  he  himself  escaped  into 
Holland,  and  absconded  into  Germany,  till  he  came 
over  with  the  Prince  of  Orange,  who,  when  he  was 
settled  on  the  throne,  appointed  him  his  stationer. 
William  Disney,  Esq.,  was  tried  by  a  special  com- 
mission upon  an  indictment  of  high  treason  for  print- 
ing and  publishing  ihis  declaration,  and  was  convict- 
ed, and  sentenced  to  be  drawn,  hanged,  and  quar- 
tered.—  Dr.  Grey's  Examination,  vol.  ili.,  p.  403,  404. 
—Ed. 


past,  present,  and  to  come  ;  the  sworn  enemy  of  kings  and 
bishops,  and  in  himself  the  very  bond  of  rebels  ;  who  was 
born,  through  seventy  years  and  eighty  books,  to  disturb 
the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  and  twice  to  attempt  the  ruin  of 
the  Church  of  England  ;  in  the  endeavour  of  which  mighty 
mischiefs  he  fell  short.  For  which  thanks  be  to  God." — 
Biographia  Biitannica,  vol.  ii.,  p.  18,  second  edition. — Ed. 


318 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


some  from  a  persuasion  that  the  late  king  was 
married  to  his  mother,  and  others  in  hopes  of 
a  deliverance  from  popery  and  arhitrary  power. 
The  king,  elated  with  success,  resolved  to  let 
both  Whigs  and  Dissenters  feel  the  weight  of 
the  arm  of  a  conqueror:  his  army  lived  upon 
free  quarters  in  the  west,  and  treated  all  who 
were  supposed  to  be  disaffected  with  great  rude- 
ness and  violence.*  Some  days  after  Mon- 
mouth's defeat,  Colonel  Kirk  ordered  several 
of  the  prisoners  to  be  hung  up  at  Taunton,  with- 
out any  trial  or  form  of  law,  while  he  and  his 
company  was  dancing,  revelling,  and  drinking 
healths  at  a  neighbouring  window,  with  a  vari- 
ety of  music,  from  whence  they  beheld,  with  a 
more  than  brutish  triumph,  the  dreadful  spec- 
tacle. The  jails  being  full  of  prisoners,  the 
king  appointed  Lord-chief-justice  Jefferies  to  go 
the  western  circuit,  whose  cruel  behaviour  sur- 
passed all  that  had  been  ever  heard  of  in  a  civ- 
ilized nation  :  he  was  always  drunk,  either  with 
wine  or  vengeance.  When  the  juries  found 
persons  not  guilty,  he  threatened  and  confined 
them  till  they  brought  in  a  verdict  to  his  mind  ; 
as  in  the  case  of  the  old  Lady  Lisle,  who  was 
beheaded  for  admitting  Mr.  Hicks,  a  Noncon- 
formist minister,  into  her  house,  though  the  jury 
brought  her  in  three  times  not  guilty  ;  and  she 
solemnly  declared  that  she  knew  not  that  he  had 
been  in  the  duke's  army.  He  persuaded  many 
of  the  prisoners  to  plead  guilty,  in  hopes  of  fa- 
vour, and  then  taking  advantage  of  their  con- 
fession, ordered  their  immediate  execution, 
without  giving  them  a  minute's  time  to  say 
their  prayers.  Mr.  Tutchin,  who  wrote  the 
"  Observator,"  was  sentenced  to  be  imprisoned 
seven  years,  and  to  be  whipped  once  every  year 
through  all  the  towns  in  Dorsetshire  ;  upon 
which,  he  petitioned  the  king  that  he  might  be 
hanged. t  Bishop  Burnet  says,  that  in  several 
places  in  the  west,  there  were  executed  near 
six  hundred  persons,  and  that  the  quarters  of 
two  or  three  hundred  were  fixed  upon  gibbets, 
and  hung  upon  trees  all  over  the  country  for 
fifty  or  sixty  miles  about,  to  the  terror  and  even 
annoyance  of  travellers.  Tiie  manner  in  which 
he  treated  the  prisoners  was  barbarous  and  in- 
human ;  and  his  behaviour  towards  some  of  the 
nobility  and  gentry  who  were  well  affected,  but 
appeared  to  the  character  of  some  of  the  crim- 
inals, would  have  amazed  one,  says  Bishop 
Burnet,  if  done  by  a  bashaw  in  Turkey.  The 
king  had  advice  of  his  proceedings  every  day, 
and  spoke  of  them  in  a  style  neither  becoming 
the  majesty  nor  mercy  of  a  great  prince.t  And 
JeflTeries,  besides  satiating  himself  with  blood, 
got  great  sums  of  money  by  selling  pardons  to 
such  as  were  able  to  purchase  them,  from  £10 
to  fourteen  thousand  guineas  apiece.^ 


*  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  p.  43,  Edin.  edition. 

t  Bennet's  Memoirs,  p.  374,  375,  second  edit. 

J  Ibid.,  p.  44,  second  edit. 

^  The  reader  is  referred  to  the  "  History  of  the 
Town  of  Taunton''  for  an  ample  account  of  the  prog- 
■ress  and  defeat  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  and  a  mi- 
nute detail  of  the  subsequent  severities  of  Kirk  and 
Jelferies,  p.  135-170;  and  to  "The  Bloody  Assizes, 
comprehending  a  complete  History  of  the  Lives,  Ac- 
tions, Trials,  Sufferings,  dying  Speeches,  Letters, 
and  Prayers  of  all  those  eminent  Martyrs  who  fell  in 
the  West  of  EngUtid  from  1678  to  1688.  Loudon, 
1C89."  This  is  a  deeply  intere.sling  volume,  and  full 
of  important  facts  casting  light  upon  this  period. — C. 


After  the  executions  in  the  west,  the  king, 
being  in  the  height  of  his  power,  resolved  to  be 
revenged  of  his  old  enemies  the  Whigs,  by  ma- 
king e.xamples  of  their  chief  leaders  :  Alderman 
Cornish,  who  had  signalized  himself  in  prosecu- 
ting the  Popish  Plot,  and  was  frequently  in  com- 
pany with  the  late  Lord  Russel,  was  taken  off 
the  Exchange  October  13,  and  within  little 
more  than  a  week  tried,  condemned,  and  exe- 
cuted in  Cheapside  for  high  treason,  without 
any  tolerable  evidence,  and  his  quarters  set 
upon  Guildhall.  On  the  same  day,  Mrs.  Gaunt, 
a  Dissenter,  who  spent  a  great  part  of  her  life 
in  acts  of  charity,  visiting  the  jails,  and  looking 
after  the  poor  of  what  persuasion  soever,  hav- 
ing entertained  Burton,  one  of  Monmouth's  men, 
in  her  house,  he,  by  an  unheard-of  baseness, 
while  she  was  looking  out  for  an  opportunity  to 
send  him  out  of  the  kingdom,  went  out  and  ac- 
cused her  for  harbouring  him,  and  by  that  means 
saved  his  own  life  by  taking  away  hers :  she 
was  burned  alive  at  Tyburn,  and  died  with 
great  resolution  and  devotion.*  Mr.  Bateman, 
a  surgeon,  Mr.  Rouse,  Mr.  Fernerley,  Colonel 
Ayloffe,  Mr.  Nelthorpe,  and  others,  suffered  in 
like  manner.  Lord  Stamford  was  admitted  to 
bail,  and  Lord  Delamere  was  tried  by  his  peers, 
and  acquitted.  Many  who  had  corresponded 
with  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  absconded,  and 
had  proclamations  against  them,  as  John 
Trenchard,  Esq.,  Mr.  Speke,  and  others.  But 
all  who  suffered  in  this  cause  expressed  such  a 
zeal  for  the  Protestant  religion,  which  they  ap" 
prehended  in  danger,  as  made  great  impres- 
sions on  the  spectators.  Some  say  the  king 
was  hurried  on  by  Jefferies  ;  but  if  his  own  in- 
clinations had  not  run  strong  the  same  way, 
and  if  his  priests  had  not  thought  it  their  inter- 
est to  take  off  so  many  active  Protestants  who 
opposed  their  measures,  they  would  not  havD 
let  that  butcher  loose,  says  Burnet,  to  commit 
so  many  barbarous  acts  of  cruelty,  as  struck  a 
universal  horror  over  the  body  of  the  nation. 
It  was  a  bloody  summer,  and  a  dangerous  time 
for  honest  men  to  live  in. 

When  the  king  met  his  Parliament  Novem- 
ber 9,  he  congratulated  them  on  the  success  of 
his  arms;  but  told  them,  that  in  order  to  pre- 
vent any  new  disturbances,  he  was  determined 
to  keep  the  present  army  together ;  and  "  let 
no  man,"  says  his  majesty,  '•  take  exceptions 
that  some  officers  are  not  qualified,  for  they  are 
most  of  them  known  to  me  for  the  loyally  of 
their  principles  and  practices  ;  and  therefore, 
to  deal  plainly  with  you,  after  having  had  the 
benefit  of  their  services  in  a  time  of  need  and 
danger,  I  will  neither  expose  them  to  disgrace, 
nor  myself  to  the  want  of  them."t  Thus  we 
were  to  have  a  standing  army  under  popish  of- 
ficers, in  defiance  of  the  penal  laws  and  test. 
The  Commons  would  have  given  them  an  act 
of  indemnity  for  what  was  past,  but  the  king 
would  not  accept  it ;  and  because  the  House 
was  not  disposed  to  his  dispensing  power,  he 
prorogued  them  November  20,  when  they  had 
sat  only  eleven  days ;  and  after  many  succes- 
sive prorogations  in  the  si)ace  of  two  years,  dis- 
solved them  :f 

The  prosecution  of  the  Dissenters,  which. 
was  carried  on  with  all  imaginable  severity  this 


*    Burnet,  p.  4.5. 
X  Bn.nei.  p.  70,  71. 


t  Gazette,  2085. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


31d^ 


and  the  last  year,  forced  some  of  their  minis- 
ters into  the  Church  ;  but  it  had  a  different  and 
more  surprising  influence  upon  others,  who  had 
the  courage  in  these  difficult  times  to  renounce 
the  Church  as  a  persecuting  establishment,  and 
to  take  their  lot  among  the  Nonconformists  ;* 
as  the  Rev.  Mr.  John  Spademan,  M.A.,  of  Sway- 
ton  in  Lincolnshire ;  Mr.  John  Rastrick,  vicar 
of  Kirton,  near  Boston;!  Mr.  Burroughs,  of 
Frampton ;  Mr.  ScofEn,  of  Brotherton ;  Mr. 
Quip,  of  Morelon  ;  and  a  few  others,  who  could 
be  influenced  by  no  other  principle  but  con- 
science in  a  cause  which  had  nothing  in  this 
world  to  recommend  it  but  truth,  attended  with 
bonds  and  imprisonment,  and  the  loss  of  all 
things. 

Great  were  the  oppressions  of  those  who  fre- 
quented the  separate  meetings  in  several  coun- 
ties ;  the  informers  broke  in  upon  Sir  John 
Hartoppe,  Mr.  Fleetwood,  and  others,  at  Stoke 
Newington,  to  levy  distresses  for  conventicles, 
to  the  value  of  £6000  or  £7000  :  the  like  at  En- 
field, Hackney,  and  all  the  neighbouring  villages 
near  London. +  The  justices  and  confiding 
clergy  were  equally  diligent  in  their  several  par- 
ishes. Injunctions  vvere  sent  out  from  several 
of  the  bishops,  under  the  seal  of  their  oflices, 
requiring  all  church-wardens  to  present  such 
as  did  not  repair  to  church,  nor  receive  the  sac- 
rament at  Easter  ;  which  were  read  publicly 
in  the  churches  of  Hertfordshire,  Essex,  &c. 
And  the  juries  at  the  assizes  gave  it  as  their 
opinion  that  the  Dissenters  should  be  effectu- 
ally prosecuted  ;  but  the  scandalous  villanies 
and  perjuries  of  the  informers  made  wise  men 
abhor  the  trade  ;  however,  so  terrible  were  the 
times,  that  many  families  and  ministers  remo- 
ved with  their  effects  to  New-England,  and  oth- 
er plantations  in  America  ;  among  whom  we 
may  reckon  the  reverend  and  worthy  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Lee,  the  ejected  minister  of  Bishopgate, 
who,  in  his  return  to  his  flock  after  the  Revolu- 
tion, was  made  prisoner  by  the  French,  and 
carried  to  St.  Maloes,  where  he  perished  in  a 
dungeon,  under  the  hands  of  those  whose 
tender  mercies  are  cruel. i^  Many  ministers 
were  fined  and  imprisoned,  and  great  numbers 
of  their  most  substantial  hearers  cited  into  the 
Commons,  their  names  being  fixed  upon  the 
doors  of  their  parish  churches ;  and  if  they  did 
not  appear,  an  excommunication  and  a  capias 
followed,  unless  they  found  means,  by  presents 
of  wine,  by  gold  in  the  fingers  of  a  pair  of  gloves, 
or  some  effectual  bribe,  to  get  themselves  ex- 
cused ;  for  which,  among  others,  the  name  of 
Dr.  Pinfoklll  is  famous  to  this  day. 

The  Dissenters  continued  to  take  the  most 

*  Calnmy's  Abridgment,  p.  460,  &c. 

+  Mr.  Rastrick  published  his  reasons  for  this  step 
in  a  volume  entitled  "  An  Account  of  the  Noncon- 
formity of  John  Rastrick,  M.A.,  some  time  Vicar  of 
Kirton,  Lincolnshire,  &c.,  in  a  Letter  to  a  Friend," 
1705.  This  friend  was  Mr.  Edmund  Calamy.  It  is 
an  able  and  satisfactory  performance. — C. 

X  Calamy,  p.  372,  373 ;  or  Palmer's  Nonconform- 
ists' Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  163-168. 

^  Palmer's  Noncon.  Mem.,  vol.  i.,  p.  95,  90. 

II  Dr.  Pinfold  was  a  gentleman  of  the  lonj;  robe, 
and  was  the  king's  advocate  in  the  prosecution  of 
Bishop  Compton.  But  though  he  stood  at  the  chan- 
cellor's elbow  and  took  notes  while,  the  bishop's 
counsel  were  pleading,  he  said  nothing  by  way  of 
reply. — B'^hop  Compton  s  Life,  p.  37. — Ed. 


prudent  measures  to  cover  their  private  meet- 
ings from  their  adversaries.  They  assembled 
in  small  numbers;  they  frequently  shifted  their 
places  of  worship,  and  met  together  late  in  the 
evenings,  or  early  in  the  mornings  ;  there  were 
friends  without  doors,  always  on  the  watch  to 
give  notice  of  approaching  danger;  when  the 
dwellings  of  Dissenters  joined,  they  made  win- 
dows or  holes  in  the  walls,  that  the  preacher's 
voice  might  be  heard  in  two  or  three  houses  ; 
they  had  sometimes  private  passages  from  one 
house  to  another,  and  trap  doors  for  the  escape 
of  the  minister,  who  went  always  in  disguise, 
except  when  he  was  discharging  his  oflice ;  in 
country  towns  and  villages,  they  were  admitted 
through  back  yards  and  gardens  into  the  house, 
to  avoid  the  observation  of  neighbours  and  pas- 
sengers ;  for  the  same  reason,  they  never  sung 
psalms,  and  the  minister  was  placed  in  such  aa 
inward  part  of  the  house,  that  his  voice  might 
not  be  heard  in  the  streets  ;  the  doors  were 
always  locked,  and  a  sentinel  placed  near  them 
to  give  the  alarm,  that  the  preacher  might  es- 
cape by  some  private  passage,  with  as  many  of 
the  congregation  as  could  avoid  the  informers. 
But  notwithstanding  all  their  precautions,  spies 
and  false  brethren  crept  in  among  them  in  dis- 
guise, their  assemblies  were  frequently  inter- 
rupted, and  great  sums  of  money  raised  by  fines 
or  compositions,  to  the  discouragement  of  trade 
and  industry,  and  enriching  the  oflicers  of  the 
spiritual  courts. 

Thus  were  the  Nonconformists  ground  be- 
tween the  papists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
High  Church  clergy  on  the  other;  while  the 
former  made  their  advantage  of  the  latter,  con- 
cluding that  when  the  Dissenters  were  destroy- 
ed, or  thoroughly  exasperated,  and  the  clergy 
divided  among  themselves,  they  should  be  a 
match  for  the  hierarchy,  and  capable  of  estab- 
lishing that  religion  they  had  been  so  long  aim- 
ing to  introduce.  With  this  view,  swarms  of 
Jesuits  and  regular  priests  were  sent  for  from 
abroad  ;  Jesuits'  schools  and  other  seminaries 
were  opened  in  London  and  the  country  ;  mass- 
houses  were  erected  in  the  most  considerable 
towns  :  four  Roman  Catholic  bishops  were  con- 
secrated in  the  royal  chapel,  and  exercised  their 
functions  under  the  character  of  vicars  apostol- 
ical ;  their  regular  clergy  appeared  at  White- 
hall and  St.  James's  in  their  habits,  and  were 
unwearied  in  their  attempts  to  seduce  the  com- 
mon people.  The  way  to  preferment  was  to  be 
a  Catholic,  or  to  declare  for  the  prerogative,  all 
state  affairs  being  managed  by  such  men.  An 
open  correspondence  was  held  with  Rome,  and 
many  pamphlets  were  dispersed,  to  make  pros- 
elytes to  the  Romish  faith,  or,  at  least,  to  effect 
a  coalition.  Multitudes  of  the  king's  subjects 
frequented  the  popish  chapels ;  some  changed 
their  profession  ;  and  all  men  were  forbid  to 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  king's  religion. 

At  length  the  eyes  of  many  ui  tne  clergy  be- 
gan to  be  opened,  and  they  judged  it  necessarj 
to  preach  against  the  popish  doctrines,  that 
they  might  recover  the  people,  who  were  de- 
serting in  numbers,  and  rescue  the  Protestant 
religion  from  the  danger  into  which  their  own 
follies  had  brought  it.  The  king  being  acquaint- 
ed with  this,  by  the  advice  of  his  priests  sent 
circular  letters  to  the  bishops,  with  an  order 
prohibiting  the  inferior  clergy  from  preaching 


360 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


OH  the  controverted  points  of  religion  ;  which 
many  complained  of,  though  it  was  no  more 
than  King  James  and  Charles  I.  had  done  be- 
fore. However,  when  their  mouths  were  stop- 
ped in  the  pulpit,  some  of  the  most  learned  and 
zealous  agreed  to  fight  the  Catholics  with  their 
own  weapons,  and  to  publish  small  pamphlets 
for  the  benefit  of  the  vulgar,  in  defence  of  the 
Protestant  doctrines.  When  a  popish  pamphlet 
was  in  the  press,  they  made  interest  with  the 
workmen,  and  got  the  sheets  as  they  were 
wrought  off,  so  that  an  answer  was  ready  as 
soon  as  the  pamphlet  was  published.  There 
was  hardly  a  week  in  which  some  sermon  or 
small  treatise  against  popery  was  not  printed 
and  dispersed  among  the  common  people ; 
which,  in  the  compass  of  a  year  or  two,  pro- 
duced a  valuable  set  of  controversial  writings 
against  the  errors  of  that  church.*  The  chief 
writers  were.  Dr.  Tillotson,  Stillingfleet,  Teni- 
son,  Patrick,  Wake.  Whitby,  Sharp,  Atterbury, 
Williams,  Aldrich,  Burnet,  Fowler,  &c.,t  men  of 
great  name  and  renown,  who  gained  immortal 
honour,  and  were  afterward  advanced  to  the 
highest  dignities  in  the  Church.  Never  was  a 
bad  cause  more  weakly  managed  by  the  papists, 
nor  a  more  complete  victory  obtained  by  the 
Protestants. 

But  the  Church  party,  not  content  with  their 
triumph,  have  of  late  censured  the  Nonconform- 
ists for  appearing  only  as  spectators,  and  not 
joining  them  in  the  combat. t  But  how  could 
the  clergy  expect  this  from  a  set  of  men  whom 
they  had  been  persecuting  for  above  twenty 
years,  and  who  had  the  yoke  of  oppression  still 
lying  on  their  necks'!  Had  not  the  Nonconform- 
ists been  beforehand  with  them  in  their  ^^  Morning 
Exercises  against  Popery  V^)  And  did  not  Dr. 
Owen,  Mr.  Pool,  Baxter,  Clarkson,  and  others, 
write  against  the  errors  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
throughout  the  whole  reign  of  King  Charles  11. 1 
Had  not  the  Nonconformists  stood  in  the  gap.  and 
exposed  themselves  sufficiently  to  the  resent- 
ments of  the  papists,  for  refusing  to  come  into 
their  measures  for  a  universal  toleration,  in 
which  they  might  have  been  included  1  Be- 
sides, the  poor  ministers  were  hardly  crept  out 
of  corners,  their  papers  had  been  rifled,  and  their 
books  sold  or  secreted,  to  avoid  seizure  ;  they  had 
little  time  to  study,  and  therefore  might  not  be 
so  well  prepared  for  the  argument  as  those  who 
had  lived  in  ease  and  security.  Farther,  the 
Church  party  was  most  nearly  concerned,  the 
Nonconformists  having  nothing  to  lose,  whereas 
all  the  emoluments  of  the  Church  were  at  stake ; 
and,  after  all,  some  of  the  Dissenters  did  write  ; 


*  A  vast  collection  of  these  pieces  was  published 
about  fifty  years  ago,  in  three  volumes  folio,  under 
the  direction  of  Dr.  Gibson,  bishop  of  London.  But 
this  contained  only  a  part  of  the  tracts  written  by 
the  Protestants;  and  even  the  catalogues  of  them 
drawn  up  by  Dr.  Wake,  Dr.  Gee,  and  Mr.  Francis 
Peck,  were  defective  in  the  titles  of  them. — Birch's 
Life  of  Archbishop  Titlntson,  p.  127.— Ed.  This  col- 
lection is  very  rarely  to  be  met  with  ;  and  as  it  may 
be  useful  for  purposes  of  reference,  I  would  state  that 
a  copy  is  to  be  found  in  the  excellent  library  of  the 
Methodist  Book  Concern,  192  Mulberry-street,  New- 
York.— C. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  lii.,  p.  79,  80,  Edinb.  edit. 

X  Calainy,  p.  373  ;  and  Peirce's  Vindication,  p.  266. 

/)  A  volume  which  has  never  yet  been  surpassed 
for  point  and  force  of  argument. — C. 


and,  if  we  may  believe  Dr.  Calamy,  Mr.  Baxter, 
and  others,  their  tracts  being  thought  too  warm, 
were  refused  to  be  licensed  *  Upon  the  whole| 
Bishop  Burnet  wisely  observes,!  that  as  the 
Dis.senters  would  not  engage  on  the  side  of  po- 
pery and  the  prerogative,  nor  appear  for  taking 
off  the  tests  in  the  present  circumstances;  so, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  were  unwilimg  to  pro- 
voke the  king,  who  had  lately  given  them  hopes 
of  liberty,  lest  he  should  make  up  matters  upon 
any  terms  with  the  Church  party,  at  their  ex- 
pense ;  nor  would  they  provoke  the  Church  par- 
ty, or  by  any  ill  behaviour  drive  them  into  a 
reconciliation  with  the  court ;  therefore  they  re- 
solved to  let  the  points  of  controversy  alone, 
and  leave  them  to  the  management  of  the  cler- 
gy, who  had  a  legal  bottom  to  support  them. 

The  clergy's  writing  thus  warndy  iigainst 
popery  broke  all  measures  between  the  king  and 
the  Church  of  England,  and  made  each  party 
court  that  body  of  men  for  their  auxiliaries, 
whom  they  had  been  persecuting  and  destroying 
for  so  many  years.  His  majesty  now  resolved 
to  introduce  a  universal  toleration  in  despite  of 
the  Church,  and  at  their  expense.}:  The  cruel- 
ty of  the  Church  of  England  was  his  common 
subject  of  discourse ;  he  reproached  them  for 
their  violent  persecutions  of  the  Dissenters,  and 
said  he  had  intended  to  set  on  foot  a  toleration 
sooner,  but  that  he  was  restrained  by  some  of 
them  who  had  treated  with  him,  and  had  un- 
dertaken to  show  favour  to  the  papists,  provi- 
ded they  might  be  still  suffered  to  vex  the  Dis- 


*  A  license  was  refused  to  a  discourse  against  the 
whole  system  of  popery,  drawn  up  by  the  learned 
Mr.  Jonathan  Haniner,  who  was  ejected  from  Bish- 
ops Tawtoi),  in  Devon.  A  discourse  against  tran- 
substantiation,  written  by  Mr  Henry  Pendlebury, 
ejected  from  Holconib  Chapel  in  Lancashire,  and  af- 
terward published  by  Archbishop  Tillotson,  met  with 
the  like  refusal.  An  offer  that  Mr.  Baxter  would 
produce  a  piece  against  popery  every  month,  if  a  li- 
cense might  be  had,  was  rejected  with  scorn.  And 
Mr.  Jane,  the  Bishop  of  London's  chaplain,  denied 
his  sanction  to  a  piece  he  actually  drew  up  on  the 
Church's  visibility.  But  in  opposition  to  what  Mr. 
Neal  says  above  concerning  this  point.  Dr.  Grey,  it 
is  but  justice  to  observe,  gives  us  letters  from  Dr. 
Isham,  Dr.  Alstim,  Dr.  Batteley,  and  Mr.  Needham, 
licensers  of  the  press,  declaring  that  they  never  re- 
fused to  license  a  book  because  written  by  a  Dissent- 
er;  and  that  they  did  not  recollect  that  any  tract 
of  which  a  Dissenter  was  the  author  was  brought  to 
them  for  their  sanction.  As  to  Mr.  Baxter  in  partic- 
ular, Dr.  Isham  avers  that  he  never  obstructed  his 
writing  against  popery,  but  licensed  one  of  his  books  : 
"  and  if  he  had  prepared  anything  against  the  com- 
mon enemy."  says  Dr.  Isham,  "without  striking  ob- 
liquely at  our  Church,  I  would  certainly  have  for- 
warded them  from  the  press."  it  is  to  be  added, 
that  one  piece  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Hanmer  had  the 
imprimatur  of  Dr.  Jane.  These  authorities  appear  to 
contradict  each  other  ;  but  it  is,  probahly,  not  only  a 
candid,  but  just  method  of  reconciling  them,  and  pre- 
serving our  opinion  of  the  veracity  of  both  parties,  to 
suppose  that  the  tracts  to  which  a  license  was  refused 
were  not  offered  to  the  gentlemen  wlM)se  letters  Dr. 
Grey  quotes;  but  to  Dr.  Jane  oi"  other  licensers,  with 
whose  declaration  we  are  not  furnished.— Bewncz's 
Mcmnrial,  p.  399,  400,  second  edition.  Baxter's  His- 
tory nfkis  Own  Life,  part  iii.,  p.  183,  folio.  Palmer's 
Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  342.  Dr.  Grey, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  424-432.  The  matter  was,  I  understand, 
discussed  by  Mr.  Tong,  in  his  defence  of  Mr.  Henry's 
"  Notion  of  Schism."— Ed.  f  Page  121,  122. 

X  Burnet,  p.  140. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


321 


senters  ;  and  he  named  the  very  men,  though 
they  thought  fit  afterward  to  deny  it :  how  far 
the  fact  ics  probable  must  be  left  with  the  reader. 

It  being  thought  impracticable  to  obtain  a  le- 
gal toleration  in  the  present  circumstances  of  the 
nation,  his  majesty  determined  to  attempt  it  by 
the  dispensing  power ;  for  this  purpose,  Sir  Ed- 
ward Hales,  a  popish  gentleman  of  Kent,  was 
brought  to  trial  for  breaking  through  the  Test 
Act,  when  Sir  Edward  Herbert,  lord-chief-jus- 
tice, gave  judgment  in  his  favour,  and  declared 
the  powers  of  the  crown  to  be  absolute.*  The 
other  judges  were  closeted,  and  such  displaced 
as  were  of  a  different  sentiment  ;  and  the  king 
being  resolved  to  have  twelve  judges  of  his  own 
opinion, t  four  had  their  quietus,  and  as  many 
new  ones  were  advanced,  from  whom  the  king 
exacted  a  promise  to  support  the  prerogative  in 
all  its  branches.  There  was  a  new  call  of  ser- 
geants, who  gave  rings  with  this  motto,  Deus, 
REX,  LEX,  "  God,  the  king,  and  the  law ;"  the 
king  being  placed  before  the  law.  The  privy 
council  was  new  modelled,  and  several  declared 
papists  admitted  into  it ;  two  confiding  clergy- 
men were  promoted  to  bishoprics  :  Parker  to 
Oxford,  and  Carlwright  to  Chester.  Many  pam- 
phlets were  written  and  dispersed  in  favour  of 
liberty  of  conscience ;  and  Sir  Roger  TEstrange, 
■with  other  mercenary  writers,  were  employed 
to  maintain  that  a  power  in  the  king  to  dispense 
-with  the  laws,  is  law.f  But  the  opinion  of  pri- 
vate writers  not  being  thought  sufficient,  it  was 
resolved  to  have  the  determmation  of  the  judg- 
es, who  all,  except  one,  gave  it  as  their  opinion, 
1.  That  the  laws  of  England  were  the  king's 
laws.  2.  That  it  is  an  inseparable  branch  of 
the  prerogative  of  the  kings  of  England,  as  of  all 
other  sovereign  princes,  to  dispense  with  all  pe- 
nal laws  in  particular  cases,  and  on  particular 
occasions.  3.  That  of  these  reasons  and  neces- 
sity the  king  is  sole  judge.  4.  That  this  is  not 
a  trust  now  invested  in,  and  granted  to,  the 
present  king,  but  the  ancient  remains  of  the 
sovereign  power  of  the  kings  of  England,  which 
was  never  yet  taken  from  them,  nor  can  be. 
Thus  the  laws  of  England  were  given  up  at 
once  into  the  hands  of  the  king,  by  a  solemn 
determination  of  the  judges. 

This  point  being  secured,  his  majesty  began 
to  caress  the  Nonconformists.  "All  on  a  sud- 
den," says  Bishop  Burnet, ij  "the  churchmen 
were  disgraced,  and  the  Dissenters  in  high 
favour.  Lord-cliief-justice  Herbert  went  the 
western  circuit  after  Jefferies,  who  was  now 
made  lord-chancellor,  and  all  was  grace  and 
favour  to  them :  their  former  sufferings  were 
much  reflected  upon  and  pitied  ;  everything  was 
offered  that  might  alleviate  them;  their  minis- 
ters were  encouraged  to  set  up  their  conventi- 
cles, which  had  been  discontinued,  or  held  very 

*  Uurnet,  p.  73,  74. 

t  Lordrhief justice  Jones,  one  of  the  displaced 
judges,  upon  ins  dismission,  observed  to  the  king, 
*•  that  he  was  by  no  meatis  sorry  that  he  was  laid 
aside,  old  and  worn  out  as  he  was  in  his  service ; 
but  concerned  that  his  majesty  should  expect  such 
a  construction  ol  the  law  Iroin  him  as  he  could  not 
honestly  give  ;  and  that  none  but  indigent,  ignorant, 
or  ambitious  men  would  give  their  judgment  as  he 
expected."  To  this  the  king  replied,  •'  It  was  ne- 
cessary his  judges  should  be  all  of  one  mind." — Me- 
moirs of  Sir  John  liereshy,  p.  233. — Eo. 

i  Welwood's  Meuaoirs,  p.  194.  <f  P.  78. 

Vol.  II.— S  s 


secretly,  for  four  or  five  years  ;  intimations 
were  given  everywhere  that  the  king  would  not 
have  them  or  their  meetings  disturbed."*  A. 
dispensation  or  license-ofiice  was  set  up,  where 
all  who  applied  might  have  an  indulgence,  pay- 
ing only  50*.  for  themselves  and  their  families. 
Many  who  had  been  prosecuted  for  conventi- 
cles took  out  those  licenses,  which  not  only 
stopped  all  processes  that  were  commenced,  but 
gave  them  liberty  to  go  publicly  to  meetings  for 
the  future.  "  Upon  this,"  says  the  same  rev- 
erend prelate,  "some  of  the  Dissenters  grew 
insolent,  but  wiser  men  among  them  perceived 
the  design  of  the  papists  was  now  to  set  on  the 
Dissenters  against  the  Church  ;  and  therefore, 
though  they  returned  to  their  conventicles,  yet 
they  had  a  just  jealousy  of  the  ill  designs  that 
lay  hid  under  all  this  sudden  and  unexpected 
show  of  grace  and  kindness,  and  they  took  care 
not  to  provoke  the  Church  party."  But  where 
then  were  the  understandings  of  the  High 
Church  clergy,  during  the  whole  reign  of  King 
Charles  II.,  while  they  were  pursuing  the  Non- 
conformists and  their  families  to  destruction, 
for  a  long  course  of  years  T  Did  they  not  per- 
ceive the  design  of  the  papists  !  Or  were  they 
not  willing  rather  to  court  them,  at  the  expense  of 
the  whole  body  of  dissenting  Protestants  1  Bish- 
op Laud's  scheme  of  uniting  with  the  papists, 
and  meeting  them  half  way,  was  never  out  of 
their  sight ;  however,  when  the  reader  calls  to 
mind  the  oppression  and  cruelties  that  the  con- 
scientious Nonconformists  underwent  from  the 
High  Church  party  for  twenty-five  years,  he 
will  be  ready  to  conclude  they  deserved  no  re- 
gard, if  the  Protestant  religion  itself  had  not 
been  at  stake. 

Thus  the  all-wise  providence  of  God  put  a 
period  to  the  prosecution  of  the  Protestant  Dis- 
senters from  the  penal  laws,  though  the  laws 
themselves  were  not  legally  repealed  or  sus- 
pended till  after  the  revolution  of  King  William 
and  Queen  Mary.  It  may  not,  therefore,  be  im- 
proper to  give  the  reader  a  summary  view  of 
their  usage  in  this  and  the  last  reign,  and  of  the 
damages  they  sustained  in  their  persons,  fami- 
lies, and  fortunes. 

The  Quakers,  in  their  petition  to  King  Jamesf 
the  last  year,  inform  his  majesty,  that  of  late 
above  one  thousand  five  hundred  of  their  friends 
were  in  prison,  both  men  and  women  ;  and  that 
now  there  remain  one  thousand  three  hundred 
and  eighty  three,  of  which  two  hundred  are 
women  ;  many  under  sentence  of  premunire ; 
and  more  than  three  hundred  near  it,  for  refu- 


*  King  .Tames,  previously  to  his  adopting  these 
conciliating  measures  with  the  Dissenters,  such  was 
his  art  and  duplicity,  had  tried  all  the  methods  he 
could  think  of  to  bring  the  Church  into  his  designs; 
and  twice  offered,  it  was  said,  to  make  a  sacrifice  of 
all  the  Dissenters  m  the  kingdom  to  them,  if  they 
would  but  have  complied  with  them  ;  but,  failing  in 
this  attempt,  he  facal  about  to  the  Nonconformists. 
—  Calami/s  History  of  his  Own  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  170, 
MS.— Ed. 

t  It  was  addressed  not  to  King  James  only,  but  to 
both  houses  of  Parliament.  They  made  also  an  ap- 
plication to  the  king  alone,  recommending  to  his 
princely  clemency  the  case  of  their  suffering  friends. 
— Si^tvel,  p.  592.  This  was  not  so  copious  a  state  of 
their  case  as  the  petition  to  which  Mr.  Neal  refers, 
and  is  called  by  Gough  their  first  address.— Vol.  hi., 
p.  16-2 ;  and  the  Iidex,  under  the  word  Address. — Ei). 


322 


HISTORY    OF    THE   PURITANS. 


sing  the  oath  of  allegiance  because  they  could 
not  swear.*  Above  three  hundred  and  fifty 
have  died  in  prison  since  the  year  1660,  near 
one  hundred  of  which  since  the  year  1680.  In 
London,  the  jail  of  Newgate  has  been  crowded 
within  liiese  two  years,  sometimes  with  near 
twenty  m  a  room,  whereby  several  have  been 
suffocated,  and  others,  who  have  been  taken 
out  sick,  have  died  of  malignant  fevers  within  a 
few  days  ;  great  violences,  outrageous  distress- 
es, and  woful  havoc  and  spoil  have  been  made 
on  people's  goods  and  estates,  by  a  company  of 
idle,  extravagant,  and  merciless  informers,  by 
prosecutions  on  the  Conventicle  Act  and  oth- 
ers, as  may  be  seen  in  the  margin.!  Also  on 
igui  lam  writs,  and  on  other  processes,  for  £20 
a  month  ;  and  two  thirds  of  their  estates  seized 
for  the  king  :  some  had  not  a  bed  left  to  rest 
upon  ;  otiiers  had  no  cattle  to  till  the  ground, 
2)or  corn  for  seed  or  bread,  nor  tools  to  work 
with :  the  said  informers  and  bailiffs  in  some 
places  breaking  into  houses,  and  making  great 
waste  and  spoil,  under  pretence  of  serving  the 
king  and  the  Church.  Our  religious  assemblies 
have  been  charged  at  common  law  with  being 
riotous  routs  and  disturbances  of  the  peace, 
whereby  great  numbers  have  been  confined  in 
prisons,  without  regard  to  age  or  sex ;  and  many 
in  holes  and  dungeons:  the  seizures  for  £20 
a  month  have  amounted  to  several  thousand 
pounds:  sometimes  they  have  seized  for  eleven 
months  at  once,  and  made  sale  of  all  goods  and 
chattels  both  within  doors  and  without,  for  pay- 
ment ;  several  who  have  employed  some  hun- 
dreds of  poor  families  in  manufacture,  are  by 
those  writs  and  seizures  disabled,  as  well  as  by 
long  imprisonment ;  one.  in  particular,  who  em- 
ployed two  hundred  people  in  the  woollen  man- 
ufacture. Many  informers,  and  especially  im- 
pudent women,  whose  husbands  are  in  prison, 
swear  for  their  share  of  the  profit  of  the  sei- 
zures: the  fines  upon  one  justice's  warrant  have 
amounted  to  many  hundred  pounds;  frequently 
£10  a  warrant,  and  five  warrants  together  for 
£50  to  one  man  ;  and  for  nonpayment,  all  his 
goods  carried  away  in  about  ten  cart-loads 
They  spare  neither  widows,  nor  fatherless,  nor 
poor  families,  nor  leave  them  so  much  as  a  bed 
to  lie  upon  :  tiius  the  informers  are  both  wit- 
nesses and  parties,  to  the  ruin  of  great  numbers 


*  Sewel,  p.  588,  593. 

i  The  acts  or  penal  laws  on  which  they  suffered 
■were  these : 

Some  few  suffered  on  27  Henry  VIII.,  cap.  xx. 

Others  on  1  Eliz.,  cap.  ii.,  for  twelve-pence  a  Sun- 
day. 

5  Eliz.,  cap.  xxiii.,  de  fxcommu.  capiendo. 

23  Eliz.,  cap.  i.,  for  £20  a  month. 

29  Eliz.,  cap.  vi.,  for  more  speedy  and  due  execu- 
tion of  last  statute. 

35  Eliz.,  cap.  i.,  for  abjuring  the  realm  on  pain  of 
death 

3  King  James  I.,  cap.  iv.,  for  better  discovering  and 
suppressing  popish  recusants. 

13th  and  14lh  of  King  Charles  II.,  against  Qua- 
kers, &c.,  tmnsportation. 

17  Chailes  II.,  cap.  ii.,  again.st  Nonconformists. 

22  King  Charles  II.,  cap.  i.,  against  seditious  con- 
venticles 

N.  B.  The  Quakers  were  not  much  affected  with 
the  Corpnraiion  aii<i  Test  Acts,  because  they  would 
not  lake  an  oath  ; 

Nor  wiih  the  Oxford  Five-mile  Act,  which  cut  the 
others  to  pieceSi 


of  sober  families;  and  justices  of  peace  have 
been  threatened  with  the  forfeiture  of  £100  if 
they  do  not  issue  out  warrants  upon  their  in- 
formations. With  this  petition,  they  presented 
to  the  king  and  Parliament  a  list  of  their  friends 
in  prison  in  the  several  counties,  amcmnting  to 
one  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  make  an  exact  compu- 
tation of  the  number  of  sufferers,  or  estimate  of 
the  damages  his  majesty's  dissenting  subjects 
of  the  several  denominations  sustained  by  the 
prosecutions  of  this  and  the  last  reign  ;  how 
many  families  were  impoverished,  and  reduced 
to  beggary  ;  how  many  lives  were  lost  in  prisons 
and  noisome  jails ;  how  many  ministers  were 
divorced  from  their  people,  and  forced  to  live  as 
they  could,  five  miles  from  a  corporation  ;  how 
many  industrious  and  laborious  tradesmen  were 
cut  off  from  their  trades,  and  their  substance 
and  household  goods  plundered  by  soldiers,  or 
divided  among  idle  and  infamous  informers. 
The  vexatious  suits  of  the  Commons,  and  the 
expenses  of  those  courts,  were  immense. 

The  writer  of  the  preface  of  Mr.  Delaune's 
"  Plea  for  the  Nonconformists,"  says,*  that  De- 
laune  was  one  of  near  eight  thousand  Protest- 
ant Dissenters  who  had  perished  in  prison  in 
the  reign  of  King  Charles  II.,  and  that  merely 
for  dissenting  from  the  (yhurch  in  some  points 
which  they  were  able  to  give  good  reason  for; 
and  yet  for  no  other  cause,  says  he,  were  they 
stifled,  I  had  almost  said,  murdered  in  jails. 
As  for  the  severe  penalties  inflicted  on  them  for 
seditious  and  riotous  assemblies,  designed  only 
for  the  worship  of  God,  he  adds,  that  they  suf- 
fered in  their  trades  and  estates,  within  the  com- 
pass of  three  years,  at  least  £2.000,000 ;  and 
doubts  whether,  in  all  the  times  since  the  Ilef- 
orination,  including  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary, 
there  can  be  produced  anything  like  such  a  num- 
ber of  Christians  who  have  suffered  death,  and 
such  numbers  who  have  lost  their  substance 
for  religion.  Another  writer  adds,t  that  Mr. 
Jeremy  White  had  carefully  collected  a  list  of 
the  dissenting  sufferers,  and  of  their  sufferings  ; 
and  had  the  names  of  sixty  thousand  persons 
who  bad  suffered  on  a  religious  account,  be- 
tween the  restoratiim  of  King  Charles  II  and 
the  revolution  of  King  William,  five  thousand 
of  whom  died  in  prison.  That  Mr  White  told 
Lord  Dorset  that  King  James  had  offered  him  a 
thousand  gtiineas  for  the  manuscript,  but  that 
he  refused  all  invitations  and  rewards,  and  con- 
cealed the  black  re(;ord,  that  it  might  not  appear 
to  the  disreputation  of  the  Church  of  England, 
for  which  some  of  the  clergy  sent  him  their 
thanks,  and  offered  him  an  acknowledgment, 
which  he  generously  refused.  The  reader  will 
form  his  own  judgment  of  the  truth  of  these 
facts.  It  is  certain  that,  besides  those  who  suf- 
fered in  their  own  country,  great  numbers  re- 
tired to  the  plantations  of  New-England,  Penn- 
sylvania, and  other  parts  of  America.  Many 
transported  themselves  .and  their  effects  into 
Holland, t  and   filled   the   English   churches  of 


«   Preface  to  Delaune's  Plea,  p.  5. 

t  History  of  the  Stuarts,  p.  715. 

i  Among  tliese  were  Mr.  Howe,  Mr.  Shower,  Mr. 
Nat.  Taylnr,  Mr.  Papillon,  Sir  John  Thompson  (.if- 
tt^rward  I  onl  Haversliaiii)-  Sir  John  Guise,  and  Sit 
Patience  Wanl.  The  Males  of  Holland  treated  the 
English  refugees  vviih  particular  respect.     But  as  it 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


323 


Amsterdam,  the  Hague,  Utrecht,  Leyden,  Rot- 
terdam, and  other  parts.  If  we  admit  the  dis- 
senting families  of  tlie  several  denominations  in 
England  to  be  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand, 
and  that  each  family  suffered  no  more  than  the 
loss  of  £3  or  £4  per  annum  from  the  Act  of 
Uniformity,  the  whole  will  amount  to  twelve  or 
fourteen  millions  ;  a  prodigious  sum  for  those 
times!  But  these  are  only  conjectures;  the 
damage  to  the  trade  and  property  of  the  nation 
was  undoubtedly  immense ;  and  the  wounds 
that  were  made  in  the  estates  of  private  fami- 
lies were  deep  and  large,  many  of  whom,  to  my 
certain  knowledge,  wear  the  scars  of  them  to 
this  day. 

When  the  Protestant  Dissenters  rose  up  into 
public  view  as  a  distinct  body,  their  long  suffer- 
ings had  not  very  much  diminished  th'eir  num- 
bers ;  which,  though  not  to  be  compared  with 
those  of  the  Establishment,  or  the  Tories  and 
Roman  Catholics,  were  yet  so  considerable  as 
to  be  capable  of  turning  the  scale  on  either  side, 
according  as  they  should  throw  in  their  weight, 
which  might  possibly  be  owing,  among  others, 
to  the  following  reasons  : 

1.  To  their  firmness  and  constancy  in  a  long 
course  of  suffering,  which  convinced  the  world 
that  they  were  not  actuated  by  humour,  but  con- 
science. 

2.  To  their  doctrine  and  manner  of  preaching, 
which  was  plain  and  practical,  accompanied 
with  a  warm  and  awakening  address  to  the  con- 
science. Their  doctrines  were  those  of  the  firsi 
Reformers,  which  were  grown  out  of  fashion  in 
the  Church  ;  and  their  way  of  worship  was  sim- 
ple and  plain,  without  the  ornament  of  rites  and 
ceremonies. 

3.  To  the  severity  of  their  morals,  at  a  time 
whe"n  the  nation  was  sunk  mto  all  kinds  of  vice 
and  luxury,  from  which  they  preserved  them- 
selves, in  a  great  measure,  untainted.  Their 
conversation  was  sober  and  virtuous.  They  ob- 
served the  Lord's  Day  with  religous  strictness. 
and  had  a  universal  reputation  for  justice  and 

'integrity  in  their  dealings. 

4.  To  the  careful  and  strict  education  of  their 
children,  whom  they  impressed  with  an  early 
sense  of  scriptural  religion,  and  educated  in 
their  own  way,  as  they  had  opportunity,  under 
private  schoolmasters  of  their  own  principles. 

5.  To  a  concern  for  a  succession  of  able  and 
learned  ministers ;  for  which  purpose  they  en- 
couraged private  academies  in  several  parts  of 
the  kingdom  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  many 
gentlemen  and  substantial  citizens  devoted  their 
children  to  the  ministry,  at  a  time  when  they 
had  nothing  in  view  but  worldly  discourage- 
ments. 

6.  To  the  persecuting  zeal  of  the  High  Church 
party,  attended  with  an  unconminn  licentious- 
ness of  manners.  If  their  zeal  against  the 
Nonconformists  had  produced  a  greater  sancti- 
ty of  life  and  severity  of  morals  among  them- 

hns  been  pertinently  observed,  it  was  a  reproach  to 
this  nation  that,  in  particular,  so  excellent  a  person 
as  Mr.  Howe,  wliose  unaffected  piety,  polite  and  pro 
found  learning,  and  most  sweet,  ingenuous,  and  gen 
tie  temper,  entitled  him  to  the  esteem  of  the  greatest 
an<i  best  men  in  the  land  of  all  persuasions:  thai 
such  a  one  at  that  time  could  not  have  a  safe  and 
quiet  habitation  in  his  native  country. —  Tmn^s  Ijijt 
of  iSAotwr,  p.  51. — Ed, 


selves,  it  had  been  less  offensive ;  but  to  sec 
men  destitute  of  common  virtue  signing  war- 
rants of  distress  upon  their  neighbours,  only 
for  worshipping  God  peaceably  at  a  sejjarate 
meeting,  when  they  themselves  hardly  worship- 
ped God  at  all,  made  some  apprehend  tiiere 
was  nothing  at  all  in  religion,  and  others  re- 
solve to  take  their  lot  with  a  more  sober  people. 

Finally,  To  the  spirit  and  principles  of  To- 
ryism, which  began  to  appear  ruinous  to  the 
nation.  The  old  English  Constitution  was  in 
a  manner  lost,  while  the  Church  and  preroga- 
tive had  been  trampling  on  the  Dissenters,  who 
had  stood  firm  to  it  for  twenty  years,  in  the 
midst  of  reproaches  and  sufferings.  This  was 
the  consequence  of  Tory  measures  ;  and  po- 
pery being  now  coming  in  at  the  gap  they  had 
made,  the  most  resolved  Protestants  saw  their 
error,  entertained  a  favourable  opinion  of  the 
Dissenters,  and  many  of  them  joined  their  con- 
gregations. 

To  return  to  the  history.  The  Dissenters 
being  now  easy,  it  was  resolved  to  turn  the  ar- 
tillery of  the  prerogative  against  the  Church, 
and  make  them  feel  a  little  of  the  smart  they 
had  given  others  ;  the  king  and  his  priests  were 
thoroughly  enraged  with  their  opposition  to  the 
court,  and  therefore  appointed  commissioners 
throughout  England  to  mquire  what  money  bad 
been  raised,  or  what  goods  had  been  seized  by 
distress  on  Dissenters,  on  prosecutions  for  re- 
cusancy, and  not  brought  to  account  in  the  ex- 
chequer. In  the  Gazette  of  March  5,  1687,  it 
was  advertised  that  the  commissioners  appoint- 
ed to  examine  into  the  losses  of  the  Dissenters 
and  recusants,  within  the  several  counties  of 
Gloucester,  Worcester,  and  Monmouth,  were 
to  hold  their  sessions  for  the  said  counties  at 
the  places  therein  mentioned.  Others  were  ap- 
pointed for  the  counties  of  Middlesex,  Essex, 
&c.,  to  inquire  what  money  or  goods  had  been 
taken  or  received  for  any  matters  relating  to 
religion  since  September  29,  1677,  in  any  of  the 
counties  for  which  they  were  named.  They 
were  to  return  the  names  of  all  persons  who 
had  seized  goods  or  received  money.  The  par- 
ties themselves,  if  alive,  were  obliged  to  ap- 
pear, and  give  an  account;  and  if  dead,  their 
representatives  were  to  appear  before  the  com- 
missioners for  them.  This  struck  terror  into  the 
whole  tribe  of  informers,  the  confiding  justices, 
and  others,  who  expected  now  to  be  ruined  ; 
but,  says  Dr.  Calamy,  the  Protestant  Dissent- 
ers generously  refused  to  appear  against  their 
enemies,  upon  assurances  given  by  leading  per- 
sons, both  clergy  and  laity,  that  no  such  meth- 
ods should  be  used  for  the  future.  Had  this 
inquiry  proceeded,  and  the  Dissenters  univer- 
sally come  into  it,  a  black  and  fraudulent  scene 
would  have  been  opened,  which  now  will  be 
eoncealed.  Bishop  Burnet  says,  "The  king 
ordered  them  to  inquire  into  all  the  vexatious 
suits  into  which  the  Dissenters  had  been  brought 
in  the  spiritual  courts,  and  into  all  the  composi- 
tions they  had  been  forced  to  ninke  to  redeem 
themselves  from  farther  trouble,  which,  as  was 
said,  would  have  broiitjht  to  light  a  scandalous 
discovery  of  all  the  ill  practices  of  those  courts ; 
for  the  use  thai  many  who  belonj/  to  those  eourts 
had  made  of  the  laws  with  relation  to  Dissipt- 
ers  was,  to  draw  prpscnts  from  such  as  could 
make  them,  threatening  ihem  with  a  process  in 


324 


HISTORY   OF  THE    PURITANS. 


case  they  failed  to  do  that,  and,  upon  doing  it, 
leaving  them  at  full  liberty  to  neglect  the  laws 
as  much  as  Ihey  pleased.  The  commission 
subsisted  til!  the  Rnvolution,  and  it  was  hoped," 
says  his  lordship,  "that  this  would  have  ani- 
mated the  Dissenters  to  turn  upon  the  clergy 
with  some  of  that  fierceness  with  which  they 
themselves  had  been  lately  treated."*  But  ihcy 
took  no  advantage  of  the  disposition  of  the  court, 
nor  of  the  opportunity  that  was  put  into  their 
hands  of  making  reprisals  on  their  adversaries  ; 
which  shows  the  truly  generous  and  Christian 
spirit  of  those  confessors  for  religion,  and  de- 
served a  more  grateful  acknowledgment. 

To  humble  the  clergy  yet  farther,  his  majes- 
ty, by  the  advice  of  Jefferies,  erected  a  new  ec- 
clesiastical commission,  though  the  act  which 
took  away  the  High  Commission  in  1641  had 
provided  that  no  court  of  that  nature  should  be 
erected  for  the  future  ;  but  the  king,  though  a 
papist,  assumed  the  supremacy,  and  directed  a 
commission  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
Jefferies  the  chancellor,  the  Bishops  of  Durham 
and  Rochester;  to  the  Earl  of  Sunderland,  pres- 
ident of  the  Council ;  Herbert  and  Wright,  lord- 
chief  justices,  and  Jenner,  recorder  of  London, 
or  any  three  of  them,  provided  the  chancellor 
was  one,  "  to  exercise  all  manner  of  jurisdic- 
tion and  pre-eminence  touching  any  spiritual 
or  ecclesiastical  jurisdictions,  to  visit,  reform, 
redress,  and  amend  all  abuses,  offences,  con- 
tempts, and  enormities  which  by  the  spiritual  or 
ecclesiastical  laws  might  be  corrected.  They 
were  also  to  inquire  into  ail  the  misdemeanors 
and  contempts  which  might  be  punished  by  the 
censures  of  the  Church,  and  to  call  before  them 
all  ecclesiastical  persons  of  what  degree  and 
dignity  soever,  and  punish  the  offenders  by  ex- 
communications, suspensions,  deprivations,  or 
other  ecclesiastical  censures,"  &c.t  This  was 
a  terrible  rod  held  out  to  the  clergy,  and  if  the 
commissioners  had  had  time  to  proceed  in  their 
inquiries  according  to  the  mandates  sent  to  the 
chancellors  and  archdeacons  of  the  several  dio- 
■resses,  they  would  have  felt  more  of  the  effects 
of  that  arbitrary  power  which  their  indiscreet 
conduct  had  brought  on  the  nation  ;  but  Provi- 
dence was  kinder  to  them  than  they  had  been 
to  their  brethren  t  The  commission  was  grant- 
ed the  beginning  of  April,  but  was  not  opened 
till  the  beginning  of  August :  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  was  afraid  to  act  in  it  ;<J  Durham 
was  so  lifted  up,  says  Burnet,  that  he  said  his 
name  would  now  be  recorded  in  history ;  and 
Sprat,  bishop  of  Rochester,  in  hopes  of  farther 
preferment,  swam  with  the  stream. li      Some 

*  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  p.  HO,  141,  Edinb.  edit. 

■f-  Bnrnet,  p.  82.  %  Welwood.  p.  198. 

•^  U  is  said  that  he  took  exception  at  the  lawful- 
ness of  the  commission  itself.  But  then,  on  its  be- 
ing opened,  he  did  not  appear  and  declare  against  it, 
as  judging  it  to  be  against  law,  contenting  himself 
with  not  going  to  it ;  and  it  was  not  at  first  appre- 
hended that  he  made  a  matter  of  conscience  of  it. 
Hp  was  of  a  timorous  nature,  and  cautious  of  doing 
anything  that  might  eventually  be  prejudicial  to  his 
great  object,  which  was  to  enrich  his  nephew. — Bur- 
net, vol.  lii.,  p.  82,  83.  Grey's  Examination,  vol  iii., 
p.  405.— Ed. 

II  Though  the  Bi.shop  of  Rochester  might,  from 
views  to  preferment,  be  induced  to  act  in  a  commis- 
sion to  which  he  was,  without  his  knowledge,  na- 
med, yet  he  is  stated  to  have  acted  with  integrity  in 


Roman  Catholics  were  in  the  commission,  and, 
consequently,  the  enemies  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion were  to  be  its  judges. 

But  his  majesty,  not  being  willing  to  rely  al- 
together on  the  Oxford  decree,  nor  on  the 
fashionable  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and 
nonresistance,  which  had  been  preached  up  for 
above  twenty  years  as  the  unalterable  doctrines 
of  the  Church  of  England,  in  order  to  support 
his  extraordinary  proceedings,  resolved  to  aug- 
ment his  standmg  forces  to  fifteen  thousand 
men.  He  was  apprehensive  of  a  snake  in  the 
grass,  or  a  secret  reserve,  that  might  break  out 
when  the  Church  itself  came  to  be  pinched  ; 
he  therefore  ordered  his  army  to  encamp  on 
Hounslow  Heath,  under  the  command  of  the 
Earl  of  Feversham,  to  awe  the  city,  and  be  at 
hand  upon  any  emergency  ;  the  officers  and 
many  of  the  soldiers  were  Irish  papists,  and 
they  had  a  public  chapel  in  which  mass  was 
said  every  day,  so  that  it  was  believed  the  king 
might  introduce  what  religion  he  pleased.*  It 
was  dangerous  to  speak  or  write  against  his 
majesty's  proceedings  ;  for  when  the  Rev.  Mr- 
Johnson,  a  clergyman,  ventured  to  publish  a 
writing,  directed  to  the  Protestant  officers  of 
the  army,  to  dissuade  them  from  being  tools  of 
the  court  to  subvert  the  Constitution  and  Prot- 
estant religion,  diligent  search  was  made  for 
him,  and  being  apprehended,  he  was  sentenced 
to  stand  three  times  in  the  pillory,  to  be  degra- 
ded of  his  orders,  to  be  whipped  from  Newgate 
to  Tyburn,  and  to  be  fined  five  hundred  marks  ; 
all  which  was  executed  with  great  severity. + 


this  matter,  through  his  ignorance  of  the  laws,  having 
no  objection  to  the  legality  of  it ;  with  the  purpose 
of  doing  as  much  good,  and  preventing  as  muck 
evil,  as  the  times  would  permit.  In  the  execution 
of  it,  he  pleaded  that  he  had  studied  to  moderate 
and  restrain  the  violence  of  others,  never  giving  his 
consent  to  any  irregular  and  arbitrary  sentence,  but 
declaring  against  every  extravagant  decree.  His 
opinions,  he  said,  were  always  so  contrary  to  the 
humours  of  the  court,  that  he  often  thought  himself 
to  be  really  in  as  much  hazard  from  the  commission 
itself,  by  his  non-compliance,  as  any  of  his  brethren 
could  be  that  were  out  of  it.  And  at  last,  rather 
than  concur  in  the  prosecution  of  such  as  refused 
to  read  the  king's  declaration,  he  solemnly  took  his 
leave  and  withdrew  from  the  court. — Grey's  Exam- 
ination, vol.  iii.,  p.  405,  406. — Ed. 

*  Gazette,  No.  2192. 

t  IVIr.  Johnson,  previously  to  his  sufferings,  was 
degraded  in  the  chapter-house  of  St.  Paul's  on  the 
22d  of  November,  1686.  He  bore  the  whipping,  on 
the  1st  of  December  following,  with  great  fortitude. 
The  Revolution  restored  him  to  his  liberty ;  the  deg- 
radation was  annulled  ;  the  judgment  given  against 
him  was  declared  illegal  and  cruel ;  and  a  pension 
of  .£300  a  year  for  liis  own  and  son's  life  was  grantea 
to  him,  with  £1000  in  money,  and  a  place  of  .£100  a 
year  for  his  son.  His  temper,  which  was  haughty, 
rough,  and  turbulent,  rendered  his  solicitations  for  a 
bishopric,  and  two  addresses  of  the  Lords  recom- 
mending him  to  preferment,  unsuccesslul.  He  had 
been  chaplain  to  Lord  Russel,  and  was  a  man  of  con- 
siderable learning  and  abilities,  of  great  firmness  and 
fortitude  of  mind.  In  1683-4  he  had  incurred  a 
heavy  sentence  in  the  King's  Bench,  being  fined  five 
hundred  marks,  and  committed  to  the  prison  till  it- 
was  paid,  and  sureties  for  his  good  behaviour  for  a 
year  were  found.  This  penalty  was  incurred  by  the 
publication  of  a  book  entitled  '•  .luliau  the  Apostate,'' 
in  1682,  intended  to  expose  the  doctrines  of  passive* 
obedience  and  nonresistance;  and  to  show  the  great 
difference  between  the  case  of  the  primitive  Chris- 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


325 


Affairs  in  Scotland  were  in  equal  forward- 
ness with  those  of  England  ;  the  Parliament 
which  met  at  Edinburgh  in  May,  1685,  while 
the  persecution  continued,  declared  their  ab- 
horrence of  all  principles  derogatory  to  the 
king's  absolute  power,  and  offered  their  lives 
and  fortunes  to  defend  it  against  all  opposers. 
They  passed  an  act,  making  it  death  to  resort 
to  any  conventicles  in  houses  or  fields  ;  and 
declared  it  high  treason  to  give  or  take  the  na- 
tional Covenant,  or  to  write  in  defence  of  it. 
They  also  obliged  the  subjects  of  Scotland  to 
take  an  oath,  when  required,  to  maintain  the 
king's  absolute  power,  on  pain  of  banishment. 
Popery  made  very  considerable  advances  in 
that  kingdom,  and  several  persons  of  character 
changed  their  religion  with  the  times.*  But 
-the  populace  were  in  the  other  extreme  ;  the 
Earl  of  Perth,  having  set  up  a  private  chapel 
for  mass,  the  mob  broke  into  it  with  such  fury 
that  they  defaced  and  destroyed  the  whole  fur- 
niture, for  which  one  of  them  was  apprehended 
and  hanged.  When  the  English  court  changed 
measures,  the  Scots  Parliament  agreed  to  a 
suspension  of  the  penal  laws  during  the  king's 
life ;  but  his  majesty  insisting  upon  an  entire 
repeal,  which  they  declined,  he  dissolved  them. 
The  Episcopal  clergy  were  obsequious  to  the 
court,  and  in  many  places  so  sunk  into  sloth 
and  ignorance,  that  the  lower  people  were  quite 
indifferent  in  matters  of  religion  ;  but  the  Pres- 
byterians, though  now  freed  from  the  severi- 
ties they  had  smarted  under  so  many  years, 
expressed  upon  all  occasions  an  unconquerable 
aversion  to  popery,  and  by  degrees  roused  the 
whole  nation  out  of  their  lethargy. 

In  Ireland  things  had  still  a  more  favourable 
aspect  for  the  court :  the  king  had  a  greater  de- 
pendance  on  the  Irish  Catholicst  than  upon  any 
other  of  his  subjects.  Colonel  Talbot,  earl  of 
Tyrconnel,  was  made  lord-lieutenant  of  that 
country,  a  vile  and  profligate  officer,  who  scru- 
pled no  kind  of  barbarity  and  wickedness  to 
serve  his  cause  ;  he  broke  several  Protestant 
officers  in  the  army,  and  by  degrees  turned  them 
all  out  to  make  room  for  papists.  All  officers, 
both  civil  and  military,  were  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  vilest  miscreants  ;  there  was  not  a  Prot- 
estant sheriff  left  in  that  kingdom  ;  the  charters 
were  taken  away,  and  new  modelled  in  favour 
of  papists.  The  corporations  were  dissolved, 
and  all  things  managed  with  an  arbitrary  hand, 
so  that  many,  imagining  the  massacring  knife 
to  be  at  their  throats,  left  the  kingdom ;  some 
transporting  themselves  into  England,  and  oth- 
ers into  more  remote  and  distant  countries. 
Thus  far  the  prerogative  prevailed  without  any 
repulse. 


tians,  who  had  the  Imps  against  them.,  and  ours,  irho 
have  the  laws  on  our  side. —  Birch's  Life  of  Archbishop 
Tillolson,  p.  216,  &c.— En. 

*  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  p.  86,  90. 

t  So  hostile  to  the  cause  of  liberty  were  the  Irish 
Catholics,  that,  not  content  with  oppressing  it  in 
their  own  kingdom,  they  encouraged  the  emigration 
of  their  own  body  with  a  view  to  check  its  spread 
beyond  the  Atlantic.  For  they  suggested  to  King 
James,  to  grant,  in  lieu  of  lands,  money  to  such  of 
their  countrymen  as  were  willing  to  transport  them- 
selves into  New-England  to  advance  the  Catholic 
faith  there,  and  check  the  growing  independence  of 
that  country. — Life  of  Dr.  Increa!;i;  Mather,  p.  43. — 
Ed. 


Matters  being  now  ripe  for  attacking  the 
Church  of  England  in  form,  it  was  resolved 
to  begin  with  making  an  example  of  some  of 
their  leading  divines  :  Dr.  Sharpe,  rector  of  St. 
Giles's,  having  disobeyed  the  king's  order  of  not 
preaching  on  the  controverted  points,  and  spo- 
ken disrespectfully  of  the  king's  religion  in  one 
of  his  sermons,  the  Bishop  of  London  was  or- 
dered to  suspend  him  ;  but  the  bishop,  with  all 
respect  and  duty  to  his  majesty,  sent  word  that 
he  could  not  proceed  in  such  a  summary  way, 
but  that  when  the  cause  was  heard  in  the  Com- 
mons, he  would  pronounce  such  sentence  as 
the  canons  should  warrant ;  and  in  the  mean 
time,  would  desire  the  doctor  to  forbear  preach- 
ing,- The  court  resenting  the  bishop's  denial, 
cited  himt  before  the  ecclesiastical  commission 
August  4,  where  he  was  treated  by  Jefferies  in 
a  manner  unbecoming  his  character.  The  bish- 
op excepted  to  the  authority  of  the  court,  as 
contrary  to  law,  and  added,  that  he  had  com- 
plied in  the  doctor's  case  as  far  as  the  ecclesi- 
astical laws  would  permit.  However,  notwith- 
standing all  that  his  lordship  could  say  in  his 
defence,  he  was  suspended  ab  officio,t  and  the 
Bishops  of  Durham,  Rochester,  and  Peterbor- 
ough were  appointed  commissioners,  to  exer- 
cise jurisdiction  during  his  suspension.  But 
Dr.  Sharpe,  after  having  expressed  his  sorrow, 
in  a  petition,  for  falling  under  the  king's  dis- 
pleasure, was  dismissed  with  a  gentle  repri- 
mand, and  suffered  to  return  to  the  exercise  of 
his  function. 

The  king's  next  attempt  was  upon  the  uni- 
versities ;  he  began  with  Cambridge,  and  com- 


*  Burnet,  p.  83-85. 

t  Dr.  Compton,  the  Bishop  of  London,  had,  by  a 
conduct  worthy  of  his  birth  and  station  in  the  Church, 
acquired  the  love  and  esteem  of  all  the  Protestant 
churches  at  home  and  abroad ;  and  for  that  reason, 
was  the  mark  of  the  envy  and  hatred  of  the  Romish 
party  at  court.  He  made  a  distinguishing  lignre  in 
the  following  reigns.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of 
Spencer,  earl  of  Northampton,  who  was  killed  in 
the  civil  wars.  After  having  studied  three  years  at 
the  university,  and  made  the  usual  tour  of  Europe, 
he  became  a  cornet  in  the  royal  regiment  of  guards; 
which  gave  occasion  to  the  following  bon-mot :  King 
James,  discoursing  v»ith  him  on  some  tender  point, 
was  so  little  pleased  with  his  answers,  that  he  told 
him,  '■  He  talked  more  like  a  colonel  than  a  bishop." 
To  which  he  replied,  "  That  his  majesty  did  him 
honour  in  taking  notice  of  his  having  formerly  drawn 
liis  sword  in  defence  of  the  Constitution ;  and  that 
he  should  do  the  same  again,  if  he  lived  to  see  it  ne- 
cessary." Accordingly,  he  appeared  in  arms  again 
a  little  before  the  Revolution,  and  at  the  head  of  a 
fine  troop  of  gentlemen  and  their  attendants,  carried 
off  the  Princess  .\nne,  and  marched  into  Notting- 
ham.—  Weluood's  Memoirs,  p.  175;  and  Granger's 
History  of  England,  vol.  iv.,  p.  283,  284. — Ed. 

1  Though  Bishop  Compton  was  thus  deprived  of 
his  Episcopal  power,  he  still  retained  his  other  ca- 
pacities, particularly  as  a  governor  of  Sutton's  Hos- 
pital, and  preserved  the  intrepidity  of  his  spirit.  For 
when  an  attempt  was  made,  by  the  recommendation 
of  the  king,  to  introduce  a  papist  as  a  pensioner,  con- 
trary to  the  statutes  of  that  institution,  the  bishop,  in 
conjunction  with  some  other  trustees,  so  firmly  op- 
posed the  encroachment  upon  the  rights  of  the  found- 
ation, that  the  court  and  commissioners  saw  fit,  in 
the  end,  to  desist  from  their  design. — Life  of  Bishop 
Compton,  p.  45  ;  where,  from  p.  22-39,  and  Biogra- 
phia  Britannica,  vol.  iv.,  article  Compton,  p.  55,  50, 
second  edition,  may  be  seen  a  full  account  of  his 
prosecution. — Ed. 


326 


HISTORY  OF   THE    PURITANS. 


manded  Dr.  Peaclnl,  the  vice-chancellor,  to  ad- 
mit, one  Albin  Francis,  a  Benedictine  monk,  to 
the  degree  of  M.A  ,  without  administering  to 
him  any  oath  or  oatlis  whatsoever  ;  all  which, 
his  majesty  declared,  he  would  dispense  with.* 
"the  vice-chancellor,  having  read  the  letter  to 
the  congregation  of  regents,  it  was  agreed  to 
petition  the  king  to  revoke  his  mandate  ;  but, 
instead  of  complying  with  their  petition,  the 
king  sent  for  the  vice-chancellor  before  the  ec- 
clesiastical commission,  hy  whom  he  was  sus- 
pended ab  officio  ct  bcncjicio,  for  disobedience 
and  contempt  of  the  king's  commands ;  and 
Dr.  Balderston,  master  of  Emanuel  College,  was 
chosen  vice-chancellor  in  his  room. 

Soon  after,  the  king  sent  a  mandamus  to  the 
vice-president  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  and 
to  the  fellows,  to  choose  Mr.  Farmer,  a  man 
of  ill  reputation,  their  president,  in  the  room  of 
Dr.  Clarke,  deceased  ;  but,  in  defiance  of  the 
king's  mandate,  they  chose  Dr.  Hough,  for 
which  they  were  cited  before  the  ecclesiastical 
commissioners  ;  but  having  proved  Farmer  to 
be  a  man  of  bad  character,  the  king  relinquished 
him,  and  ordered  them  by  another  mandate  to 
choose  Dr.  Parker,  bishop  of  Oxford.  The  fel- 
lows, having  agreed  to  abide  by  their  first  choice, 
refused  to  elect  the  bishop,  as  contrary  to  their 
statutes.  Upon  which  the  commissioners  were 
sent  to  visit  them,  who,  after  sundry  inquiries 
and  examinations,  deprived  Dr.  Hough,  and  in- 
stalled the  Bishop  of  Oxford  by  proxy  ;  and  the 
fellows,  refusing  to  sign  a  submission  to  their 
new  president,  twenty-five  of  them  were  de- 
prived, and  made  incapable  of  any  benefice. + 
Parker  died  soon  after,  and  one  of  the  popish 
bishops  was  by  mavdamns  chosen  president  in 
his  place ;  which  inflamed  the  Church  party  so 
far,  that  they  sent  pressing  messages  to  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  desiring  him  to  espouse  the 
cause  of  the  Church,  and  break  with  the  king, 
if  he  would  not  redress  their  grievances.  Thus 
the  very  first  beginnings  of  resistance  to  King 
James  came  from  that  very  university  which, 
hut /our  years  before,  had  pronounced  this  doctrme 
damnable  by  a  solemn  decree  ;  and  from  those 
very  men  who  were  afterward  King  William's 
most  bitter  enemies. t 

The  more  desperate  the  war  grew  between 
the  king  and  the  Church,  the  more  necessary 
did  both  parties  find  it  to  show  kindness  to  the 
Dissenters  ;  for  this  purpose,  his  majesty  sent 
agents  among  them,  offering  them  the  royal  fa- 
vour, and  all  manner  of  encouragement,  if  they 
would  concur  with  him  in  abrogating  the  penal 
laws  and  test ;  he  invited  some  of  their  minis- 
ters to  court,  and  pretended  to  consult  them  in 
the  present  crisis.^    The  clergy,  at  the  same 

*  Burnet,  p.  114, 115. 

t  It  will  be  thought  but  justice  to  the  memory  of 
Bishop  Sprat  to  state  what  he  himself  declared  was 
nis  conduct  on  this  and  the  two  preceding  occasions. 
It  was  this  :  he  resolutely  persisted  in  his  dissent 
ftom  every  vote  that  passed  against  Magdalen  Col- 
lege ;  he  opposed  to  the  utmost  the  violent  persecu- 
tion upon  the  University  of  Cambridge ;  and  he 
gave  his  positive  vote  for  the  bishop's  acquittal  both 
times,  when  his  suspension  came  in  question. — Dr. 
Grey's  Examination,  p.  406,  407.— Ed. 

t  Burnet,  p.  701. 

^  Among  other  measures,  which  expressed  the 
disposition  of  the  court  towards  Dissenters,  was  the 
power  with  which  some  gentlemen  were  invested  to 


time,  prayed  and  entreated  the  Dissenters  to 
appear  on  their  side,  and  stand  by  the  Estab- 
lishment, making  large  promises  of  favour  aad. 
brotherly  affection,  if  ever  they  came  into 
power. 

The  king,  notwithstanding  the  stubbornne«» 
of  the  clergy,  called  a  council,  in  which  he  de- 
clared his  resolution  to  issue  out  a  declaration 
for  a  general  liberty  of  conscience  to  all  per- 
sons, of  what  persuasion  soever;*  "which  he 
was  moved  to  do  by  having  observed,  that 
though  a  uniformity  of  worship  had  been  en- 
deavoured to  be  established  within  this  king- 
dom, in  the  successive  reigns  of  four  of  his 
predecessors,  assisted  by  their  respective  Par- 
liaments, yet  it  had  proved  altogether  ineffect- 
ual. That  the  restraint  upon  the  consciences 
of  Dissenters  had  been  very  prejudicial  to  the 
nation,  as  was  sadly  experienced  by  the  horrid 
rebellion  in  the  time  of  his  majesty's  father. 
That  the  many  penal  laws  made  against  Dis- 
senters had  rather  increased  than  lessened  the 
number  of  them  ;  and  that  nothing  could  more- 
conduce  to  the  peace  and  quiet  of  this  kingdom, 
and  the  increase  of  the  number  as  well  as  the 
trade  of  his  subjects,  than  an  entire  liberty  of 
conscience,  it  having  always  been  his  opinion, 
as  most  suitable  to  the  principles  of  Christiani- 
ty, that  no  man  should  be  persecuted  for  con- 
science' sake  ;  for  he  thought  conscience  could 
not  be  forced,  and  that  it  could  never  be  the 
true  interest  of  a  king  of  England  to  endeavour 
to  do  it."t 

This  speech  meeting  with  no  opposition  in 
the  Council,  his  majesty,  on  the  4th  of  April, 
caused  his  gracious  declaration  for  liberty  of 
conscience  to  be  published.!  In  the  preamble 
to  which,  his  majesty  does  not  scruple  to  say, 
"that  he  cannot  but  heartily  wish  (as  it  will 
easily  be  believed)  that  ail  his  subjects  were 
members  of  the  Cathohc  Church,  yet  it  is  his 
opinion  that  conscience  ought  not  to  be  forced, 
for  the  reasons  mentioned  in  the  foregoing 
speech,"  which  he  rehearses  at  large  ;  and  then 
adds,  "By  virtue  of  his  royal  prerogative,  he 
thinks  fit  to  issue  out  his  declaration  of  indul- 
gence, making  no  doubt  of  the  concurrence  of 
his  two  houses  of  Parliament,  when  he  shall 


grant  out  licenses  directed  to  the  bishops  and  their 
officers,  to  the  judges,  justices,  and  all  others  whom 
it  may  concern.  The  licenses  were  to  this  effect ; 
"  that  the  king's  pleasure  is,  that  the  several  persons 
(named  in  a  schedule  annexed)  be  not  prosecuted  or 
molested,  1.  For  not  taking  the  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  supremacy  :  or,  2.  Upon  the  prerogative  writ  for 
£20  a  month  :  or,  3.  Upon  outlawries,  or  excom.  ca- 
piend.  for  the  said  causes :  or,  4.  For  not  receiving 
the  sacrament :  or,  5.  By  rea.son  of  their  conviction 
for  recusancy  or  exercise  of  their  religion,  a  command 
to  stay  proceedings  already  begun  for  any  of  th^ 
causes  aforesaid."  The  price  for  any  one  of  these 
licenses  was  £10  for  a  single  person  :  but  if  several 
joined,  the  price  was  ,£16,  and  eight  persons  might 
join  in  taking  out  one  license.  There  were  not  ven,' 
many  Dissenters  that  took  out  these  licenses.  — 
Totig's  Life  of  Air.  Matthew  Henri/,  p.  45,  46,  12mo. 
—Ed.  *  Gazette,  No.  2226. 

t  Under  all  the  pretences  of  tenderness,  liberal 
policy,  and  wisdom,  which  gilded  over  the  king's 
speech,  "it  was  well  understood,"  observes  Sir  John 
Reresby,  "  that  his  view  was  to  divide  the  Protest- 
ant churches,  divide  el  impera  ;  that  so  the  papists 
might  with  the  more  ease  possess  themselves  of  the 
highest  place." — Memoirs,  p.  243. — Ed. 

%  Gazette,  No.  2231. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


327 


think  it  convenient  for  them  to  meet.  And, 
first,  he  declares  that  he  will  protect  and  main- 
tain his  archbishops,  bishops,  and  clergy,  and 
all  other  his  suiyecls  of  the  (llhurch  of  England, 
in  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  as  by  law 
established,  and  in  the  quiet  and  full  enjoyment 
of  their  possessions.  Secondly,  That  it  is  his 
loyal  will  and  pleasure  that  all  penal  laws  for 
nonconformity  to  the  religion  established,  or  by 
reason  of  the  exercise  of  religion  in  any  manner 
•whatsoever,  be  immediately  suspended.  And 
to  the  end  that,  by  the  liberty  hereby  granted, 
the  peace  and  security  of  the  government  in 
the  practice  thereof  may  not  be  endangered,  he 
strictly  charges  and  commands  all  his  subjects, 
that  as  he  freely  gives  them  leave  to  meet  and 
serve  God  after  their  own  way,  be  it  in  private 
houses  or  places  purposely  hired  and  built  for 
that  use,  so  that  they  take  special  care  that 
nothing  be  preached  or  taught  among  them 
which  may  tend  to  alienate  the  hearts  of  his 
people  from  him  or  his  government ;  and  that 
their  meetings  or  assemblies  be  peaceably, 
openly,  and  publicly  held,  and  all  persons  freely 
admitted  to  them ;  and  that  they  signify  and 
make  known  to  some  one  or  more  of  the  next 
justices  of  peace  what  place  or  places  they  set 
apart  for  such  uses.  And  he  is  desirous  to 
have  the  benefit  of  the  service  of  all  his  sub- 
jects, which  by  the  law  of  nature  is  inseparably 
annexed  and  inherent  to  his  royal  person.  And 
that  none  of  his  subjects  may  be  for  the  future 
under  any  discouragements  or  disability,  who 
are  otherwise  well  inclined,  and  fit  to  serve 
him,  by  reason  of  some  oaths  or  tests  that  have 
usually  been  administered  upon  such  occasions, 
he  hereby  farther  declares,  that  it  is  his  will 
and  pleasure  that  the  oaths  of  supremacy  and 
allegiance,  and  the  several  tests  and  declara- 
tions mentioned  in  the  acts  of  Parliament  made 
in  the  25th  and  30th  of  his  brother's  reign,  shall 
not  hereafter  be  required  to  be  taken,  declared, 
or  subscribed,  by  any  persons  whatsoever,  who 
are  or  shall  be  employed  in  any  office,  or  place 
of  trust,  either  civil  or  military,  under  him  or  in 
his  government.  And  it  is  his  intention  from 
time  to  time  hereafter  to  grant  his  royal  dis- 
pensation to  all  his  subjects,  so  to  be  employed, 
who  shall  not  take  the  said  oaths,  or  subscribe 
or  declare  the  said  tests  or  declarations.  And 
he  does  hereby  give  his  free  and  ample  pardon 
to  all  Nonconformist  recusants,  and  other  his 
subjects,  for  all  crimes  and  things  by  them 
conmiitted,  or  done  contrary  to  the  penal  laws 
formerly  made  relating  to  religion,  and  the  pro- 
fession or  exercise  thereof  And  although  the 
freedom  and  assurance  he  has  hereby  given  in 
relation  to  liberty  and  property  might  be  suffi- 
cient to  remove  from  the  minds  of  his  subjects 
all  fears  and  jealousies  in  relation  to  either,  yet 
he  thinks  fit  to  declare,  that  he  will  maintain 
them  in  all  their  properties  and  possessions,  as 
well  of  church  and  abbey  lands,  as  in  other 
their  estates  and  properties  whatsoever."* 

*  The  operation  of  this  declaration  extended  be- 
yond England  or  Scotland ;  for  it  proved  beneficial 
to  the  people  of  New-England,  whose  religious  lib- 
erties as  well  as  their  civil  rights  were  near  expiring  ; 
and  who  had  been  told  by  some  in  power,  "  They 
must  not  think  to  have  the  privileges  of  Englishmen 
follow  them  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  ;  and  they  had 
noinore  privileges  left  them  than  to  be  bought  and 


A  declaration  of  the  same  nature  was  sent  to 
Scotland,  in  which  the  king,  "  by  virtue  of  his 
prerogative  royal,  and  absolute  authority  and 
power  over  all  his  subjects,  who  are  bormd  to 
obey  him  without  reserve,  repeals  all  the  se- 
vere laws  made  by  his  grandfather  King  James 
I.,  and  takes  off  all  disabilities  from  his  Roman 
Catholic  subjects,  which  rendered  them  incapa- 
ble of  employments  and  benefices.  He  also 
slackened  the  laws  against  moderate  Presby- 
terians, and  promised  never  to  force  his  sub- 
jects by  any  invincible  necessity  to  change  their 
religion.  He  also  repealed  all  laws  imposing- 
tests  on  those  who  held  any  employments."* 

This  was  strange  conduct,  says  Bishop  Bur- 
net, in  a  Roman  Catholic  monarch,  at  a  time 
when  his  brother  of  France  had  just  broke  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  and  was  dragooning  his  Prot- 
estant subjects  out  of  his  kingdom.  But  the 
bishop  suspects  the  king's  sincerity  in  his  dec- 
laration, from  his  promising  to  use  no  invinci- 
ble necessity  to  force  his  subjects  to  change, 
their  religion,  as  if  there  was  a  reserve,  and 
that  some  degrees  of  compulsion  might  be  prop- 
er one  time  or  other  ;  which  seems  to  have 
been  a  parallel  case  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
concerning  nonresistance.  However,  by  anoth- 
er proclamation,  the  king  granted  full  liberty  to 
the  Scots  Presbyterians  to  set  up  conventicles 
in  their  own  way,  which  they  thankfully  accept- 
ed ;  but  when  his  majesty  pressed  them  to  dis- 
pose their  friends  to  concur  with  him  in  taking 
off  the  test  and  penal  laws,  which  they  knew 
was  only  to  serve  the  papists,  they  answered 
only  in  cold  and  general  terms. 

In  pursuance  of  these  declarations,  the  Dis- 
senters of  all  sorts  were  not  only  set  at  liberty, 
but  admitted  to  serve  in  all  offices  of  profit  and 
trust.  November  6,  the  king  sent  an  order  to 
the  Lord-mayor  of  London  to  dispense  with  the 
Quakers  taking  oaths,-t  or,  at  least,  not  to  fine 
them  if  they  refused  to  serve,  by  which  means 
a  door  was  opened  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  and 
to  all  others,  to  bear  offices  in  the  state  without 
a  legal  qualification.  Several  addresses  were 
presented  to  the  king  upon  this  occasion  from 
the  companies  in  the  city  of  London,  from  the 
corporations  in  the  country,  and  even  from  the 
clergy  themselves,  thanking  his  majesty  for  his 


sold  as  slaves."  Upon  the  liberty  which  the  decla- 
ration afforded  them,  Dr.  Increase  Mather  was  depu- 
ted to  take  a  voyage  to  England,  with  addresses  of 
thanks  to  the  king  from  various  towns  and  churches ; 
though  the  measure  was  opposed  by  the  rulers  of  the 
province.  When  he  presented  them,  he  was  gracious- 
ly received,  and  was  admitted  to  dilferent  and  repeat- 
ed audiences  with  the  king,  who,  on  leceiving  the 
addresses,  said,  "  You  shall  have  Magna  Charla  for 
liberty  of  conscience:"  and  on  its  being  intimated  to 
him  by  two  of  his  courtiers,  at  one  of  the  audiences, 
that  the  favour  shown  to  New-England  would  have 
a  good  influence  on  the  body  of  Dissenters  in  Eng- 
land, his  reply  was,  "  He  believed  so,  and  it  should  be 
done." — Life  of  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  p.  37,  &C. — Ed. 

*  Echard,  p.  1083.     Burnet,  p.  136. 

t  Sewel  informs  us,  that  the  king  carried  his  con- 
descension to  the  Quakers  so  far,  that  a  countryman 
of  that  persuasion  coming  to  him  with  his  hat  on  his 
head,  the  king  took  off  his  own  hat  and  held  it  un- 
der his  arm ;  which  the  other  seeing,  said,  "  The 
king  needs  not  keep  off  his  hat  for  me."  To  which 
his  majesty  replied,  "  You  do  not  know  the  custom 
here,  for  that  requires  that  but  one  hat  must  be  on 
here." — Snvel's  History,  p.  609. — Ed. 


328 


HISTORY    OF    THE   PURITANS. 


declaration  for  liberty  of  conscience,  and  his  j 
promise  to  support  the  Cluirch  of  England  as  by  I 
law  established,  assuring  him  of  their  endeav-  | 
ours  to   choose  such   members   for  the    next 
Parliament  as  should  give  it  a  more  legal  sanc- 
tion. 

The  several  denominations  of  Dissenters  also 
were  no  less  thankful  for  their  liberty,  and  ad- 
dressed his  majesty  in  higher  strains  than  some 
of  their  elder  and  more  cautious  ministers  ap- 
proved ;  Mr.  Baxter,  Mr.  Stretton,  and  a  great 
many  others,  refused  to  join  in  them  ;  and  Bish- 
op Burnet  admits*  that  few  concurred  in  those 
addresses,!  and  that  the  persons  who  presented 
them  were  mean  and  inconsiderable.  When 
there  was  a  general  meeting  of  the  ministers 
to  consider  of  their  behaviour  in  this  crisis,  and 
two  messengers  from  court  waited  to  carry 
back  the  result  of  the  debate,  Mr.  Howe  deliv- 
ered his  opinion  against  the  dispensing  power, 
and  against  everything  that  might  contribute 
assistance  to  the  papists  to  enable  them  to  sub- 
vert the  Protestant  religion. t  Another  minis- 
ter stood  up,  and  declared,^  that  he  apprehend- 
ed their  late  sufferings  had  been  occasioned 
more  by  their  firm  adherence  to  the  Constitu- 
tion than  their  differing  from  the  Establish- 
anent ;  and  therefore,  if  the  king  expected  they 
should  give  up  the  Constitution  and  declare  for 
the  dispensing  power,  he  had  rather,  for  his  part, 
lose  his  liberty,  and  return  to  his  former  bond- 
age.II  In  conclusion,  Mr.  Howe,  in  his  sum- 
ming up  the  whole  debate,  signified  to  the  court- 
iers that  they  were,  in  general,  of  the  same 
opinion.  Mr.  Coke  adds,  that  to  his  knowledge 
the  Dissenters  did  both  dread  and  detest  the 
dispensing  power  ;  and  their  steadiness  in  this 
crisis  was  a  noble  stand  by  a  number  of  men 
who  subsisted  only  by  the  royal  favour,  which 
ought  not  to  have  been  so  soon  forgotten. 

Though  the  court  were  a  little  disappointed 


*  Page  140. 

t  Dr.  Grey  controverts  the  above  assertions  of 
Bishop  Burnet :  he  has  given  at  length  eight  address- 
es from  difterent  bodies  of  Dissenters,  in  different 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  as  specimens  ol^  the  courtly, 
not  to  say  Aiisome  and  flattering  strains,  which  they 
on  this  occasion  adopted :  and  he  refers  to  the  Gazettes 
of  the  times,  as  furnishing  about  seventy  other  com- 
positions of  the  same  kind  :  in  which  this  oppressed 
body,  emancipated  from  their  sufferings,  fears,  and 
dangers,  poured  forth  the  sentiments  of  loyalty  and 
gratitude.  Mr.  Stretton,  mentioned  above,  who  had 
been  ejected  from  Petvvorth  in  Sussex,  and  after- 
ward gathered  a  congregation  in  London,  which  as- 
sembled at  Haberdasher's  Hall,  was  a  minister  of 
great  reputation  and  influence  ;  an  active  and  a  use- 
ful character.  He  made  use  of  the  liberty  granted 
by  the  king's  proclamation,  but  never  did  nor  would 
join  in  any  address  of  thanks  for  it,  lest  he  should 
seem  to  give  countenance  to  the  king's  assuming  a 
power  above  the  law ;  and  he  was  instrumental  to  pre- 
vent several  addresses. — Henry's  Funeral  Se.rmon  for 
Strftton,  p.  45.  Grey's  Examination,  vol.  iii.,  p.  410- 
416— Ed.  $  Gazette,  No.  2234. 

<j  This  gentleman  was  Dr.  Daniel  Williams,  who 
pursued  the  argument  with  such  clearness  and 
strength,  that  all  present  rejected  the  motion,  and 
the  court  agents  went  away  disappointed.  There 
was  a  meeting,  at  the  same  time,  of  a  considerable 
number  of  the  city  clergy,  waiting  the  issue  of  their 
deliberations,  who  were  greatly  animated  and  en- 
couraged by  the  bold  and  patriotic  resolution  of  the 
dissenting  ministers. —  Life  of  Dr.  Williams,  prefixed 
to  his  Practical  Discourses,  vol.  i.,  p.  10. — Ed. 

II  Howe's  Life,  p.  134. 


in  their  expectations  from  the  Dissenters,  they 
put  the  best  face  they  could  on  the  atfair,  and 
received  such  addresses  as  were  presented  with 
high  commendation.  The  first  who  went  up 
were  the  London  Anabaptists,  who  say,  that 
"the  sense  of  this  invaluable  favour  and  benefit 
derived  to  us  from  your  royal  clemency  com- 
pels us  to  prostrate  ourselves  at  your  majesty's 
feet  with  the  temler  of  our  mostliumblc  thanks 
for  that  peace  and  liberty  which  both  we,  and 
all  other  Dissenters  from  the  National  Church,, 
now  enjoy."* 

Next  came  the  Presbyterians,!  "  who  ac- 
knowledge his  majesty's  princely  compassion 
in  rescuing  them  from  their  long  sufTurings,  in 
restoring  to  God  the  empire  over  conscience, 
and  publishing  to  the  world  his  royal  Christian 
judgment,  that  conscience  may  not  be  forced ; 
and  his  resolution  that  such  force  should  not 
be  attempted  in  his  reign,  Avhich  they  pray  may 
be  long."  Then  followed  the  Independents : 
"  Sir,  the  great  calamity  we  have  been  a  long 
time  under,  through  the  severe  execution  of  the 
penal  laws  in  matters  of  religion,  has  made  us 
deeply  sensible  of  your  majesty's  princely  clem- 
ency towards  us  your  dissenting  subjects,  espe- 
cially since,  in  the  indulgence  vouchsafed,  there 
are  no  limitations  hindering  the  enjoyment  of  it 
with  a  good  conscience,  and  that  your  majesty 
publisheth  to  the  world  that  it  has  been  your 
constant  sense  and  opinion  that  conscience 
ought  not  to  be  constrained,  nor  people  forced 
in  matters  of  mere  religion. "t  About  the  same 
time  was  published  the  humble  and  thankful, 
address  of  the  London  Quakers,i^  to  this  pur- 
pose :  "  May  it  please  the  king !  Though  we 
are  not  the  first  in  this  way,  yet  we  hope  we 
are  not  the  least  sensible  of  the  great  favoursi 
we  are  come  to  present  the  king  our  humble, 
open,  and  hearty  thanks  for.    We  rejoice  to 


*  Gazette,  No.  2234.  For  some  very  sensible  re- 
marks on  this  address,  see  Toulmin's  History  of  Prot- 
estant Dissenters,  p.  291. — C. 

t  This  address  had  about  thirty  hands  to  it ;  it. 
was  presented  by  Mr.  Hurst,  Mr.  Chester,  Mr.  Slat- 
ter,  Mr.  Cox,  Mr.  Roswell,  Mr.  Turner,  Mr.  Frank- 
lin, Mr.  Deal,  and  Mr.  Reynolds.  It  is  preserved  at 
length,  with  the  king's  answer,  in  the  "  Biographia 
Britannica,"  vol.  i.,  article  Alsop.  It  was  supposed 
to  have  been  drawn  up  by  Mr.  Alsop,  whose  feelings 
and  gratitude,  on  the  free  pardon  which  the  king  had 
given  to  his  son,  convicted  of  treasonable  praclK-es, 
may  be  reckoned  to  have  had  great  influence  in  dic- 
tating and  promoting  it.  After  the  spirited  resolu- 
tion mentioned  above  had  been  carried,  some  of  the 
ministers  were  privately  closeted  with  King  James, 
and  some  few  received  particular  and  personal  fa- 
vours: by  these  fascinating  arts  they  were  brought 
over.  And  their  conduct  had  its  weight  in  producing 
similar  addresses  from  the  country.  Part  of  the  king's 
answer  deserves  to  be  recorded  as  a  monument  of  his 
insincerity,  and  a  warning  that  kings  can  degrade 
themselves  by  recourse  to  duplicity  and  falsehood. 
"  Gentlemen,"  said  James,  "  I  protest  before  God, 
and  I  desire  you  to  tell  all  manner  of  people,  of  all 
persuasions,  that  I  have  no  other  design  than  I  have 
spoken  of  And,  gentlemen,  I  hope  to  live  to  see  the 
day  when  you  shall  as  well  have  Magna  Charta  lor 
the  liberty  of  conscience,  as  you  have  had  lor  your 
properties."  The  ministers  went  away  satisfied  with 
the  welcome  which  they  had  received  from  the  pleas- 
ant countenances  of  the  courtiers,  and  the  courteous 
words,  looks,  and  behaviour  of  his  majesty. — Palm- 
er's Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  13. — Ed. 

t  Gazette,  No.  2238.  ^  Sewel,  p.  60€. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


329 


see  the  day  that  a  king  of  England  should,  from 
his  royal  seat,  so  universally  assert  this  royal 
principle,  that  conscience  ouglit  not  to  be  re- 
strained, nor  people  forced  for  matters  of  reli- 
gion."* The  several  addresses  above  mention- 
ed express  their  humble  dependance  on  his 
majesty's  royal  promise  to  secure  their  rights 
and  properties,  and  that  he  will  endeavour  to 
engage  his  two  houses  of  Parliament  to  concur 
with  him  in  this  good  work.  Here  are  no  flights 
of  expression,  nor  promises  of  obedience  with- 
out reserve,  but  purely  a  sense  of  gratitude  for 
the  restoration  of  liberty. t 

And  though  it  must  be  allowed  that  some 
few  Dissenters,  from  an  excess  of  joy,  or,  it 
may  be,  from  a  strong  resentment  against  their 
late  persecutors,  published  some  severe  pam- 
phlets, and  gave  too  much  countenance  to  the 
measures  of  the  court,  as  Mr.  Lobb,  Alsop,  and 
Penn  the  Quaker,  yet  the  body  of  them  kept  at 
a  distance,  and,  "  as  thankful  as  they  were  for 
their  liberty,"  says  Lord  Halifax,  "  they  were 
fearful  of  the  issue;  neither  can  any  member 
of  consideration  among  them  be  charged  with 
hazarding  the  public  safety  by  falling  in  wfth 
the  measures  of  the  court,  of  which  they  had 
as  great  a  dread  as  their  neighbours."^  And 
the  Lords,  in  a  conference  with  the  House  of 

*  There  are,  it  has  been  justly  observed  to  the  ed- 
itor, some  errors  in  the  above  extract,  viz.,  the  word 
Toyal  instead  of  glorious,  before  principle ;  and  the 
omission  of  7«ere  before  religion. — Ed. 

t  Though  Mr.  Neal's  character  of  the  addresses 
which  he  quotes  be  admitted  as  just,  it  will  not  ap- 
ply to  all  which  the  Dissenters  presented  on  this  oc- 
casion: " Some  of  them,"  Dr.  Calamy  observes,  "ran 
high."  But  for  the  strong  language  in  which  they 
were  expressed,  or  for  the  numbers  to  which  they 
amounted,  an  apology  may  be  drawn  from  the  excess 
of  joy  with  which  the  royal  indulgence,  though  an 
insidious  measure,  naturally  inspired  those  who,  for 
many  years,  had  groaned  under  the  rod  of  persecu- 
tion. It  should  also  be  considered,  that  but  very  few, 
comparatively,  think  deeply  or  look  far.  Present, 
pleasing  appearances  mislead  and  captivate  the  gen- 
erality. There  is  also  a  propensity  in  mankind  to 
follow  those  who  take  the  lead,  and  a  readiness  to 
credit  and  flatter  royalty  and  greatness.  The  Dis- 
senters, however,  not  without  reason,  incurred  cen- 
sure for  "  a  vast  crowd  of  congratulatory  addresses, 
complimenting  the  king  in  the  highest  manner,  and 
protesting  what  mighty  returns  of  loyalty  they  would 
make  ;"  and  were  called  '•  the  pope's  journeymen  to 
carry  on  his  vvork."  But  these  censures  came  with 
an  ill  grace,  as  Dr.  Calamy  remarks,  "  from  the 
Church  party,  who  had  set  them  the  pattern  ;"  who 
in  a  most  luxuriant  manner  had  thanked  King  Charles 
for  dissolving  one  of  the  best  Parliaments  ;  who  were 
mighty  forward  in  the  surrender  of  charters  ;  and 
who,  in  their  fulsome  addresses,  made  no  other  claim 
to  their  liberties  and  civil  rights  than  as  concessions 
from  the  crown,  telling  the  king,  "  every  one  of  his 
commands  was  stamped  with  God's  authority."  The 
Universily  of  Oxford,  in  particular,  promised  King 
James  to  obey  him  without  limitations  or  restrictions. 
— Dr.  Grey,  and  Calamy's  Life  of  Howe,  p.  137,  138. 
—Ed. 

%  "  The  churchmen,  on  their  side,"  says  Dr.  War- 
ner, "did  all  that  lay  in  their  power  to  establish  a 
union,  as  the  only  possible  means  of  their  joint  secu- 
rity. They  published  pamphlets  from  lime  to  time, 
acknowledging  their  error  in  driving  the  Presbyteri- 
ans to  extremities ;  confessing  that  they  were  not 
enough  upon  their  guard  against  the  artifices  of  the 
court,  and  promising  a  very  different  behaviour  on 
the  re-establishment  of  their  affairs.  It  must  be 
owned  that  thisconduct  was  dexterous,  and  sensible, 

Vol.  II.— T  t 


Commons  upon  the  Occasional  Bill,  in  the  first 
year  of  Queen  Anne,  say,  "  that  in  the  last  and 
greatest  danger  the  Church  was  exposed  to, 
the  Dissenters  joined  with  her,  with  all  ima- 
ginable zeal  and  sincerity,  against  the  papksts, 
their  common  enemies,  showing  no  prejudice 
to  the  Church,  but  the  utmost  respect  to  the 
bishops  when  sent  to  the  Tower." 

But  as  the  king  and  ministry  carried  all  be- 
fore them,  the  Church  party  were  in  despair, 
and  almost  at  their  wits'  end  ;  they  saw  them- 
selves on  the  brink  of  ruin,  imagining  that  they 
should  be  turned  out  of  their  freeholds  for  not 
reading  the  king's  declaration,  and  that  the 
Nonconformists  would  be  admitted  into  their 
pulpits  ;  as  Dr.  Sherlock,  master  of  the  Temple, 
acknowledged  in  conversation  to  Mr.  Howe  ;* 
and  that,  as  the  papists  had  already  invaded  the 
universities,  they  would  in  a  little  time  overset 
the  whole  hierarchy.  In  this  distress,  they 
turned  their  eyes  all  around  them  for  relief: 
they  applied  to  the  Dissenters,  giving  them  the 
strongest  assurances  of  a  comprehension  and 
toleration  in  better  times,  if  they  would  but  as- 
sist in  delivering  them  out  of  their  present 
troubles.  Bishop  Burnet  says  that  the  clergy 
here  in  England  wrote  to  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
and  desired  him  to  send  over  some  of  the  dis- 
senting preachers,  whom  the  violence  of  the 
former  times  had  driven  into  Holland,  and  to 
prevail  effectually  with  them  to  oppose  any  false 
brethren  whom  the  court  might  have  gained 
over  ;  and  that  they  sent  over  very  solemn  as- 
surances, which  passed  through  his  own  hands, 
that  in  case  they  stood  firm  now  to  the  common 
interest,  they  would  in  a  better  time  come  into 
a  comprehension  of  such  as  could  be  brought 
into  conjunction  with  the  Church,  and  to  a  tol- 
eration of  the  rest.  Agreeably  to  these  assu- 
rances, when  the  Rev.  Mr.  Howe,  Mr.  Mead,  and 
other  refugee  ministers,  waited  on  the  Prince 


and  just.  It  must  be  said,  however,"  observes  this 
author,  "  that  they  had  not  attained  this  wisdom  till 
it  was  almost  too  late ;  at  least,  not  during  the  space 
of  tvvenly  years,  and  till  by  their  absurd  principles  of 
passive  obedience,  taught  in  their  pulpits,  and  acts 
of  Parliament,  they  had  enabled  the  king  to  become 
arbitrary  and  tyrannical.  It  is  no  less  true,  that  an 
accusation  hes  against  them  of  having  forgotten  this 
promise  alter  the  Revolution,  as  they  did  at  the  res- 
toration of  Charles  II." — Ecdes.  Hist.,yol.  ii.,  p.  639, 
610.— Ed. 

*  "  Who  knows,"  said  Dr.  Sherlock,  "  but  Mr. 
Howe  may  be  offered  to  be  master  of  the  Temple?" 
Mr.  Howe  replied,  "that  he  should  not  balk  an  op- 
portunity of  more  public  service,  if  offered  on  terms 
he  had  no  just  reason  to  except  against."  But  then 
he  added,  "  that  he  would  not  meddle  with  the  emol- 
ument, otherwise  than  as  a  hand  to  convey  it  to  the 
legal  proprietor."  Upon  this,  the  doctor,  not  a  little 
transported  with  joy,  rose  up  from  his  seat  and  em- 
braced him,  saying,  "that  he  had  always  taken  him 
for  that  ingenuous,  honest  man  that  he  now  found 
him  to  be."  Mr.  Howe  afterward  told  this  passage 
to  a  dignitary  of  the  Church,  to  whom  the  doctor 
was  well  known  ;  signifying  how  little  he  was  pre- 
pared to  reply  to  a  supposition  that  had  not  so  much 
as  once  entered  into  his  thoughts  before.  The  gen- 
tleman answered,  "  Sir,  you  say  you  h.id  not  once 
thought  of  the  case,  or  so  much  as  supposed  any- 
thing like  it;  but  you  must  give  me  leave  to  tell  you, 
if  you  had  studied  the  case  seven  years  together,  you 
could  not  have  said  anything  more  to  the  purpose, 
or  more  to  the  doctor's  satisfaction."— Ca/a^ny's  Life 
of  Howe,  p.  141,  142.— Ed. 


130 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


of  Orange,  to  return  bim  thanks  for  the  protec- 
tion of  llie  country,  and  to  lake  their  leave,  his 
highness  nunle  liiein  some  presents  to  pay  their 
debts  and  defray  iheir  charges  home  ;  and  hav- 
ing wislicd  lliem  a  good  voyage,  he  advised  them 
to  be  very  cautious  m  their  addresses,  and  not 
to  suffer  themselves  to  be  drawn  into  the  meas- 
ures of  the  court  so  far  as  to  open  a  door  for 
tlie  introducing  of  popery,  by  desiring  the  ta- 
king off  the  penal  laws  and  test,  as  was  intend- 
ed.* lie  requested  them,  also,  to  use  their  in- 
fluence with  their  bretliren  to  lay  them  under 
the  same  restraints.  His  highness  sent  onlers 
likewise  to  Monsieur  Dykvell,  his  resident,  to 
press  the  Dissenters  to  stand  off  from  the  court ; 
and  to  assure  them  of  a  full  toleration  and  com- 
prehension, if  possible,  when  the  crown  should 
devolve  on  the  Princess  of  Orange.  Agents 
were  sent  among  the  Dissenters  to  soften  their 
resentments  against  the  Church,  and  to  assure 
them  that  for  tlie  future  they  would  treat  them 
as  brethren,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  Dissenters  had  it  now  in  their  power  to 
distress  the  Church  parly,  and,  it  may  be,  to 
have  made  reprisals,  if  they  would  have  given 
■way  to  the  revenge,  and  fallen  heartily  in  with 
the  king's  measures.  They  were  strongly  so- 
licited on  both  sides  ;  the  king  preferred  them 
to  places  of  profit  and  trust,  and  gave  them  all 
manner  of  countenance  and  encouragement ; 
and  the  churchmen  loaded  them  with  promises 
and  assurances  what  great  things  they  would 
do  for  them,  as  soon  as  it  should  be  in  their 
power.  But,  alas !  no  sooner  was  the  danger 
over  than  the  majority  of  them  forgot  their 
vows  in  distress  ;  for  when  the  Convocation 
met  the  first  time  after  the  Revolulion,  thty 
■uould  not  hear  of  a  comprehension,  nor  so  much 
^s  acknowledge  the  foreign  churches  for  their 
Welhrcn,  seeming  rather  inclined  to  return  to 
iheir  old  methods  of  persecution.  So  little  de- 
aendance  ought  to  be  placed  on  High  Church 
promises  ! 

But  in  their  present  circumstances  it  was 
necessary  to  flatter  the  Nonconformrsts,  and 
weaken  the  king's  hands,  by  dissuading  the 
Dissenters  from  placing  any  confidence  in  their 
aew  friends  :  for  this  purpose,  a  pamphlet,  writ- 
ten by  the  Marquis  of  Halifax,  and  published 
••)y  advice  of  some  of  the  most  eminent  dignita- 
ries of  the  Church,  was  dispersed,  entitled  "  A 
Letter  to  a  Dissenter  upon  occasion  of  his  Maj- 
esty's late  gracious  Declaration  of  Indulgence." 
It  begins  with  saying,  "  that  churchmen  are  not 
surprised  nor  provoked  at  the  Dissenters  ac- 
cepting the  offers  of  ease  from  the  late  hard- 
ships they  lay  under ;  but  desired  them  to  con- 
sider, 1.  The  cause  they  have  to  suspect  their 
new  friends  ;  and,  2.  Their  duty  in  Christian- 
ity, and  prudence  not  to  hazard  the  public  safe- 
ty by  a  desire  of  ease  or  revenge. 

"  With  regard  to  the  first,  tiie  Church  of 
Rome,"  says  the  author,  "  does  not  only  dislike 
your  liberty,  but,  by  its  principles,  cannot  allow 
It ;  they  are  not  able  to  make  good  their  vows  ; 
nay,  it  would  be  a  habit  of  sin  that  requires  ab- 
solution ;  you  are  therefore  hugged  now,  only 
that  you  may  be  the  better  squeezed  another 
time.  To  come  so  quick  from  one  extreme  to 
another  is  such  an  unnatural  motion,  that  you 
ought  to  be  on  your  guard  :  the  other  day  you 
*  Calamy's  Life  of  Howe,  p.  132. 


were  sons  of  Belial,  now  you  are  angels  of  light. 

Popery  is  now  the  only  friend  of  liberty,  and  Iho 
kiHiwn  enemy  of  persecution.  We  have  teea 
under  shameful  mistakes  if  this  can  be  either 
true  or  lasting." 

The  letter  goes  on  to  insinuate,  "  that  some 
ministers  had  been  bribed  into  the  measures  of 
the  court ;  that  they  were  under  engagements, 
and  empowered  to  give  rewards  to  others,  where 
they  could  not  persuade.  Now  if  these  or  oth- 
ers should  preach  up  anger  and  vengeance 
against  the  Church  of  England,  ought  they  not 
rather  to  be  suspected  of  corruption,  than  to  act 
according  to  judgment  !  If  they  who  thank  the 
king  for  his  declaration  should  be  engaged  to 
justify  it  in  point  of  law,  I  am  persuaded  it  is 
more  than  the  addressers  are  capable  of  doing- 
There  is  a  great  difference  between  enjoying 
quietly  the  advantage  of  an  act  irregularly  done 
by  others,  and  becoming  advocates  for  it ;  but 
frailties  are  to  be  excused.  Take  warning  by 
the  mistake  of  the  Church  of  England,  w-hen, 
after  the  Restoration,  they  preserved  so  long 
the  bitter  taste  of  your  rough  usage  to  them, 
that  it  made  them  forget  their  interest,  and  sac- 
rifice it  to  their  revenge.  If  you  had  now  to  do 
with  rigid  prelates,  the  argument  might  be  fair 
on  your  side  ;  but  since  the  common  danger  has 
so  laid  open  the  mistake,  that  all  former  haugh- 
tiness towards  the  Dissenters  is  forever  extin- 
guished, and  the  spirit  of  persecution  is  turned 
into  a  spirit  of  peace,  charity,  and  condescen- 
sion, will  you  not  be  moved  by  such  an  exam- 
ple 1  If  it  be  said  the  Church  is  only  humble 
when  it  is  out  of  pow-er,  the  answer  is,  that  is 
uncharitable,  and  an  unseasonable  triumph  ;  be- 
sides, it  is  not  so  in  fact,  A)r  if  she  would  com- 
ply with  the  court,  she  could  turn  all  the  thunder 
upon  yourselves,  and  blow  you  off  the  stage 
with  a  breath  ;  but  she  will  not  be  rescued  by 
such  unjustifiable  means.  You  have  formerly 
very  justly  blamed  the  Church  of  England  for 
going  too  far  in  her  compliance  with  the  court , 
conclude,  therefore,  that  you  must  break  off  your 
friendship,  or  set  no  bounds  to  it.  The  Church 
is  now  convinced  of  its  error,  in  being  too  se- 
vere to  you  ;  the  next  Parliament  will  be  gentle 
to  you  ;  the  next  heir  is  bred  in  a  country  fa- 
mous for  indulgence  ;  there  is  a  general  agree- 
ment of  thinking  men,  that  we  must  no  more 
cut  ourselves  off  from  foreign  Protestants,  but 
enlarge  our  foundations  ;  so  that  all  things  con- 
spire to  give  you  case  and  satisfaction,  if  you 
do  not  too  much  anticipate  it.  To  conclude,  the 
short  question  is,  "Whether  or  no  you  will  join 
with  those  who  must  in  the  end  run  the  same 
fate  with  you  ?  It  the  Protestants  of  all  sorts 
have  been  to  blame  in  their  behaviour  to  each 
other,  they  are  upon  equal  terms,  and  for  that 
very  reason  ought  now  to  be  reconciled."  How 
just  soever  the  reasoning  of  this  letter  may  be, 
either  the  author  did  not  know  the  spirit  of  the 
Church  party  (as  they  were  called),  or  he  must 
blush  when  he  compared  it  with  the  facts  that 
followed  the  Revolution.  Twenty  thousand 
copies  were  dispersed  about  the  city  and  coun- 
try, and  had  the  desired  effect,  the  honest,  well- 
meaning  Dissenters  making  no  advantage  of 
the  favourable  juncture  ;  they  entered  inio  no 
alliance  with  the  papists,  nor  complied  with  the 
court  measures,  any  farther  than  to  accept  their 
own  liberty,  which  they  had  a  natural  right  to. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   PURITANS. 


331 


and  of  which  they  ought  never  to  have  been  de- 
prived. 

The  war  between  the  king  and  the  Church 
being  now  declared,  each  party  prepared  for 
their  defence ;  the  points  in  debate  were,  a 
general  toleration,  and  the  dispensing  power  ; 
the  latter  of  which  the  High  Church  party  had 
connived  at  during  the  late  reign  ;  but  when  the 
edge  of  it  was  turned  against  themselves  (the 
king  having  used  it  to  break  down  the  fences 
of  the  Cliurch.  by  abrogating  the  penal  laws  and 
tests,  and  making  an  inroad  upon  the  two  uni- 
versities), they  exclaimed  against  it  as  subver- 
sive of  the  whole  Constitution  ;  and,  forgetting 
their  late  addresses,  contested  this  branch  of 
the  prerogative.  The  king  had  secured  the 
opinion  of  the  judges  in  favour  of  it  ;  but  this 
not  giving  satisfaction,  lie  determined  to  obtain 
a  parliamentary  sanction.  For  this  purpose,  he 
published  the  following  order  in  the  Gazette  : 
"  That  whereas  his  majesty  was  resolved  to  use 
his  utmost  endeavours  that  his  declaration  of 
indulgence  might  pass  into  a  law,  he  therefore 
thought  fit  to  review  the  lists  of  deputy-lieuten- 
ants, and  justices  of  peace  in  the  several  coun- 
ties, that  those  may  be  continued  who  would  be 
ready  to  contribute  what  in  them  lies  towards 
the  accomplishment  of  so  good  and  necessary  a 
"work,  and  such  others  added  to  them,  from 
whom  his  majesty  may  reasonably  expect  the 
hke  concurrence  and  assistance."  Pursuant  to 
this  resolution,  the  king's  first  Parliament  was 
dissolved,  and  agents  were  employed  to  dispose 
the  people  to  the  choice  of  such  new  members 
as  might  facilitate  the  court  measures.  The 
king  himself  went  a  progress  round  the  coun- 
try* to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  people  ;  and 
it  can  hardly  be  expressed,  says  Echard,  with 
what  joyful  acclamations  his  majesty  was  re- 
ceived, and  what  loyal  acknowledgments  were 
paid  him  in  all  places  ;  but  in  the  affair  of  the 
tests,  says  Burnet, t  there  was  a  visible  coldness 
among  the  nobility  and  gentry,  though  the  king 
behaved  in  a  most  obliging  manner. 

When  the  king  returned  from  his  progress, 
he  began  to  change  the  magistracy  in  the  sev- 
eral corporations  in  England,  according  to  the 
powers  reserved  to  the  crown  in  the  new  char- 
ters ;  he  turned  out  several  of  the  aldermen  of 

*  When  he  came  to  Chester  (it  being  intimated 
that  it  would  be  expected,  and  the  churchmen  hav- 
ing led  the  way,  and  divers  of  the  Lancashire  minis- 
ters coming  thither  on  purpose  to  attend  the  king), 
Mr.  Matthew  Henry,  and  Mr.  Harvey,  minister  of 
another  dissenting  congregation  in  that  city,  with  the 
heads  of  their  societies,  joined  in  an  address  of  thanks 
to  him,  not  for  assuming  a  dispensing  power,  hut  for 
their  ease,  quiet,  and  liberty,  under  his  protection. 
They  presentexi  it  to  him  at  the  bishop's  palace  in  the 
abbey  court ;  and  he  told  them  he  wished  they  had  a 
Magna  Charta  for  their  liberty.  They  did  not  prom- 
ise to  assist  in  taking  away  the  tests,  but  only  to  live 
quiet  and  peaceable  lives.  This,  however,  was  se- 
verely censured  by  some  of  their  brethren.  But  the 
expressions  of  thankfulness  for  their  liberty  were 
very  different  from  the  high  flights  and  promises  of 
■Sir  Richard  Lieving,  the  recorder  of  Chester  at  that 
time ;  who,  in  a  speech  to  King  James,  on  his  enter- 
ing into  the  city,  told  him  "  that  the  corporation  was 
his  majesty's  creature,  and  depended  on  the  will  of 
its  creator ;  and  that  the  sole  intimation  of  his  maj- 
esty's pleasure  should  have  with  them  the  force  of  a 
fundamental  law." — Mr.  Thompson's  MS.  Collections, 
under  the  word  "  Chester." — Ed.  t  Page  143. 


the  city  of  London,  and  placed  new  ones  in. 
their  room.  He  caused  the  lists  of  lord-Iieu- 
tenants  and  deputy-lieutenants  to  be  reviewed, 
and  such  as  would  not  promise  to  employ  their 
interests  in  the  repeal  of  the  penal  laws  were 
discarded.  Many  Protestant  Dissenters  were 
put  into  commission  on  this  occasion,  in  hopes 
that  they  would  procure  such  members  for  the 
next  Parliament  as  should  give  them  a  legal 
right  to  what  they  now  enjoyed  only  by  the 
royal  favour ;  but  when  the  king  pressed  it 
upon  the  Lord-mayor  of  London,  and  the  new 
aldermen,  who  were  chiefly  Dissenters,  they 
made  no  reply. 

The  reason  of  the  Dissenters'  backwardness 
in  an  affair  that  so  nearly  concerned  them,  and 
in  which  they  have  sirice  expressed  so  strong  a 
desire,  was  their  concern  for  the  Protestant  re- 
Ugion,  and  their  aversion  to  popery.  The  king 
was  not  only  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  a  bigot, 
and  it  was  evident  that  the  plucking  up  the  fen- 
ces at  this  time  must  have  made  a  breach  at 
which  popery  would  enter.*  If  the  king  had 
been  a  Protestant,  the  case  had  been  different, 
because  papists  could  not  take  the  oaths  of  alle- 
giance and  supremacy  to  a  prince  who  stood 
excommunicated  by  tiie  Church  of  Rome;  but 
now  there  would  be  no  obstacle,  or,  if  there 
was,  the  king  would  dispense  with  the  law  in 
their  favour  ;  the  Dissenters,  therefore,  were 
afraid  that  if  they  should  give  in  to  his  majes- 
ty's measures,  though  they  might  secure  their 
liberty  for  the  present,  it  would  stand  on  a  pre- 
carious foundation  ;  for  if  popery  came  in  tri- 
umphant, it  would  not  only  swallow  up  the 
Church  of  England,  but  the  whole  Protestant 
interest.  They  chose,  therefore,  to  trust  their 
liberty  to  the  mercy  of  their  Protestant  breth- 
ren, rather  than  receive  a  legal  security  for  it 
under  a  popish  government. 

According  to  this  resolution.  Bishop  Burnet 
observes, t  that  Sir  John  Shorter,  the  new  lord- 
mayor,  and  a  Protestant  Dissenter,  thought  fit 
to  qualify  himself  for  this  office  according  to 
law,  though  the  test  v.'as  suspended,  and  the 
king  had  signified  to  the  mayor  that  he  was  at 
liberty,  and  might  use  what  form  of  worship 
he  thought  best  in  Guildhall,  which  was  de- 
signed as  an  experiment  to  engage  the  Presby- 
terians to  make  the  first  change  from  the  estab- 
lished worship,  concluding,  that  if  a  Presbyteri- 
an mayor  did  this  one  year,  it  would  be  easy 
for  a  popish  mayor  to  do  it  the  next ;  but  hi:> 
lordship  referred  the  case  to  those  clergymen, 
who  had  the  government  of  the  diocess  of  Lon- 
don during  the  bishop's  suspension,  who  assured 
his  lordship  it  was  contrary  to  law  ;  so  that 
though  the  lord-mayor  went  sometimes  to  the 
meetings  of  Dissenters,  he  went  frequently  to 
church,  and  behaved  with  more  decency,  says 
his  lordship,  than  could  have  been  expected. 
This  disobliged  the  king  to  a  very  high  degree, 
insomuch  that  he  said  the  Dissenters  were  an 
ill-natured  sort  of  people,  that  could  not  be 
gained. 

This  opposition  to  the  king  heightened  his 
resentments,  and  pushed  him  on  to  rash  and 


'  Nothing  can  surpass  the  prudence  and  fidelity 
of  the  Nonconformists  at  this  juncture.  They  pre- 
served their  integrity  alike  inviolably,  whether  the 
court  frowned  or  smiled  upon  them. — C. 

t  Burnet,  p.  145. 


332 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


violent  measures  :  if  he  had  proceeded  by  slow 
degrees,  and  secured  one  conquest  before  he 
had  attempted  another,  he  nmight  have  succeed- 
ed, but  he  gave  hnnself  up  to  the  fury  of  his 
priests,  who  advised  him  to  make  haste  with 
what  he  intended.  This  was  discovered  by  a 
letter  from  the  Jesuits  from  Liege  to  those  of 
Friburgh,  which  says,  the  king  wished  they 
could  furnish  him  with  more  priests  to  assist 
him  in  the  conversion  of  the  nation,  which  his 
majesty  was  resolved  to  bring  about,  or  die  a 
martyr  in  the  attempt.  He  said  he  must  make 
haste,  that  he  might  accomplish  it  in  his  life- 
time ;*  and  when  one  of  them  was  lamenting 
ihat  his  next  heir  was  a  heretic,  he  answered, 
God  will  provide  an  heir  ;  which  argued  either 
a  strong  faith,  or  a  formed  design  of  imposing 
one  on  the  nation.  Father  Petre  was  the 
king's  chief  minister,  and  one  of  his  majesty's 
privy  council,  a  bold  and  forward  man,  who 
stuck  at  nothing  to  ruin  the  Church.  The  king 
designed  him  for  the  Archbishopric  of  York, 
now  vacant,  and  for  a  cardinal's  cap,t  if  he 
could  prevail  with  the  pope  ;  for  this  purpose, 
the  Earl  of  Castlemain  was  sent  ambassador  to 
Rome ;  and  a  nuncio  was  sent  from  thence 
into  England,  to  whom  his  majesty  paid  all 
possible  respect,  and  gave  an  audience  at 
Windsor,  though  it  was  contrary  to  law,  all 
commerce  with  the  court  of  Rome  having  been 
declared  high  treason  by  the  statute  of  King 
Henry  VIH.  ;  but  the  king  said  he  was  above 
law  ;  and  because  the  Duke  of  Somerset  would 
not  officiate  in  his  place  at  the  ceremony,  he 
was  dismissed  from  all  his  employments. 

It  was  strange  infatuation  in  King  James  to 
put  a  slight  on  the  ancient  nobility,  and  turn 
most  of  his  servants  out  of  their  places  because 
they  were  Protestants  ;  this  weakened  his  in- 
terest, and  threw  a  vast  weight  into  the  oppo- 
site scale.  Indeed,  it  was  impossible  to  dis- 
guise his  majesty's  design  of  introducing  po- 
pery ;$  and  therefore  Parker,  bishop  of  Oxford, 
was  employed  to  justify  it,  who  published  a 
book  entitled  "  Reasons  for  abrogating  the  Test 
imposed  on  all  Members  of  Parliament ;"  which 
must  refer  to  the  renouncing  transubstantiation, 
and  the  idolatry  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  be- 
cause the  members  of  Parliament  had  no  other 
«]ualification  imposed  upon  them  besides  the 
oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy.  The  bish- 
op said  much  to  excu.se  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation, and  to  free  the  Church  of  Rome 
from  the  charge  of  idolatry.  His  reasons  were 
licensed  by  the  Earl  of  Sunderland,  and  the 
stationer  was  commanded  not  to  print  any  an- 
swer to  them  ;  but  Dr.  Burnet,  then  in  Holland, 
gave  them  a  very  smart  and  satirical  reply, 
which  quite  ruined  the  bishop's  reputation. 

But  his  majesty's  chief  dependance  was  upon 
the  army,  which  he  was  casting  into  a  popish 
mould ;  Protestant  officers  were  cashier'ed  ; 
Portsmouth  and  Hull,  the  two  principal  sea- 
ports of  England,  were  in  popish  hands  ;  and 
the  majority  of  the  garrisons  were  of  the  same 
religion.  Ireland  was  an  inexhaustible  seminary, 
from  whence  England  was  to  be  supplied  with 
a  Catholic  army  ;  an  Irish  Roman  Catholic, 
says  Welwood,  was  a  most  welcome  guest  at 
"Whitehall  ;    and   they  came   over   in    shoals. 


Over  and  above  complete  regiments  of  papists, 
there  was  scarce  a  troop  or  company  in  the 
army  wherein  some  of  that  religion  were  not 
inserted,  by  express  orders  from  court.  Upon 
the  whole,  the  affairs  of  the  nation  were  draw- 
ing to  a  crisis  ;  and  it  was  believed  that  what 
the  king  could  not  accomplish  by  the  gentler 
methods  of  interest  and  persuasion,  he  would 
establish  by  his  sovereign  power.  The  army 
at  Hounslow  was  to  awe  the  city  and  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  if  they  proved  refractory,  an  Irish 
massacre,  or  some  other  desperate  attempt, 
might  possibly  decide  the  fate  of  the  nation. 

About  this  time  died  the  Rev.  David  Clark- 
son,  B.D.,  born  at  Bradford  in  Yorkshire,  Feb- 
ruary, 1621-22,  and  fellow  of  Clarehall,  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  was  tutor  to  Dr.  Tillotson, 
afterward  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Dr.  Bates, 
in  his  funeral  sermon,  gives  him  the  character 
of  a  man  of  sincere  godhness  and  true  holiness : 
humility  and  modesty  were  his  distinctive  char- 
acters ;  and  his  learning  was  superior  to  most 
of  his  time,  as  appears  by  his  "  Treatise  of  Lit- 
urgies," his  "  Primitive  Episcopacy,"  his  "  Prac- 
tical Divinity  of  Papists  destructive  to  Men's 
Souls,"  and  his  volume  of  Sermons,  printed  af- 
ter his  death.  He  was  some  time  minister  of 
Mortlake  in  Surrey,  but  after  his  ejectment  he 
gave  himself  up  to  reading  and  meditation, 
shifting  from  one  place  of  obscurity  to  another, 
till  the  times  suffered  him  to  appear  openly  ;  he 
was  then  chosen  successor  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
John  Owen,*  in  the  pastoral  office  to  his  con- 
gregation. Mr.  Baxter  says  he  was  a  divine  of 
solid  judgment,  of  healing,  moderate  principles, 
of  great  acquaintance  with  the  fathers,  of  great 
ministerial  abilities,  and  of  a  godly,  upright  life. 
Great  was  his  solemnity  and  reverence  in 
prayer ;  and  the  method  of  his  sermons  was 
clear,  deep,  and  instructive.  His  death  was 
unexpected,  though,  as  he  declared,  it  was  no 
surprise  to  him,  for  he  was  entirely  resigned  to 
the  will  of  God,  and  desired  not  to  outlive  his 
usefulness.  This  good  man,  says  Dr.  Bates, 
like  holy  Simeon,  had  Christ  in  his  arms,  and 
departed  in  peace,  to  see  the  salvation  of  God 
above,  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 

Dr.  Thomas  Jacomb  was  horn  in  Leicester- 
shire, and  educated  ii-^st  in  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxon, 
and  after  in  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge,  from 
whence  he  removed  to  Trinity  College,  of  which 
he  was  fellow.  He  came  to  London  in  1647, 
and  was  soon  after  minister  of  Ludgate  parish, 
where  he  continued  till  he  was  turned  out  in 
1662.     He  met  with   some   trouble  after  his 


*  Burnet,  p.  135. 
1  Ibid.,  p.  178. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  168. 


*  This  is  an  inaccuracy:  he  was  chosen  co-pastor 
with  Dr.  Owen,  July,  1662,  a  year  before  the  doctor's 
death.  To  the  above  account  of  Mr  Clarksnn  it  is 
not  improper  to  add,  that  his  excellent  pupil,  Bishop 
Tillotson,  always  preserved  that  respect  for  him 
which  he  had  contracted  while  he  was  under  his  tu- 
ition. His  book  on  Diocesan  Episcopacy  shows 
him,  says  Mr.  Granper,  to  have  been  a  man  of  great 
reading  in  Church  history.  In  his  conversation,  a 
comely  gravity,  mixed  with  innocent  pleasantness, 
were  attractive  of  respect  and  love.  He  was  of  a 
calm  temper,  not  ruffled  with  passions,  but  gentle, 
and  kind,  and  good  ;  his  breast  was  the  temple  of 
peace.  —  Palmtr's  Noncnnformists'  Mimnrial,  vol.  ii., 
p.  451.  Birch's  Life  of  Ttllotso-n,  p.  4  ;  and  Gravgcr's 
History  of  England,  vol.  iii  .  p.  .'JIO,  8vo.— En.  Mr. 
Clarkson's  folio  volume  of  Sermons  is  highly  val- 
ued, and  also  his  treatise  styled  "  No  Evidence  for 
Diocesan  Episcopacy  in  Primitive  Times."— C. 


HISTORY   OF   THE  PURITANS. 


333 


ejectment,  but  being  received  into  the  family 
of  the  countess  dowager  of  Exeter,  daughter 
ot  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  he  was  covered 
from  his  enemies.  This  honourable  and  virtu- 
ous lady  was  a  comfort  and  support  to  the  Non- 
conformist ministers  throughout  the  reign  of 
Xing  Charles  II.  Her  respects  to  the  doctor 
were  peculiar,  and  her  favours  extraordinary, 
for  which  he  made  the  best  returns  he  was  able. 
The  doctor  was  a  learned  man,  an  able  divine, 
a  serious,  affectionate  preacher,  of  unspotted 
morals,  and  a  Nonconformist  upon  moderate 
principles.  He  died  of  a  cancerous  humour, 
that  put  him  to  the  most  acute  pain,  which  he 
bore  with  invincible  patience  and  resignation 
till  the  27th  of  March,  1687,  when  he  died  in 
the  Countess  of  Exeter's  house,  in  the  sixty- 
sixth  year  of  his  age.* 

Mr.  John  Collins  was  educated  at  Cambridge, 
New-England,  and  returned  from  thence  in  the 
times  of  the  civil  war,  became  a  celebrated 
preacher  in  London,  having  a  sweet  voice,  and 
a  most  affectionate  manner  in  the  pulpit.  He 
was  chaplain  to  General  Monk  %vhen  he  marched 
■out  of  Scotland  into  England,  but  was  not  an 
incumbent  anywhere  when  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity took  place.  Being  of  the  Independent  de- 
nomination, he  succeeded  Mr.  Mallory  as  pastor 
of  a  very  considerable  congregation  of  that  per- 
suasion, and  was  one  of  the  Merchant  lecturers 
at  Pinners'  Hall.  He  was  a  man  mighty  in  the 
Scriptures ;  of  an  excellent  natural  temper ; 
very  charitable  to  all  good  men,  without  regard 
to  parties  ;  and  died  universally  lamented,!  De- 
cember 3,  1687. 

[It  seems  to  have  escaped  Mr.  Neal's  atten- 
tion to  notice,  at  this  period,  two  eminent  per- 
sons, who  died  in  the  year  1686,  Pearson,  bish- 
op of  Chester,  and  Fell,  bishop  of  Oxford. 

Dr.  John  Pearson,  born  in  1612,  was  succes- 
sively master  of  Jesus  and  Trinity  Colleges,  in 
Cambridge  ;  and  also  Margaret-professor  of  di- 
vinity in  that  university.  He  had  the  living  of 
St.  Clement's,  Eastcheap,  and  was  consecrated 
Bishop  of  Chester  February  9,  1672.  He  was 
a  great  divine,  a  profound  and  various  scholar, 


*  It  is  a  proof  what  different  colouring  a  character 
derives  from  the  dispositions  and  prejudices  ot  those 
whose  pen  draws  it,  that  Dr.  Sherlock,  who  seems 
to  have  received  some  provocation  from  Dr.  Jacomb, 
represents  him  "  as  the  prettiest,  nonsensical,  trifling 
goose-cap  that  ever  sat  pen  to  paper."  This  descrip- 
tion is  contradicted  by  the  nature  of  his  library,  if 
the  choice  of  books  indicate  the  turn  of  the  mind 
He  left  an  incomparable  collection  of  the  most  valu- 
able books  in  all  kinds  of  learning,  and  in  various 
languages,  which  sold  for  £1300. — Grangfr's  History 
of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  307. —  Ed.  Dr.  Bates  preach- 
ed his  funeral  sermon  from  John,xii.,  26.  This  dis- 
course has  long  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  finest  in 
our  language.  It  is  full  of  beauty,  and  possesses 
great  force  of  illustration. — C. 

t  When,  during  his  illness,  Mr.  Mead  affection- 
ately prayed  for  his  recovery  at  the  Pmners'  Hall 
lecture,  scarcely  a  dry  eye  was  to  be  seen  through 
the  numerous  auditory.  Mr.  Collins  printed  one  ser- 
mon \n  the  Mornmg  Exercises,  vol.  in.,  with  the  sig- 
nature N.  N.,  on  this  question,  "  How  the  religious 
of  a  nation  are  the  strength  of  it  f" — Mather's  History 
of  New- En  gland,  hook  iv.,  p.  200  ;  where  may  be  seen 
a  Latni  epitaph  for  him. —  EIn.  There  is  also  a  good 
sermon  of  his,  in  the  London  Collection  of  Farewell 
■Sermons,  en  Jude,  3,  "  Contind  earrutstli/  fnr  the 
J'aiih."  His  father  was  deacon  of  the  Church  at 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts. — C. 


eminently  read  in  ecclesiastical  history  and  an- 
tiquity, and  an  exact  chronologist.  He  united 
with  his  learning  clearness  of  judgment  and 
strength  of  reason.  As  a  preacher,  he  was 
rather  instructive  than  pathetic.  The  character 
of  the  clergyman  was  adorned  by  an  excellent 
temper,  distinguished  humility,  primitive  piety, 
and  spotless  manners  :  as  a  bishop,  he  was 
deemed  too  remiss  and  easy  in  his  Episcopal 
function.  "He  was."  says  Bishop  Burnet,  "a 
striking  instance  of  what  a  great  man  could 
fall  to  :  for  his  memory  went  from  him  so  en- 
tirely, that  he  became  a  child  some  years  before 
he  died."  His  late  preferment  to  the  Episco- 
pacy, and  the  great  decay  of  his  faculties,  which 
it  is  to  be  supposed  came  on  gradually,  may  ac- 
count for  his  remissness  in  that  station.  His 
works  were  few,  hut  of  great  reputation.  The 
chief  were,  "A  Vindication  of  St.  Ignatius's 
Epistles,"  in  Latin;  and  "  An  Exposition  of  the 
Apostle's  Creed,"  esteemed  one  of  the  most 
finished  pieces  in  theology  in  our  language. 
The  substance  of  it  was  originally  delivered  in 
sermons  to  his  parishioners.  This  work  has 
gone  through  twelve  or  thirteen  editions.  "It 
is  itself,"  says  Mr.  Granger,  "a  body  of  divini- 
ty, but  not  a  body  without  a  spirit.  The  style 
of  it  is  just ;  the  periods  are  for  the  most  part 
well  turned  ;  the  method  is  very  exact ;  and  it 
is,  in  general,  free  from  those  errors  which  are 
too  often  found  in  theological  systems." — Bur- 
net's History,  vol  iii.,  12mo,  p.  109,  110.  Gran- 
ger's History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  251,  Svo; 
and  Richardson  s  Godwin  de  PrasuUbus,  p.  779. 
Dr.  John  Fell  was  the  son  of  Dr.  Samuel  Fell, 
some  time  the  dean  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford: 
he  received  his  classical  education  in  the  free- 
school  at  Thame  in  Oxfordshire  :  at  eleven 
years  of  age  he  was  made  student  at  Christ 
Church,  in  1636,  and  in  1643  graduated  master 
of  arts.  About  this  time  he  took  arms,  within 
the  garrison  of  Oxford,  in  the  king's  cause,  and 
was  made  an  ensign.  In  1648,  when  he  was 
in  holy  orders,  he  was  displaced  by  the  Parlia- 
mentarian visiters  ;  from  that  year  to  the  Res- 
toration, he  spent  his  time  in  retirement  and 
study,  observmg  the  devotions  of  the  Church  of 
England  with  other  oppressed  Royalists.  After 
the  Restoration  he  was  installed  canon,  and 
then  dean  of  Christ  Church,  November  30,  1660, 
being  then  doctor  in  divinity,  and  one  of  the 
king's  chaplains  in  ordinary.  In  the  years  1667, 
166S,  and  1669,  he  was  vice-chancellor  of  the 
university  ;  and  February  6,  1675,  he  was  con- 
secrated Bishop  of  Oxford.  Soon  after  his  pref- 
erment he  rebuilt  the  palace  of  CusedoUj  belong- 
ing to  the  see.  He  was  a  munificent  benefactor 
to  his  college,  and  raised  its  reputation  by  his 
discipline.  He  settled  on  it  no  less  than  ten 
exhibitions  ;  and  the  best  rectories  belonging  to 
it  were  his  purchase.  He  expended  great  sums 
ill  embellishing  and  adorning  the  University  of 
Oxford.  Learning  was  greatly  indebted  to  his 
patronage  and  munificence.  He  liberally  im- 
proved the  press  of  the  university  ;  and  the 
books  that  came  from  the  Sheldonian  theatre 
perpetuate,  in  this  respect,  his  praise.  For 
many  years  he  annually  published  a  book,  gen- 
erally a  classic  author,  to  which  he  wrote  a 
preface  and  notes,  and  presented  it  to  the  stu- 
dents of  his  house  as  a  new-year's  gift :  among 
these  was  an  edition  of  the  Greek  Testameat, 


334 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


in  12mo,  1675,  which  Dr.  Harwood  pronounces 
to  be  "a  very  valuable  and  excellent  edition, 
that  does  honour  to  the  bishop,  because  it  is, 
upon  the  whole,  a  correct  book,  and  exhibits  the 
"various  readings  very  faithfully."  His  edition 
of  the  works  of  Cyprian  affords  also  a  conspic- 
uous proof  of  his  industry  and  learning.  But 
he  did  not  lay  out  his  fortune  in  public  acts  of 
splendid  munificence  only :  the  private  charities 
of  life  partook  of  his  beneficence.  To  the  wid- 
ow he  was  a  husband,  to  the  orphan  a  father, 
and  to  poor  children  a  tender  parent,  furnishing 
them  with  instruction,  and  placing  them  out  in 
life.  "  He  was  in  all  respects  a  most  exempla- 
ry man,  though,"  says  Bishop  Burnet,  "  a  little 
too  much  heated  in  the  matter  of  our  disputes 
"with  the  Dissenters.  But,  as  he  was  among 
the  first  of  our  clergy  that  apprehended  the  de- 
sign of  bringing  in  popery,  so  he  was  one  of  the 
most  zealous  against  it."  It  is  a  deduction  from 
the  merit  of  his  character  as  the  patron  of  learn- 
ing, that  he  was  not  well  affected  to  the  Royal 
Society  ;  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  was 
not  friendly  to  that  excellent  man,  Archbishop 
Tillotson  ;  which  was  probably  owing  to  a  sense 
of  his  own  sufferings  before  the  Restoration,  for 
he  was  not  superior  to  a  party  spirit. —  Wjod's 
AckencE  Oxon.,  vol  ii.,  p.  602,  605.  Richardson, 
de  Prasulibus.  p.  548.  Burners  Hislory,  vol.  iii., 
p.  100.  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  iii., 
p.  252.  British  Biogr.,  vol.  v.,  p.  1 1  ;  and  BtrcKs 
Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  100.] 


CHAPTER  n. 

PROM  KING  J.iMEs's  DECLARATION  FOR  LIBERTY 
OF  CONSCIENCE  TO  THE  ACT  OF  TOLERATION 
IN  THE  REIGN  OF  KING  WILLIAM  AND  QUEEN 
MARY.        1668. 

Though  the  projects  of  the  Roman  Catholics 
■were  ripe  for  execution,  there  was  one  circum- 
stance uhich  spread  a  black  cloud  over  all  their 
attempts,  which  was  the  near  prospect  of  a 
Protestant  successor  to  the  crown:  this  was 
the  only  hope  of  the  Protestant  cause,  and  the 
terror  of  the  papists.  To  remove  this  impedi- 
ment, his  majesty  first  attempted  to  convert  his 
eldest  daughter  Mary,  princess  of  Orange,  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  or,  at  least,  to  consent 
to  the  making  way  for  it,  by  taking  off  the  pe- 
nal laws.  To  accomplish  this,  his  majesty 
wrote  an  obliging  letter  to  his  daughter,  reci- 
ting the  motives  of  his  own  conversion  ;  which 
were,  the  "  great  devotion  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  ;  the  adornmg  their  churches  ;  their  acts 
of  charity,  which  were  greater  than  the  Prot- 
estants could  boast  of;  the  numbers  who  re- 
tired I'rom  the  world,  an^l  devoted  themselves  to 
a  religious  life.*  He  was  convinced  that  Christ 
had  lefi  an  infallibility  in  the  Church,  which  the 
apostles  acknowledged  to  be  in  St  Peter. — Acts, 
XV.  It  was  the  aiitliority  of  the  Cluirch,"  says 
lie,  "  tliat  declared  the  Scriptures  to  be  canon- 
ical ;  and  certainly  they  who  declared  them 
could  (inly  interpret  them;  and  v-^herever  this 
infallibility  was,  there  must  be  a  clear  succes- 
sion. whi(;h  could  be  nou  here  but  in  the  Church 
of  R(»ine^  llio  Church  of  Knuland  not  pretending 

*  Burnet,  vol.  iii.,  Edin.  ed.,  p.  14Q,  155. 


to  infallibility,  though  she  acted  as  if  she  did, 
l)y  persecuting  those  who  differed  from  her,  as 
well  Protestant  Dissenters  as  papists ;  but  he 
could  see  no  reason  why  Dissenters  might  not 
separate  from  the  Church  of  England,  as  well 
as  the  Church  of  England  had  done  from  that 
of  Rome." 

The  princess  answered  the  king's  letter  with 
great  respect ;  "  she  affirmed  the  right  of  pri- 
vate judgment,  according  to  the  apostle's  rule, 
of  proving  all  things,  and  holding  fast  tliat 
which  is  good.  She  saw  clearly  from  the  Scrip- 
tures that  she  must  not  believe  by  the  faith  of 
another,  but  according  as  things  appeared  to 
herself  She  confessed,  if  there  was  an  infalli- 
bility in  the  Church,  all  other  controversies 
must  fall  before  it,  but  that  it  was  not  yet  agreed 
where  it  was  lodged,  whether  in  a  pope,  or  a 
general  council,  or  both  ;  and  she  desired  to 
know  in  whom  the  infallibility  rested  when  there 
were  two  or  three  popes  at  a  time,  acting  one 
against  another ;  for  certainly  the  succession 
must  then  be  disordered.  She  maintained  the 
lawfulness  and  necessity  of  reading  the  Holy 
Scriptures;  for, though  faith  was  above  reason, 
it  proposed  nothing  contradictory  to  it.  St.  Paul 
ordered  his  epistles  to  be  read  in  all  the  church- 
es ;  and  he  says  in  one  place,  '  I  write  as  to 
wise  men,  judge  ye  what  I  say :'  and  if  they 
might  judge  an  apostle,  much  more  any  other 
teacher.  She  excused  the  Church  of  England's 
persecuting  the  Dissenters  in  the  best  manner 
she  could  ;  and  said  the  Reformers  had  brought 
things  to  as  great  perfection  as  those  corrupt 
ages  were  capable  of;  and  she  did  not  see  how 
the  Church  was  to  blame,  because  the  laws 
were  made  by  the  State,  and  for  civil  crimes, 
and  that  the  grounds  of  the  Dissenters  leaving 
the  Church  were  different  from  those  for  which 
they  had  separated  from  the  Church  of  Rome." 
It  was  impossible  for  the  princess  to  clear  up 
this  ot)jection.  But  Bishop  Burnet*  adds,  very 
justly,  that  the  severities  of  the  Church  against 
the  Dissenters  were  urged  with  a  very  ill  grace, 
by  one  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  has  delight- 
ed herself  so  often  by  being,  as  it  were,  bathed 
with  the  blood  of  those  they  call  heretics.  Upon 
the  whole,  it  appeared  that  her  highness  was 
immovably  fixed  in  her  religion,  and  that  there 
was  not  the  least  prospect  of  her  departing 
from  it. 

At  the  same  time  his  majesty  attempted  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  for  v/hich  purpose  he  em- 
ployed one  Mr.  James  Steward,  a  Scotch  law- 
yer, who  wrote  several  letters  upon  this  argu- 
ment to  pensionary  Fagel,  in  whom  th«  prince 
placed  an  entire  confidence. t  The  pensionary 
neglected  his  letters  for  some  time;  but  at 
length,  it  being  industriously  reported  that  the 
silence  of  the  prince  was  a  tacit  consent,  the 
pensionary  laid  all  his  letters  before  his  high- 
ness, who  commissioned  the  pensionary  to  draw 
up  such  an  answer  as  might  discover  his  true 
intentions  and  sense  of  things. 

The  answer  was  dated  from  the  Hague,  No- 
vember 4,  1687,  and  begins  with  assurances  of 
the  prince  and  princess's  duty  to  the  king  ;  and, 
since  Mr.  Steward  had  given  him  to  understand 
that  his  letters  were  written  with  the  king's 
knowledge  and  allowance,!  tlie  pensionary  as- 


*   Page  156.  +   Burnet,  p.  165,  166. 

t  NVelwood's  Memoirs,  p.  218. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   PURITANS. 


335 


sures  him,  in  the  name  of  their  highnesses, 
that  it  was  their  opinion  that  "  no  Christian 
ought  to  he  persecuted  for  his  conscience,  or 
be  ill  used  because  he  differs  from  the  estab- 
lished religion  ;  and  therefore  they  agreed  that 
the  papists  in  Scotland  and  Ireland  should  have 
the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  in  private  as 
they  had  in  Holland  ;  and  as  to  Protestant  Dis- 
senters, they  heartily  approved  of  their  having 
an  entire  liberty  of  their  religion,  without  any 
trouble  or  hinderance  ;  and  their  highnesses 
were  ready  to  concur  in  the  settling  it,  and 
giving  their  guarantee  to  protect  and  defend  it. 
If  his  majesty  desired  their  concurrence  in  re- 
pealing the  penal  laws,  they  were  ready  to  give 
it,  provided  the  laws  by  which  Roman  Catholics 
were  excluded  from  sitting  in  both  houses  of 
Parliament,  and  from  all  employments,  ecclesi- 
astical, civil,  and  military,  remained  in  force  ; 
and  likewise  those  other  laws  which  secure  the 
Protestant  religion  against  all  attempts  of  the 
Roman  Catholics  ;  but  they  could  not  consent 
to  the  repeal  of  those  laws  which  tended  only 
to  secure  the  Protestant  religion,  such  as  the 
tests,  because  they  imported  no  more  than  a 
deprivation  from  public  employments,  which 
could  do  them  no  great  harm.  If  the  number 
of  the  papists  were  inconsiderable,  it  was  not 
reasonable  to  insist  upon  it ;  and  if  those  few 
that  pretend  to  public  employments  would  do 
their  party  so  much  injury  as  not  to  be  content 
with  the  repeal  of  the  penal  laws,  unless  they 
could  get  into  offices  of  trust,  their  ambition 
only  was  to  be  blamed."*  This  letter  was 
carried  by  Mr.  Steward  to  the  king,  and  read 
in  the  cabinet  council,  but  it  had  no  effect ; 
only  the  king  ordered  Mr.  Steward  to  write 
back  that  he  would  have  all  or  nothing.  How- 
ever, the  Church  parly  were  satisfied  with  the 
prince's  resolution  to  maintain  the  tests;  the 
Protestant  Dissenters  were  pleased  with  their 
highnesses'  declaration  for  the  repeal  of  the 
penal  laws  so  far  as  concerned  themselves,  and 
they  placed  an  entire  confidence  in  their  word. 
The  lay-papists  and  seculars  pressed  the  king 
to  accept  of  the  repeal  of  so  much  of  the  penal 
laws  as  was  offered,  and  blamed  the  ambition 
of  the  Jesuits  and  courtiers,  who,  rather  than 
abate  anything,  would  leave  them  exposed  to 
the  severity  of  the  law  when  a  freedom  was 
offered.  At  length  the  pensionary's  letter  was 
printed  by  allowance  of  the  prince,  and  dispers- 
ed over  England,  which  provoked  the  king  to 
such  a  degree,  that  he  spoke  indecently  of  his 
highness  to  all  the  foreign  ministers,  and  re- 
solved to  show  him  the  severest  marks  of  his 
displeasure. 

Tlie  first  project  of  gaining  the  prince  having 
failed,  his  majesty  went  upon  another,  which, 
had  it  succeeded,  must  effectually  have  defeat- 
ed the  Protestant  succession  ;  and  that  was, 
providing  the  nation  with  an  heir  of  his  own 
body  by  the  present  queen,  though  for  many 
years  she  had  been  reckoned  incapable  of  hav- 
ing children.  This  was  first  whispered  among 
the  courtiers,  but  was  soon  after  cr)nfirmed  by 
a  procilamation  in  the  Gazette  of  January  2  and 
26.  1687-38,  in  words  to  this  effect:  "That  it 
had  pleased  Almighty  God  to  give  liis  majesty 
apparent  hopes,  and  good  assurance,  of  having 
issue  by   his   royal   consort   the   queen,    who, 


*  Burnet,  p.  IG7. 


through  God's  great  goodness,  was  now  with 
child  ;"*  wherefore  his  majesty  appoints,  that 
on  the  I5th  of  January,  in  the  cities  of  London 
and  Westminster;  and  on  the  29th  in  all  other 
places  of  England  ;  and  on  the  29th  of  January 
and  19th  of  February  in  all  places  in  Scotland, 
public  thanksgiving  and  solemn  prayer  be  of- 
fered up  to  God  on  this  occasion  ;  and  a  form 
of  prayer  was  drawn  up  accordingly  by  the  Bish- 
ops of  Durham,  Rochester,  and  Peterborough  ; 
in  which  were  these  expressions :  "  Blessed  be 
that  good  Providence  that  has  vouchsafed  us 
fresh  hopes  of  royal  issue  by  our  gracious 
Queen  Mary  ;  strengthen  her,  we  beseech  thee, 
and  perfect  what  thou  hast  begun.  Command 
thy  holy  angels  to  watch  over  her  continually, 
and  defend  her  from  all  dangers  and  evil  acci- 
dents ;  that  what  she  hath  conceived  may  be 
happily  brought  forth,  to  the  joy  of  our  .sover- 
eign lord  the  king,  the  farther  establishment 
of  his  crown,  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  the 
whole  kingdom,  and  the  glory  of  thy  great 
name,"  &c.t  This  struck  all  the  Protestant 
part  of  the  nation  with  consternation,  except  a 
few  ranting  Tories,  whose  religion  was  at  tha 
service  of  the  king,  whensoever  he  should  call 
for  it.  The  conception  was  looked  upon  by  the 
Jesuits  as  miraculous,  and  as  the  effect  of  a 
vow  the  queen  had  made  to  the  Lady  of  Loret- 
to ;  they  prophesied  it  would  certainly  be  a 
prince;  while  the  Protestants  sighed  in  secret, 
and  suspected  a  fraud  ;  the  grounds  of  which, 
suspicion  the  historians  of  these  times  have 
related  at  large. 

The  king,  imboldened  with  the  prospect  of  a 
popish  successor,  instead  of  venturing  first  upon 
a  Parliament,  published  another  declaration  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  April  27,  in  higher  strains, 
and  more  advantageous  to  the  papists,  than  the 
former  ;  the  substance  of  it  was  as  follows  ; 

"  James  Rex. 
"  Our  conduct  has  been  such  in  all  times  as 
ought  to  have  persuaded  the  world  that  we  are 
firm  and  constant  to  our  resolutions;  yet,  that 
easy  people  may  not  be  abused  by  the  malice 
of  crafty,  wicked  men,  we  think  fit  t3  declare 
that  our  intentions  are  not  changed  since  the 
4th  of  April,  1687,  when  we  issued  our  declara- 
tion for  liberty  of  conscience  in  the  following 
terms."J  [Here  the  declaration  is  recited  at 
large,  and  then  it  follows.]  "  Ever  since  we 
granted  the  indulgence,  we  have  made  it  our 
care  to  see  it  preserved  without  dislinctiim,  as 
we  are  encouraged  to  do  daily  by  multitudes  of 
addresses,  and  many  other  assurances  we  re- 
ceive from  our  subjects  of  all  persuasions,  as 
testimonies  of  their  satisfaction  and  duty  ;  the 
effects  of  which  we  doubt  not  hut  the  next  Par- 
liament will  show,  and  that  it  will  not  be  in  vain 
that  we  have  resolved  to  use  our  utmost  endeav- 
ours to  establish  liberty  of  conscience  on  such 
just  and  equal  foundations  as  will  render  it  un- 
alterable, and  secure  to  all  people  the  free  exer- 
cise of  their  religion  forever,  by  which  future 
ages  may  reap  the  benefit  of  what  is  so  undoubt- 
edly for  the  general  good  of  the  whole  kingdom. 
It  is  such  a  security  wo  desire,  without  the  bur- 
den and  constraint  of  oaths  and  tests,  which 
have,  unhappily,  been   made  by  some  ir'>vern- 


*  Gazette.  Nos.  2300  and  23)i>. 
+  Oalamy's  Abriil^ment,  p.  382 
i  Gazette,  No.  2342. 


;W6 


HISTORY    OF  THE    PURITANS. 


ments,  but  could  never  support  any.  Nor  could 
men  be  advanced  by  such  means  to  offices  and 
employments,  which  ought  to  be  the  reward  of 
services,  fidelity,  and  merit.  Wc  must  conclude, 
that  not  only  good  Christians  will  join  in  this, 
but  whoever  is  concerned  for  the  wealth  and 
power  of  the  nation.  It  would,  perhaps,  preju- 
dice some  of  our  neighbours,  who  might  lose 
part  of  those  vast  advantages  they  now  enjoy, 
if  liberty  of  conscience  were  settled  in  these 
kingdoms,  which  are  above  all  others  most  ca- 
pable of  improvements,  and  of  commanding  the 
trade  of  the  world.  In  pursuance  of  this  great 
work,  we  have  been  forced  to  make  many  chan- 
ges, both  of  civil  and  military  officers,  through- 
our  our  dominions,  not  thinking  any  ought  to  be 
employed  in  our  service  who  will  not  contribute 
towards  the  establishing  the  peace  and  greatness 
of  their  country,  which  we  most  earnestly  de- 
sire, as  unbiased  men  may  see  by  the  whole 
conduct  of  our  government,  and  by  the  condition 
of  our  fleet  and  of  our  armies,  which,  with  good 
management,  shall  constantly  be  the  same,  and 
greater,  if  the  safety  or  honour  of  the  nation  re- 
quire it.  We  recommend  these  considerations 
to  all  our  subjects,  and  that  they  will  reflect  on 
their  ease  and  happiness,  now  that  above  three 
years  it  has  pleased  God  to  permit  us  to  reign 
over  these  kingdoms,  we  have  not  appeared  to 
be  that  prince  our  enemies  would  make  the  world 
afraid  of;  our  chief  aim  having  been,  not  to  be 
the  oppressor,  but  father  of  our  people  ;  of  which 
we  can  give  no  better  evidence,  than  by  conju- 
ring them  to  lay  aside  private  animosities,  as 
well  as  groundless  jealousies,  and  to  choose  such 
juembers  of  Parliament  as  may  do  their  parts  to 
iinish  what  we  have  begun,  for  the  advantage 
of  the  monarchy  over  which  Almighty  God  has 
placed  us,  being  resolved  to  call  a  Parliament 
viiat  shall  meet  in  November  next  at  farthest." 
This  declaration  was  published  in  the  usual 
manner,  and  ordered  to  be  read  in  time  of  Di- 
vine service  in  all  churches  and  chapels  in  and 
about  London,  May  20th  and  27th ;  and  in  all 
the  rest  of  England  and  Wales  on  the  3d  and 
10th  of  June  following,  upon  penalty  of  being 
prosecuted  in  the  ecclesiastical  commission.* 
For  this  purpose,  the  bishops  were  required  to 
cause  it  to  be  distributed  throughout  their  re- 
spective diocesses  ;  some  of  them,  says  Bur- 
net, carried  their  compliance  to  a  shameful 
pilch,  offering  up  their  allegiance  to  the  king 
without  limitation  or  reserve.  Dr.  Crew,  bish- 
op of  Durham,  Barlow  of  Lincoln,!  Cartwright 


!•■   Gazette,  No.  2344. 

t  Dr.  Grey  thinks  that  Bishop  Barlow  could  not 
be  so  forward  a  promoter  of  such  addresses,  because 
that,  ill  a  letter  to  one  of  his  clergy,  dated  May  2i)th, 
he  informed  him  that  the  clergy  in  London  general- 
ly refused  to  read  the  declaration :  and  added,  "  As 
lo  myself,  I  shall  neither  persuade  nor  dissuade  you, 
hut  leave  it  to  your  prudence  and  conscience  wheth- 
er you  will  or  not  read  it.  But  only  this  I  shall  ad- 
vise, that  if,  after  serious  consideration,  you  find  that 
you  cannot  read  it  but  reluctante  vcl  dubitanle  consci- 
c-niid,  in  that  case  to  read  it  will  be  your  sin,  and 
you  to  blame  for  doing  it."  Notwithstanding  Bish- 
op Barlow  wrote  so  candidly  on  the  matter,  in  this 
instance,  he  sent  up  a  letter  of  thanks  to  King 
James  for  his  first  declaration,  published  reasons  for 
reading  the  second,  and  asserted  and  vindicated,  in 
an  elaborate  tract,  the  regal  power  of  dispensing 
with  penal  laws.  This  bishop  was  not  a  consistent 
character ;  he  was  timid  and  complying,  accommo- 


of  Chester,  Wood  of  Litchfield  and  Coventry, 
Watson  of  St.  David's,  Sprat  of  Rochester,  and 
Parker  of  Oxford,  went  all  the  lengths  of  the 
court,  and  promoted  addresses  of  thanks  to  his 
majesty  in  the  most  exalted  language,  for  the 
promise  he  had  made  in  his  late  declaration,  to 
maintain  the  Church  of  England  as  by  law  es- 
tablished ;*  though  nothing  was  more  evident 
than  his  design  to  subvert  it.  An  address 
came  from  the  clergy  of  Chester,  justifying  the 
declaration,  as  issuing  from  the  prerogative  of 
the  king's  supremacy,  and  insisting  that  the 
clergy  were  obliged  by  what  is  called  statute 
law,  the  rubric  of  their  liberty,  to  publish  what 
was  required  by  the  king  or  their  bishop,  and 
therefore  they  were  troubled  to  hear  of  the  dis- 
obedience of  some  of  that  bench,  who,  though 
they  tenderly  promised  the  Dissenters  some- 
thing, yet  refused  to  do  their  part  about  the 
declaration,  lest  they  should  be  parties  to  it ; 
which  reason  we,  with  due  modesty,  esteem 
insufficient.  Herbert  Croft,  bishop  of  Here- 
ford, published  his  reasons  for  reading  the  dec- 
laration, from  that  passage  of  Scripture,  "  Sub- 
mit yourselves  to  every  ordinance  of  man  for 
the  Lord's  sake,  whether  it  be  to  the  king  as 
supreme,"  &c.  "Now  the  king  commanding 
it  to  be  read,  without  requiring  our  assent,  con- 
sent, or  allowance,  I  cannot  see,"  says  the 
bishop,  "how  it  can  be  refused.  If  it  be  said 
this  is  to  admit  of  a  dispensing  power,  yet  it  is 
not  contrary  to  the  Word  of  God.  If  the  king 
should  aver  his  dispensing  power  to  be  inherent 
in  the  crown,  and  will  use  it  as  he  pleases,  I 
should  beseech  him  not  to  exert  it  in  so  high  a 
manner ;  but  after  this,  what  have  bishops  to 
do  but  submit,  since  here  is  no  doctrine  affirm- 
ed, but  only  a  declaration  of  matter  of  fact  V 

However,  the  majority  of  the  clergy  were  of 
different  sentiments  ;  eighteen  bishops,  and  the 
chief  of  their  clergy,  refused  to  publish  the  dec- 
laration, so  that  it  was  read,  says  Burnet,t 
only  in  seven  churches  in  London,  and  in  about 
two  hundred  all  over  England. t  The  commis- 
sioners for  ecclesiastical  affairs  sent  out  cita- 
tions by  the  king's  order<^,  requiring  the  chan- 
cellors and  archdeacons  to  send  in  lists  of  all 
who  had  obeyed,  and  of  those  who  had  not 
obeyed,  the  order  of  council ;  together  with  the 
places  where  it  had  been  neglected.il  Most  of 
the  bishops  disobeyed,  and  generously  under- 
took to  stand  in  the  gap,  and  screen  the  inferi- 
or clergy  from  prosecution  :  seven  of  them  met 
at  Lambeth,  and  after  consultation  signed  an 
address,  in  behalf  of  themselves  and  sev-eral  of 


dating  himself  to  the  times,  and  ready  to  side  with 
the  strongest.  At  one  lime  he  was  a  seeming  friend 
to  the  papists,  then  a  distinguished  writer  against 
popery.  Now  an  enemy  to  the  llukc  of  V'ork  ;  then 
ever  expressing  his  submission  to  King  James  ;  and 
afterward  takmg  the  oaths  to  his  successors. — Bio- 
graphia  Britamaca,  vol.  i.,  article  Barlow.  Godwin 
de  PrcBsulibus,  p.  305. — Ed. 

*  Gazette,  No.  2374.  t  Page  178. 

%  Some  who  read  it  on  the  first  Sunday,  chango<l 
their  minds  before  the  second  Others  declared,  in 
their  sermons,  that,  though  they  obeyed  the  order, 
they  did  not  approve  the  declaration.  And  one, 
more  pleasantly  than  gravely,  told  his  people,  that 
though  he  was  obliged  to  read  it,  they  were  not 
ol)liged  lo  hear  it ;  and  stopped  till  they  all  went  out, 
and  then  read  it  to  the  wails. — Burnet's  History,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  178. — Ed. 

<^  Burnet,  p.  lai.  tl  Gazette,  No.  2364. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   PURITANS. 


337 


their  absent  brethren,  setting  forth,  "that  they 
were  not  averse  to  the  publishing  his  majesty's 
declaration  for  want  of  duty  to  his  majesty,  or 
due  tenderness  towards  Dissenters,  in  relation 
to  whom  (say  they)  we  are  willing  to  come  to 
such  a  temper  as  shall  be  thought  tit,  when  the 
matter  comes  to  be  considered  and  settled  in 
Parliament ;  but  the  declaration,  being  founded 
on  such  a  dispensing  power  as  may  at  present 
set  aside  all  laws  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  ap- 
pears to  us  illegal,  and  did  so  to  the  Parliament 
in  1672  ;  and  it  is  a  point  of  such  great  conse- 
quence, that  we  cannot  make  ourselves  party 
to  it,  so  far  as  the  reading  of  it  in  the  church 
in  time  of  Divine  service  will  amount  to,  and 
distributing  it  all  over  the  kingdom."*  Signed 
by  Sancroft,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,!  Lloyd, 
bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  Kenn  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
Turner  of  Ely,  Lake  of  Chichester,  White  of 
Peterborough,  and  Trelawny  of  Bristol. 

The  king  was  startled  at  the  address,  and 
answered,  in  a  very  angry  tone,  "  I  have  heard 
of  this  before,  but  did  not  believe  it ;  I  did  not 
expect  this  from  the  Church  of  England,  es- 
pecially from  some  of  you.  If  I  change  my 
mind,  you  shall  hear  from  me  ;  if  not,  I  expect 
my  commands  shall  be  obeyed. "t  And  added, 
that  they  should  be  made  to  feel  what  it  was  to 
disobey  him.  The  six  bishops  who  brought  the 
address  replied,  "The  will  of  God  be  done." 

Let  the  reader  now  judge  whether  the  slavish 
doctrine  of  nonresistance  and  unlimited  obedi- 
ence, which  the  High  Church  party  had  been 
preaching  up  for  above  twenty  years  as  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Church  of  England,  had  not  brought 
the  nation  to  the  very  verge  of  ruin.  A  doc- 
trine destructive  of  all  law,  and  of  the  safety  of 
society,  and  which  has  been  fatal  to  many 
crowned  heads.  If  the  king  had  not  relied  on 
the  flattering  addresses  of  these  men,  under 
which  it  seems  there  was  a  reserve,  he  would 
have  stopped  short,  and  taken  other  measures  ; 
but  he  did  not  perceive  the  mine  till  it  was 

*  Burnet,  p.  176.  Welwood's  Memoirs,  p.  184, 
sixth  edition. 

t  Archbishop  Sancroft,  in  this  instance,  acted 
contrary  to  what  had  been  his  conduct  and  avowed 
principle  in  the  former  reign.  For  when,  in  1681, 
Charles  II.  published  his  declaration  to  satisfy  his 
people  about  dissolving  his  Parliament,  Sancroft 
moved  that  an  order  should  be  added  to  it,  requiring 
the  clergy  to  publish  it  in  all  the  churches  in  Eng- 
land. This  was  looked  on.  says  Burnet,  as  a  most 
pernicious  precedent,  by  which  the  clergy  were  made 
the  heralds  to  publish  the  king's  declarations,  that 
might,  ill  some  instances,  come  to  be  not  only  inde- 
cent, but  mischievous.  But  this,  whatever  was 
Jiow  his  judgment,  had  been  his  decided  opinion. 
For,  on  the  present  occasion,  Dr.  Cartwrighl,  the 
bishop  of  Chester,  who  had  been  one  of  the  preben- 
daries of  Durham,  it  appears,  from  a  paper  among 
the  MSS.  of  .Mr.  Talents,  of  Shrewsbury,  which  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Archer,  of  Tunbridge,  could 
produce,  and  did  show  to  the  king,  a  revised  copy  of 
the  liturgy  in  16G1,  given  by  Bishop  Cosiiis  to  the 
library  at  Durham ;  in  which  Sancroft  had  added 
to  the  rubric,  where  it  was  said,  "  Nothing  is  to  be 
read  in  churches  but  by  the  bishop's  order  or  the 
king's  order  "  Yet,  when  King  James  commanded 
a  declaration  in  favour  of  the  Dissenters  to  be  read, 
this  archbishop  was  among  the  first  to  oppose  it,  in 
contradiction  to  the  clause  which  he  had  dictated, 
and  the  example  he  had  given. — Calamy'n  History  of 
his  Chun  Life,  vol.  i.,  p.  173,  176.— Ed. 

1  Burnet,  p.  177. 

Vol.  II.— U  u 


sprung,  and  blew  up  his  whole  government  at 
once.  This  was  the  crisis  upon  which  the  fate 
of  the  nation  depended. 

While  the  king  was  deliberating  what  to  do 
with  the  bishops,  he  was  for  some  time  in  great 
perplexity  ;  several  of  the  popish  nobility  press- 
ed him  to  retreat ;  but  at  length,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  Father  Petre,  Mr.  Lob,  and  some  oth- 
ers, he  ordered  the  bishops  to  be  prosecuted ; 
and  they,  refusing  to  enter  into  bonds  for  their 
appearance  at  the  King's  Bench  bar,  on  account 
of  their  peerage,  were  sent  to  the  Tower  by 
water,*  June  8,  but  were  discharged  within  a 
week,  upon  entering  into  bonds  for  small  sums 
to  answer  to  the  inlbrmation  that  day  fortnight. 
On  the  29th  of  June  they  were  brought  to  the 
King's  Bench  bar  in  Westminster  Hall,  attend- 
ed by  several  of  the  nobility,  and  a  vast  crowd 
of  common  people,  and,  after  a  long  trial  of 
ten  hours,  were  acquitted  :t  upon  which  there 
was  a  general  joy,  and  such  loud  acclamations 
as  resounded  not  only  in  the  city,  but  even  in 
the  army  at  Hounslow.t 

The  bishop's  address  was  printed  by  author- 
ity, with  a  sat-rical  paraphrase,  setting  forth, 


*  The  bishops,  as  they  took  boat,  looked  all  very 
cheerfully;  and  the  peojile  flocked  round  them  in 
great  numbers,  to  condole  with  them,  and  ask  their 
blessing.  When  they  were  confined,  ten  Noncon- 
formist ministers  visited  them ;  which  the  king  took 
very  heinously,  and  sent  for  four  of  them,  and  repri- 
manded them.  Their  answer  was,  "  that  they  could 
not  but  adhere  to  the  bishops,  as  men  constant  and 
firm  to  the  Protestant  faith."  Even  the  soldiers  that 
kept  guard  would  frequently  drink  health  to  the 
bishops  ;  and  when  an  order  was  sent  to  the  captain 
of  the  guard  to  see  it  was  done  no  more,  the  reply 
was,  "  that  the  soldiers  were  doing  it  at  the  very  in- 
stant, and  would,  during  the  imprisonment  of  the 
bishops,  drink  no  other  health."  So  that,  in  an  ear- 
ly stage  of  this  prosecution,  one  of  the  privy  coun- 
cil owned,  "  that  had  the  king  known  how  far  the 
thing  would  have  gone,  he  had  never  enjoined  the 
reading  of  the  declaration  in  the  churches.'' — Reres- 
by's  Memoirs,  p.  261,  262. — Ed. 

t  "  There  were,"  Dr.  Welwood  observes,  "  two 
remarkable  things  in  this  trial.  King  James  saw  the 
illegality  of  his  new-assumed  prerogative  exposed  on 
one  of  the  most  solemn  causes,  in  Westminster  Hall, 
before  one  of  the  greatest  auditories,  by  the  counsel 
of  the  bishops  ;  who  boldly  and  learnedly  argued 
against  the  dispensing  power,  and  proved  it,  by  in- 
vincible arguments,  to  be  an  open  violation  of  the 
laws  and  Constitution  of  the  kingdom."  Another 
remarkable  circumstance  was,  '•  that  they  who  had 
contributed  to  enslave  their  cnuntry  by  false  notions 
of  law,  now  changed  their  opinion  ;  and  others  who, 
through  two  successive  Parliaments,  had,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  their  own  sufferings,  .stood  up  for  the  liber- 
ty of  their  country,  did  now  endeavour  to  stretch  the 
prerogative  beyond  its  just  limits,  as  they  had  before 
opposed  it.  So  hard  is  it  for  niaukiiid  to  be,  at  all 
times,  and  upon  all  turns,  constant  to  themselves." — 
Wdwond's  Mimoirs,  p.  185.  186. —  En. 

X  The  bishops  were  complimented  on  their  victo- 
ry, in  the  highest  manner,  by  all  orders  of  men. 
They  were  ranked  with  the  primitive  confessors,  and 
loaded  with  praises:  they  were  compared  to  the  seven 
golden  candlesticks,  and  to  the  seven  stars  in  Christ's 
right  hand.  Their  pictures  were  publicly  sold  in  all 
printsellers'  shops,  and  bought  up  in  vast  numbers, 
as  guardians  of  the  laws,  liberties,  an<l  religion  of  their 
country.  Their  conduct  affected  King  James  more 
than  any  other  opposition  he  met  with. — Dr.  Grey's 
Eiamination,  vol.  iii.,  p.  420,  421.  And  on  the  day 
after  the  trial,  he  was  observed  to  labour  under  a 
very  great  disturbance  of  mind. — Sir  John  Reresby's 
Memoirs,  p.  264, — Ed. 


338 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


that  though  the  bishops  had,  without  any  bow- 
els of  tenderness,  exercised  many  inhuman  cru- 
elties upon  the  Dissenters,  they  promise  now  to 
come  to  a  temper,  but  it  is  only  such  a  one  as 
they  themselves  should  settle  in  convocation  ; 
and  though  they  had  all  along  vigorously  en- 
deavoured to  advance  above  all  law  that  arbi- 
trary power  upon  which  they  suppose  his  maj- 
esty's declaration  was  founded,  when  it  could 
be  strained  to  the  oppression  of  Dissenters,  yet 
now  they  oppose  it,  and  are  desirous  in  this 
juncture  (as  in  the  year  1672)  that  the  laws  for 
persecution  should  retain  their  force,  and  the 
dispensing powernot  to  be  countenanced,  though 
designed  for  a  general  good. 

But  this  was  too  late  ;  the  controversy  be- 
tween the  court  and  the  Church  was  now  no 
longer  to  be  decided  by  the  pen  ;  and  it  was  ap- 
parent, beyond  contradiction,  that  the  hearts  of 
the  people  were  alienated  from  the  king  ;  even 
the  Dissenters  (says  Echard)  showed  an  unusu- 
al readiness  to  join  the  Church  against  their 
common  enemy  ;  and  whatever  might  be  in  the 
hearts  of  some,  the  Church  party  continued  to 
discover  an  equal  willingness  to  coalesce  with 
the  Dissenters.  When  Dr.  Lloyd,  bishop  of  St. 
Asaph,  passed  through  Oswestry,  in  Shropshire, 
he  sent  for  Mr.  James  Owen,  the  dissenting 
minister,  and  ventured  to  acquaint  him  with  the 
secret  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's  invitation  by 
some  great  persons,  in  which  he  had  joined  ; 
and  added,  he  hoped  the  Protestant  Dissenters 
would  concur  in  promoting  the  common  inter- 
est, for  you  and  we  are  brethren  (says  he) ;  we 
have,  indeed,  been  angry  brethren,  but  we  have 
seen  our  folly,  and  are  resolved,  if  ever  we  have 
it  in  our  power,  to  show  that  we  will  treat  you 
as  brethren. 

Even  Archbishop  Sancroft,*  in  the  circular 
letter  which  he  sent  to  the  clergy  of  his  province, 
exhorted  them  to  cultivate  a  good  correspond- 
ence with  the  Dissenters. f  The  eleventh  arti- 
cle of  his  letter.t  dated  July  16,  has  these  words : 
"That  they  (viz.,  the  clergy)  should  walk  in 
wisdom  towards  them  who  are  not  of  our  com- 
munion ;  and  if  there  be  in  their  parishes  any 
such,  that  they  neglect  not  frequently  to  con- 
verse with  them  in  the  spirit  of  meekness,  seek- 
ing by  all  good  ways  and  means  to  gain  and 
win  them  over  to  our  communion  ;  more  espe- 
cially that  they  have  a  tender  regard  to  our 
brethren  the  Protestant  Dissenters  ;  that  upon 
occasion  ofTered  they  visit  them  at  their  houses, 
and  receive  them  kindly  at  their  own.  and  treat 
them  fairly  wherever  they  meet  them,  persua- 


■*■  Sancroft  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  integrity. 
At  the  Revolution  he  refused  to  take  the  oaths  to 
the  new  government,  for  which,  of  course,  he  was 
suspended  and  deprived  ;  he  died  in  retirement,  No- 
vember 24,  1693.— Waliori's  Lives,  p.  392.— C. 

t  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  385. 

I  One  of  the  articles  of  this  letter  enjoined  the  cler- 
gy, four  times  at  least  in  the  year,  to  teach  the  peo- 
ple, in  their  semions,  "  that  the  king's  power  being 
in  his  dominions  highest  under  God,  all  priests  should, 
upon  all  occasions,  persuade  the  people  to  loyalty 
and  obedience  to  his  majesty,  in  all  things  lawful,  and 
to  patient  submission  in  the  rest,  promoting,  as  far  as 
in  them  lies,  the  public  peace  and  quiet  of  the  world." 
This  was  a  renewal  of  certain  orders,  issued  out  to 
the  several  bishops  of  their  provinces,  with  the  king's 
consent,  by  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and  York, 
August  4th,  1G22,  and  repeated  m  the  reign  of  Charles 
l\.—Hi-jh  Church  Politics,  p.  84.— Ed. 


ding  them  (if  it  may  be)  to  a  full  compliance 
with  our  church  ;  or,  at  least,  that  whereunlo 
wc  have  already  attained,  we  may  all  walk  by 
the  same  rule,  and  mind  the  same  things ;  and 
in  order  thereunto,  that  they  take  opportunities 
of  assuring  and  convincing  them  that  the  bishops 
of  this  church  are  really  and  sincerely  irrecon- 
cilable enemies  to  the  errors,  superstitions,  idol- 
atries, and  tyrannies  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ; 
and  that  the  very  unkind  jealousies  which  some 
have  had  of  us  to  the  contrary  were  altogether 
groundless.  And  in  the  last  place,  that  they 
warmly  and  affectionately  join  us  in  daily  fer- 
vent prayer  to  the  God  of  peace  for  a  universal 
blessed  union  of  all  Reformed  churches  at  home 
and  abroad  against  our  common  enemy."  Such 
was  the  language  of  the  Church  in  distress  !* 

It  was  often  said,  that  if  ever  God  should  de- 
liver them  out  of  their  present  distress,  they 
would  keep  up  their  domestic  quarrels  no  more  ;t 
which  were  so  visibly  and  yet  artfully  managed 
by  our  adversaries,  as  to  make  us  devour  one 
another.  Again,  "  I  do  assure  you,  and  I  am 
certain  I  have  the  best  grounds  in  the  world  for 
my  assurance,"  says  one,  "  that  the  bishops, 
when  the  happy  opportunity  shall  offer  itself, 
will  let  the  Protestant  Dissenters  find  that  they 
will  be  better  than  their  word  given  in  their  fa- 
mous petition. "t  Remarkable  are  the  words 
of  another  reverend  divine  on  the  same  occa- 
sion :  "  The  bishops  have  under  their  hands 
declared  their  dispositions  to  come  to  a  temper 
in  matters  of  conformity,  and  there  seems  to  be 
no  doubt  of  their  sincerity.  If  ever  God  brings 
us  into  a  settled  state  out  of  the  storms  into 
which  our  passions  and  folly,  as  well  as  the 
treachery  of  others,  have  led  us,  it  cannot  bo 
imagined  that  the  bishops  will  go  off  from  those 
moderate  resolutions  which  they  have  now  de- 
clared ;  and  they  continuing  firm,  the  weak  and 
indiscreet  passions  of  any  of  the  inferior  clergy- 
must  needs  vanish.  And  I  will  boldly  say,  that 
if  the  Church  of  England,  after  she  has  got  out 
of  this  storm,  will  return  to  hearken  to  the  pee- 
vishness of  some  sour  men,  she  will  be  abandon- 
ed both  of  God  and  man,  and  will  set  heaven 
and  earth  against  her.  The  nation  sees  too 
clearly  how  dear  the  dispute  about  conformity 
has  cost  us,  to  stand  upon  such  punctilios  ;  and 
those  in  whom  our  deliverance  is  wrapped  up 
judge  too  right,  that  ever  they  will  be  priest- 
ridden  in  this  point.  And  if  any  argument  was 
wanting  to  conclude  the  certainty  of  this  point, 
the  wise  and  generous  behaviour  of  the  main 
body  of  the  Dissenters  in  this  present  juncture 
has  given  them  so  just  a  title  to  our  friendship, 
that  we  must  resolve  to  set  all  the  world  against 


*  It  was  rather  a  novel  sight  for  bishops  to  call  the 
Nonconformists  brethren,  and  to  ask  favours  of 
those  whom  they  had  been  trampling  under  their  feet. 
What  a  change,  however,  will  not  adversity  effect ! 
a  dying  profligate,  with  his  crimes  staring  in  his 
face,  commonly  promises  amendment  should  he  be 
restored  to  health  ;  but  as  his  resolution  is  built  upon 
fear,  it  vanishes  when  that  subsides,  and  he  returns 
to  his  former  evil  courses  The  Church  of  England 
was  then  in  an  eclipse,  a  very  proper  time  to  reflect 
upon  her  past  crimes  ,  but  her  humility  was  the  ofl^- 
spring  of  necessity,  and  therefore  forgotten  when  she 
assumed  the  reins.  Is  it  possible  in  all  this  not  to 
discover  the  vilest  hypocrisy? — Wilson's  Dissenting 
Churches,  vol.  iv.,  p.  528.— C.  t   Bumct,  p.  142. 

i  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  33G. 


HISTORY    OF  THE  PURITANS. 


339 


US  if  we  can  ever  forget  it ;  and  if  we  do  not 
make  them  all  the  returns  of  ease  and  favour 
when  it  is  in  our  power  to  do  it."* 

The  reader  has  now  seen  the  various  and 
strong  assurances  of  favour,  given  by  the  Church 
party  in  distress,  to  the  Nonconformists,  all 
which,  in  a  few  months,  entirely  evaporated. 
Nevertheless,  I  am  fully  of  opinion  that  the  Low 
Church  clergy  meant  honestly,  and  designed  to 
be  as  good  as  their  word  ;  for  which  purpose,  a 
scheme  was  proposed  to  review  and  amend  the 
liturgy  by  corrections  and  additions,  and  leav- 
ing some  few  ceremonies  indifferent ;  hut  there 
was  another  party  which  lay  behind  the  curtain, 
and  meant  no  more  by  their  protestations  and 
promises  than  to  deliver  themselves  out  of 
trouble ;  who,  as  they  renounced  the  doctrine 
of  nonresistance  only  to  serve  their  turn,  when 
that  was  effected  they  seemed  willing  to  forget 
what  they  had  done,  and  were  desirous  of  be- 
coming as  cruel  persecutors  as  ever  ;  they  were 
enemies  to  revolution  principles  ;  and  when  the 
Prince  of  Orange  had  rescued  them,  they  would 
have  sent  him  back  from  whence  he  came ; 
these  men  were  afterward  distinguished  by  the 
names  of  Nonjurors,  Jacobites,  and  High-fliers, 
whose  numbers  were  greater  than  the  Low 
Church  clergy  imagined.  They  prevailed  in 
convocation,  intimidated  the  friends  of  liberty 
and  moderation,  and  put  an  effectual  stop  to  all 
farther  attempts  of  a  general  comprehension. t 
While  the  bishops  were  in  the  Tower,  and 
the  Princess  Anne  at  Bath,  the  queen  was  de- 
clared to  be  delivered  of  a  prince  on  Sunday, 
June  10,  between  the  hours  of  nine  and  ten  in 
the  morning.  This  mysterious  birth  was  con- 
ducted with  great  artifice  or  great  imprudence  ; 
no  care  had  been  taken  to  satisfy  the  Protestant 
part  of  the  nation  that  the  queen  was  with  child, 
though  it  was  ridiculed  in  pamphlets  dispersed 
about  Whitehall.  None  of  the  Protestant  la- 
dies were  admitted  to  be  with  her  when  she 
changed  her  linen  ;  nor  to  see  the  milk  in  her 
breasts,  nor  to  feel  the  child  move  within  her ; 
but  all  about  her  were  Italian  women.  The 
place  where  her  majesty  was  to  lie  in  was  un- 
known till  a  few  days  before  her  delivery  ;  and 
it  was  oddly  circumstanced  as  to  time,  most  of 
the  Protestant  ladies  being  out  of  the  v/ay,  and 
preparing  for  church  ;  the  Dutch  ambassador, 
then  in  town,  was  not  called  to  be  a  witness, 
on  behalf  of  the  Princess  of  Orange,  the  pre- 
sumptive heir  ;  all  being  finished  in  about  two 
hours.  The  birth  was  attended  with  great  re- 
joicings of  the  popish  party;  a  day  of  public 
thanksgiving  was  appointed,  on  which  occasion 
a  form  of  thanksgiving  was  prepared  by  the 
Bishop  of  Rochester,  and  a  new  set  of  congrat- 
ulations sent  up  IVom  all  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
Bishop  Burnet,  Mr.  Echard,  and  others,  have 
examined  into  the  legitimacy  of  this  birth  with 
all  possible  exactness,  but  they  have  left  the 
matter  under  great  uncertainties.  Some  have 
pronounced  it  supposititious,  and  no  better  than 
the  last  desperate  effort  of  the  popish  party  to 
perpetuate  their  religion.  Others,  who  credited 
the  birth,  have  assigned  very  plausible  reasons 
to  suspect  that  the  present  pretender  was  not 
the  queen's  child,  but  another's  clandestinely 
substituted.     Bishop  Burnet  is  of  opinion  that 

*  Calainy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  42G. 
+  Calany's  Abridgment,  p.  384,  note 


the  proofs  of  its  legitimacy  were  defective. 
However,  all  the  hopes  of  a  Protestant  succes- 
sor seemed  now  at  an  end,  and  the  joys  of  the 
papists  consummated,  the  English  reformation 
was  expiring,  and  nothing  short  of  a  total  sub- 
version of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ment to  be  expected. 

The  Princess  of  Orange  being  thus  cut  off 
from  the  succession,  his  highness  gave  greater 
attention  to  the  advices  he  received  from  Eng- 
land of  the  queen's  having  miscarried  some 
months  before,  and  that  therefore  the  present 
child  must  be  supposititious.  The  Church  par- 
ty, being  driven  to  distress  from  their  favourite 
doctrine  of  nonresistance,  fled  with  others  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange  as  their  last  refuge,  and 
prayed  him  to  come  over  to  their  rescue  ;  with 
this  view,  Adiriiral  Russel,  and  several  eminent 
persons,  repaired  to  the  Hague  on  various  plau- 
sible pretences,  butin  reality  to  invite  the  prince, 
and  concert  measures  with  him  for  his  expedi- 
tion to  England  ;  who  received  them  favourably, 
and  discovered  a  good  disposition  to  espouse 
their  cause,  considering  that  his  own  right  to 
the  crown  was  now  lost,  and  that  if  popery  was 
estabhshed  in  England,  Holland,  and  the  rest 
of  the  Reformed  interests,  must  be  exposed  to 
the  utmost  hazard.  Little  persuasion  was 
wanting  to  prevail  with  the  States-General  to 
assist  the  English  Protestants  ;  but  all  the  dif- 
ficulty was  to  keep  it  secret  while  they  were 
preparing  for  so  difficult  an  undertaking.  The 
States  made  use  of  the  differences  about  the 
election  of  an  Archbishop  of  Cologne  as  a  rea- 
son to  form  an  army  for  the  security  of  their 
own  borders  ;  and  the  prince,  who  had  the  ad- 
ministration in  his  hands,  set  himself  under  this 
cover  to  prepare  all  necessaries  for  his  intended 
embarcation,  while  Mr.  Zuylestein  brought  him 
from  time  to  time  the  strongest  assurances  of 
the  disposition  of  the  body  of  the  English  Prot- 
estants to  appear  for  him  at  his  landing,  which 
fully  fixed  him  in  his  purpose. 

But  the  French  ambassador  at  the  Hague 
kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  the  prince's  motions, 
and  gave  timely  notice  of  the  extraordinary 
peparations  for  war  that  were  making  in  Hol- 
land, to  his  master  Louis  XIV.,  from  whom 
King  James  had  the  first  intelligence.  Mr. 
Skelton,the  English  envoy  at  Paris,  also  wrote 
five  or  six  letters  to  court  on  the  same  head  ; 
but  King  James  gave  little  heed  to  his  advices, 
because  the  Prince  of  Orange  carried  it  in  a 
most  courteous  and  respectful  manner,  compli- 
menting his  majesty  on  the  birth  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  and  causing  his  name  to  be  added  to 
the  rest  of  the  princes  of  the  royal  family  to  be 
prayed  for  in  his  chapel.  However,  the  French 
king  continued  to  alarm  the  court  of  England 
with  the  intended  invasion,  and  offered  to  send 
over  fifteen  thousand  men,  or  as  many  more  as 
should  be  wanted,  to  his  assistance  ;  hut  the 
Earl  of  Sunderland,  who  had  lately  compliment- 
ed the  king  with  his  religion,  prevailed  with 
his  majesty  not  to  transport  an  army  of  French 
papists  into  his  dominions,  lest  it  should  con- 
firm the  suspicions  of  the  Protestants,  that  he 
designed  the  overthrow  of  their  religion  and 
liberties.* 

The  king,  being  at  length  convinced  of  the 
Prmce  of  Orange's  design,  ordered  the  fleet  to 
'  Burnet,  p.  217. 


310 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


be  fitted  out,  and  the  army  to  be  augmented ; 
and  despatched  orders  to  Tyrconnel  to  send 
hither  several  regiments  from  Ireland,  which 
put  the  people  under  terrible  apprehensions  of 
an  Irish  massacre. 

September  21,  his  majesty  issued  oul  his 
proclamation  for  the  meeting  of  a  new  Parlia- 
ment, "  intimating  his  royal  purpose  to  endeav- 
our a  legal  establishment  of  a  universal  tolera- 
tion, and  inviolably  to  preserve  the  Church  of 
England  in  possession  of  the  several  acts  of 
uniformity,  as  far  as  they  were  consistent  with 
such  a  toleration.*  And  farther  to  quiet  the 
minds  of  his  Protestant  subjects,  he  was  con- 
tent that  the  Roman  Catholics  should  remain 
incapable  of  being  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  so  the  Legislature  might  con- 
tinue in  the  hands  of  the  Protestants."  Sep- 
tember 23,  the  king  was  farther  assured,  by  let- 
ters from  the  Marquis  of  Abbeville  at  the  Hague, 
that  pensionary  Fagel  had  owned  the  design  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange  to  invade  England. t  Upon 
which,  the  king  turned  pale  and  speechless  for 
a  while,  and  like  a  distracted  man  looked  round 
every  way  for  relief,  but  was  resolute  in  no- 
thing. He  postponed  the  meeting  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, and,  by  advice  of  his  council,  applie'd  to 
the  bishops  then  in  town  for  advice  what  was 
necessary  to  be  done  to  make  the  Church  easy. 
The  bishops  moved  him  to  annul  the  ecclesias- 
tical commission,  and  the  dispensing  power  ; 
to  recall  all  licenses  and  faculties  for  papists  to 
keep  schools  ;  to  prohibit  the  four  pretended  vic- 
ars apostolical  invading  the  ecclesiastical  ju- 
risdiction ;  to  fill  the  vacant  bishoprics  ;  to  re- 
store the  charters,  and  to  call  a  free  and  regu- 
lar Parliament,  by  which  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land might  be  secured  according  to  the  Act  of 
Uniformity  ;  and  provision  made  for  a  due  lib- 
erty of  conscience.  Pursuant  to  this  advice, 
the  king  and  court  began  to  tread  backward, 
concluding,  that  if  they  could  satisfy  the  bish- 
ops and  recover  the  affection  of  the  Church,  all 
would  do  well.  The  Bishop  of  London's  sus- 
pension was  taken  off,  the  ecclesiastical  com- 
mission dissolved,  the  city  charter  and  the  fel- 
lows of  Magdalen  College  were  restored,  and 
other  illegal  practices  renounced  ;t  but  upon 
the  news  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's  fleet  being 
dispersed  by  a  storm,  and  that  they  would  hard- 
ly be  able  to  put  to  sea  again  till  next  spring, 
his  majesty  withdrew  his  hand  from  any  farther 
redress  of  grievances. 

But  the  prince  having  repaired  the  damages 
of  the  storm,  sailed  a  second  time,  November  1, 
and  after  a  remarkable  passage,  in  which  the 
wind  chopped  about  almost  miraculously  in  his 
favour,(^  landed  at  Torbay,  November  .5,  with 
about  fourteen  thousand  men,  without  meeting 

*  Gazette,  No.  23^1.  t  Ibid.,  No.  2386. 

t  Ibid.,  Nos.  2388,  2391. 

()  Bishop  Burnet,  who  minutely  describes  the  cir- 
cmnslances  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's  landing,  says, 
that  though  he  was  never  inclined  to  superstition, 
but  rather  to  be  philosophical  on  all  occasions,  yet 
the  strange  ordering  of  the  winds  and  seasons  to 
change,  just  as  their  affairs  required  it,  made  a  deep 
impression  on  himself,  and  on  all  who  observed  it. 
The  famous  verses  of  Claudian  seemed  to  he  more 
applicable  to  ihe  prince  than  to  him  on  whom  they 
were  made  : 

"  O  nimiu.n  dilecto  Beo,  cm  militat  lEther, 
Et  conjurati  veniunt  ad  classica  venti." 


the  king's  fleet,  which  was  at  sea  in  order  to 
intercept  them.  The  prince  brought  over  with 
him  a  declaration,  dated  October  10,  divided 
into  twenty-six  articles,  but  reducible  to  three 
principal  heads:  1.  An  enumeration  of  the  pub- 
lic grievances,  with  regard  to  religion  and  civil 
government.  2.  The  fruitless  attempts  which 
had  been  made  to  redress  those  grievances  . 
under  which  mention  is  made  of  the  suspicious 
birth  of  the  pretended  Prince  of  Wales.  3.  A 
protestation  that  the  present  expedition  was  in- 
tended for  no  other  purpose  than  to  procure  a 
free  and  lawful  Parliament  ;  to  which  the 
prince  would  refer  the  redress  of  all  the  griev- 
ances complained  of;  and  for  the  obtaining 
such  a  Parliament,  his  highness  declares  he  had 
been  most  earnestly  solicited  by  a  great  many 
lords,  both  spiritual*  and  temporal,  and  by  many 
gentlemen,  and  other  subjects  oT  all  ranks,  to 
come  over  to  England  ;  and  to  encourage  the 
Protestant  Dissenters,  his  highness  adds,  that 
he  would  recommend  to  the  Parliament  the 
making  such  new  laws  as  might  establish  a 
good  agreement  between  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  all  Protestant  Nonconformists,  and  in 
the  mean  time  would  suffer  such  as  would  live 
peaceably  to  enjoy  all  due  freedom  in  their  con- 
sciences. 

The  king,  who  had  relied  too  much  on  the 
clergy's  professions  of  unlimited  obedience,  be- 
ing surprised  at  the  expressions  in  the  prince's 
declaration  that  he  had  been  invited  by  the 
lords  spiritual,  sent  for  the  bishops  then  in 
town,  and  insisted  not  only  upon  their  disown- 
ing the  fact,  but  upon  their  signing  a  paper,  ex- 
pressing their  abhorrence  of  the  intended  inva- 
sion ;  but  they  excused  themselves  only  with  a 
general  profession  of  their  allegiance  and  duty. 
The  Church  party,  says  Burnet, t  now  showed 
their  approbation  of  the  prince's  expedition  in 
such  terms  that  many  were  surprised  at  it, 
both    then    and   since   that   time ;    they  spoke 


"  Heaven's  favourite,  for  whom  the  skies  do  fight. 
And  all  the  winds  conspire  to  guide  thee  right." 
— Burnet's  History,  vol.  iii.,  p.  252,  Edin.  edit.,  12mo. 
—Ed. 

*  Dr.  Grey,  though  he  cannot  deny  that  the  Prince 
of  Orange  averred,  in  his  declaration,  that  he  was  in- 
vited over  by  lords  spiritual,  yet  is  not  inclined  to 
admit  the  fact.  He  quotes,  with  a  view  to  invalidate 
it,  some  letters  from  Sir  Jonathan  Trelawny,  bishop 
of  Winchester,  written  to  Mr.  Echard  in  the  years 
1716  and  1718-19,  in  which  this  concurrence  of  the 
bishops,  and  of  themselves,  m  the  invitation  to  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  is  absolutely  denied.  To  these 
assertions  is  added  a  memorandum,  made  by  Sir 
Jonathan  Trelawny,  of  a  conversation  which  he  had 
with  Mr.  Francis  Robarts,  son  to  the  Earl  of  Rad- 
nor, shortly  after  the  king's  coronation,  on  this  point ; 
who  said  that  he  had  asked  Commissary  William 
Harbord,  that  came  over  with  the  prince,  whether  it 
was  true  that  the  bishops  had  taken  a  part  in  that 
invitation.  To  which  Harbord  answered,  with  a 
cui'se,  "  No,  they  were  not  sn  honest.  But  I  caused 
it  to  be  put  in  to  raise  a  jealousy  and  haired  on  both 
sides,  that  King  James  believing  it,  might  never  for- 
give them ;  and  they,  fearing  he  did  believe  it, 
might  be  provoked,  for  their  own  safety,  to  wish  and 
help  on  his  ruin."  Against  these  authorities,  it  is  to 
be  observed  that  Bishop  Burnet  asserts,  that  the 
Earl  of  Danby  drew  in  the  Bishop  of  London  to  join 
m  the  design  of  bringing  over  the  Prince  of  Orange  ; 
and  that  Trelawny,  besides  going  mto  it,  engaged 
also  his  brother,  the  Bishop  of  Bristol,  into  it— Grey's 
Examination,  vol.  iii..  p.  422 ;  and  Burnet,  vol.  in.,  p. 
214,  215.— Ed.  t  Burnet,  p.  243,  244 


HISTORY  OF  THE    PURITANS. 


341 


openly  in  favour  of  it ;  they  expressed  their 
grief  to  see  the  wind  so  cross,  and  wished  for  a 
Protestant  wind  that  might  bring  the  prince 
over.  His  majesty,  therefore,  finding  himself 
deceived  in  the  Church  party,  and  that  he  had 
no  other  reliance  but  his  army,  used  all  imagi- 
nable ddigence  to  strengthen  it.  In  obedience 
to  the  orders  already  given,  two  thousand  five 
hundred  men  [chiefly  papists]  were  landed  at 
Chester  from  Ireland.  Commissions  were  giv- 
en out  for  raising  ten  new  regiments  of  horse 
and  foot.  Three  thousand  Scots  were  ordered 
from  that  country.  All  the  militia  were  com- 
manded to  be  in  readiness  to  march  on  the  first 
summons  ;  and  a  proclamation  was  issued  out, 
requiring  all  horses  and  cattle  to  be  removed 
twenty  miles  from  those  parts  of  the  seacoast 
where  it  was  apprehended  the  prince  would 
land  ;  but  so  great  was  the  people's  disaffec- 
tion, that  they  paid  little  regard  to  his  majesty's 
orders. 

Soon  after  his  highness's  landing,  the  body 
of  the  nation  discovered  their  inclinations  so 
evidently,  that  the  king  lost  both  head  and 
heart  at  once.  The  city  of  London  was  in  con- 
fusion ;  reports  were  spread  that  the  Irish 
would  cut  the  throats  of  the  Protestants  through- 
out the  nation  in  one  and  the  same  night,  which 
awakened  the  people's  fears,  and  kept  them  all 
night  on  their  guard.  When  this  fright  was  al- 
layed, the  mob  rose  and  pulled  down  the  mass- 
houses,  and  burned  the  materials  in  the  streets : 
Father  Petre,  with  the  swarms  of  priests  and 
•  Jesuits  who  had  flocked  about  the  court,  disap- 
peared, and  retired  into  foreign  parts  ;  and  sev- 
eral of  the  king's  arbitrary  ministers,  who  had 
brought  him  under  these  difficulties,  forsook 
him  and  absconded.  Jefferies  was  taken  in 
Wapping  in  a  sailor's  habit,  and  would  have 
been  torn  in  pieces  by  the  mob  if  he  had  not 
been  conducted  by  a  strong  guard  to  the  Tower, 
where  he  died  before  he  came  to  his  trial.  The 
unhappy  king,  being  left  in  a  manner  alone,  re- 
tired with  a  small  retinue  to  his  army  at  Salis- 
bury. 

The  Prince  of  Orange,  having  refreshed  his 
forces,  marched  from  Torbay  to  Exeter,  where 
the  nobility  and  gentiy  signed  an  association  to 
support  and  assist  his  highness  in  pursuing  the 
ends  of  his  .declaration,  and  that  if  any  attempt 
was  made  on  his  person,  it  should  be  revenged 
on  all  by  whom  or  from  whom  it  should  be 
made.  Great  numbers  of  common  people  came 
in  to  the  prince  at  Exeter ;  and  as  soon  as  he 
marched  forward  towards  London,  Prince 
George  of  Denmark,  the  Dukes  of  Ormond, 
Grafton,  Lord  Wharton,  Churchill,  and  others 
of  the  first  distinction,  deserted  the  army  at 
Salisbury,  and  joined  the  prince,  with  a  great 
many  Protestant  officers  and  soldiers  :  so  that 
his  majesty  perceived  that  even  the  army,  which 
was  his  last  refuge,  was  not  to  be  relied  on  ; 
and  to  complete  his  unhappiness,  Princess 
Anne,  his  younger  daughter,  withdrew  private- 
ly from  court,  with  the  Bishop  of  London,  who 
put  on  his  buff  coat  and  sword,  and  commanded 
a  little  army  for  her  highness's  defence. 

Dr.  Finch,  son  to  the  Earl  of  Winchelsea,  and 
warden  of  All  Souls  College  in  Oxford,  was  sent 
to  the  prince  from  some  of  the  heads  of  col- 
leges to  invite  him  to  Oxford,  and  to  assure 
him  they  were  ready  to  declare  for  him,  and 


that  their  plate  should  be  at  his  service.  The 
prince  intended  to  have  accepted  their  invita- 
tion, but  all  things  being  in  a  ferment  at  Lon- 
don, he  was  advised  to  make  all  the  haste  thith- 
er that  he  could.*  So  he  sent  to  Oxford  to  ex- 
cuse his  visit,  and  to  offer  them  the  associa- 
tion, vvhich  was  signed  by  almost  all  the  heads 
and  the  chief  men  of  the  university ;  even  by 
those  who,  being  disappointed  in  the  prefer- 
ments they  aspired  to,  became  afterward  his 
most  implacable  enemies. t  Archbishop  San- 
croft  also  sent  his  compliments  to  the  prince, 
and,  with  seven  or  eight  other  bishops,  signed 
the  association,  having  changed  the  word  re- 
venge into  that  of  punishment.  This  was  a 
sudden  turn,  says  the  bishop,  from  those  prin- 
ciples which  they  had  carried  a  few  years  be- 
fore. The  Dissenters  went  cheerfully  into  all 
the  prince's  measures,  and  were  ready  to  siga 
the  "  association  ;"  there  were  few  or  no  Jaco- 
bites or  Nonjurors  among  them  ;  and  through- 
out the  whole  course  of  King  William's  reign, 
they  were  among  his  most  loyal  and  zealous 
subjects. 

In  this  critical  juncture,  the  queen  and  the 
young  Prmce  of  Wales  were  sent  to  France, 
December  9,  the  king  himself  following  the  lat- 
ter end  of  the  month,  having  first  caused  the 
writs  for  calling  a  new  Parliament  to  be  burn- 
ed, and  the  great  seal  to  be  thrown  into  the 
Thames.l  After  his  majesty's  first  attempt  to 
leave  the  kingdom  he  was  seized  at  Feversham,^ 
and  prevailed  with  to  return  back  to  London  ; 
but  when  the  prince  resolved  to  come  to  White- 
hall, and  sent  his  majesty  a  message  that  he 
thought  it  not  consistent  with  the  peace  of  the 
city,  and  of  the  kingdom,  for  both  of  them  to  be 
there  together,  his  majesty  retired  a  second 
time  to  Rochester  with  the  prince's  consent, 
and  after  a  week's  stay  in  that  place  went  away 
privately  in  a  vessel  to  France,  leaving  a  paper 
behind  him,  in  which  he  declared,  that  though 
he  was  going  to  seek  foreign  assistance,  he 
would  not  make  use  of  it  to  overthrow  the  es- 
tablished religion  or  the  laws  of  his  country. 
Thus  ended  the  short  and  unhappy  reign  of 
James  II.,  and  with  him  the  male  line  of  the 
royal  house  of  Stuarts,  a  race  of  princes  raised 
up  by  Providence  to  be  the  scourge  of  these  na- 
tions, for  they  were  all  chargeable  with  tyranny 
and  oppression,  favourers  of  popery,  and  inva- 
ders of  the  legal  Constitution  of  their  country 
in  Church  and  Stale.  They  enfeebled  the  na- 
tion by  encouraging  licentiousness  of  manners, 
and  sunk  a  bold  and  brave  people  into  contempt 
among  foreign  powers. || 

*  Burnet,  p.  257,  258.  f  Echard,  1138. 

X  Burnet,  p.  2G0,  203. 

i)  He  was  seized  by  Mr.  Hunt,  at  that  time  a  cus- 
tom-house officer,  who  died  so  lately  as  the  24th  of 
July.  1752,  at  Feversham.  He  boar'ied  the  ship  in 
which  the  king  was,  by  virtue  of  his  office ;  and  ta- 
king his  majesty  for  a  suspicious  person,  brought 
him  ashore  without  knowing  his  quality  ;  but  was 
greatly  terrified  when  he  found  it  was  the  king. — 
Gt-ntlei/iari's  Magazine  for  July,  1752,  p.  337. — En. 

II  It  is  a  very  common  thing  for  writers  of  a  cer- 
tain stamp  to  run  down  the  period  of  the  Common- 
wealth as  an  age  of  enthusiasm  and  hypocrisy. 
Those  who  speak  in  this  manner,  however,  would 
do  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  latter  times  of  the  Stu- 
arts; and  consider  if  they  can  be  at  all  equalled  for 
deep-rooted  hypocrisy,  for  the  most  unblushing  h- 
centiousness  of  manners,  for  the  most  deliberate  cru- 


312 


HISTORY    OF   THE    PURITANS. 


Nothing  could  have  been  more  fortnnate  for 
the  Prince  of  Orange  than  the  king's  flight  from 
Rochester  to  France,  which  furnished  a  plausi- 
ble occasion  for  the  Convention  Parliament  to 
pass  a  vote  that  the  king  had  abdicated  tlie 
crown,  and  that  the  throne  was  vacant ;  though 
it  would  have  looked  more  like  a  voluntary  de- 
sertion, if  his  majesty  had  gone  off'  the  first 
time  from  Feversham,  and  had  not  declared  in 
the  paper  he  left  behind  him  that  he  was  going 
to  seek  for  foreign  assistance  :  it  is  certain  the 
king  was  frightened  away  by  his  priests,  who 
possessed  him  with  an  apprehension  that  he 
was  already  a  prisoner  ;  and  by  his  queen,  who 
prevailed  w-ith  him  to  consult  his  own  and  fam- 
ily's safety,  by  leaving  the  kingdom  for  the  pres- 
ent. Thus  a  great  and  powerful  monarch  was 
in  a  few  weeks  reduced  to  a  condition  little  bet- 
ter than  that  of  a  wandering  pilgrim.* 

The  Prince  of  Orange  arrived  at  St.  James's 
December  18,  and  on  the  21st  following,  the 
Bishop  of  London,  with  several  of  the  clergy, 
and  some  dissenting  ministers,  waited  upon  his 
highness  to  congratulate  him  on  the  happy  suc- 
cess of  his  glorious  expedition  ;  when  his  lord- 
ship acquainted  his  highness,  in  the  name  of  the 
clergy,  that  there  were  some  of  their  dissenting 
brethren  present  who  were  herein  entirely  of 
the  same  sentiments  with  themselves.!  But  on 
the  2d  of  January  about  ninety  of  the  Non- 
conformist ministers  attended  the  prince  at  St. 
James's  in  a  distinct  body,  being  introduced  by 
the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  and  the  Lords  Wharton 
and  Wiltshire  ;  when  the  Rev.  Mr.  Howe,  in 
the  name  of  the  rest,  assured  his  highness  "  of 
^  their  grateful  sense  of  his  hazardous  and  hero- 
ical  expedition,  which  the  favour  of  Heaven  had 
made  so  surprisingly  prosperous.  That  they 
esteemed  it  a  common  felicity  that  the  worthy 
patriots  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  this  king- 
dom had  unanimously  concurred  with  his  high- 
ness's  designs,  by  whose  most  prudent  advice 
the  administration  of  public  affairs  was  devolv- 
ed, in  this  difficult  conjuncture,  into  hands 
which  the  nation  and  the  world  knew  to  be  apt 
for  the  greatest  undertakings,  and  so  suitable 
to  the  present  exigency  of  our  case.  They 
promised  their  utmost  endeavours,  in  their  sev- 
eral stations,  to  promote  the  excellent  and  most 
desirable  ends  for  which  his  highness  had  de- 
clared. They  added  their  continual  fervant 
prayers  to  the  Almighty  for  the  preservation  of 
his  highness's  person,  and  the  success  of  his 
future  endeavours  for  the  defence  and  propaga- 
tion of  the  Protestant  interest  throughout  the 
Christian  world  ;  that  they  should  all  most  will- 
ingly have  chosen  that  lime  for  the  season  of 
paying  their  duty  to  his  highness,  when  the 
lord-bishop  and  the  clergy  of  London  attended 
his  highness  for  the  same  purpose  (which  some 
of  them  did.  and  which  his  lordship  was  pleased 
condescendingly  to  make  mention  of  to  his  high- 
ness),  had  their  notice  of  that  intended  applica- 


elties  committed  under  a  pretence  of  religion,  and 
for  a  barefaced  invasion  of  the  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erties of  Englishmen.  A  careful  examination  of  this 
period  must  excite  in  every  one  who  makes  any  pre- 
tensions lo  Christianity  or  a  love  of  freedom,  senti- 
ments of  rooted  disgust  at  a  political  hierarchy  usurp- 
ing the  name  of  a  church,  and  at  a  race  of  kings 
who  should  have  been  banished  at  a  much  earlier 
period. —  Wilson,  vol.  iv.,  p.  529. — C. 

*  Burnet,  p.  274.  t  Calamy,  p.  387. 


tion  been  so  early  as  to  make  their  more  gen- 
eral attendance  possible  at  that  time.  There- 
fore, though  they  did  now  appear  in  a  distinct 
company,  it  was  not  on  a  distinct  account,  but 
on  that  only  which  was  common  to  them,  and 
to  all  Protestants  ;  and  though  there  were  some 
of  their  brethren  of  eminent  note  whom  age  or 
present  infirmities  hindered  from  coming  witk 
them,  yet  they  concurred  in  the  same  grateful 
sense  of  their  common  deliverance."*  His 
highness  received  them  very  favourably,  and 
returned  them  the  following  answer:  "My  great 
end  was  the  preservation  of  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion ;  and,  with  the  Almighty's  assistance  and 
permission,  so  to  defend  and  support  the  same,  as 
may  give  it  strength  and  reputation  throughout 
the  world,  sufficient  to  preserve  it  from  the  in- 
sults and  oppression  of  its  most  implacable  ene- 
mies ;  and  that  more  immediately  in  these  king- 
doms of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  ;  and 
I  will  use  my  utmost  endeavours  so  to  settle 
and  cement  all  different  persuasions  of  Protest- 
ants in  such  a  bond  of  love  and  community,  as 
may  contribute  to  the  lasting  security  and  en- 
joyment of  spirituals  and  temporals  to  all  sin- 
cere professors  of  that  holy  religion." 

In  order  to  settle  the  government,  the  prince 
published  an  order,  desiring  all  persons  who  had 
served  as  knights,  citizens,  or  burgesses,  in  any 
of  the  Parliaments  in  the  reign  of  King  Charles 
II.,  to  meet  him  at  St.  James's  on  Wednesday, 
the  26th  of  December,  at  ten  in  the  morning  ; 
and  that  the  lord-mayor  and  court  of  aldermen 
of  the  city  of  London  would  be  present,  and  fifty 
of  the  Common  Council.!  This  assembly  de- 
sired the  prince  to  take  upon  himself  the  admin- 
istration of  the  government  for  the  present  ; 
and  a  Convention  Parliament  was  chosen  with 
all  expedition,  in  which  various  methods  were 
proposed  of  settling  the  government :  some  were 
for  compromising  matters  with  King  James, 
and  others  for  a  regency ;  but  after  long  and 
warm  debates,  the  throne  was  declared  vacant, 
King  James  having  abdicated  the  government, 
and  broken  the  original  contract  with  his  peo- 
ple. When  the  question  was  put  whether  to 
fill  the  throne  with  a  king  or  to  appoint  a  regent, 
it  was  carried  for  the  former  only  by  two  voices, 
fifty-one  being  for  a  king,  and  forty-nine  for  a 
regent,  among  which  latter  were  twelve  or  thir- 
teen bishops,  two  only,  viz.,  the  Bishops  of  Lon 
don  and  Bristol,  being  for  a  king ;  the  reason 
of  which  was,  their  reluctance  to  contradict  the 
doctrine  they  had  been  so  long  preaching,  vi/.. 
that  the  regal  power  was  jure  divino,  and  his 
majesty's  character  indelible.  They  had,  in- 
deed, concurred  in  inviting  the  Prince  of  Or- 
ange to  come  to  the  relief  of  their  religion  ;  but, 
the  storm  being  appeased,  they  thought  it  not 
incumbent  on  them  wholly  to  depart  from  their 
old  principles,  and  therefore  voted  for  a  regen- 
cy ;  but,  the  question  being  carried  (says  Bishop 
Burnet),  nature  was  so  strong  in  them,  that  it 
was  too  hard  for  their  doctrine.t  And  a  dec- 
laration being  prepared  for  asserting  and  vindi- 
cating the  ancient  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
subject,  the  crown  was  offered  to  the  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Orange,  the  latter  of  whom  ar- 
rived from  Holland  the  day  before  ;  and,  both 
havingdeclared  their  acceptance,  were  proclaim- 


*  Howe's  Life,  p.  142. 
X  Burnet,  p.  282. 


t  Gazette,  No.  2414. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


343 


■  ed  King  and  Queen  of  England,  &c.,  February 
13,  1688-8f^  and  crowned  at  Westminster  April 
11  following,  amid  the  joyful  acclamations  of  all 
the  friends  of  the  Protestant  religion  and  liber- 
ties of  their  country.* 

Thus  a  wonderful  revolution  was  effected 
with  little  or  no  effusion  of  blood  ;  and  it  is 
surprising  to  reflect  on  the  renniarkable  appear- 
ances of  Divine  Providence  in  the  rise,  progress, 
and  consummation  of  this  important  event  ; 
how  the  court  of  England  and  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic powers  were  all  infatuated  or  asleep  while 
the  design  was  forming ;  and  when  it  was  car- 
rying into  execution,  how  the  winds  were  sub- 
servient, and  the  hearts  of  the  people  united  till 
it  was  brought  to  maturity  :  and  it  will  amaze 
all  posterity  to  read  the  inconsistent  and  dis- 
honourable part  which  the  High  Church  clergy 
and  their  friends  acted  on  this  occasion  ;  for, 
after  they  had  preached  their  hereditary  prince 
into  a  belief  of  their  unlimited  loyalty,  and  as- 
sured him  in  numberless  addresses  that  their 
lives  and  fortunes  were  absolutely  at  his  ser- 
vice ;  and  after  the  University  of  Oxford,  by  a 
solemn  decree,  had  declared  all  manner  of  re- 
sistance damnable  and  infamous  to  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  they  appeared  among  the  first  who 
resisted  him  ;  and,  by  opening  a  reserve  which 
lay  hid  under  their  unbounded  professions  of 
duty  and  allegiance,  let  him  fall  into  that  pit  out 
of  which  he  could  never  escape.  As  soon  as 
the  jure  divino  king  invaded  the  properties  of  the 
universities,  and  threatened  to  take  down  the 
^fences  of  their  eeclesiastical  preferments ,  they  in- 
vited the  Prince  of  Orange  with  an  armed  force 
to  their  rescue  ;  they  signed  an  association  to 
support  and  assist  him  ;  they  offered  him  their 
plate,  and  declared  for  him  in  a  body,  even  while 
their  sovereign  was  on  the  throne.  Neverthe- 
less, the  moment  they  thought  their  power  and 
preferments  secure,  they  would  have  retracted, 
and  made  up  matters  again  with  King  James  ; 
they  opposed  the  motion  in  the  Convention  Par- 
liament for  declaring  the  throne  vacant  ;  and 
when  the  government  came  to  be  settled  upon 
King  William  and  Queen  Mary,  great  numbers 
of  them  would  not  submit,  and  those  who  did, 
acted  a  treacherous  and  dishonourable  part  to 
their  great  deliverer,  throughout  the  course  of 
his  reign.  What  inconsistencies  are  these  ! 
What  oaths  and  declarations  can  hold  men  who 
burst  such  bands,  and  cut  such  sacred  cords 
asunder  1    The  like  must  be  observed  as  to  their 

*  The  Scotch  also,  in  1689,  sent  up  commission- 
ers to  their  majesties  at  Whitehall,  to  make  a  tender 
of  their  crown.  On  being  introduced,  they  present- 
ed, according  to  the  powers  on  which  they  acted, 
an  address  from  the  estates,  the  instrument  of  gov- 
ernment, a  recital  of  grievances,  and  a  request  that 
the  convention  might  be  converted  into  a  Parliament. 
The  kmg  havmg  promised  to  concur  with  them  in 
all  just  measures  for  the  interest  of  the  kingdom,  the 
coronation  oath  was  tendered  to  their  majesties.  His 
conduct  on  this  occasion  deserves  particular  notice  : 
it  was  cautious  and  liberal.  The  oath  contained  a 
clause  by  which  they  should  engage  to  root  out  her- 
esy :  the  king  demurred  on  this,  and  declared  he 
would  not  oblige  himself  to  act  as  a  persecutor.  The 
commissioners  replying  that  such  was  not  the  mean- 
ing or  import  of  the  oath,  he  desired  them  and  others 
present  to  bear  witness  to  the  exception  he  made. — 
Burnet's  History,  vol.  iv.,  p.  34,  12mo:  and  Lindsey's 
Historical  View  of  the  State  of  Uyiitarianism,  p.  303, 
note. — Ed. 
S  -.  : 


vows  and  promises  to  the  Nonconformists,  all 
which  were  forgot  or  broken  as  soon  as  the 
Church  was  delivered.  The  Dissenters  acted 
a  more  consistent  part ;  for,  not  being  entangled 
with  the  same  fetters,  they  went  heartily  into 
the  revolution,  and  were  among  King  William's 
best  and  steadiest  friends,  when  others  forsook 
and  opposed  him.* 

No  sooner  were  King  William  and  Queen 
Mary  settled  on  the  throne,  than  the  dissenting 
ministers  in  and  about  the  city  of  London  wait- 
ed on  their  majesties  with  an  address  of  con- 
gratulation, when  Dr.  Bates,  at  their  head,  made 
the  two  following  speeches  : 

"  To  the  King. 

"  May  it  please  your  majesty, 
"  The  series  of  successful  events  which  have 
attended  your  glorious  enterprise  for  the  saving 
of  these  kingdoms  from  so  imminent  and  de- 
structive evils  has  been  so  eminent  and  extra- 
ordinary, that  it  may  force  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  Divine  Providence  from  those  who  deny 
it,  and  cause  admiration  in  all  who  believe  and 
reverence  it.  The  beauty  and  speed  of  this 
happy  work  are  the  bright  signatures  of  His 
hand,  who  creates  deliverance  for  his  people  : 
the  less  of  human  power,  the  more  of  Divine 
wisdom  and  goodness  has  been  conspicuous  in 
it.  If  the  deliverance  had  been  obtained  by 
fierce  and  bloody  battles,  victory  itself  had  been 
dejected  and  sad,  and  our  joy  had  been  mixed 
with  afflicting  bitterness  ;  but  as  the  sun,  as- 
cending the  horizon,  dispels  without  noise  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  so  your  serene  presence 
has,  without  tumults  and  disorders,  chased  away 
the  darkness  that  invaded  us.  In  the  sense  of 
this  astonishing  deliverance,  we  desire  with  all 
possible  ardency  of  affection  to  magnify  the 
glorious  name  of  God,  the  author  of  it,  by  whose 
entire  efficacy  the  means  have  been  successful ; 
and  we  cannot  without  a  warm  rapture  of  thank- 
fulness recount  our  obligations  to  your  majesty, 
the  happy  instrument  of  it.  Your  illustrious 
greatness  of  mind,  in  an  undertaking  of  such 
vast  expense,  your  heroic  zeal  in  exposing  your 
most  precious  life  in  such  an  adventurous  ex- 
pedition, your  wise  conduct  and  unshaken  res- 
olution in  prosecuting  your  great  ends,  are  above 
the  loftiest  flights  of  language,  exceed  all  praise. 
We  owe  to  your  majesty  the  two  greatest  and 
most  valuable  blessings  that  we  can  enjoy,  the 
preservation  of  the  true  religion,  our  most  sa- 
cred treasure  ;  and  the  recovery  of  the  falling 
state,  and  the  establishing  it  upon  just  founda- 
tions. According  to  our  duty,  we  promise  un- 
feigned fidelity  and  true  allegiance  to  your  maj- 
esty's person  and  government.  We  are  encour- 
aged by  your  gracious  promise,  upon  our  first 
address,  humbly  to  desire  and  hope  that  your 
majesty  will  be  pleased,  by  your  wisdom  and 
authority,  to  establish  a  firm  union  of  your  Prot- 
estant subjects  in  matters  of  religion,  by  making 
the  rule  of  Christianity  to  be  the  rule  of  con- 
formity. Our  blessed  union,  in  the  purity  and 
peace  of  the  Gospel,  will  make  this  church  a  fair 
and  lovely  type  of  heaven,  and  terrible  to  our 


*  A  very  edifying  study  is  afforded  here  to  those 
who  love  to  dilate  upon  Puritan  and  Nonconformist 
hypocrisy  !  Truly  might  Hume  say  that  the  precious 
spark  of  liberty  was  fanned  and  kept  alive  by  the 
Puritans. — C. 


344 


HISTORY  OF    THE    PURITANS. 


antichristian  enemies  :  this  will  make  England 
the  steady  centre  Ironi  whence  a  powerful  in- 
fluence will  be  derived  for  the  support  of  Re- 
formed Ciiristianity  abroad.  This  will  bring 
immortal  honour  to  your  name,  above  the  tro- 
phies and  triumphs  of  the  most  renowned  con- 
querors. We  do  assure  your  majesty  that  we 
shall  cordially  embrace  the  terms  of  union 
which  the  ruling  wisdom  of  our  Saviour  has 
prescribed  in  his  Word.  We  shall  not  trespass 
farther  on  your  royal  patience,  but  shall  offer  up 
our  fervent  prayers  to  the  King  of  kings,  that 
he  will  please  to  direct  your  majesty  by  his  un- 
erring wisdom,  and  always  incline  your  heart 
to  his  glory,  and  encompass  your  sacred  person 
with  his  favour  as  with  a  shield,  and  make  your 
government  a  universal  blessing  to  these  king- 
doms." 

To  which  his  majesty  was  graciously  pleased 
to  make  the  following  answer  : 

"  I  take  kindly  your  good  wishes  ;  and  what- 
ever is  in  my  power  shall  be  employed  for  ob- 
taining such  a  union  among  you.     I  do  assure 
you  of  my  protection  and  kindness." 
"  To  the  Queen. 
"May  it  please  your  majesty, 

"Your  happy  arrival  into  your  native  coun- 
try, and  accession  to  the  crown,  has  diffused  a 
universal  joy  through  this  kingdom.  It  is  an 
auspicious  sign  of  public  felicity,  when  supreme 
virtue  and  supreme  dignity  meet  in  the  same 
person.  Your  inviolable  firmness  in  the  pro- 
fession of  the  truth,  and  exemplary  piety,  are 
the  most  radiant  jewels  in  your  crown.  The 
lustre  of  your  conversation,  unstained  in  the 
midst  of  tempting  vanities,  and  adorned  with 
every  grace,  recommends  religion  as  the  most 
honourable  and  amiable  quality,  even  to  those 
who  are  averse  from  hearing  sermons,  and  apt 
to  despise  serious  instructions  and  excitations 
to  be  religious.  We  humbly  desire  that  your 
majesty  would  be  pleased,  by  your  wisdom  and 
goodness,  to  compose  the  differences  between 
your  Protestant  subjects  in  things  of  less  mo- 
ment concerning  religion.  We  hope  those  rev- 
erend persons  who  conspire. with  us  in  the 
main  end,  the  glory  of  God  and  the  public  good, 
will  consent  to  the  terms  of  union  wherein  all 
the  Reformed  churches  agree.  We  shall  sin- 
cerely address  our  requests  to  God,  that  he 
will  please  to  pour  down  in  a  rich  abundance 
his  blessings  upon  your  majesty's  person  and 
government,  and  preserve  you  to  his  heavenly 
kingdom." 

Her  majesty  was  graciously  pleased  to  an- 
swer, 

"  I  will  use  all  endeavours  for  the  obtaining 
a  union  that  is  necessary  for  the  edifying  of  the 
Church.*     I  desire  your  prayers." 


+  This  was  in  the  spirit  of  a  noble  answer  which 
her  majesty  made  to  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  who  was 
introduced  to  her  to  solicit  a  new  charter  for  New- 
England.  He  represented  that  her  subjects  in  that 
country  were  generally  Nonconformists,  but  carried 
It  with  all  due  re.spect  to  others  ;  and  added,  that 
this  nation  had  cause  to  blesa  God  for  the  indul- 
gence it  now  enjoyed  under  the  king  and  her  majesty. 
The  queen  answered,  "It  is  what  1  ain  lor.  It  is 
not  in  the  power  of  men  to  believe  what  they  please  ;  and 
therefore,  I  think,  they  should  not  be  forced  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  contrary  to  their  persuasions  and  their 
consciences.  I  wish  all  good  men  were  of  one  mind  ; 
however,  in  the  mean  time,  I  would  have  them  live 


Though  the  joy  that  accompanied  the  revolu- 
tion  had  a  considerable  influence  on  the  choice 
of  representatives  in  Parliament,  yet  there  being 
no  court  to  make  interest  among  the  people,  it 
appeared  that  the  late  king  had  a  party  in  both 
houses  suflicient  to  perplex  the  government, 
who  first  proposed  the  choice  of  a  new  Parlia- 
ment, in  order  to  throw  the  nation  into  a  fer- 
ment ;*  but  this  being  overruled,  a  bill  was 
brought  in,  and  passed,  January  23,  to  turn  the 
present  Convention  into  a  Parliament,  it  being 
wisely  concluded,  that  those  who  had  set  the 
king  on  the  throne,  would  be  most  zealous  to 
maintain  him  there  ;  but  when  the  House  was 
called  over,  and  the  members  required  to  take 
the  oaths,  eight  bishops  absented,  viz..  Dr.  San- 
croft,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Turner  of  Ely, 
Lake  of  Chichester,  Kenn  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
White  of  Peterborough,  Thomas  of  Worcester, 
Lloyd  of  Norwich,  and  Frampton  of  Glouces- 
ter ;  however,  that  they  might  recommend 
themselves  by  a  show  of  moderation,  before 
they  withdrew  they  moved  the  House  of  Lords 
for  a  bill  of  toleration,  and  another  of  compre- 
hension, which  were  drawn  up  accordingly  by 
the  Earl  of  Nottingham,  and  were  much  the 
same  with  those  prepared  for  the  House  of 
Commons  in  King  Charles  XL's  time,  daring 
the  debates  about  the  Bill  of  Exclusion. 

The  clergy  in  general  took  the  oaths,  but  it 
became  visible  that  many  among  them  took 
them  only  as  oaths  of  submission  to  usurpers, 
with  this  reserve,  that  it  was  still  lawful  to  as- 
sist King  James  if  he  should  attempt  to  recover 
the  crown,  and  that  he  was  still  their  king  de 
jure,  though  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  king  de 
facto,  contrary  to  the  plain  meaning  of  the 
words  ;  but  the  clergy  broke  through  all  these 
fetters,  says  the  bishop,!  to  the  reproach  of 
their  profession  ;  and  the  prevarication  of  so 
many  in  so  sacred  a  matter,  contributed  not  a 
little  to  the  atheism  of  the  age.  Indeed,  they 
had  embarked  so  far  in  their  doctrines  of  abso- 
lute submission  and  the  Divine  right  of  mon- 
archy, that  they  knew  not  how  to  disengage 
themselves  with  honour  or  conscience.  Many 
suffered  the  time  limited  for  taking  the  oaths  to 
elapse,  and  yet  officiated  afterward  contrary  to 
law.  They  threatened  the  Church  with  a  new 
separation,  which  terrified  the  moderate  clergy, 
and  put  a  stop  to  all  amendments  of  the  liturgy 
for  the  ease  of  Dissenters,  lest  the  Nonjurors 
should  gain  over  great  numbers  of  the  laity,  by 
pretending  to  abide  by  the  old  liturgy,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  reformed  one.  Thus  the  Noncon- 
formists were  sold  to  the  Jacobites,  by  the  ti- 
midity of  their  real  friends ;  for  the  High  Church 
party  discovered  an  irreconcilable  enmity  to  aa 
accommodation,  and  seemed  only  to  wish  for 
an  occasion  to  renew  old  severities.  Those 
who  had  moved  for  a  comprehension,  and 
brought  the  bill  into  the  House  of  Lords,  acted 
a  very  disingenuous  part,  says  Burnet  ;t  for 
while  they  studied  to  recommend  themselves, 
by  seeming  to  countenance  the  bill,  they  set  on 
their  friends  to  oppose  it,  representing  the  fa- 
vourers of  it  as  enemies  to  the  Church. s^ 


peaceably,  and  love  one  another." — Increase  Mather'i 
Life,  ]).  iO.— Ed. 

*  Burnet,  vol.  iv.,  p.  7,  8,  Edin.  ed.,  12mo. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  303.  |  Ibid. 

^  No  one  can  study  the  merits  of  luis  history  with-- 


HISTORY   OF   THE   PURITANS. 


When  the  king  came  to  the  House,  March 
16,  he  made  the  following  speech  :* 

"  My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, 

"  Now  I  have  occasion  of  coming  hither  to 
pass  these  bills,  I  shall  put  you  in  mind  of  one 
thing  which  will  conduce  much  to  our  settle- 
ment, as  a  settlement  will  to  the  disappoint- 
ment of  our  enemies.  I  am,  with  all  the  expe- 
dition I  can,  filling  up  the  vacancies  that  are  in 
the  offices  and  places  of  trust  by  this  late  revo- 
lution. I  hope  you  are  sensible  there  is  a  ne- 
cessity of  some  law  to  settle  the  oaths  to  be  ta- 
ken by  all  persons  to  be  admitted  to  such  pla- 
ces. I  recommend  it  to  your  care  to  make  a 
speedy  provision  for  it ;  and  as  I  doubt  not  but 
you  will  sufficiently  provide  against  papists,  so 
I  hope  you  will  leave  room  for  the  admission  of 
all  Protestants  that  are  willing  and  able  to 
serve.  This  conjunction  in  my  service  will 
tend  to  the  better  uniting  you  among  your- 
selves, and  the  strengthening  you  against  your 
common  enemies."  It  appears,  by  this,  that 
King  William  was  for  taking  off"  the  test,  and 
abrogating  the  penal  laws,  as  far  as  related  to 
dissenting  Protestants,  though  the  Parliament 
were  of  another  mind. 

When  a  bill  was  brought  into  the  House  of 
Lords  for  abrogating  the  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  supremacy,  and  framing  other  oaths  in 
their  stead,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  in- 
sert a  clause  to  take  away  the  necessity  of  re- 
ceiving the  sacrament  in  order  to  make  a  man 
capable  of  enjoying  any  office,  employment,  or 
place  of  trust ;  but  when  the  clause  was  re- 
ported to  the  House,  it  was  rejected  by  a  con- 
siderable majority,  the  Earls  of  Stamford  and 
Chesterfield,  the  Lords  Lovelace,  Delamere, 
North  and  Grey,  Wharton,  and  Vaughan,  en- 
tering their  protests.! 

After  this  another  clause  was  offered,  by 
which  it  was  provided  that  such  should  be  suf- 
ficiently qualified  for  any  office  who,  within  a 
year  before  or  after  their  admission,  did  receive 
the  sacrament,  either  according  to  the  usage  of 
the  Church  of  England,  or  in  any  other  Protest- 
ant congregation,  and  could  produce  a  certifi- 
cate under  the  hands  of  the  minister,  and  two 
other  creditable  persons,  members  of  such  a 
congregation.  The  question  being  put  wheth- 
er this  clause  should  be  a  part  of  the  bill,  it 


out  carefully  perusing  the  admirable  works  of  Bish- 
op Burnet.  His  History  of  the  Reformation  and  of 
his  own  Times  are  indispensable  to  a  full  and  ade- 
quate perception  of  the  dangers,  cruelties,  and  diffi- 
culties of  this  period.  The  History  of  the  Reforma- 
tion is  reprinted  by  the  Appletona  at  a  very  cheap 
price,  and  should  be  widely  circulated. — C. 

*  Gazette,  No.  243G. 

t  The  protests  of  the  dissentient  peers  were 
grounded  on  the  following  reasons  :  "  That  a  hearty 
union  among  Protestants  is  a  greater  security  to  the 
Church  and  State  than  any  test  that  could  be  in- 
vented ;  that  this  obligation  to  receive  the  sacrament 
is  a  test  on  Protestants  rather  than  on  papists  ;  that 
so  long  as  it  continued,  there  could  not  be  that 
hearty  and  thorough  union  among  Protestants  as 
has  always  been  wished,  and  is  at  this  time  indis- 
pensably necessary ;  and,  lastly,  that  a  greater  cau- 
tion ought  not  to  be  required  from  such  as  were  ad- 
mitted into  offices  than  from  the  members  of  the 
two  hou.ses  of  Parliament,  who  were  not  obliged  to 
receive  the  sacrament  to  enable  them  to  sit  in  either 
house." — A  Complete  Collection  of  Protests,  p.  62,  63  ; 
and  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  170,  171.— Ed. 

Vol.  II.— X  X 


345 

passed  in  the  negative,  the  Lords  Oxford, 
Lovelace,  Wharton,  Mordaunt,  Montague,  and 
Paget  entering  their  protests.* 

It  was  proposed  farther,  in  a  committee  of 
the  House  of  Lords,  to  dispense  with  kneeling 
at  the  sacrament ;  but  when  the  question  was 
put  whether  to  agree  with  the  committee  in 
leaving  out  the  clause,  the  votes  were  equal, 
and  so,  according  to  the  usage  of  the  House,  it 
passed  in  the  negative.!  The  like  fate  attend- 
ed the  motion  about  the  cross  in  baptism,  and 
explaining  the  words  assent  and  consent  in 
subscripti^.  Thus  the  several  attempts  for 
alterations  in  the  church-service,  at  a  time 
when  the  Legislature  was  in  a  temper  for  ac- 
commodating lesser  differences,  were  frustra- 
ted by  a  rising  party  of  Jacobites  and  Tories, 
who  threatened  the  new  government  with  a  re- 
volt unless  they  were  humoured  ;  and,  for  fear 
of  them,  all  promises  of  accommodation  with, 
the  Dissenters  were  of  no  avail. 

Soon  after  a  bill  for  tolerationj  of  Protestant 
Dissenters  was  brought  into  the  House,  and. 
had  an  easy  passage ;  though  some  proposed 
that  the  act  should  be  only  temporary,  as  a  ne- 
cessary restraint,  that  the  Dissenters  might  so 
demean  themselves  as  to  merit  the  continuance 
of  it,  when  the  term  of  years  first  granted 
should  expire  ;  but  this  was  rejected.  Bishop 
Burnett  says  that  his  zeal  for  this  act  lost  him 
his  credit  with  the  Church  party,  by  which  it 
appears  they  did  not  much  like  it.  It  is  enti- 
tled "  An  Act  for  exempting  their  Majesties' 
Protestant  Subjects  dissenting  from  the  Church 
of  England  from  the  Penalties  therein  mention- 
ed."    But  the  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  were 


*  One  reason  on  which  the  Lords  protested  was, 
"  that  mysteries  of  religion  and  Divine  worship  are 
of  Divine  original,  and  of  a  nature  so  wholly  distinct 
from  the  secular  affairs  of  public  society,  that  they 
cannot  be  applied  to  those  ends ;  and  therefore  the 
Church,  by  the  law  of  the  Gospel,  as  well  as  com- 
mon prudence,  ought  to  take  care  not  to  offend  ei- 
ther tender  consciences  within  itself,  or  give  offence 
to  those  without,  by  mixing  their  sacred  mysteries 
with  secular  interests." — A  Complete  Collection  of 
Protests,  p.  64,  65.—  Ed.  t  Burnet,  p.  155. 

%  "  The  Act  of  Toleration,"  remarks  a  late  writer, 
"  was  another  interference  of  the  State  to  check  the 
power  of  ecclesiastics,  but  without  altering  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Church.  Laymen  had  before  de- 
clared what  should  be  deemed  heresy  in  the  spiritual 
courts;  they  now  exempted  some  descriptions  of 
Dissenters  wholly  from  their  jurisdiction,  while  all 
others,  and  oppugners  of  the  Trinity  by  name,  were 
expressly  reserved  for  the  persecuting  spirit  of  the 
Church  to  operate  upon."  How  truly  then  might 
Mr.  Locke,  writing  to  Limborch  (Locke's  Works, 
vol.  iv.,  p.  406),  soon  after  the  passing  of  this  act, 
say,  "  Tolerantiam  apud  nos  jam  tandem  lege  stabil- 
itatem,  te  ante  hsec  audiisse,  nullus  dubito.  Non  ea 
forsan  latitudine  qua  tu  et  tui  similes  veri,  et  sine 
ambitione  vel  invidia,  Christian!  optarent.  Sed  aU- 
qiiid  est  prodire  tenus.  His  initiis  jacta  spero  sunt 
libertatis  et  pacis  fundamenta,  quibus  stabilienda 
olim  erat  Christi  ecclesia." — High  Church  Politics,  p. 
60.  In  English  thus  :  "  I  doubt  not  before  this  you 
have  heard  that  toleration  is  at  last  established  here 
by  law.  Not,  indeed,  with  that  latitude  that  you, 
and  other  Christians  like  you,  unambitious  and  un- 
prejudiced, and  lovers  of  truth,  might  wish.  But  it 
is  a  great  point  to  proceed  so  far.  In  these  begin- 
nings, I  hope,  are  laid  those  foundations  of  liberty 
and  peace,  on  which  the  Church  of  Christ  will  be 
finally  established." — 7'oulmin's  History  of  Protest- 
ant Dissenters,  p.  25.— C.  I)  History,  p.  14.  - 


1346 


HISTORY   OF    THE   PliRITANS. 


not  inserted  in  this  act,  and  therefore  remain 
in  full  force :  there  is  an  exception,  likewise, 
of  such  as  deny  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ; 
and  Quakers  are  excused  taking  the  oalhs  to 
the  government,  upon  their  making  a  solemn 
declaration  therein  mentioned.  This  act  excu- 
ses all  Protestant  Dissenters  from  the  penalties 
of  the  laws  therein  mentioned  for  not  coming 
to  church,  provided  they  take  the  oaths,  and 
subscribe  the  declarations  therein  mentioned. 
And  dissenting  ministers  are  tolerated  on  the 
like  conditions,  and  on  their  subscribing  the 
doctrinal  articles  of  the  Church  &[  England. 
But  this  being  the  basis  and  boundary  of  their 
present  liberty,  I  have  inserted  the  act  in  the 
Appendix,  No.  XIII. 

While  the  bill  for  a  toleration  was  depending, 
a  motion  was  made  in  the  House  of  Lords  for  a 
comprehension,  which  was  received,  and  some 
progress  made  towards  effecting  it ;  but  a  pro- 
viso being  offered,  and  pressed  with  great  ear- 
nestness by  some  temporal  lords,  that,  in  imi- 
tation of  the  acts  passed  in  the  reigns  of  King 
Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  a  number  of  per- 
sons, both  of  clergy  and  laity,  might  be  empow- 
ered to  prepare  materials  for  such  a  reforma- 
tion of  the  Church  as  might  be  fit  to  offer  the 
king  and  Parliament,  it  was  warmly  debated, 
and  at  length  rejected  by  a  small  majority. 
Bishop  Burnet*  was  against  the  proviso,  for 
fear  of  offending  the  clergy,  who  would  look 
upon  it  as  taking  the  reformation  out  of  their 
hands  ;  but  adds,  "  I  was  convinced  soon  after 
that  I  had  taken  wrong  measures,  and  that  the 
method  proposed  by  the  Lords  was  the  only  one 
like  to  prove  effectual."  Dr.  Tillotson,  being 
of  the  same  mind  with  Burnet,  advised  the  king 
to  refer  the  affair  to  a  synod  of  divines,  whose 
determinations  he  apprehended  would  stop  the 
mouths  of  papists,  who  reproached  our  reforma- 
tion as  built  chiefly  on  parliamentary  authority, 
and  would  be  better  received  by  the  body  of  the 
clergy,  t 

Accordingly,  it  was  agreed  in  council  that  a 
select  number  of  learned  divines  should  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  royal  mandate,  to  meet  and  con- 
sult about  the  most  proper  methods  of  healing 
the  wounds  of  the  Church  ;  that  their  determi- 
nations should  be  laid  before  the  Convocation, 
and  from  thence  receive  the  sanction  of  Parlia- 
ment. Agreeably  to  this  resolution,  the  king 
issued  out  a  commission  to  thirty  divines,  of 
which  ten  were  bishops,  whose  names  were. 
Dr.  Lampkigh,  Archbisliop  of  York. 

Coinpton,  Bishop  of  London. 

Mew,  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

Lloyd,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph. 

Sprat,  Bishop  of  Rochester. 

Smith,  Bishop  of  Carlisle. 
Sir  Jonathan  Trelawney,  Bishop  of  Exeter. 
Dr.  Burnet,  Bishop  of  Saruui. 

Humphreys,  i3ishop  of  Bangor. 

Stratford,  bishop  of  Chester. 

To  these  were  added  the  following  divines  ; 

Dr.  Stillinglleet,   Dr.  Alston,         Dr.  Beaumont, 

Tillotson,  Scot,  Goodman, 

Sharp,  Grove,  Battely, 

Aldndge,  Patrick,  Tennison, 

Hall,  Maggot,  Fowler, 

Montague,  Kidder,  VViUiams. 

Beveridge.  Jane, 


*  Burnet,  vol,  iv..  p.  14. 

t  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  179. 


Their  commission  was  as  follows  : 

"  Whereas  the  particular  forms  of  Divine 
worship,  and  the  rites  and  ceremonies  appoint- 
ed to  be  used  therein,  being  things  in  their  owa 
nature  indifferent  and  alterable,  and  so  acknowl- 
edged, it  is  but  reasonable  that,  upon  weighty 
and  important  considerations,  according  to  the 
various  exigencies  of  times  and  occasions,  such 
changes  and  alterations  should  be  made  thereia 
as  to  those  that  are  in  place  and  authority 
should  from  time  to  time  seemeithernccessary 
or  expedient. 

"  And  whereas  the  Book  of  Canons  is  fit  to  be 
reviewed,  and  made  more  suitable  to  the  state  of 
the  Church  ;  and  whereas  there  are  defects  and 
abuses  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts  and  jurisdic- 
tions ;  and  particularly,  there  is  not  sufficient 
provision  made  for  the  removing  of  scandalous 
ministers,  and  for  the  reforming  of  manners, 
either  in  ministers  or  people  ;  and  whereas  it 
is  most  fit  that  there  should  be  a  strict  method 
prescribed  for  the  examination  of  such  persons 
as  desire  to  be  admitted  into  holy  orders,  both 
as  to  their  learning  and  manners  : 

"We,  therefore,  out  of  our  pious  and  prince- 
ly care  for  the  good  order,  edification,  and  unity 
of  the  Church  of  England,  committed  to  our 
charge  and  care,  and  for  the  reconciling  as 
much  as  is  possible  of  all  differences  among  our 
good  subjects,  and  to  take  away  all  occasion  of 
the  like  for  the  future,  have  thought  fit  to  au- 
thorize you,  &c.,  or  any  nine  of  you,  whereof 
three  to  be  bishops,  to  meet  from  time  to  time 
as  often  as  shall  be  needful,  and  to  prepare  sucli 
alterations  of  the  liturgy  and  canons,  and  such 
proposals  for  the  reformation  of  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal courts,  and  to  consider  of  such  other  mat- 
ters, as  in  your  judgments  may  most  conduce 
to  the  ends  above  mentioned.''* 

The  committee  having  assembled  in  the  Je- 
rusalem Chamber,  a  dispute  arose  about  the  le- 
gality of  their  commission ;  Sprat,  bishop  of  Ro- 
chester, one  of  King  James's  ecclesiastical  com- 
missioners, being  of  the  number,  they  pretended 
to  fear  a  premunire,  though  there  was  not  so 
much  as  a  shadow  for  such  a  pretence,  the 
king's  supremacy,  if  it  means  anything,  empow- 
ering him  to  appoint  proper  persons  to  prepare 
matters  for  the  Legislature :  however,  upon  this 
debate.  Mew,  bishop  of  Winchester,  Sprat  of 
Rochester,  with  Dr.  Jane  and  Dr.  Aldridge, 
withdrew. t    Some  of  them  declared  plainly  they 


*  Life  of  Archbishop  Tennison,  p.  10,  &c. 

t  Aldridge  .\nd  Jane. — Thesemen  were  of  much 
note  in  their  day,  and  are  deserving  of  some  notice 
here.  Dr.  Henry  Aldridge,  born  in  Westminster  in 
1647,  was  a  pupil  under  the  famous  Dr.  Busby,  and 
was  elected  a  student  of  Christ  Church,  O.xford,  1662. 
In  due  time  he  took  orders,  and  became  an  eminent 
tutor.  In  16S1  he  was  installed  canon  of  Christ 
Church,  and  became  its  dean  in  1689.  He  presided 
over  this  college  with  great  zeal  for  its  interest,  and 
being  a  single  man,  displayed  much  munilicence  in 
its  patronage.  That  beautiful  piece  of  architecture 
called  Peckwater  Quadrangle  was  designed  by  him. 
He  annually  published  as  a  new-year's  gift  to  his 
students  a  piece  of  some  ancient  Creek  author.  He 
wrote  a  system  of  logic,  which  passed  through  many 
editions;  and,  with  Bishop  Sprat,  he  revised  Claren- 
don's History  of  "  The  Rebellion."  He  had  a  great 
share  in  the  popish  controversies  in  the  reign  of 
James  II.  In  1702  he  was  chosen  prolocutor  of  the 
Convocation.  He  died  at  Christ  Church  14th  De- 
cember, 1710,  in  the  sixty-third  year  of  his  age.    He 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


34T 


were  against  all  alterations  whatsoever  ;  they 
thought  too  much  would  be  done  for  the  Dis- 
senters in  granting  them  an  act  of  toleration, 
and  they  would  do  nothing  to  make  conformity 
easier.  They  said,  farther,  that  altering  the 
customs  and  constitutions  of  the  Church,  to 
gratify  a  peevish  and  obstinate  party,  was  likely 
to  have  no  other  effect  than  to  make  them  more 
insolent.*  But  w'as  it  ever  tried^  Did  the 
Convocation  or  Parliament  make  a  single  abate- 
ment from  the  year  1662  to  this  time  ?  If  the 
experiment  had  been  tried,  and  proved  ineffect- 
ual, the  blame  might  have  been  cast  upon  the 
Dissenters ;  but  to  call  them  peevish  and  obsti- 
nate, without  offering  them  any,  even  the  small- 
est concessions,  deserves  no  better  a  name  than 
unjust  calumny.  Was  there  no  obstinacy  and 
peevishness  on  the  side  of  the  Church  in  re- 
treating from  so  many  promises  without  a  sin- 
gle offer'!  But  it  was  said,  farther,  that  the 
Church,  by  proposing  these  alterations,  seemed 
to  confess  that  she  had  hitherto  been  in  the 
wrong,  and  that  the  attempt  would  divide  them 
among  themselves,  and  lessen  people's  esteem 
for  the  liturgy,  if  it  appeared  that  it  wanted  cor- 
rection. Such  were  the  reasonings  of  these 
high  divines,  if  they  deserve  the  name,  some  of 
whom  but  a  few  months  before  had  made  the 
warmest  pretences  to  a  spirit  of  moderation  ! 

It  was  alleged  on  the  other  side,  that  if  a  few 
corrections  or  explanations  were  allowed,  there 
was  reason  to  hope  it  would  bring  over  many 
of  the  people,  if  not  the  teachers  themselves  ; 
at  least,  if  the  prejudices  of  the  present  Dissent- 
ers were  too  strong,  it  might  have  a  good  effect 
on  the  next  generation  ;  nor  could  it  be  any  re- 
proach to  the  Church,  since  the  offers  were 
made  only  in  regard  to  their  weakness.  Ritual 
matters  were  of  an  indifferent  nature,  and  be- 
came necessary  in  virtue  only  of  the  authority 
that  enjoined  tliem,  therefore  it  was  an  unrea- 
sonable stiffness  to  deny  any  abatements,  in 
order  to  heal  the  Church's  divsions.  Great  chan- 
ges had  been  made  by  the  Church  of  Rome  in 


is  described  as  a  universal  scholar,  and  to  have  had 
a  line  taste  in  architecture.  His  modesty  and  hu- 
mihty  were  evident  and  acknowledged. — British  Bi- 
ography, book  viii.,  p.  42,  note. 

Dr.  William  Jane  was  the  son  of  Joseph  Jane,  of 
Liskeard,  Cornwall,  author  of  "  Ikon  Iclastos,"  in 
answer  to  Milton.  He  was  member  for  Liskeard  in 
the  Long  Parliament,  and  was  a  great  sufferer  for  his 
adherence  to  the  house  of  Stuart.  Dr.  Jane  was 
born  1644,  educated  at  Westminster,  and  elected  stu- 
dent at  Christ  Church,  1660.  He  became  lecturer 
of  Carfax  Church,  Oxford,  chaplain  to  Bishop  Comp- 
ton,  and  prebendary  of  Paul's  Cathedral.  In  1678  he 
was  installed  canon  of  Christ  Church.  In  1679  he 
proceeded  doctor  of  divinity.  In  1681  he  was  ap- 
pointed regius  professor  of  divinity.  In  1685  he  was 
made  Dean  of  Gloucester,  and  held  it  with  the  pre- 
centorship  of  the  church  at  Exeter.  He  lived  some 
time  after  Queen  Anne's  accession  to  the  throne,  but 
received  no  preferment,  and  died  1707.  He  publish- 
ed a  treatise  entitled  "  The  present  Separation  self- 
condemned,  and  proved  to  he  Schism."  He  was  also 
•considered  to  have  the  chief  hand  in  penning  the  de- 
cree and  judgment  of  the  University  of  Oxford  against 
certain  seditious  books  and  damnable  doctrines  pass- 
ed in  the  Convocation  July,  1683,  presented  to  and 
approved  by  Charles  II.,  but  burned  by  the  hangman 
in  pursuance  to  an  order  of  the  House  of  Lords  in 
1720!— See  Birch's  Life  of  Titlotson,  p.  188;  and 
British  Biography,  vol.  ix.,  p.  32,  note. — C. 

»  Burnet,  vol.  iv.  p.  44. 


her  rituals  ;  and  among  ourselves  since  the  Ref- 
ormation, in  the  reigns  of  King  Edward  VI., 
Queen  Elizabeth,  King  James,  and  King  Charles 
II.,  and  it  seemed  necessary  at  this  time  to  make 
the  terms  of  communion  as  large  as  might  be, 
that  so  a  greater  number  might  be  brought  over, 
since,  by  the  Act  of  Toleration,  they  might  dis- 
sent with  safety. 

But  while  these  matters  were  debating,  the 
Jacobite  party  took  hold  of  the  occasion  to  in- 
flame men's  minds  against  the  government.  It 
was  pretended  the  Church  was  to  be  pulled 
down,  and  Presbytery  established  :  the  univer- 
sities took  fire,  and  declared  against  alterations, 
and  against  all  who  promoted  them,  as  men 
who  intended  to  undermine  the  hierarchy.  Se- 
vere reflections  were  cast  on  the  king  himself, 
as  not  being  in  the  interest  of  the  Episcopacy, 
for  the  cry  of  the  Church's  danger  was  raised 
by  the  enemies  of  the  government,  as  that  under 
which  they  thought  they  might  safely  shelter 
their  evil  designs.  Great  interest  was  made  in 
the  choice  of  Convocation  men,  to  whom  the 
determinations  of  the  committee  were  to  be  re- 
ferred, so  that  it  was  quickly  visible  that  the 
laudable  designs  of  the  king  and  the  ecclesias- 
tical commissioners  would  prove  abortive. 

However,  the  committee  continued  theirwork 
till  they  had  finished  it ;  they  had  before  them 
all  the  exceptions  that  either  the  Puritans  be- 
fore the  war,  or  the  Nonconformists  since  the 
Restoration,  had  made  to  the  church-service.* 
They  had  also  many  propositions  and  advices 
that  had  been  suggested  at  several  times,  by 
many  of  our  bishops  and  divines,  upon  these 
heads  ;  matters  were  well  considered,  and  free- 
ly and  calmly  debated,  and  all  was  digested  into 
an  entire  correction  of  everything  that  seemed 
liable  to  any  just  exception.  Dr.  Nichols  says, 
they  began  with  reviewing  the  liturgy,  and  first 
in  examining  the  calendar  ;  they  ordered,  in  the 
room  of  the  Apocryphal  lessons,  certain  chap- 
ters of  canonical  Scripture  to  be  read,  that  were 
more  to  the  people's  advantage  ;  Athanasius's 
creed  being:  disliked,  by  reason  of  the  damnato- 
ry clauses,  it  was  left  to  the  ministers  choice  to 
use  it,  or  change  it  for  the  Apostles'  Creed.t 
New  Collects  were  drawn  up,  more  agreeable 
to  the  Epistles  and  Gospels,  for  the  whole  course 
of  the  year,  with  that  elegance  and  brightness 
of  expression,  says  the  doctor,  and  such  a  flame 
of  devotion,  that  nothing  could  more  affect  and 
excite  the  hearts  of  the  hearers,  and  raise  up 
their  minds  towards  God  ;  they  were  first  pre- 
pared by  Dr.  Patrick  ;  Dr.  Burnet  added  to 
them  farther  force  and  spirit ;  Dr.  Stillingfleet 
afterward  examined  them  with  great  judgment, 
carefully  weighing  every  word  in  them  ;  and 
Dr.  Tillotson  had  the  last  hand,  giving  them 
some  free  and  masterly  strokes  of  his  sweet  and 
flowing  eloquence.  Dr.  Kidder  made  a  new 
version  of  the  Psalms,  more  agreeable  to  the 
original.  Dr.  Tennison  made  a  collection  of 
the  words  and  expressions  throughout  the  litur- 
gy which  had  been  excepted  against,  and  pro- 
posed others  in  their  room  that  were  clear  and 
plain,  and  less  liable  to  exception — singing  in 
cathedrals  was  to  be  laid  aside — the  Apocryphal 
lessons  were  to  be  omitted,  together  with  the 
legendary  saints'  days — the  cross  in  baptism  to 
be  left  to  the  choice  of  the  parent — and  kneel- 


*  Burnet,  p.  44. 


t  Apparatus,  p.  95,  96. 


348 


HISTORY   OF    THE    PURITANS. 


ing  at  the  sacrament  to  be  indifferent — the  in- 
tention of  Lent  fasts  was  declared  to  consist 
only  in  extraordinary  acts  of  devotion,  not  in 
distinction  of  meats — the  word  priest  was  to  be 
changed  for  minister — the  use  of  the  surplice  is 
left  to  the  discretion  of  the  bishop,  who  may 
dispense  with  it,  or  appoint  another  to  read  the 
service — godfathers  and  godmothers  in  baptism 
may  be  omitted  if  desired,  and  children  present- 
ed in  their  parents'  names — reordinalion  of 
Those  WHO  had  been  ordained  by  presbyters  was 
to  be  only  conditional  ;  but  these,  with  some 
other  useful  alterations  in  the  litany,  commu- 
nion-service, and  canons,  will  not  be  known  till 
the  papers  themselves  are  made  public.  How- 
ever, these  concessions  and  amendments  would, 
in  all  probability,  have  brought  in  three  parts  in 
four  of  the  Dissenters.* 

While  these  things  were  debating  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  among  the  commissioners,  an  ad- 
dress was  presented,  April  19,  praying  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  ancient  custom  and  usage  of  the 
kingdom  in  time  of  Parliament,  his  majesty 
■would  issue  out  his  writ  for  calling  a  convoca- 
tion of  the  clergy  to  be  advised  with  in  ecclesi- 
astical matters,  assuring  his  majesty  that  it 
•was  their  intention  forthwith  to  proceed  to  the 
consideration  of  giving  ease  to  the  Protestant 
Dissenters  ;  but  when  they  met,  it  quickly  ap- 
peared that  the  High  Church  party  were  supe- 
rior to  the  moderate,  by  their  choosing  Dr. 
Jane,t  who  drew  up  the  Oxford  decree,  prolo- 
cutor, in  preference  to   Dr.  Tillotson.t      His 


*  Calamy's  Abridgment,  vol.  i.,  p.  452,  464.  See, 
also.  Birch's  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  182,  196.  There 
is  little  reason  to  doubt  this  statement,  and  the  care- 
ful observer  of  English  dissent  must  be  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  Mr.  Meal's  remark.— C. 

■t  The  election  of  Dr.  Jane  to  be  prolocutor,  as  it 
showed  the  sentiments  and  spirit  of  a  great  majority, 
so  It  was  the  principal  occasion  that  nothing  suc- 
ceeded. For  as  soon  as  he  got  into  the  chair,  he  ad- 
dressed the  Lower  House  in  a  speech,  which,  be- 
.sides  extolling  the  Church  of  England  above  all  oth- 
er Christian  communities,  he  concluded  with  these 
words  :  "  Nolumus  leges  AngUce  mutare ;"  i.  e.,  "  We 
will  not  change  the  laws  of  England  ;"  and,  in  the 
progress  of  the  session,  he  opposed  everything  that 
was  intended  or  proposed  by  the  royal  commission. 
— Bishop  ComptoiCs  Life,  p.  52  ;  and  Life  of  Dr.  Pri- 
deaux,  p.  54.  The  conclusion  of  the  prolocutor's 
speech,  it  is  excellently  observed  in  a  late  valuable 
publication,  was  "  to  be  admired  from  the  mouth  of 
an  old  Enghsh  baron  ;  consistent,  perhaps,  with  the 
declaration  of  a  conclave,  if  matters  of  faith  and 
worship  were  in  agitation  there;  but  ill  suited,  to 
the  greatest  degree,  on  such  an  occasion,  to  the 
character  of  a  Protestant  divine." — Hints,  &c.,  by  a 
Layman,  p.  27,  fourth  edition. — En. 

J  It  is  disgraceful  to  human  nature,  and  painful  to 
the  generous  inind,  that  the  most  liberal  and  excel- 
lent designs  are  defeated  by  revenge  and  disappoint- 
ed ambition.  This  was  the  case  in  the  affair  before 
us.  The  election  of  Dr.  Jane  was  effected  by  the  in- 
trigues of  two  noble  lords,  who,  being  disappointed 
in  their  expectations  of  advancement  to  some  of  the 
higher  employments,  after  the  Revolution,  on  ac- 
count of  their  relation  to  the  queen,  out  of  resent- 
ment contrived  to  have  Dr.  Jane  called  to  the  chair, 
that  they  might  baffle  what  was  intended  by  the 
Convocation,  and  so  embarrass  government.  He 
was  also,  on  the  like  principles,  a  man  ht  for  their 
purpose  ;  for  having  been  refused  the  see  of  Exeter, 
before  promised  to  Bishop  Trelawney,  which  he 
asked  when  he  was  sent  from  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford to  make  an  offer  of  their  plate  to  the  Prince  of 


majesty  sent  a  letter,  or  message,  by  the  Ear. 
of  Nottingham,  assuring  them  of  his  constant 
favour  and  protection,  and  that  he  had  sum- 
moned them,  not  only  because  it  was  usual 
upon  holding  Parliaments,  but  out  of  a  pious 
zeal  to  do  everything  that  might  tend  to  the 
best  establishment  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  desiring  them  to  consider  of  such  things  as 
by  his  order  should  be  laid  before  them,  with  a 
due  and  impartial  zeal  for  the  peace  and  good 
of  the  Church.  But  there  was  no  room  for  his 
majesty's  interposition,  the  Lower  House  of 
Convocation  quickly  coming  to  a  resolution  not 
to  enter  into  any  debates  with  relation  to  alter- 
ations ;  and  it  was  not  without  difficulty  car- 
ried to  make  a  decent  address  to  the  king, 
thanking  him  for  his  promise  of  protection. 
And  the  address  which  the  bishops  sent  down, 
acknowledging  the  protection  which  the  Prot- 
estant religion  in  general,  and  the  Church  of 
England  in  particular,  had  received  from  his 
majesty,  the  Lower  House  would  not  agree  to 
it,  because  it  imported  their  owning  some  com- 
mon union  with  the  foreign  churches.*  They 
would  thank  his  majesty  for  his  care  to  estab- 
lish the  Church  of  England,  whereby  the  inter- 
est of  the  Protestant  churches  abroad  would  be 
better  secured,  but  would  not  insert  the  words 
"  this  and  all  other  Protestant  churches,"  as 
the  bishop  had  desired. 

The  Bishop  of  London,  in  his  answer  to  the 
prolocutor's  speech,  told  them  that  they  ought 
to  endeavour  a  temper  of  things  not  essential  to 
religion  ;  and  that  it  was  their  duty  to  show 
the  same  indulgence  and  charity  to  the  Dis- 
senters under  King  William  which  some  of  the 
bishops  and  clergy  had  promised  in  their  ad- 
dresses to  King  James. t  But  all  these  prom- 
ises, says  Bishop  Burnet,  were  entirely  forgot- 
ten. It  was  in  vain,  therefore,  to  refer  the 
amendments  of  the  ecclesiastical  commission- 
ers to  a  number  of  men  who  had  resolved  to 
admit  of  no  alterations:  and  it  is  thought  that 
if  the  Act  of  Toleration  had  been  left  to  their 
decision,  it  would  have  miscarried.  J  The  king, 
observing  such  a  want  of  temper,  broke  up  the 
sessions ;  and  seeing  they  were  in  no  disposi- 

Orange,  he  was  so  disgusted,  that  he  became  a  pro- 
fessed enemy  to  King  William. — Life  of  Dr.  Pn- 
deaux,  p.  54,  55. — Ed. 

♦  This  was  the  hrst  foundation  of  the  differences 
in  the  Convocation,  which  have  ever  since  been  kept 
up,  to  the  grief  of  pious  minds,  and  to  the  disgrace 
of  the  clergy.  For  the  inferior  clergy  not  agreeing 
to  this  address,  another  address  was  drawn  up  and 
presented  to  the  king  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  six 
of  his  brethren,  and  several  doctors  in  divinity,  who 
were  solemnly  introduced  to  his  majesty,  sitting 
on  his  throne  m  the  Banqueting  House,  by  the  lord- 
chamberlain.— iJi.s/io;3  ComploiCii  Life,  p.  54,55. — Ed. 

+  Bishop  Compton  closed  his  speech,  which 
breathed  a  different  spirit  from  that  of  Dr.  Jane, 
with  these  words  of  Joseph's  to  his  brethren,  "  Ne 
multi  animi  in  consiliis  vestris ;"  thereby  exhorting 
them  to  unanimity  and  concord.— Bishop  Compton' s 
Lift:  p.  53. — Ed. 

t  It  marks  the  mischief  and  the  evil  of  the  spirit 
of  opposition,  that  among  the  other  instances  m 
which  the  design  of  holding  this  convocation  mis- 
carried, was  the  failure  of  an  attempt  to  restore  fam- 
ily devotion  ;  for  a  book,  containing  directions  and 
forms  for  family  worship,  was  provided  to  be  author- 
ized by  this  convocation.  It  was  left  in  the  hand.- 
of  Dr.  Williams,  bishop  of  Chichester,  but  has  been 
since  lost. — Dr.  Prideaux's  Life,  p.  CI,  65. — Ed... 


HISTORY   OF   THE    PURITANS. 


349 


tion  to  do  good,  they  were  kept  from  doing  mis- 
chief by  prorogations  for  a  course  of  ten  years. 

This  was  the  last  fruitless  attempt*  for  a 
comprehension  of  Dissenters  within  the  Estab- 
lishment ;  and  such  was  the  ungrateful  return 
that  these  stubborn  churchmen  made  to  those 
who  had  assisted  them  in  their  distress  !  For 
it  ought  to  stand  upon  record,  that  the  Church 
of  England  had  been  twice  rescued  from  the  most 
imminent  danger  by  men  for  whose  satisfaction 
they  would  not  move  a  pin  nor  abate  a  ceremony  ; 
first  in  the  year  1660,  when  the  Presbyterians 
restored  the' king  and  Constitution  without  ma- 
king any  terms  for  themselves ;  and  now  again 
at  the  Revolution,  when  the  Church  fled  for 
succour  to  a  Presbyterian  prince,  and  was  de- 
livered by  an  army  of  fourteen  thousand  Hol- 
landers, of  the  same  principles  with  the  English 
Dissenters ;  and  how  uncivilly  those  troops  were 
afterward  used,  is  too  ungrateful  a  piece  of  his- 
tory to  remember. 

But  besides  the  strong  disposition  of  the 
High  Church  clergy  and  their  friends  to  return 
to  their  allegiance  to  King  James,  there  was 
another  incident  that  sharpened  their  resent- 
ments against  the  king  and  the  Dissenters, 
which  was  his  majesty's  consenting  to  the  ab- 
olition of  Episcopacy  in  Scotland,  which  could 
not  be  prevented  without  putting  all  his  affairs 
into  the  utmost  confusion  ;  the  bias  of  that  peo- 
ple was  strong  to  presbytery,  and  the  more  so, 
because  the  Episcopal  party  went  almost  uni- 
versally into  King  James's  interests,  so  that  the 

*  I  am  tempted  to  give  here  the  reflections  of  an 
admirable  piece,  which  report  ascribes  to  a  7ioble 
pen.  "The  prolocutor's  veto  has  hitherto  proved 
triumphant ;  and  we  have  too  much  reason  to  ap- 
prehend that,  on  one  pretence  or  other,  these  laws, 
binding  the  consciences  of  men,  will  become,  in 
effect,  as  unalterable  as  those  of  the  Medes  and  Per- 
sians ever  were  ;  though  probably,  in  these  days,  few 
will  venture  to  hold  a  doctrine  so  thoroughly  repug- 
nant to  all  religious  liberty.  Such,  however,  was 
the  fate  of  this  attempt  to  render  the  service  of  the 
Established  Church  as  pure  as  possible,  and  to  clear 
away  those  parts  which,  from  that  day  to  the  pres- 
€nt,  continue  to  offend  so  many  respectable  and  con- 
scientious persons.  Considering  the  character  and 
abilities  of  those  who  undertook  the  task,  it  can  nev- 
er be  sufficiently  lamented  that  their  endeavours 
proved  so  unsuccessful."  For  Archbishop  Wake, 
speaking  of  them  before  the  Lords,  while  he  was 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  thus  expresses  himself:  "  They 
were  a  set  of  men,  than  which  this  church  was  nev- 
€r,  at  any  one  time,  blessed  with  either  wiser  or  bet- 
ter, since  it  was  a  church ;  and  a  design  that,  I  am 
persuaded,  would  have  been  for  the  interest  and 
peace  of  our  Church  and  State,  had  it  been  accom- 
plished." And  when  we  find  among  them  names 
■whose  memory  we  revere,  Compton,  Lloyd,  Burnet, 
among  the  bishops,  with  Tillotson,  Stillingfleet, 
Patrick,  Sharpe,  Kidder,  &c.,  among  the  others,  it 
js  clear  that  posterity  has  confirmed  the  testimony 
of  this  learned  and  sagacious  prelate,  and  regrets 
the  more  the  loss  of  their  beneficent  intentions. — 
Hints,  &c.,  by  a  Layman,  p.  27-29.  To  the  names 
mentioned  by  this  writer  we  would  particularly  add 
Dr.  Humphrey  Pndeanx,  as  he  was  not  only  a  great 
friend  to  the  scheme  then  on  foot  for  a  comprehen- 
sion with  the  Dissenters,  but  published  a  piece  in 
favour  of  that  design,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Letter  to 
a  Friend  relating  to  the  present  Convocation  at 
Westminster,"  which  was  highly  applauded  by  mod- 
erate and  candid  men,  and  of  which  several  thou- 
sands were  sold  within  a  fortnight  after  its  publica- 
tion.—JBnVis/i  Biography,  vol.  vii.,  p.  224,225.— PJn. 


Presbyterians  were  the  only  friends  the  king 
had  in  that  kingdom.*  There  was  a  conven- 
tion called  in  Scotland  like  that  in  England, 
who  on  the  11th  of  April,  the  day  on  which 
King  William  and  Queen  Mary  were  crowned 
in  England,  passed  judgment  of  forfeiture  on 
King  James,  and  voted  the  crown  of  Scotland 
to  King  William  and  Queen  Mary.  They  drew 
up  a  claim  of  rights,  by  one  article  of  which  it 
was  declared,  that  the  reformation  in  Scotland 
having  begun  by  a  party  among  the  clergy,  prel- 
acy in  the  Church  was  a  great  and  insupporta- 
ble grievance  to  the  kingdom.  The  bishops 
and  their  adherents  having  left  the  convention, 
because  not  summoned  by  writ  from  King 
James,  the  Presbyterians  had  a  majority  of 
voices  :  whereupon  the  abolishing  Episcopacy 
in  Scotland  was  made  a  necessary  article  of 
the  new  settlement.  The  Episcopal  party  sent 
the  Dean  of  Glasgow  to  King  William  to  know 
his  intentions  concerning  them,  who  answered 
he  would  do  all  he  could  to  preserve  them  con- 
sistent with  a  full  toleration  to  the  Presbyteri- 
ans, provided  they  concurred  in  the  new  estab- 
lishment ;  but  if  they  opposed  it,  he  should  not 
enter  into  a  war  for  their  sakes.  The  bishops, 
instead  of  submitting  to  the  Revolution,  resolv- 
ed unanimously  to  adhere  firmly  to  King  James, 
and  declared  in  a  body  with  so  much  zeal  against 
the  new  settlement,  that  it  was  not  possible 
for  the  king  to  support  them.  The  clergy  sent 
for  King  Jamss  into  Scotland,  and  the  Earl  of 
Dundee  collected  some  thousands  of  Highland- 
ers to  make  a  stand  ;  but  General  Mackay,  who 
was  sent  with  a  body  of  forces  to  disperse  them, 
routed  them  at  a  place  called  Killicranky,  and 
killed  the  Earl  of  Dundee  upon  the  spot.  So 
that  Episcopacy  in  Scotland  fell  a  sacrifice  to 
the  interest  of  King  James. t 

But  though  it  was  impossible  to  stop  the  tor- 
rent of  the  Scots  people's  zeal  for  Presbytery, 
and  though  the  king  had  only  Presbyterians  on 
his  side  in  that  kingdom,  yet  the  suffering  it  to 
take  place  increased  the  disaffection  of  the  Eng- 
lish clergy.  Reports  of  the  king's  dislike  of 
the  hierarchy  were  spread  with  great  industry  ; 
the  leading  men  of  both  universities  were  pos- 
sessed with  it,  says  Burnet,t  though  the  king 
had  joined  in  communion  with  the  Church,  and 
taken  the  sacrament  according  to  law ;  but  it 
was  given  out  that  men  zealous  for  the  Church 
were  neglected,  and  that  those  who  were  indif- 
ferent to  the  ceremonies  were  promoted.  His 
majesty  promised  the  Scots  clergy  to  moderate 
matters  in  their  favour,  and  Lord  Melvil,  secre- 
tary of  state,  engaged  very  solemnly  for  the  same 
purpose  ;  but  when  the  Presbyterians  threat- 
ened to  desert  the  court  if  they  were  deserted  by 
them,  Melvil  thought  it  the  king's  interest  to 
secure  them  in  all  events,  which  could  not  be 
done  but  by  abandoning  the  ministers  of  the 
Episcopal  persuasion.  Such,  therefore,  as  re- 
fused to  read  the  proclamation  of  King  William 
and  Queen  Mary  by  the  prefi,\ed  day  were  de- 
prived of  their  livings  ;  which  being  published 
up  and  down  England,  and  much  aggravated, 
raised  the  aversion  of  the  friends  of  the  Church 


■♦  Burnet,  vol.  iv.,  p.  32. 

t  iVIr.  Mann,  in  his  judicious  lectures  on  Church 
History,  observes,  that  the  abolition  of  Episcopacy  in 
Scotland  was  called  for  by  the  whole  nation,  p  415. 
— C.  X  Burnet,  p.  40 


3i>0 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


against  the  Presbyterians  so  high,  says  Bishop 
Burnet,*  that  they  began  to  repent  their  having 
granted  a  toleration  to  a  party  who,  where  they 
prevailed,  showed  so  much  fury  against  those  of 
the  Episcopal  persuasion.  It  ought,  however, 
to  be  remembered,  that  this  was  a  government 
case ;  that  the  fate  of  the  Revolution  in  that 
kingdom  depended  upon  it;  and  that  the  bish- 
ops and  Episcopal  clergy,  almost  to  a  man, 
•were  determined  Jacobites,  and  refused  to  take 
the  oaths  to  King  William  and  Queen  Mary. 
Besides,  what  reason  had  the  Scots  Presbyte- 
rians to  trust  the  Episcopal  clergy,  when  it  was 
in  their  power  to  do  themselves  justice  1  Had 
they  not  deceived  them  out  of  their  discipline 
in  1662,  and  persecuted  them  cruelly  ever 
since  1  Whoever  peruses  the  dreadful  suffer- 
ings of  the  Kirk  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  will 
judge  how  far  they  had  reason  to  replace  them 
in  the  saddle,  and  deliver  the  reins  into  their 
hands. 

But  the  disaffection  of  the  High  Church  cler- 
gy stopped  not  short  of  the  king  himself,  who 
was  made  uneasy  by  their  malignant  spirit,  and 
restless  endeavours  to  clog  the  wheels  of  his 
government  ;t  insomuch  that  h\h  majesty  some- 
times declared,  with  more  than  ordinary  vehe- 
mence, that  he  would  not  stay  in  England  and 
hold  an  empty  name  ;  that  it  was  not  easy  to 
determine  which  was  best,  a  commonwealth  or 
kingly  government ;  but  he  was  sure  the  worst 
of  all  governments  was  a  king  without  treas- 
ure, and  without  power.  He  once  resolved  to 
return  to  Holland,  and  leave  the  government  in 
the  queen's  hands,  imagining  they  would  treat 
her  better  ;t  and  he  communicated  his  design 
to  the  Marquis  of  Carmarthen,  the  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury,  and  others,  who  besought  him, 
with  tears,  to  change  his  resolution,  and  at  last 
prevailed  :  but  had  his  majesty  declared  this 
from  the  throne,  the  nation  was  in  a  temper  to 
have  done  him  justice  on  the  incendiaries  ;  for 
notwithstanding  their  clamours,  they  knew  their 
desperate  situation  if  the  king  should  desert 
them,  having  renounced  their  allegiance  to  King 
James,  and  gone  such  lengths  as  he  could  nev- 
er forgive.  But  King  William,  having  a  gener- 
ous mind,  imagined  they  might  be  gained  by 
gentleness  and  kindness,  and  therefore  took  up 
with  a  motley  iTiinistry,  which  distressed  him 
to  the  last.  Thus  the  Tories  and  High  Church 
clergy  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  this  glorious 
revolution,  while  they  acted  a  most  ungrateful 
part  towards  their  deliverer,  and  a  most  unkind 
and  ungenerous  one  to  their  dissenting  breth- 
ren.$ 


*  Burnet,  p.  42.  t  Ibid.,  p.  49. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  55,  56. 

()  After  having  effected  a  glorious  revolution,  and 
delivered  the  country  from  a  most  intolerable  yoke 
and  grievous  slavery,  both  civil  and  religious,  Will- 
iam was  called  to  a  better  world.  SmoUet,  the  his- 
torian, caricatures  him  in  a  few  words :  "  William 
was  a  fatalist  in  religion,  indefatigable  in  war,  enter- 
l)rising  in  politics,  dead  to  all  the  warm  and  gener- 
ous emotions  of  the  human  heart,  a  cold  relation,  an 
indifferent  husband,  a  disagreeable  man,  an  ungra- 
cious prince,  and  an  imperious  sovereign."  Another 
writer  of  as  nice  taste,  just  discrimination,  and  ac- 
curate judgment  as  Dr.  Smollet,  has  given  a  very 
different  account,  with  this  in  his  favour — that  he 
personally  knew  him:  he  thus  speaks:  "William 
had  a  iniud  vast  and  comprehensive,  his  imagination 


Nor  have  these  gentlemen  ceased  to  discov- 
er their  enmity  to  the  Dissenters  since  that 
time,  as  often  as  the  power  has  been  in  their 
hands.  It  was  impossible  to  injure  them  while 
King  William  lived,  but  no  sooner  was  Queen 
Anne  advanced  to  the  throne,  than  they  endeav- 
oured to  cramp  the  toleration  by  the  bill  against 
occasional  conformity,  which  was  brought  into 
the  House  one  session  after  another,  till  at 
length  it  obtained  the  royal  assent  in  the  latter 
end  of  the  year  1711,  under  the  specious  title 
of  "  An  Act  to  preserve  the  Protestant  Reli- 
gion, and  to  confirm  the  Toleration,  and  farther 
to  secure  the  Protestant  Succession."  It  makes 
some  few  concessions  in  support  of  the  tolera- 
tion, but  then  it  enacts,  "that  if  any  persons  in 
office,  who  by  the  laws  are  obliged  to  qualify 
themselves  by  receiving  the  sacrament  or  test, 
shall  ever  resort  to  a  conventicle  or  meeting  of 
Dissenters  for  religious  worship  during  the  time 
of  their  continuance  in  such  office,  they  shall 
forfeit  twenty  pounds  for  every  such  offence,  and 
be  disqualified  for  any  office  for  the  future,  till 
they  have  made  oath  that  they  have  entirely 
conformed  to  the  Church,  and  not  been  at  any 
conventicle  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year."  So 
that  no  person  in  the  least  office  in  the  customs, 
excise,  or  Common  Council,  &c. ,  could  ever 
enter  the  doors  of  a  meeting-house.  But  the 
reader  may  peruse  the  act  at  large  in  the  Appen- 
dix, No.  xiv. 

In  the  last  year  of  Queen  Anne  the  toleration 
was  farther  straitened  by  an  act  to  prevent  the 
growth  of  schism ;  for  with  these  gentlemen 
all  Dissenters  are  schismatics  :  and  in  order  to 
prevent  their  increase,  the  education  of  their 
children  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  their 
friends,  and  intrusted  only  with  such  who  were 
full  and  entire  Conformists. 

And  if  any  schoolmaster  or  tutor  should  be 
willingly  present  at  any  conventicle  of  Dissent- 
ers for  religious  worship,  he  shall  suffer  three 
months'  imprisonment,  and  be  disqualified,  as 
above,  from  teaching  school  for  the  future.  The 
act  was  to  take  place  August  1,  1714,  the  very 
day  the  queen  died  ;  but  his  late  majesty  King 
George  I.  being  fully  satisfied  that  these  hard- 
ships were  brought  upon  the  Dissenters  for  their 
steady  adherence  to  the  Protestant  succession 
in  his  illustrious  house,  against  a  Tory  and  Jac- 
obite ministry,  who  were  paving  the  way  for  a 
popish  pretender,  procured  the  repeal  of  them 
in  the  fifth  year  of  his  reign.  The  last-men- 
tioned act,  with  the  repeal,  is  inserted  in  the 
Appendix,  Nos.  xv.  and  xvi.,  together  with  a 
clause  which  forbids  the  mayor,  or  other  magis- 
trate, to  go  into  any  meeting  for  religious  wor- 
ship with  the  ensigns  of  his  office. 

Many  of  the  ejected  ministers  of  1662,  and 


fruitful  and  sprightly,  his  memory  large  and  tena- 
cious; his  thoughts  were  wise  and  secret,  his  words 
few  but  comprehensive,  his  actions  many  and  brave  ; 
he  was  religious  without  superstition,  just  without 
rigour,  merciful  without  partiality,  and,  I  may  add 
(though  I  am  sorry  to  say  it),  meritorious  without 
thanks.  It  is  no  wonder  that  such  a  prince  lived 
beloved,  and  died  lamented  by  all  good  men  ;  for  he 
honoured  God,  and  God  hououred  him."  His  love 
to  his  queen  and  other  relatives  is  described  in  stri- 
king contrast  witli  the  picture  drawn  by  the  infidel 
historian  above  quoted. — Humr  and  Smollet,  vol.  ix., 
p.  443.  Fleming  on  Death  of  William,  p.  164-5.  Bur- 
net's Own  Times,  vol.  iii.,  p.  417-25.— C. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    PURITANS. 


351 


others,  survived  the  Revolution,  and  made  a 
considerable  figure  in  the  reigns  of  King  Will- 
iam and  Queen  Mary.     As, 


Rev.  William  Bates,  D.D. 

"  Obad.  Grew,  D.D. 

"  Sam.  Annesly,  D.D. 

"  .Tohn  Colli n?s,  D.D. 

"  Richard  Baxter. 

"  Vincent  Alsop,  M.A. 

"  John  Howo,  M.A. 

"  Tho.  Doohttle.  M.A. 

"  Phil,  and  Matt.  Henry, 

M.A. 

"  John  Flavel. 

*'  Matthew  Barker,  M.A. 

"  George  Cockayne. 

"  John  Faldo. 

"  W.  Lorimer,  M.A. 

"  Tho.  Gilbert.  B.D. 

"  Jos.  HjU,  B.D. 

"  Robert  Bragge. 


Rev.  Matth.  Mead. 

"  Jas.  Forbes,  M.A. 

"  Tho.  Cole,  M.A. 

"  Geo.  Griffith,  M.A. 

"  Nath.  Mather. 

"  Edward  Veal. 

"  John  Quick. 

"  Nath.  Vincent,  M.A. 

"  Rd.  Stretton,  M.A. 

"  Geo.  Hammond,  M.A. 

"  Richard  Kentish. 

"  H.  Newcome,  M.A. 

"  Matt.  Sylvester. 

"  Christ.  Nesse,  M.A. 

"  .lohn  Humphrys,  M.A. 

"  Richard  Mayo. 

"  Matth.  Clarke,  Sen. 

"  Isaac  Chauncey,  M.D. 


Rev.  Sam.  Slater,  M.A.  Rer.  Nath.  Taylor. 

"     Daniel  Williams,  D.D.  "  R.  Flemming,  M.A. 

•'     .Tohn  Sp.ademan,  M.A.  "  Daniel  Burgess. 

"     Robert  Billio.  "  James  Owen,  <fcc. 
"     Rich.  Steele,  M.A. 

These,  and  others  who  deserve  an  honour- 
able mention,  were  learned  and  useful  men,  and 
most  of  them  popular  preachers,  serviceable  to 
the  societies  for  reformation  of  manners,  and 
eminent  confessors  in  the  cause  of  liberty  and 
scriptural  religion  ;  but  their  deaths  not  happen- 
ing within  the  compass  of  this  work,  I  must 
leave  them  to  be  remembered  by  the  historians 
of  after  times.* 


*  Notices  of  many  of  these  excellent  ministers 
will  be  found  in  the  Appendix,  derived  from  a  varie- 
ty of  sources. — C. 


END    OP    MR.  NK.IL  S    HISTORY. 


SUPPLEMENT, 

CONTAINING 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BAPTISTS  AND  QUAKERS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

SOME  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  BAPTISTS,  OK  ANTIPiEDO- 
BAPTISTS,  FROM  THE  DAYS  OF  WICKLIFFE  TO 
THE    REIGN    OF    JAMES    I.,    A.D.   1370-1600. 

Although  the  Baptist  profession  does  not  as- 
sume a  visible  appearance  in  England,  by  the 
formation  of  chinches  in  a  state  of  separation 
from  their  brethren  of  the  PaBdobaptist  persua- 
sion, earlier  than  the  reign  of  James  I.,  it  is  be- 
yond all  reasonable  doubt  that  individuals  were 
to  be  found  maintaining  those  principles  in  eve- 
ry subsequent  age  from  the  days  of  WicklifFe, 
that  morning  star  of  the  Reformation. 

It  is  perhaps  impossible  for  us,  after  a  lapse 
of  four  or  five  centuries,  to  decide  the  question 
whether  the  great  English  Reformer  did  or  did 
not  oppose  the  baptism  of  infants.  It  is  a  fact, 
however,  which  admits  of  no  dispute,  that  he 
maintained  and  propagated  those  principles 
"Which,  when  carried  out  into  their  legitimate 
consequences,  are  wholly  subversive  of  the 
practice  in  question.  And  if  Wickliffe  himself 
did  not  pursue  the  consequence  of  his  own  doc- 
trines so  far,  yet  many  of  his  followers  did,  and 
■were  made  Baptists  by  it.* 

One  of  the  maxims  held  by  this  Reformer 


*  Respecting  Wicklitfe's  sentiments  on  this  sub- 
ject, many  writers  have  positively  asserted  that  he 
opposed  this  practice.  Dr.  Hurd,  in  his  History  of 
all  Religions,  says,  "  It  is  pretty  clear,  from  the  wri- 
tings of  many  learned  men,  that  Dr.  John  Wicklifi'e, 
the  first  English  Reformer,  either  considered  infant 
baptism  unlawful,  or,  at  best,  not  necessary."  The 
author  of  a  History  of  Religion,  published  in  London 
in  1764,  in  four  volumes  octavo,  says,  "Jt  is  clear 
from  many  authors  that  Wicklifte  rejected  infant 
baptism,  and  that  on  this  doctrine  his  followers 
agreed  with  the  modern  Baptists."  Thomas  VVal- 
den  and  Joseph  V'icecomes,  who  had  access  to  his 
writings,  have  charged  him  with  denying  Pffidobap- 
tism,  and  they  brought  their  charge  at  a  time  when 
it  might  have  been  easily  contradicted  if  it  had  not 
been  true.  The  first  of  these  charges  him  with 
holding  the  following  opinions  about  baptism  :  "  That 
baptism  doth  not  confer,  but  only  signifies  grace 
which  wa-i  given  before;  that  those  are  fools  and 
presumptuous  who  afKrm  such  infants  not  to  be  saved 
as  die  without  baptism  ;  and  asserted  that  the  bap- 
tism of  water  profited  nothing  without  the  baptism 
of  the  Spirit."  A  council  was  held  at  Blackfriars 
June  II,  1382,  to  condemn  Wicklitfc  and  his  sect,  at 
which  lime,  while  his  enemies  were  in  convocation, 
that  terrible  earthquake  happened  which  is  mention- 
ed in  the  Chronicles  of  St.  Alban's,  and  of  which 
Wicklifi'e  also  takes  notice  in  his  writings.  This 
greatly  alarmed  his  persecutors,  but  did  not  prevent 
their  framing  many  articles  of  accusation.  The 
eleventh  article  was,  that  the  children  of  believers 
might  be  saved  without  baptism. —  VVatden,  tom.  ii.,  93, 
108-.  Danvers^s  Treatise,  p.  ii.,  p.  287.  Ivimey,  vol. 
i.,p.72.— C. 

Vol.  II.— Y  y 


was,  "  that  wise  men  leave  that  as  impertinent 
which  is  not  plainly  expressed  in  Scripture  ;"* 
in  other  words,  that  nothing  should  be  practised 
in  the  Church  of  God,  as  a  branch  of  worship, 
which  is  neither  expressly  commanded  nor 
plainly  exemplified  in  the  New  Testament.  It 
is  upon  this  principle  that  the  Baptists  make 
their  stand.  They  examine  the  sacred  writings, 
and  there  find,  that  in  their  Lord's  commission, 
baptism  stands  connected  with  the  preaching  of 
the  everlasting  Gospel ;  that  the  apostles,  who 
well  understood  their  Master's  will,  administer- 
ed it  to  none  but  those  who  professed  to  repent 
and  believe  the  Gospel;  and  that  thus  it  was 
the  first  disciples  "  put  on  Christ,"  or  were  ini- 
tiated into  his  visible  kingdom  ;  for  such  as 
gladly  received  the  Word  were  baptized  and  add- 
ed to  the  churches. 

All  our  historians  agree  in  affirming  that  the 
doctrines  of  Wickliffe  spread  very  extensively 
throughout  the  country  ;  insomuch  that,  accord- 
ing to  Knighton,  a  contemporary  historian, 
"more  than  half  the  people  of  England  em- 
braced them  and  became  his  followers."  Soon 
after  his  death,  they  began  to  form  distinct  so- 
cieties in  various  places.  Rapin  tells  us  that, 
"in  the  year  1389.  the  Wickliffites,  or  Lollards, 
as  they  were  commonly  named,  began  to  sep- 
arate from  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  appoint 
priests  from  among  themselves  to  perform  Di- 
vine service  after  their  own  way.  Though 
some  were  from  time  to  time  persecuted  by  the 
bishops,  yet  their  persecutions  were  not  rigor- 
ous. Their  aim  seemed  to  be  only  to  hinder 
them  from  pleading  prescription.  Besides,  a 
petition  presented  to  the  king  by  a  fi)rmer  Par- 
liament, to  revoke  the  power  granted  to  the 
bishops  to  imprison  heretics,  restrained  the  most 
forward. "t 

During  the  usurpation  of  Henry  IV.,  A.D. 
1400,  the  clergy,  who  had  been  instrumental  to 
his  elevation,  obtained  from  him  a  law  for  the 
burning  of  heretics,  which  they  were  not  long 
in  carrying  into  operation.  One  of  the  first  vic- 
tims to  their  sanguinary  edict  was  Williani 
Sawtre,  said  to  have  held  the  principles  of  the 
Baptists,  and  who  was  burned  in  London  in  the 
year  1400.  He  had  been  some  time  minister  of 
the  parish  of  St.  Margaret,  in  the  town  of  Lynn  ; 
but,  adopting  the  tenets  of  the  Lollards,  he  was 
convicted  of  heresy  by  the  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
and  though  by  temporizing  he  for  a  while  avert- 
ed the  dreadful  sentence,  yet  he  ultimately  fell 
a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  truth.  If  we  may 
credit  the  testimony  of  those  who  liveil  near 
the  time  when  this  took  place,  the  diocess  of 

*  Fuller's  Church  History,  p.  133. 

+  Rapin's  Hist,  of  England,  vol.  i.,  p.  48€k 


354 


SUPPLEMENT. 


Norwich,  in  which  Sawtre  resided,  abounded 
■with  persons  of  similar  sentiments;  but  the 
cruel  and  ignoininous  death  of  this  jrood  man 
struck  terror  into  llie  followers  of  Wickliffe, 
and  made  them  more  cautious  how  they  expo- 
sed themselves  to  a  similar  fate  by  divul<ring 
their  opinions.  Yet  Fuller  relates  that,  such 
was  the  craft  and  diligence  of  the  clergy,  they 
found  out  means  to  discover  many  of  them,  and 
by  ex  officio  informations  which  they  now  ob- 
tained, they  persecuted  them  with  great  cruel- 
ty, so  that  the  prisons  were  filled  with  them  : 
many  were  induced  to  recant,  and  such  as  re- 
fused were  treated  without  mercy.* 

That  the  denial  of  the  right  of  infants  to  bap- 
tism was  a  principle  generally  maintained 
among  the  Lollards  or  followers  of  Wickliffe,  is 
abundantly  confirmed  by  the  historians  of  those 
times.  Thomas  Walden,  who  wrote  against 
Wickliffe,  terms  this  reformer  "  one  of  the  sev- 
en heads  that  rose  up  out  of  the  bottomless  pit 
for  denyivg  infant  baptism,  that  heresie  of  the 
Lollards,  of  whom  he  was  so  great  a  ringleader." 
Walsingham,  another  writer,  says,  "  It  was  in 
the  year  1381  that  that  damnable  heretic,  John 
Wickliffe,  received  the  cursed  opinions  of  Be- 
rengarius,"  one  of  which  unquestionably  was 
the  denial  of  infant  baptism.  The  Dutch  Mar- 
tyrology  also  gives  an  account  of  one  Sir  L. 
Clifford,  who  had  formerly  been  a  Lollard,  but 
had  left  them,,  and  who  informed  the  Archbish- 
op of  Canterbury  that  the  Lollards  would  not 
baptize  their  newborn  children.  The  fact  is, 
therefore,  put  beyond  dispute,  that  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Antipaidobaptists  were  prevalent  du- 
ring the  whole  of  the  fifteenth  century,  though 
we  are  unable  to  trace  them  as  imbodied  in  the 
formation  of  distinct  churches  under  that  de- 
nomination. 

In  the  history  of  the  Welsh  Baptists  compiled 
by  Mr.  Joshua  Thomas,  of  Leominster,  we  have 
some  interesting  information  respecting  a  Mr. 
W^alter  Brute,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a  gen- 
tleman of  rank,  learning,  and  parts,  in  the  dio- 
cess  of  Hereford,  about  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  This  person,  though  reckoned  a  lay- 
man by  the  popish  clergy,  was  indefatigable  in 
propagating  the  truth  himself,  "  teaching  openly 
and  privately,  as  well  the  nobles  as  the  com- 
mons." In  this  good  work  he  was  assisted  by 
two  of  his  intimate  friends,  viz.,  Mr.  William 
Swinderby  and  Mr.  Stephen  Ball,  who  were 
both  of  them  preachers  of  note,  and  all  main- 
taining the  doctrines  of  Wickliffe.  Fox,  the 
martyrologist,  has  given  a  particular  account  of 
Mr.  Brute,  and  of  his  religious  sentiments,  ex- 
tracted from  the  register  of  the  Bishop  of  Here- 
ford. One  of  his  tenets  was,  that  faith  ouoht 
to  precede  baptism,  and  that  baptism  was  not  es- 
sential to  salvation.  A  commission  was  grant- 
ed by  Richard  II.  about  the  year  1392,  address- 
ed to  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  county  of 
Hereford,  and  to  the  mayor  of  the  city,  author- 
izing them  to  prosecute  Brute  on  a  charge  of 
preaching  heresy  in  the  diocess  and  places  ad- 
jacent, and  also  with  keeping  conventicles.  In 
consequence  of  this,  Mr.  Brute  retired  into  pri- 
vacy, and  Swinderby  and  his  friends  fled  into 
Wales,  to  be  out  of  the  county  and  diocess  of 
Hereford.  Amid  the  mountains  and  valleys  of 
the  principality  they  continued  for  some  time, 


Fuller's  Church  History,  p.  1C4. 


instructing  all   that  came  unto  them.     They 

seem,  however,  ultimaiely  to  have  been  appre-- 
bended  and  brought  to  trial,  and  Fok  mentions 
that  Swinderby,  the  friend  of  Walter  Brute,  was 
burned  alive  for  his  profession  in  Smithiield, 
A.D.  1401  ;  what  became  of  the  latter  he  does 
not  particularly  say,  but  from  what  he  relates  of 
his  bold  and  spirited  defence  upon  his  trial,  it  is 
probable  that  he  shared  the  same  fate.* 

Dr.  Wall,  the  learned  author  of  the  "  History 
of  Infant  Baptism,"  seems  desirous  of  persua- 
ding his  readers  that  there  were  no  Baptists  in 
England  when  Henry  VIII.  ascended  the  throne 
at  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
A.D.  L51L  But,  upon  that  supposition,  it  is, 
not  easy  to  account  for  the  sanguinary  statutes 
which  in  the  early  part  of  this  reign  were  put 
forth  against  the  Anabaptists.  In  the  year 
1535,  ten  persons  avowing  these  sentiments  are 
mentioned  in  the  registers  of  the  metropolis  as 
having  been  put  to  death  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  while  an  equal  number  saved  them- 
selves by  recantation.  In  the  following  year 
the  Convocation  sat,  and  after  some  matters  re- 
lating to  the  king's  divorce  had  been  debated, 
the  lower  house  presented  to  the  upper  a  cata- 
logue of  religious  tenets  which  then  prevailed 
in  the  realm,  amounting  to  sixty-seven  articles, 
and  they  are  such  as  respected  the  Lollards,  the 
new  Reformers,  and  the  Anabaptists.  The 
latter  are  most  particularly  pointed  at;  the  in- 
dispensable necessity  of  baptism  for  attaining 
eternal  life  is  most  peremptorily  insisted  on  ; 
that  "  infants  must  needs  be  christened,  be- 
cause they  are  born  in  original  sin,  which  sin 
must  needs  be  remitted,  and  which  can  only  be 
done  by  the  sacrament  of  baptism,  whereby 
they  receive  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  exerciseth 
his  grace  and  efficacy  in  them,  and  cleanseth- 
and  purgeth  those  from  sin  by  his  most  secret 
virtue  and  operation.  Item.  That  children  or 
men  once  baptized,  can,  nor  ought  ever  to  be  bap- 
tized again.  Item.  That  they  ought  to  repute 
and  take  all  the  Anabaptists',  and  every  other 
man's  opinions  agreeable  to  the  said  Anabap- 
tists, for  detestable  heresies,  and  utterly  to  be 
condemned."  On  the  16th  November,  1538,  a 
proclamation  was  issued  condemning  all  the 
books  of  the  Anabaptists,  and  ordering  those  to 
be  punished  who  vended  them  ;  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing month  a  circular  letter  was  addressed  to 
all  the  justices  of  peace  throughout  England, 
solemnly  warning  them  to  take  care  that  all  the 
injunctions,  laws,  and  proclamations  against 
the  Anabaptists  and  others,  be  duly  executed. 
In  the  same  year  an  act  of  grace  was  passed, 
from  the  provisions  of  which  all  Anabaptists 
were  excepted.!  If  the  country  did  not  abound 
with  Baptists  at  this  time,  why  were  those  se- 
vere measures  enforced  against  themi 

We  learn  from  "Fuller's  Church  History," 
that  "at  the  period  when  Henry  V^III.  was  mar- 
ried to  Anne  of  Cleves,  the  Dutch  flocked  into 
England  in  great  numbers,  and  soon  after  began 
to  broach  their  strange  opinions,  being  branded 
with  the  general  name  of  Anabaptists."  He 
adds,  that  "these  Anabaptists,  in  the  main,  are 

*  The  reader  should  look  on  to  a  passage  on  page 
364  in  relation  to  the  church  at  Chesterton,  alluded 
to  by  Robinson,  and  vv-hich  existed  in  1457. — C. 

t  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  iii., 
book  iii. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


35S 


but  Donatists  new  dipped.  And  this  year  their 
name  first  appears  in  our  English  Chronicles, 
where  I  read  that  four  Anabaptists,  three  men 
and  one  woman,  all  Dutch,  bare  fagots  at  Paul's 
Cross  ;  and,  three  days  after,  a  man  and  a  wom- 
an of  their  sect  were  burned  in  Smithfield."* 

When  the  historian  says  that  it  was  in  the 
year  1538  that  the  names  of  these  sectaries  first 
appeared  in  an  English  Chronicle,  there  is  con- 
siderable obscurity  attached  to  his  meaning. 
To  suppose  him  to  assert  that  the  Anabaptists 
do  not  appear  in  the  annals  of  England  before 
that  year,  is  to  accuse  him  of  contradicting  his 
own  writings,  and  violating  the  truth  of  history. 
Bishop  Burnet  says  that  "  in  May,  1535,  nine- 
teen Hollanders  were  accused  of  holding  hereti- 
cal opinions,  among  which  was  a  denial  that  the 
sacraments  had  any  effect  on  those  that  receiv- 
ed them  :  fourteen  of  them  remained  obstinate, 
and  were  burned  by  pairs  in  several  places. "t 
This  denial  of  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments 
evidently  points  to  the  Baptists,  who  strenuous- 
ly opposed  the  administration  of  that  ordinance 
to  infants  on  the  ground  of  its  saving  efficacy.  In 
the  same  year,  as  has  been  already  stated,  the 
registers  of  London  mention  certain  Dutch  Bap- 
tists, ten  of  whom  were  put  to  death  ;  and  in 
the  articles  of  religion  set  forth  by  the  king  and 
Convocation,  A.D.  1536,  the  sect  of  the  Ana- 
baptists is  specified  and  condemned.  In  fact,  it 
is  easy  to  trace  the  Baptists  in  England  at  least 
a  hundred  years  prior  to  the  time  mentioned  by 
Puller.  His  words  must,  therefore,  be  restrict- 
ed to  the  punishments  first  inflicted  in  England 
upon  the  Mennonites,  or  Dutch  Baptists,  who 
had  emigrated  to  this  country. 

In  the  year  1539,  the  thirtieth  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.,  we  find  certain  legal  enactments 
promulgated,  one  of  which  was,  "  that  those 
who  are  in  any  error,  as  Sacramentaries,  Ana- 
baptists, or  any  others  that  sell  books  having 
such  opinions  in  them,  being  once  known,  both 
the  books  and  such  persons  shall  be  detected, 
and  disclosed  immediately  to  the  king's  majes- 
ty, or  one  of  his  privy  council,  to  the  intent  to 
have  it  punished  without  favour,  even  with  the 
extremity  of  the  law-^'t  From  this  it  appears 
that  the  Baptists  not  only  existed  in  England, 
but  that  they  were  in  the  habit  of  availing  them- 
selves of  the  art  of  printing,  which  had  not  long 
been  discovered,  for  the  defence  of  their  pecu- 
liar and  discriminating  tenets ;  and  to  such  an 
extent,  too,  as  to  alarm  the  clergy,  and  induce 
them  to  call  upon  the  Legislature  for  measures 
of  severity,  in  order  to  restrain  their  circulation. 

In  the  same  year,  it  appears,  from  the  Dutch 
Martyrology,  that  sixteen  men  and  fifteen  wom- 
en were  banished  the  country  for  opposing  in- 
fant baptism.  They  retired  to  Delft,  in  Hol- 
land, where  they  were  pursued  and  prosecuted 
before  the  magistrates  as  Anabaptists,  and  put  to 
death  for  their  supposed  errors,  the  men  being 
beheaded  and  the  women  drowned.  Such  were 
the  sanguinary  proceedings  against  the  Baptists 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  a  monarch  who 
professedly  espoused  the  cause  of  reformation. 

Edward  VI.  ascended  the  throne  in  1547  ; 
and,  though  only  nine  years  of  age,  he  was  evi- 


*  Fuller's  Church  History,  book  iv.  Stowe's 
Chronicle,  p.  576. 

t  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  i.,  book  iii.,  p. 
195.  t  Fox's  Martyrs,  vol.  ij.,  p.  4'10. 


dently  a  great  blessing  to  the  country.  He  en- 
couraged the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  his 
own  language,  received  home  again  such  as 
had  been  banished  during  the  former  reign,  and 
restrained  persecution  in  all  its  direful  forms  to 
the  utmost  of  his  power.  Fox  tells  us  that 
"  during  the  whole  time  of  the  six  years'  reign 
of  this  young  prince,  much  tranquillity,  and,  as  it 
were,  a  breathing-time,  was  granted  to  the 
whole  Church  of  England ;  so  that,  the  rage  of 
persecution  ceasing,  and  the  sword  taken  out 
of  the  adversaries'  hand,  there  was  now  no 
danger  to  the  godly,  unless  it  were  only  by 
wealth  and  prosperity,  which  many  times  bring- 
eth  more  damage  in  corrupting  men's  minds 
than  any  time  of  persecution  or  affliction.  In 
short,  during  all  this  time,  neither  in  Smithfield 
nor  in  any  other  quarter  of  this  realm  was  any 
heard  to  suffer  for  any  matter  of  religion,  either 
papist  or  Protestant,  two  only  excepted  ;  one 
an  English  woman,  called  Joan  of  Kent ;  and 
the  other  a  Dutchman,  named  Goorge."* 

Bishop  Burnet  informs  us  that  at  this  time 
there  were  many  Anabaptists  in  several  parts  of 
England.  These  persons  laid  it  down  as  a 
foundation  principle,  that  the  Scripture  was  to 
be  the  only  rule  of  Christians.  They  denied 
that  the  baptism  of  infants  could  be  fairly  de- 
duced from  Scripture :  "  they  held  that  to  be 
no  baptism,  and  so  were  rebaptized."  On  the 
12th  of  April,  1549,  there  was  a  complaint 
brought  to  the  council  that,  with  the  strangers 
that  were  lately  come  into  England,  some  of  that 
persuasion  had  come  over,  who  were  dissemina- 
ting their  errors,  and  making  proselytes.  A  com- 
mission was  accordingly  ordered  ibr  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  the  Bishops  of  Ely,  Wor- 
cester, Westminster,  Lincoln,  and  Rochester, 
&c.,  &c.,  to  examine  and  search  after  all  Anabap- 
tists, heretics,  or  contemners  of  the  Commoa 
Prayer ;  to  endeavour  to  reclaim  them,  or,  if  ob- 
stinate, to  excommunicate  and  imprison  them, 
and  deliver  them  over  to  the  secular  power,  to 
be  farther  proceeded  against.  Some  tradesmen 
in  London  were  brought  before  the  commission- 
ers, and  were  persuaded  to  abjure  their  former 
opinions,  one  of  which  was,  "that  the  baptism 
of  infants  was  not  profitable." 

One  of  those  who  thus  abjured  was  commanded 
to  carry  a  fagot  on  the  following  Sunday  at  St. 
Paul's,  where  a  sermon  was  to  be  preached  set- 
ting forth  his  heresy.  But  Joan  Boucher,  com- 
monly called  Joan  of  Kent,  was  extremely  ob- 
stinate. "The  excuse  for  thirsting  after  this 
woman's  blood,"  says  one  of  our  older  histori- 
ans, "  which  Cranmer  and  the  other  bishops 
evinced,  was,  that  she  was  an  Anabaptist,  and 
that  the  Anabaptists  in  Germany  had  turned  ali 
religion  into  allegories,  and  denied  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Christian  faith  ;  that  thsy  had  also 
broke  out  into  rebellion,  and  driven  the  bishops 
out  of  Munster,  where  they  set  up  John  of  Ley- 
den,  one  of  their  teachers,  for  king,  and  called 
the  city  New  Jerusalem."  But  Joan  Boucher 
was  not  charged  with  rebellion,  nor  yet  with  a 
breach  of  peace.  And  Bishop  Burnet  himself 
acknowledges  that  there  were  Anabaptists  of 
gentle  and  moderate  principles  and  manners 
whose  only  crime  was  that  they  thought  bap- 
tism ought  not  to  be  given  to  infants,  but  to 
grown  persons  alone.  If  the  bishops  did  not 
"  Acts  and  Monuments,  p.  685. 


356 


SUPPLEMENT. 


distinguish  this  moderate  sort  of  Baptists  from 
the  madmen  of  Minister,  there  is  reason  to 
judge  the  death  of  Joan  Bouclier  to  be  no  better 
than  murder.  She  was,  indeed,  cliarged  with 
maintaining,  besides  adult  baptism,  "  that  Christ 
was  not  truly  incarnate  of  the  Virgin,  whose 
flesh  being  sinful,  he  could  not  partake  of  it,  but 
the  Word,  by  the  consent  of  the  inward  man  in 
the  Virgin,  took  flesh  of  her  :"  a  scholastic  dis- 
tinction, incapable  of  doing  much  mischief,  and 
far  from  deserving  so  severe  a  punishment. 
"The  principles  of  orthodoxy  surely  ought  not 
to  destroy  the  principles  of  humanity  !  It  is 
not  in  a  man's  power  to  believe  all  that  another 
may  tell  him  ;  but  is  he,  therefore,  to  be  burned 
for  not  efTecting  an  impossibility  1  Had  the 
apostles  promulgated  any  such  doctrine  among 
either  Jews  or  Gentiles,  when  Christ  sent  them 
to  preach  the  Gospel  to  all  nations,  and  baptize 
those  that  believed,  not  even  the  power  of  mir- 
acles would  have  been  sufficient  to  establish  a 
religion  thus  founded  on  cruelty  and  injustice."* 

The  bishops  named  in  the  commission  for 
searching  after  the  Baptists  were  Cranmer, 
Ridley,  Goodrich,  Heath,  Scory,  and  ?Iolbeach, 
two  of  whom  were,  in  the  following  reign, 
themselves  burned  for  heresy.  When  this 
poor  woman  had  been  convicted,  and  condemn- 
ed as  an  obstinate  heretic,  she  was  given  over 
to  the  secular  power,  and  Cranmer  was  em- 
ployed to  persuade  the  king  to  sign  the  warrant 
lor  her  execution.  But  the  young  monarch 
was  so  struck  with  the  cruelty  and  unreasona- 
bleness of  the  sentence  passed  upon  her,  that 
when  he  was  requested  to  sign  the  warrant  for 
her  execution,  he  could  not,  for  some  time,  be 
prevailed  on  to  do  it.  Cranmer  argued  from 
the  law  of  Moses,  according  to  which  blasphe- 
mers were  to  be  stoned  :  he  said  he  made  a 
great  difTerence  between  other  points  of  divini- 
ty and  those  which  were  levelled  against  the 
Apostles'  Creed ;  that  there  were  impieties 
against  God  which  a  prince,  being  his  deputy, 
ought  to  punish,  just  as  the  king's  deputies 
were  obliged  to  punish  offences  against  the 
king's  person  !  These,  certainly,  were  very  fu- 
tile pleas,  and  Bishop  Burnet  says  they  rather 
silenced  than  satisfied  the  young  king,  who  still 
thought  it  a  hard  thing,  as  in  truth  it  was,  to 
proceed  so  severely  in  such  cases.  According- 
ly, he  set  his  hand  to  the  warrant  with  tears  in 
his  eyes,  telling  Cranmer  that  if  he  did  wrong, 
as  it  Was  done  in  submission  to  his  authority, 
he  (the  archbishop)  should  answer  for  it  to  God  ! 
This  struck  the  prelate  with  much  horror,  so 
that  he  was  very  unwilling  to  have  the  sentence 
carried  into  efiect.  Every  effort  was  now  made 
to  induce  the  woman  to  recant :  both  Cranmer 
and  Ridley  took  her  in  custody  to  their  own 
houses,  to  try  if  they  could  prevail  upon  her  to 
do  so;  hut,  remaining  inllexible,  she  was  exe- 
cuted May  2,  1550,  Bishop  Scory  preaching  at 
her  burning.! 

It  would  seem,  at  fir.st  sight,  a  little  remarka- 
ble that  so  much  pains  should  have  been  taken 
with  Joan  Boucher  to  make  her  retract  her 
opinions;  but  our  sui prise  will  cease  when  we 
attend  to  the  account  which  Strype  gives  of  her 
in  his  ".Annals  of  the  Reformation:"  "She  was," 

*  Oldmixon's  History  of  England,  p.  187. 

t  Burnet's  Hist.  Reformation,  vol.  ii.,  part  ii.,  p. 

no. 


says  he,  "  a  great  disperser  of  Tyndafs  New- 
Testament,  translated  by  him  into  English,  and 
printed  at  Cologne ;  and  was,  moreover,  a 
great  reader  of  Scriptures  herself;  which  book 
also  she  dispersed  in  the  court,  and  so  became 
known  to  certain  wi>men  of  quality,  and  was 
particularly  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Anne  Askew. 
She  used,  for  greater  secrecy,  to  tie  the  books 
with  strings  under  her  apparel,  and  so  pass 
with  them  into  court.""  From  this  it  would 
appear  that  she  was  a  person  of  no  ordinary 
rank  in  life,  hut  one  whose  sentiments  on  reli- 
gious subjects  were  entitled  to  respect ;  and 
that,  having  tasted  of  the  good  Word  of  God 
herself,  and  knowing  its  ineffable  value  to  the 
souls  of  her  fellow-creatures,  she  was  not  afraid 
of  hazarding  her  own  personal  safety,  in  those 
perilous  times,  to  put  others  in  possession  of 
the  oracles  of  eternal  truth. 

There  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  connect- 
ed with  the  burning  of  this  illvstrious  female 
related  by  Fox,  which  is  worth  inserting  in 
these  pages.  I  extract  it  from  Crosby's  Histo- 
ry, vol.  i.,  p.  59,  who  tells  us  that  he  has  taken 
it  from  "  Peirce's  Answer  to  Nichols."  "  When 
the  Protestant  bishops,"  says  Fox,  "had  re- 
solved to  put  [this  woman]  to  death,  a  friend  of 
Mr.  John  Rogers, f  the  divinity  reader  in  St. 
Paul's  Church,  came  to  him,  earnestly  entreat- 
ing him  to  use  his  interest  with  the  archbishop 
that  the  poor  woman's  life  might  be  spared,  and 
other  m.eans  used  to  prevent  the  spreading  of 
her  opinions  which  might  be  done  in  time  ;  ur- 
ging, too,  that  though  while  she  lived  she  in- 
fected few  with  her  opinions,  yet  she  might  bring 
many  to  think  well  of  them  by  suffering  for 
them.  He  therefore  pleaded  that  it  was  much 
better  she  should  he  kept  in  some  prison,  where 
she  had  no  opportunity  of  propagating  her  no- 
tions among  weak  people,  and  thus  she  would 
be  precluded  from  injuring  others,  while  she 
might  live  to  change  her  own  mind.  Rogers, 
on  the  other  hand,  pleaded  that  she  ought  to  be 
put  to  death.  Well,  then,  said  his  friend,  if  you 
are  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  both  her  life  and 
her  opinions,  choose  some  other  kind  of  death 
more  consonant  to  the  gentleness  and  mercy 
prescribed  in  the  Gospel,  there  being  no  need 
that  such  tormenting  deaths  should  be  resorted 
to  in  imitation  of  the  papists.  Rogers  answer- 
ed, that  hurning  alive  was  not  a  cruel  death,  but 
easy  enough  !  On  hearing  these  words,  which 
expressed  so  little  regard  to  the  poor  creature's 
sufferings,  his  friend  replied  with  great  vehe- 
mence, at  the  same  time  striking  Roa;ers's  hand, 
which  before  he  had  held  fjist,  '  Well,  perhaps  it 
may  so  happen  that  you  yourselves  will  one  day 
have  your  hands  full  of  this  mild  burning  V  And 
so  it  came  to  pass,  for  Rogers  was  the  first  man 
who  was  burned  in  Queen  Mary's  reign  !" 

The  pious  Bishop  Latimer  lived  during  the 
reign  of  Edward  VI  ,  and  has  borne  a  very  hon- 
ourable testimony  to  the  Baptists  of  his  day. 
In  his  Lent  sermons  preached  before  the  king, 
he  says,  "The  Anabaptists  that  were  burned 
[during  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.]  in  divers 
towns  in  England,  as  I  heard  of  credible  men, 
for  I  saw  them  not  myself,  went  to  their  death 
intrepidly,  as  ye  will  say,  without  any  fear  in 
the  world,  but  cheerfully/^ ^ 

*  Eccles.  Mem.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  214. 

t  Supposed  by  Mr.  Peirce  to  be  Fox  himself! 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


35- 


That  the  Baptists  were  very  numerous  at 
this  period  is  unquestionable ;   and  that  many 
of  those  who  were  led  to  the  stake  in  the  reign 
of  Queen   Mary   were  of  that   persuasion,   is 
equally  clear  ;  though  historians  have  not  been 
very  careful  in  recording  their  opinions  on  that 
point.     Indeed,  there  is  no  want  of  proof  con- 
cerning the  hatred  in  which  they  were  held  by 
the  ruling  party,  one  instance  of  which  may  be 
mentioned.     In  the  year  1550,  after  much  cav- 
illing in  the  state,  an  act  of  grace  was  passed, 
extending  the  king's  general  pardon  to  all  per- 
sons, those  confined  in  the  Tower  for  crimes 
against  the  state,  and  also  all  Anabaptists,  being 
excepted  !     In  the  same  year,  Ridley,  who  had 
recently  been  raised  to  the  bishopric  of  London, 
held  a  visitation  of  his  diocess  ;  and  among  oth- 
er articles  enjoined  on  his  clergy,  this  was  one  : 
"  to  see  whether  any  Anabaptists  or  others  held 
private  conventicles,  with  different  opinions  and 
forms  from  those  established  by  law."     This 
excellent  young  prince,  who  was  of  the  most 
promising  expectations,  and,  in  the  judgment  of 
many  impartial  persons,  the  very  phoenix  of  his 
time,  was  removed  by  death  in  the  seventeenth 
year  of  his  age,  and  the  seventh  of  his  reign ; 
by  some,  suspected  to  be  owing  to  poison.     Dr. 
Leighton,  speaking  of  his  premature  death,  says, 
"  This  king,  a  gracious  plant,  whereof  the  soil 
"was  not  worthy,  like  another  Josiah,  setting 
himself  with  all  his  might  to  promote  the  Refor- 
mation,  abhorred    and   forbid   that   any   mass 
should  be  permitted  to  his  sister.     Farther,  he 
was  desirous  not  to  leave  a  hoof  of  the  Romish 
beast  in  his  kingdom,  as  he  was  taught  by  some 
of  the  sincerer  sort.     But,  as  he  wanted  mstru- 
ments  to  effect  this  good,  so  he  was  mightily 
opposed  in  all  his  good  designs  by  the  prelatists, 
which  caused  him,  in  his  godly  jealousy,  in  the 
very  anguish  of  his  soul,  to  pour  out  his  soul  in 
tears."* 

Of  the  short  and  sanguinary  reign  of  Queen 
Mary,  Mr.  Neal  has  furnished  a  faithful  compen- 
dium, vol.  i.,  p.  57-70,  and  we  have  little  to  add 
to  his  narrative.  In  the  first  year  of  her  reign, 
a  person  of  the  name  of  Woodman  was  cited 
before  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  to  answer  to 
certain  allegations  touching  his  orthodoxy. 
"  Hold  him  a  book,"  said  the  bishop  :  "  if  he  re- 
fuse to  swear,  he  is  an  Anabaptist,  and  shall  be 
excommunicated."  This  criterion  for  ascer- 
taining whether  or  not  the  poor  man  was  or 
was  not  infected  with  heresy,  is  no  farther  en- 
titled to  notice  than  as  it  proves  two  things  : 
namely,  the  ex^tence  of  Baptists  at  that  time 
in  the  country,  and  the  severity  of  the  penal 
laws  against  them.  On  another  occasion,  when 
Mr.  Philpot  was  under  examination  by  the  lords 
of  the  council  (November  5,  155.'5),  it  was  re- 


proceedings  of  this  reign,  and  we  shall  dismiss 
it  with  a  few  additional  remarks. 

In  the  beginning  of  June,  1558,  a  proclama- 
tion was  issued,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
copy  : 

'•BY    THE    KING    AND    QUEEN. 

"Whereas  divers  books,  filled  with  heresy, 
sedition,  and  treason,  have  of  late,  and  be  daily 
brought  into  this  realm,  out  of  foreign  countries, 
and  places  beyond  the  seas  ;  and  some  also  cov- 
ertly ■printed  within  this  realm,  and  cast  abroad 
in  sundry  parts  thereof,  whereby  not  only  God 
is  dishonoured,  but  also  encouragement  given 
to  disobey  lawful  princes  and  governors  :  the 
king  and  queen's  majesties,  for  redress  hereof, 
do,  by  their  own  proclamation,  declare  and  pub- 
lish to  all  their  subjects  that  whosoever  shall, 
after  the  proclaiming  hereof,  be  found  to  have 
any  of  the  said  wicked  and  seditious  books,  or, 
finding  them,  do  not  forthwith  burn  the  same, 
shall,  in  that  case,  be  reported  and  taken  for  a 
rebel,  and  shall,  without  delay,  be  executed  for 
that  offence,  according  to  marlial  law." 

A  week  after  the  publishing  of  this  proclama- 
tion, a  meeting  of  Protestants  was  detected  at 
Islington,  and  twenty-two  individuals,  men  and 
women,  were  seized  and  taken  before  Sir  Roger 
Cholmley,  who  turned  them  over  to  the  Bishop 
of  London,  who,  in  the  cruelty  of  his  tender 
mercies,  turned  thirteen  of  them  over  to  the  ex- 
ecutioners, seven  of  them  to  be  burned  ia 
Smithfield,  and  six  at  Brentford  !* 

Among  those  who  were  committed  to  the 
flames  in  Smithfield,  on  this  occasion,  was  Mr. 
Roger  Holland,  a  gentleman  descended  from  a 
very  respectable  family  in  Lancashire,  where 
several  of  his  predecessors  are  to  be  found  en- 
rolled in  the  list  of  sheriffs  for  the  county.  At 
a  hearing  before  Bishop  Bonner,  Lord  Strange, 
son  of  the  Earl  of  Derby,  Sir  Thomas  Gerrard, 
Mr.  Eccleston,  of  Eccleston,  with  many  other 
gentlemen  of  the  county,  appeared  to  speak  on 
his  behalf  In  his  youthful  days,  Mr.  Holland 
had  been  not  only  a  bigoted  papist,  but  also  a 
very  dissipated  and  profligate  young  man.  He 
was,  however,  converted  from"  the  error  of  his 
ways  by  the  pious  instructions  of  a  servant- 
maid  in  the  family  in  which  he  resided.  She 
put  into  his  hands  some  books,  both  in  defence 
of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  and  against  the  errors 
of  popery.  These  means  were,  through  the 
Tjlessing  of  Heaven,  so  efhcacions,  that  he  be- 
came the  member  of  a  Congregational  church 
in  London,  married  the  female  to  whom  he  was 
under  such  lasting  obligations,  and  scaled  the 
profession  of  the  Gospel  with  his  blood  :  his 
wife  also  suffered  great  affliction  for  maintain- 
ing the  same  truths.     Two  others  of  the  Islins- 


marked  by  one  of  his  judges,  that  "all  heretics    Ion  congregation  were  taken  by  Bonner,  strip- 
boast  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  every  one  would  j  ped  naked,  and  flogged  in  his  garden  at  Fuliiain, 
have  a  church  of  his  own,  as  Joan  of  Kent  and 
the   Anabaptists !"     A    pretty  plain    indication 
that  the  Baptists  of  that  day  were  not  only  con- 


tending for  the  Divine  authority  of  that  institu 
tion,  but  also  for  the  necessity  of  their  separa- 
ting themselves  unto  the  law  of  the  Lord,  and 
maintaining  the  importance  of  their  own  princi- 
ples.    It  is  painful  to  dwell  upon  the  merciless 

*  For  Dr.  Toulmin's  reflections  on  the  state  of 
the  Baptists  during  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  soe  vol. 
i.,  p.  57,  of  this  work. 


n  a  most  unmanly  posture,  to  such  a  degree, 
that  a  bundle  of  rods  was  worn  out  in  scourging 
them  !  But  on  the  character  of  this  queen,  and 
the  general  complexion  of  her  reign,  let  it  suf- 
fice in  this  place  to  give  an  extract  from  an  ora- 
tion, composed  by  the  learned  John  Hailes, 
Esq.,t  and  delivered  to  Queen  Elizabeth  soon 
after  her  accession  to  the  throne. 

*  Oidmixon's  England,  vol.  i.,  p.  284,  folio. 
t  Mr.  Hailes,  the  writer  of  this  oration,  was  bred 
at  O.xford,  and  deservedly  held  in  high  reputation  for 


358 


SUPPLEMENT. 


'•^  "  It  was  not  enough  for  these  unnatural  Eng- 
lish tormentors,"  says  Mr.  Hailes,  "these  ty- 
rants and  (also  Christians,  to  be  lords  of  the 
goods,  possessions,  and  bodies  of  their  brethren 
and  countryiiH'n ;  but,  being  very  antichrists 
and  enemies  of  the  cross  of  Christ,  they  would 
be  gods  also,  and  reign  in  the  consciences  and 
souls  of  men.  Every  man,  woman,  and  child 
must  deny  Christ  in  word  openly,  abhor  Christ 
in  their  deeds,  slander  him  with  word  and  deed, 
worship  and  honour  false  gods  as  they  would 
have  them,  and  as  themselves  did,  and  so  give 
body  and  soul  to  the  devil,  their  master :  or  se- 
cretly flee,  or,  after  inward  torments,  be  burned 
openly.  0  cruelty,  cruelty  !  far  exceeding  all 
the  cruelties  committed  by  those  famous  an- 
cient tyrants,  Herod,  Caligula,  Nero,  Domi- 
tian,  &c.,  &c.,  whose  names,  for  their  cruel  per- 
secution of  the  people  of  God,  have  been,  and 
ever  will  be,  held  in  perpetual  hatred.  If  any 
man  would  undertake  to  set  forth  particularly 
all  the  acts  that  have  been  done  these  full  five 
years  by  this  unnatural  woman  (rather  say,  this 
monster  covered  with  the  shape  of  a  woman), 
as  it  is  necessary  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
profit  of  the  Church,  and  of  this  realm,  that  it 
should  be  done,  he  will  find  it  subject  sufficient 
for  a  perfect  and  a  great  history,  and  not  to  be 
contained  in  an  oration  to  be  uttered  at  one 
time  by  the  voice  of  man.  But,  to  comprehend 
the  sum  of  all  their  wickedness  in  few  words, 
behold,  whatever  malice  in  mischief  covetous- 
ness  in  spod,  cruelty  in  punishing,  tyranny  in 
destruction,  could  do — that,  all  this  poor  Eng- 
lish nation,  these  full  five  years,  either  sulTered 
already,  or  should  have  sufTered,  had  not  the 
great  mercy  of  God  prevented  it."* 

Queen  Elizabeth  ascended  the  throne  in  the 
year  1558  ;  and,  though  a  decided  enemy  to  po- 
pery, or,  more  properly  speaking,  to  the  author- 
ity of  the  pope,  yet  such  was  her  blind  and  big- 
oted determination  to  enforce  a  uniformity  of 
worship  among  all  her  subjects,  that  the  Bap- 
tists were  called  to  no  small  share  of  sufTering, 
for  conscience'  sake,  during  the  whole  of  her 
reign.  The  complexion  of  her  reign,  however, 
was  very  different  from  that  of  her  sister.  The 
fires  of  Smithfield  were  not  lighted  up  in  such 
profusion  ;  but  the  same  sanguinary  laws  re- 
mained in  force  ;  and  all  who  disclaimed  human 
authority  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ — who  main- 
tained the  Word  of  God  to  be  the  only  rule  of 
faith  and  duty,  were  either  compelled  to  tem- 
porize and  conceal  their  convictions,  or  were 
subject  to  great  pains  and  penalties.  The 
queen,  says  Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  when 
sketching  the  features  of  her  government,  "  laid 
down  two  maxims  of  state :  one  was,  not  to 
force  consciences ;  the  other  was,  not  to  let 
factious  practices  go  unpunished  because  they 
were  covered  by  pretexts  of  conscience."  The 
strictures  which  Mr.  Neal  has  passed  on  these 
maxims  of  government,  vol.  i.,  p.  74-77,  are  so 
exceedingly  pertinent,  that  it  is  needless  here  to 
enlarge  upon  them.  Bishop  Burnet  tells  us 
■  that  she  did  not  at  first  revive  those  severe 
laws  which  were  passed  in  her  father's  time, 
by  which  the  refusal  of  the  oath  of  supremacy 


his  learning.     He  was  highly  esteemed  by  the  lord- 
keeper,  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  and  by  Lord  Burleigh, 
two  of  the  greatest  men  of  that  age. 
*  Oldmixon,  p.  293. 


was  made  treason,  but  left  her  subjects  to  the 
freedom  of  their  thoughts,  and  only  made  it 
penal  to  extol  a  foreign  jurisdiction.  She  also 
laid  aside  the  title  "supreme  head"  of  the 
Church,  and  those  who  rel'used  the  oath  were 
only  disabled  from  holduig  benefices  during 
their  refusal.  But  after  the  twentieth  year  of 
her  reign,  the  political  posture  of  affairs  com- 
pelled her.  we  are  told,  to  adopt  a  different  line 
of  conduct.  "  Then,  pecuniary  punishments 
were  inflicted  on  such  as  withdrew  from  the 
Church  ;  and,  in  conclusion,  she  was  forced  to 
make  laws  of  greater  rigour.  As  for  the  Puri- 
tans, as  long  as  they  only  inveighed  against 
some  abuses,  such  as  pluralities,  nonresidents, 
or  the  like,  it  was  not  their  zeal  against  those, 
but  their  violence  that  was  condemned.  When 
they  refused  to  comply  mill  some  ceremonies,  and 
questioned  the  snpenorily  of  the  bishops,  and  de- 
clared for  a  democracy  in  the  Church,  they 
were  connived  at  with  great  gentleness  ;  but 
they  set  up  a  new  model  of  church  discipline, 
without  loaiting  for  the  civil  magistrate,  and  en- 
tered into  combination  ;  then  it  appeared  that  it 
was  faction,  and  not  zeal,  that  animated  them. 
Upon  that,  the  queen  found  it  necessary  to  re- 
strain them  more  than  she  had  done  formerly." 
Such  is  Bishop  Burnet's  apology  for  the  intol- 
erant proceedings  of  this  reign. 

The  share  which  the  Baptists  had  in  these 
severities  will  appear  from  the  mention  of  a  few 
instances.  Dr.  Wall  relates,  that  about  the  six- 
teenth year  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  a  congregatioa 
of  Dutch  Antipajdobaptists  was  discovered  with- 
out Aldgate,  in  London,  of  whom  twenty-seven 
were  taken  and  imprisoned  ;  and  the  following 
month  one  man  and  ten  women  of  them  were 
condemned.*  Another  writer  informs  us  that 
it  was  at  Easter,  1575,  that  this  took  place,  and 
that  four  of  them  recanted  at  Paul's  Cross,  oa 
the  25th  May,  and  that  the  rest  were  banished 
the  kingdom. t  The  following  is  the  form  of 
their  abjuration  : 

"  Whereas  we,  being  seduced  by  the  devil, 
the  spirit  of  error,  and  by  false  teachers,  have 
fallen  into  these  most  damnable  and  detestable 
heresies,  that  Christ  took  not  flesh  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Virgin  Mary  ;  that  the  infants  of 
the  faithful  ought  not  to  be  baptized  ;  and  that 
a  Christian  man  may  not  be  a  magistrate,  or 
bear  the  sword  and  office  of  authority  ;  and  that 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  Christian  man  to  take  an 
oath  :  now,  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  by  the  as- 
sistance of  good  and  learned  ministers  of  Christ's 
Church,  I  understand  the  sam^^to  be  most  dam- 
nable and  detestable  heresies  ;  and  do  ask  God, 
before  his  Church,  mercy  for  my  raid  former  er- 
rors, and  do  forsake,  recant,  and  renounce  them  ; 
and  I  abjure  them  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
protesting  I  certainly  believe  the  contrary.  And. 
farther,  I  confess  that  the  whole  doctrine  estab- 
lished and  published  in  the  Church  of  England, 
and  also  that  which  is  received  in  the  Dutch 
church  in  London,  is  found  true  and  according 
to  God's  Word  :  whereunto  in  all  things  I  sub- 
mit myself,  and  will  be  most  gladly  a  member 
of  the  said  Dutch  cluirch  ;  from  henceforth  ut- 
terly abandoning  and  forsaking  all  and  every  An- 
ahapListical  error. "t ^ 


*  History  of  Infant  Baptism,  book  ii.,  p.  212. 
t  D'Assigny's  Mystery  of  Anabaptism,  p.  368. 
i  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  68. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    BAPTISTS. 


359 


This  abjuration  oath,  which  was  administer- 
ed by  Dr.  Delaune,  then  minister  of  the  Dutch 
church,  Austin  Friars,  sufficiently  indicates  the 
arbitrary  and  intolerant  spirit  of  the  age.  Ful- 
ler, the  historian,  mentions  the  same  facts,  with 
some  additional  circumstances.  "  Now  began 
the  Anabaptists,"  says  he,  "  wonderfully  to  in- 
crease in  the  land  ;  and  as  we  are  sorry  that 
any  countrymen  should  be  seduced  with  that 
opinion,  so  we  are  glad  that  the  English,  as  yet, 
were  free  from  that  infection."  He  then  goes 
on  to  relate  the  apprehension  of  the  twenty- 
seven  Baptists  at  Aldgate,  and  adds,  that  two 
of  them  were  so  obstinate,  that  orders  were  is- 
sued for  their  being  committed  to  the  flames  in 
Smithfield.  This  induced  the  celebrated  John 
Fox,  the  martyrologist,  to  interpose  in  their  be- 
half, supplicating  her  majesty  to  reprieve  them. 
The  letter  was  written  in  Latin,  but  Mr.  Cros- 
by has  furnished  us  with  the  following  transla- 
tion of  it  : 

"  Most  serene  and  happy  princess — most  il- 
lustrious queen,  the  honour  of  our  country,  and 
ornament  of  the  age.  As  nothing  has  been  far- 
ther from  my  thoughts  and  expectations  than 
ever  to  disturb  your  most  excellent  majesty  by 
my  troublesome  interruption,  so  it  grieves  me 
very  much  that  I  must  break  that  silence  which 
has  hitherto  been  the  result  of  my  mind.  But 
so  it  now  happens,  by  I  know  not  what  infelicity, 
that  the  present  time  obliges  me,  contrary  to 
my  hope  and  opinion,  to  that  which  of  all  things 
in  the  world  I  least  desired  ;  and  though  hith- 
erto I  have  been  troublesome  to  nobody,  I  am 
now,  contrary  to  my  inclination,  constrained  to 
be  importunate,  even  with  my  princess  :  not  in 
any  matter  or  course  of  my  own,  but  through 
the  calamity  brought  upon  others.  And  by  how 
much  the  more  sharp  and  lamentable  that  is,  by 
.so  much  the  more  I  am  spurred  on  to  depre- 
cate it. 

"  I  understand  there  are  some  here  in  Eng- 
land, though  not  English,  but  come  hither  from 
Holland,  I  suppose  both  men  and  women,  who, 
having  been  tried  according  to  law,  publicly  de- 
clared their  repentance,  and  are  happily  reclaim- 
ed. Many  others  are  condemned  to  exile — a 
light  sentence,  in  my  opinion.  But  I  hear  there 
are  one  or  two  of  these  who  are  appointed  to 
the  most  severe  of  puni.shments,  namely,  buryi- 
ing,  unless  your  clemency  prevent  it.  Now  in 
this  one  affair  I  consider  there  are  two  things 
to  be  considered  :  the  one  is,  the  wickedness  of 
their  errors  ;  the  other,  the  severity  of  their 
punishment.  As  to  their  errors,  indeed,  no  man 
of  sense  can  deny  that  they  are  most  absurd  ; 
and  I  wonder  that  such  monstrous  opinions 
could  come  into  the  mind  of  any  Christian;  but 
such  is  the  state  of  human  weakness,  if  we  are 
left  never  so  little  a  while  destitute  of  the  Divine 
light,  whither  is  it  that  we  do  not  fall  1  And 
we  have  great  reason  to  give  God  thanks  on 
this  account,  that  I  hear  not  of  any  Englishman 
that  is  inclined  to  this  madness.  As  to  these 
fanatical  sects,  therefore,  it  is  certain  they  are 
by  no  means  to  be  countenanced  in  a  common- 
wealth, but,  in  my  opinion,  ought  to  be  suppress- 
ed by  proper  correction.  But  to  roast  alive  the 
bodies  of  poor  wretches,  that  offend  rather 
through  blindness  of  judgment  than  perverse- 
ness  of  will,  in  fire  and  flames  raging  with  pitch 
mnd  brimstone,  is  a  hard-hearted  thing,  and  more 


agreeable  to  the  practice  of  the  Romanists  than 
to  the  custom  of  the  Gospellers  :  yea,  it  is  evi- 
dently of  the  same  kind  as  if  it  had  flowed  from 
the  Romish  priests,  from  the  first  author  of  such 
cruelty.  Innocent  III.  Oh,  that  none  had  ever 
brought  such  a  Phalarian  bull  into  the  meek 
Church  of  Christ !  I  do  not  speak  these  things 
because  I  am  pleased  with  their  wickedness,  or 
favour  the  errors  of  any  men  ;  but  seeing  I  am 
myself  a  man,  I  must  therefore  favour  the  life 
of  man — not  that  he  should  err,  but  that  he 
should  repent.  Nay,  my  pity  extends  not  only 
to  the  life  of  man,  but  even  to  the  beasts. 

"  For  it  is,  perhaps,  folly  in  me  ;  but  I  speak 
the  truth,  that  I  can  hardly  pass  by  a  slaughter- 
house where  cattle  are  killing,  but  my  mind  re- 
volts with  a  secret  sense  of  their  pains.  And 
truly  I  greatly  admire  the  clemency  of  God  in 
this,  who  had  such  regard  to  the  mean  brute 
creatures,  formerly  prepared  for  sacrifices,  that 
they  must  not  be  committed  to  the  flames  before 
their  blood  had  been  poured  out  at  the  foot  of 
the  altar.  Whence  we  may  gather,  that  in  af- 
flicting punishments,  however  just,  we  must  not 
be  over  rigorous,  but  temper  the  sharpness  of 
rigour  with  clemency.  Wherefore,  if  I  may  be 
so  bold  with  the  majesty  of  so  great  a  princess, 
I  humbly  beg  of  your  royal  highness,  for  the  sake 
of  Christ,  who  was  consecrated  to  suffer  for  the 
lives  of  many,  this  favour  at  my  request,  which 
even  the  Divine  clemency  would  """"-ge  you  to, 
that  if  it  may  be,  and  what  cannot  your  author- 
ity do  in  such  cases  ■!  these  miserable  wretches 
may  be  spared  ;  at  least,  that  a  stop  may  be  put 
to  the  horror,  by  changing  their  punishment  into 
some  other  kind.  There  are  excommunications 
and  close  imprisonment ;  there  are  bonds  ;  there 
is  perpetual  banishment,  burning  of  the  hand, 
and  whipping,  or  even  slavery  itself  This  one 
thing  I  most  earnestly  beg,  that  the  piles  and 
flames  in  Smithfield,  so  long  ago  extinguished 
by  your  happy  government,  may  not  now  be 
again  revived.  That  if  I  may  not  obtain  this,  I 
pray  with  the  greatest  earnestness  that,  out  of 
your  great  pity,  you  would  grant  us  a  month  or 
two,  in  which  vve  may  try  whether  the  Lord  will 
give  them  grace  to  turn  from  their  dangerous 
errors  :  lest,  with  the  destruction  of  their  bod- 
ies, their  souls  be  in  danger  of  eternal  ruin."* 

So  far  the  venerable  John  Fox  :  but  what  a 
train  of  reflection  does  this  letter  give  rise  to, 
were  this  the  place  to  indulge  in  it !  One  nat- 
ural inference  is,  that,  in  his  judgment,  the  pow- 
er of  the  civil  magistrates  may  very  properly  be 
exercised  in  coercing  opinions  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion, and  in  punishing  those  who  dare  to  think 
differently  from  the  national  standard,  provided 
the  punishment  be  not  excessive  !  These  "  fa- 
natical sects  are  by  no  means  to  be  countenan- 
ced in  a  commonwealth — but  ought  to  besupjrress- 
cd  with  proper  correction ;"  ''  there  are  excom- 
munications and  close  imprisonment  ;"  "  exile 
is  a  light  sentence"  in  his  opinion  ;  "there  are 
bonds,  perpetual  banishment,  burning  of  the 
hand,  and  whipping,  or  even  slavery  itself." 
To  any  of  these  the  venerable  martyrologist 
could  give  his  consent  ;  but  the  roasting  alive  of 
human  beings  is  a  "hard-hearted  thing,"  from 
which  his  compassionate  heart  revolted.  Her 
majesty's  heart,  however,  it  appears,  was  not 

*  The  original  of  this  letter  is  given  in  the  Appen- 
dix to  this  volume,  No.  III. 


360 


SUPPLEMENT. 


quite  so  soft ;  for  tliough  she  had  a  high  respect 
for  the  writer,  and  constantly  called  him  her 
"Father  Fox,"  she  was  not  his  dutiful  daugh- 
ter, but  met  his  request  with  a  flat  denial,  "  un- 
less, after  a  month's  reprieve  and  conference 
with  divines,  they  would  recant  their  errors." 
"  She  declared  their  impieties  to  be  damnable, 
and  Ihat  she  was  necessitated  to  this  severity, 
because,  having  formerly  punished  some  traitors, 
were  she  now  to  spare  these  blasphemers,  the 
world  would  condemn  lier  as  being  more  ear- 
nest in  asserting  her  own  safety  than  the  honour 
of  her  God."  All  the  difference,  then,  between 
her  majesty  and  the  learned  martyrologist,  in 
this  instance,  merely  regarded  the  quantum  of 
punishment  to  be  inflited,  for  on  the  principle 
they  were  fully  agreed  !  And  certainly,  where 
the  point  in  dispute  was  so  trivial,  it  was  very 
proper  that  the  queen  should  follow  her  own 
judgment.  Accordingly,  the  writ  De  kcrcr.ico 
comburendo,  that  is,  for  burning  heretics,  which 
for  seventeen  years  had  only  hung  up  in  terrorcm, 
was  now  taken  down  and  put  in  execution,  and 
the  two  Anabaptists,  John  Wielmaker  and  Hen- 
ry Torwoort,  were  committed  to  the  flames  in 
Smithfield,  July  22,  1575. 

I  have  dwelt  the  more  largely  upon  this  af- 
fair, because  it  presents  us  with  a  fair  specimen 
of  the  state  of  the  public  mind  in  regard  to  tol- 
eration during  the  boasted  reign  of  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth. And  now,  before  we  dismiss  the  matter 
wholly,  let  us  pause  and  examine  a  little  coolly 
"  these  monstrous  opinions,"  which  Fox  won- 
ders should  ever  enter  the  mind  of  any  Chris- 
tian ;  "  this  madness,"  which  "  endangered  the 
eternal  ruin  of  their  souls,"  according  to  his  no- 
tion of  the  matter,  and  which  her  majesty  con- 
sidered to  be  "  damnable  impieties,"  implying 
ilasphcmy  against  God,  not  to  be  expiated  but 
by  the  extremest  tortures. 

The  first  article  in  this  dreadful  catalogue  of 
crimes  respected  the  human  nature  of  the  Son 
of  God  ;  a  speculation  indulged  by  Joan  of  Kent, 
and  many  other  truly  pious  persons  in  that  day. 
They  had  read,  in  the  writings  of  the  holy  Evan- 
gelist, that  Christ's  human  nature  was  miracu- 
lously formed  in  the  womb  of  a  virgin,  by  the 
power  of  the  Most  High  coming  upon  her  ;  that 
the  body  of  the  Saviour  was  not  produced  ac- 
cording to  the  ordinary  laws  of  generation  ;  and 
that,  consequently,  "  that  holy  thing  which  was 
born  of  her"  was  not  subject  to  the  original  taint 
which  descended  from  Adam  to  his  posterity. 
Even  admitting  that  it  was  improper  to  indulge 
speculation  on  this  sublime  mystery,  which  we 
ought  to  receive  as  it  is  delivered  to  us,  without 
curiously  prying  into  things  quite  beyond  our 
reach,  it  is  not  easy  to  find  the  monstrous  im- 
piety, the  damnable  heresy,  in  it  which  should 
entitle  its  abetters  to  such  condign  punishment. 
For  aught  we  can  see,  it  was  a  harmless  specu- 
lation, which  noway  affected  either  the  faith  or 
the  obedience  of  the  Gospel.  And  as  to  the  oth- 
er articles  of  their  impeachment,  it  would  be 
trifling  with  the  reader's  time  here  to  enlarge 
upon  them.  That  infants  ought  not  to  be  bapti- 
zed, must  be  allowed  by  all  who  admit  that  ei- 
ther precept  or  example  is  necessary  to  author- 
ize us  in  whatever  we  practice  as  a  branch  of 
worship  The  unlawfulness  of  taking  an  oath, 
and  of  Christians  filling  the  offices  of  civil  ma- 
gistracy, though  to  me  they  both  appear  unfound- 


ed  objections,  originating  in  a  misapplication  of 
certain  texts  of  Scripture,  were  nevertheless 
opinions  that  had  been  current  among  the  Wal- 
denses,  Albigenses,  and  Wickliffites,  and,  in- 
deed, have  been  prevalent  in  every  age  of  the 
Church  since  the  days  of  the  apostles.  Now, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  infernal  cruelty  of  roast- 
ing alive  these  individuals,  there  is  something 
monstrously  wicked  even  in  compelling  them  to 
abjure  these  harmless  opinions  as  "most  dam- 
nable and  detestable  heresies  ;"  to  abjure  them 
"  from  the  bottom  of  their  heart,  protesting  that 
they  certainly  believed  the  contrary.^'  Alas,  hu- 
manity sickens  at  such  an  outrage  on  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  Most  High  and  the  rights  of  man- 
kind ! 

From  this  period  to  the  end  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  the  whole  body  of  the  Puritans  ap- 
pear to  have  been  treated  with  great  severity, 
of  which  the  Baptists  certainly  came  in  for  their 
due  share.  Many  of  them  quitted  the  kingdom, 
and  those  who  remained  in  it  were  perpetually 
harassed  and  tormented  by  fine  and  imprison- 
ment. In  the  county  of  Norfolk  (Mr.  Neal  says 
SuflTolk,  see  vol.  i.,  p.  1.53),  an  application  was 
made  to  the  justices  of  peace  in  behalf  of  some 
of  the  Brownists  who  had  been  long  and  illegal- 
ly imprisoned  by  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  entreat- 
ing that  their  worships  would  he  pleased  to  move 
that  prelate  in  their  favour.  His  lordship  was 
so  displeased  with  them  for  their  interference  in 
what  he  considered  to  be  his  own  prerogative, 
that  he  drew  up  twelve  articles  of  impeachment 
against  the  justices  themselves,  and  caused 
them  to  be  summoned  before  the  queen  and 
council  to  answer  for  their  conduct.  The  par- 
ticulars are  given  by  Mr.  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  153; 
and  we  only  refer  to  it  here  for  the  purpose  of 
remarking,  that  in  the  supplication  to  the  justi- 
ces, the  terms  Anabaptists  and  Brownists  are 
used  as  synonymous,  and  also  that  they  were 
allowed  no  quarter  in  that  district. 

In  the  year  1589,  when  the  reign  of  this  queen 
drew  towards  a  close,  a  treatise  appeared  against 
the  Puritans  from  the  pen  of  a  clergyman  of  the 
name  of  Some,  in  which  he  undertook  to  show 
the  coincidence  that  existed  between  the  Ana- 
baptists and  some  of  the  leading  men  among  the 
former.     The  sentiments  which  he  charged  the 
Baptists  of  that  day  with  holding  are,  that  the 
ministers  of  the  Gospel  ought  to  be  maintained 
by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  people ; 
that  the  civil  magistrate  has  no  right  to  make 
and  impose  laws  on  the  consciences  of  men  ; 
that  the  people  ought  to  have  the  right  of  choos- 
ing their  own  ministers  ;  that  the  High  Com- 
mission Court  was  an  antichristian  usurpation  ; 
that  such  as  are  qualified  to  preach  ought  not  to 
be  hindered  by  the  civil  magistrate  from  doing 
so  ;  that  no  forms  of  prayer  should  be  imposed 
upon  the  Church  ;  that  the  baptisms  adminis- 
tered in  the  Church  of  Rome  were  invalid  ;  and 
that  a  true  constitution  and  discipline  are  essen- 
tial to  a  true  church.     Such  were  the  heterodox 
principles   maintained   by  the  Anabaptists   (if 
Qiie,en  Elizabeth's  times,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  this  learned  doctor;   principles  well 
supported  by  the  Word  of  God,  and  which,  there- 
fore, every  intelligent  and  consistent  Baptist  of 
the  present  day  is  proud  to  avow.     The  doctor 
touches,  also,  on  their  opinions  of  baptizing  none 
but  professed  believers  ;  that  they  hold  the  wor- 


HISTORY    OF    THE   BAPTISTS. 


361 


ship  of  God  as  conducted  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land to  be  in  many  respects  defective  ;  and 
brings  up  the  rear  of  their  crimes  by  adding, 
that  they  count  it  blasphemy  for  any  man  to  ar- 
rogate to  himself  the  title  of  Doctor  in  Divinity, 
or,  as  he  explains  it,  to  be  called  Rabbi ;  that  is, 
lord  and  master  of  other  men's  faith  !  He  ac- 
knowledges that  there  were  several  Anabaptis- 
tical  conventicles,  both  in  the  metropolis  and 
other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  in  his  day ;  a  fact 
which  we  shall  find  abundantly  confirmed  in  the 
folio  wmg  chapter. 


CHAPTER  II. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  BAPTISTS  DURING  THE   KEIGXS  OF 
JAMES  I.  AND  CHARLES  I.,  A.D.   1602-1650. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  engaged  rather  in 
tracing  out  obscure  notices  of  the  Antipa;dobap- 
tists,  as  of  individuals  scattered  throughout  the 
country,  maintaining  their  discriminating  senti- 
ment, yet  mingling  with  their  Pajdobaptist  breth- 
ren in  church  communion,  than  as  forming  a 
distinct  body  or  denomination  contenduig  for 
the  Divine  authority  of  the  baptismal  institute, 
and  its  indispensable  obligation  as  a  term  of 
communion  ;  but  we  shall  presently  find  them 
separating  themselves  to  the  law  of  their  Lord, 
avowing  their  convictions  and  advocating  their 
principles  through  the  medium  of  the  press. 

In  the  year  1608  there  was  a  small  piece  pub- 
lished by  Enoch  Clapham,  representing,  in  a  way 
of  dialogue,  the  opinions  of  the  different  sects 
of  Protestants  at  that  period.  He  speaks  of 
some  of  them  as  leaving  the  kingdom  to  form 
churches  among  people  of  another  language ; 
and  others,  who  remained  in  England,  he  cen- 
sures for  withdrawing  from  the  national  wor- 
ship, and  assembling  in  woods,  stables,  and 
barns  for  religious  service.  He  particularly 
distinguishes  from  Puritans  and  Brownists,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  Arians  and  Socinians, 
on  the  other,  those  who,  by  way  of  reproach, 
•were  called  Anabaptists,*  and  who  separated 

*  In  the  dialogue  of  Enoch  Clapham,  above  men- 
tioned, the  Anabaptist  is  asked  what  religion  he  is 
of;  and  is  made  to  answer,  "Of  the  true  religion, 
commonly  termed  Anabaptism,  from  our  baptizing." 
When  he  is  interrogated  concerning  the  church  or 
congregation  he  was  connected  with  in  Holland,  he 
answers,  "There  be  certain  English  people  of  us  that 
came  out  from  the  Broivnists."*  When  the  Arian  says, 
"  I  am  of  the  mind  that  there  is  no  true  baptism  upon 
earth,"  he  replies,  "  I  pray  thee  say  not  so ;  the  con- 
gregation I  am  of  can  and  doth  administer  true  bap- 
tism." When  an  inquirer  after  truth  offers,  on  his 
proving  what  he  has  said,  to  leave  his  old  religion, 
the  Anabaptist  answers,  "  You  should  say,  if  God  will 
give  you  grace  to  leave  it ;  for  it  is  a  particular  favour 
to  leave  Sodom  and  Egypt,  spiritually  so  called." 
When  the  same  person  offers  to  unite  with  them,  the 
Anabaptist  replies,  "  The  dew  of  heaven  come  upon 
you  :  to-morrow  1  will  bring  you  into  our  sacred  con- 
gregation, that  so  you  may  come  to  be  informed  of 
the  faith,  and  after  that  be  purely  baptized."  This 
representation  of  the  Baptists  in  the  year  1608,  though 
furnished  by  one  who  wrote  against  them,  deserves 
regard,  especially  as  he  assures  his  readers  that  the 
characters  which  he  has  drawn  of  each  sect  had  not 
been  done  without  several  years'  e.xperience  and 


*  The  reader  will  find  some  reference  to  the  Baptist  di- 
vision of  the  Brownists  in  Holland  in  Mr.  Young's  interest- 
»ig  volume,  the  "  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims." — C. 
Vol.  II.— Z  z 


both  from  the  Church   and  other  Dissenters. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  concerning  the  truth 
and  justness  of  their  views  on  the  question  rel- 
ative to  baptism,  their  great  seriousness  of  spir- 
it and  diligence  in  inquiry  must  be  praised  by 
all  candid  persons.     They  arose  out  of  those 
who,  being  tired  with  the  yoke  of  superstitious 
ceremonies,  the  traditions  of  men,  and  corrupt 
mixtures  in  the  worship  of  God,  resolved,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  not  to  receive  or  practise  any  piece 
of  positive  worship  which  had  not  precept  or  ex- 
ample in  his  Word.     On  this  principle  they  pur- 
sued their  researches,  which  they  accompanied 
with   fasting   and   prayer.     When,  after   long 
search  and  many  debates,  it  appeared  to  them 
that  infant  baptism  was  a  mere  innovation,  and 
even  a  profanation  of  a  Divine  ordinance,  they 
were  not  brought  to  lay  it  aside  without  many 
fears  and  tremblings,  lest  they  should  be  mista- 
ken, considering  how  many  learned  and  godly 
men  were  of  an  opposite  persuasion  ;  and  glad- 
ly would  they  have  had  the  concurrence  of  their 
brethren  with  them.     But  since  there  was  no 
hope  of  this,  they  concluded  that  a  Christian's 
faith  must  not  stand  in  the  wisdom  of  man,  and 
that  every  one  must  give  account  of  himself  to 
God  ;  so  they  resolved  to  practise  according  to 
their  ovt^n  convictions.     They  were  persuaded 
that  believers  were  the  only  proper  subjects  of 
baptism,  and  that  immersion,  or  dipping  the 
whole  body  into  water,  was  the  appointed  rite. 
But  as  this  v>-as  not  practised  in  England,  they 
were  at  a  loss  for  an  administrator  to  begin  the 
practice.     After  often  meeting  together  to  pray 
and  confer  about  this  matter,  they  agreed  to 
send  over  into  Holland  Mr.  Richard  Blount,  who 
understood  the  Dutch  language,  to  a  Baptist 
church  there  :   he  was  kindly  received  by  the 
society  and  their  pastor,  and  upon  his  return  he 
baptized   Mr.  Samuel  Blacklock,  a   minister ; 
these  two  baptized  the  rest  of  the  company,  to 
the  number  of  fifty-three.     Some  few  others  of 
this  persuasion  were  among  the  original  plant- 
ers of  New-England.     They  who  continued  in 
England,  published,  in  the  year  1615,  a  small 
treatise   to  justify  their   separation   from   the 
Church  of  England,  and  to  prove  that  every 
man  has  a  right  to  judge  for  himself  in  matters 
of  religion  ;  and  that  to  persecute  any  one  on 
this  account  is  illegal,  antichristian,  and  contra- 
ry to  the  laws  of  God,  as  well  as  several  decla- 
rations of  his  majesty. 

The  title  of  this  pamphlet  is  as  follows  :  "  Per- 
secution for  Religion  judged  and  condemned,  in 
a  Discourse  between  a  Christian  and  Antichris- 
tian :  proving,  by  the  Law  of  God,  and  by  King 
James's  many  Declarations,  that  no  Man  ought 
to  be  persecuted  for  his  Religion,  so  he  testify 
his  Allegiance  by  the  Oath  appointed  by  Law." 
The  style  of  this  work  is  easy,  correct,  and,  con- 
sidering the  age  when  it  was  composed,  very 
perspicuous,  the  reasoning  strong  and  conclu- 
sive, and  the  dialogue  well  maintained.  It  pre- 
sents a  favourable  specimen  of  the  principles  and 
abilities  of  the  authors.  They  inveigh  against 
the  pride,  luxury,  and  oppression  of  the  bishops ; 
declare  their  respect  for  magistrates  ;  protest 
against  the  political  errors  of  the  papists  ;  con- 
demn those  who,  through  fear,  comply  with  any 
external  worship  contrary  to  their  own  con- 
study  of  them.' — Ivimey's  English  Baptists,  vol.  i.,  p 
122. 


362 


SUPPLEMENT. 


science  ;  and  refer,  for  evidence  of  their  senti- 
ments, to  the  confession  of  faith  published  in 
1611. 

But  the  principal  glory  of  this  piece  is  the 
■manly  and  explicit  avowal  which  the  authors 
make  of  the  true  principles  of  Christian  liherty. 
at  a  time  when  they  were  either  unknown,  or 
opposed,  by  almost  every  other  party.  They 
preserve  a  just  distinction  between  civil  and  re- 
ligious concerns  ;  and  while  they  fully  allow  the 
magistrate  his  proper  authority  in  the  former, 
they  boldly  maintain  every  man's  right  to  judge 
and  act  for  himself  in  the  latter.  In  a  dedica- 
tion to  all  that  truly  wish  Jerusalem's  prosperi- 
ty and  Babylon's  destruction,  they  declare,  "  We 
do  unfeignedly  acknowledge  the  authority  of 
earthly  magistrates,  God's  blessed  ordmance, 
^and  that  all  earthly  rule  and  command  apper- 
tain unto  them  :  let  them  command  what  they 
Avill,  we  must  obey,  either  to  do  or  to  suffer. 
But  all  men  must  let  God  alone  with  his  right, 
"Who  is  to  be  Lord  and  Lawgiver  of  the  soul ;  and 
not  command  obedience  for  God  when  he  com- 
mandeth  none."  "  If  I  take,"  says  Christian, 
in  another  place,  "  any  authority  from  the  king's 
majesty,  let  me  be  judged  worthy  of  my  desert ; 
but,  if  I  defend  the  authority  of  Christ  Jesus 
overmen's  souls,  which  appertaineth  to  no  mor- 
tal man  whatsoever,  then  know  you,  that  who- 
soever would  rob  him  of  that  honour  which  is 
not  of  this  world,  he  will  tread  them  under  foot. 
Earthly  authority  belongs  to  earthly  kings  ;  but 
■spiritual  authority  belongeth  to  that  spiritual 
King  who  is  King  of  kings."*  When  we  con- 
sider the  state  of  the  times,  this  intrepid  and 
■dignified  language  must  excite  our  just  admira- 
tion. 

In  the  year  1618,  another  vindication  of  their 
principles  came  from  the  press,  entitled  "  A 
plain  and  well-grounded  Treatise  concerning 
Baptism."  It  was  a  translation  from  a  Dutch 
piece,  and  is  thought  to  be  the  first  that  was  pub- 
lished in  English  against  the  baptism  of  infants. 
But  the  vindication  of  their  principles  procured 
them  no  security  against  the  power  of  persecu- 
tion. They  were  inveighed  against  from  the 
pulpits,  and  harassed  in  the  spiritual  courts. 
Their  goods  were  seized,  and  their  persons  con- 
fined by  long  and  lingering  imprisonments,  un- 
der which  many  of  them  died,  leaving  widows 
and  children.  This  drew  from  them,  in  1620, 
during  the  sitting  of  Parliament,  an  humble  sup- 
plication to  King  James,  representing  their  mis- 
eries, avowing  their  loyal  and  blameless  behav- 
iour, and  remonstrating  against  the  cruel  pro- 
ceedings under  which  they  suflered,  as  unbe- 
coming the  charity  and  goodness  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  tempting  men  to  hypocrisy,  and 
exhibiting  the  marks  of  antichrist,  and  humbly 
beseeching  his  majesty,  the  nobles,  and  Parlia- 
ment to  consider  their  case,  and,  according  to 
the  direction  of  God's  Word,  to  let  the  wheat  and 
tares  grow  together  till  the  harvest.  Notwith- 
standing the  odium  cast  upon  them,  and  the  se- 
verities used  against  them,  they  maintained  their 
separate  meetings,  had  many  disciples,  and  sup- 
ported an  exemplary  purity  of  character,  t 

Mr.  Neal  stales  that,  in  the  year  1644,  there 
were  forty-seven  congregations  of  this  denomi- 

*  Persecution  judged  and  condemned,  passim. 
t  See  Crosby's  History  of  the  English  Baptists, 
vol.  i.,  p.  88-139. 


nation  in  the  country,  and  seven  in  London.  It 
cannot  be  doubted  that  they  gradually  rose  into 
such  a  number.  Mr.  Crosby  says  that  the  Bap- 
tists, who  had  hitherto  been  intermixed  with 
other  Nonconformists,  began  to  form  them- 
selves into  separate  societies  in  1633.  The 
first  instance  of  this  secession  was  that  of  part 
of  the  Independent  congregation,  then  under 
the  ministry  of  Mr.  John  Lathorp,  which  had 
been  gathered  in  1616,  and  of  which  Mr.  Henry 
Jacob  was  the  first  pastor.  The  minister  of 
these  Separatists  was  Mr.  John  Spilsbury  ;  their 
number  is  uncertain,  because,  after  specifying 
the  number  of  about  twenty  men  and  women, 
it  is  added — with  divers  others.  In  the  year 
1638,  Mr.  William  Kiffin,  Mr,  Thomas  Wilson, 
and  others,  adopted  the  same  opinions  concern- 
ing baptism  ;  and  having  been,  at  their  own  re- 
quest, dismissed  from  the  Independent  church, 
joined  the  new  congregation.  Mr.  Neal  is  mis- 
taken when  he  represents  this  separation  as  ta- 
king place  under  Mr.  Jessey,  who  did  not  set- 
tle with  it  as  a  pastor  till  about  midsummer, 
1637  ;  and  did  not  change  his  sentiments  on 
the  questions  concerning  baptism  till  the  sum- 
mer of  1645,  when  he  was  baptized  by  Mr. 
Knowles.  The  division  of  the  people  into  two 
congregations,  one  continuing  with  him,  and 
the  other  joining  themselves  to  Mr.  Praise-God 
Barebones,  on  the  18th  of  May,  1640,  arose  not 
from  any  difference  of  sentiment  about  baptism, 
but  from  their  becoming  so  numerous  that  they 
could  not  meet  together  in  one  place  without 
being  discovered.* 

In  1639  another  congregation  of  Baptists  was 
formed,  which  met  in  Crutched  Friars,  the  chief 
promoters  of  which  were  Mr.  Green,  Mr.  Paai 
Hobson,  and  Captain  Spencer.  A  pamphlet 
appeared  at  this  time,  under  the  title  of  "  New 
Preachers,  New,"  designed  to  hold  up  to  scorn 
and  contempt  the  leading  members  of  this 
church.  Among  other  foolish  things,  it  is  re- 
marked that  '•  Green  the  felt-maker  (that  is,  a 
hatter),  Spencer  the  horse-rubber,  Quartermine 
the  brewer's  clerk,  and  some  few  others,  were 
mighty  sticklers  in  this  new  kind  of  talking 
trade,  which  many  ignorant  coxcombs  call 
preaching."  Green  appears  to  have  been  a  very 
zealous  man,  and  to  have  excited  no  inconsid- 
erable attention  by  his  preaching.  In  the  pam- 
phlet above  mentioned,  some  account  is  given 
of  "  a  tumult  raised  in  Fleet-street,  by  the  dis- 
orderly preachment,  pratings,  and  prattlings  of 
Mr.  Barebones  the  leather-seller,  and  Mr.  Green 
the  felt-maker,  on  Sunday  last,  the  19th  of  De- 
cember (1641).  Barebones  is  caUed  a  reverend 
unlearned  leather-seller,  memorable  for  his  fiery 
zeal,  and  both  he  and  his  friend  Green  were  ap- 
prehended while  "  preaching  or  prating  among 
a  hundred  persons"  on  that  day.  The  follow- 
ing extract  from  this  pamphlet  is  too  good  to  be 
lost : 

"After  my  commendations,  Mr.  Rawbone.s 
(Barebones  I  should  have  said),  in  acknowledg- 
ment of  your  too  much  troubling  yourself  and 
molestmg  others,  I  have  made  bold  to  relate 
your  last  Sunday's  afternoon  work,  lest  in  time 
your  meritorious  painstaking  should  be  forgot- 
ten (for  the  which,  you  and  your  associate,  Mr. 
Green,  do  well  deserve  to  have  your  heads  in  the 
custody  of  young  Gregory,  to  make  buttons  for 

*  Jessey's  Life,  p.  7,  11,  83. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


363 


.hempen  loops!);  you  two,  having  the  Spirit  so 
full,  that  you  must  either  rent  or  burst,  did  on 
the  Sabbath  aforesaid,  at  your  house  near  Fet- 
ter Lane,  and  in  Fleet-street,  at  the  sign  of  the 
Lock  and  Key,  there  and  then  did  you  and  your 
consort,  by  turns,  unlock  most  delicate  strange 
doctrine,  where  was  about  tho7isatids  of  people,  of 
which  number  the  most  ignorant  applauded  your 
preaching,  and  those  that  understood  anything 
derided  your  ignorant  prating.  But,  after  four 
hours'  long  and  tedious  tattling,  the  house 
where  you  were  was  beleaguered  with  multitudes 
that  thought  it  fit  to  rouse  you  out  of  your  blind 
devotion,  so  that  your  walls  were  battered,  your 
windows  all  fractions,  torn  into  tattling  shivers  ; 
and  worse  the  hurly-burly  might  have  been,  but 
that  sundry  constables  came  in,  with  strong 
guards  of  men  to  keep  the  peace,  in  which  con- 
flict your  sign  was  beaten  down  and  unhinged, 
to  make  room  for  the  owner  to  supply  the  place  : 
all  which  shows  had  never  been,  had  Mr.  Green 
and  Mr.  Barebones  been  content,  as  they  should 
have  done,  to  have  gone  to  their  own  parish 
churches."  The  same  writer,  addressing  Green, 
asks,  "  Do  not  these  things  come  from  proud 
spirits,  that  Mr.  Spencer,  a  horse-keeper,  and 
you,  a  hat-maker,  will  take  upon  you  to  be  am- 
bassadors of  God,  to  teach  your  teachers,  and 
take  upon  you  to  be  ministers  of  the  Gospel  in 
these  days  of  light  1  Consider,  I  pray  you,  that 
our  Lord  would  not  have  had  the  ass,  Matt.,  xxi., 
3,  if  he  had  not  stood  in  need  of  him.  Now  the 
truth  is,  the  Church  hath  no  need  of  such  as 
you,  an  unlearned,  self-conceited  hat-maker.  It 
is  true  that,  in  the  beginning  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  the  papist  priests  and  friars  being 
dismissed,  there  was  a  scarcity  for  the  present 
of  learned  men,  and  so  some  tradesmen  were 
permitted  to  leave  their  trades,  and  betake  them- 
selves to  the  ministry  ;  but  it  was  necessity  that 
did  then  constrain  them  so  to  do  ;  but,  thanks 
foe  to  God,  we  have  now  no  such  necessity,  and 
therefore  this  practice  of  you  and  your  comrades 
casts  an  ill  aspersion  upon  our  good  God,  that 
doth  furnish  our  church  plentifully  with  learned 
men ;  and  it  doth  also  scandalize  our  church, 
as  if  we  stood  in  need  of  such  as  you  to  preach 
the  Gospel.  This  you  call  preaching,  or  proph- 
esying ;  and  thus,  as  one  of  them  told  the  lords 
of  Parliament,  that  they  were  all  preachers,  for 
so  they  practise  and  exercise  themselves  as 
young  players  do  in  private,  till  they  be  by  their 
brethren  judged  fit  for  the  pulpit,  and  then  up 
they  go,  and,  like  mountebanks,  play  their  part. 
Mr.  Green,  Mr.  Green,  leave  off  these  ways  : 
bring  home  such  as  you  have  caused  to  stray. 
It  is  such  as  you  that  vent  their  venom  against 
our  godly  preachers,  and  the  Divine  forms  of 
prayer,  yea,  against  all  set  forms  of  prayers  ;  all 
is  from  antichrist,  but  that  which  you  preach  is 
most  divine  :  that  comrs  from  the  Spirit,  the 
other  is  an  old  dead  sacrifice,  composed  (I  should 
have  said,  killed)  so  long  ago  that  it  now  stinks. 
It  is  so  that,  in  the  year  1549,  it  was  compiled 
by  Dr.  Cranmer,  Dr.  Goodricke,  Dr.  Skip,  Dr. 
Thirlby,  Dr.  Day,  Dr.  Holbecke,  Dr.  Ridley,  Dr. 
Cox,  Dr.  Taylor,  Dr.  Harris,  Dr.  Redman,  and 
Mr.  Robinson,  archdeacon  of  Leicester  ;  but 
what  are  all  these  ^  they  are  not  to  be  compa- 
red to  John  Green,  a  hat-maker,  for  he  thinketh 
what  he  blustereth  forth  upon  the  sudden  is  far 
better  than  that  which  these  did  maturely  and 
/deliberately  compose !" 


This  extract  is  interesting  on  various  ac- 
counts :  the  pamphlet  from  which  it  is  taken  is 
evidently  the  production  of  one  of  those  clerical 
bigots  of  the  Establishment,  of  whom  abun- 
dance are  to  be  found  in  every  age  since  nation- 
al establishments  of  Christianity  were  intro- 
duced ;  a  privileged  order  of  men,  who,  having 
found  out  the  means  of  making  their  profession 
of  religion  subservient  to  their  worldly  interest, 
take  it  mightily  amiss  that  any  persons  should 
presume  to  disturb  them  in  their  slumbers,  or 
caution  their  fellow-creatures  against  being  de- 
ceived by  them.  Hence  all  their  cant  and  whi- 
ning about  "  learned  and  godly  ministers,"  as 
though  anybody  complained  of  either  their  learn- 
ing or  their  godliness  ;*  or  as  though  their  hav- 
ing been  licensed  by  their  fellow-creatures  to 
officiate  in  parish  churches  were  a  substantial 
reason  why  another,  who  obtains  his  hvelihood 
by  honest  industry,  should  not  raise  his  voice  in 
defence  of  the  despised  truth  of  the  Gospel, 
hold  forth  the  Word  of  Life,  and  contend  for  the 
laws  and  institutions  of  Christ,  against  all  who 
would  corrupt  them  by  human  traditions.  It  is 
interesting,  too,  as  furnishing  a  pretty  correct 
idea  of  the  manner  in  which  the  earliest  Bap- 
tist churches  in  England  conducted  their  public 
worship.  Taking  the  New  Testament  for  their 
guide,  they  seem  evidently  to  have  discarded 
"  the  one-man  system,"  as  it  has  been  signifi- 
cantly termed,  and  which  obtains  so  universal- 
ly in  our  day.t  We  may  also  learn  from  it  the 
opposition  which  the  Baptists  of  that  day  had 
to  sustain  in  yielding  obedience  to  the  will  of 
their  God  and  Saviour. 

But  there  are  accounts  of  some  societies  ex- 
isting in  the  country  long  before  these  congre- 
gations in  London  were  formed.  There  is  great 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Baptist  society  at 
Shrewsbury  has  subsisted,  through  all  the  rev- 
olutions of  time  to  this  day,  from  the  year  1627.t 
The  congregation  at  Bickenhall,  now  at  Hatch, 
six  miles  from  Taunton,  in  Somerset,  had,  ac- 
cording to  the  opinion  of  its  oldest  members, 
about  twenty  years  ago,  subsisted  near  two 
hundred  years  ;  and  they  had  a  clear  tradition 
of  its  assemblies  having  been  held  so  early  as 
1630,  in  the  woods  and  other  places  of  conceal- 
ment, on  account  of  the  severity  of  the  times. ^ 
Even  in  1457  there  was  a  congregation  of  this 
sort  at  Chesterton,  near  Cambridge :  six  of 
them  were  accused  of  heresy,  and  condemned 
to  abjure  and  do  penance,  half  naked,  with  a 
fagot  to  their  backs  and  a  taper  in  their  hands, 
in  the  public  market-places  of  Ely  and  Cam- 
bridge.II 

But,  notwithstanding  this  early  appearance 
of  the  sect,  it  laboured  under  such  difficulties, 
from  the  odium  with  which  it  was  regarded  by 
the  people,  and  from  the  severities  practised 
against  it  by  the  ruling  powers,  that  its  progress 
was  for  many  years  impeded.  From  what  Bish- 
op Jewel  says,  in  the  "Defence  of  his  Apolo- 


*  This  is  keenly  e.xpressed,  but  in  bad  taste. — C. 

+  The  results  of  the  "  any-man  system"  in  the 
Scotch  Baptist  churches  are  not  very  much  in  favour 
of  Its  adoption. — C. 

t  A  Letter  from  the  Rev.  Josiah  Thompson  to  the 
Editor. 

i)  MS.  Collections  concerning  the  History  of  Prot- 
estant Dissenters,  comuiuiucaled  by  Mr.  Thompson. 

II  Robinson's  Claude,  vol.  ii.  Dissertation  on 
Preaching,  p.  54. 


364 


SUPPLEMENT. 


!^,"  written  about  the  seventh  year  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  it  appears  that  it  was  then  almost  to- 
tally suppressed  in  these  kingdoms  ;  for,  while 
he  speaks  of  them  as  finding  harbour  in  Aus- 
tria, Silesia,  and  Moravia,  he  adds,  "they  have 
no  acquaintance  with  us  in  England,  or  any 
other  place  where  the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  clear- 
ly preached."  This  is  to  be  concluded,  also, 
from  a  passage  in  Dr.  Featley,  who  says,  "  This 
fire  in  the  reigns  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  King 
James,  and  our  gracious  sovereign,  till  now, 
was  covered  in  England  under  the  ashes  ;  or,  if 
it  broke  out  at  any  time,  by  the  care  of  the  ec- 
clesiastical or  civil  magistrate  it  was  soon  put 
out." 

But  in  the  times  of  the  civil  war,  so  difficult 
or  so  impossible  is  it  to  extirpate  opinions,  this 
sect  revived,  held  its  weekly  assemblies  for  re- 
ligious worship,  and  printed  various  pieces  in 
defence  of  their  sentiments  and  practice  :  the 
number  of  converts  to  it  rapidly  increased,  and 
it  boasted  in  that  prophecy,  "  that  many  shall 
run  to  and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall  be  increas- 
ed."*t 

Among  the  publications  in  their  own  vindica- 
tion was  a  piece  in  1641,  by  Edward  Barber, 
entitled  "  A  Treatise  of  Baptism,  or  Dipping ; 
"wherein  is  clearly  showed  that  our  Lord  Christ 
ordained  Dipping,  and  that  sprinkling  of  Chil- 
dren is  not  according  to  Christ's  Institution  ; 
and  also  the  Invalidity  of  those  Arguments  that 
are  commonly  brought  to  justify  that  Practice." 
In  the  same  year  appeared  a  quarto  pamphlet  of 
six  pages,  relating  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  to  the 
Baptists.  It  is  entitled  "The  Brownists'  Syn- 
agogue ;  or,  a  late  Discovery  of  their  Conventi- 
cles, Assemblies,  and  Places  of  Meeting,  where 
they  preach,  and  the  Manner  of  their  praying 
and  preaching,  with  a  Relation  of  the  Names, 
Places,  and  Doctrines  of  those  which  do  com- 
monly preach;  the  chief  of  which  are  these: 
Green,  the  Felt-maker  ;  Marler,  the  Button-ma- 
ker ;  Spencer,  the  Coachman ;  Rogers,  the 
Glover  ;  which  Sect  zs  much  increased  of  lale 
within  this  City.''''  In  this  squib,  Messrs.  Green 
and  Spencer,  who  were  over  the  Baptist  church 
in  Crutched  Friars,  are  termed  "  the  two  arch 
Separatists,  demi-gods,  who  are  here,  and  there, 
and  everywhere."  In  the  conclusion  of  the 
piece,  the  writer  gives  the  following  account  of 
their  meeting  :  "  In  the  house  where  they  ineet, 
one  is  appointed  to  keep  the  door,  and  to  give 
notice  if  there  should  be  any  insurrection,  that 
warning  may  be  given  them.  They  do  not  flock 
together,  but  come  two  or  three  in  a  company, 
and  all  being  gathered  together,  the  man  ap- 
pointed to  teach  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  room, 
and  his  audience  gather  about  him.  He  then 
prays  for  the  space  of  about  half  an  hour,  and 
part  of  his  prayer  is,  that  those  who  come  thith- 
er to  soofT  and  laugh,  God  would  be  pleased  to 
turn  their  hearts.  His  sermon  is  about  the 
space  of  an  hour,  and  then  another  stands  up  to 
make  the  text  more  plain  ;  and  at  the  latter  end 
he  entreats  them  all  to  go  home  severally,  lest 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  160,  161.  Wall's  History  of 
Infant  Baptism,  vol.  li.,  p.  212-214. 

+  More  to  this  effect  may  be  found  in  "  Featley's 
Dipper  Dipped,"  in  Baxter,  and  in  Lightfoot's  Diary, 
&c.  The  person  against  whom  Lighlfoot  published 
a  pamphlet,  entitled  "Hornets'  Nests,"  under  the 
name  of  his  brother  Peter,  was  a  Baptist. — C. 


at  their  next  meeting  they  should  be  interrupt- 
ed by  those  who  are  of  the  opinion  of  the  wick- 
ed. They  seem  very  steadfast  in  their  opinions, 
and  say,  'rather  than  turn,  they  will  burn.'  " 

In  the  next  year  came  out  another  treatise, 
written  by  A.  R.,  called  "The  Vanity  of  Chil- 
dren's Baptism."  Mr.  Francis  Cornwell,  M. A., 
published,  in  1643,  a  small  tract,  dedicated  to 
the  House  of  Commons,  with  this  title  :  "The 
Vindication  of  the  Royal  Commission  of  Jesus." 
It  was  given  to  divers  members  at  the  door  of  the 
House,  which  caused  it*  to  make  a  great  noise 
and  be  much  circulated.  Its  design  was  to  show 
that  the  practice  of  christening  children  opposes 
the  commission  granted  by  our  Lord  and  Sav- 
iour ;  that  it  was  a  Romish  or  antichristian 
custom,  and  was  established  by  Pope  Innocent 
III.,  who  made  a  decree  that  the  baptism  of  the 
infants  of  believers  should  succeed  circumcis- 
ion. This  piece  gave  great  offence.  Dr.  Feat- 
ley  made  several  remarks  upon  it ;  and  a  piece 
called  "  A  Declaration  against  Anabaptists"  was 
published  in  answer  to  it.*  As  they  were  fre- 
quently inveighed  against,  not  only  on  account 
of  their  peculiar  sentiments  concerning  the  sub- 
jects and  mode  of  baptism,  but  were  also  loaded 
with  all  the  opprobrium  which  fell  on  the  opin- 
ions deemed  heretical,  and  were  often  reproach- 
ed, both  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  with  be- 
ing Pelagians,  Socinians,  Arminians,  Soul-Sleep- 
ers, and  the  like,  they  published,  in  1643,  a 
"  Confession  of  their  Faith,"  mentioned  and  quo- 
ted by  Mr.  Neal,  to  vindicate  themselves  from 
these  reflections,  and  to  show  their  general 
agreement  with  other  Protestants  in  all  points 
except  that  of  baptism.  It  was  the  first  that 
was  ever  published  by  the  English  Baptists, 
and  extends  to  fifty-two  articles,  which  we  shall 
give  in  the  Appendix,  No.  xi.  It  passed  through 
several  editions  in  1644  and  1646,  one  of  which 
was  licensed  by  authority,  dedicated  to  the  high 
court  of  Parliament,  and  put  into  the  hands  of 
several  members.  Their  greatest  adversaries, 
and  among  them  Dr.  Featley  and  Mr.  Marshall, 
one  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  acknowledged 
that  it  was  an  orthodox  confession. t 

This  confession  must  be  understood  as  ex- 
pressing the  sentiments  of  those  Baptists  only 
who  joined  in  it,  and  not  as  applying  to  all  who 
differed  from  other  Christians  on  the  questions 
concerning  baptism  ;  for,  from  the  beginning  of 
the  Reformation,  there  was  a  difference  between 
the  Baptists  themselves  on  doctrinal  points  ; 
and  they  divided,  particularly,  into  two  parties  ; 
one  embracing  the  Calvinistic  scheme  of  doc- 
trines, and  from  the  particular  point  therein,^ 
viz.,  personal  election,  called  Particular  Bap- 
tists ;  the  others,  professing  the  Arminian  or 
remonstrant  tenets,  from  their  leading  princi- 
ple, viz.,  universal  redemption,  were  styled  Gen- 
eral Baptists. 

It  is  remarkable  that  some  eminent  men,  who 
did  not  join  their  communion,  were  strongly  ia 
favour  of  their  sentiments.  The  Right  Honour- 
able Lord  Robert  Brookt  published  about  this 
time  A  Treatise  on  Episcojyacy,  in  which  he  says, 
"  I  must  confess  that  I  begin  to  think  there  may 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  151,  152,  and  345. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  170,  171. 

%  The  friend  of  Lord  Say  and  Seal,  from  whose  title 
and  his  own  our  Saybrook  in  Connecticut  received 
its  name. — C, 


HISTORY' OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


365 


be  perhaps  something  more  of  God  in  these 
sects,  which  they  call  new  schisms,  than  ap- 
pears at  first  glimpse.  I  will  not,  I  cannot, 
take  upon  me  to  defend  that  which  men  general- 
ly call  AnabapHsm ;  yet  I  conceive  that  sect  is 
twofold  :  some  of  them  hold  free-will,  commu- 
nity of  goods,  deny  magistracy,  and  refuse  to 
baptize  their  children  ;  these  truly  are  such 
heretics,  or  atheists,  that  I  question  whether 
any  divine  should  honour  them  so  much  as  to 
dispute  with  them.  There  is  another  sort  of 
them  who  only  deny  baptism  to  their  children 
till  they  come  to  years  of  discretion,  and  then 
Uiey  baptize  them."  He  censured  the  applying 
to  this  people  the  opprobrious  name  of  schismat- 
ics, and  gave  it  as  his  judgment,  that  it  was 
very  easy  for  those  who  held  that  we  should  go 
no  farther  than  the  Scriptures  for  doctrine  or 
discipline,  to  err  on  this  point,  since  the  Scrip- 
tures seem  not  to  have  clearly  determined  it. 
He  went  even  so  far  as  to  call  in  question  the 
accuracy  and  conclusiveness  of  the  argument 
urged  against  them  from  circumcision,  which 
he  looked  upon  as  a  fine  rational  argument  to 
illustrate  a  point  well  proved  before,  but  he 
doubled  whether  it  was  proof  enough  for  that 
which  some  would  prove  by  it ;  because,  besides 
the  difference  in  the  ordinances,  the  persons  to 
be  circumcised  were  stated  by  a  positive  law 
so  expressly  as  to  leave  no  room  for  scruple  : 
"  but  it  was  otherwise  with  baptism,  where  all 
the  designation  of  persons  fit  to  be  partakers, 
for  aught  I  know,"  said  his  lordship,  "is  only 
such  as  believe ;  for  this  is  the  qualification 
which,  with  exactest  search,  I  find  the  Scrip- 
tures require  in  persons  to  be  baptized ;  and 
this  it  seems  to  require  in  all  such  persons. 
Now,  haw  infants  can  properly  be  said  to  be- 
lieve, I  am  not  yet  fully  resolved."  Having 
mentioned  this  nobleman,  we  cannot  deny  our- 
selves the  pleasure  of  here  introducing  some  re- 
marks on  his  character  from  the  writings  of  one 
of  his  contemporaries,  namely,  the  great  Milton, 
who,  in  his  "  Speech  for  the  Liberty  of  unli 
censed  Printing,"  addressed  to  the  Parliament 
of  England  [1645,]  thus  proceeds: 

"  What  would  be  the  best  advised,  then,  if  it 
be  found  so  hurtful,  and  so  unequal  to  suppress 
opinions  for  their  newness  or  their  unsnitable- 
ness  to  a  customary  acceptance,  will  not  be  my 
task  to  say.  I  shall  only  repeat  what  I  have 
learned  from  one  of  your  own  honourable  mem- 
bers, a  right  noble  and  pious  lord,  who,  had  he 
not  sacrificed  his  life  and  fortunes  to  the  Church 
and  commonwealth,  we  had  not  now  missed  and 
bewailed  a  worthy  and  undoubted  patron  of  this 
argument.  Ye  know  him,  I  am  sure  ;  yet  I,  for 
honour's  sake,  and  may  it  be  eternal  to  him, 
shall  name  him,  the  Lord  Brook.  He,  writing 
of  Episcopacy,  and  by  the  way  treating  of  sects 
and  schisms,  left  ye  his  vote,  or,  rather,  now  the 
last  words  of  his  dying  charge,  which  I  know 
will  ever  be  of  dear  and  honoured  regard  with 
you,  so  full  of  meekness  and  breathing  charity, 
that  next  to  his  last  testament  who  bequeathed 
love  and  peace  to  his  disciples,  I  cannot  call  to 
mind  where  I  have  read  or  heard  words  more 
mild  and  peaceful.  He  there  exhorts  us  to  bear 
with  patience  and  humility  those,  however  they 
be  miscalled,  that  desire  to  live  purely,  in  such 
a  use  of  God's  ordinances  as  the  best  guidance 
of  their  consciences  gives  them,  and  to  tolerate 


them,  though  in  some  discon form ity  to  ourselves. 
The  book  itself  will  tell  us  more  at  large,  being 
published  to  the  world,  and  dedicated  to  the  Par- 
liament by  him,  who,  both  for  his  life  and  for  his 
death,  deserves  that  what  advice  he  left  be  not 
laid  by  without  perusal."*  Such  praise  from 
such  a  writer  as  Milton,  who  would  not  be  proud 
of!  Granger  informs  us  that  Lord  Brook,  who 
was  a  zealous  patriot  and  an  avowed  advocate 
for  liberty,  on  account  of  the  arbitrary  measures 
of  Charles  I.,  had  determined  to  seek  freedom 
in  America,  and  had  agreed  with  Lord  Say  to 
transport  themselves  to  New-England,  t  but  upon 
the  meeting  of  the  Loijg  Parliament,  and  the 
sudden  change  of  public  affairs,  they  were  pre- 
vented from  taking  the  voyage.  He  was  after- 
ward commander  of  the  Parliament  army,  and 
lost  his  life  at  Litchfield  in  storming  a  close,  to 
which  Lord  Chesterfield  had  retired  with  a  body 
of  the  king's  troops.  He  received  a  musket-shot 
in  the  eye,  of  which  he  instantly  expired,  in  the 
year  1643. 

A  divine  also,  of  great  fame  in  that  age,  Mr. 
Daniel  Rogers,  candidly  declared,  in  a  book  on 
the  Sacrament,  that  he  was  unconvinced  by 
any  determination  of  Scripture  for  infant  bap- 
tism. The  learned  and  eminent  Dr.  Jeremiah 
Taylor,  bishop  of  Down  and  Connor,  published, 
in  1647,  his  treatise  on  "  The  Liberty  of  Proph- 
esying ;"t  in  which  he  stated  the  opinion  of  the 
Antipaedobaptists  with  such  advantages  of  style 
and  elaborate  chain  of  argument,  that  he  was 
thought  to  have  said  more  for  the  Baptists  than 
they  were  able  to  offer  for  themselves.  The  de- 
sign of  this  excellent  prelate,  in  exhibiting  the 
weight  of  the  arguments  they  could  allege,  and 
the  great  probability  of  truth  on  their  side,  was 
to  abate  the  fury  of  their  adversaries,  and  to 
show  that  they  were,  if  in  an  error,  still  entitled 
to  candour  and  indulgence. (J 

But  neither  their  own  vindications,  nor  the 
pleas  of  so  generous  an  advocate,  could  screen 
them  from  that  spirit  of  intolerance  which  actu- 
ated the  predominant  parties  of  those  times. 
One  of  the  seventeen  canons  which  were  pass- 
ed by  the  Convocation  of  1640,  viz.,  the  fifth 
canon,  particularly  decreed  that  another  canon, 
which  was  directed  against  the  papists,  should 
be  in  full  force  against  allAnabaptists.il  In  the 
following  years  they  were  inveighed  against 
from  the  press  and  the  pulpit.  Dr.  Featley  own- 
ed that,  in  writing  against  them,  he  could  hard- 
ly dip  his  pen  in  anything  but  gall.  The  severe 
ordinances  of  the  day  were  aimed  at  them  as 
well  as  the  other  sectaries.  Edwards,  in  his 
"  Gangraena,"  proposed  a  public  disputation  with 
them,  and  that,  on  their  being  found  in  an  er- 
ror, the  Parliament  would  fiirbid  all  dipping,  and 
take  some  severe  course  with  all  dippers,  as  the 
Senate  of  Zurich  did.  In  this  he  referred  to  an 
edict  published  at  Zurich  in  1530,  which  made 


*  Milton's  Prose  Works,  by  Burnet,  vol.  i.,p.  320. 

t  He  obtained  a  patent  for  Saybrook  in  Connecti- 
cut.— C. 

t  This  part  of  his  treatise  was  reprinted  in  a  de- 
tached form,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Baptists  justi- 
fied, by  Jeremy  Taylor,"  12mo,  edited  by  the  late 
learned  Rev.  Win.  Anderson,  tutor  in  the  Baptist 
College  at  Bristol,  and  to  whom  the  editor  is  indebt- 
ed as  a  faithful  teacher  at  Dunstable,  where  Mr.  A. 
was  settled  many  years. — C. 

<)  Crosby,  vol.'i.,  p.  165-169. 

1!  Mr.  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  344. 


366 


SUPPLEMENT. 


it  death  for  any  to  baptize  by  immersion.*  On 
this  law  some,  called  Anabaptists,  were  tied  back 
to  back,  and  thrown  into  the  sea  :  others  were 
burned  alive,  and  many  starved  to  death  in  pris- 
on.t  But  this  was  not  the  wish  of  Edwards 
alone.  There  was  a  general  cry  against  tolera- 
tion, especially  of  these  people.  In  tlie  petition 
of  the  lord-mayor,  court  of  aldermen,  and  Com- 
mon Council,  in  1646,  that  a  speedy  course  might 
be  taken  to  suppress  all  private  and  separate 
congregations,  the  Anabaptists  were  by  name 
specified. t 

Sentiments  against  the  rights  of  conscience, 
advanced  by  writers  of  reputation,  and  sanction- 
ed by  public  acts,  mus'  be  supposed  to  be  pro- 
ductive of  sufferings  to  individuals.  It  is  prop- 
er to  enter  into  the  detail  of  these,  as  Mr.  Neal 
has  been  thought  to  pass  them  over  too  gener- 
ally, or  to  have  represented  them  too  partially. 

Among  others  who  felt  the  rage  of  bigotry 
was  Mr.  Vavasor  Powell.  This  eminent  Cam- 
bro-Briton  was  a  native  of  Radnorshire,  born  in 
the  year  1617,  and  descended  from  some  of  the 
best  families  in  that  county,  as  well  as  in  those 
of  Montgomery  and  Salop.  Having  received  a 
liberal  education  in  his  native  place,  he  was  en- 
tered of  Jesus  College,  Oxford,  where  he  made 
great  proficiency  in  the  learned  languages.  On 
leaving  college  he  took  orders  in  the  Establish- 
ed Church  about  the  year  1640,  and  at  first  offi- 
ciated in  Wales,  as  curate  to  his  uncle,  Erasmus 
Powell.  He  had  not  been  long,  however,  in  that 
situation  when  he  joined  the  Puritans,  from  a 
conviction  that  their  principles  and  proceedings 
were  more  consonant  to  the  Scriptures  than 
those  on  which  tlie  National  Establishment  is 
founded.  In  the  earlier  part  of  his  life  he  was 
remarkably  thoughtless  and  vain  ;  a  ringleader 
among  the  votaries  of  folly  and  dissipation,  in- 
somuch that  he  was  called  by  his  schoolfellows 
dux  omnium  malorum,  "  a  ringleader  in  all  man- 
ner of  wickedness  ;"  we  must,  however,  except 
the  vice  of  drunkenness,  of  which  he  had  so 
strong  an  abhorrence,  that  he  used  to  speak  of 
it  as  an  unnatural  vice,  from  which  even  the 
beasts  were  free,  and  he  wondered  how  any  ra- 
tional being  could  possibly  be  addicted  to  a  prac- 
tice that  was  so  entirely  destitute  at  once  of  true 
pleasure,  profit,  and  honour. 

Having  given  up  his  connexion  with  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  and  cast  his  lot  among  the 
Puritans,  he  began  to  preach  among  his  coun- 
trymen, in  the  character  of  an  itinerant  evange- 
list, and  his  zeal  and  fortitude  were  soon  called 
into  exercise  by  the  rage  of  bigotry,  and  the  se- 
vere persecution  to  which  he  was  exposed.  He 
"was  often  attacked  and  assaulted  by  violent 
men,  and  repeatedly  exposed  to  the  danger  of 
his  life  by  those  who  laid  in  wait,  or  bound 
themselves  by  oath,  to  kill  him,  or  made  an  at- 
tempt on  it.  In  1640,  he,  and  fifty  or  sixty  of 
his  hearers,  when  he  was  preaching  in  a  house 
in  Bracknockshire,  were  seized,  about  ten  o'clock 
at  night,  by  fifteen  or  sixteen  men,  under  the 
pretence  of  a  warrant  from  Justice  Williams, 
and  secured  in  a  church.  The  next  morning 
they  were  conducted  to  the  justice's  house,  wlio 
committed  them  to  the  hands  of  the  constable. 
On  the  following  day  they  were  examined  be- 
fore that  justice  and  two  or  three  more,  and  six 


*  Gangraena,  part  iii.,  p.  177. 
t  Crosby,  vol.  i.,p.  183. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  184. 


or  seven  clergymen  ;  but,  after  much  conference 
and  many  threats,  were  at  that  time  dismissed. 
.\fter  this,  Mr.  Powell,  preaching  at  Launger  in 
Radnorshire,  in  the  field,  because  the  house  was 
not  large  enough  to  hold  the  auditory,  was  seiz- 
ed and  committed  by  the  high  sherifT,  Mr.  Hugh 
Lloyd.  The  constables,  sixteen  or  seventeen, 
who  were  charged  with  the  execution  of  the 
mittimus,  except  one,  refused  it.  This  man,  ta- 
king Mr.  Powell  to  his  own  house,  and  permit- 
ting  him  to  lodge  there  that  night,  because  ths 
prison  was  at  a  great  distance,  was  so  affected 
with  his  devotions  in  the  family,  that  he  would 
proceed  no  farther,  but  absconded  himself,  leav- 
ing Mr.  Powell  in  his  house  ;  who,  to  prevent 
damage  to  the  man,  bound  himself  with  two 
sufficient  sureties  to  appear  at  the  next  assizes 
at  Radnorshire.  Accordingly,  he  delivered  him- 
self up  at  that  season,  and  three  bills  of  indict- 
ment were  preferred  against  him.  But,  after 
the  traverse,  he  was  acquitted,  and  invited  to 
dine  with  the  judges,  who,  desiring  him  to  give 
thanks,  one  of  them  said,  "  It  was  the  best  grace 
he  had  ever  heard  in  his  life."  But  the  high 
sheriff  was  so  offended  at  the  lenity  shown  to 
him,  and  the  impressions  made  by  his  conduct 
and  preaching,  that  on  the  commencement  of 
the  war  he  persecuted  him  out  of  the  county.* 

The  public  have  lately  been  favoured  with  a 
copious  memoir  of  Vavasor  Powell,  in  the 
"  Welsh  Nonconformists'  Memorial,"  compiled 
by  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Richards,  of  Lynn,  in  Nor- 
folk,! and  edited  by  John  Evans,  LL.D.  Dr.. 
Richards  has  bestowed  much  industry  in  tracing 
out  the  history  of  this  eminent  Nonconformist, 
and  rescuing  his  character  from  many  false  and. 
malignant  aspersions  cast  upon  it  by  his  adver- 
saries. He  seems  to  think  that  he  embraced^  , 
the  sentiments  of  the  Baptists,  and  was  him- 
self baptized  towards  the  end  of  the  year  1655, 
which  must  have  been  a  dozen  years  after  he 
had  quitted  the  Church  of  England.  In  proof 
of  this,  he  quotes  a  letter  from  Mr.  Secretary 
Thurloe  to  Henry  Cromwell,  dated  January  1, 
1656,  and  preserved  in  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  . 
vol.  iv.,  p.  373.  "Among  other  things,"  says 
Thurloe,  "  which  are  daily  sent  abroad  for  in- 
flaming the  people,  your  lordship  will  receive-  , 
herewith  a  paper  newly  exhibited  to  the  world, 
by  Vavasor  Powell,  who  is  lately  rebaptized, 
and  several  others  of  his  parly ;  whereupon  I  will- 
make  no  observations,  though  many  others  do," 

&LC. 

It  appears  that,  previous  to  his  embracing  the    ^ 
sentiments  of  the  Baptists,  Mr.  Powell  was  in 
high  estimation  with  the   Presbyterian  party. 
The  situation  of  Wales  in  regard  to  religion  was 
reported  to  the  Parliament  as  being  most  de- 
plorable.    The  people  were  so  destitute  of  the^ 
means  of  religious  information,  that  they  had- 
neither   Bibles  nor  catechisms.      Their  clergy 
were  both  ignorant  and  indolent,  so  that  they^ 
had  scarcely  a  sermon  from  one  quarter  of  a 
year  to  another,  nor  was  there  any  suitable  pro- 
vision made  for  the  maintenance  of  such  as  were    > 
capable  of  instructing  them.     The  Parliament 
took  their  case  into  consideration,  and  passed  an 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  217-219.  Vavasor  Powell's 
Life,  p   125-127. 

t  This  gentleman  left  his  valuable  library  to 
Brown  University,  K.  I.  It  was  vory  rich  in  its  col- 
lections on  Puritanism  and  Dissent— C 


HISTORY    OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


367 


act,  February  22,  1649,  "  for  the  better  propa- 
gating and  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  Wales," 
and  commissioners  were  appointed  for  carrying 
it  into  effect.  Mr.  Vavasor  Powell  was  at  the 
head  of  these  commissioners,  and  exerted  him- 
self most  indefatigably  in  this  office,  the  benefi- 
cial effects  of  which  soon  became  apparent. 
Whitelocke,  speaking  of  the  year  1652,  says, 
"  By  this  lime  there  were  a  hundred  and  fifty 
good  preachers  in  the  thirteen  Welsh  counties, 
most  of  whom  preached  three  or  four  times  a 
week  :  they  were  placed  in  every  market  town  ; 
and  in  most  great  towns  two  schoolmasters, 
able,  learned,  and  university  men,"*  &c. 

Soon  after  the  passing  of  this  act,  Mr.  Pow- 
ell, who  had  for  several  years  taken  up  his  res- 
idence in  the  neighbourhood  of  London,  returned 
to  Wales,  where  he  continued  some  years  dili- 
gently exerting  himself  m  promoting  the  objects 
of  it,  and  especially  in  preaching  the  Gospel 
throughout  the  country.  There  was  scarcely  a 
neighbourhood,  a  parish,  or  a  village  in  the 
country  which  was  not  visited  by  him,  and  that 
did  not  hear  from  his  mouth  the  cheering  invi- 
tations of  the  Gospel.  Even  to  this  day  places 
are  pointed  out,  in  the  most  obscure  and  unfre- 
quented parts  of  the  principality,  where  Vavasor 
Powell  is  said  to  have  preached  to  numerous 
congregations.  In  these  excursions  he  was 
often  accompanied  by  other  ministers  of  the 
same  active  turn  and  fervent  spirit  with  himself; 
and  their  labours  were  eminently  successful. 
Even  as  early  as  the  year  1654,  the  Christians 
in  Wales  connected  with  Vavasor  Powell  were 
calculated  to  amount  to  no  less  than  twenty 
thousand.! 

It  is  said  that  Mr.  Powell  was  much  in  favour 
"with  the  protector,  Cromwell,  at  one  period  of 
his  life ;  but  when  the  latter  had  assumed  the 
supreme  power,  he  openly  opposed  his  elevation, 
and  thereby  lost  his  favour.J  From  that  mo- 
ment he  appears  to  have  been  continually  the 
object  of  mistrust,  and,  consequently,  became 
closely  watched.  All  his  movements  were 
scrutinized  narrowly,  and  as  everything  is  yel- 
low to  the  jaundiced  eye,  the  basest  motives 
^^vere  imputed  to  every  part  of  his  conduct. 
One  while  Powell  was  said  to  be  preparing  for 
war,  busily  engaged  in  enlisting  troops  ;  at  an- 
other he  was  actually  up  in  arms  at  the  head  of 
a  troop  of  horse,  ready  to  fight  it  out !  Even 
his  labours  in  preaching  the  Gospel,  and  the 
great  concourse  of  people  that  attended  him, 
were  looked  upon  with  an  evil  eye,  and  gener- 
ally represented  in  a  very  unfavourable  and  sus- 
picious light ;  and  he  often  felt  the  effects  of 
them  in  the  persecutions  which  he  was  called 
to  endure.  But  though  these  suspicions  and 
evil  surmises  must  have  proved  very  painful  to 
him,  and  detrimental  to  his  labours  in  the  prop- 
agation of  the  Gospel,  yet  it  does  not  appear 
that  they  damped  his  courage,  or  cooled  his 
zeal,  or  slackened  his  diligence  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  his  important  undertaking.  He  steadily 
persevered  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  till  the  new 
order  of  things  under  Charles  II.  deprived  him 
of  his  liberty,  and  compelled  him  to  desist. 


*  Whitelocke's  Memorials,  p.  518. 

t  See  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  vol.  iii. 

i  Mr.  Powell  and  Christopher  Feake  openly  de- 
nounced Oliver  Cromwell,  in  their  sermons  two 
days  after  his  installation  as  lord-protector. — God- 
■lviil's  History  Commonwealth,  vol.  iv.,  p.  50. — C. 


Vavasor  Powell  was  among  the  first  victims- 
to  the  tyrannical  measures  of  Charles  II.  No 
sooner  was  the  restoration  resolved  on,  thaa'' 
the  busy  agents  of  government  marked  him  out 
for  their  prey.  They  had  even  formed  their 
plan  and  executed  it  before  the  king's  arrival ; 
such  was  their  breathless  haste  to  ruin  this  worthy 
man.  On  the  28th  of  Aprd,  1660,  he  was  seized 
in  his  own  house  by  a  party  of  soldiers,  and 
conducted  to  the  county  jail ;  from  thence  he 
was  removed  to  Shrewsbury,  where  he  remain- 
ed a  prisoner  nine  weeks,  but  was  then  dis- 
charged. Returning  into  Montgomeryshire,  he 
began  to  preach  as  usual,  when  the  sheriff  of 
the  county  lodged  a  complaint  aganst  him  with- 
Mr.  Secretary  Morrice,  charging  nim  with  sedi- 
tion, rebellion,  and  treason  ;  and  before  any  re- 
turn could  be  received  from  the  government, 
the  sheriff  issued  a  warrant  to  apprehend  him, 
which  was  accordingly  done,  having  enjoyed 
his  liberty  only  twenty-four  days.  Soon  after, 
he  was  removed,  by  a  warrant  from  the  secre- 
tary of  state,  to  London,  and  committed  to  the- 
Fleet  prison,  where  he  lay  two  years,  so  closely- 
confined,  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  go  out  of 
his  chamber  door,  which,  added  to  the  offensive 
effluvia  of  a  dunghill  that  lay  before  his  window,, 
so  much  impaired  his  health  that  he  never  per- 
fectly recovered  it.  During  this  period  he- 
wrote  "  A  brief  Narrative  of  the  former  Propa- 
gation and  late  Restoration  of  the  Gospel  m 
Wales,"  of  which  a  second  edition  was  pub- 
lished in  1662.  In  this  piece  he  challenged  his 
adversaries  to  substantiate  the  least  of  their 
calumnious  charges  against  him.  But  in  vain 
did  he  justify  his  character  ;  innocence  could 
procure  him  no  redress.  Having  lain  in  the 
Fleet  nearly  two  years,  he  was  removed  at  an 
hour's  notice,  on  the  30th  of  September,  1662, 
to  South  Sea  Castle,  near  Portsmouth,  where 
he  remained  a  close  prisoner  for  five  years  long- 
er. On  the  fall  of  Lord  Clarendon,  Mr.  Powell 
sued  for  a  habeas  corpus,  and  soon  after,  by  an 
order  from  the  king  in  council,  obtained  his  lib- 
erty. 

But  scarcely  had  ten  months  elapsed  before- 
Mr.  Powell  was  again  apprehended,  as  he  was 
passing  from  Bristol  to  Monmouthshire,  over 
the  hills  of  Glamorgan,  in  his  way  to  his  own 
residence,  and  committed  to  prison.  He  had 
preached  at  different  stations,  as  he  came  along, 
to  large  congregations  ;  and  the  people  eagerly 
flocked  to  hear  him  from  all  parts.  He  had 
preached  at  Newport,  in  Monmouthshire,  and 
from  thence  proceeded  to  Merthyr  Tidvil,  in 
Glamorganshire,  a  place  now  become  famous 
for  its  iron-works,  the  most  celebrated  and  ex- 
tensive in  Britain,  as  well  as  for  the  number  of 
its  inhabitants,  having  in  a  few  years,  from  an 
inconsiderable  village,  become  the  most  popu- 
lous place  in  all  the  principality  of  Wales.. 
When  Mr.  Powell  arrived  at  Merthyr,  he  found'' 
assembled  in  and  about  the  churchyard  a  large 
congregation,  waiting  to  hear  the  Word  of  God. 
He  discoursed  to  them  from  Jer.,  xvii.,  7,  8, 
For  this  act  of  mercy  the  clergyman  of  the  par- 
ish deposed  against  him,  in  consequence  of 
which  he  was  seized  and  lodged  in  his  majes- 
ty's jail  of  Cardiff;  from  thence  he  was,  some 
time  afterward,  cited  before  six  deputy-lieuten- 
ants at  Cowbridge,  where  he  underwent  a  long 
examination,  after  which  he  was  remanded  to 


368 


SUPPLEMENT. 


prison  and  recommitled.  His  friends  in  London 
now  interested  themselves  in  his  behalf,  and 
procured  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  remove 
him  to  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  which  was 
for  some  lime  resisted,  but  at  length  they  suc- 
ceeded, and  on  the  16th  of  October,  1669,  he  ar- 
rived in  London,  where,  after  an  examination, 
he  was  committed  once  more  to  the  Fleet. 
Here  he  remained  till  discharged  by  death,  on 
the  27th  of  October,  1670,  in  the  fifty-third  year 
of  his  age,  eleven  years  of  which  he  had  passed  in 
prisoji !  He  was  a  person  of  the  strictest  in- 
tegrity, the  most  fervent  piety,  and  the  most  in- 
trepid courage.  He  bore  his  illness  with  great 
fortitude  and  resignation  to  the  will  of  God, 
and,  in  the  highest  paroxysms  of  his  disorder, 
could  with  difficulty  be  restrained  from  breakmg 
out  into  acts  of  devotion,  and  expressing  his 
sentiments  of  zeal  and  piety.  His  remains 
■were  interred  in  Bunhill  Fields,  whither  they 
were  followed  by  an  innumerable  crowd  of  the 
Dissenters,  who  attended  him  to  his  grave. 
The  inscription  on  his  tombstone,  which  was 
drawn  up  by  his  friend  Edward  Bradshaw,  de- 
scribes him  as  "  a  successful  teacher  of  the 
past,  a  sincere  witness  of  the  present,  and  a 
useful  example  of  the  future  age  ;  who,  in  the 
defection  of  many,  found  mercy  to  be  faithful : 
for  which,  being  called  to  many  prisons,  he  was 
tried  and  would  not  accept  deliverance,  expect- 
ing a  better  resurrection."*     But  to  return. 

In  1641,  Mr.  Edward  Barber,  minister  to  a 
small  congregation  of  Baptists  in  London,  was 
kept  eleven  months  in  prison  for  denying  the 
baptism  of  infants,  and  that  to  pay  tithes  to  the 
clergy  was  a  Divine  ordinance  under  the  Gospel. 

In  1643,  some  pious  persons  at  Coventry,! 
•who  had  embraced  the  opinion  of  Antipaedobap- 
tism,  invited  Mr.  Benjamin  Cox,  an  aged  min- 
ister of  good  reputation  for  learning  and  piety, 
the  son  of  a  bishop,  and  some  time  minister  at 
Bedford,  to  come  to  them  and  assist  them  in 
forming  themselves  into  a  distinct  church.  Sev- 
eral Presbyterian  ministers,  among  whom  was 
Mr.  Baxter,  had  taken  refuge  in  that  city  ;  who, 
being  alarmed  at  the  spread  of  baptistical  senti- 
ments, Mr.  Baxter  challenged  Mr.  Cox  to  dis- 
pute with  him  about  the  points  in  difference  be- 
tween them.  This  was  done  viva  voce  and  by 
"writing  ;  but  it  was  broken  off  by  the  interfe- 
rence of  the  committee,  who  required  Mr.  Cox 
to  depart  from  the  city,  and  to  promise  not  to 
return  to  it.  As  he  refused  this,  he  was  imme- 
diately committed  to  prison,  and  remained  there 
for  some  time  ;  till,  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Pin- 
son's  application  to  Mr.  Baxter,  his  release  was 
procured. t 

Another  sufferer  on  this  side  was  Mr.  Henry 
Denne,  who  had  been  ordained  by  the  Bishop 
tif  St.  David's,  and  held  tjie  living  of  Pyrton,  in 
Hertfordshire,  for  ten  years.  In  1644  he  was 
apprehended  in  Cambridgeshire  by  the  commit- 
tee of  that  county,  and  sent  to  jail,  for  preach- 


*  Richards's  Cambro- British  Biography,  p.  141- 
186.  Dr.  Toulmin,  in  a  note  respecting  Vavasor 
Powell,  says,  "  His  sentiments  were  those  of  a  AVift- 
batarian  Baptist  ;"  but  Dr.  Richards  assures  us  there 
is  no  foundation  for  considering  him  a  Sabbatarian. 
Very  few  men  of  that  age  did  more  for  the  advance- 
ment of  true  godhness  ihan  Mr.  Powell.— C. 

"t  The  Baptist  church  at  Coventry  has  continued 
to  this  day.— See  Ormes's  Life  of  Baa:ttr.—C. 

t  Crosby,  p.  220,  221 ;  and  Baxter's  Life,  p.  46. 


ing  against  infant  baptism,  and  baptizing  those 
who  had  received  no  other.  After  he  had  been 
confined  some  time,  his  case,  through  the  inter- 
cession of  some  friends,  was  referred  to  a  com- 
mittee of  Parliament,  and  he  was  sent  up  to 
London,  and  detained  in  the  Lord  Petre's  house, 
in  Aldergate-street,  till  the  committee  had  heard 
his  cause  and  released  him.  In  June,  1646,  he 
was  apprehended  a  second  time  at  Spalding,  in 
Lincolnshire.  He  was  seized  on  a  Lord's  Day, 
and  kept  in  custody,  to  prevent  his  preaching. 
Upon  hearing  the  charge  against  him,  which  was 
for  baptizing,  as  but  one  witness  appeared  to 
support  it,  and  according  to  the  maxim  of  law, 
Nemo  Icnctur  scrpsurn  accusare,  he  refused  to  be 
his  own  accuser.  The  ceremony  had  been  per- 
formed in  the  night,  which  indicates  the  sever- 
ity of  the  times  against  such  as  held  his  princi- 
ples and  acted  upon  them  :  just  as  the  primitive 
Christians,  under  persecution,  held  their  assem- 
blies at  that  season.* 

About  the  same  time,  Mr.  Coppe,  a  minister 
in  Warwickshire,  and  preacher  to  the  garrison 
in  Compton  House  in  the  said  county,  for  re- 
baptiziiig  was  committed  to  Coventry  jail.  On 
publishing  the  ordinance  of  Parliament,  in  1645, 
against  unordained  ministers,  the  lord-mayor 
sent  his  officers,  on  a  Sunday,  to  the  Baptist 
meeting  in  Coleman  street,  London,  on  an  in- 
formation that  laymen  preached  there.  The  of- 
fiicers  found  the  religious  exercises  conducted 
by  Mr  Lamb,  the  elder  of  the  church,  and  a 
young  man  who  was  a  teacher  among  them. 
Some  of  the  congregation,  incensed  at  the  dis- 
turbance given  to  their  worship,  used  rough 
language  to  them  ;  but  Mr.  Lamb  behaved  re- 
spectfully, requested  leave  to  finish  the  religious 
service,  and  engaged  to  appear  before  the  lord- 
mayor  at  six  o'clock.  The  officers  acquiesced, 
and  withdrew;  and  at  the  time  appointed  Mr. 
Lamb  and  his  assistant  met  at  his  lordship's 
house.  He  was  interrogated  on  what  authority 
he  presumed  to  preach,  and  was  told  that  he 
had  transgressed  the  ordinance  of  Parliament. 
Mr.  Lamb  replied,  "No;  Utr  that  he  was  called 
and  appointed  to  the  office  by  as  reformed  a 
church  as  any  in  the  world,"  alluding  to  the 
words  of  the  ordinance.  But  he  acknowledged 
that  he  rejected  the  baptism  of  infants  as  inval- 
id. After  the  examination,  they  were  bound 
over  to  answer  before  the  committee  of  the 
Parliament,  who,  after  hearing  them,  commit- 
ted both  to  jail,  where  they  lay  till  the  interces- 
sion of  friends  procured  their  liberty. t 

In  the  same  year,  Mr.  Paul  Hobson,  a  Bap- 
tist minister,  was  taken  into  custody  h)"-  the  gov- 
ernor of  Newport  Pagnel  for  preaching  against 
infant  baptism,  and  reflecting  on  the  order 
against  the  preaching  of  laymen.  After  a  short 
confinement,  he  was  sent  prisoner  to  London. 
He  was  soon  cited  before  the  committee  ;  and, 
having  several  friends  of  rank  and  influence,  he 
was  immediately  discharged,  and  preached  pub- 
licly at  a  meeting-house  in  Moorfields.t 

The  case  of  Mr.  Hanserd  Knollys  runs  into 
more  particulars.  He  was  a  man  of  piety  and 
learning,  and  had  received  ordination  from  the 
Bishop  of  Peterborough,  but  was  afterward  a 


♦  Crosby,  vol.  i..  p.  221-224,  where  are  the  exami- 
nations taken  on  the  occasion, 
t  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  225,  226. 
i  Edwards's  Grangraena,  vol.  i.,  p.  34, 37. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    BAPTISTS. 


369 


aealous  opposer  of  Episcopacy  and  the  liturgy. 
Preaching  one  Lord's  Day,  at  the  earnest  and 
repeated  request  of  the  church-wardens,  when 
they  wanted  a  minister,  in  Bow  Church,  Cheap- 
side,  he  was  h'd  hy  his  subject  to  spealt  against 
the  practice  of  infant  baptism.  This  gave  great 
offence  to  some  of  the  auditory  ;  a  complaint 
was  lodged  against  him  with  the  Parliament ; 
and,  by  a  warrant  from  the  Committee  for  Plun- 
dered Ministers,  he  was  apprehended  by  the 
keeper  of  Ely  House,  and  kept  several  days  in 
prison,  bail  being  refused.  At  length  he  was 
brouglil  to  a  hearing  before  the  committee,  when 
about  thirty  of  the  Assembly  of  Divines  were 
present.  The  answers  which  he  gave  on  his 
examination,  about  his  authority  to  preach,  the 
occasion  of  his  appearing  in  the  pulpit  at  Bow 
Church,  and  the  doctrine  he  had  there  advanced 
being  satisfactory,  he  was  discharged  without 
blame  or  paying  fees  ;  and  the  jailer  was  sharp- 
ly reproved  for  refusing  bail,  and  threatened  to 
be  turned  out  of  his  post. 

Soon  after  this,  Mr.  Knollys  went  into  Suf- 
foli\,  and  preaclied  in  several  places,  as  oppor- 
tunity offered,  at  the  request  of  friends.  But  as 
he  was  accounted  an  Antinomian  and  Anabap- 
tist, his  supposed  errors  were  deemed  as  crimi- 
nal as  sedition  and  faction,  and  tlie  virulence  of 
the  mob  was  instigated  against  him  by  the  high- 
constable.  At  one  time  he  was  stoned  out  of 
the  pulpit ;  at  another  time  the  doors  of  the 
church  were  shut  against  him  and  his  hearers. 
Upon  this,  he  preaclied  in  the  churchyard,  which 
"was  considered  as  a  crime  too  great  to  be  con- 
nived at  or  excused.  At  length  he  was  taken 
into  custody,  and  was  first  prosecuted  at  a  petty 
sessions  in  the  county,  and  then  sent  up  a  pris- 
oner to  London,  with  articles  of  complaint 
against  him  to  the  Parliament.  On  his  exami- 
nation, he  proved,  by  witnesses  of  reputation, 
that  he  bad  neither  sowed  sedition  nor  raised  a 
tumult,  and  that  all  the  disorders  which  had 
happened  were  owing  to  the  violence  and  ma- 
lignity of  his  opposers,  who  had  acted  contrary 
both  to  law  and  common  civility.  He  produced 
copies  of  the  sermons  he  had  preached,  and  af- 
terward printed  them.  His  answers  were  so 
satisfactory,  that  on  the  report  made  by  the  com 
mit  tee  to  the  House,  he  was  not  only  discharged, 
but  a  vote  passed  that  he  might  iiave  liberty  to 
preach  in  any  part  of  Suffolk,  when  the  minister 
of  the  place  did  not  himself  preach  there.  But, 
besides  the  trouble  which  this  business  occa- 
sioned to  him,  it  devolved  on  him  an  expense 
of  £60. 

Mr.  Knollys,  finding  how  much  offence  was 
taken  at  his  preaching  in  the  church,  and  to  what 
troubles  it  exposed  him,  set  up  a  separate  meet- 
ing in  Great  St.  Helen's,  London,  where  the 
people  flocked  to  hear  him,  and  he  had  general 
ly  a  thousand  auditors  Great  umbrage  was  ta 
ken  at  this  ;  the  landlord  was  prevailed  upon  to 
warn  him  out  of  the  place,  and  Mr  Knollys  was 
summoned  before  a  committee  of  divines,  who 
used  to  sit  in  the  room  called  the  Queen's  Court, 
Westminster,  to  answer  for  his  conduct  in  this 
nr alter.  The  chairman  asked  why  he  presu- 
med to  preach  without  holy  orders.  To  which 
he  replied,  he  was  in  holy  orders.  The  chair- 
man, on  this,  was  informed  that  he  had  renoun- 
ced Episcopal  ordination  :  this  Mr.  Knollys  con- 
fessed, but  pleaded  that  he  was  now  ordained, 

Vol.  n  — A  a  a 


in  a  church  of  God,  according  to  the  order  of 
the  Gospel,  and  then  explained  the  manner  of 
ordination  among  the  Briptists.  At  last  he  was 
commanded  to  preach  no  more  ;  but  he  told 
them  that  he  would  preach  the  Gospel,  both  pub- 
licly and  from  house  to  house,  saying,  "  It  was 
more  equal  to  obey  Clirist  who  commanded  him, 
than  those  who  forbade  liim ;"  and  so  went  away. 
A  letter,  which  Mr.  Knollys  wrote  to  Mr.  But- 
ton, of  Norwich,  in  which  were  some  reflections 
on  the  persecuting  measures  of  those  times,  and 
which,  coming  into  the  hands  of  the  Suffolk  com- 
mittee, was  sent  up  to  London,  and  presently 
published  by  one  of  the  chief  promoters  of  per- 
secution, is  supposed  to  have  inflamed  the  pro- 
ceedings against  him.*  As  it  is  short,  I  will 
give  a  copy  of  it  below.t  It  vvas  ton  common  a 
practice  then  to  seize  and  publish  the  letters  of 
those  who  were  called  sectaries. 

The  unsettled  state  of  the  times  in  which  Mr. 
Knollys's  lot  was  cast  occasioned  a  great  vari- 
ation in  his  circumstances,  and  obliged  him  oft- 
en to  change  his  place  of  abode.  Sometimes 
he  was  possessed  of  several  hundred  pounds, 
the  fruits  of  his  industry  in  teaching  youth  ;  at 
others,  he  had  neither  home  to  dwell  in,  nor  food 
to  eat,  nor  money  to  purchase  it !  And  frequent- 
ly was  he  hurried  froin  place  to  place,  by  the 
evil  of  the  times,  and  the  malice  of  his  persecu- 
tors. When  the  rage  of  his  adversaries  would 
no  longer  permit  him  to  remain  in  Lincolnshire, 
he  removed  to  London.  Here  he  opened  a  school 
upon  Tower  Hill,  and  took  a  few  young  men  un- 
der his  care,  to  finish  their  education  and  fit  them 
for  the  work  of  the  ministry.  He  was  also  cho- 
sen master  of  the  Free  School  in  St.  Mary  Axe  ; 
but  the  oppressive  hand  of  power  compelled  him 
to  abandon  this  employment,  and  seek  an  asy- 
lum across  the  Atlantic.  There  he  continued 
about  five  years,  preaching  the  Gospel  and  build- 
ing up  the  churches  that  had  lately  been  gather- 
ed in  that  wilderness.  In  1641  he  returned  to 
his  native  country,  at  the  pressing  solicitation 
of  his  aged  father.  At  this  time  Mr.  Knollys 
was  reduced  lo  great  straits  in  his  worldly  cir- 
cumstances, but  his  Iriends  were  numerous,  and 
often  interposed  with  seasonable  relief     The 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  226-230;  and  a  very  short  and 
partial  account  in  Edwards's  GangrBena,  vol.  i.,  p.  39. 

t  "  Beloved  Brother, 

"  1  salute  you  in  the  Lord.  Your  letter  I  received 
the  last  day  of  the  week  ;  and  upon  the  first  day  I  did 
salute  the  brethren  in  your  name,  who  resalute  you, 
and  pray  for  you.  ^fhe  city  Presbyterians  have  sent 
a  letter  to  the  synod,  dated  rroni  Sion  College,  against 
any  toleration  ;  and  they  are  fasting  and  praying  at 
Sion  College  this  day,  about  larther  conirivings 
against  God's  poor  innocent  ones  ;  but  God  will 
doubtless  answer  them  according  lo  the  idol  of  their 
own  heails.  Tomorrow  there  is  a  fast  kept  by  both 
houses,  ani1  the  synod  at  Westiuinster.  They  say  it 
IS  to  seek  G.v.'  about  the  establishing  of  worship  ac- 
cording to  till-  r  covenant.  They  have  first  vowed, 
now  they  make  inquiry.  God  will  certainly  '  lake 
the  crafty  in  their  own  snare,  and  make  the  wisdom 
of  the  wise  foolishness  ;'  lor '  He  chooselh  the  foolish 
things  of  ihi.s  world  to  confound  the  wise,  and  weak 
things  lo  confound  the  mighty.'  My  wife  and  fami- 
ly remember  their  love  to  you.  Salute  the  brethren 
that  are  with  you.     Farewell. 

"  Your  brother  in  the  faith  and  fellowship 
of  the  Gospel, 

"  Hanserd  Knollys, 
"  London,  the  13th  day  of  the  !  1th  month,  > 
called  January,  1645."  ) 


370 


S  UPPLEMENT. 


words  of  the  apostle  were,  indeed,  literally  ful- 
filled in  the  experience  of  this  good  man,  that 
"  we  have  here  no  continuing  city!"  We  can 
trace  him  from  this  country  to  America,  and 
then  back  again  ;  from  England  into  Wales  ; 
from  London  to  Holland,  and  from  thence  into 
Germany  ;  then  back  to  Rotterdam,  and  from 
the  latter  place  to  London  once  more.  These 
wanderings  about,  too,  were  not  the  effects  of 
choice,  but  of  necessity.  They  tended,  howev- 
er, greatly  to  the  exercise  of  his  graces,  and  fur- 
nished him  with  numerous  instances  of  the  prov- 
idential mercies  of  God  towards  him. 

Shortly  after  the  Restoration,  in  1660,  Mr. 
Knollys,  with  many  other  innocent  persons, 
was  dragged  from  his  own  dwelling-house  and 
committed  to  Newgate,  where  he  was  kept  in 
close  custody  for  eighteen  weeks,  until  released 
by  an  act  of  grace,  on  the  king's  coronation. 
At  that  time  four  hundred  persons  were  confined 
in  the  same  prison  for  refusing  to  take  the  oaths 
of  allegiance  and  supremacy.  A  royal  procla- 
mation was  issued  at  this  time,  prohibiting  An- 
abaptists and  other  sectaries  from  worshipping 
God  in  public,  except  at  their  parish  church. 
This  cruel  edict  was  the  signal  for  persecution, 
and  the  forerunner  of  those  sanguinary  laws 
which  disgraced  the  reigns  of  the  Stuarts  ;  and 
to  these  must  be  attributed  the  frequent  remo- 
vals to  which  Mr.  Knollys  was  compelled  to  have 
recourse.  During  his  absence  in  Holland  and 
Germany,  his  property  was  confiscated  to  the 
crown,  and  yvhen  the  law  did  not  sanction  the 
act,  a  party  of  soldiers  was  despatched  to  take 
forcible  possession  of  his  property.  When  the 
Conventicle  Act  passed  in  1760,  Mr.  Knollys 
was  apprehended  at  a  place  of  worship  in 
George-yard,  and  committed  to  prison.  But 
here  he  obtained  favour  of  his  jailer,  who  al- 
lowed him  to  preach  to  the  prisoners  twice  a 
week  during  his  confinement. 

Mr.  Knollys  lived  to  the  advance  age  of 
ninety-three,  and  quitted  the  world  in  a  trans- 
port of  joy,  19th  of  September,  1691.  He  was 
buried  in  Bunhill  Fields.* 

Mr.  John  Sims,  who  preached  at  Southamp- 
ton, was  a  sufferer  among  the  Baptists  during 
this  period  (1646).  He  was  prevailed  on,  in  a 
journey  to  Taunton,  to  preach  in  the  parish 
church  of  Middlesey.  On  this  he  was  seized  by 
virtue  of  the  act  against  unordained  ministers, 
and  several  letters,  which  he  was  to  deliver  to 
some  pious  friends,  were  taken  from  him. 
These,  with  the  examination,  were  sent  to  Lon- 
don, by  way  of  complaint  against  him,  and  print- 
ed. The  charges  specified  in  the  examination 
were  for  preaching  and  denying  infant  baptism. 
He  admitted  the  latter,  and  pleaded  against  the 
former,  that  "  as  Peter  was  called,  so  was  he."t 

The  next  name  on  the  list  of  sufferers  is  Mr. 
Andrew  Wyke.  On  his  examination  he  refused 
to  answer  to  the  questions  concerning  the  doc- 
trines he  held,  or  his  authority  for  preaching; 
alleging  that,  as  a  freeman  of  England,  he  was 
not  bound  to  answer  to  any  interrogatories, 
either  to  accuse  himself  or  others  ;  but  if  they 
had  aught  against  him,  they  should  lay  their 


*  Crosby's  Baptists,  vol.  iii.,  p.  93 ;  and  vol  iv.,  p. 
295.     Brooks's  Puritans,  vol,  iii.,  p.  491. 

t  Crosby,  vol.  j..  u.232,  233  ;  and  Edwards's  Gan- 
graena,  vol.  u.,  p.  50,  &c  ,  where  four  of  the  letters 
are  printed. 


charge,  and  produce  their  proofs.  This  con- 
duct was  looked  upon  as  great  obstinacy,  and 
expressive  of  high  contempt  of  authority  ;  and 
he  was  therefore  sent  to  jail,  3d  of  June,  1646. 
The  duration  of  his  imprisonment  is  not  known ; 
but  while  he  was  under  confinement,  a  pamphlet, 
drawn  up  by  himself  or  some  friend,  entitled 
"  The  Innocent  in  Prison  complaining,"  being, 
a  narrative  of  the  proceedings  against  him,  was 
published,  in  which  the  committee  and  some 
members  of  it  did  not  escape  severe  reflection.* 

The  last  person  whom  I  shall  mention  as 
suffering  in  this  period  is  Mr.  Samuel  Gates,, 
whose  name  is  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Neal  in 
a  manner  that  has  provoked,  not  wholly  with- 
out reason,  the  severe  censure  of  Mr.  Crosby; 
for  it  leaves  the  reader  to  confound  this  Gates 
with  Titus  Oates,t  so  noted  in  our  historians 
with  a  brand  of  infamy  upon  him,  and  uninform- 
ed of  the  issue  of  the  proceedings  agamst  him 
on  the  heavy  charge  of  murder. 

This  Mr.  Samuel  Gates  was  a  popular  preach- 
er and  great  disputant.  On  a  journey  into  Es- 
sex in  1646,  he  preached  in  several  parts  of 
that  country,  and-baptized  by  immersion  a  great 
number  of  people,  especially  about  Bocking, 
Braintree,  and  Tarling.  Among  the  hundreds 
he  baptized,  one  died  within  a  few  weeks  after, 
and  her  death  was  imputed  to  her  being  dipped 
in  cold  water.  The  magistrate  was  prevailed 
upon  to  apprehend  Mr.  Gates  on  this  charge, 
and  to  send  him  to  prison,  and  to  put  him  ia 
irons  as  a  murderer,  in  order  to  his  trial  at  the 
ensuing  assizes.  The  name  of  the  woman  was 
Ann  Martin,  and  the  report  spread  against  Mr. 
Gates  was,  that  in  the  administration  of  bap- 
tism, "he  held  her  so  long  in  the  water,  that 
she  fell  presently  sick ;  that  her  belly  swelled 
with  the  abundance  of  water  she  took  in  ;  that 
within  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  she  died,  and 
on  her  deathbed  expressed  this  dipping  to  be  the 
cause  of  her  death."  He  was  arraigned  for  his. 
life  at  Chelmsford  assizes  ;  but  on  the  trial, 
several  credible  witnesses,  among  them  the 
mother  of  the  deceased,  deposed  on  oath,  that 
"  Ann  Martin  was  in  better  health  for  several 
days  after  her  baptism  than  she  had  been  for 
some  time  before,  and  that  she  was  seen  tO;_ 
walk  abroad  afterward  very  comfortably."  So. 
that,  notwithstanding  all  the  design  and  malig- 
nity which  discovered  themselves  in  the  trial, 
he  was  brought  in  Not  guilty.  But  this  verdict 
was  not  sufficient  to  disarm  the  rage  of  the  pop- 
ulace against  him  ;  for  a  little  time  after,  soma 
who  were  known  to  have  been  baptized  going,, 
occasionally,  to  Wethersfield  in  Essex,  on  alarm 
being  given  that  Mr.  Gates  and  his  companions 
were  come,  the  mob  arose  and  seized  upon 
these  innocent  persons,  dragged  them  to  a. 
pump,  and  treated  them  like  the  worst  of  vil- 
lains; though  Gates,  against  whom  they  were 
chiefly  enraged,  was  not  of  the  party.  Not 
long  after  this,  the  mob,  without  any  provoca- 
tion, but  because  he  dared  to  come  to  the  place, 
drew  him  out  of  a  house  at  Dunmow,  and  threw 
him  into  a  river,  boasting  that  they  had  thor- 
oughly dipped  him.  J 


*  Edwards,  vol.  ii ,  p.  169.    Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  235. 
t  I  believe  he  was  the  fatherof  Titue.— C. 
t  Edwards's  Gangrsna,  vol.  i.,  p.  121  ;  and  Cros- 
by, vol.  i.,  p.  236-238,  and  p.  240.     In  the  preceding 
!  detail,  the  disturbance    iveu  to  an  assembly  at  Dead- 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


371 


The  preceding  facts  show  that  obloquy  at- 
tached itself  to  the  principles  of  the  Baptists, 
and  that  they  were  marked  out  as  objects  for 
the  virulence  of  the  populace  and  the  animad- 
version of  the  magistrate.  Next  to  the  Qua- 
Kers,  observes  a  late  historian,  "  they  were  per- 
haps the  most  hated  and  persecuted  sect."* 
But  it  should  be  owned,  in  mitigation  of  the 
conduct  of  their  persecutors,  that  at  least  in 
some  instances  they  inflamed  the  spirits  of  men 
against  them,  as  Mr.  Neal  suggests,  by  their 
own  imprudence  and  the  impetuosity  of  their 
zeal.  Much  enthusiasm  appears  to  have  ani- 
mated the  profession  of  their  opinions  ;  and  it 
was  the  fashion  of  the  times  for  every  party  to 
advance  its  peculiar  sentiments  in  coarse  and 
irritating  language  ;  each  assumed  this  licen- 
tiousness of  speech,  but  none  took  it  patiently 
from  others.  The  Baptists  incurred  censure, 
and  excited  jealousy  and  resentment,  by  dis- 
turbing congregations  and  dispersing  challenges 
to  dispute  with  any  minister  or  ministers  on  the 
questions  relative  to  baptism.  This  was  much 
according  to  the  practice  of  the  times. t  Mr. 
Baxter,  we  have  seen,  challenged  Mr.  Cox ;  and 
Dr.  Gunning,  afterward  regius  professor  of  di- 
vinity at  Cambridge,  and  Bishop  of  Ely,  in  the 
year  1656,  went  into  the  congregation  of  Mr. 
Biddle,  and  began  a  dispute  with  him.  But 
while  the  members  of  the  dominant  parties  did 
this  uncensured,  it  was  considered,  and  treated, 
as  insolence  in  the  minority  to  advance  their 
opinions,  even  in  their  own  assemblies  only. 
When  the  public  peace  is  broken,  men  are  just- 
ly amenable  to  the  civil  magistrate  ;  but  for  the 
breach  of  the  peace  merely,  and  not  for  the  senti- 
ments they  may  at  the  time  avow.  Violence, 
penalties,  and  imprisonment  on  account  of  re- 
ligious tenets  are  in  no  view  justifiable.  Against 
error  they  are  needless  ;  for  that,  not  being 
founded  m  reason  and  proof,  will  of  itself  die 
away  :  against  truth  they  are  ineffectual  ;  for 
that  will  finally  prevail,  by  its  own  weight  and 
evidence,  above  all  opposition.  Every  person 
against  whom  they  are  directed  feels  them  to 
be  in  his  own  case  iniquitous  and  cruel. 

The  only  good  effect  which  persecution  hath 
ever  produced  has  been,  opening  the  eyes  of  men 
to  see  the  iniquity  of  it,  and  raising  in  their  hearts 
an  abhorrence  of  it.  The  severities  of  which 
the  Baptists  were  the  marked  objects  led  them 
to  he  advocates  for  liberty  and  toleration.     So 


man's  Place,  January  18,  1640,  mentioned  by  Fuller, 
is  omitted ;  because  he  is  mistaken  in  calling  it  an 
Anabaptistical  congregation ;  and  the  matter  has 
been  stated  before  by  Mr.  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  361.  But 
it  may  be  added  to  what  is  there  said,  either  in  the 
text  or  the  notes,  concerning  this  congregation  and 
its  ministers,  that  Mr.  Hubbard,  or  Herbert,  its  first 
pastor,  was  a  learned  man,  and  had  received  Episco- 
pal ordination ;  that  in  his  time,  the  church  accom- 
panied him  to  Ireland,  where  he  died ;  that  it  then 
returned  to  England ;  that  Mr.  Stephen  Moore,  its 
minister  in  1C40,  who  had  been  a  deacon  of  it,  was 
possessed  of  an  estate,  a  man  of  good  reputation,  and 
endowed  with  a  considerable  share  of  ministerial 
abilities ;  and  that  it  was  severely  persecuted  by  the 
clergy  and  the  bishops'  courts. — Crosby,  vol.  i..  p. 
163-165. 

♦  Gough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  i.,  p.  52, 
note. 

t  Theee  disturbances  often  occurred  by  the  offi- 
cers of  the  army,  and  many  of  the  officers  were  Bap- 
tists.—C. 


far  back  as  the  year  1615,  Mr.  Helwise  and  his 
church,  at  London,  published  a  treatise,  entitled 
"  Persecution  for  Religion  Judged  and  Condemn- 
ed," the  dedication  to  which  was  subscribed 
thus:  "By  Christ's  unworthy  witnesses,  his 
majesty's  faithful  subjects,  commonly,  but  false- 
ly, called  Anabaptists."  In  this  piece  they  as- 
serted "that  every  man  hath  a  right  to  judge 
for  himself  in  matters  of  religion,  and  that  to 
persecute  any  one  on  that  account  is  illegal  and 
antichristian."* 

In  a  book  called  "  The  Bloody  Tenet,"  print- 
ed in  1644,  and  in  another  entitled  "  The  Com- 
passionate Samaritan,"  they  advanced  this  prin- 
ciple, "  That  it  is  the  will  and  command  of  God 
that  since  the  coming  of  his  Son,  a  permission 
of  the  most  paganish,  Jewish,  Turkish,  or  anti- 
chrisfian  consciences  and  worships,  be  granted 
to  all  men  in  all  nations;  that  the  doctrine  of 
persecution  in  case  of  conscience  maintained 
by  Calvin,  Beza,  Cotton,  and  the  ministers  of 
New-England,  is  guilty  of  all  the  blood  of  the 
souls  crying  for  vengeance  under  the  altar." 
They  besought  the  Parliament  "  to  allow  public 
protection  to  private  as  well  as  public  congre- 
gations ;  to  review  and  repeal  the  laws  against 
the  Separatists  ;  to  permit  a  freedom  of  the 
press  to  any  man  who  writes  nothing  scanda- 
lous or  dangerous  to  the  state  ;  to  prove  them- 
selves loving  fathers  to  all  good  men,  and  so  to 
invite  equal  assistance  and  affection  from  all." 
These  opinions  were  in  those  times  censured  as 
most  damnable  doctrines,  and  the  Parliament 
was  invoked,  by  the  pen  of  Dr.  Featley,  utter- 
ly to  exterminate  and  banish  out  of  the  king- 
dom the  Baptists,  because  they  avowed  and 
published  them.t  But  the  good  sense  and  lib- 
erality of  more  modern  times  will  not  only  ad- 
mit these  principles  as  maxims  of  good  policy 
and  sound  Christianity,  but  respect  the  despised 
people  who  brought  them  forward  and  stated 
them,  at  a  period  when  they  were  scarcely  re- 
ceived by  any  others,  and  were  held  by  the  gen- 
erality as  most  highly  obnoxious :  when  even 
the  great  and  good  Mr.  Baxter  could  declare,  "  I 
abhor  unlimited  liberty,  or  toleration  of  all. "t 

It  remains  to  take  notice  of  some  of  the  more 
distinguished  preachers  among  this  denomina- 
tion of  Christians,  who  died  in  the  period  of 
which  we  are  speaking. 

Mr.  Thomas  Helwise,  according  to  the  order 
of  time,  seems  to  deserve  the  first  mention  :  a 
man  of  good  natural  parts,  and  not  without 
some  acquired  ones,  though  he  had  not  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  learned  education.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  ancient  church  of  the  Separa- 
tists in  the  beginning  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign,  and  accompanied  them  when  they  trans- 
ported themselves  out  of  England  into  Holland 
to  escape  persecution.  He  was  of  great  service 
to  them,  and  esteemed  a  man  of  eminent  faith, 
charity,  and  spiritual  gifts.  When  Mr.  Smith, 
whose  history  we  have  given  before,i5i  raised  the 
controversy  about  infant  baptism,  Mr.  Helwise 
became  a  convert  to  his  sentiments,  received 
baptism  from  him,  and  was  one  of  the  first  in 
the  constitution  of  his  church,  of  which,  after 
his  death,  he  had  the  pastoral  care.     He  and  his 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  272. 

t  Robinson's  Translation  of  Claude,  vol.  i.,  p.  250, 
note.  X  Plain  Scripture  Proof,  p.  246. 

^  See  Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims. — C. 


372 


SUPPLEMENT. 


people,  soon  after  Smith's  decease,  published  a 
confession  of  their  faith,  entitled  "  The  Confes- 
sion of  Faith,  pulilished  in  certain  Conclusions, 
by  the  Remainder  of  Mr.  Smith's  Company."* 
At  the  end  of  it  tliere  was  an  appendix,  giving 
some  account  of  Mr.  Smith's  last  sickness  and 
death.  Three  years  after,  Mr.  Robinson,  the 
pastor  of  the  English  congregation  of  Brownists 
at  Leyden,  published  remarks  upon  it.  About 
the  same  time  Mr.  Helwise  began  to  reflect 
upon  his  own  conduct,  and  that  of  the  other 
English  Dissenters,  in  leaving  their  friends  and 
country  to  avoid  persecution  :  whether  it  did  not 
proceed  from  fear  and  cowardice  ;  and  whether 
they  ought  not  to  return  to  bear  their  testimony 
to  the  truth,  and  to  countenance  and  encourage 
their  suffering  brethren.  The  result  was,  that 
he  and  his  church  quickly  left  Amsterdam,  and 
removed  to  London,  where  they  continued  to 
preserve  their  church  state,  and  to  hold  their 
assemblies  for  worship,  as  the  times  would  per- 
mit. He  wrote  a  piece  in  justification  of  this 
conduct,  entitled  "  A  short  Declaration,"  where- 
in he  stated  in  what  cases  it  was  lawful  to  fly 
in  times  of  persecution  ;  to  which  Mr.  Robinson 
replied.  Tlie  conduct  of  Mr.  Helwise  and  his 
friends  displeased  the  Nonconformists  in  exile, 
who  censured  it  as  vainglorious,  and  imputed  it 
to  natural  .confidence  under  the  appearance  of 
religious  fortitude.  It  is  not  known  when  Mr. 
Helwise  died,  but,  from  the  publications  of  the 
day,  it  appears  that  he  went  on  with  great  cour- 
age and  resolution  ;  and  the  church,  under  all 
;the  severities  they  experienced  from  the  civil 
powers,  increased  in  numbers.! 

Mr.  John  Morton,  another  of  Mr.  Smith's  dis- 
ciples, appears  to  have  been  a  man  of  note  and 
reputation,  of  considerable  learning  and  abilities 
He  was  conversant  with  the  Oriental  languages 
and  the  writings  of  the  fathers,  and  was  a  zeal- 
ous remonstrant.  After  his  return  from  Hol- 
land he  settled  in  the  country.  These  circum- 
stances are  inferred  from  a  manuscript  written 
by  J.  Morton,  supposed  to  be  the  same  person, 
•which  was  found  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil 
wars,  on  demolishing  an  old  wall  near  Colches- 
ter. It  was  printed  by  the  General  Baptists, 
and  passed  through  several  impressions.  Its 
title  was  "  Truth's  Champion."  It  discussed 
the  questions  concerning  baptism,  and  the  points 
disputed  between  the  Arminians  and  Calvinists. 
The  piece  was  written  in  a  good  style,  and  the 
argument  managed  with  much  art  and  skill ;  and, 
not  without  reason,  held  in  considerable  estima- 
tion by  the  remonstrants.! 

.\  more  particular  and  full  account  of  some, 
whose  names  have  been  brought  forward  in  the 
preceding  narrative,  will  fall  under  the  follow- 
ing periods  of  this  history,  the  learning  and 
abilities  of  whom,  it  will  appear,  did  credit  to 
the  sect  to  which  they  belonged.  Mr.  Neal  has 
asserted  that  "  its  advocates  were  for  the  most 
part  of  tlie  meanest  of  the  people  ;  their  preach- 
ers were  generally  illiterate,  and  went  about  the 
countries  making  proselytes  of  all  that  would 
submit  to  their  immersion,  without  a  due  regard 
to  their  acquaintance  with  the  principles  of  re- 
ligion or  their  moral  character."  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretleil  that  our  respectable  author,  by  this  gen- 

♦  See  Crosby,  vol.  ii..  Appendix,  No.  i. 

t  ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  269-275. 

i  See  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  276-278. 


eral  representation,  without  producing  any  au- 
thority, or  alleging  attested  fads  to  justify  it,  hath 
laid  himself  open  to  severe  animadversion.  Mr. 
Crosby  exclaims,  "  What  a  malicious  slander  is 
this  cast  upon  a  whole  body  of  Christians,  con- 
sisting of  fifty-four  congregations,  according  to 
his  own  acknowledgments  !"*  It  may  be  sup- 
posed that  Mr.  Neal  has  here  paid  too  great  a 
deference  to  such  writers  as  the  author  of  the 
"  Gangra^ua  ;"  and,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Crosby  may  have  been  too  partial  to  his  own 
sect,  and  not  allowed  for  the  operation  of  a  pre- 
cipitate and  injudicious  zeal,  by  which  a  new 
and  persecuted  sect  is  generally  actuated  ;  he 
may  have  forgotten  that  a  great  number  of  its 
preachers  would  of  course  be  unlearned  and 
ignorant  men,  when  the  liberty  of  prophesying, 
as  any  individual  was  authorized  and  qualified 
by  the  gift  or  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  was 
a  received  principle  ;  for  such  gift  would,  where 
it  was  supposed  to  exist  and  display  itself,  super- 
sede acquired  abilities  and  human  literature. 


CHAPTER  III. 

HISTORICAL   SKETCH  OF  THE  B.tPTISTS  DURING  THE 
COMMONWEALTH,   A.D.    1649-1658. 

The  protectorate  of  Cromwell,  though  re- 
stricted to  the  short  space  of  ten  years,  was  a 
most  eventful  period  in  the  annals  of  ecclesias- 
tical history.  Both  in  our  own  country  and 
upon  the  Continent  of  Europe,  it  will  ever  be 
memorable  for  the  collision  of  parties,  and  the 
extraordinary  incidents  to  which  it  gave  birth. 
The  sanguinary  measures  carried  on  by  the  in- 
stigation of  Louis  XIV.,  against  the  Waldenses 
in  the  valleys  of  Piedmont ;  the  dispersion  of 
the  Protestant  churches  in  that  long  and  highly 
favoured  country,  and  the  deep  interest  which 
Cromwell,  as  the  head  of  the  English  govern- 
ment, aided  by  the  pen  of  his  Latin  secretary, 
our  immortal  Milton,  took  in  the  melancholy 
fate  of  the  meek  confessors  of  Savoy,  are  events 
with  which  few  of  the  Dissenters  of  the  present 
day  are  unacquainted.  But  Mr.  Neal  has  al- 
ready entered  pretty  fully  into  the  general  his- 
tory of  this  period,  and  traced  the  contest  be- 
tween the  Episcopalians,  the  Presbyterians,  and 
the  Independents,  which  we  shall  not  resume. 
Our  object  is  merely  to  supply  a  little  addition- 
al information  respecting  a  class  of  professors 
whom  he  appears  to  have  overlooked  or  neglect- 
ed as  unworthy  of  his  notice  ;  and  to  do  this,  it 
may  not  he  amiss  to  look  back  a  little,  and 
glance  at  the  aspect  which  the  laws  of  the  coun- 
try bear  towards  the  Baptists  in  particular. 

The  great  increase  of  the  Baptists  seems  to 
have  ])rovoked  the  Presbyterians,  who  were 
now  tiie  ruling  party,  to  a  very  high  degree ; 
and  the  same  spirit  of  intolerance  which  the 
Episcopalians  had  manifested  towards  the  Puri- 
tans was  now  exhibited  by  them  against  all  Dis- 
senters from  what  they,  who  could  now  prove 
the  Divine  right  of  Presbytery,  were  pleased  to 
decree.  The  whole  of  their  conduct,  in  respect 
of  those  who  differed  from  them,  shows  what 
Milton  said  to  be  true,  that  "  New  Presbyter  is 
but  Old  Pr  est  writ  large. "+ 


*  Vol.  i.,  Preface,  p.  5. 

t  Milton  writes,  "  Under  the  Gospel,  the  first  of 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


373 


Their  spirit  of  intolerance  maybe  learned  from 
the  history  of  those  times,  and  especially  from 
some  acts  of  the  government.  On  May  26, 
1645,  the  lord-mayor,  Court  of  Aldermen,  and 
Common  Council,  presented  a  petition  to  Par- 
liament, commonly  called  "The  City  Remon- 
strance," in  which  they  desired  "that some  strict 
and  speedy  course  might  be  taken  for  the  sup- 
pressing all  private  and  separate  congregations  ; 
that  all  Anabaptists,  Brownists,  heretics,  schis- 
matics, blasphemers,  and  all  other  sectaries  who 
conformed  not  to  the  public  discipline  establish- 
ed or  to  be  established  by  Parliament,  might  be 
fully  declared  against,  and  some  effectual  course 
settled  for  proceeding  against  such  persons  ;  and 
that  no  person  disaffected  to  Presbyterial  gov- 
ernment, set  forth  or  to  be  set  forth  by  Parlia- 
ment, might  be  employed  in  any  place  of  public 
trust."* 

This  remonstrance  was  supported  by  the 
whole  Scotch  nation,  who  acted  in  concert  with 
their  English  brethren,  as  appears  by  a  letter  of 
thanks  to  the  lord-mayor,  aldermen,  and  Com- 
mon Council,  from  the  General  Assembly,  dated 
June  10,  1646,  within  a  month  after  the  deliv- 
ery of  the  remonstrance.  The  letter  commends 
their  courageous  appearance  against  sects  and 
sectaries  :  their  firm  adherence  to  the  Covenant, 
and  their  maintaining  the  Presbyterian  govern- 
ment to  be  the  government  of  Jesus  Christ.  It 
beseeches  them  to  go  on  boldly  in  the  work  they 
had  begun,  till  the  three  kingdoms  were  united 
in  one  faith  and  worship.  At  the  same  time 
they  directed  letters  to  the  Parliament,  beseech- 
ing them  also,  in  the  bowels  of  Jesus  Christ,  to 
give  to  Him  the  glory  due  to  his  name,  by  an 
immediate  establishment  of  all  his  ordinances  in 
their  full  integrity  and  power,  according  to  the 
Covenant.  Nor  did  they  forget  to  encourage 
the  Assembly  at  Westminster  to  proceed  in  their 
zeal  against  sectaries,  and  to  stand  boldly  for 
the  sceptre  of  Jesus  Christ  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  earthly  powers. 

The  arguments  which  this  grave  assembly 
used  to  withhold  from  others  the  blessing  of 
Christian  liberty,  came  with  a  bad  grace  from 
men  who  had  as  earnestly  pleaded  for  the  priv- 


the  sacraments,  commonly  so  called,  is  baptism, 
wherein  the  bodies  of  believers  who  engage  them- 
selves to  newness  of  life  are  immersed  in  running 
water,*  to  signify  their  regeneration  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  their  union  with  Christ  in  his  death,  bu- 
rial, and  resurrection."  From  this  statement  he  ar- 
gues, "  Hence  it  follows  that  infants  are  not  to  be 
baptized,  inasmuch  as  they  are  incompetent  to  re- 
ceive instruction,  or  to  believe,  or  enter  into  a  cov- 
enant, or  answer  for  themselves,  or  even  to  hear  the 
Word.  For  how  can  infants,  who  understand  not  the 
Word,  be  purified  thereby  any  more  than  adults  can 
receive  edification  by  hearing  an  unknown  language  ? 
For  it  is  not  that  outward  baptism,  which  purifies 
only  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  which  saves  us,  but  the 
answer  of  a  good  con.science,  as  Peter  testifies,  of 
which  infants  are  incapable.  Besides,  baptism  is  not 
merely  a  covenant  containing  a  stipulation  on  one 
side,  with  a  corresponding  engagetnent  on  the  other, 
which,  in  the  case  of  an  infant,  is  impossible ;  but  it 
IS  also  avow,  and  as  such,  can  neither  be  pronounced 
by  infants  nor  required  of  them.  It  is  remarkable  to 
what  fertile  arguments  those  divines  have  recourse 
who  maintain  the  contrary  opinion." — Jvimey's  Mil 
ton,  p.  261. — C.  *  Crosby,  voi.  i..  p.  148. 

*  Theie  were  at  that  time  no  baptisteries  ;  the  Baptists 
used  the  rivers  as  their  fonts. — C 


ilege  while  they  were  smarting  under  the  lash 
of  the  prelates.  "  To  comply  with  this  request 
[of  granting  toleration  J,  would  open  a  gap  for  all 
sects  to  challenge  such  a  liberty  as  their  due  : 
this  liberty  is  denied  by  the  churches  in  New- 
England,  and  we  have  as  great  right  to  deny  it 
as  they.  This  desired  forbearance  will  make  a 
perpetual  division  in  the  Church,  and  be  a  per- 
petual drawing  away  from  the  churches  under 
the  rule.  Upon  the  same  pretence,  those  who 
scruple  infant  baptism  may  withdraw  from  their 
churches,  and  so  separate  into  another  congre- 
gation ;  and  so  in  that  some  practice  luay  be 
scrupled,  and  they  separate  again.  Are  these 
divisions  and  subdivisions  as  lawful  as  they  are 
infinite  !  Or  must  we  give  that  respect  to  the 
errors  of  men's  consciences,  so  as  to  satisfy 
their  scruples  by  allowance  of  this  liberty  to 
them  ?  Scruple  of  conscience  is  no  cause  of 
separation,  nor  doth  it  take  off  causeless  separ- 
ation from  being  schisin,  which  may  arise  from 
errors  of  conscience  as  well  as  carnal  and  cor- 
rupt reason  :  therefore  we  conceive  the  causes 
of  separation  must  be  shown  to  be  such,  ex  naiu- 
ra  ret,  as  will  bear  it  out ;  and,  therefore,  we  say 
that  granting  the  liberty  desired  will  give  a  coun- 
tenance to  schism." 

Many  instances  of  this  spirit  might  be  addu- 
ced, but  we  shall  only  notice  the  following.  A 
work  was  published  by  the  Assembly  in  1650, 
entitled  "  A  Vindication  of  the  Presbyterial  Gov- 
ernment and  Ministry  ;  with  an  Exhortation  to 
all  Ministers,  Elders,  and  People  within  the 
Province  of  London,  &c.  Published  by  the 
Ministers  and  Elders  met  together  in  a  Pro- 
vincial Assembly.  George  Walker,  Modera- 
tor; Arthur  Jackson  and  Edmund  Calamy,  As- 
sessors ;  Roger  Drake  and  Elidad  Blackwell, 
Scribes." 

This  work  contains  the  following  expressions : 
"  Whatsoever  doctrine  is  contrary  to  godliness, 
and  opens  a  door  to  libertinism  and  profaneness, 
you  must  reject  it  as  soul  poison  :  such  is  the 
doctrine  of  a  universal  toleration  in  religion." 
The  ministers  in  the  different  parts  of  the  coun 
try  seem  to  have  been  of  the  same  mind.  Those 
in  Lancashire  published  a  paper  in  1648,  called 
"The  Harmonious  Consent  of  the  Lancashire 
Ministers  with  their  Brethren  in  London  ;"  in 
which  they  say,  "  A  toleration  would  be  putting 
a  sword  into  a  madman's  hand  ;  a  cup  of  poison 
into  the  hand  of  a  child  ;  a  letting  loose  of  mad- 
men with  firebrands  in  their  hands,  and  appoint- 
ing a  city  of  refuge  to  men's  consciences  for  the 
devil  to  fly  to  ;  a  laying  a  stumbling-block  be- 
fore the  blind ;  a  proclaiming  liberty  to  the 
wolves  to  come  into  Christ's  fold  to  prey  upon 
the  lambs  :  neither  would  it  be  to  provide  for 
tender  consciences,  but  to  take  away  all  con- 
science."* 

We  turn  away  with  disgust  from  these  intol- 
erant sentiments,  and  rejoice  that  the  attempt 
has  been  made,  and  that  none  of  the  predicted 
effects  have  ensued. 

It  was  very  common  at  this  time  for  the  en- 
emies of  the  Baptists  to  represent  the  practice 
of  immersion  as  indecent  and  dangerous,  and  to 
argue  that  it  could  not  be  according  to  Divine 
authority,  because  a  breach  of  the  sixth  com- 
mandment, "Thou  Shalt  not  kill :"  and  the  Di- 
vine declaration,  "  I  will  have  mercy,  and  not 

*■  Crosby,  loi.  i..  p.  190. 


374 


SUPPLEMENT. 


sacrifice."     Wlio  \vould  have  tboiight  that  Mr. 
liichartl  Baxter  could  have  expressed  himself 
in  language  like  the  foilowingi     '•  My  sixth  ar- 
gument shall  be  against  the  usual  manner  of 
their  baptizing,  as  it  is  by  dipping  over  head  in 
a  river,  or  other  cold  water.     That  which  is  a 
plain  breach  of  the  sixth  commandment,  'Thou 
shall  not  kill,'  is  no  ordinance  of  God,  but  a 
most  heinous  sin.     But  the  ordinary  practice  of 
baptizing  over  head  and  in  cold  water,  as  ne- 
cessary, is  a  plain  breach  of  the  sixth  command- 
ment, therefore  it  is  no  ordinance  of  God,  but  a 
heinous  sin.      And,  as  Mr.  Cradock  shows  in 
his  book  of  Gospel  Liberty,  the  magistrate  ought 
to  restrain  it,  to  save  the  lives  of  his  subjects. 
That  this  is  flat  murder,  and  no  better,  being  or- 
dinarily and  generally  used,  is  undeniable  to  any 
understanding  man  ;  and  I  know  not  what  trick 
a  covetous  landlord  can  find  out  to  get  his  ten- 
ants to  die  apace,  that  he  may  have  new  fines 
and  heriofs,  likelier   than  to   encourage  such 
preachers,  that  he  may  get  them  all  to  turn 
Anabaptists.     I  wish  that  this  device  be  not  it 
which  countenanceth  these  men  ;   and  covet- 
ous physicians,  methinks,  should  not  be  much 
against  them.    Catarrhs  and  obstructions,  which 
are  the  too  great  fountains  of  most  mortal  dis- 
eases in  man's  body,  could  scarce  have  a  more 
notable  means  to  produce  them  where  they  are 
not,  or  to  increase  them  where  they  are.     Apo- 
plexies, lethargies,  palsies,  and  all  other  coma- 
tous  diseases,  would  be  promoted  by  it.     So 
would  cephalalgies,  hemicranies,  phthises,  de- 
bility of  the  stomach,  crudities,  and  almost  all 
fevers,  dysenteries,  diarrhoeas,  colics,  iliac  pas- 
sions, convulsions,  spasms,  tremours,  and  so  on. 
All  hepatic,  splenetic,  and  pulmonic   persons, 
and  hypochondriacs,  would  soon  have  enough 
of  it.     In  a  word,  it  is  good  for  nothing  but  to 
despatch  men  out  of  the  world  that  are  burden- 
some, and  to  ranken  churchyards.     I  conclude, 
if  murder  be  a  sin,  then  dipping  ordinarily  over 
head  in  England  is  a  sin  ;   and  if  those  who 
would  make  it  men's  religion  to  murder  them- 
selves, and  urge  it  upon  their  consciences  as 
iheir  duty,  are  not  to  be  suffered  in  a  common- 
wealth, any  more   than   highway   murderers ; 
then  judge  how  these  Anabaptists,  that  teach 
the  necessity  of  such  dipping,  are  to  be  suffered. 
My  seventh  argument  is  also  against  another 
wickedness  in  their  manner  of  baptizing,  which 
is  their  dipping  persons  naked,  which  is  very 
usual  with  many  of  them,  or  next  to  naked,  as 
is  usual  with  the  modestest  that  I  have  heard 
of     If  the  minister  must  go  into  the  water  with 
the  party,  it  will  certainly  tend  to  his  death, 
though  they  may  escape  that  go  in  but  once. 
Would  not  vain  young  men  come  to  a  baptizing 
to  see  the  nakedness  of  maids,  and  make  a  mere 
jest  and  sport  of  itV* 

It  is  with  pleasure  wc  give  a  place  to  the  re- 
flections of  the  late  venerable  Abraham  Booth 
on  these  remarks,  which  certainly  merited  se- 
vere animadversion,  especially  as  they  were 
published  at  a  time  when,  as  the  sequel  will 
show,  they  were  calculated  to  produce  some 
serious  consequences  towards  those  who  were 
in  the  practice  of  baptizing  by  immersion. 

"  Were  this  representation  just,"  says  Mr. 
Booth,  "  we  should  have  no  reason  to  wonder  if 
his  following  words  expressed  a  fact :   '  I  am 
*  Baxter's  Plain  Scripture  Proof,  p.  134-137. 


still  more  confirmed  that  a  visible  judgment  of 
(iod  doth  still  follow  anabaptizing  wherever  it 
comes.'  It  was  not  without  reason,  I  presume, 
that  Mr.  Baxter  made  the  following  acknowl- 
edgment :  '  I  confess  my  style  is  naturally 
keen.'  I  am  a  little  suspicious,  also,  that  Dr. 
Owen  had  some  cause  to  speak  of  his  writings 
as  follows  ;  '  I  verily  believe  that  if  a  man  who 
had  nothing  else  to  do,  should  gather  into  a 
heap  all  the  expressions  which  in  his  late  books, 
confessions,  and  apologies,  have  a  lovely  aspect 
towards  himself,  as  to  ability,  diligence,  sincer- 
ity, on  the  one  hand ;  with  all  those  which  are 
full  of  reproach  and  contempt  towards  others, 
on  the  other  ;  the  view  of  them  could  not  but  a 
little  startle  a  man  of  so  great  modesty,  and  of 
such  eminency  in  the  mortification  of  pride,  as 
Mr.  Baxter  is.'  Hence  we  learn  that  the  Bap- 
tists are  not  the  only  persons  who  have  felt  the 
weight  of  Mr.  Baxter's  hand  ;  so  that  if  a  recol- 
lection of  others  having  suffered  under  his  keen 
resentment  can  afford  relief,  the  poor  Baptists 
may  take  some  comfort ;  and  it  is  an  old  saying, 

Solamen  miseris  socios  habuisse  doloris. 

"  Before  I  dismiss  this  extraordinary  language 
of  Mr.  Baxter,"  adds  Mr.  Booth,  "  it  is  proper 
to  be  observed,  that  the  charge  of  shocking  in- 
decency, which  he  lays  with  so  much  confidence 
against  the  Baptists  of  those  times,  was  not  suf- 
fered by  them  to  pass  without  animadversion 
No,  he  was  challenged  to  make  it  good  :  it  was 
denied,  it  was  confuted  by  them.  With  a  view- 
to  which.  Dr.  Wall  says,  '  The  English  Anti- 
paedobaptists  need  not  have  made  so  great  an 
outcry  against  Mr.  Baxter  for  his  saying  that 
they  baptized  naked  ;  for  if  they  had,  it  had 
been  no  more  than  the  primitive  Christians  did.' 
But  surely  they  had  reason  to  complain  of  mis- 
representation ;  such  misrepresentation  as  tend- 
ed to  bring  the  greatest  odium  upon  their  sen- 
timents and  practice.  Besides,  however  ancient 
the  practice  charged  upon  them  was,  its  anti- 
quity could  not  have  justified  their  conduct,  ex- 
cept it  had  been  derived  from  Divine  command 
or  apostolical  example  ;  neither  of  which  ap- 
pears."t 

It  is  a  little  extraordinary  that  in  the  next 
year,  1647,  considerable  favour  was  manifested 
towards  the  Baptists.  Perhaps  it  arose  from 
the  policy  of  Cromwell,  wishing  to  check  the 
overgrown  power  of  the  Presbyterians,  or  from 
some  of  his  officers  and  other  persons  of  con- 
siderable influence  embracing  their  sentiments, 
and  using  their  interest  in  their  behalf. 

In  a  declaration  of  the  Lords  and  Commons, 
published  March  4,  1647,  it  is  said,  "The  name 
of  Anabaptism  hath,  indeed,  contracted  much 
odium  by  reason  of  the  extravagant  opinions  of 
some  of  that  name  in  Germany,  tending  to  the 
disturbance  of  the  government  and  the  peace  of 
all  states,  which  opinions  and  practices  we  ab- 
hor and  detest.  But  their  opinion  against  the 
baptism  of  infants,  it  is  only  a  difference  about 
a  circumstance  of  time  in  the  administration  of 
an  ordinance,  wherein  in  former  ages,  as  well 
as  in  this,  learned  men  have  differed  both  in 
opinion  and  practice.  And  though  we  could 
wish  that  all  men  would  satisfy  themselves, 
and  join  with  us  in  our  judgment  and  pratice  in 
this  point,  yet  herein  we  hold  it  fit  that  men 
*  Psedobap.  Exam.,  vol.  i.,  p.  263-2G5. 


HISTORY   OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


375 


should  be  convinced  by  the  Word  of  God,  with 
great  gentleness  and  reason,  and  not  beaten  out 
of  it  by  force  and  violence.""* 

This  declaration  discovered  much  of  a  truly 
Christian  spirit ;  and  happy  would  it  have  been 
if  all  governments  had  always  acted  on  such 
principles.  But  it  is  lamentable  to  observe,  that 
the  very  next  year,  a  more  severe  law  was  pass- 
ed than  any  that  had  been  made  in  England 
since  the  Reformation.  It  bore  date  May  2, 
1648,  and  was  entitled  "  An  Ordinance  of  the 
Lords  and  Commons  assembled  in  Parliament 
for  the  Punishment  of  Blasphemies  and  Here- 
sies." One  article  was,  "  Whosoever  shall  say 
that  the  baptism  of  infants  is  unlawful,  or  that 
such  baptism  is  void,  and  that  such  persons 
ought  to  be  baptized  again,  and  in  pursuance 
thereof  shall  baptize  any  person  formerly  bapti- 
zed ;  or  shall  say  the  church  government  by 
Presbytery  is  antichristian  or  unlawful,  shall, 
upon  conviction  by  the  oath  of  two  witnesses, 
or  by  his  own  confession,  be  ordered  to  renounce 
his  said  error  in  the  public  Congregation  of  the 
parish  where  the  offence  was  committed ;  and 
in  case  of  refusal,  he  shall  be  committed  to  pris- 
on till  he  find  sureties  that  he  shall  not  publish 
or  maintain  the  said  error  any  more."t 

It  is  likely  that  the  death  of  the  king  in  this 
year,  and  the  confusion  which  resulted  from  it, 
might  prevent  this  cruel  and  shameful  ordinance 
from  being  carried  into  effect,  as  we  do  not 
hear  that  any  were  prosecuted  upon  it. 

The  government  was  now  altered,  and  in- 
stead of  being  in  the  Parliament,  was  vested  in 
a  single  person.  This  was  the  General  Oliver 
Cromwell,  whose  title  was  to  be  His  Highness, 
Lord-protector  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  of  the  domin- 
ions thereunto  belonging. 

The  Baptists  in  the  army  seem  to  have  been 
apprehensive  that  he  entertained  designs  against 
them,  as  appears  from  the  following  letter,  which 
we  insert,  not  because  we  approve  of  its  spirit, 
but  because  it  may  cast  some  light  upon  the  his- 
tory of  the  times.  It  was  probably  written  by 
some  of  his  officers,  who  were  envious  at  his 
exaltation,  and  offended  that  he  had  deserted 
his  Republican  sentiments.  It  is  entitled  "A 
short  Discovery  of  his  Highness  the  Lord-pro- 
tector's Intentions  touching  the  Anabaptists  in 
the  Army,  and  all  such  as  are  against  his  reform- 
ing Things  in  the  Church  ;  which  was  first  com- 
municated by  a  Scotch  Lord  who  is  called  Twi- 
dle,  but  is  now  come  to  the  Ear  of  the  Anabap- 
tists ;  upon  which  there  are  propounded  thirty- 
five  Queries  for  his  Highness  to  answer  to  his 
Conscience.  By  a  Well-wisher  to  the  Anabap- 
tists' Prosperity,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Separa- 
tists in  England."!; 


It  was  not  known  that,  during  the  contest  be- 
tween Charles  I.  and  the  Parliament,  any  Bap- 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  196.        +  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  203. 

J         "  To  His  Highness  the  Lord-protector. 
"  My  Lord, 

"  There  is  some  intelligence  abroad,  which  I  de- 
sire to  communicate  in  a  private  way,  lest  I  become 
a  prey  to  the  malice  or  envy  of  the  roaring  lion.  But 
to  the  matter  mlended,  and  that  is  this  :  It  seems 
your  highness,  being  discoursing  with  a  Scotch  lord, 
who  is  called  the  Lord  Twidle,  you  were  pleased  to 
say  that  there  was  something  amiss  in  the  Church 
and  State,  which  you  would  refonn  as  soon  as  may 
be.  Of  those  that  were  amiss  in  the  State,  some 
were  done  and  the  rest  were  doing ;  and  as  for  those 
things  that  were  amiss  in  the  Church,  you  hoped  to 


rectify  them  by  degrees,  as  convenient  opportunity 
presented  itself;  but  before  you  could  do  this  work, 
the  Anabaptists  must  be  taken  out  of  the  army  ;  and 
this.you  could  not  do  with  sharp  corrosive  medicines, 
but  It  must  be  done  by  degrees.  From  which  there 
are  two  things  observable:  1.  The  work.  2.  The 
way  you  intend  to  do  this  work. 

"  First,  to  the  work  ;  and  that  is  church-work.  It 
seems  you  intend  to  follow  the  steps  of  them  that  are 
gone  before,  which  could  not  be  content  to  meddle 
with  state  affairs,  and  to  make  laws  and  statutes, 
and  impose  them  upon  the  people  as  rules  of  Divine 
worship.  And  this  is  the  work  you  intend  to  be  at, 
under  pretence  of  correcting  error,  and  so  to  destroy 
truth. 

"  But  who  could  have  thought,  when  you  made 
your  last  speech  to  Parliament,  when  your  tongue 
was  so  sweetly  tipped  for  the  liberty  of  conscience, 
reproving  the  Parliament  for  having  a  finger  on  their 
brother's  conscience  ;  who  could  have  imagined  that 
then  heard  you,  that  you  would  have  been  so  soon 
at  the  same  trade,  Unless  he  had  supposed  a  fountain 
could  have  sent  forth  sweet  water  and  bitter?  But, 
"  Secondly,  the  way  you  intend  to  take  to  bring 
about  this  design  is  twofold;  1.  To  purge  the  army 
of  the  Anabaptists.  2.  To  do  it  by  degrees.  But, 
Oliver,  is  this  thy  design?  And  is  this  the  way  to  be 
rid  of  the  Anabaptists  ?  And  is  this  the  reason,  be- 
cause they  hinder  the  things  amiss  in  the  Church? 
I  confess  they  have  been  enemies  to  the  Presbyterian 
church  government ;  and  so  were  you  at  Dunbar  in 
Scotland  ;  or,  at  least,  you  seemed  to  be  so  by  your 
words  and  actions  ;  for  you  spake  as  pure  Independ- 
ency as  any  of  us  all  then :  and  made  this  an  argu- 
ment why  we  should  fight  stoutly,  because  we  had 
the  prayers  of  the  Independents  and  baptized  church- 
es. So  highly  did  you  seem  to  love  the  Anabaptists 
then,  that  you  did  not  only  invite  them  into  the  army, 
but  entertain  them  in  your  family  ;  but  it  seems  the 
case  is  altered.  But,  I  pray,  do  not  deceive  yourself, 
nor  let  the  priests  deceive  you  ;  for  the  Anabaptists 
are  men  that  will  not  be  shuffled  out  of  their  birth- 
rights, as  free-born  people  of  England.  And  have 
they  not  filled  your  towns,  your  cities,  your  prov- 
inces, your  islands,  your  castles,  your  navies,  your 
tents,  your  armies  (except  that  which  went  to  the 
West  Indies,  which  prospers  so  well),  your  court? 
your  very  council  is  not  free  ;  only  we  have  left  your 
temples  for  yourself  to  worship  in.  So  that  I  believe 
it  will  be  a  hard  thing  to  root  them  out ;  although 
you  tell  the  Scotch  lord  you  will  do  it  by  degrees,  as 
he  reports. 

"  May  it  please  your  highness  seriously  to  consider 
what  hath  been  said,  and  answer  these  ensuing  que- 
ries to  your  own  conscience  : 

•'  1.  Whether  your  highness  had  come  to  the 
height  of  honour  and  greatness  you  are  now  come 
to,  if  the  Anabaptists,  so  called,  had  been  so  much 
your  enemies  as  they  were  your  friends  ? 

"  2.  Whether  the  Anabaptists  were  ever  unfaithful, 
either  to  the  commonwealth  in  general,  or  to  your 
highness  in  particular  ?  And  if  not,  then  what  is  the 
reason  of  your  intended  dismission  ? 

"  3.  Whether  the  Anabaptists  be  not  as  honest  now 
as  in  the  year  1650,  and  51,  and  52,  &c.  ?  And  if  so, 
why  not  as  useful  now  as  then  ? 

"4.  Whether  the  Anabaptists  are  not  to  be  com- 
mended for  their  integrity,  which  had  rather  keep 
faith  and  a  good  conscience,  although  it  may  lose 
them  their  employments,  than  to  keep  their  employ- 
ments with  the  loss  of  both  ? 

"  5.  Whether  the  Anabaptists  may  not  as  justly 
endeavour  to  eat  out  the  bl^wels  of  your  government, 
as  your  highness  may  endeavour  to  eat  them  out  of 
their  employments  ? 

"  6.  Whether  the  Anabaptists  did  not  come  more 
justly  into  their  employments  in  the  army  than  your 
highness  came  into  the  seat  of  government '. 

"7.  Whether,  if  the  Anabaptists  had  the  power  in 


376 


SUPPLEMENT. 


tists  were  in  the  king's  army,  yet  there  seem    troops  of  the  Parliament ;  and  it  has  been  as- 
to  have  been  some  ot  that  persuasion  among  the    signed  as  a  reason  (or  disbanding  one  entire 

their  liands,  and  were  as  able  to  cast  you  out  as  you 
were  thein,  and  they  did  miend  it  to  >ou  as  you  do 
to  them ;  whether,  1  say,  your  highness  would  not 
call  them  all  knaves.' 

••  8.  Whether  this  be  fair  dealing  in  the  sigiit  of 
God  and  man,  to  pretend  a  great  deal  of  love  to  the 
Anabaptists,  as  to  Major  Pack  and  Mr.  Kiffin,  and  a 
hundred  more  that  I  could  name,  when  at  the  same 
time  you  intend  evil  against  them  '. 

"9.  Whether  the  Anabaptist  will  not  be  in  a  bet- 
ter condition  in  the  day  of  Christ  that  keeps  his  cov- 
enant with  God  and  men,  than  your  highness  will  be 
if  you  break  with  both  .' 

"  10.  Whether  a  hundred  of  the  old  Anabaptists, 
such  as  marched  under  your  command  in  48,  49,  50, 
&c.,  be  not  as  good  as  two  hundred  of  your  new 
courtiers,  if  you  were  in  such  a  condition  as  you 
were  at  Dunbar  in  Scotland? 

"11.  Whether  the  cause  of  the  army's  defeat  in 
Hispaniola  was  because  there  were  so  many  Ana- 
baptists in  it?  And  if  so,  if  that  be  the  only  reason 
why  they  are  so  much  out  of  date? 

"12.  Whether  your  highness  hath  not  changed 
your  former  intention,  to  have  an  equal  respect  to 
the  godly,  though  diflerent  in  judgment?  And  if  so, 
whether  it  be  not  from  the  better  to  the  worse  ? 

"  13.  Whether  your  highness's  conscience  was  not 
more  at  peace,  and  your  mind  more  set  upon  things 
above,  when  you  lovedthe  Anabaptists,  than  it  is  now, 
when  you  hate  their  principles,  or  their  service,  or 
both? 

"  14.  Whether  your  highness's  court  is  not  a  great- 
er charge  to  this  nation  than  the  Anabaptists  in  the 
army  ?  And  if  so,  whether  this  be  the  ease  which 
you  promised  the  people? 

"  15.  Whether  there  be  any  disproportion  between 
the  state  of  things  now  and  the  state  of  things  in 
the  days  of  old  ?  And  if  there  be,  show  us  where  it 
lieth,  how,  and  when  ? 

"  16.  Whether  the  moneys  laid  out  in  the  making 
of  the  new  rivers  and  ponds  at  Hampton  Court  miglit 
not  have  been  better  bestowed  in  paying  the  public 
faith,  or  the  Anabaptists'  arrears  before  their  dismis- 
sion ? 

"  17.  Whether  it  is  not  convenient  for  the  Anabap- 
tists to  provide  for  their  own  safety,  seeing  from  you 
they  can  expect  none  ? 

"  18.  Whether  it  will  be  any  more  treason  to  fight 
for  oui  liberties  and  civil  properties  in  these  days,  if 
they  be  denied  us,  than  it  was  to  light  for  them  in 
the  days  of  the  king? 

"  19.  Whether  the  instrument  of  government  be  as 
the  laws  of  the  Medesand  Persians,  that  alter  not?  If 
so.  how  is  it  that  Mr.  John  Bidtile  is  now  a  prisoner? 

"  20.  Whether  your  highness  may  not  as  well  vio- 
late the  whole  instrument  of  government  as  the  37th 
and  38th  articles  ?  If  so,  what  security  have  the  peo- 
ple for  their  liberty  ? 

"21.  Whether  our  liberty  doth  not  wholly  depend 
upon  your  will,  and  the  will  of  a  future  protector, 
seeing  the  instrument  of  government  is  so  little  use- 
ful ?  If  so,  whether  our  condition  be  not  as  bad  as 
ever? 

"22.  Whether  you  may  not  as  justly  suflCer  all  to 
be  put  in  prison  that  differ  from  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, as  to  suffer  Mr.  Biddle  to  be  imprisoned? 

"23.  Whether  it  will  not  be  more  abominable  to 
the  Anabaptists,  or  Independents,  or  Mr.  Biddle,  or 
any  other  professing  faith  in  God  by  Jesus  Christ, 
and  are  not  disturbers  of  the  civil  peace,  nor  turn 
their  liberty  into  licentiousness,  to  suffer  for  their 
consciences  under  your  government,  that  promised 
liberty  to  such,  than  it  was  to  have  suffered  under 
the  king,  that  promised  them  none  ? 

"  24.  Whether  your  highness  will  not  appear  to  be 
a  dreadful  apostate  and  fearful  dissembler,  if  you  suf- 
fer persecution  to  fall  upon  the  Anabaptists,  or  Inde- 
pendents, or  them  of  Mr.  Biddle's  judgment,  seeing 
you  promised  equal  liberty  to  all  ?  i.  1  Kings,  xii.,  8. 


"25.  Whether  this  will  not  jjrnve  your  highness's 
ruin,  if  you  join  with  sucli  a  wicked  principle  to  per- 
^ecute  for  conscience,  or  to  turn  men  out  of  the  army 
lor  being  Anabaptists,  or  forany  such  thing  as  differs 
from  the  Church  of  England,  seeing  God  hath  con- 
fbuniied  all  such  as  have  done  so  ? 

"20.  Whether  the  old  Parliament  was  not  turned 
out  for  leaving  undone  that  which  they  ought  to  have 
done .'  And  if  so,  whether  those  things  have  been 
done  since  '. 

"  27.  Whether  the  little  Parliament  was  not  turn- 
ed out  for  doing  that  which  the  other  left  undone,  or 
taking  away  of  tithes  and  other  grievances?  And  if 
so,  then, 

"  28.  Whether  you  did  not  intend  your  own  ends 
more  than  you  did  the  nation's  good,  in  breaking  the 
first  Parliament,  and  calhng  the  second,  and  dissolv- 
ing them  again  ? 

"  29.  Whether  the  instrument  of  government  was 
not  preparing  eight  or  nine  days  before  the  breaking 
up  of  the  little  Parliament  ?  And  if  so,  whether  you 
did  not  intend  their  dissolving  ? 

"  30.  Whether  you  did  not  tell  a  shameful  untruth 
to  the  last  Parliament,  saying  that  you  did  not  know 
of  their  dissolving,  that  is  to  say,  the  little  Parlia- 
ment, till  they  came  to  deliver  up  their  power  to 
you? 

"31.  Whether  your  highness  did  not  put  a  slur 
upon  the  Lord  Lambert,  when  he  should  have  gone 
lord-deputy  to  Ireland,  in  telling  the  Parliament  it 
savoured  too  much  of  a  monarchy,  and  so  sent  Fleet- 
wood with  a  lower  title? 

"  32.  Whether  your  highness  do  not  intend  to  put 
another  slur  upon  the  Lord  Lambert,  in  sending  for 
the  lord-deputy  to  come  into  England,  to  make  him 
generalissimo  of  the  armies  m  England,  Scotland, 
and  Ireland  ? 

"33.  Whether  it  is  not  convenient  for  the  Lord 
Lambert  to  consider  of  those  actions,  and  to  have  an 
eye  to  your  proceedings,  lest  by  degrees  you  eat  him 
out  of  all,  as  you  intend  to  do  the  Anabaptists? 

"  34.  Whether  the  excessive  pride  of  your  family 
do  not  call  for  a  speedy  judgment  from  heaven,  see- 
ing pride  never  goeth  without  a  fall  ? 

"35.  Whether  the  six  coach-horses  did  not  give 
your  highness  a  fair  warning  of  some  worse  thing  to 
follow,  if  you  repent  not,  seeing  God  often  forewarns 
before  he  strikes  home  ? 

"  THE   CONCLUSION. 

"My  Lord, 

"  My  humble  request  is,  that  you  will  seriously 
consider  of  these  few  lines  :  although  you  may  dis- 
like the  way  by  which  they  are  communicated,  yet 
let  the  matter  sink  deep  into  your  heart ;  for  these 
things  should  have  met  you  in  another  manner,  had 
not  your  highness  cast  off  all  such  friendly  commu- 
nication by  word  of  mouth,  and  the  persons  too,  if 
they  did  but  tell  you  plainly  their  minds.  And  lake 
heed  of  casting  away  old  friends  for  new  acquaint- 
ance, as  Rehoboam  did,  who  forsook  the  counsel  of 
his  good  old  friends,  and  consulted  with  his  young 
courtiers  ;  which  caused  the  ten  tribes  to  revolt  from 
him.*  And  it  is  a  de.idly  sign  of  a  speedy  ruin,  when 
a  prince  or  a  state  casts  off  the  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple of  God  ;  as  you  may  see  how  Joash  forsook  the 
people  and  the  house  of  God,  and  then  his  house 
fell  before  a  few  of  the  Assyrians,  and  at  last  his  own 
servants  conspired  .^gainst  him,  and  slew  him. 

"  And  therefore,  O  Cromwell !  leave  oft' thy  wick- 
.ed  design  of  casting  ofif  the  interest  of  tlie  people  of 
God;  and 'let  my  counsel  be  acceptable  to  thee;  and 
break  off  thy  sins  by  righteousness,  and  thy  iniquity 
bv  showing  mercy  to  the  poor,  and  it  may  be  a  length- 
ening out  of  thy  tranquilhty.'  For  it  is  not  strength 
united  with  policy,  but  righteousness  accompanied 
with  strength,  that  must  keep  alive  your  interest  with 
God  and  the  people.     And  when  both  these  die,  that 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


377 


regiment  in  the  army  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  that 
the  colonel  himself  countenanced  the  Separa- 
tists, particularly  the  Anabaptists.  Although 
their  numbers  increased  considerably  from  about 
the  year  1649,  to  such  a  degree,  indeed,  as  that 
the  principal  officers  in  different  regiments  both 
of  horse  and  foot  became  Baptists,  particularly 
in  Cromwell's  own  regiment  of  horse,  and  in 
that  of  the  Duke  of  Albemarle's  regiment  of  foot, 
yet  it  is  said,  on  good  information,  that  previous 
to  this  there  were  not  to  be  found,  at  any  time, 
twenty  persons  of  this  denomination  vested  with 
command  of  any  kind  in  the  whole  army.  Until 
the  year  lfi48,  two  only  of  this  profession.  Mr. 
Lawrence,  and  Mr.  John  Fiennes,  a  son  of  Lord 
Say,  were  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
and  in  that  year,  before  the  death  of  the  king, 
they  withdrew  from  the  Parliament  because  they 
disapproved  of  its  proceedings,  and  lived  in  re- 
tirement for  about  six  years,  when  Mr.  Law- 
rence was  again  called  into  public  employment. 
In  1650,  Captain  Mildmay,  Captain  Pack,  and 
Sir  John  Harman,  who  were  all  Baptists,  were 
preferred  to  commands  at  sea.*t  Major-general 
Harrison,  whom  Baxter  pronounces  "a  man  of 
excellent  parts  for  affection  and  oratory,  though 
not  well  seen  in  the  principles  of  his  religion,"! 
was  the  only  Baptist  among  the  king's  judges  ; 
and,  indeed,  it  appears  that  he  himself  was  not 
actually  baptized  till  1657,  which  was  several 
years  after  that  tragical  event  had  taken  place. <5i 
The  following  extract  of  a  letter  from  Cap- 
tain Richard  Deane  to  Dr.  Barlow,  bishop  of 
Lincoln,  furnishes  considerable  information  con- 
cerning the  state  of  the  Baptists  at  this  period, 
and  their  conduct  in  the  affairs  of  the  state  : 

"  My  Lord, 

"  The  ground  of  my  humbly  tendering  these 
ensuing  pages  to  your  lordship  is  your  declared 
condescension  to  peruse  any  small  treatise  that 
should  be  presented  to  you  concerning  the  prop- 
er subject  and  administration  of  baptism.  That 
they  may  in  your  lordship's  charity,  so  far  as 
their  conversation  suits  with  their  doctrine,  be 
admitted  among  the  number  of  sincere  Chris- 
tians, I  intend  to  bring  to  your  remembrance 
some  of  their  leaders,  and  the  occasions  which 
prepared  the  way  for  the  increase  of  their  num- 
hers. 

"  About  thirty-eight  years  since,  in  the  heat 
of  our  late  troubles.  Episcopacy  being  laid  aside, 
and  Presbytery  only  as  it  were  by  way  of  ex- 
periment for  a  season  attempted,  but  never  in  a 
national  way  prosecuted  with  effect,  every  man 
was  at  liberty  to  pursue  the  persuasions  of  his 
own  mind  as  to  entering  into  church-fellowship 
in  distinct  congregations,  and  therem  to  jom 
with   such   as  he  conceived  came  nearest   to 


IS  to  say,  righteousness  and  sincerity,  then  adieu  to 
thy  greatness  here,  and  thy  eternal  happiness  here- 
after. 

"  From  him  who  wishes  your  happiness  so  long  as 
you  do  well. — Prmtid  for  the  injurmatwn  of  all  such 
as  prize  the  liberty  of  their  coiisciencts.for  which  so  micch 
blood  has  been  spill."* 

*  Crosby's  History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2-5. 

t  See  Pepy's  Diary  for  proof  of  the  existence  of 
Baptist  influence  in  the  Enghsh  navy  at  this  period. 
— C.  X  Baxter  s  Life,  part  i.,  p.  57. 

i)  The  reader  is  referred  to  Harrison's  life  in  JNoble's 
Regicides,  Burnet,  and  Godwin. — O. 

*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  231-242. 
Vol.  II.— B  b  b 


the  primitive  pattern  in  worship  and  discipline. 
About  that  time  and  a  little  after  there  were 
many  ministers,  some  who  had  been  before  or- 
dained, and  others  who  had  been  admitted  to  pa- 
rochial and  other  public  charges  :  among  whom 
of  my  acquaintance  were  Mr.  Tombes,  some 
time  preacher  at  the  temple ;  Mr.  Christopher 
Blackwood  in  Kent,  Mr.  Benjamin  Cox  at  Bed- 
ford, Mr.  Edward  Harrison,  Mr.  Daniel  Dyke, 
and  some  others  in  or  near  Hertfordshire  ;  Mr. 
Hansard  Knollys,  and  many  others  who  did 
openly  profess,  and  several  of  them  write  and 
publish,  their  opinions  concerning  the  proper 
subject  and  manner  of  baptism.  Some  of  them 
voluntarily  left  their  parochial  charges  and  ben- 
efices, as  not  approving  the  baptizing  of  infants, 
and  collected  distinct  congregations  of  such  as 
agreed  with  them  in  this  doctrine  of  baptism ; 
which,  by  a  succession  of  ordained  ministers  in 
the  places  of  such  as  are  dead,  remain  to  this 
day. 

"  In  the  year  1649  the  Baptists  greatly  in- 
creased in  the  country,  and  their  opinions  did 
likewise  spread  themselves  into  some  of  the 
regiments  of  horse  and  foot  in  the  army  ;  and 
that  in  1650  and  afterward,  some  professing 
this  opinion  were  called  from  their  private  em- 
ployments, and  preferred  to  commands  at  sea : 
among  others.  Captain  Mildmay  to  command 
the  admiral  flag-ship,  under  the  late  Duke  of 
Albemarle,  when  he  was  one  of  the  generals  at 
sea;  Captain  Pack,  to  command  the  flag-ship 
under  Sir  George  Ascue,  rear-admiral ;  Sir  John 
Harman,  to  command  the  admiral  flag-ship  un- 
der his  royal  highness  the  Duke  of  York. 

"  But,  notwithstanding  some  of  this  sect  had 
that  countenance  given  them  as  I  have  men- 
tioned, by  such  as  had  the  principal  manage- 
ment of  affairs,  yet  this  sect  in  general,  as  they 
have  published  in  their  apologies,  were  the  least 
of  any  sort  of  people  concerned  in  any  vicissi- 
tudes of  government  that  happened  among  us. 
My  station  within  the  afore-rnentioned  ten  years 
gave  me  opportunity  to  know  most  persons  and 
actions  of  note,  in  reference  as  well  to  civil  as 
martial  affairs,  and  particularly  those  of  this 
sect.  And  although  in  and  after  the  year  1649 
their  numbers  did  increase,  insomuch  that  the 
principal  officers  in  divers  regiments  of  horse 
and  foot  became  Anabaptists,  particularly  in 
Oliver  Cromwell's  own  regiment  of  horse  when 
he  was  captain-general  of  all  the  Parliament's 
forces,  and  in  the  Duke  of  Albemarle's  own  reg- 
iment of  foot  when  he  was  general  of  all  the 
English  forces  in  Scotland  ;  yet,  by  the  best  in- 
formation I  could  have,  there  were  not,  at  anj"" 
time  before  the  year  1649,  twenty  Anabaptists 
in  any  sort  of  command  in  the  whole  army  ; 
and  until  after  the  year  1648,  there  were  no 
more  than  two,  viz.,  Mr.  Lawrence,  and  Mr. 
John  Fiennes,  one  of  the  Lord  Say's  sons,  who 
made  profession  of  this  opinion,  ciiosen  into  the 
Commons'  House  of  Parliament,  and  both  these 
did  in  that  year,  and  in  the  lifetime  of  Charles 
I.,  as  I  have  been  credibly  informed,  voluntarily 
depart  from  that  Parliament,  as  not  approving 
their  proceedings  against  the  person  of  the  king, 
and  sat  no  more  in  it,  but  lived  privately  until 
about  six  years  afterward.  A  new  form  of  gov- 
ernment being  then  formed,  and  in  appearance 
settled,  Mr.  Lawrence  was  again  called  inta 
public  employment. 


378 


S  U  P  P  L  E  M  E  ^•  T. 


"  I  confess  to  your  lordship,  I  never  heard  of 
any  Anabaptists  in  tlie  king's  army  during  the 
contest  between  his  majesty  and  the  Parliament ; 
and  perhaps,  because  there  were  some  in  the 
Parliament's  army  and  none  in  the  king's  army, 
some  persons  have  from  thence  taken  occasion 
to  affirm  that  the  opinion  of  Anabaptism  in  the 
Church  is  opposite  to  monarchy  in  tlie  State.  It 
is  true,  as  before  is  mentioned,  that  this  opinion 
was  no  general  bar  to  the  continuance  of  such 
as  did  embrace  it  in  public  employments,  though 
I  have  cause  to  believe  that  one  special  reason 
of  disbanding  one  entire  regiment  in  the  Earl  of 
Essex's  army  was,  because  the  colonel  enter- 
tained and  gave  countenance  to  Separatists 
and  some  Anabaptists.  And  that  which  occa- 
sioned Oliver  Cromwell,  after  he  usurped  the 
government  of  lord-protector,  to  discharge  at 
once  all  the  principal  officers  of  his  own  regi- 
ment upon  other  pretences  was,  for  that  they 
were  all  Anabaptists."*! 

It  belongs  to  this  period,  also,  to  introduce 
some  account  of  another  distinguished  military 
officer,  who  ranks  among  the  denomination  of 
Baptists.  I  refer  to  Colonel  Hutchinson,  who 
was  governor  of  Nottingliam  Castle  during  the 
time  of  the  civil  wars.  He  was  one  of  the  king's 
judges  ;  and,  whetlier  in  the  senate  or  the  field, 
uniformly  distinguished  himself  as  a  person  of 
great  courage,  judgment,  piety,  and  liberality. 
An  interesting  narrative  of  his  life  and  times, 
drawn  up  by  his  amiable  and  accomplished  wife, 
iias  been  recently  issued  from  the  press,  in  which 
the  following  account  is  given  of  the  manner  in 
which  lie  was  led  to  embrace  the  sentiments  of 
the  Baptists :  the  circumstances  are  related  with 
the  characteristic  simplicity  and  good  sense 
which  pervade  the  whole  work. 

"  At  Nottingham  they  had  gotten  a  very  able 
minister  into  the  great  church,  but  a  bitter  Pres- 
byterian. Him  and  his  brethren  my  Lady  Fair- 
fax caressed  with  so  much  kindness,  that  they 
grew  impudent  to  preach  up  their  faction  open- 
ly in  the  pulpit,  and  to  revile  the  others,  and  at 
length  they  would  not  sufTer  any  of  the  army 
chaplains  to  preach  in  the  town.  They  then, 
coming  to  the  governor  and  complaining  of  their 
unkind  usage,  he  invited  them  to  come  and 
preach  in  his  house,  which,  when  it  was  known 
they  did,  there  was  a  great  concourse  of  people 
came  thither  to  them  ;  and  the  Presbyterians, 
when  they  heard  it,  were  madded  with  rage,  not 
only  against  them,  but  against  the  governor, 
■who  accidentally  gave  them  another  occasion 
about  the  same  time.  When  formerly  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  forced  him,  for  quietness' 
sake,  to  go  and  break  up  a  private  meeting  in 
the  cannoniers'cliamber,  there  were  found  some 
notes  concerning  Ptedobaptism,  which,  being 
brought  into  the  governor's  lodgings,  his  wife 
having  then  more  leisure  to  read  than  he,  hav- 
ing perused  and  comjiared  them  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, found  not  what  to  say  against  the  truths 
they  asserted  concerning  the  misapplication  of 
that  ordinance  to  infants  ;  but,  being  then  young 
and  modest,  she  thought  it  a  kind  of  virtue  to 
.submit  to  the  judgment  and  practice  of  most 


»   Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  Preface,  p.  2-5. 

t  Clarendon  speaks  in  high  terms  of  a  young  Ana- 
baptist, without  naming  him,  who,  in  time  of  Crom- 
well, brought  an  application  on  their  part  to  Charles 
II.,  then  on  t^e  Continent. — C. 


churches,  rather  than  defend  a  singular  opinion 
of  her  own,  she  not  being  then  enlightened  in 
that  great  mistake  of  the  national  churches. 
But  in  this  year,  she  happening  to  be  with  child, 
communicated  her  doubts  to  her  husband,  and 
desired  him  to  endeavour  her  satisfaction  ;  and 
while  lie  did,  he  himself  became  as  unsatisfied, 
or,  rather,  satisfied,  against  it.    First,  tiierefore, 
he  diligently  searched  the  Scriptures  alone,  and 
could  tind  in  tliem  no  ground  at  all  for  this  prac- 
tice.    Then  he  bought  and  read  all  the  treatises 
on  both  sides,  which  at  that  time  came  thick 
from  the  presses,  and  still  was  cleared  in  the 
error  of  the  Peedobaptists.     After  this,  liis  wife 
being  brougiit  to  bed,  that  he  might,  if  possible, 
give  the  religious  party  no  offence,  he  invited 
all  the  ministers  to  dinner,  and  propounded  his 
doubt  and  the  ground  thereof  to  them.     None 
of  them  could  defend  their  practice  with  any 
satisfactory  reason,   but   the   tradition   of  the 
Church  from  the  primitive  times,  and  their  main 
buckler  of  federal  holiness,  which  Tombes  and 
Denne  had  excellently  overthrown.     He  and  his 
wife  then  jirofessing  themselves  unsatisfied  in 
the  practice,  desired  their  opinions  what  they 
ought  to  do.     Most  answered,  to  conform  to  the 
general  practice  of  other  Christians,  how  dark 
soever  it  were  to  themselves  ;  but  Mr.  Foxcraft, 
one  of  the  assembly,  said,  that  except  they  were 
convinced  of  the  warrant  of  that  practice  from 
the  Word,  they  sinned  in  doing  it  :  whereupon 
that  infant  was  not  baptized.    And  now  the  gov- 
ernor and  his  wife,  notwithstanding  that  they 
forsook  not  their  assemblies,  nor  retracted  the 
benevolences  and  civilities  from  them,  yet  they 
were  reviled  by  them,  called  fanatics  and  Ana- 
baptists, and  often  glanced  at  in  their  public  ser- 
mons.    Not  only  the  ministers,  but  all  their 
zealous  sectaries,  conceived  implacable  malice 
against  them  on  that  account,  which  was  car- 
ried on  with  a  spirit  of  envy  and  persecution  to 
the  last ;  though  he,  on  his  side,  might  well  have 
said  to  them,  as  his  Master  to  the  old  Pharisees, 
'  Many  good  works  have  I  done  among  you  ;  for 
which  of  these  do  ye  hate  mel'     Yet  the  gen- 
erality even  of  that  people  had  a  secret  convic- 
tion upor)  them  that  he  had  been  faithful  to  them, 
and  deserved  their  love  ;  and,  in  spite  of  their 
own  bitter  zeal,  they  could  not  but  have  a  rev- 
erent esteem  for  him  whom  they  often  railed  at 
for  not  thinking  and  speaking  according  to  their 
opinions."* 

Having  introduced  this  excellent  man  to  the 
reader's  notice,  it  possibly  may  not  be  altogeth- 
er unacceptable  to  him  to  be  furnished  with  a 
few  more  particulars  of  his  personal  history, 
and  that  of  his  amiable  consort. 

He  was  descended  of  an  ancient  and  honour- 
able family,  and  born  at  Nottingham,  in  the 
month  of  September.  1616.  He  was  the  eldest 
surviving  son  of  Sir  Thomas  Hutchinson  and 
Lady  Margaret,  his  first  wife,  a  daughter  of  Sir 
.lohn  Biron,  of  Newsted,t  in  the  same  county. 
As  soon  as  his  age  permitted,  he  was  placed 
under  the  tuition  of  Mr.  Theobalds,  then  master 
of  the  free  school  at  Nottingham  ;  and  shortly 
afterward  he  was  sent  to  tlie  free  school  at  Lin- 
coln, which  was  conducted  by  a  Mr.  Clarke. 
This  person,  though  pious,  was  remarkable  for 


*  Ed.  2,  p.  271,  272. 

t  Ancestor  of  the  poet.     Newsted  Abbey  was  then 
the  seat  of  the  family,— C. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


379 


5iis  pedantry  ;  which  so  disgusted  young  Hutch- 
inson, that  he  could  never  profit  under  his  in- 
structions. While  at  this  seminary,  he  was 
taught  the  military  exercise  by  an  old  soldier, 
who  was  kept  by  the  master  to  give  his  pupils 
some  notion  of  the  art  of  war.  He  was  again 
sent  to  the  free  school  at  Nottingham,  in  which 
he  made  very  great  proficiency  ;  and  from  this 
place  went  to  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and 
there  was  made  a  fellow-commoner  of  Peter 
House.  The  tutor  of  his  college  was  Mr.  Nor- 
wich, a  person  of  great  learning,  and  of  an  ami- 
able disposition.  Under  this  perceptor  he  made 
rapid  progress  in  his  studies,  received  great  ap- 
plause for  several  public  exercises,  and  obtained 
a  degree  as  a  testimony  of  his  merits.  After 
remaining  at  college  five  years,  he  returned  to 
his  father's  house  at  Nottingham.  He  was  now 
about  twenty  years  old,  having  hitherto  resisted 
the  temptations  of  youth,  and  been  noted  for 
the  sobriety  and  consistency  of  his  deportment. 
His  father  had  been  for  some  time  married  to 
a  second  wife,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  youth- 
ful and  increasing  progeny.  This  circumstance 
was  not  altogether  agreeable  to  young  Hutchin- 
son, who,  however,  wishing  to  avoid  any  com- 
plaints that  he  might  mal<e  if  he  continued  at 
home,  adopted  the  resolution  of  visiting  London. 
There  he  entered  Lincoln's  Inn  ;  but  soon  found 
the  study  of  the  law  so  irksome  and  unpleas- 
ant, that  he  very  shortly  abandoned  it.  Soon 
afterward,  in  1638,  he  entered  into  the  marriage 
relation  with  Miss  Lucy  Apsley,  second  daugh- 
ter of  Sir  Allen  Apsley,  lieutenant  of  the  Tower. 
She  was  a  young  lady  of  great  beauty,  parts, 
and  acquirements,  and  wrote  the  memoirs  of 
her  husband,  which  have  been  lately  published 
•by  a  descendant  of  the  family.  During  two 
years'  leisure  that  Mr.  Hutchinson  now  enjoyed, 
he  directed  his  attention  to  several  branches  of 
divinity.  In  October,  1641,  he  retired  to  his 
seat  at  Owthorpe,  in  Nottinghamshire.  About 
this  time  was  perpetrated  the  Irish  massacre, 
which  filled  the  nation  with  horror,  and  prece- 
ded those  civil  commotions  and  distresses  with 
which  Britain  was  about  to  be  chastised.  This 
massacre,  and  the  conversation  which  it  every- 
where occasioned,  led  Mr.  Hutchinson  to  em- 
ploy his  thoughts  on  the  political  state  of  the 
country  ;  and  the  result  of  this  inquiry  was  a 
persuasion  that  the  cause  of  the  Parliamentari- 
ans was  supported  by  justice.  He,  with  some 
others,  was  requested  by  nearly  all  the  freehold- 
ers and  middle  classes  in  his  native  county  to 
present  a  petition  to  the  king,  then  at  York,  to 
return  to  Parliament.  Soon  afterward  he  took  up 
arms,  though  not  till  necessity  compelled  him  ; 
for  a  warrant  was  issued  for  his  apprehension, 
and  he,  with  his  wife,  was  obliged  to  quit  home. 
He  accepted  the  commission  of  lieutenant-col- 
onel among  the  forces  appointed  by  the  Parlia- 
ment to  be  raised.  He  was  then  engaged,  in 
conjunction  with  many  Parliamentarians,  in  the 
defence  of  Nottingham  ;  and  when  the  troops 
there  quartered  were  called  out  to  the  relief  of 
General  Essex,  he  was  appointed,  by  the  com- 
mittee of  that  town,  to  the  government  of  its 
castle. 

In  1643  his  father  died,  having  left  his  per- 
sonal estate,  and  all  his  property  that  was  un- 
settled at  Mr.  Hutchinson's  marriage,  to  his 
second  wife  and  children.     The  enemies  of  Col- 


onel Hutchinson  then  seized,  by  violence,  the 
rents  of  his  tenants,  which  he  was  about  to  re- 
ceive ;  and  his  estate  being  sought  for  by  sev- 
eral, promise  of  it  was  obtained  from  the  king. 
In  this  extremity,  though  he  had  supported  the 
garrison  chiefly  at  his  own  expense,  and  thus 
lessened  his  pecuniary  resources ;  and  though, 
he  was  repeatedly  tempted  with  the  most  flat- 
tering promises  to  desert  his  party,  he  remain- 
ed inflexibly  firm.  He  adopted  the  most  salu- 
tary measures  for  the  protection  of  the  castle 
and  town;  but  his  efforts  were  frequently  ren- 
dered abortive  by  the  treachery  of  some  under 
his  command.  By  them  a  party  of  the  Royal- 
ists were  one  night  admitted  into  the  town,  but 
were  soon  expelled  by  the  prudence  and  intre- 
pidity of  the  governor.  A  few  of  the  commit- 
tee, wishing  to  ruin  their  commander,  that  they 
might  obtain  authority  themselves,  endeavour- 
ed to  excite  a  spirit  of  discontent  among  the 
soldiers  and  townsmen,  and  had  the  effrontery 
to  lay  a  statement  of  their  pretended  grievances 
before  a  committee  of  both  nations.  The  result 
of  this  contest  was  a  perfect  justification  of  Col- 
onel Hutchinson,  and  the  disgrace  of  his  infa- 
mous calumniators.  His  ofifice.  had  been  pre- 
viously ratified  by  Parliament,  who  had  also  in- 
trusted him  with  the  government  of  the  town, 
and  presented  him  with  thanks  for  his  services. 
While  he  held  these  commissions  he  often  dis- 
tinguished himself  for  his  bravery.  At  the  siege 
of  Shelford,  in  which  was  a  garrison  under  the 
command  of  Colonel  Philip  Stanhope,  eldest  son 
to  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  he  exposed  himself 
to  the  greatest  dangers,  and  was  the  first  that 
scaled  the  walls.  He  was  also  at  the  siege  of 
Newark,  which  surrendered  to  him  and  his  men. 

Having  been  chosen  a  member  of  Parliament 
in  the  place  of  his  father,  he  came  to  London  to 
discharge  the  duties  of  his  new  office.  The 
Parliament  were  at  that  time  divided  by  the 
factions  and  animosities  of  the  Independents 
and  the  Presbyterians.  Colonel  Hutchinson 
was  soon  marked  as  a  strenuous  Independent ; 
and,  in  the  controversy  between  the  army  and 
the  Presbyterians,  he  ranked  himself  with  the 
army.  Returning,  at  the  settlement  of  Parlia- 
ment, to  his  garrison  at  Nottingham,  he  found 
it  consisted  only  of  the  castle,  and  that  all  his 
regiment,  except  two  companies,  had  been  dis- 
banded. This  being  the  case,  he  resigned  his 
commission,  and  went,  with  his  family,  to  live 
at  Owthorpe.  His  house  was  almost  in  ruins, 
but  he  then  had  not  money  sufficient  to  repair 
it.  He  was,  however,  earnestly  entreated  to 
resume  his  commission,  but  in  vain  ;  for  his 
health  was  now  rather  delicate,  and  he  wished 
to  enjoy  a  little  peace  and  retirement. 

Being  again  summoned  to  Parliament,  he  was 
nominated  one  of  the  commissioners  for  the  tri- 
al of  King  Charles  I.  To  this  nomination  he 
at  first  felt  considerable  reluctance  to  accede 
But  being  convinced,  after  mature  deliberation, 
and  fervent  prayer  for  direction,  that  the  meas- 
ure was  fully  justifiable,  he  no  longer  hesitated. 
Whatever  were  the  motives  which  induced  that 
assembly  to  judge  and  condemn  their  sovereign, 
or  whatever  opinion  may  be  formed  of  their 
proceedings,  the  conduct  of  Colonel  H.  in  that 
affair  was  certainly  dictated  by  conscientious 
principles. 

After  the  dissolution  of  Parliament,  he  re- 


380 


SUPPLEMENT. 


turned  to  Owthorpe.  and  devoted  his  time  to 
the  education  of  liis  children  (who  had,  besides, 
the  ablest  masters) ;  to  the  suppression  of  dis- 
orders in  his  neighbourhood  ;  and  to  the  admin- 
istration of  justice.  He  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Parliament  summoned  April  25,  1660,  but 
was  soon  suspended,  on  account  of  the  part  he 
took  in  the  transactions  relative  to  Charles  I.  ; 
and  his  punishment  was  a  sentence  of  dismis- 
sal from  the  present  house  of  Parliament,  and 
of  incapacity  to  sustain  any  public,  office,  civil 
or  military,  forever.  This  sentence  must  be 
allowed  not  lo  have  been  very  severe;  but  he 
was  not  permitted  to  live  unmolested.  He  was 
accused,  without  the  least  shadow  of  proof,  of 
treasonable  designs  and  practices.  His  house 
was  pillaged  of  all  his  armour,  to  the  value  of 
^100  ;  and  some  pictures  that  had  once  belong- 
ed to  the  late  king,  and  which  he  had  purchased 
in  London  during  the  interregnum,  to  the 
amount  of  £1000  or  £1500,  were  wrested  from 
him  by  an  order  from  the  secretary  of  state. 
By  a  warrant  from  the  same  secretary,  he  was 
seized  one  Sunday  evening,  while  expounding 
to  his  family  a  portion  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ro- 
mans. After  undergoing  very  severe  treat- 
ment, he  was  dismissed  ;  but  in  a  short  time 
again  apprehended,  thrust  into  a  filthy  prison, 
where  he  fell  sick,  and  commanded  by  the  king 
to  be  carried  to  London  in  custody.  Having 
with  much  pain  arrived  there,  he  was  commit- 
ted to  the  Tower,  and  bore  several  petty  exam- 
inations. Sir  John  Robinson,  then  keeper,  a 
worthless  character,  was  as  cruel  and  hardened 
as  a  torturer  in  the  Inquisition,  and  employed 
every  method  he  could  devise  of  insulting  and 
injuring  Colonel  H. 

Under  all  these  multiplied  calamities.  Colonel 
Hutchinson  was  patient  and  submissive.  An 
order  at  length  came  for  his  removal  to  San- 
down  Castle,  in  Kent,  whither  he  was  still  pur- 
sued by  the  malice  and  cruelty  of  his  adversa- 
ries. He  was  confined  to  a  dreary,  damp  room, 
that  was  exposed  to  the  piercing  air  of  the  sea, 
and  against  the  bottom  of  wliich  the  waves 
dashed  in  angry  murmurs.  In  this  miserable 
condition,  his  wife,  who  had  attended  him  in  all 
his  sufferings,  brought  some  books  lor  his  en- 
tertainment ;  but  he  declared,  that  if  he  were  to 
remain  in  prison  all  his  life,  he  would  read  no- 
thing but  the  Bible.  This  book,  indeed,  afford- 
ed him  divine  consolation,  so  that  he  said  to  his 
disconsolate  partner,  what  reason  she  had  to 
rejoice  that  God  supported  him  under  his  trials, 
and  did  not  suffer  his  patience  or  spirits  to  fail. 
He  was  even  thankful  for  bis  afflictions,  consid- 
ering them  as  tokens  of  his  heavenly  Father's 
love,  who  chastises  all  his  children.  Symptoms 
of  disease  now  began  to  appear,  and  he  very 
rapidly  grew  weaker.  In  tiis  sickness  he  was 
wonderfully  cheered  by  the  comforts  of  religion  ; 
and  to  a  person  who  asked  hiin  how  he  did,  he 
replied,  "  Incomparably  well,  and  full  of  faith." 
He  continued  in  this  happy  frame,  giving  seri- 
ous advice  to  those  that  were  around  him,  and 
pouring  out  his  desires  in  ejaculalory  prayers. 
When  he  was  questioned  as  to  the  ground  of  his 
hope,  he  said,  "  There's  none  but  Christ,  none 
but  Christ,  in  whom  I  have  unspeakable  joy, 
more  than  I  can  express  ;"  and  on  the  Sabbath- 
day,  September  11,  1664,  his  spirit  winged  her 
Jlight  to  the  regions  of  everlasting  repose.     Of 


the  political  conduct  of  Colonel  Hutchinson  va- 
rious sentiments  are  entertained,  but  none  ques- 
tion his  integrity  or  piety. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HISTORY  OF  THE  B.tPTISTS  FROM  THE  RESTORATION 
OF  KING  CHARLES  II.  TO  THE  BANISHMENT  OF  THE 
EARL  OP  CLARENDON,   A.D.   1660-1670. 

Whatever  concern  the  Baptists  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  had  in  national  affairs,  while  the 
unhappy  contest  was  pending  between  Charles 
I.  and  his  army,  it  is  sufficiently  apparent,  from 
what  has  been  seen  in  the  foregoing  chapter, 
that  it  soon  ceased  after  Cromwell  assumed  the 
reins  of  government,  who,  when  he  thought 
himself  well  settled,  and  perceived  that  it  would 
please  the  dominant  party,  began  to  undermine 
the  sectarians,  and,  in  particular,  to  suppress 
the  Baptists.  Mr.  Baxter  charges  them  with 
growing  insolent  both  in  England  and  Ireland 
after  Cromwell's  death,  and  the  succession  of 
his  son  Richard  was  set  aside  ;  and  that,  join- 
ing their  brethren  in  the  army,  they  were  every- 
where put  in  power.  He  complains  of  some 
personal  insults  and  ungenerous  treatment  which 
he  received  from  some  who  resided  near  to  him, 
irritated  by  their  remembrance  of  the  opposition 
he  had  made  to  their  sentiments,  and  who. 
though  not  many  more  than  twenty,  "  talked," 
as  he  expresses  it,  "  as  if  they  had  been  lords 
of  the  world."*  This  spirit  of  resentment  and 
triumph  was  soon  humbled  by  the  disappoint- 
ment of  hope,  and  a  subsequent  series  of  suf- 
ferings. 

This  appears,  in  the  first  instance,  from  a  pe- 
tition presented  to  King  Charles  II.,  signed  by 
thirty-five,  on  behalf  of  many  others  in  Lincoln- 
shire. It  stated,  that  not  only  their  meetings 
for  religious  worship  were  interrupted  by  the 
magistrates,  and  bonds  for  good  behaviour 
were  imposed  upon  them,  for  the  violation  of 
which,  on  account  of  renewing  their  assem- 
blies, they  were  prosecuted  a^  peace-breakers  ; 
but  that  they  were  abused  in  the  streets,  and 
their  own  houses  could  not  afford  them  protec- 
tion ;  for,  if  they  were  heard  praying  to  God  in 
their  families,  they  were  insulted  by  sounding 
of  horns,  beating  against  their  doors,  and 
threats  that  they  should  be  hanged.  If  they 
appealed  to  the  magistrates,  the  rage  of  their 
adversaries  received  a  sanction  from  the  odious 
terms  with  which  those  who  sat  on  the  bench 
of  justice  reviled  them.  Many  of  them  were 
indicted  at  the  sessions  for  not  attending  on  the 
preaching  of  the  Episcopal  clergy,  and  alarmed 
with  a  design  of  levying  from  every  one  of 
them  a  penalty  of  £20  a  month. 

The  petition  w-as  graciously  received  by  the 
king,  who  promised  that  he  would  take  particu- 
lar care  that  none  should  trouble  them>  on  ac- 
count of  their  conscience,  in  things  pertaining- 
to  religion  ;  and  immediately  directed  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  to  go  to  the  lord-chancellor 
and  secretary,  that  the  proper  measures  for  this 
end  might  be  taken. 

In  the  same  year,  another  petition  and  repre- 
sentation of  their  sufferings  was  presented  by 
some  Baptists,  inhabitants  of  Kent,  and  prison- 

*  His  own  Lil'e,  part  ii.,  p.  206. 


HISTORY  OF   THE   BAPTISTS. 


381 


ers  in  the  jail  at  Maidstone.  In  this  paper  they 
appealed  to  their  •'  Confession  of  Fail  h,"  as  tru- 
]y  representing  their  principles  concerning  ma- 
gistracy and  government ;  and  deplored  the  dan- 
ger whii-h  threatened  their  lives,  and  the  ruin 
which  hung  over  iheir  wives  and  little  ones,  by 
the  violence  exercised  against  them  ;  for,  be- 
sides being  made  prisoners,  the  houses  of  some 
had,  without  any  authority  from  the  executive 
p((wer,  been  broken  open  in  the  dead  of  night  ; 
and  from  others  their  goods  and  cattle  had  been 
taken  away  and  detained. 

Great,  also,  were  the  sufferings  of  those  who 
resided  in  Gloucestershire.  The  most  eminent 
Cavaliers  rode  about  armed  with  swords  and 
pistols,  ransacking  their  houses,  and  abusing 
their  families  in  a  violent  manner.  At  the 
house  of  Mr.  Helme,  at  Winchcombe,  the  bed 
whereon  his  children  laid  was  not  spared ;  and 
their  outrageous  conduct  so  frightened  his  wife 
as  to  throw  her  into  an  illness  which  threatened 
her  life.  Mr.  Warren,  who  possessed  the  par- 
sonage of  Rencome,  was,  with  his  wife  and 
family,  penned  up  into  an  upper  room  of  his 
house,  and  so  harassed  night  and  day  by  the 
violence  of  the  assailants  and  the  noise  of  haut- 
boys, that  he  died  in  the  place.  Mr.  Fletcher, 
who  had  been  put  into  a  vacant  place  by  au- 
thority, was  so  beat  and  inhumanly  treated  by 
a  Cavalier  of  iiis  parish,  that  he  and  his  family 
fled  for  their  lives.  One  pious  minister  was  as- 
saulted as  he  was  entering  his  pulpit.  Another 
was  violently  pulled  out  of  his  house;  his  wife, 
children,  and  goods  were  thrown  into  the 
street ;  none  of  the  parish  were  allowed  to  give 
them  entertainment,  and  he  himself  was  haled 
to  jail.* 

It  is  less  surprising  that  these  people  were 
insulted  by  the  ignorant  populace,  and  were 
abused  by  the  petty  officers  of  power,  when 
even  the  Legislature  marked  them  as  the  ob- 
jects of  suspicion,  hatred,  and  severity  ;  for  the 
Parliament  assembled  upon  the  Restorati(m, 
when  it  passed  an  act  for  confirming  all  minis- 
ters in  the  possession  of  their  benefices,  how 
heterodox  soever  they  had  been,  provided  they 
would  conform  for  the  future,  excepted  such  as 
had  been  of  the  Baptist  persuasion. t 

So  far  from  being  encouraged  to  conform,  or 
being  permitted  in  peace  and  security  to  dissent, 
they  were  pursued  with  cruelty.  Divers  of 
them  were  cast  into  Reading  prison  for  consci- 
entiously scrupling  to  take  some  oaths  adminis- 
tered to  them.  At  Newport  in  Wales,  at  the 
end  of  sermon,  two  were  set  upon  by  soldiers 
with  swords  and  staves. t  At  London,  Dr.  John 
Griffith  was  committed  to  Newgale,  where  he 
lay  seventeen  months,  for  no  other  crime  but 
preaching  to  a  congregation  of  Protestants.  In 
Lincolnshire,  Mr.  Thomas  Grantham^  and  some 
others  were  taken  from  their  meeting  at  Boston 
by  some  soldiers,  and  after  having  been  lodged 
all  night  in  a  public  inn,  had  their  rest  disturbed, 
and  tlieir  minds  grieved,  by  the  incessant  cur- 
ses and  oaths  of  their  guards  ;  they  were,  on 
the  next  moining,  conveyed  to  the  common  jail, 

*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  1-30. 

+  Wall's  History  of  Infant  Baptism,  vol.  ii.,p.  215. 

i  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p  94,  97. 

()  The  author  of"  Primitive  Christianity,"  in  folio, 
a  very  able  performance.  Mr.  Grantham  was  a  Gen- 
eral Baptist. — C. 


and  detained  there,  without  so  much  as  the 
least  pretence  of  any  crime  laid  to  their  charge, 
till  the  assizes,  when  they  were  dismissed.  At 
Dover,  the  magistrates  were  severe  against 
them,  taking  them  from  their  meeting-houses, 
and  committing  them  to  prison.  After  four- 
and-twenty  days  they  were  admitted  to  bail, 
and  appearing  at  the  assizes,  were  forbidden  to 
assemble  any  more  in  their  own  place  of  wor- 
ship, but  were  allowed  the  use  of  one  of  the 
churches.  This  privilege,  which  ihey  enjoyed 
about  the  space  of  five  months,  was  afterward 
denied  to  them.  Upon  meeting  again  in  their 
own  place,  their  worship  was  disturbed,  and 
twenty-four  of  them,  under  different  commit- 
ments, sent  to  prison  ;  at  the  Quarter  Sessions, 
a  bill  of  indictment  was  found  against  them; 
some  traversed  it,  others  submitted  to  the  court, 
and  the  rest  were  remitted  to  prison  again.* 

A  circumstance  which  much  aggravated  the 
proceedings  against  these  people  was,  that  they 
were  not  apprehended  by  the  peace-officers  only, 
but  by  rude,  youthful,  and  mercenary  soldiers, 
who  seized  them,  to  the  terror  of  women  and 
children,  with  muskets  and  drawn  swords,  did 
violence  to  their  persons,  and  spoiled  their 
goods,  t 

In  June,  1661,  one  of  these  military  banditti 
went  to  a  meeting-house  in  Whitechapel,  and 
laid  hands  on  more  than  twenty  ;  one  of  whom 
refusing  to  go  w.th  them  unless  they  produced 
their  warrant,  they  not  only  pulled  him  ah)ng  by 
force,  and  beat  him  about  the  head  with  their 
hangers,  but  lifting  him  up  several  times  between 
three  or  four,  let  him  fall  with  violence,  and 
drove  his  breast  and  stomach  against  the  rails 
with  such  force,  that  his  health  was  greatly  in- 
jured by  the  blows  and  falls.  When  a  suit  was 
commenced  against  the  actors  of  this  tragedy, 
the  persons  at  whose  complaint  the  soldiers  were 
arrested  were  themselves  arrested,  and  sent  to 
Newgate,  where  they  lay  about  ten  or  twelve 
days  before  they  could  be  bailed,  and  were  held 
bound  from  sessions  to  sessions,  for  a  long  time, 
before  they  could  be  discharged. 

The  persons  assembling  in  the  same  meeting- 
house were  assaulted  by  a  like  body  of  scddiers, 
October  the  20th,  1661,  and  one  of  them,  the 
minister  objecting  to  the  authority  under  which 
they  professed  to  act,  was  by  a  mittimus  pre- 
tending and  asserting  great  matters,  cast  into 
Newgate,  where  he  lay  thirty  weeks,  without 
anything  laid  to  his  charge,  and  then  they  re- 
leased him. 

On  the  3(1  of  November,  in  the  same  year,  a 
similar  outrage  was  committed,  in  the  same 
place,  with  as  little  show  or  face  of  law.  The 
preacher  and  three  more  were  seized,  and  thrown 
into  New  Prison,  from  which,  in  time  ol  sessions, 
one  was  removed  to  Newgate,  under  pretence 
of  being  brought  to  his  trial  ;  which,  however, 
he  could  never  procure,  though  he  called  for  it 
in  the  face  of  the  court,  nor  was  his  name  re- 
turned in  the  calendar.  Yet  he  was  kept  in  jail 
twelve  weeks,  till  fetched  out  by  a  person  in 
authority.  He  suffered  in  all  eighteen,  and  the 
other  persons  twenty-eight,  weeks'  imprison- 
ment.! 

In  the  following  year,  their  religious  assem- 
blies, in  different  parts  of  the  town,  met  with 

*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  149,  153,  154,  155. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  161.  t  Ibid.,  p.  162-165. 


382 


SUPPLEMENT. 


the  like  violent  interruptions  from  the  soldiery, 
breaking  in  with  their  swords  and  muskets,  and 
acting  under  the  authority  of  Sir  John  Robinson, 
lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  as  in  the  former  cases. 
In  one  instance  a  child  in  the  cradle  was  awa- 
ked out  of  its  sleep  by  their  violence,  and  so  ter- 
rified, that  it  fell  sick,  and  died  in  three  days 
In  other  instances,  the  forms  and  furniture  of 
iheir  places  of  worship  were  broken  and  de- 
stroyed. Robinson,  being  told  by  them  that 
tliey  had  broken  the  pulpit  in  Brick  Lane,  re- 
plied, "  It  was  well  done,"  and  gave  them  a 
piece  of  gold  as  a  reward  for  their  good  service. 
In  all  cases,  the  persons  of  those  assembled  were 
exposed  to  their  indisoriminating  rage  ;  neither 
sex,  nor  childhood,  nor  old  age,  nor  women  with 
child,  were  spared.  At  one  place  the  mob  was 
let  in  to  act  with  soldiers,  at  the  direction  of 
Kobinson.  Many  of  the  conscientious  sufferers, 
by  illegal  commitments,  were  cast  into  prison. 

Even  the  walls  of  the  prison  did  not  afford 
them  a  secure  retreat.  In  the  prison  itself  they 
were  exposed  to  outrage  and  fury.  When  they 
have  been  engaged  together  in  religious  conver- 
sation and  acts  of  devotion,  the  felons  of  the 
jail,  the  thieves  and  housetireakers,  the  pick- 
pockets and  highwaymen  have  been  let  into 
their  rooms,  have  threatened  them,  violently 
assaulted,  and  beaten  them.* 

But  in  the  country  were  usually  the  greatest 
injustice  and  cruelty  practised.  The  gentlemen 
in  the  commission  of  the  peace,  near  Aylesbury 
in  Buckinghamshire,  distinguished  themselves 
by  their  virulence  in  prosecuting  the  Noncon- 
formists, and  particularly  the  Baptists.  They 
filled  not  the  county  jail  only  with  prisoners  of 
this  description,  but  hired  large  houses  in  Ayles- 
bury, and  converted  them  into  prisons  ;  and  not 
contented  with  the  severities  in  daily  exercise, 
such  as  confiscation  of  goods  and  imprisonment, 
they  attempted  to  revive  the  old  practice  of  pun- 
ishing heretics  with  banishment  and  death. 
They  grounded  their  proceedings  on  the  oppres- 
sive act  of  the  35th  of  Elizabeth  for  the  punish- 
ment of  persons  obstinately  refusing  to  come  to 
church  ;t  which  went  to  banish  them,  if,  after 
three  months'  imprisonment,  they  refused  con- 
formity ;  and  if  they  did  not  leave  the  kingdom 
within  a  hmited  time,  or  should  return,  to  inflict 
death  without  benefit  of  clergy.  In  1G64,  some 
of  these  justices  proceeded  on  this  act  against 
ten  men  and  two  women,  all  Baptists,  who  had 
been  apprehended  at  their  meeting  in  or  near 
Aylesbury  :  on  these  persons,  because  they  re- 
fused to  conform,  and  to  abjure  the  realm,  sen- 
tence of  death  was  passed,  and  immediately 
their  goods  also  were  seized.  The  other  Dis- 
senters, who  constituted  the  majority  of  inhabi- 
tants in  the  town,  alarmed  at  these  proceedings, 
and  anticipating  their  own  doom,  shut  up  their 
shops  :  this  stop  to  commerce  struck  the  whole 
town  with  horror  and  surprise.  A  son  of  one 
of  the  condemned  persons  immediately  took 
horse  for  London,  and  was  introduced,  by  Mr. 
"William  Kiffin,  a  gentleman  of  note  among  the 
Baptists,!  and  of  interest  at  court,  to  Chancel- 
lor Hyde,  who  was  easily  engaged  to  lay  the 

*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  172-179. 

+  See  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  198,  of  this  edition. 

t  The  autobiography  of  this  excellent  man  was 
published  by  the  late  Rev.  W.  Orme,  the  biographer 
of  Richard  Baxter. — C. 


case  before  the  king.  His  majesty  expressed 
great  surprise  that  any  of  his  subjects  should  be 
put  to  death  for  their  religion,  and  inquired 
whether  any  law  in  force  justified  such  proceed- 
ings. Being  satisfied  on  this  point,  he  promised 
his  pardon.  But,  lest  any  precipitancy  in  exe- 
cuting the  sentence  should  supersede  the  bene- 
fit of  his  grace,  while  the  pardon  was  passing 
through  the  usual  forms,  the  king,  on  a  renewed 
application,  granted  an  immediate  reprieve. 
The  condemned  persons,  however,  were  con- 
tinued close  prisoners  till  the  next  assizes,  and 
then  the  judge  brought  down  his  majesty's  par- 
don, and  they  were  all  set  at  liberty.*  This 
would  undoubtedly  check  the  disposition  of  the 
justices  to  a  similar  process.  But  the  virtuous 
sufferers,  besides  their  other  calamities,  owed 
their  safety  to  favour  instead  of  law  ;  and  ap- 
peared under  the  ignominious  character  of  par- 
doned criminals,  when  they  ought  to  have  en- 
joyed the  security  and  reputation  of  peaceable 
and  innocent  subjects. 

The  rage  of  the  people,  sanctioned  by  the 
conduct  of  the  magistrates  and  the  clergy  to- 
wards the  Baptists,  rose  to  such  a  height  as  to 
deny  them  the  benefit  of  the  common  burying 
places.  Nay,  there  wanted  not  instances  of 
their  being  taken  out  of  their  graves.  The  in- 
habitants of  Croft  in  Lincolnshire  treated  in 
this  manner  the  corpse  of  Mr.  Robert  Shalder,^ 
in  the  year  1666.  He  had  suffered  much  by  im- 
prisonment, and  died  soon  after  his  release. 
He  was  buried  among  his  ancestors  ;  and  on 
the  same  day  his  grave  was  opened,  and  his 
body  taken  out,  dragged  on  a  sledge  to  his  own 
gate,  and  left  there. 

In  the  year  1670,  the  Baptists  of  Lewes,  and 
other  places  in  the  county  of  Sussex,  suffered 
in  their  property  by  the  proceedings  of  Sir 
Thomas  Nutt  and  other  justices,  on  the  Con- 
venticle Act.  They  were  covicted  without  be- 
ing admitted  to  plead  in  their  own  defence. 
They  were  fined  in  an  arbitrary  manner  ;  and 
those  fines  were  recovered  in  a  way  exceeding- 
ly oppressive  and  injurious,  by  distress  and  sale 
of  goods.  Where  the  fines  amounted,  as  levied 
on  various  persons,  to  £5,  there  were  enacted, 
by  distraints,  £29  17*.  In  some  instances, 
four  cheeses  were  seized  to  recover  lOs.,  five 
pair  of  shoes  for  5s.,  a  cow  for  £3  15*.,  and  a 
horse  for  5*.  Cattle  worth  £27  were  sold  for 
£14  5s.  as  a  distress  for  £11  10s.  One  person, 
for  a  meeting  held  in  his  house,  was  fined  £20, 
for  which  were  taken  from  him  six  cows,  two 
young  bullocks,  and  a  horse,  his  whole  stock. 
On  entering  an  appeal,  they  were  returned  to 
him ;  but,  being  cast  at  the  sessions,  he  was 
fined  £60,  which  was  at  last  remitted  to  £23. 
For  nonpayment  of  this  sum  he  was  committed 
to  the  jailer's  hands,  though  the  vicar  of  the 
parish,  touched  with  remorse  for  his  share  in 
the  prosecution,  offered  his  bond  to  pay  the 
whole  fine  within  a  quarter  of  a  year.t 

It  was  remarked  by  one  who  had  been  bound 
over  to  several  assizes  and  sessions  for  having 
religious  assemblies  held  at  his  house,  that  the 
justices,  who  in  criminal  matters  were  often 
silent,  and  generally  cool  and  disposed  to  lenity, 
when  any  person  or  accusation  came  before 
them  concerning  Dissenters,  were  very  forward 
speakers,  and  zealously  aggravated  the  charge. 
~«"^Crosby7vol.ii.,p.  180-185.        f  Ibid.,?.  244-25R 


HlSTOllY   OF  THE    BAPTISTS. 


383- 


But  nothing  more  strongly  marked  the  ma- 
lignant temper  of  the  times  against  the  Baptists 
than  the  publication  of  a  pamphlet,  in  the  year 
1673,  avowedly  designed  to  raise  an  abhorrence 
of  the  sect,  and  to  stand  "  as  an  eternal  memo- 
rial  of  their  cruelty  and  hatred  to  all  orthodox 
ministers."  It  was  entitled  "  Mr.  Baxter  bap- 
tized in  Blood."  The  story  it  exhibited  was, 
that  Mr.  Josiah  Baxter,  a  godly  minister  of  New- 
England,  for  no  other  reason  than  because  he  ■ 
had  worsted  the  Baptists  in  a  disputation,  had 
been  murdered  in  his  own  house,  amid  "  the 
bowlings,  groans,  and  screechings  of  his  dear 
relations,  lying  bound  by  him ;"  and  it  repre- 
sented this  murder  as  committed  with  circum- 
stances of  peculiar  atrocity  and  cruelty  ;  he  be- 
ing first  stripped  and  severely  whipped,  and  then 
unbowelled  and  flayed  alive.  To  give  it  the  air 
of  authenticity,  the  pamphlet  was  pretended  to 
be  published  by  the  mournful  brother  of  the  said 
minister,  an  inhabitant  of  Fenchurch-street, 
London ;  and  it  was  actually  licensed  by  Dr. 
Samuel  Parker.  This  vile  tale  had  its  origin 
in  invention  and  malice  alone  ;  for  the  king's 
privy  council  examined  the  case,  and  detected 
the  forgery.  It  appeared,  on  the  oaths  of  the 
officers  in  Fenchurch-street,  that  no  such  person 
as  Benjamin  Baxter,  the  pretended  publisher, 
had,  in  their  memory,  lived  there  ;  and  on  the 
affidavits  of  a  master  of  a  vessel,  and  of  a  mer- 
chant who  sailed  from  Boston  about  twenty 
days  after  this  murder  was  said  to  be  commit- 
ted, it  also  appeared  that  no  such  fact  had  taken 
place,  nor  had  there  been  such  a  person  as  Mr. 
Josiah  Baxter.  The  whole  story  was  pronoun- 
ced by  an  order  of  council  "altogether  false  and 
fictitious  ;"  and  Dr.  Parker*  confessed  his  mis- 
take and  credulity  in  licensing  the  pamphlet,  and 
acknowledged,  by  a  testimonial  under  his  hand, 
his  conviction  that  the  whole  was  "  both  false 
and  groundless."  Mr.  Andrew  Marvel,  not  with- 
out intimating  a  suspicion  that  Dr.  Parker  was 
concerned  in  the  fabrication,  says,  that  "  from 
beginning  to  end  there  never  was  a  completer 
falsehood  invented."!  It  grieves  and  shocks  a 
good  mind  to  think  ihat,  in  any  age  or  party, 
men  can  be  found  to  invent  and  countenance 
such  groundless  and  malevolent  forgeries. 

Besides  this  general  survey  of  the  persecu- 
tions to  which  the  Baptists  were  exposed 
throughout  the  kingdom,  it  may  be  proper  brief- 
ly to  notice  two  or  three  particular  cases.  One 
is  that  of  Mr.  John  James,  the  minister  of  a 
congregation  of  Baptists,  who  observed  the 
seventh  day  as  a  Sabbath,  and  assembled  in 
Bulstake  Alley.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year 
1661,  they  were  interrupted  in  their  worship  by 
a  justice  and  headborough,  as  Mr.  James  was 
preaching,  whom  they  commanded  in  the  king's 
name  to  be  silent  and  come  down,  having  spo- 
ken treason  against  the  king.  As  Mr.  James 
proceeded  in  his  discourse  without  noticing  his 
summons,  it  was  repeated  with  a  threat  of 
pulling  him  down.  On  this  the  disturbance 
grew  so  great,  that  Mr.  James  was  obliged  to 
stop ;  but  still  refusing  to  leave  the  pulpit,  he 
was  pulled  down,  and  haled  away  ;  and  the 
hearers  were  carried,  by  sevens,  before  the  jus- 
tices sitting  at  the  Half-moon  tavern,  and  those 


*  See  his  character  finely  drawn  in  Edinburgh 
Review,  "  Andrew  Marvel." — C. 
t  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  278-294. 


who  refused  the  oath  of  allegiance  were  com- 
mitted to  prison.  Mr.  James  was  examined  in 
the  meeting-house  ;  insult  and  threats  accom- 
panied the  interrogatories,  and  he  was  commit- 
ted on  the  charge  of  speaking  treasonable  words 
against  his  majesty.  On  this  charge,  he  v.'as 
tried,  condemned,  and  executed.  Previously  to 
the  execution,  his  wife  delivered  to  the  king  a 
petition,  stating  his  innocence,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  witnesses  against  him,  signifying  who 
she  was,  which  the  king  received  with  a  taunt : 
"  Oh  I  Mr.  James  !  he  is  a  sweet  gentleman  ;" 
and  when  she  attempted  to  follow  for  some  far- 
ther answer,  the  door  was  shut  against  her. 
On  the  next  morning  she  renewed  her  attend- 
ance and  suit ;  and  his  majesty  replied,  "  that 
he  was  a  rogue,  and  should  be  hanged."  A 
lord  in  waiting  asked  who  was  meant ;  the  king 
answered,  "  Oh,  John  James,  that  rogue ;  he 
shall  be  hanged  ;  yea,  he  shall  be  hanged."* 

The  celebrated  Mr.  Benjamin  Keach  had  also 
no  small  share  in  the  sufferings  of  the  times. 
He  was  seized  when  preaching,  and  committed 
to  jail ;  sometimes  bound,  sometimes  released 
upon  bail,  and  sometimes  his  life  was  threat- 
ened. Troopers,  who  were  sent  down  into 
Buckinghamshire  to  suppress  the  meetings  of 
Dissenters,  entered  into  an  assembly,  where  he 
was  conducting  the  worship,  with  great  violence^ 
and  swearing  that  they  would  kill  the  preacher. 
He  was  accordingly  seized,  and  four  of  thena 
declared  their  resolution  to  trample  him  to 
death  with  their  horses.  They  bound  him,  laid 
him  on  the  ground,  and  were  going  to  spur  all 
their  horses  at  once  upon  him,  when  their  offi- 
cer, seeing  their  design,  rode  up  towards  thena 
and  prevented  its  execution.  Mr.  Keach  was 
taken  up,  tied  behind  one  of  the  troopers,  across 
his  horse,  and  carried  to  jail,  where  he  suffer- 
ed some  time  great  hardships  before  he  wa& 
released. 

In  the  year  1644,  Mr.  Keach  printed,  at  the 
request  of  friends,  without  his  name,  and  with 
a  recommendatory  preface  by  another  hand,  a 
little  piece  entitled  "  The  Child's  Instructer  ; 
or,  a  New  and  Easy  Primer."  In  this  book 
were  advanced  several  principles  contrary  to 
the  doctrines  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of 
England ;  viz.,  That  infants  ought  not  to  be 
baptized ;  that  laymen  having  abilities  may 
preach  the  Gospel ;  that  Christ  should  reiga 
personally  upon  the  earth  in  the  latter  day,  &c. 
Soon  after  this  tract  was  printed,  and  Mr. 
Keach  had  received  some  copies  of  it,  his  house 
was  searched  for  it  ;  all  the  copies  of  it  they 
found  were  seized,  and  he  waa  bound  over  to 
the  assizes  in  a  recognisance  of  £100,  and  two 
sureties  with  him  in  £50  each.  On  October  8,. 
Mr.  Keach  was  brought  to  the  bar  of  Aylesbu- 
ry, where  the  assizes  were  held,  before  Lord- 
chief-justice  Hyde.  The  judge  not  only  inter- 
rogated him  whether  he  were  the  author  of  the 
Primer,  but,  by  unjust  reflections  and  angry  in- 
sults, endeavoured  to  incense  the  jury  against 
him,  and  to  render  him  odious.  Mr.  Keach  was 
refused  a  copy  of  his  indictment  till  he  had 
pleaded  to  it.  In  the  course  of  the  trial,  abuse 
and  contempt  were  cast  upon  him  from  the 
bench.  The  jury  were  intimidated  when  they 
hesitated   on   their  verdict.      Mr.  Keach   was 

♦  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  165-17]. 


384 


SUPPLEMENT. 


convicted  ;  and  the  sentenpe  passed  was,  that 
he  should  be  committed  to  jail  for  a  fortnight, 
stand  in  the  pillory  for  two  hours  on  the  follow- 
ing Saturday  at  Aylesbury,  with  a  paper  on  his 
head  with  this  inscription  ;  "For  writing,  print- 
ing, and  publishing  a  schismatical  book,  enti- 
tled 'The  Child's  Instructer ;  or,  a«  New  and 
Easy  Primer ;'  "  that  the  same  punishment,  un- 
der like  circumstances,  should  be  inflicted  on 
him  on  the  next  Thursday,  at  Winslow  ;  that 
there  his  book  should  be  openly  burned  before 
his  face,  in  disgrace  of  him  and  his  doctrine; 
that  he  should  be  fined  £20,  and  that  he  should 
remain  in  jail  until  he  found  sureties  for  his  good 
behaviour  and  appearance  at  the  next  assizes  ; 
then  to  renounce  his  doctrines,  and  make  such 
public  submission  as  should  be  enjoined  him.  No 
pardon  could  be  obtained,  nor  the  least  relaxa- 
tion of  the  sentence,  which  the  sheriff  took  care 
should  be  punctually  executed.* 

The  spirit  of  persecution  thus  raged  against 
this  people  ;  but  not  without  a  mixture  of  events 
which  were  adapted  seriously  to  affect  the  minds 
of  their  persecutors,  and  to  alarm  them  to  re- 
flection. On  the  day  of  the  king's  proclama- 
tion at  Waltham,  near  Theobalds,  there  was  a 
man  who,  at  the  bonfire  in  the  evening,  express- 
ed a  rage  against  the  Dissenters,  and  the  Bap- 
tists in  particular,  by  violence  of  language  and 
oaths  ;  and  as  he  threw  fagots  into  the  fire, 
cried,  "  Here  is  a  Roundhead  ;  here  is  an  Ana- 
baptist !"  he  was  struck  with  death  that  night, 
and  never  saw  the  morning.  A  minister  at  one 
place  inveighing  in  his  sermon  against  this  fact, 
fell  into  a  swoon,  and  was  speechless  for  two 
hours,  so  that  it  was  apprehended  that  he  would 
never  recover  out  of  the  fit.  At  Brockington, 
in  Gloucestershire,  a  young  woman,  who  had 
bitterly  reviled  them,  giving  a  sudden  shriek  as 
the  preacher  was  discoursing  on  Jude,  14,  15, 
dropped  down  in  the  religious  assembly,  and 
never  recovered.  The  sufferings  and  character 
of  the  Dissenters  were  made  a  jest  upon  the 
stage  at  Oxford.  In  a  play  acted  there  by  the 
scholars,  one  personated  the  old  Puritan,  who 
broke  a  vein  and  vomited  so  much  blood,  that 
his  immediate  death  was  apprehended,  and  he 
lay  some  time  dangerously  ill.  Two  of  the  ac- 
tors, and  a  woman  that  joined  them  in  this  dra- 
matic exhibition,  were  cut  off  by  deaih.t  Some 
remarkable  calamities  befell  those  who  were 
instruments  in  the  prosecution  of  Mr.  .lohn 
James.  J  One  of  the  actors  in  the  rude  and  un- 
natural treatment  of  Mr.  Shalder's  corpse,  after 
it  was  interred,  died  suddenly ;  and  another 
languished  for  some  time,  terrified  with  the  re- 
membrance of  the  insults  he  had  offered  to  the 
dead.<J  A  woman  named  Anne  Clemens  at 
Chipping  Norton,  distinguished  by  her  rage  and 
malice  against  the  Dissenters,  fell  into  such 
circumstances  of  poverty  as  to  be  obliged  to  sell 
her  land,  and  mortgage  her  house  for  near  its 
worth.  Not  one  of  her  children,  who  resided 
in  the  neighbourhood,  was  in  a  comfortable  con- 
dition ;  and  she  herself  was  so  reduced  as  to  beg 
alms  of  those  she  had  hated  and  persecuted. 
Her  affliction  was  heightened  by  a  diseased  ap- 
petite, which  called  for  as  much  as  would  satis- 
fy two  or  three  persons  ;  and  by  a  disposition  to 
breed  vermin,  so  that,  though  her  clothes  were 


*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  185-209.         t  Ibid  ,  p.  30-31. 
1  Ibid.,  p.  172.  ^  Ibid,,  p.  241. 


not  only  washed,  but  ovened,  she  could  not  be 
kept  clean.  Richard  .Mlein,  an  active  informer, 
and  violent  in  his  conduct  towards  the  Dissent- 
ers, fell  into  afflictions  that  shortened  his  days. 
His  eldest  son  was  killed  at  London  ;  and  about 
the  same  time,  another  was  accused  and  con- 
victed for  robbing  t)n  the  highway,  and  by  great 
friends  and  fees  escaped  with  his  life.  An  of- 
ficer in  the  county  troops  of  Oxford,  with  an  in- 
come of  £70  per  annum,  before  he  could  accom- 
plish his  design  of  suppressing  the  Dissenters, 
sunk  in  his  own  estate,  died  greatly  in  debt,  and 
his  son's  children  became  common  beggars. 
One  Werg,  a  forward  and  active  constable,  did 
not  long  survive  the  expiration  of  his  office,  and 
imputed  his  death  to  watching  one  cold  night  to 
take  the  Dissenters  at  their  meeting.  Five 
persons,  who  received  pensions  as  spies  and  in- 
formers, were  observed  not  to  prosper  after- 
ward, and  every  one  of  them  shortly  died.  An 
Irish  peer,  and  three  Irish  justices  of  title  and 
rank,  bitter  persecutors,  it  was  remarked,  while 
they  were  directing  their  whole  power  to  the 
ruin  of  the  Dissenters,  were  themselves  ru- 
ined, their  estates  were  sold,  and  their  families 
became  extinct.  Whereas  Sir  Littleton  Obal- 
diston,  a  justice  of  peace,  who  had  been  heard 
to  rail  at  the  Dissenters,  and  acted  with  others 
in  committing  them  to  prison,  afterward  laid 
aside  his  enmity,  was  instrumental  in  releasing 
several,  and  conducted  himself  in  a  friendly 
manner;  and  it  was  noticed  that  his  estate  con- 
tinued to  his  postPiily.     And  it  was  remarked 

that Howard,  Esq  ,  a  justice  and  oflicer  in 

the  county  troops  in  Oxfordshire,  who  had  from 
an  enemy  become  a  friend  to  the  Dissenters, 
though  he  adhered  to  the  established  worship, 
was  the  only  one  of  those  who  had  inolested 
and  harassed  them  that  was  living  on  the  30ih 
of  December,  1707,  being  then  an  old  man,  lull 
of  days,  wealth,  and  ht)nour.* 

It  becomes  us,  I  am  sensible,  to  be  very  cau- 
tious how  we  construe  the  events  which  are 
common  to  all  men.  "  There  is  usually,"  says 
an  excellent  writer,  "much  rashness  and  pre- 
sumption in  pronouncing  that  the  calamities  of 
sinners  are  particular  judgments  of  God  ;  yet 
if,  from  sacred  and  profane,  from  ancient  and 
modern  historians,  a  collection  were  made  of  all 
the  persecuting  tyrants  who  delighted  in  tor- 
menting their  fellow  creatures,  and  who  died 
not  the  common  death  of  all  men,  nor  were  vis- 
ited after  the  visitation  of  all  men,  but  whose 
plagues  were  horrible  and  strange,  even  a  skep- 
tic would  be  moved  at  the  evidence,  and  would 
be  apt  to  suspect  that  it  was  Qeiov  ti,  that  the 
hand  of  God  was  in  ii."t 

But  the  history  which  we  are  detailing  pre- 
sents objects  to  our  consideration  more  pleasing 
than  the  sufferings  of  the  persecuied,  or  calam- 
ities that  befell  persecutors.  It  records  the  vir- 
tues which  the  persecuted  displayed,  and  the 
consolations  in  which,  under  their  heavy  trials, 
they  rejoiced.  We  see  the  power  of  I'aith  and 
piety,  when  we  hear  the  Baptists  confined  in 
Heading  jail  declaring,  "Our  Lord  and  King, 
whom  we  serve,  hath  brought  us  under  his  own 
pavilion  ;  and  his  banner  over  us  hath  been  and 
still  is  love,  and  hath  been  teaching  of  us  these 


*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  259-263. 
t  Jortin's  Remarks  on  Ecclesiastical  History,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  247,  1754. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    BAPTISTS. 


385 


lessons  following:  1st.  In  the  loss  of  all  out- 
ward things,  having  Christ,  we  enjoy  all  tilings, 
and  are  satisfied  in  the  Lord  :  we  shall  take  the 
spoiling  of  our  goods  wiiii  far  more  comfort 
than  the  enemy  will  do  in  the  spending  of  them, 
for  that  word,  Job,  xx.,  22,  23,  is  very  much  on 
our  hearts  concerning  him.  2dly.  We  hope  we 
have  learned,  in  whatsoever  condition  we  are, 
to  be  therewith  contented  ;  and  are  persuaded 
in  our  hearts  this  is  given  us  in  answer  of  many 
prayers  breathed  forth  unto  the  Lord  on  our  be- 
haifs.  3dly.  That  whereas  formerly  we  could 
hardly  part  with  anything  for  the  Lord,  we  are 
now  made  willing  by  him  to  part  with  all  things 
for  him,  and  to  say  with  good  old  Eli,  '  It  is  the 
Lord,  let  him  do  what  he  pleaseth  ;'  and  that  in 
Job  is  set  before  us  for  our  example,  upon  whom 
the  ends  of  the  world  are  come :  '  The  Lord 
giveth,  and  the  Lord  taketh  away ;  blessed  be 
the  name  of  the  Lord.  In  all  this  Job  sinned 
not,'  &c.  4thly.  We  have,  since  our  confine- 
ment, tasted  a  greater  sweetness  in  the  promises 
of  the  Lord  than  formerly ;  and  particularly 
these  places  following,  we  have  sweet  experi- 
ence of  and  we  can  truly  say  by  experience, 
'That  faithful  is  he  that  hath  thus  promised, 
for  he  hath  also  done  it :  it  is  the  Lord's  doing, 
and  jt  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes.' — Phil.,  iy.,  19. 
1  Pet.,  v.,  7.  Deut.  xxxiii  ,  25.  We  are  also 
brought  by  the  power  of  his  grace  to  a  more 
watchful  frame  over  our  hearts,  thoughts,  and 
actions,  by  these  trials  than  formerly.  One 
thing  had  almost  slipped  our  memory,  the 
knowledge  of  which  will,  we  hope,  rejoice  our 
hearts:  that  our  r£la!ions,  that  are  precious  to 
the  Lord  and  to  us,  bear  this  our  suffering  with 
ncomparable  patience,  rather  singing  for  joy 
than  weeping  for  grief  Also  our  societies,  from 
whence  we  were  taken,  are  exceeding  cheerful, 
and  a  very  lively  spirit  of  faith  and  prayer  is 
among  them  ;  and  their  meetings  rather  in- 
crease than  otherwise.  Sure,  '  That  the  Lord 
is  near,  his  wondrous  works  declare  ;  for  the 
singing  of  birds  is  come,  and  the  turtle  is  heard 
in  our  land.'  And  now,  brethren,  forasmuch  as 
the  mercies  expected  and  prayed  for  by  us  are 
to  he  enjoyed  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  it 
greatly  concerns  us  that  we  cry  mightily  to  the 
Lord,  as  did  his  servant  of  old,  Isa.,  Ixii.,  1. 
Then  shall  we  have  that  new  name  which  God 
will  give  us,  which  is  expressed  in  the  last  verse 
of  that  chapter.  Now  the  God  of  all  peace  fill 
you  with  peace  and  joy  in  believing;  so  pray 
your  brethren  through  grace."* 

In  the  spirit  of  these  pious  sufferers,  one 
whose  property  was  seized  told  those  who  took 
distress,  "  he  never  sold  anything  to  so  great 
advantage,  for  this  would  bring  him  a  hundred- 
fold." And  another,  on  goods  from  his  shop  to 
the  value  of  50s.  being  seized  for  a  fine  of  3Qs., 
assurred  them  "  that  he  parted  as  willingly  with 
them  as  with  any  goods  he  ever  sold."t 

When  Mr.  John  James  was  brought  to  the 
bar  to  receive  sentence,  he  was  asked  what  he 
had  to  say  for  hirn.self  why  sentence  of  death 
should  not  be  passed  upon  him.  In  a  manner 
very  expressive  of  pious  submission  and  forti- 
tude, he  answered,  "That  he  had  not  much  to 
say,  only  two  (ir  three  Scriptures  he  would  leave 
With  them."  The  first  Scripture  was  Jer.,  xxvi., 
14,  15:  "As  fi>r  me,  do  as  seemeth  good  unto 


♦  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  93-95. 
Vol.  II.— C  c  c 


i  Ibid.,  p.  249. 


you.  But  know  ye  for  certain,  that  if  ye  put 
me  to  death,  ye  shall  surely  bring  innocent  blood 
upon  yourselves,  and  upon  this  city,  and  upon 
the  inhabitants  thereof"  The  second  Scripture 
was  Psalm  cxvi.,  15  :  "  Precious  in  the  sight  of 
the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his  saints."  He  also 
reminded  them  of  that  good  word  of  the  Lord, 
"  He  that  toucbeth  the  Lord's  people,  toucheth 
the  apple  of  his  eye." 

The  deportment  of  Mr.  Keach  when  he  stood 
in  the  pillory  at  Aylesbury  was  singularly  seri- 
ous, devout,  and  undaunted.  To  his  friends 
who  accompanied  him,  expressing  their  sense 
of  his  sufferings,  he  said,  with  a  ciieerful  coun- 
tenance, "  The  cross  is  the  way  to  the  crown." 
When  his  head  and  hands  were  fixed,  he  ad- 
dressed the  spectators  to  this  effect :  "  Good 
people,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  stand  here  this 
day,  with  this  paper  on  my  head.  My  Lord  Je- 
sus was  not  ashamed  to  suffer  on  the  cross  for 
me,  and  it  is  for  his  cause  that  I  am  made  a  ga- 
zing-stock.  Take  notice,  it  is  not  for  any  wick- 
edness that  I  stand  here  ;  but  for  writing  and 
publishing  his  truths,  which  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  hath  revealed  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  It 
is  no  new  thing  for  the  servants  of  the  Lord  to 
suffer  and  to  be  made  a  gazing-stook  ;  and  you 
that  are  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures  know 
that  the  way  to  the  crown  is  by  the  cross.  The 
apostle  saith,  '  that  through  many  tribulations, 
we  must  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;'  and 
Christ  saith,  '  He  that  is  ashamed  of  me  and 
my  words,  in  an  adulterous  and  sinful  genera- 
tion, of  him  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  ashamed 
before  the  Father,  and  before  the  holy  angels.'  " 
After  frequent  interruptions  from  the  jailer  and 
standing  some  time  silent,  disengaging  one  of 
his  hands,  he  pulled  his  Bible  out  of  his  pocket, 
and  held  it  up  to  the  people,  saying,  "Take  no- 
tice that  the  things  which  I  have  written  and 
published,  and  for  which  I  stand  here  this  day  a 
spectacle  to  men  and  angels,  are  all  contained 
in  this  book,  as  I  could  prove  out  of  the  same, 
if  I  had  opportunity."  The  jailer  took  it  from 
him,  and  fastened  up  his  hand  again  ;  but  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  keep  him  from  speak- 
ing, saying,  "It  seems  I  cannot  be  suffered  to 
speak  to  the  cause  for  which  I  stand  here  ; 
neither  could  I  be  suffered  the  other  day  (viz., 
on  his  trial)  ;  but  it  will  plead  its  own  innocen- 
cy,  when  the  strongest  of  its  opposers  shall  be 
ashamed.  I  do  not  speak  this  out  of  prejudice 
to  any  person,  but  do  sincerely  desire  that  tlie 
Lord  would  convert  them,  and  convince  then) 
of  their  errors,  that  their  souls  may  be  saved  in 
the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Good  people,  the 
concernment  of  souls  is  very  great ;  so  great, 
that  Christ  died  for  them.  And  truly,  a  con- 
cernment for  souls  was  that  which  moved  me 
to  write  and  publish  those  things  for  which  I 
now  suffer,  and  for  which  I  could  suffer  far 
greater  things  than  these.  It  concerns  you, 
therefore,  to  be  very  careful,  otherwise  it  will 
be  very  sad  with  you  at  the  revelation  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  from  heaven,  for  we  must  all  appear 
before  his  tribunal."  Here  he  was  interrupted, 
but  after  some  time  he  again  ventured  to  break 
silence.  "  I  hope,"  said  he,  "  the  Lord's  people 
will  not  be  discouraged  at  my  sufferings.  Oh  ! 
did  you  but  experience  the  great  love  of  God, 
and  the  excellences  that  are  in  him,  it  would 
make  you  willing  to  go  through  any  sufferings 


386 


SUPPLEMENT. 


for  his  sake.  And  I  Jo  account  this  the  great- 
est honour  that  over  the  Lord  was  pleased  to 
confer  upon  me."  He  was  not  suffered  to  speak 
much  more  after  this,  and  the  olficers  were  com- 
manded to  keep  tlie  spectators  at  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  liim.  He  found  an  opportunity, 
however,  to  say  at  one  time,  "  This  is  one  yoke 
of  Clirist,  which  I  can  experience  is  easy  to  me, 
and  a  burden  which  he  doth  make  light ;"  and 
to  utter  also  this  sentence,  "  Blessed  are  they 
that  are  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake,  for 
theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  When  the 
time  for  his  standing  was  expired,  and  his  head 
and  hands  were  at  liberty,  he  blessed  God,  with 
a  loud  voice,  for  his  great  goodness  unto  him.* 
Such  sentiments,  such  a  spirit  expressed  in 
the  moment  of  sufTering,  it  may  he  supposed, 
would  disarm  the  rage  of  some,  and  possess  the 
minds  of  many  in  favour  of  the  pious  sufferer. 
But  the  Baptists  did  not  leave  their  principles 
to  the  recommendation  and  support  which  the 
conduct  and  temper  of  those  who,  in  the  pro- 
fession of  them,  endured  cruel  trials,  might  af- 
ford. They  adopted  every  method  of  softening 
prejudice  and  conciliating  regard,  by  addresses 
from  the  press,  and  applications  to  the  throne. 
With  this  view,  they  published,  in  16G0,  a 
"  Brief  Confession  or  Declaration,"  to  inform 
all  men  of  their  innocent  belief  and  practice.  It 
was  owned  and  approved  by  more  than  twenty 
thousand.  This  was  presented  to  his  majesty, 
and  met  with  his  approbation.  It  was  reprint- 
ed at  London  in  \G9l.j  Petitions  also,  as  we 
have  noticed,  were  in  this  year  delivered  to  the 
king,  representing  their  pacific  principles,  and 
imploring  his  protection.}:  Three  persons  of 
this  denomination,  about  this  time  published  a 
declaration  of  their  sentiments  concerning  op- 
posing magistracy,  in  which  they  advanced 
principles  to  which  the  most  zealous  advocates 
for  passive  obedience  and  nonresistance  could 
not  object :  professing  that.  In  such  instances 
wherein  they  could  not  in  conscience  obey, 
they  ought  "  not  to  resist  them,  but  patiently 
suffer  whatever  they  should  inflict  for  non- obe- 
dience to  their  requirements. "<Si  The  persons 
■who  signed  this  declaration  apologize  for  their 
paucity,  and  seemed  not  pleased  with  their 
brethren,  because  they  vv^ere  not  of  their  judg- 
ment on  this  point.  But  their  difference  in 
opinion  from  other  Baptists  shows  that  a  uni- 
formity of  sentiment  concerning  the  extent  of 
the  magistrate's  authority,  and  the  right  of  re- 
sistance, had  no  necessary  and  direct  connex- 
ion with  an  agreement  on  the  questions  con- 
cerning baptism.  In  the  year  1661,  the  hard- 
ships under  which  many  of  this  profesion  groan- 
ed again  excited  them  to  seek  mercy  from  the 
higher  powers.  A  petition  was  presented  to 
the  king,  on  behalf  of  themselves  and  others, 
from  some  confined  in  the  prison  at  Dover,  and 
another  to  the  Duke  of  York  ;  describing  their 
great  sufferings,  protesting  that  innocence  was 
found  in  them,  and  that  against  the  king  and 
his  government  they  had  done  no  harm,  solicit- 
ing with  much  importunity  to  be  set  at  liberty, 
and  that  they  might  not  be  interrupted  in  their 
worship  of  the  God   of  heaven  as  they  were 


*  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  204^208. 

t  ibid.,  vol.  h.,  p.  18;  and  Appendix,  JSo.  iv. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  19-26. 

!j  Ibid.,  yA.  Ji.,  p.  19.    Appendix,  No.  v. 


taught  it  in  his  Word,  which  they  prized  above 
all  the  world  ;  and  urging  that  it  might  be  con- 
sidered "how  disagreeable  it  is  with  Christian- 
ity to  bring  tribulation  upon  any  for  conscience' 
sake,  seeing  all  things  in  worship  must  be  done 
in  faith  and  love."* 

But  the  application  for  redress  of  their  griev- 
ances, which  particularly  deserves  notice,  was 
an  address  to  the  king,  Parliament,  and  ])eople, 
in  a  treatise  entitled  "  Sion's  Groans  for  her 
Distressed  ;  or.  Sober  Endeavours  to  prevent 
Innocent  Blood,"  &c.  This  was  not  a  petition 
only  for  toleration  for  themselves,  but  an  able, 
and  spirited  defence  of  the  rights  of  conscience. 
Its  design  was  to  prove  how  contrary  to  the 
Gospel  "  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  to  good  rea- 
son, it  is  for  any  magistrate,  by  outward  force, 
to  impose  anything  in  the  w-orship  of  God  on 
the  consciences  of  those  whom  they  govern  ; 
but  that  liberty  ought  to  be  given  to  all  such  as 
disturb  not  the  civil  peace,  though  of  different 
persuasions  in  religious  matters."  The  ques- 
tion is  handled  on  liberal  principles,  also  with- 
copiousness  and  strength.  The  spirit  and  the 
reasoning  do  honour  to  the  people  from  whom 
it  came  ;  especially  when  it  is  recollected  that 
the  assembly  at  Westminster,  and  the  minis- 
ters of  London  and  other  parts,  had  from  the 
pulpit  -and  the  press  opposed  the  principles  of 
toleration. 

It  is  argued  that  the  power  of  directing  con- 
science by  outward  force  doth  not  attach  itself 
to  the  office  of  magistracy  itself,  because  then 
all  magistrates  in  all  nations  have  the  same 
power  ;  the  Mohammedan  to  enforce  the  recep- 
tion of  the  Koran,  the  Spaniard  to  enjoy  popery, 
and  every  succeeding  magistrate  to  sanction 
his  own  religion,  to  the  overthrow  of  what  his 
predecessor  established  :  because  the  apostles, 
who  command  obedience  to  magistrates,  in 
matters  of  religion  refused  obedience  ;  because 
ail  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament  en- 
joining obedience  to  magistrates,  being  written 
when  the  emperors  were  idolaters,  such  injunc- 
tions cannot  be  understood  as  applying  to  reli- 
gion :  because,  if  the  commands  of  the  magis- 
trate in  religious  matters  were  obligatory,  there 
could  be  no  persecutions,  and  the  way  to  heav- 
en, so  far  from  being  strait  and  narrow,  any 
might  be  a  disciple  of  Christ  without  taking  up 
the  cross.  And  the  conduct  of  Gallio,  who  de- 
clined interfering  in  a  matter  relative  to  God's 
law,  and  restrained  the  exercise  of  his  authori- 
ty to  civil  injuries  only,  is  with  great  propriety 
appealed  to,  as  a  worthy  example  for  the  imita- 
tion of  magistrates. 

That  the  Christian  magistrate,  as  such,  has 
no  power  over  conscience,  nor  authority  to  im- 
pose anything  in  religion  by  outward  force,  is 
argued  from  the  conduct  of  Christ  Jesus,  who 
never  compelled  men  by  force  to  receive  his 
doctrine  ;  from  the  conduct  of  the  apostles,  and 
the  elders  of  the  primitive  Church,  who  dis- 
claimed any  such  power. — 1  Cor.,  i.,  24.  Matt., 
XX.,  25.  1  Pet.,  v.,  2,  3.  "Why,  therefore," 
say  the  authors  of  this  piece,  "  the  Christian 
religion  should  be  built  and  supported  by  vio- 
lence, when  the  foundation  was  laid,  and  the 
work  carried  on  during  all  the  apostles'  days, 
and  some  hundred  years  after,  by  a  quite  con- 
trary means,  is  a  question  should  be  resolved  by 

*  Crosby,  vol  ii.,  p.  l.'^5-100. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


337 


those  whose  strongest  arguments  for  the  sup- 
port of  their  religion  is,  Take  him,  jailer;  or 
such  is  the  difference  between  the  way  which 
the  apostles  and  primitive  saints  took  in  carry- 
ing on  the  work  of  the  Gospel,  and  approving 
themselves  to  be  the  ministers  of  God,  and  the 
way  now  used  by  the  national  clergy,  than 
■which  nothing  is  more  unlike."  In  the  prose- 
cution of  their  argument,  they  reason  forcibly 
from  the  parable  of  the  tares  and  wheat,  as  for- 
bidding any  outward  force  or  violence  to  be 
used  upon  false  worshippers  and  heretics  as 
such.  "  Hath  the  magistrate  (it  is  asked)  pow- 
er to  remove  those  out  of  the  world  that  God 
■would  have  permitted  to  live  ?"  The  fallibility 
of  the  magistrate  furnishes  another  argument 
against  the  exercise  of  his  power  in  religion  ;  a 
fallibility  which  woful  experience  hath  taught 
the  world  in  all  ages ;  the  magistrate  of  one 
country  establishing  the  principles  and  practi- 
ces which  that  of  another  country  condemns 
and  persecutes  ;  nay,  the  same  magistrate,  at 
different  periods,  reversing  his  own  decrees ; 
and  now  rejecting  what  he  had  just  before  de- 
fended by  his  pen  or  supported  by  his  laws  :  as 
■was  the  case  of  Henry  VIII.  To  this  fallibility 
he  is  equally  liable,  whether  he  confide  in  his 
own  wisdom,  or  rely  on  the  authority  of  popes, 
synods,  or  general  councils.  This  point  is  il- 
lustrated by  various  examples.  As  to  national 
conventions  and  synods,  so  far  are  they  from 
any  show  of  infallibility,  it  is  justly  observed, 
"  that  the  same  complexion  and  temper  the  na- 
tion is  of,  wherein  they  are  called,  you  shall  be 
sure  to  find  them  of;  because  they  have  their 
dependancy  on  the  authority  that  calls  them  to- 
gether." Among  other  arguments,  it  is  stated 
that,  for  the  magistrate  to  inflict  temporal  pun- 
ishments upon  any  for  not  conforming  to  those 
decrees  which  enjoin  any  spiritual  worship  or 
service,  is  a  breach  of  the  royal  law,  "  Whatso- 
ever ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye 
even  so  to  them."  This  is  a  rule  which  all 
sorts  of  men,  while  under  persecution,  are  ready 
to  receive  and  plead.  Nor  would  they  who  are 
forward  to  persecute  be  very  zealous  in  their 
proceedings,  if  they  were  sure  that  those  whom 
they  persecute  should  have  power  on  their 
sides  to  "mete  the  same  measure  unto  them." 
It  is  well  observed,  that  such  proceedings  may 
sometimes  prove  inconsistent  with  the  very  be- 
ing of  nations.  "  For,  suppose  any  nation  were 
wholly  heathen  idolaters,  and  the  Word  of  God 
coming  in  among  them  should  convert  the  chief 
magistrate,  and  one  twentieth  part  of  the  nation 
more :  must  he  then  with  that  twentieth  part 
destroy  all  the  other  nineteen,  if  they  will  not 
be  converted,  but  continue  in  their  heathenish 
idolatry  1  It  cannot  possibly  be  supposed  to  be 
■warrantable.  And  the  reason  holds  good,  like- 
wise, against  the  rooting  up  and  destroying  her- 
etics out  of  the  world." 

These  just  sentiments  are  followed  by  a  full 
answer  to  the  argument  in  favour  of  the  magis- 
trate's power  in  religious  matters,  drawn  from 
the  example  of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah. 
In  reply  to  this,  it  is  observed,  that  the  power 
of  those  kings  to  punish  idolaters  and  blasphe- 
mers was  given  them  by  God,  and  written  in 
plain  precepts  in  the  Mosaical  law  :  but  hath 
the  Lord  Jesus  invested  magistrates  with  such 
power  ]  if  he  have,  where  is  it  written  '     The 


.Jews,  all  the  time  they  kept  to  the  law  of  God, 
had  a  standing  oracle  among  them,  the  Urini 
and  Thummim,  and  the  counsels  of  extraordi- 
nary prophets  to  assist  them  to  judge  righteous 
judgments.  Besides,  the  Gospel  is  a  dispensa- 
tion lar  different  from  the  law  in  all  its  ordinan- 
ces and  administrations,  under  which  the  Lord 
Jesus  is  the  only  lawgiver. 

Such  is  the  strain  of  this  piece  :  the  impor- 
tance of  the  subject,  the  force  of  the  argument, 
and  the  liberality  of  the  spirit,  entitle  it  to  par- 
ticular notice  ;  and  will,  it  is  presumed,  make 
this  review  of  it  acceptable.*  The  authors  of 
it,  whose  names  are  subscribed  to  the  prefatory 
epistle,  were,  Thomas  Monck,  Joseph  Wright, 
George  Hammon,  William  Jeffery,  Francis  Stan- 
ley, William  Reynolds,  and  Francis  Smith. 
While  they  earnestly  recommend  their  treatis<i 
to  deliberate  and  serious  perusal,  our  design^ 
they  say,  "in  what  we  beg  may  be  perused, 
is  general  good,  in  setting  at  liberty  that  which 
God  made  free,  even  the  conscience." 

The  only  particulars  I  can  find  concerning 
these  able  advocates  for  liberty  are,  that  Mr. 
Wright,  born  in  1623,  was  a  physician  :  he  was 
educated  at  the  university,  and  was  a  man  of 
great  learning  and  piety  ;  a  serious  and  diligent 
preacher,  and  greatly  promoted  the  cause  of  the 
Baptists.  He  was  confined  twenty  years  in  the 
jail  at  Maidstone ;  in  this  town  he  died,  aged 
eighty,  in  1703. t  Mr.  George  Hammon,  emi- 
nent for  the  ardour  and  freedom  with  which  he 
vindicated  what  he  judged  to  be  truth  on  all  oc- 
casions, and  very  much  persecuted  on  that  ac- 
count, was  pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Bidden- 
don  in  Kent,  and  died  at  Haseldens-wood,  in 
the  parish  of  Cranbrookt  Mr.  William  Jeffery, 
born  in  1616,  of  pious  parents,  in  the  parish  of 
Penshurst,  lived  at  Bradbourn,  in  Sevenoaks, 
Kent,  where  he  and  his  brother  were  the  great 
supporters,  if  not  the  founders,  of  a  meeting. 
By  his  diligence,  and  that  of  several  others, 
more  than  twenty  congregations  were  formed 
in  that  county,  on  the  principles  laid  down  hi; 
Heb.,  vi.,  1,  2,«5  without  entering  on  speculative 
and  controverted  points.  As  he  was  vigorous, 
unwearied,  and  successful  in  his  labours,  so. 
with  great  patience  and  pleasure  he  suffered 
much  for  his  principles ;  these  he  also  oftea 
defended  in  public  disputations.  He  was  much 
valued  for  his  steady  piety  and  universal  virtue,, 
and  died  in  a  good  old  age.  II  His  son  succeed- 
ed him  in  his  church.  Mr.  Francis  Stanley  was< 
a  man  noted  for  his  zeal  and  piety,  and  was  im- 
prisoned for  preaching,  in  the  jail  of  Nortliamp- 
ton.  He  bore  his  sufferings  like  a  Christian, 
and  died  about  the  year  1696.  He  was  a  na- 
tive of  Northamptonshire,  and  was  buried  at 
East  Haddon,  in  that  county. IF  Of  the  other 
persons  Mr.  Crosby  gives  no  particular  account. 

In  the  same  year  in  which  appeared  the  piece 
on  Toleration,  there  were  published  a  small 
piece  entitled  "  A  Complaint  of  the  Oppressed 
against  the  Oppressors;  or,  the  unjust  and  ar- 
bitrary Proceedings  of  some  Soldiers  and  Justi- 


•*  Mr.  Crosbv  lias  preserved  it  entire  in  his  Histo- 
ry, vol.  ii.,  p.  100-114. 

r  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  116.  J  Ibid.,  p.  103. 

^  Among  us  railed  "Six  Principle  Baptists."  A 
few  of  these  churches  only  remain,  and  are  chiefly 
to  be  found  in  Rhode  Island. — C. 

I!  Crosby,  p.  97.  99.  f  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  127. 


388 


SUPPLEMENT. 


ces  against  some  sober,  godly  Persons,  in  and 
near  London,  who  now  lie  in  stinking  Jails,  for 
the  TestirDony  of  a  good  Conscience  ;  with  some 
Reasons  why  they  cannot  swear  Allegiance  to 
obtain  their  Liberty;"  and  a  tract  entitled  "A 
Plea  for  Toleration  of  Opinions  and  Persuasions 
in  Matters  of  Religion  differing  from  the  Church 
of  England  :  liumbiy  presented  to  the  King's 
most  excellent  Majesty  :  by  Mr.  John  Sturgeon, 
a  Baptist."  The  former  was  written  by  Dr. 
John  GrifBth,  a  worthy  man,  who  suffered  a  long 
imprisonment  in  Newgate  for  nonconformity. 
Each  piece  was  an  affecting  remonstrance  on 
the  unjust  proceedings  by  which  many  pious 
and  innocent  persons,  of  unblemished  charac- 
ters, in  London,  and  in  almost  all  the  counties 
of  England,  were  suffering;  being  taken  out  of 
their  beds  at  midnight  by  soldiers,  acting  with- 
out warrant,  and  with  drawn  swords,  to  the 
great  terror  of  their  wives  and  children  ;  and 
being  thrust  into  prisons,  in  such  crowds  that 
the  jailers  complained  they  had  too  many 
guests;  and  detained  there  to  the  ruin  of  their 
families.* 

Mr.  James  Atkins,  one  of  those  who  were 
harassed  by  the  magistrates  of  Dover,  on  his 
own  behalf,  and  in  the  cause  of  his  fellow-suf- 
ferers, addressed  a  letter  to  the  mayor  and  jus- 
tices of  that  town,  under  the  name  of"  A  Poor 
Subject ;"  acknowledging  a  submission  to  the 
civil  magistrate,  except  in  what  concerned  the 
worship  of  God,  and  entreating  in  the  bowels 
of  love  a  consideration  of  the  evil  of  restraining 
their  liberty.! 

Sn  the  year  1662,  there  came  from  the  press 
:a  small  pamplilet,  entitled  "  Behold,  a  Cry  ;  or, 
a  true  Relation  of  the  inhuman  and  violent  Out- 
rages of  divers  Soldiers,  Constables,  and  others, 
practised  upon  many  of  the  Lord's  People,  com- 
monly, though  falsely,  called  Anabaptists,  at 
their  several  Meetings  in  and  about  London." 

An  incident  which  took  place  in  Lincolnshire 
in  1670,  called  forth  a  vindication  of  their  prin- 
ciples from  this  denomination  in  a  different  form 
from  the  preceding  publications.  Mr.  Robert 
Wright,  who  had  been  a  preacher  among  them, 
but  was,  on  account  of  his  irregular  life  and  con- 
versation, excluded  their  society,  having  spent 
his  estate,  applied  to  Dr.  William  Fuller,  the 
bishop  of  that  diocess,  for  orders  and  a  benefice  ; 
promising  to  renoimce  his  sentiments  concern- 
ing baptism,  and  to  preach  against  the  Baptists. 
The  bishop  accepted  his  offer  ;  he  was  admitted 
in  the  ministry  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
preached  in  support  of  the  baptism  of  infants, 
in  opposition  to  that  of  believers,  with  great  ar- 
dour and  confidence.  This  excited  great  atten- 
tion ;  the  minds  of  many  were  much  impressed 
by  it,  and  it  was  supposed  that  most,  if  not  all 
the  ministers  of  the  Baptist  churches,  would  be 
easily  confuted.  They,  in  their  own  vindication, 
at  the  assizes,  posted  up,  in  different  parts  of 
the  city  of  Lincoln,  four  papers,  addressed  to 
the  citizens  and  inhabitants,  inviting  Mr.  Wright 
to  a  friendly  conference,  and  offering  to  main- 
tain the  doctrine  and  baptism  of  repentance  to 
be  from  heaven,  and  the  sprinkling  and  crossing 
of  infants  to  be  man's  tradition.  They  were 
dated  the  lltb  day  of  the  first  month  (vulg.), 
March,  1670.     Two  of  them  were  taken  down 


*  Crosby,  vol.  li.,  p.  144-148 ;  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  120. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  15!,  152. 


in  the  morning,  and  were,  it  was  supposed,  car- 
ried to  the  bishop  and  the  judge.  The  other 
two  were  pennitted  to  remain  till  the  afternoon, 
and  were  read  by  many,  till  they  were  removed 
by  the  clergy,  who  threatened  the  writers  of 
them  should  answer  for  it  before  the  council-ta- 
ble. But  though  the  bishop,  it  was  well  known, 
was  not  a  little  moved  by  these  proceedings  of 
the  Baptists,  no  other  step  was  taken  on  the  oc- 
casion than  sending  to  them  an  angry  paper, 
drawn  up  by  Mr.  William  Silverton,  the  bishop's 
chaplain,  who  called  them  erroneous,  antic  Bap- 
tists. To  this  paper  Mr.  Grantham  replied, 
promising  Mr.  Silverton  either  to  hear  and  dis- 
cuss his  arguments  in  a  free  audience,  if  he 
would  fix  a  convenient  time  and  place  for  the 
purpose  ;  or  to  reply  to  him,  if  he  would  defend 
his  sentiments  from  the  press.  Here  the  mat- 
ter ended,  as  Mr.  Silverton  saw  fit  to  be  silent.* 
The  only  publication  which  remains  to  be  no- 
ticed in  this  period  was,  "  A  Narrative  of  the 
late  Proceedings  of  some  Justices  and  others, 
pretending  to  put  in  execution  the  late  Act 
against  Conventicles  ;  against  several  peaceable 
People  in  and  about  the  Town  of  Lewes  in  Sus- 
sex, only  for  their  being  quietly  met  to  worship 
God  :  together  with  a  brief  Account  of  the  like 
Proceedings  against  some  at  Brighthelmstone, 
and  others  at  Chillington,  in  the  same  County." 
This  professed  to  be  a  faithful  narrative,  pub- 
lished with  a  view  to  encourage  others  to  suffer 
the  spoiling  of  their  goods  by  the  example  of 
many  who  endured  it  with  patience  and  joyful- 
ness  ;  and  with  the  hope  that  by  it  the  harsh  pro- 
ceedings against  a  peaceable  people  might  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  some  in  authority,  who,  out 
of  pity  to  the  distressed,  and  justice  to  their  righ- 
teous cause,  would  redress  their  grievances.! 
Such  narratives  were,  indeed,  well  adapted  to 
each  purpose,  and  were  an  affecting  appeal  to 
the  sense  of  humanity  and  equity. 


CHAPTER    V. 

FROM  THE    DECL.tRATION    OF   INDULGENCE   TO   THE 
REVOLUTION. 

A  CONTROVERSY  arose  among  the  Baptists, 
about  this  time,  respecting  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  which  created  not  a  little  altercation  and 
trouble.  Hitherto,  it  appears  that  this  rite  was 
practised  by  them  as  an  apostolical  ordinance, 
and  was  accompanied  with  prayer  over  the 
newly-baptized.  A  treatise,  entitled  "  A  Search 
after  Schism,"  was  published  in  opposition  to  it. 
This  was  answered  by  Dr.  John  Griffith,  in  a 
piece  called  "  The  Searchers  after  Schism 
searched,"  and  it  drew  from  Mr.  Grantham  his 
"  Sigh  for  Peace  ;  or,  the  Cause  of  Division  dis- 
covered." The  appearance  of  this  piece  occa- 
sioned a  meeting  between  Mr.  Grantham  and 
Mr.  Ives,  when  the  subject  was  debated  with 
temper  and  good- humour  ;  and  Mr.  Ives  is  re- 
ported, on  finding  himself  gravelled,  to  have  bro- 
ken up  the  meeting  in  a  friendly  and  peaceable 
manner.  About  three  years  after,  Mr.  Danvere 
published  a  treatise  against  laying  on  of  hands, 
which  was  answered  by  Mr.  Benjamin  Keach, 
and  also  by  Mr.  Grantham,  who  annexed  to  his 
answer  "  A  Treatise  of  the  Successors  of  the 

Apostles." 

~  *  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  241-244.     f  Ibid.,  p.  245,  246. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   BAPTISTS. 


389 


In  1674  the  Baptists  were  engaged  in  a  con- 
troversy with  the  Quakers,  which  created  a 
noise,  and  was  conducted,  as  is  usual,  by  mu- 
tual criminations.  Mr.  Thomas  Hicks,  a  min- 
ister of  the  former,  published  several  pamphlets 
in  succession,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Dialogue 
between  a  Christian  and  a  Quaker."  The  title 
these  pieces  bore  was  certainly  invidious,  and 
held  up  the  Quakers  as  not  deserving  to  be  rank- 
ed among  Christians.  It  was  also  complained 
of,  that  the  design  of  them  was  not  so  much  to 
investigate  truth  as  to  represent  the  Quaker  a 
deformed,  ridiculous,  and  erroneous  being.  The 
great  Penn,  on  this  occasion,  became  the  advo- 
cate of  the  people  to  whom  he  had  joined  him- 
self, in  two  books  ;  the  first  entitled  "  Reason 
against  Railing  ;"  and  the  other,  "  The  Coun- 
terfeit Christian  detected."  But  as  Mr.  Hicks 
had  reflected  upon  some  particular  members  by 
name,  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  Baptists  in 
and  about  London  for  justice  against  him.  A 
meeting  was  accordingly  appointed  to  hear  the 
charges  against  him  ;  but  they  are  censured  for 
fixing  the  time  when  the  complainants,  Penn 
and  Whitehead,  were  absent  from  the  city,  at  a 
distance  too  remote  to  be  apprized  of  the  intend- 
ed meeting.  It  was  urged  in  defence  of  the  Bap- 
tists, that  they  were  informed  that  Penn  was 
not  far  from  London  several  days  after  the  no- 
tice of  the  meeting  was  sent,  and  even  at  his 
own  house,  at  no  great  distance  from  the  town, 
the  very  day  precedmg  ;  and  that  they  had  in- 
vited others  of  the  society,  particularly  John  Os- 
goods,  to  be  present,  who  declined  it.  The 
meeting  took  place,  and  Mr.  Hicks  was  exam- 
ined by  his  own  friends  only  on  the  charges 
brought  against  him  by  the  Quakers  ;  and  he 
endeavoured  to  establish  the  representations  he 
had  made  of  their  principles  and  doctrines  by 
quotations  from  their  own  writers.  These  were 
pronounced,  by  nineteen  of  his  own  denomina- 
tion, to  be  truly  recited,  and  the  church  to  which 
he  belonged,  in  public  print,  cleared  him  from 
the  charge  which  the  Quakers  alleged  against 
him.  This  decision  was  deemed  partial.  On 
the  face  of  it,  though  the  business  was  said  to 
be  conducted  with  great  fairness,  it  was  open  to 
objection.  The  Baptists  refused  to  defer  the 
meeting,  though  solicited.  No  Quaker  was  pres- 
ent to  be  heard  on  the  grounds  of  the  charges  ; 
and,  though  the  passages  might  be  quoted  with 
verbal  exactness,  which  Mr.  Hicks  brought  as 
his  authorities,  yet  they  were  detached  from 
their  connexion,  and  a  meaning  affixed  to  them 
■which  probably  the  v.riters,  if  they  had  been 
there  to  explain  themselves,  would  not  have  ad- 
mitted as  their  sense.  New  complaints  were 
brought  forward  against  the  Baptists,  and  jus- 
tice again  demanded.  A  meeting  for  a  rehear- 
ing was  obtained  ;  but  Mr.  Hicks  would  not  at- 
tend it,  but  sent  some  others  with  Mr.  Ives  ; 
"who,"  says  Crosby,  "  so  managed  the  Quakers, 
that  they  were  obliged  to  break  up  without  any 
farther  proceedings  in  the  matter."  "  By  clam- 
ours and  rudeness,"  says  Cough,  "  they  divert- 
ed the  complainants  from  prosecuting  the  charge 
against  Hicks,  and  carried  their  point  so  far  as 
to  prevent  its  being  heard,  though  frequent  at- 
tempts were  made  to  read  it." 

The  Baptists  published  an  account  of  these 
meetings,  under  the  title  of  "  A  Contest  for 
Christianity."     Mr.  Tho.  Wei  wood,  in  behalf  of 


his  friends,  appealed  to  the  public,  first  in  a  sin- 
gle sheet,  entitled  "  A  fresh  Pursuit  ;"  and  then, 
in  reply  to  the  "  Contest,"  which  was  written 
by  Mr.  Thomas  Plant,  in  a  piece  entitled  "For- 
gery no  Christianity."  The  issue  of  this  con- 
troversy is  represented,  on  the  one  hand,  to  be, 
that  the  Quakers  were  so  chafed  in  these  dis- 
putes, that  they  did  not  only  brand  the  Baptists 
with  infamy,  but  denounced  curses  and  judg- 
ments upon  them.  On  the  other  side  it  is  said, 
"  that  the  aim  of  this  unprovoked  assault  upon 
the  principles  and  reputation  of  this  society  was 
remarkably  frustrated ;  and  these  dialogues, 
with  their  ungenerous  and  unequitable  method 
of  defending  them  and  their  author,  promoted 
what  they  were  designed  to  prevent ;  for  not  a 
few  of  their  members,  offended  at  their  proceed- 
ings, deserted  their  meetings  and  society,  went 
over  to  the  injured  party,  and  joined  them  in  re- 
ligious fellowship."* 

In  the  year  1677,  the  Baptists  published  "  A 
Confession  of  their  Faith,  set  forth  by  the  Elders 
and  Brethren  of  many  Congregations  of  Chris- 
tians, baptized  upon  Profession  of  their  Faith, 
in  London  and  the  Country."  Their  avowed 
design  in  this  publication  was,  not  only  to  give 
an  account  of  themselves  on  the  points  wherein 
they  differed  from  other  Christians,  but  also  to 
instruct  and  establish  others  in  the  great  princi- 
ples in  which  there  was  a  mutual  agreement  be- 
tween them.  They  aimed  to  express  them- 
selves, on  the  former  heads,  with  a  modesty  and 
humility  that  would  render  the  freedom  with 
which  they  declared  themselves  inoffensive  to 
those  whose  sentiments  were  different  from 
their  own.  The  general  plan  of  their  confession 
was  after  the  order  and  method  observed  in  that 
of  the  Assembly  of  Westminster,  and  afterward 
adopted  by  the  Congregational  churches  ;  and  in 
the  margin  they  affixed  such  texts  as,  in  their 
opinion,  confirmed  each  article.  Two  things 
they  earnestly  desired  :  that  full  credit  might 
be  given  to  their  declaration  of  contention  being 
most  remote  from  their  design  in  all  that  they 
did  in  this  matter ;  and  that  all  into  whose  hands 
this  piece  might  come  "  would  follow  that  nev- 
er-enough-commended example  of  the  noble  Be- 
reans,  who  searched  the  Scriptures  daily,  that 
they  might  find  out  whether  the  things  preach- 
ed to  them  were  so  or  not."  This  Confession 
of  Faith  was  reprinted  in  the  year  1689,  and 
was  approved  and  recommended  by  the  minis- 
ters and  messengers  of  above  a  hundred  congre- 
gations, met  in  London  from  the  third  to  the 
eleventh  day  of  the  seventh  month.  It  was 
signed  by  thirty-seven  persons,  in  the  name  and 
behalf  of  the  whole  assembly.  It  has  continued 
to  be  generally  received  by  those  congregations 
that  hold  the  doctrine  of  personal  election,  and 
the  certainty  of  the  saints'  final  perseverance.! 
In  1790  it  was  reprinted  by  Dr.  John  Rippon, 
with  a  list  of  the  thirty-seven  ministers  who 
recommended  it  ;  and  to  this  edition  were  add- 
ed the  places  where  they  all  laboured.  In  1791, 
there  appeared  a  new  edition  of  the  translation 
of  it  in  Welsh,t  revised   by  the  Rev.  Joshua 


*  Crosby's  History  of  the  English  Baptists,  vol.  ii., 
p.  294-310.  Gough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  ii., 
p.  368-371. 

t  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  317;  vol.  iii.,  p.  258  ;  and  Ap- 
pendi.x.  No.  ii. 

X  Rippon's  Baptist  Annual  Register,  p.  124,  191. 


390 


SUPPLEMENT. 


Thomas,  of  Leominster.  The  first  edition,  be- 
sides an  introductory  advertisement  to  the  ju- 
dicious "  and  impartial  reader,"  was  accompa- 
nied by  an  Appendix — a  judicious,  candid,  and 
conciliating  piece,  in  which  they  discuss  the 
arguments  alleged  against  their  distinguishing 
sentiment  and  practice,  and  give  the  reasons, 
with  brevity  and  plainness,  why  they  could  not 
acquiesce  in  them.* 

This  denomination  now  greatly  increased. 
Their  arguments  weighed  with  many  ;  their 
exemplary  lives  spoke  in  their  favour  ;  but  the 
number  of  their  converts  excited  against  them 
a  spirit  of  jealousy  and  resentment,  and  they 
were  the  objects  of  clamour  and  defamation. 
"Many  books  were  published,  misrepresenting 
them,  and  their  chiefs  were  reproached  as  Jes- 
uits and  heretics.  This  induced  them  to  pub- 
lish many  confessions  of  faith  ;  some  in  vindi- 
cation of  particular  churches,  others  of  particu- 
lar persons.  In  1678  one  was  agreed  to,  and 
signed  by  fifty  ministers  and  messengers  in  the 
several  counties  of  Bucks,  Hertford,  Bedford, 
and  Oxford,  in  behalf  of  themselves  and  many 
others,  containing  fifty  articles.  It  was  soon 
published,  under  the  title  of  "  An  Orthodox 
Creed  ;  or,  a  Protestant  Confession  of  Faith  ; 
lieing  an  Essay  to  unite  and  confirm  all  true 
Protestants  in  the  fundamental  Articles  of  the 
Christian  Religion,  against  the  Errors  and  Her- 
esies of  the  Church  of  Rome."t  As  the  Bap- 
tists consisted  of  two  parties,  distinguished  by 
the  names  General  and  Particular,  when  one 
published  a  declaration  of  their  principles,  the 
other  soon  after  did  the  same. J 

In  this  period  may  be  placed  several  who  made 
a  distinguished  figure  as  ministers  among  the 
Baptists,  the  time  of  whose  deaths  is  not  ascer- 
tained. 

The  first  was  Mr.  William  Dell,  A.M.,  famous 
in  the  time  of  the  civil  wars  :  he  received  his 
education  at  the  University  of  Cambridge,  and 
held  the  living  of  Yeldon,  in  the  county  of  Bed- 
ford, worth  about  £200  a  year.  About  the  year 
1645  he  became  chaplain  to  the  army,  constant- 
ly attending  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax,  and  preach- 
ing at  the  headquarters.  In  1649,  when  several 
were  turned  out  of  the  universities  for  refusing  to 
take  the  oaths  to  the  government,  he  was  made 
master  of  Caius  College  at  Cambridge,  which 
preferment  he  held,  with  his  living  at  Yeldon,  till 
he  was  ejected  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity.  Par- 
ty prejudice  fixed  on  his  memory  the  charge  of 
glaring  contradictions  and  inconsistencies  of 
conduct,  from  which  more  candid  posterity  has 
vindicated  him.  The  fact  was,  that  he  was  at 
first  satisfied  with  Episcopacy  and  the  ceremo- 
nies ;  but  when  the  change  in  the  state  brought 
on  a  reformation  in  religion,  he  was  one  of  the 
first  and  most  zealous  to  promote  it,  and  would 
have  carried  it  farther  than  was  agreeable  to 
the  principles  and  views  of  many  others.  He 
was  obnoxious  to  the  rigid  Presbyterians,  whose 
attempts  to  monopolize  all  power,  in  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  he  opposed.  A  sermon  at 
Marston  occasioned  him  much  trouble,  and  an- 
other on  a  fast-day,  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, led  him  into  a  controversy  with  Mr.  C. 
Love,  who  opposed  him  in  the  afternoon  of  the 


*  See  it  at  length  in  Crosby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  317-344. 
t  Crosby,  vol.  hi.,  Appendix,  No.  i. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  344,  34-5. 


same  day  :  they  thus  were  made  the  heads  and 
champions  of  the  two  contending  parties  of  the 
nation.  Mr.  Love  justified  the  punishing  of 
heretics  and  schismatics,  and  vindicated  the 
authority  of  the  civil  magistrate  in  imposing  ar- 
ticles of  faith  and  a  form  of  worship  ;  in  a  word, 
pleaded  for  persecution.  Mr.  Dell  was  the  ad- 
vocate of  liberty  :  he  preached  against  making 
a  whole  kingdom  a  church  ;  he  thought  that  no 
power  belonged  to  the  clergy  but  what  is  spir- 
itual ;  he  protested  against  blending  the  civil  and 
the  ecclesiastical  power  together,  as  the  con- 
stant method  of  setting  up  a  spiritual  tyranny  ; 
he  pleaded  that  all  persons  ought  to  have  liberty 
to  worship  God  in  the  manner  they  think  most 
agreeable  to  his  Word  ;  and  argued,  that  the 
imposition  of  uniformity  and  all  compulsion  in 
matters  of  religion  were  antichristian.  These 
principles  created  him  enemies,  who  blackened 
his  character  by  odious  names.  But,  though  he 
was  tinctured  with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  times, 
he  was  a  man  of  substantial  learning,  of  real 
piety,  and  a  noble  defender  of  the  rights  of  con- 
science. Besides  several  sermons  and  a  tract 
written  in  this  cause,  he  was  the  author  of  a 
tract  in  quarto,  1648,  entitled  "  The  Doctrine  of 
Baptism  reduced  from  its  Ancient  and  Modern 
Corruptions."* 

Another   person   of  note   was   Mr.  Francis 
Cornwell,  M.A.,  who  was  some  time  student  of 
Emanuel  College,  Cambridge,  and  commenced 
master  of  arts  in  that  university.     When  he  left 
it,  he  was  preferred  to  a  living  in  the  Establish- 
ed Church  ;  and,  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil 
wars,  was  minister  at  Orpington,  in  Kent.     In 
the  reign  of  Charles  I.  he  was  imprisoned  for 
nonconformity,  refusing  to  wear  the  surplice,  to 
kneel  at  the  sacrament,  and  to  use  the  sign  of 
the  cross  in  baptism.     His  companion  in  Maid- 
stone jail  was  Mr.  Wilson,  of  Otham,  near  that 
town.     Among  the  visiters  who  came  to  see 
them  was  a  woman,  who  had  some  doubts  in 
her  mind  whether  the  baptism  of  infants  could, 
be  proved  from  Scripture.     Mr.  Cornwell  en- 
deavoured, by  the  best  scriptural  arguments  he 
could  produce,  to  resolve  her  doubts,  but  found 
he  could  not  do  it  so  well  to  her  or  his  own  sat- 
isfaction as  he  could  wish.     When  this  visitant 
had  left  him,  he  conversed  on  the  subject  with 
his  fellow-prisoner,  Mr.  Wilson,   who  assured 
him  he  never  thought  that  infant  baptism  could 
be  proved  from  Scripture,  but  had  its  authority 
from  human  tradition,  being  handed  down  from 
primitive  times  as  a  practice  generally  received 
from  the  Church.      Mr.  Cornwell,  taking  the 
Scriptures  to  be  the  only  rule  of  faith,  and  con- 
sidering that  on  this  principle  alone  all  the  Prot- 
estant churches  vindicated  their  separation  from 
the  Clmrch  of  Rome  against  all  her  impositions, 
founded  on  pretended  primitive  antiquity,  was 
induced  to  make  a  more  diligent  search.     The 
result  was,  that  infant  baptism  did  not  appear 
to  him  to  derive  its  authority  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, but  to  have  had  its  dependance,  in  all 
ages,  on  the  decrees,  canons,  and  councils  of 
the  Church.     Entering  into  these  views  of  the 
subject,  he  relinquished  the  doctrine  of  infants' 
baptism,  and  adopted  the  opinion  of  those  who 
think  that  believers  only,  making  profession  of 
their  faith  and  repentance,  are  the  proper  sub- 


*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  323-333.     Palmer's  Noncon- 
formists' Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p.  201,  and  p.  225,  note. 


HISTORY   OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


391 


jects  of  this  institution.*  In  1643  he  publicly 
avowed  this  principle,  and  wrote  in  defence  of 
it  a  tract  entitled  "  The  Vindication  of  the  Royal 
Commission  of  Jesus."  After  the  publication 
of  this  book,  he  went  on  to  preach  and  propa- 
gate his  opmion.  In  1644,  m  a  visitation  ser- 
mon preached  at  Cranbrook  in  Kent,  from  Mark, 
"vii.,  7,  before  the  ministers  of  those  parts,  he 
took  the  liberty  of  freely  declaring  his  senti- 
ments, and  asserted  that  Paedobaptism  was  an 
aiitichristian  innovation,  a  human  tradition,  and 
a  practice  for  which  there  was  neither  precept, 
nor  example,  nor  true  deduction  from  the  Word 
of  God.  This,  as  might  be  expected,  much 
startled  the  clergy  who  were  present,  but  greatly 
offended  several  of  them.  The  matter  was  de- 
bated between  them,  and  the  argument  in  sup- 
port of  Antipajdobaptism  was  strongly  pushed 
by  Mr.  William  Jeffrey,  of  Sevenoaks,  who  had 
baptized  Mr.  Cornwell,  and  to  whom  he  had  re- 
ferred them,  till  Mr.  Christopher  Blackwood,  one 
of  the  ministers,  desired  them  to  desist  at  that 
time,  for  he  had  taken  down  the  sermon  in  short- 
hand, and  would  return  an  answer  in  print, 
which  he  hoped  might  be  to  the  satisfaction  of 
them  all.t  His  advice  was  adopted;  it  was 
agreed  to  postpone,  for  the  present,  the  discus- 
sion of  the  question,  to  re-examine  the  point, 
and  to  bring  tiieir  collections  together  at  the 
next  meeting,  which  was  to  be  within  a  fort- 
night. In  the  mean  time,  Mr.  Blackwood  studied 
the  question  with  great  diligence  and  close  at- 
tention. The  impression  made  on  his  mind  was 
very  different  from  what  was  anticipated.  He 
began  to  suspect  that  infant  baptism  was  no 
more  than  a  human  tradition,  and  was  attended 
with  evil  consequences  ;  and  when  they  met 
he  brought  in  his  arguments  against  it.  As  no 
one  produced  any  defence,  one,  properly  observ- 
ing that  they  sought  for  truth,  and  not  victory, 
proposed  that  Mr.  Blackwood's  papers  should  be 
left  with  them  for  examination  ;  to  this  motion 
he  acceded  ;  but  when,  after  waiting  a  long 
time,  no  answer  was  given  to  his  arguments,  he 
sent  for  his  papers,  and  published  them  with 
corrections  and  enlargements.  Thus  the  con- 
troversy was  revived  in  the  county  of  Kent,  and 
the  sentiments  of  the  Baptists  gained  ground. 
Mr.  Cornwell  soon  after  this  withdrew  from  the 
National  Church,  for  he  disapproved  both  of  na- 
tional and  parochial  churches,  and  taught  that 
a  church  was  to  consist  of  such  only  as  profess- 
ed repentance  from  dead  works,  and  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  were  baptized  according 
to  his  commands,  after  the  pattern  of  the  first 
churches  in  Judea.  He  quickly  gathered  a 
church  in  Kent,  formed  on  this  plan,  of  which 
he  was  pastor  to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  was 
succeeded  in  that  place  and  office  by  his  son. 
It  reflects  honour  on  Mr.  Cornwell's  name  and 
memory,  that  he  was  a  zealous  opposer  of  per- 
secution and  an  imposed  uniformity.  He  wrote 
against  the  ordinance  of  Parliament  made  to 
silence  all  lay-preachers,  that  is,  such  as  had 
not  received  Episcopal  or  Presbyterian  ordina- 
tion, or  who  should  preach  anything  contrary  to 
the  articles  of  faith  and  directory  for  pubhc 
worship  set  forth  by  the  Assembly.     The  piece 


*  Mr.  Thompson's  Collections,  MSS.,  under  the 
:WOrds  Staplehurst  and  Smarden. 

+  Mr.  Thompson's  Collections,  MSS. 


which  he  published  on  this  occasion  was  entitled 
"Two  Queries  worthy  of  Consideration." 

Q.  1.  Whether  that  ministry  that  preacheth 
freely  the  Gospel  faith,  that  the  Lord  Jesus  is 
the  Christ,  as  the  Apostle  Peter  did,  be  not  truly 
orthodox  ? 

Q.  2.  Whether  it  be  agreeable  to  the  Word 
of  God,  contained  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  to 
silence  or  inhibit  any  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ 
for  preaching  this  Gospel  freely  ^ 

He  affirmed  the  former,  and  maintained  it  by 
several  arguments;  the  latter  he  denied,  and 
intimated,  that  they  who  were  guilty  of  sucli 
practices  acted  like  the  Jews  of  old;  who  cast 
the  blind  man  out  of  the  temple  for  confessing 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ.* 

In  close  connexion  with  Mr.  Cornwell's  his- 
tory stands,  as  we  have  seen,  that  of  Mr.  Black- 
wood, who,  in  consequence  of  his  visitation  ser- 
mon, become  a  proselyte  to  believers'  baptism, 
and,  with  Mr.  Richard  Kingsnorth,  who  likewise 
was  convinced  by  it,  gathered  a  church  at  Sta- 
plehurst  in  Kent ;  but  his  sentiments  being 
Calvinistic,  and  contrary  to  those  of  the  society, 
he  afterward  left  it  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
Mr.  Kingsnorth,  who  held  universal  redemption 
and  final  perseverance. t  Mr.  Blackwood  was 
possessed,  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars,  of 
a  parochial  church  in  the  county  of  Kent ;  from 
whence  it  is  probable  that  he  was  educated  at 
one  of  the  universities.  After  he  changed  his 
sentiments  on  the  questions  concerning  baptism, 
he  did  not  continue  long  in  the  Established 
Church  ;  for  he  was  as  zealous  against  national 
churches  as  against  infant  baptism.  He  was  an 
advocate  for  liberty  of  conscience,  and  opposed 
the  establishment  of  Presbyterianism.  In  the 
first  piece  he  published,  he  joined  together  infant 
baptism  and  compulsion  of  conscience,  and  call- 
ed them  "  the  last  two  and  strongest  garrisons 
of  antichrist."  He  was  reckoned  among  "  those 
worthy  guides,  well  qualified  in  all  respects  for 
the  ministry,"  who  voluntarily  left  their  benefi- 
ces in  the  Establishment,  by  one  who  lived  in 
those  times.  He  appears,  in  1653,  to  have  gone 
into  Ireland  with  the  army  under  the  command 
of  General  Fleetwood  and  Lieutenant  Ludlow. 
He  lived  till  after  the  Restoration,  and  signed 
the  apology  of  the  Baptists  in  1660,  declaring 
against  Venner's  insurrection. 

Another,  who  was  reckoned  among  the  wor- 
thies of  this  denomination  at  this  period,  was 
Mr.  Benjamin  Cox,  who  made  no  mean  figure 
in  his  time.  He  was  the  son  of  a  bishop,^  was 
a  man  of  great  learning,  and  a  graduate  in  one 
of  the  universities.  He  was  for  some  time  a 
minister  in  the  Established  Church,  had  a  pa- 
rochial charge  in  the  county  of  Devon,  and  was 
very  zealous  for  the  superstitious  ceremonies 
that  prevailed  in  Bishop  Laud's  time.  But  when 
the  affairs  of  state  led  men  to  think  more  freely 
in  matters  of  religion,  Mr.  Cox  was  among  the 
first  in  promoting  a  reformation,  and  had  before 
him  flattering  prospects  of  eminence  and  prefer- 
ment in  this  kingdom,  when  he  rejected  the 
baptism  of  infants,  as  it  appeared  to  him  not 

*  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  334-349;  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  6-9. 

+  Thompson's  Collections,  MSS. 

X  It  seems  more  probable  that  he  was  the  grand- 
son of  one,  as  Dr.  Richard  Cox,  bishop  of  Ely,  who 
filled  that  see  twenty  years,  died  in  1580. — Richardson 
de  Prcesulibus. 


392 


SUPPL 


founded  in  the  Scriptures  ;  but  this  obstructed 
his  advancement  in  the  Established  Church,  and 
prejudiced  against  him  the  divines  who  were  at 
the  head  of  ecclesiastical  affairs.  He  preserved, 
however,  the  character  of  a  man  of  abilities  and 
great  learning.  After  Episcopacy  and  the  Com- 
mon Prayer  were  laid  aside,  he  was  for  some 
time  minister  at  Bedford.  In  1G45  he  came  to 
London,  and  was  one  of  the  principal  managers 
on  the  part  of  the  Baptists  in  a  public  dispute 
concerning  infant  baptism  at  Aldermanbury 
Church,  to  which  a  stop  was  afterward  put  by 
the  government.  In  the  year  1646,  when  seven 
churches  in  London,  called  Anabaptists,  pub- 
lished a  confession  of  their  faith,  and  presented 
jt  to  Parliament,  his  name,  in  behalf  of  one 
of  those  congregations,  was  subscribed  to  it. 
Though,  when  the  act  of  Uniformity,  in  1662, 
took  place,  he  at  first  conformed,  yet  his  con- 
science soon  after  upbraiding  him  for  that  step, 
he  obeyed  its  dictates  by  throwing  up  his  living, 
and  died  a  Nonconformist  and  a  Baptist,  in  a 
very  advanced  age  ;  for  Mr.  Baxter,  with  whom 
he  had  a  dispute  by  word  of  mouth  and  by  wri- 
ting, called  him,  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil 
wars,  an  ancient  minister.  He  suffered  im- 
prisonment for  his  opinions  concerning  baptism 
in  the  city  of  Coventry.* 

Here  is  a  proper  place  for  observing,  that  at 
the  Restoration,  several  parishes  were  found  to 
have  Baptist  ministers  fixed  in  them.  The 
cause  of  this  was,  that  in  the  year  1653,  when 
a  certain  number  of  men  called  triers  were  au- 
thorized to  examine  and  approve  candidates  for 
the  ministry,  Mr.  Tombs,  notwithstanding  his 
difference  in  opinion  from  the  rest,  such  was 
the  estimation  in  which  his  character  was  held, 
was  appointed  to  be  one  of  them.  Among  other 
good  effects  that  followed  upon  this,  one  was, 
that  the  commissioners  agreed  to  own  Baptists 
their  brethren  ;  and  that  if  any  such  applied  to 
them  for  probation,  and  appeared  in  other  re- 
spects duly  qualified,  they  should  not  be  reject- 
ed for  holding  their  sentiments. t 


The  history  of  the  Baptists  from  the  acces- 
sion of  James  II.  to  the  Revolution  is  confined 
to  some  brief  accounts  of  the  sufferings  and 
characters  of  several  ministers  who  were  in  es- 
timation among  them,  and  died  in  this  period. 

But  we  should  first  mention  one  whose  name 
should  have  been  introduced  in  the  preceding 
reign  :  Mr.  Abraham  Chear,  a  native  of  Ply^ 
mouth,  -who,  though  he  did  not  enjoy  a  liberal 
education,  knew  the  Scriptures  from  his  child- 
hood, and  delighted  in  searching  them.  About 
1648  he  was  baptized,  and  joined  the  Baptist 
church  in  that  town,  and  was  soon  after  invi- 
ted to  be  their  pastor,  for  which  character  he 
"Was  fitted  by  peculiar  gifts  and  graces.  In  1661 
he  suffered  three  months'  imprisonment  in  Ex- 
eter jail,  on  the  Conventicle  Act.  In  1662  he 
was  again  cast  into  that  prison  ;  after  his  re- 
lease he  was  imprisoned  at  the  Guildhall  in  Ply- 
mouth ;  then,  after  a  month's  detention,  he  was 
confined,  under  military  guard,  in  the  Isle  of 
Plymouth,  where,  after  full  five  years'  impris- 
onment in  different  jails,  and  enduring  many 
inhumanities  from  merciless  jailers,  he  yield- 
ed up  his  spirit  without  pang  or  considerable 
groan,  the  5th  of  March,  1668.    At  his  death  the 

♦  Crosby,  vol.  i.,  p.  353,  354.  |  Ibid.,  p.  2897" 


E  M  E  N  T. 

church  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  mem-  iH 
bers.  After  this  the  persecution  broke  out  wiilj 
greater  fury,  and  it  sufiliired  much  till  King 
James's  declaration  for  liberty  of  conscience  re- 
vived their  drooping  spirits,  and  were  almost 
twenty  years  destitute  of  a  pastor.  Mr.  Chear 
was  a  laborious  and  successlul  preacher.  In 
his  cofinement  he  wrote  several  religious  tracts, 
and  letters  to  his  friends  full  of  Christian  ex- 
hortations to  constancy  and  steadfastness.  One 
of  these,  an  acknowleilgment  of  some  provisions 
sent  to  him  and  his  fellow-prisoners,  most  ex- 
pressive of  cheerfulness  in  their  sufterings  and 
gratitude  to  their  benefactors,  is  preserved  by 
Crosby.  During  his  illness,  almost  to  his  last 
moment,  he  continued  glorifying  God,  and  ex- 
horting all  who  visited  him  to  perseverance  in 
those  perilous  times ;  speaking  with  earnest 
concern  about  the  guilt  contracted  in  these  na- 
tions by  persecuting  God's  faithful  servants; 
and  with  great  joy  and  assurance  concerning 
the  delight  which  God  takes  in  his  suffering 
saints,  and  the  ample  recompense  he  will  here- 
after render  for  their  present  sorrows  ;  particu- 
larly on  the  Lord's  Day  preceding  his  dissolu- 
tion. About  three  hours  i)efore  it,  a  friend,  per- 
ceiving him  under  great  pressures,  said  softly 
to  him,  "  They  looked  unto  the  Lord,  and  were 
lightened  :  a  right  look  will  bring  down  relief 
under  all  difficulties."  "Yea,"  he  replied,  with 
great  strength  and  earnestness,  "  and  their  faces 
were  not  ashamed."* 

In  the  reign  of  James  II.  died,  at  Kelby  ia 
Leicestershire,  where  he  was  a  minister  of  a 
Baptist  congregation,  Mr.  Richard  Farmer,  the 
friend  of  Mr.  Clarke  and  Mr.  Shuttleworth,  em- 
inent ejected  ministers  in  that  county.  He 
was  a  hard  student  and  an  affecting  preacher, 
and  frequently  officiated  among  the  Independ- 
ents. He  had  a  small  estate  to  live  upon,  in 
which  he  suffered  greatly  for  his  religious  prin- 
ciples, as  distress  was  made  by  virtue  of  a  jus- 
tice's warrant  upon  his  goods  ;  and  they  took 
from  him,  in  one  year,  to  the  value  of  £110.t 

Another,  who  suffered  much  in  this  period  for 
his  nonconformity,  and  was  several  times  pris- 
oner at  York,  at  Leeds,  and  at  Chester,  was 
Mr.  Thomas  Hardcastle,  ejected  from  Bram-, 
ham,  in  the  county  of  York.  He  was  born  at 
Barwick-upon-Holm,  and  received  his  education 
under  Mr.  Jackson,  of  that  town,  a  learned  di- 
vine. He  had  not  been  long  in  the  ministry 
when  the  Act  of  Uniformity  passed  :  he  preach- 
ed afterward  at  Shadwell  Chapel  and  other  pla- 
ces. He  was  a  man  of  pregnant  parts,  eminent 
learning  and  piety,  of  great  moderation  and 
Catholicism,  though  of  a  bold  spirit,  which  fear- 
ed no  danger.  In  1671  he  was,  on  the  death  of 
Mr.  EwinSjJ  invited  to  be  pastor  of  a  congrega- 


*  Thompson's  Collections,  MSS.,  and  Crosby's 
History  of  the  English  Baptists,  vol.  iii.,  p.  11-24. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  118,  119. 

t  Mr.  Evvins  was  ejected  from  a  living  in  Bristol : 
though  he  was  no  scholar,  and  had  been  a  mechanic, 
he  was  esteemed  as  a  judicious,  methodical  preach- 
er ;  was  remarkable  for  his  meekness,  patience,  and 
charity  :  in  his  ministerial  duties  he  was  popular, 
laborious,  and  successful,  ready  to  preach  on  most 
days  when  not  otherwise  employed ;  grave  and  se- 
rious everywhere,  and  full  of  good  discourse.  He 
was  so  scrupulous  about  maintenance,  that  he  would 
accept  no  tithes  nor  salary,  but  only  free  gifts.  The 
Bishop  of  I3ristol  invited  him  to  conform,  but  he  could 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


393 


tion  of  Baptists,  who  had  separated  from  the  Es- 
tablishment early  in  1640,  though  they  continu- 
ed their  attendance  at  sermon,  but  not  at  the 
prayers,  in  the  parish  church  on  the  morning  of 

by  no  means  be  satisfied  to  comply.  When,  in  1651, 
he  was  invited  by  the  Separatists  at  Bristol  to  become 
their  mnnster,  he  was  a  Psdobaptist.  About  1654 
he  embraced  the  opinions  of  the  Baptists,  and  was 
baptized  m  London.  In  1G60  the  members  of  his 
society  were  turned  out  of  tlie  churches,  and  in  1062 
he  was  ordained  their  pastor.  He  went  through  a 
variety  of  persecutions,  and  was  often  in  prison,  once 
for  a  whole  year,  when  he  preached  twice  a  day. 
There  he  contracted  a  lethargic  distemper,  of  which 
he  died,  aged  about  sixty,  in  April,  1670,  greatly  la- 
mented. He  was  buried  in  St.  .lames's  churchyard, 
April  29,  and  a  vast  concourse  of  people  attended  his 
funeral.  He  was  sometimes  abused  in  the  streets, 
but  would  not  attempt  to  retaliate;  for  he  said,  "Ven- 
geance is  God's ;  my  duty  is  patience." — Palmer's 
Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p.  351  ;  and  Thomp- 
son's Collections,  MSS. 

The  following  letter,  addressed  to  Mr.  Ewins  by 
the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  steward  of  Bristol,  inviting 
him  to  Bristol  from  his  parish  at  Lanvaughas,  clearly 
proves  his  high  reputation  as  a  preacher :  Ihe  church 
of  which  he  became  pastor  still  exists,  and  is  known 
as  the  Broadmead  Church  : 

"  Good  Sir — In  pursuance  of  an  act  of  Parliament 
for  the  better  maintenance  of  ministers  to  preach  the 
Gospel,  we,  the  commissioners  by  the  said  act  ap- 
pointed, being  met  together  to  consider  and  advise 
of  able  and  godly  men  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  Bris- 
tol, having  much  assurance  of  your  faithfulness  and 
sufficiency  for  that  work,  do  desire  you,  sir,  that  you 
will  please  to  come  unto  us,  and  perform  the  work 
and  service  of  a  faithful  dispenser  of  the  Word  of  the 
Gospel  in  this  city  ;  and  forasmuch  as  there  is  a 
power  given  us  by  the  said  act  to  make  provision  for 
a  competent  number  of  good  ministers,  we  doubt  not 
but  we  shall  provide  a  sufficient  and  comfortable 
maintenance  for  you.  We  shall  expect  to  hear  from 
you,  and  remain,  sir,  your  loving  friends,  &c. 

"  Bristol,  the  14th  of  July,  1651." 

Thus  Mr.  Ewins  was  settled  over  the  church,  and 
by  the  mayor  appointed  city  lecturer.  He  was  to 
preach  at  St.  Nicholas's  "  every  third  day"  (Tues- 
day). On  Lord's  Day  morning  he  preached  to  his 
own  people  at  Christ  Church  ;  and  in  the  afternoon, 
at  the  desire  of  the  corporation,  at  the  church  of  St. 
Maryleport.  In  summer  he  frequently  preached  at 
St.  Thomas's  and  St.  Philip's,  they  being  spacious, 
and  capable  of  accommodating  a  large  number  of 
hearers.  On  a  Friday  he  preached  alternately  at  St. 
Philip's  and  St.  Michael's  almshouses,  besides  at- 
tending the  conference  meetings  of  his  own  church 
on  Thursdays.  A  sermon  which  was  preached  by 
him  on  the  narrative  of  Blind  Bartimeus  was  the 
means  of  the  conversion  of  many ;  and  in  those 
"halcyon  days  of  prosperity,  liberty,  and  peace,"  it 
•pleased  the  Lord  to  favour  his  church  with  a  large 
increaseof  light  and  purity.  Mr.  Ewins  was  remark- 
able for  meekness,  patience,  and  charity ;  and  so 
scrupulous  about  maintenance,  that  he  would  accept 
neither  tithes  nor  salary,  but  only  free  gifts. 

This  noble  feeling  cannot  be  too  highly  commend- 
ed. It  was  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  an  inspired 
apostle.  Not  that  he  thought  it  uTon^  to  receive  re- 
muneration :  on  the  contrary,  he  pleacled  for  it  not  as 
a  favour,  but  as  a  right.  But  he  gloried  in  being  able 
to  decline  receiving  that  to  which  he  and  all  faithful 
ministers  are  entitled.  It  is  much  to  be  deplored 
that,  in  the  present  degenerate  state  of  the  Church, 
"  free  gifts"  would  not  always  be  adequate  ;  and  yet 
they  should  be;  and  in  proportion  as  we  appreciate 
the  Gospel,  and  the  value  of  the  soul,  they  will  be. 
A  penurious  church  cannot  expect  a  blessing  from  a 
bountiful  Lord. —  The  Rise  and  Progress  nf  Dissent  in 
Bristol,  chiefly  in  relation  to  Broadmead  Church,  by  J. 
G.  Fuller,  1840,  p.  31,  32.— C. 
Vol..  II.— D  D  D 


the  Lord's  Day,  spending  the  afternoon  and 
evening  in  religious  exercises  among  them- 
selves. Mr.  Cann,  the  author  of  the  marginal 
references  to  the  Bible,  preached  adult  baptism 
to  them,  and  settled  them  in  church  order,  with- 
out making  baptism  a  term  of  communion.  On 
Mr.  Hardcastle's  settlement  with  them,  they 
took  four  rooms  on  the  Lamb  pavement,  Broad- 
mead, and  made  them  into  one  of  sixteen  yards 
long  and  fifteen  broad.  At  Bristol  he  was  sent 
to  the  House  of  Correction  ;  he  died  suddenly, 
20th  of  August,  1678,  universally  lamented.  He 
published  one  practical  treatise.*  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  another  ejected  minister. 

Mr.  George  Fownes,  who  settled  with  this 
society  September  16,  1679,  foimd  the  number 
of  members,  which  amounted,  when  Mr.  Hard- 
castle  became  their  pastor,  to  a  hundred,  in- 
creased to  one  hundred  and  sixty-six,  of  which 
thirty-one  were  Psedobaptists.  Mr.  Fownes  was 
born  in  Shropshire,  and  received  his  classical 
education  at  Shrewsbury,  where  his  grandson, 
the  ingenious  and  learned  Mr.  Joseph  Fownes, 
was  for  many  years  a  dissenting  minister.  His 
father  dying,  he  was  sent  to  Cambridge.  He 
was  an  able  preacher,  and  a  man  of  great  learn- 
ing, and  was  conversant  in  law,  physic,  and 
other  branches  of  science.  He  voluntarily  quit- 
ted the  parish  church  before  the  Restoration, 
though  he  continued  preaching  in  different  pla- 
ces till  he  fixed  at  Bristol.  About  the  time  of 
what  was  called  the  Presbyterian  Plot,  he  was 
taken  in  the  pulpit,  and  committed  to  Newgate  ; 
but,  by  virtue  of  a  flaw  in  the  miltimus,  he  was 
in  six  weeks  removed  by  a  habeas  corpus  to  the 
King's  Bench,  and  acquitted.  He  was  after- 
ward apprehended  on  the  highway  in  Kings- 
wood,  on  suspicion  of  only  coming  from  a  meet- 
ing, and  committed  to  Gloucester  jail,  for  refu- 
sing the  corporation  oath,  and  riding  within  five 
miles  of  a  corporation  :  witnesses  were  suborn- 
ed to  swear  a  riot  against  him,  though  no  other 
rioter  was  named  in  the  bill ;  he  pleaded  his- 
own  cause  very  pleasantly,  telling  them  "that 
he  and  his  horse  could  not  be  guilty  of  a  riot 
without  company;"  and  the  jury  brought  in 
their  verdict.  Not  guilty  :  yet  he  was  returned 
back  to  prison  ;  and  refusing  to  give  a  bond  for 
good  behaviour,  of  which  he  knew  preaching; 
would  be  interpreted  to  be  a  forfeiture,  he  was 
detained  there  for  two  years  and  a  half  till  God 
released  him  by  death  in  December,  1685.  He 
was  afflicted  with  the  stone,  and  a  physician 
declared  "  that  his  confinement  was  his  death  ;. 
and  that  it  was  no  less  murder  than  if  they  had 
run  him  through  the  first  day  he  came  in,  and 
more  cruel. "t 

Another  eminent  minister  and  writer  among 
the  Baptists  at  this  time  was  Mr.  Henry  d'An- 
vers,  a  worthy  man,  of  unspotted  life  and  con- 
versation, a  joint  elder  of  a  Baptist  congrega- 
tion at  Aldgate,  London,  and  author  of  "  A 
Treatise  of  Baptism,"  which  drew  him  into  a 
controversy  with  Mr.  Wills,  .Mr.  Blinman,  and 
Mr.  Baxter,  in  whose  writings,  if  we  may  cred- 
it a  letter  published  by  Mr.  d'.\nvers,  and  sent 

»  Thompson's  Collections,  MSS.  Crosby,  vol. 
iii.,  p.  27,  28 ;  and  Palmer's  Nonconformists'  Me- 
morial, vol.  ii.,  p.  557. 

t  Palmer's  Nonconformists'  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p. 
243,  &c.  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  28,  29 ;  and  Thomp- 
son's Collections,  MSS. 


394 


SUPPLEMENT. 


to  him  by  a  person  of  quality,  of  known  worth, 
ability,  and  moderation,  "  there  were  more  heat, 
passion,  and  personal  reflections,  than  of  rea- 
son or  a  sober  inquisition  of  truth."  Mr.  d'An- 
vers  was  descended  from  honourable  parents, 
his  father  being  a  gentleman  who  had  an  estate 
of  i;400  a  year ;  he  himself  was  governor  of 
Stafford,  and  a  justice  of  peace,  some  time  be- 
fore Oliver's  usurpation,  and  well  beloved  by 
the  people.  He  was  noted  for  one  who  would 
take  no  bribes.  At  Stafford  he  first  embraced 
the  opinions  of  the  Baptists.* 

In  1687,  May  14th,  died  Mr.  Thomas  Wilcox, 
minister  of  a  congregation,  which  met,  previous 
to  the  plague,  at  his  own  house  in  Cannon-street, 
but  afterward  at  the  Three  Cranes  in  the  Bor- 
ough, Southwark  ;  and  author  of  a  popular  lit- 
tle piece,  which  has  been  frequently  reprinted, 
entitled  "  A  Drop  of  Honey  from  the  Rock 
.Christ."  He  was  born  at  Linden,  in  the  coun- 
ty of  Rutland,  August,  1622  ;  was  several  times 
confined  m  Newgate  for  nonconformity,  and 
suffered  very  mucli.  He  was  a  moderate  man, 
and  of  catholic  principles,  well  beloved  by  all 
denominations,  and  frequently  preached  among 
the  Presbyterians  and  Independents. 

October  3,  1687,  died,  aged  fifty-three,  Mr. 
John  Gosnokl,  who  had  been  a  scholar  at  the 
Charter  House,  and  a  student  at  Pembroke 
Hall,  Cambridge,  a  man  of  great  learning  tind 
j)iety,  a  pious,  practical  preacher,  of  singular 
.modesty  and  moderation  ;  intimately  acquaint- 
ed with  Tillotson,  whose  weekly  lecture  he  used 
to  attend,  and  was  much  esteemed  and  valued 
by  other  men  of  note  and  dignity  in  the  Estab- 
li.shed  Church,  who  kept  up  a  correspondence 
wuh  him.  He  was  educated  for  the  pulpit  in 
the  Establishment,  but,  by  the  Act  of  Uniformi- 
■ty,  made  incapable  of  any  settlement  in  it.  He 
was  chaplain  to  Lord  Grey.  Having  joined  the 
•Baptists,  he  was  chosen  pastor  of  a  congrega- 
L  ,tion  at  Barbican,  in  London,  and  was  one  of 
•the  ministers  who  subscribed  the  apology  pre- 
sented to  Charles  II.  on  occasion  of  Venner's 
conspiracy.  Though  he  was  always  peaceably- 
minded,  he  was  often  forced  to  conceal  himself. 
■His  flock  held  him  in  great  respect,  and  his 
.preaching  was  so  popular  as  to  draw  after  him 
people  of  all  denominations.  His  audience  was 
usually  computed  to  be  near  three  thousand  ; 
-and  among  them  very  often  six  or  seven  clergy- 
men in  their  gowns,  who  sat  in  a  convenient 
place,  under  a  large  gallery,  where  they  were 
•seen  by  few.  The  number  of  his  auditors,  and 
.the  figure  which  some  of  them  made,  occasion- 
ed, after  the  fire  of  London,  an  application  from 
the  oflScers  of  the  parish  of  Cripplegate  to  re- 
quest a  collection  tor  the  poor,  who  abounded 
in  that  parish.  The  request  was  complied  with, 
upward  of  £50  was  raised,  and  the  church  vol- 
untarily continued  the  colleclicm  for  above  twen- 
ty years.  His  publications  were  a  small  trea- 
tise entitled  "  Tlie  Doctrine  of  Baptism  ;"  and 
another  concerning  "  The  Laying  on  of  Hands." 
He  was  buried  in  Bunhill  Fields,  with  this  sim- 
ple inscription  : 

"Here  lielh  the  body  of  Mr.  John  Gosnold,  a 
faithful  minister  of  the  Gospel,  who  departed 
this  life  October  the  3d,  1678,  and  in  the  fifty- 
third  year  of  his  age." 


*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  90.     This  individual  i.s  se- 
verely treated  in  Wall's  History  of  Baptism — C. 


(I  am  sure  the  reader  will  be  pleased  to  pos- 
sess an  additional  record  to  the  memory  of  men 
of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy  ;  I  there- 
fore subjoin  a  valuable  article  from  Dr.  Toul- 
min's  very  respectable  work  entitled  "  The  His- 
tory of  the  Protestant  Dissenters,"  London, 
1314. 

Dr.  Toulmin  remarks  that  there  were  many 
individuals  particularly  esteemed,  and  regarded 
as  men  of  talents  and  influence,  and  says, 

"  Among  these  was  Mr.  William  Kiffin,  who 
began  his  ministry  with  the  Independents,  but 
afterward  taking  a  part  in  the  conferences  that 
were  held  in  the  congregation  of  Mr.  Henry 
Jessey,  when  the  majority  of  them  adopted  the 
sentiments  of  the  Baptists,  Mr.  Kiffin  at  that 
time  changed  his  opinion,  and  joined  himself  to 
the  church  of  Mr.  John  Spilsbury.  A  difference 
arose  between  them  about  permitting  an  indi- 
vidual to  preach  to  them  who  had  not  been  ini- 
tiated into  the  Christian  Church  by  immersion, 
as  if  the  conscientious  omission,  on  one  side,  of 
a  rite  considered  as  an  institution  of  Christ  by 
the  other  party,  could  vitiate  the  functions  of 
the  minister,  or  as  if  a  mutual  indulgence  to  the 
dictates  of  conscience  could  be  a  criminal  con- 
nivance at  error.  On  this  point  these  good  men 
parted,  but  to  their  credit  they  kept  up  a  friendly 
correspondence.  Mr.  Kiffin  became  the  pastor 
of  a  Baptist  congregation  in  Devonshire  Square, 
London.  After  the  Restoration  he  had  great  in- 
fluence at  court,  both  with  the  king  and  Chan- 
cellor Hyde ;  and  possessing  opulence,  is  re- 
ported to  have  supplied  his  majesty,  on  pressing 
emergencies,  with  a  present  of  ten  thousand 
pounds.  He  improved  his  interest  with  the 
king  to  obtain  an  order  for  the  examination,  in 
council,  of  a  scurrilous  and  malignant  pamphlet, 
meant  to  defame  the  Baptists,  entitled  '  Baxter 
baptized  in  Blood.'  Another  effect  of  his  influ- 
ence was  the  pardon  of  twelve  Baptists,  who 
were  condemned  to  death  at  Aylesbury  for  refu- 
sing to  conform  to  the  Established  Church,  un- 
der a  clause  in  the  Conventicle  Act  of  the  35th 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  by  the  justices  of  the  coun- 
ty at  a  quarter  sessions  :  a  proceeding  which 
surprised  the  king,  who  could  scarcely  believe 
that  any  law  to  justify  putting  his  subjects  to 
death  for  religion  only  could  be  in  force.*  Mr. 
Kiffin  himself  had,  in  the  time  of  the  Common- 
wealth, been  prosecuted  under  the  ordinance  of 
Parliament,  enacted  with  a  designed  reference 
to  Mr.  Riddle,  for  punishing  blasphemies  and 
heresies.  On  the  12th  of  July,  1655,  he  was 
summoned  before  the  lord-mayor,  and  charged 
with  a  breach  of  this  ordinance,  by  preaching 
that  'the  baptism  of  infants  was  unlawful.' 
That  magistrate  being  busy,  the  execution  of 
the  penalty  incurred  was  referred  to  the  follow- 
ing Monday. t  The  influence  which  he  had  at 
court,  instead  of  abashing  malignity,  provoked 
it,  and  increased  the  number  of  his  enemies, 
and  they  formed  a  design  upon  his  life,  which 
coming  to  his  knowledge  by  a  letter  that  was 
intercepted,  he  was  so  happy  as  to  escape.  He 
and  Mr.  Knollys  advocated  the  principles  of  the 
Baptists  against  Dr.  Grew  and  Dr.  Bryan,  in  a 
disputation  held  at  Coventry  ;  in  which  both 
sides  claimed  the  victory,  but  which  was  con- 
ducted with  good  temper  and  great  moderation, 


*  Crcsby,  vol.  ii.,  p.  181,  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  5. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  215. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


395 


and  closed  without  any  diminution  of  friendly 
regards.  Mr.  Kiffin  lived  to  be  very  old,  and 
preached  to  the  last.  He  was  a  man  of  consid- 
erable parts,  had  learning,  and  was  an  acute  dis- 
putant. It  is  a  sign  of  his  weight,  and  of  the 
estimation  in  which  he  was  held  by  the  religious 
and  political  communities,  that  he  was  one  of 
the  five  Baptists  who  were  made  aldermen  by 
King  James  II.  when  he  deprived  the  city  of 
London  of  its  charier.* 

"  Another  individual  who  ohtained  distinction 
among  the  Baptists  of  that  day,  and  was  the  au- 
thor of  a  treatise  in  4to  on  the  subject  of  bap- 
tism, was  Mr.  Thomas  Patient,  who  began  his 
ministry  among  the  Independents  in  New-Eng- 
land ;  but,  by  his  own  reflections  in  reading  the 
Scriptures,  was  led  to  conclude  that  infant  bap- 
tism had  no  foundation  in  them.  This  change 
of  sentiments  provoked  the  resentment  of  his 
brethren,  and  exposed  him  to  much  suffering, 
and  which  induced  him  to  emigrate  to  England, 
where  he  became  co-pastor  with  Mr.  William 
Kiffin.  He  accompanied  General  Fleetwood  to 
Ireland,  and  settled  there  ;  and  after  Dr.  Winter 
was  removed  by  the  general,  usually  preached 
an  the  cathedral.  The  interest  of  the  Baptists 
•was  much  advanced  by  his  labours  in  that  king- 
dom, and  he  is  thought  to  have  formed  the  Bap- 
tist church  at  Cloughkeating,  which,  in  the 
year  1740,  consisted  of  between  two  or  three 
hundred  members  united  in  one  communion, 
though  some  were  of  the  general  and  others  of 
the  particular  persuasion.  This  church  was  im- 
plicated in  the  prosecutions  which  followed  the 
supjjression  of  Monmouth's  insurrection,  and 
the  minister  and  all  the  members  were  tried  for 
their  lives.  The  foreman  of  the  jury  swore,  be- 
fore he  went  into  the  court,  that  he  would  not 
leave  it  till  he  had  brought  them  all  in  guilty  : 
a  rash  and  profane  way  of  prejudging  a  cause. 
As  soon  as  he  entered  the  court  he  died,  and 
the  rest  of  the  jury  acquitted  them.t 

"  There  did  not  arise  among  this  denomination 
of  Christians  a  more  remarkable  character,  in 
many  respects,  than  Mr.  John  Bunyan,  who 
was  born  of  honest  but  poor  parents,  at  Elstow 
in  Bedfordshire,  in  1628.  His  father  was  a  tin- 
ker :  his  education  consisted  only  in  being  taught 
to  read  and  write  ;  and  after  he  was  grown  up, 
he  followed  his  father's  occupation.  In  1645 
he  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  Parliament's  army 
at  the  siege  of  Leicester.  In  his  youth  he  was 
very  vicious,  and  greatly  corrupted  the  manners 
of  his  young  companions.  He  became  at  length 
a  thoughtful  and  pious  man.  Different  incidents 
seem  to  have  awakened  the  principle  of  con- 
science in  his  breast,  and  to  have  led  hiin  into 
deep,  serious,  and  penitent  reflections.  The  re- 
proof of  a  woman,  a  notoriously  wicked  charac- 
ter, addressed  to  him  with  sharpness,  when  he 
was  cursing  and  swearing  in  a  vehement  man- 
ner, and  reproaching  him  as  able  to  spoil  all  the 
youth  in  the  town,  hlled  him  with  shame,  and 
determined  him  to  refrain  from  that  profane 
practice.  An  accidental  conversation  with  a 
poor  man  on  religion  induced  him  to  apply  him- 
self to  reading  the  Scriptures  ;  which  was  fol- 
lowed by  such  a  reformation,  t)oth  in  his  words 
and  life,  that  the  change  in  his  manners  filled 
his  neighbours  with  astonishment,  and  convert- 
ed their  former  censures  of  his  conduct  into 

*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  3,  4, 5.         t  Ibid.,  vol.  lu.,  p.  43. 


commendation  and  praise.  A  casual  confer- 
ence also  with  four  poor  women,  into  whose 
company  he  fell  at  Bedford,  on  the  subject  of 
the  new  birth,  left  very  serious  impressions  on 
his  mind.  He  himself,  it  appears,  ascribed  his 
conversion  principally,  or  in  the  first  instance, 
to  a  sudden  voice  from  Heaven,  saying,  '  Wilt 
thou  leave  thy  sins,  and  go  to  heaven  ;  or  have 
thy  sins,  and  go  to  helH'  and  accosting  him 
when  he  was  at  play  with  his  companions. 
This  excited  such  an  astonishment,  that  he  im- 
mediately left  his  sport,  and  looking  up  to  heav- 
en, whence  the  voice  .seemed  to  come,  he  thought 
he  saw  the  Lord  Jesus  looking  down  upon  him 
and  threatening  him  with  some  grievous  pun- 
ishment for  his  irreligious  practices.  This  sup- 
posed phenomenon  indicated  a  state  of  mind 
previously  much  agitated  and  affected  with  con- 
scious guilt,  aided  by  the  force  and  vivacity  of 
an  imagination  strongly  tinctured  with  enthusi- 
asm, ol'the  influence  of  which  his  history  affords 
various  instances  ;  for  on  other  and  future  oc- 
casions he  conceived  that  he  saw  visions  and 
heard  voices  from  heaven.  The  turn  of  his 
thoughts,  and  the  natural  power  of  fancy,  pre- 
senting images  suitable  to  his  remorse  and  fears, 
were  as  really  the  means  which  a  gracious  Prov- 
idence employed  to  bring  him  to  repentance, 
and  the  effect  was  the  same,  as  if  a  real  super- 
natural impression  had  been  made  on  his  ear, 
or  a  miraculous  scene  had  been  presented  to  his 
eye.  He  became  a  man  of  sincere  piety  and 
blameless  morals ;  though  the  latter  did  not 
screen  him  from  malicious  and  groundless  cal- 
umnies, and  the  former  was  unhappily  accom- 
panied with  great  bigotry  and  a  censorious  spir- 
it. When  he  married,  he  was  extremely  poor, 
not  having  so  much  furniture  as  even  a  dish  or 
a  spoon,  and  all  tire  portion  his  wife  brought 
him  consisted  in  two  books,  '  The  Plain  Man's 
Pathway  to  Heaven,'  and  '  The  Practice  of  Pi- 
ety.' After  his  conversion  he  was  baptized  by 
Mr.  Gifford,  the  minister  of  the  Baptist  church 
in  Bedford,  and  admitted  a  member  of  it  about 
the  year  1655.*     His  talents,  and  gifts,  and  reli- 


*  "Long  before  the  year  1650,  there  were  in  this 
town  and  neighbourhood  pious  persons,  who  felt  a 
detestation  of  Episcopal  superstition  and  tyranny, 
and  united  in  searching  after  Nonconformists,  called 
in  that  day  Puritans.  The  chief  among  these  were 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Man,  Mr.  John  Grew,  Mr.  John  Eston, 
and  Mr.  Anthony  Harrington.  They  neither  were 
nor  desired  to  be  formed  into  a  church ;  but  were 
zealous  to  edify  each  other,  and  to  promote  the  Gos- 
pel by  their  liberality  and  friendship,  aKvays  keep- 
ing a  door  open,  and  a  table  furnished,  for  those  min- 
isters and  Christians  who  evinced  a  zeal  for  the  pu- 
rity and  practice  of  religion.  About  the  year  tOoO 
came  among  them  Mr.  John  Gifford,  a  native  of  Kent, 
who  had  been  a  great  Royalist  and  a  major  in  the 
king's  army,  but  had  recently  been  under  deep  reli- 
gious impressions,  and  had  commenced  preacher. 
His  labours  in  that  character  were  acceptable,  and 
successful' m  awakening  in  the  minds  of  some  a  reli- 
gious concern,  and  in  engaging  these  friends  of  piety 
to  form  themselves  into  a  church,  of  which  he  was 
chosen  the  pastor  or  elder. 

"  The  principles  on  which  they  entered  into  fel- 
lowship one  with  another,  and  on  which  they  received 
new  members  into  their  Christian  association,  were 
faith  in  Christ  and  holiness  of  life,  without  respect  to 
this  or  that  circumstance  of  opinion  in  outward  or 
circumstantial  points.  By  these  means  faith  and 
holiness  were  encouraged,  love  and  amity  were  main- 
tained, di.«pLitingand  occasional  janglings  were  avoid- 


396 


SUPPLEMENT. 


gious  spirit  attracted  the  attention  of  this  con- 
gregation, among  whom  he  for  some  time  gave 
a  word  ol' exhortation,  or  led  their  worship,  till 
they  called  him  to  the  character  of  a  public  min- 
ister, and  set  him  apart  to  that  office  by  fasting 
and  prayer.  He  was  a  popular  preacher,  and 
generally  spoke  with  much  fluency  and  with 
great  effect.  A  Cambridge  scholar,  who  after- 
ward became  a  very  eminent  minister  in  the 
county,  is  particularly  mentioned  as  an  instance 
of  the  power  and  success  of  his  preaching.  Mr. 
Bunyan  was  to  appear  on  a  week  day  in  the 
pulpit  of  a  church  in  a  country  village  in  the 
county,  and  a  great  number  of  people  was  col- 
lected together  to  hear  him.  The  Cambridge 
student  riding  by  at  the  time  inquired.  What 
meant  the  concourse  of  people  ?  He  was  told 
that  one  Bunyan,  a  tinker,  was  to  preach  there  ; 
]n  a  sportive  mood  he  committed  his  horse  to 
the  care  of  a  boy,  saying  'he  was  resolved  to 
hear  the  tinker  pratc,^  and  went  into  the  church. 
His  attention  was  fixed  ;  he  was  affected  and 
impressed ;  he  came  out  serious  and  thought- 
ful, and  much  changed,  and  would,  when  he 
could  gratify  his  taste,  hear  none  but  the  tinker 
for  a  long  time.*  The  learned  Dr.  Owen,  the 
vice-chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  coun- 
tenanced his  ministerial  labours,  and  attended  his 
sermons.  The  intolerance  of  the  government, 
in  a  few  years,  put  a  stop  to  this  course  of  ser- 
vices. On  the  13th  of  November,  1660,  he  was 
requested  to  preach  at  Gansel,  near  Harlington, 
in  Bedfordshire  ;  and  there  he  was  apprehended 
by  virtue  of  a  warrant  granted  by  Francis  Win- 
gate,  Esq.,  a  justice  of  peace,  before  whom  he 
was  taken,  and  then  committed  to  Bedford  jail. 
After  an  imprisonment  of  seven  weeks  he  was 
tried  on  an  indictment  at  Bedford  quarter  ses- 
sions, charged  with  '  having  devilishly  and  j)er- 
niciously  abstained  from  coming  to  church  to 
hear  Divine  service  ;  and  with  being  a  common 
ijpholder  of  several  unlawful  meetings  and  con- 
venticles, to  the  great  disturbance  and  distraction 
of  the  good  subjects  of  this  kingdom,  contrary 
to  the  laws  of  our  sovereign  lord  the  king.'  All, 
it  has  been  justly  observed,  that  John  Bunyan 
had  been  guilty  of,  though  it  was  alleged  to  be 
thus  '  devihsh  and  pernicious,  and  so  wickedly 
calculated  to  disturb  and  distract  the  good  peo- 
ple of  England,'  was  merely  worshipping  God 
according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience, 
and  endeavouring  to  propagate  his  own  religious 
opinions.  But  even  the  (acts  stated  in  this  ri- 
diculous indictment  were  not  proved,  no  wit- 
nesses were  produced  against  him ;  but  some 
words  which  came  from  him  in  the  course  of  a 
conversation  with  the  justices,  were  taken  for 
a  conviction  and  recorded  :  he  was  sent  back 
to  prison,  under  this  sentence,  to  lie  there  for 
three  months  ;  and  if  he  did  not  then  engage  to 
hear  Divine  service,  and  attend  in  the  church, 
and  desist  from  preaching,  to  be  banished  the 
realm  ;  and  in  case  of  not  leaving  the  realm 
on  an  appointed  day,  or  of  returning  to  it  with- 


ed,  and  many  that  were  weak  in  the  faith  were  con- 
firmed in  the  principles  of  eternal  life."*'  In  consist- 
ency with  the  large  basis  on  which  this  church  was 
constituted,  its  next  minister,  Mr.  Bunyan,  was  an 
advocate  for  the  mixed  communion  of  Christians 
who  difiored  in  opinion  on  the  questions  relative  to 
baptism.  ♦  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  65. 

*  Thomson's  Collections,  vol.  i.,  Bedford  MSS. 


out  a  special  license  from  the  king,  to  be  hang- 
ed.* 

"  His  wife,  to  whom,  at  the  time  of  his  com- 
mitment, he  had  been  married  almost  two 
years, t  on  the  following  assizes  addressed  her- 
self lo  the  judges  ;  but  the  justices  had  preju- 
diced them  to  the  utmost  they  could  against 
him.  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  who  was  one  of  them, 
and  appeared  to  know  nothing  of  his  history,  in- 
deed, had  the  matter  come  judicially  before  him, 
seemed  desirous  to  afford  him  relief,  and  ad- 
vised his  wife  to  procure  a  writ  of  error :  but 
Bunyan  and  his  friends  were  either  too  poor,  or 
too  little  acquainted  with  such  matters,  to  take 
the  necessary  steps  to  obtain  his  enlargement. 
The  sentence  of  banishment  was  never  execu- 
ted against  him  ;  but  he  was  detained  in  prison 
from  sessions  to  sessions,  from  assizes  to  assi- 
zes, without  being  brought  before  the  judges, 
and  obtaining  permission  to  plead  his  cause,  till 
his  imprisonment  lasted  twelve  years.  He  en- 
dured the  evils  of  this  long  confinement  with  per- 
fect resignation  and  patience  ;  learned  to  make 
long  tagged  thread-laces,  and  supported  himself 
by  it ;  and  wrote  many  of  his  tracts,  though  his 
library  is  said  to  have  consisted  only  of  his  Bi- 
ble and  the  Book  of  Martyrs.  His  enlargement 
at  last  is  ascribed  to  the  compassion  and  inter- 
est of  the  worthy  prelate  Dr.  Barlow,  bishop  of 
Lincoln,  and  to  the  interference  of  Dr.  Owen.f 
There  was  an  existing  law,  which  invested  a 
bishop  with  the  power  to  release  a  prisoner  sit- 
uated as  was  Mr.  Bunyan,  if  any  two  persons 
would  join  in  a  cautionary  bond  that  he  should 
conform  in  half  a  year.  Dr.  Owen  readily  con- 
sented, on  being  requested,  to  give  his  bond.. 
The  bishop,  on  application  being  made  to  him, 
declined  availing  himself  of  his  Episcopal  pre- 
rogative ;  but  as  the  law  provided  that,  in  case 
of  a  bishop's  refusal,  application  should  be  made 
to  the  lord-chancellor  to  issue  out  an  order  to 
take  the  cautionary  bond  and  release  the  pris- 
oner, the  bishop  proposed  this  mode  of  proceed- 
ing as  more  safe  for  himself  at  that  critical  time, 
as  he  had  many  enemies,  and  promised  a  com- 
pliance with  the  order  of  the  chancellor.  This 
measure,  though  it  was  not  so  direct  as  the  oth- 
er, and  was  more  expensive,  was  adopted,  and 
Mr.  Bunyan  was  released.  In  the  last  year  of 
his  imprisonment,  1671,  on  the  death  of  Mr. 
Gifford,  he  had  been  unanimously  chosen  to  suc- 
ceed him  in  the  pastoral  office. 

"  Alter  his  enlargement,  he  employed  himself 
in  preaching  and  writing,  and  made  journeys 
into  various  parts  of  the  kingdom  to  visit  pious 
persons  of  his  own  religious  views,  which  visi- 
tations fixed  on  him  the  title  of  'Bishop  Bun- 
yan.' When  James  II.  published  his  declara- 
tion for  the  liberty  of  conscience  in  1087,  though 
he  saw  it  proceeded  not  from  kindness  to  Prot- 
estant Dissenters,  and  his  piercing  judgment  an- 
ticipated the  black  cloud  of  slavery  which  the 
sunshine  of  transient  liberty  was  intended  to  in- 
troduce, yet  he  thought  it  right  to  improve  the 
present  day  ;  and  by  tlie  contributions  of  his 
followers  built  a  public  meeting-house  at  Bed- 
ford, in  which  he  constantly  preached  to  large 
congregations.      It  was  his  constant  practice 

«  Biographia  Britannica.by  Kippis  and  others,  vol. 
hi.,  article  Bwiyan,  page  12,  note  1. 
t  She  was  his  second  wife. 
%  British  Biography,  vol.  vi.,  p.  106. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


397 


also,  after  his  liberty,  to  visit  London  once  a 
year,  where  he  preached  in  several  places,  par- 
ticularly in  Southwark,  to  numerous  auditors, 
■with  great  acceptance.  At  last  he  fell,  not  a 
victim  to  the  malignant  spirit  of  persecution, 
but  a  sacrifice  in  the  event,  to  the  pacific  kind- 
ness of  his  own  heart.  A  young  gentleman 
having  fallen  under  the  resentment  of  his  fa- 
ther, requested  Mr.  Bunyan's  reconciliatory  of- 
fices to  make  up  the  breach.  He  undertook, 
and  happily  effected  this  benevolept  office.  On 
his  return  to  London,  from  the  journey  which  it 
occasioned,  he  was  overtaken  with  excessive 
rains,  and  contracted  a  cold  from  being  very 
wet,  which  brought  on  a  violent  fever,  that  in 
ten  days  put  a  period  to  his  life,  at  the  house  of 
Mr.  Straddocks,  a  grocer,  on  Snow  Hill,  on  the 
12th  of  August,  in  the  60th  year  of  his  age.  Ac- 
cording to  the  description  of  his  person,  and  the 
delineation  of  his  character,  drawn  by  the  con- 
tinuator  of  his  life,  '  he  appeared  in  countenance 
to  be  of  a  stern  and  rough  temper,  but  was  in 
his  conversation  mild  and  affable  ;  not  given  to 
loquacity  or  much  discourse  in  company,  unless 
some  urgent  occasion  required  it ;  observing  nev- 
er to  boast  of  himself  or  his  parts,  but  rather  seemed 
low  in  his  own  eyes,  and  .submitted  himself  to  the 
judgment  of  others  ;  abhorring  lying  and  swear- 
ing, being  just,  in  all  that  lay  in  his  power,  to 
his  word,  not  seeming  to  revenge  injuries,  lov- 
ing to  reconcile  differences,  and  making  friend- 
ship with  all  ;  he  had  an  excellent  discernment 
of  persons,  being  of  good  judgment  and  quick 
wit.  As  for  his  person,  he  was  tall  of  stature, 
strong-honed,  though  not  corpulent,  somewhat 
of  a  ruddy  face,  with  sharp  and  sparkling  eyes, 
wearing  his  hair  on  his  upper  lip  after  the  old 
British  fashion;  his  hair  reddish,  but  in  his  lat- 
ter days  time  had  sprinkled  it  with  gray  ;  his 
nose  well  set,  but  not  declining  or  bending,  and 
his  mouth  moderately  large,  his  forehead  some- 
thing high,  and  his  habit  always  plain  and  mod- 
est.'* 

"'When  he  arrived  at  the  60th  year  of  his 
age,  he  had  written  books,'  it  has  been  observ- 
ed, 'equal  to  the  number  of  his  years.*  His 
works,  which  had  been  long  printed  in  detached 
pieces  on  tobacco  paper,  were  collected  togeth- 
er and  reprinted  in  1736  and  1737,  in  two  vol- 
umes folio  ;  and  have  since  been  re|)rinted  in 
a  fairer  edition,  particularly  in  one  impression 
with  a  recommendation  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 
George  Whitfield.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  had, 
in  the  year  1784,  passed  through  upward  of  fif- 
ty editions. 

"  Bunyan,  'who  had  been  mentioned,'  says 
Mr.  Granger,  '  among  the  least  and  lowest  of 
our  writers,  deserves  a  much  higher  rank  than 
is  commonly  imagined.  His  master-piece  is 
his  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"t  ibne  of  themost  pop- 

*  Biographia  Britnnnica,  ut  ante,  note  Z. 

t  I  have  much  pleasure  in  speaking  favourably  of 
Cheever's  admirable  Lectures  U|)on  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  published  in  New-York  by  Wiley  and  Put- 
nam ;  and  the  reader  who  is  curious  to  know  more 
about  the  life  of  Bunyan  will  be  greatly  interested 
by  consulting  his  autobiography,  published  by  Dodd 
of  New-York,  and  the  Life  of  Bunyan,  by  the  Rev. 
Robert  Philip,  of  London  ;  this  last  very  interest- 
ing volume  is  published  by  Messrs.  Appletonaiul  (3o. 
The  beautiful  edition  of  this  immortal  work  publish- 
ed by  Martin  is  familiar  to  the  reader,  and  the  litera- 
ry man  need  hardly  be  told  of  Southey's  memoir, 


ular,  and,  I  may  add,  one  of  the  most  ingenious 
books  in  the  English  language.*  It  gives  us  a 
clear  and  distinct  idea  of  Calvinistical  divinity. 
The  allegory  is  admirably  carried  on,  and  the 
characters  are  justly  drawn  and  uniformly  sup- 
ported. The  author's  original  and  poetic  ge- 
nius shines  through  the  coarsness  and  vulgarity 
of  his  language,  and  intimates  that  if  he  had  been 
a  master  of  numbers,  he  might  have  composed  a 
poem  worthy  of  Spenser  himself  As  this  opin- 
ion may  be  deemed  paradoxical,  I  shall  venture 
to  name  two  persons  of  eminence  of  the  same 
sentiments  ;  one,  the  late  Mr.  Merrick,  of  Read- 
ing, who  has  been  heard  to  say  in  conversa- 
tion, "that  his  invention  was  like  that  of  Ho- 
mer;" the  other.  Dr.  Roberts,  fellow  of  Eton 
College.'! 

"  The  mixture  of  the  dramatic  and  narrative, 
enlivening  the  style.  Lord  Kaimes  remarks,  has 
rendered  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress'  and  '  Robin- 
son Cruso'  great  favourites  of  the  vulgar,  and 
has  been  the  cause  of  their  having  been  trans- 
lated into  several  European  languages.  Bun- 
yan had  such  an  extraordinory  knack  in  amu- 
sing and  parabolical  compositions  under  the  form 
of  visions,  that  some  thought  there  were  com- 
munications made  to  him  in  dreams,  and  that  he 
first  really  dreamed  over  the  matter  contained  in 
his  writings  of  this  kind.  This  notion  was  not 
a  little  propagated  by  his  picture  prefixed  to 
some  of  his  treatises,  in  which  he  is  represented 
in  a  sleeping  posture.  An  anonymous  author 
in  1729,  speaking  of  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress,' 
remarked  that  '  it  had  infinitely  outdone  The 
Tale  of  a  Tub,  which  perhaps  had  not  made  one 
convert  to  infidelity ;  whereas  the  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress had  converted  many  sinners  to  Christ. 't 

"Dr.  Kippis,  with  great  deference  to  the  opin- 
ions of  such  judges  as  Mr.  Merrick  and  Dr.  Rob- 
erts, doubts  whether  Bunyan  could  ever  have 
been  capable  of  rising  to  a  production  worthy  a 
Spenser.  The  poverty,  not  with  regard  to  num- 
bers only,  but  to  fancy,  visible  in  the  specimens 
of  his  versification,  justifies  an  apprehension 
that,  with  the  best  advantages  of  education,  he 
would  scarcely  have  attained  to  complete  poet- 
ical composition.  'He  had  the  invention,  but 
not  the  other  natural  qualifications  which  are 
necessary  to  constitute  a  great  poet.  If  his  ge- 
nius had  intended  him  to  be  anything  more 
than  a  poet  in  prose,  it  would  probably,  like 
Shakspeaie's,  have  broken  through  every  diffi- 
culty of  birth  and  station.' 

"  It  may  be  added,  that  a  learned  bishop,(J 
whose  practical  writings  glow  with  a  devotion- 
al spirit,  and  whose  commentaries  are  still  in 
high  estimatiim,  published  also  an  allegorical 
work,  entitled  'The  Pilgrim,'  but  not  with  a 
success  or  reputation  that  could  in  any  degree 
rival  Bunyan's  performance.     The  writer  of  this 

which,  however,  is  written  in  a  spirit  far  from  doing 
full  justice  to  the  Nonconforniist.  Bunyan's  Holy 
War  IS  an  admirable  work,  and  ought  to  be  better 
known  than  it  is.  Gould,  Kendall,  and  Lincoln,  of 
Boston,  have  issued  a  cheap  an<l  neat  edition,  edited 
by  President  Malcom  of  Kentucky. — C. 

*  This  observation,  Mr.  Granger  observes  in  the 
margin,  is  not  to  be  extended  to  the  second  part. 

t  Granger's  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  348, 
8vo  ed.,  1779. 

t  The  above  remarks  are  taken  from  Mr.  Oldy's 
MSS.  See  Biographia  Britannica,  ut  ante,  p.  13, 
note  L.  9  Bishop  Patrick. 


398 


SUPPLEMENT. 


recollects  that  at  a  classical  lesson,  when  he 
was  at  St.  Paul's  school,  Mr.  Allen,  the  learned 
editor  of  Demosthenes,  passed  high  encomiums 
on  the  latter  work,  as  greatly  superior  in  point 
of  invention  to  the  former,  which  has  now  sunk 
into  oblivion. 

"  This  article,  it  may  be  apprehended,  has 
been  carried  to  a  length  beyond  the  proportion 
of  room  it  should  occupy  in  a  work  not  profess- 
edly biographical ;  but  the  singularity  of  the 
character  will  be  admitted  as  an  apology.* 

"  In  the  list  of  those  who  sustained  great  tri- 
als in  a  conscientious  adherence  to  their  reli- 
gious profession,  was  Mr.  Henry  Forty,  in  his 
early  years  a  member  of  Mr.  Jessey's  congrega- 
tion, and  afterward  pastor  of  the  church  at  Ab- 
ingdon. His  own  parents,  as  well  as  many  oth- 
er persons,  received  a  pious  determination  of 
mind  from  his  preaching.  He  lay  twelve  years, 
for  the  testimony  of  a  good  conscience,  in  prison 
at  Exeter,  and  died  in  the  67th  year  of  his  age, 
in  1692,  with  the  character  of  a  man  of  great 
piety  and  unblamable  manners.  Mr.  Benja- 
min Keach  preached  his  funeral  sermon. 

"  The  short  history  of  the  next  person,  Mr. 
Isaac  Lamb,  was  marked  with  many  peculiar 
circumstances.  He  was  a  native  of  Colchester, 
where  he  was  born  in  1650,  and  for  some  time 
attended  his  father  in  Cromwell's  army.  From- 
his  youth  he  discovered  an  affectionate  attach- 
ment to  piety,  and  took  great  delight  in  the  pe- 
rusal of  the  Scriptures.  His  progress  in  that 
study  surpassed  what  could  be  expected  from 
his  years.  The  gravity  of  his  aspect  and  the 
seriousness  of  his  deportment  gave  him  so  man- 
ly and  dignified  an  appearance,  that  at  the  age 
of  16  he  was  made  chaplain  of  the  Constant 
Warwick,  a  man-of-war  in  Oliver's  navy.  He 
often  preached  before  Admiral  Blake,  and  once 
in  the  presence  of  him.  Admiral  Penn,  and  an- 
other naval  officer  of  the  same  rank.  He  deliv- 
ered serious,  interesting  thoughts  in  an  agreea- 
ble manner.  At  one  time  six  of  the  ship's  crew 
were  baptized  by  him  in  an  arm  of  the  sea.  Af- 
ter having  been  on  different  occasions,  not  few- 
er than  twenty  times,  on  the  French  and  Span- 
ish shores,  and  at  other  places,  he  returned  from 
Holland  in  1660  in  the  same  fleet  which  brought 
over  Charles  II.  His  principles  of  nonconform- 
ity soon  exposed  him  to  privations  and  suf- 
ferings. He  was  offered  a  benefice  of  £100 
per  annum,  which,  as  he  could  not,  consistent- 
ly with  his  sentiments,  sprinkle  the  children  of 
the  parish,  he  declined  to  accept.  It  was  pro- 
posed to  him  to  do  this  part  of  his  parochial  duty 
by  another ;  but  it  was  repugnant  to  his  sense 
of  religious  simplicity  and  integrity  to  engage 
a  substitute  to  perform  a  service,  which  in  his 
view  was  a  misapplication  of  a  Christian  insti- 
tution. He  therefore  refused  the  living.  It 
heightened  the  merit  of  this  sacrifice  to  the  del- 
icacy of  principle,  that  he  lost  by  his  refusal 
£200  due  on  the  living,  and  ready  to  be  paid  to 
the  next  incumbent.  Being  fixed  by  this  de- 
termination among  the  Dissenters,  he  became 
pastor  of  a  congregation  in  East  Smithfield.  It 
greatly  increased  under  his  popular  strain  of 
preaching,  and  removed  to  a  new  building,  erect- 
ed for  its  accommodation,  in  Virginia-street, 

*  Biographia  Britannica ;  Granger's  History  of 
England;  British  Biography,  as  before,  and  Crosby, 
vol.  ill.,  D.  C3-7;.. 


Ratcliffe  Highway,  where  the  auditory  was  nu- 
merous, and  the  communicants  amounted,  at 
times,  to  three  hundred.  Their  worship  was 
often  disturbed  by  officers  and  soldiers  in  King 
Charles's  reign.  Once  an  officer  with  his  mili'^ 
tary  subalterns  came  and  commanded  him  to  bo 
silent.  He  answered  in  the  words  of  the  apos- 
tle, '  Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight  of  God  to 
hearken  unto  you  more  than  unto  God,  judge 
ye.'  Upon  which  the  officer  with  his  soldiers 
went  off.  At  another  time.  Sir  William  Smith,. 
Mr.  Bury,  Mr.  Brown,  and  four  other  justices,, 
came  in  their  coaches  with  a  mob,  to  break  the 
windows  and  to  tear  up  the  pews  and  pulpit  of 
the  meeting-house,  as  they  had  before  done  at 
the  meeting-house  of  Mr.  Hercules  Collins,  in- 
the  neighbourhood.  But  Mr.  Lamb,  having  pre- 
viously received  notice  of  their  intention,  had,, 
by  the  advice  of  a  friend,  removed  all  the  furni- 
ture of  the  place,  except  a  few  loose  forms,  so 
that  they  were  disappointed  in  their  purpose  ; 
on  which  one  of  the  justices  said  that  his  name 
ought  to  have  been  Fox,  and  not  Lamb.  He 
died  on  the  20th  of  August,  1691.  He  was  a 
man  of  sweet  temper  and  exemplary  conversa- 
tion, and  great  usefulness  marked  his  course.* 
"  One  of  the  most  distinguished  characters 
among  the  Baptists  of  the  time  was  Mr.  Thom- 
as Grantham,  descended  from  a  reduced  branch 
of  an  ancient  family  of  rank  and  opulence  in 
Lincolnshire.  He  was  born  in  the  year  1634, 
in  the  village  of  Halton,  near  Spilsby  ;  and  the 
house  in  which  he  drew  his  first  breath  is  still 
shown  to  those  who  venerate  his  memory.  As 
his  parents  were  in  low  circumstances,  he  was 
brought  up  a  tailor,  but  he  afterward  directed 
his  attention  to  agriculture,  and  occupied  a  farm. 
From  an  early  period  of  his  life  his  mind  receiv- 
ed a  serious  and  religious  tincture,  and  he  was 
baptized,  on  the  profession  of  his  faith  in  the 
Gospel,  about  the  age  of  nineteen,  and  joined 
the  church  at  Boston.  In  the  year  1656,  when 
he  was  twenty-two  years  of  age,  he  was  chosen 
pastor  of  a  church  in  the  South  Marsh  parts  of 
the  county,  consisting  then  only  of  four  persons. 
He  had  for  several  years  associated  with  them, 
and  been  active  in  assisting  their  religious  im- 
provement by  procuring  ministers  to  preach  to 
them  publicly,  or  exercising  his  own  gifts  for 
prayer  and  instruction  among  them  privately. 
This  small  society  was  a  branch  of  a  church 
which  arose  in  1644,  formed  at  first  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  rejecting  in  the  administration  of  bap- 
tism, while  they  retained  the  practice  of  sprink- 
ling, the  cross  and  sponsors.  Some  of  them  af- 
terward, as  they  pursued  their  religious  inqui- 
ries, saw  reasons  to  adopt  the  practice  of  im- 
mersion on  a  profession  of  faith.  This  change 
in  the  sentiments  of  some  did  not  meet  with  the 
concurrence  of  all :  disagreements  arose,  whicli 
terminated  in  a  disunion  in  1651.  The  few 
who  embraced  the  principles  of  the  Baptists, 
after  Mr.  Grantham's  connexion  with  them  as 
a  pastor,  soon  increased  in  numbers.  His  zeal 
and  energy  animated  the  rest.  As  they  had  an 
accession  of  new  members,  there  arose  among 
them  several  who  became  acceptable  and  use- 
ful ministers.  They  drew  the  attention  of  their 
neighbours  on  themselves,  and  were  exposed  to 
the  malignity  of  enemies.  Mr.  Grantham  and 
several  others  were  summoned  before  the  ma- 
"  *~Crosbyrvol.  ill.,  p.  100-103. 


HISTORY   OF  THE    BAPTISTS. 


399 


gistrates,who,  as  the  accusations  alleged  against 
them  had  no  foundation  but  in  lies  and  forged 
stories,  soon  perceived  their  innocence,  and 
they  were  set  at  liberty,  and  went  on  cheerfully, 
though  often  insulted  by  the  mob  and  opposed 
by  the  clergy.  Even  during  the  protectorate 
or  interregnum,  their  preachers  were  interrupted 
m  their  discourses,  and  sometimes  dragged  out 
of  doors,  and  pelted  and  stoned  with  barbarous 
violence.  All  this  abuse  they  bore  with  pa- 
tience and  meekness.  Their  meetings  were 
held  tirst,  at  Halton  and  other  places,  in  private 
houses  ;  at  length  they  obtained  a  grant  of  Nor- 
tholem  Chapel,  near  Croft,  and  not  far  from 
"Waynfleet.  Here  they  remained  some  years, 
and  had  many  accessions  of  members  to  their 
communion.  Among  others,  Mr.  John  Watts, 
a  person  of  eminence  and  reputation  in  those 
parts,  who  had  been  educated  for  the  ministry 
at  the  university,  but  not  being  able,  from  a  prin- 
ciple of  conscience,  to  conform  to  the  rites  and 
practicesof  the  National  Church,  he  had  obtain- 
ed no  dignity  or  preferment.  He  became,  after 
he  had  joined  himself  to  Mr.  Grantham  and  his 
friends,  the  worthy  pastor  of  a  Baptist  church 
gathered  by  his  ministry,  and  which  held  their 
assemblies  for  Divine  worship  in  his  own  house. 
"  Mr.  Grantham  is  supposed  to  have  drawn 
up  the  '  Narrative  and  Complaint,'  stating  the 
sufferings  of  the  Baptists,  which  accompanied 
the  '  Brief  Confession  of  Faith'  and  '  Petition,' 
presented  to  the  king,  Charles  H.,  on  the  26th  of 
July,  1660.*  About  1662  he  was  apprehended, 
carried  before  a  magistrate,  and  bound  over  to 
the  assizes,  to  be  holden  for  the  county  of  Lin- 
coln. At  the  same  time  many  of  the  Baptists 
were  harassed  with  prosecutions  for  absence 
from  the  Established  Church,  and  with  the  ex- 
action of  penalties  of  £20  per  month.  The  con- 
sequence of  the  proceedings  against  Mr.  Grant- 
ham was  an  imprisonment  for  fifteen  months. 
Obloquy  and  insult  were  added  to  the  evils  of 
confinement.  Several  clergymen  who  visited 
him  upbraided  him  with  being  a  Jesuit,  and  a 
rumour  was  spread  that  he  was  a  papist.  To 
confute  this  calumny,  and  counteract  the  im- 
pressions which  it  made,  he  published  a  contro- 
versy which  he  maintained  with  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic, and  entitled  it  '  The  Baptist  against  the 
Papist.'  By  this  prudent  conduct  he  silenced 
the  report.  During  his  imprisonment  he  pub- 
lished a  treatise  entitled  'The  Prisoner  against 
the  Prelate  ;  or,  a  Dialogue  between  the  Com- 
mon Jail  of  Lincoln  and  the  Cathedral ;'  and 
another  work  under  the  title  of '  Christianismus 
Primitivus.'  In  these  publications,  as  the  de- 
signed brevity  of  '  The  Brief  Confession'  had 
occasioned  some  ambiguity,  he  treated  the  sub- 
ject more  explicitly  and  fully.  When  we  con- 
sider the  prevailing  sentiments  of  that  age  con- 
cerning the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  it  is  a  sin- 
gular circumstance  that  the  first  article  in  this 
Confession  expresses  the  doctrine  of  the  Unity 
of  God  with  a  scriptural  simplicity,  that  is  in 
obvious  contrast  to  the  received  standards,  the 
Catechism  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  and 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land.    This  may  justly  excite  our  surprise,  while 


*  Universal  Theological  Magazine,  vol.  iii.,  p.  8. 
N.B.  The  brief  Confession  is  given  by  Crosby,  vol. 
ii..  Appendix,  No.  iv. ;  and  in  the  preceding  Miscel- 
laoy,  p.  9, 10;  and  No.  .xiv.,  p.  57-59., 


it  recommends  itself  to  our  approbation.  It. 
runs  thus  :  '  We  believe,  and  are  very  confident, 
that  there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father,  of  whom 
are  all  things  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,, 
glorious  and  unwordable  in  all  his  attributes.' — 
1  Cor.,  viii.,  6.  Isa.,  xl.,  28.  At  the  assizes,  in 
the  spring  of  1663,  no  one  appearing,  and  no 
crime  .being  alleged  against  them,  Mr.  Grant- 
ham, and  his  virtuous  fellow-sufferers  who  had 
been  committed  with  him,  were  discharged,  and 
returned  to  the  churches  to  which  they  belong- 
ed, who  received  them  with  no  small  joy. 

"  Mr.  Grantham  suffered  a  second  imprison- 
ment under  the  operation  of  the  Conventicle  Act, 
which  was  first  passed  for  seven  years,  in  1663, 
and  was  revived  at  the  expiration  of  that  term 
with  additional  clauses  of  heightened  severity 
in  1670  ;  under  the  authority  of  this  act  soldiers- 
were  empowered  to  disarm  those  that  dissented 
from  the  National  Establishment.  Though  no 
arms  were  found  in  the  possession  of  the  Bap- 
tists, yet  their  houses  were  rifled,  their  goods 
carried  off,  and  they  themselves  forced  away 
from  their  wives  and  families,  without  knowing 
whither  they  were  to  be  driven,  or  whether 
they  should  be  prosecuted  by  law,  or  fall  a  sac- 
rifice to  military  force.  They  were  dragged, 
from  town  to  town,  and  compelled  to  run  like 
lackeys  by  the  sides  of  the  soldiers'  horses. 
Mr.  Grantham,  Mr.  John  Gree,  and  Mr.  Johit 
Green,  with  several  others,  were  thus  the  vic- 
tims of  armed  insolence  and  violence.  Mr. 
Grantham  and  his  friends  were  lodged,  tied  up 
during  the  whole  night,  at  an  inn,  in  a  room  not 
fit  for  entertainment :  their  situation  drove  sleep 
from  their  eyes ;  nor  would  the  soldiers  take 
any  rest,  but  sat  up  near  them,  and  with  riot- 
ing and  revellings,  oaths  and  curses,  annoyed 
and  shocked  these  pious  prisoners.  On  the 
morning  they  were  conducted  to  Louth,  put  into 
the  House  of  Correction,  and  afterward  brought 
before  the  committee.  At  this  tribunal,  instead 
of  well-supported  charges  against  them,  insid- 
ious questions  were  put,  to  draw  from  them 
some  ground  of  accusation,  and  they  were  ask- 
ed to  pledge  themselves  on  oath  to  conformity. 
Though  the  times  afforded  many  examples  of 
those  who  had  been  terrified  into  a  dereliction, 
of  their  principles,  these  good  men,  and  the 
Baptists  in  general,  remained  firm  and  unsha- 
ken in  their  religious  profession.  Mr.  Grant- 
ham and  his  two  fellow-sufferers  were  by  strict 
command  sent  to  jail,  where  they  lay  for  half  a 
year.  During  their  imprisonment  the  assizes 
came  on,  but  their  enemies  prevented  their 
cause  from  being  heard.  They  were  afterward, 
at  the  Quarter  Sessions,  brought  before  the  jus- 
tices ;  but  the  bench  refused  to  enter  into  the 
case,  or  proceed  against  them.  Upon  this,  the 
sheriff  pleaded  that,  as  he  had  produced  them 
in  open  court,  he  was  free  from  his  charge  ;  and 
so  they  were  set  at  liberty,  but  without  any  com- 
pensation for  their  unjust  imprisonment  and  at- 
tendant sufferings. 

"  .Mr.  Grantham,  soon  after  his  liberation,  was 
harassed  under  a  different  and  unsanctioned 
mode  of  persecuting  malignity.  He  was  pros- 
ecuted on  action  of  £100,  for  with  force  of  arms 
beating  and  uncivilly  treating  the  wife  of  a  cer- 
tain person,  merely  on  the  ground  of  his  hav- 
ing baptized  her.  But  to  the  shame  of  his  pros- 
ecutors, the  cause  which  threatened  his  ruia. 


400 


SUPPLEMENT. 


■was  thrown  out  of  court  at  the  next  assizes  as 
a  malicious  prosecution. 

"  '  The  malice  and  violence  of  their  enemies 
against  Mr.  Grantham  and  his  adherents  often 
carried  them  to  the  greatest  and  most  shocking 
lengths.  Defamation  and  lying  accusations 
were  among  their  most  common  weapons  :  the 
worst  of  men  appearing  as  informers,  the  worst 
of  magistralcs  abetting  and  encouraging  them, 
and  the  worst  of  priests,  who  first  began  to  blow 
the  fire,  now  seeing  how  it  spread,  clapping  their 
hands,  and  hallooing  them  on  to  this  evil  work.'- 
In  vindication  of  themselves  and  their  princi- 
ples against  this  malicious  treatment,  Mr.  Grant- 
Lam  drew  up  a  small  piece,  which  was  never 
published,  entitled  '  The  Baptist's  Complaint 
against  the  persecuting  Priest,'  &c.  This  tract 
■was  a  remonstrance  against  the  persecuting 
spirit,  to  which  this  denomination  of  Christians, 
notwithstanding  their  friendly  deportment,  and 
faithful  endeavours  to  maintain  peace  and  broth- 
erly concord,  had  been  exposed  for  more  than 
thirty  years,  which  stirred  up  persons  in  author- 
ity to  harass  them  by  imprisonment  and  seizure 
of  their  goods ;  and  which  expressed  itself  in 
irreligious  abuse  and  invectives  even  from  the 
pulpit,  where  they  were  stigmatized  as  '  here- 
tics' and  '  damned  fanatics.'  This  malicious 
treatment  was  provoked  only  by  their  '  dissent 
from  the  Church  of  England  in  some  practices, 
which,  the  most  learned  confessed,  had  neither 
j)recept  nor  precedent  in  the  Word.'  It  was  more 
criminal  in  the  clergy  to  manifest  this  conduct 
towards  Baptists,  because  they  had  never  with- 
held from  them  their  dues,  but  had  paid  them 
their  demands  as  punctually  as  any  others,  and, 
as  they  alleged,  probably  from  better  principles. 
*  For  we  consider,'  they  pleaded,  '  that  when 
we  either  hire  or  purchase  land,  the  tenth  is  ex- 
cepted, and  is  therefore  not  ours.  But  yet  it  is 
also  to  be  considered,  that  tithes  were  not  giv- 
en to  maintain  men  in  drunkenness,  lording 
over,  persecuting,  and  ruining  such  as  fear  God, 
merely  because  they  dissent  from  them  in  the 
things  aforesaid;  yet  thus  goes  the  business  in 
these  days,  by  which  unreasonable  practices 
they  outdo  the  false  prophets  who  were  of  old, 
for  they  prepared  war  against  those  that  did 
not  put  inlo  their  mouths,  but  these  devour  those 
that  labour  to  maintain  them.'  A  concluding 
sentiment  in  this  '  Complaint'  deserves,  for  its 
justness  and  force,  to  be  lepeated.  'We  be- 
lieve,' observes  Mr.  Grantham,  in  the  name  of 
his  fellow-sufferers,  '  and  are  sure,  that  to  per- 
secute is  no  mark  of  the  true  Ciiurch,  but  to 
suffer  persecution  is  so ;  and  that  religion  is 
not  worth  professing  in  time  of  peace,  which  is 
not  worth  owning  in  the  time  of  the  greatest 
trouble.'! 

"Mr.  Grantham,  after  this  recent  discharge 
from  jail,  again  suffered  imprisonment  several 
times,  and  continued  to  he  very  sorely  harass 
ed  and  oppressed  during  the  remainder  of  that 
infamous  reign.  About  the  end  of  it,  or  soon 
after  James  II.  succeeded  to  the  throne,  he  re- 
moved from  Lincolnshire  and  settled  in  the  city 
of  Norwich.  This  change  of  his  residence  did 
not  abate  or  diminish  his  activity  and  labours. 
He  was  still  firm  to  the  cause  for  which  he  had 
so  long  arnd  severely  suffered,  and  was  unwea- 


ried in  his  exertions  to  promote  it.  He  soon 
raised  and  formed  a  church  in  that  city,  on  the 
principles  of  the  General  Baptists,  which  met 
at  the  White  Friars^  yard,  and  which  still  ex- 
ists.* He  directed  his  attention,  with  similar 
success,  to  the  populous  town  of  Yarmouth.  In 
the  year  1688,  or  1689,  he  visited,  with  the  same 
laudable  views,  the  town  of  Lynn  Regis,  at  the 
other  extremity  of  the  county.  He  first  preach- 
ed in  the  town-hall  to  a  numerous  and  attentive 
auditory.  The  prospect  was  so  favourable,  that 
it  encouraged  a  friend,  Mr.  James  Marham,  at 
whose  house  he  was  entertained,  to  procure  and 
fit  up  a  convenient  place  of  worship;  a  church 
was  gathered,  and  Mr.  Marham  was  the  first 
pastor  of  it.  Though  the  place  was  duly  regis- 
tered according  to  the  directions  and  authority 
of  the  Act  of  Toleration,  which  passed  just  as 
the  building  was  completed,  yet  the  minister 
and  hearers  were  harassed  by  a  prosecution,  oa 
the  Conventicle  Act,  in  1691. t  The  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Act  of  Toleration,  though  great 
blessings  to  the  nation,  did  not  immediately  ef- 
fect a  change  in  the  views  and  temper  of  the 
mass  of  the  people.  It  required  time  for  the 
violence  of  a  persecuting  spirit  to  subside,  and 
for  just  sentiments  on  religious  liberty  to  take 
possession  of  the  public  mind,  and  spread  their 
influence  to  any  considerable  extent.  The  ma- 
lignity of  old  prejudices,  against  the  Baptists 
ill  particular,  was  softened,  m  many  places  at 
least,  very  slowly  and  partially.  Mr.  Grantham 
continued  to  feel  its  effects  till  the  time  of  his 
death.  The  envenomed  tongue  of  scandal,  in 
particular,  employed  itself  in  vile  calumnies  and 
charges  of  gross  immoralities.  Among  those 
who  traduced  his  character  were  Mr.  Toathby, 
who  had  been  a  magistrate,  and  took  his  rank 
in  society  as  a  gentleman  and  a  clergyman,  and 
Mr.  John  WiUet,  the  rector  of  Tattershall  in 
Lincolnshire.  The  latter  had  the  effrontery  and 
baseness  to  declare,  in  writing  under  his  own 
signature,  'that  he  saw  Mr.  Grantham  stand  in 
the  pillory  two  hours,  at  Louth,  for  stealing 
sheep  and  hurdles,  and  that  he  saw  him  hold  up 
his  hand  at  the  bar.'  This  falsehood  was  cir- 
culated both  at  Norwich  and  Yarmouth,  and 


*  Universal  Theological  Magazine,  ut  ante,  p.  63. 
t  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  84-S8. 


•*  A  grandson  of  Mr.  Grantham,  Grantham  Killing- 
worth,  Esq.,  who  died  al)out  the  year  1779,  left  a 
considerable  part  of  his  property  for  the  support  of 
the  minister  at  the  White  Friars'  yard.  He  was  a 
leading  character  among  the  Baptists,  and  the  author 
of  various  theological  tracts,  written  with  ability  and 
judgment.  He  was  particularly  on  the  alert  to  seize 
the  opportunities  afforded  by  any  controversy  of  his 
times,  to  graft  on  it  arguments  in  defence  of  his  own 
views  on  the  nature  and  subjects  of  baptism.  When 
the  "  Sermons  against  Popery"  were  preached  at 
Salters'  Hall,  he  published  a  tract, entitled  -'A  Sup- 
[ilemenc  to  the  Sermons  lately  preached  at  Salters' 
Hall  against  Popery,  with  a  view  to  show  that,  on  the 
Reasonings  of  the  Preachers,  Infant  Sprinkling  was 
another  great  Corruption  of  the  Christian  Religion." 
This  painphlel  came  to  a  lifth  edition,  in  which  other 
points,  viz.,  Mr.  Emlyn's  Previous  Question,  &c., 
were  discussed.  On  occasion  of  the  controversy 
with  the  author  of  "  Christianity  not  founded  on  Ar- 
gument," Mr.  Killingworlli  published  '•  Remarks  on 
the  several  Answers  to  it,"  in  which  his  aim  was  to 
turn  the  reasonings  of  the  authors,  who  were  Paedo- 
baptists,  against  themselves  —  See  Bulkleys  Notes 
on  the  Bible,  vol.  iii..  Life.    p.  15,  16,  note. 

t  Universal  Theological  Magazine,  Ut  ante,  p.  Ill, 
112. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    BAPTISTS. 


401 


Mr.  Grantham  was  induced  to  refer  the  matter 
to  Thomas  Blofield,  Esq.,  mayor  of  Norwich. 
The  accuser,  on  being  brought  before  this  ma- 
gistrate, confessed  the  absolute  falsehood  of  the 
charge  which  he  had  promulgated  and  signed  ; 
and  with  cryings,  and  tears,  and  wringing  of 
his  hands,  over  and  over  implored  Mr.  Grant- 
ham's forgiveness.  The  mayor,  on  Mr.  Grant- 
ham's readily  forgiving  him,  commanded,  with 
expressions  of  his  strong  abhorrence  of  the  rec- 
tor's conduct,  a  record  of  the  confession  to  be 
made  out  by  the  clerk,  and  to  be  signed  and 
sealed  by  the  calumniating  clergyman,*  who, 
after  this  was  done,  as  he  had  no  money,  would 
have  been  committed  to  prison  for  charges,  had 
not  Mr.  Grantham,  on  the  true  Christian  princi- 
ple of  rendering  good  for  evil,  given  the  officer 
of  the  court  ten  shillings  to  set  his  enemy  at 
liberty. 

"Mr.  Grantham  died  on  the  17th  of  January, 
1692,  at  the  age  of  58.  Indecencies  were  threat- 
ened to  his  corpse,  but  they  were  happily  pre- 
vented. Soon  after  his  decease,  a  paper  was 
published  and  signed  by  eight  friends,  contain- 
ing his  dying  words,  addressed  to  them  within 
two  minutes  of  his  death,  mostly  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Scripture,  expressive  of  his  sense  of 
his  approaching  end,  of  the  testimony  of  his 
conscience  as  to  the  integrity  of  his  conduct, 
and  of  the  disinterested  purity  of  his  motives  in 
preaching  the  Gospel ;  of  his  affection  to  his 
friends,  leaving  with  them  his  last  counsels  in 
a  strain  of  apostolic  admonitions,  casting  his 
eyes  back  on  his  sufferings  in  being  made  a  scoff 
and  a  gazing-stock  to  many  people,  cordially 
forgiving  his  enemies,  and  soliciting  the  prayers 
of  his  friends  for  their  forgiveness  ;  taking  a 
final  leave  of  thern  with  affection,  devotion,  and 
sacred  hope,  '  Friends,'  he  began,  '  I  am  in  a 
very  weak  condition,  and  as  this  is  the  Sabbath 
with  me,  it  will  be  the  everlasting  Sabbath  ;  for 
now  I  am  going  off  the  stage  of  this  world.' 
He  concluded  thus  :  '  To  be  short,  I  must  leave 
you.  Do  not  grieve  or  mourn  for  me  ;  though 
I  die,  yet  I  shall  rise  to  glory,  where  I  desire 
we  may  all  meet  and  see  one  another's  face  at 
the  last  day,  knowing  one  another,  and  rejoicing 
in  glory  ;  for  I  have  conquered  the  infernal  en- 
emy by  this  faith,  and  have  made  the  way  plain 
and  easy  to  me.  And  now  I  commit  you  to  the 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  the  love  of 
God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be 
with  you  all.     Amen.'t 

"  Mr.  Grantham,  besides  the  treatises  already 
mentioned,  wrote  '  The  Paedobaptists'  Apology 
for  the  Baptized  Churches.'  The  design  of  the 
tract  was  to  show,  by  quotations  from  the  wri- 
tings of  Paedobaptists,  that  the  practice  of  the 
Baptists,  as  to  the  mode  and  subject  of  baptism, 
was  most  ancient  and  apostolical,  and  that  in- 
fant baptism  was  a  novelty.  The  deductions 
from  these  premises  were,  that  the  sufferings 
inflicted  on  the  Baptists  were  no  less  a  glory  to 
them  than  a  shame  to  their  persecutors. J 

"  Report  has  represented  Mr.  Grantham  as 
acquainted  with  eight  or  nine  languages.  This 
is  most  probably  an  exaggerated  account  of  his 


♦  A  copy  of  the  confession  may  be  seen  in  Cros- 
by, vol.  iii.,  p.  263. 

t  Universal  Theological  Magazine,  ut  ante,  p.  115, 
116.  f  Crosby,  vol.  iii ,  p.  90. 

Vol.  II.— E  e  e 


attainments.  His  grandson,  Mr.  Grantham  Kil- 
lingworth,  it  appears,  spoke  of  him  as  able  to 
write  the  Latin  with  considerable  ease  and  cor- 
rectness. His  writings  afford  proofs  of  his  hav- 
ing acquired  some  proficiency  in  the  learned  lan- 
guages: his  polemical  publications  were  thought 
to  do  credit  to  liis  abilities,  and  to  hisacuteness 
in  the  art  of  reasoning  ;  though  he  himself,  in 
the  preface  to  '  A  Defence  of  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion against  human  Invention  and  pretended 
Revelations,  dated  from  the  Castle  of  Lincoln, 
10th  January,  1663,'  apologized  for  the  defects 
which  might  be  discovered  in  his  language  and 
method,  by  pleading  that  '  he  got  his  bread  by 
the  labour  of  his  hands,  and  had  never  saluted 
the  schools  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  their  arts.' 
That  he  possessed  no  small  share  of  literary  at- 
tainments, of  address,  and  of  weight  of  charac- 
ter, is  reasonably  inferred  from  his  being  fre- 
quently delegated  to  take  an  active  and  leading 
part  in  the  concerns  of  the  Baptists  of  that  day, 
even  in  their  applications  to  the  throne,  when 
there  was  not  a  want  of  men  of  real  learning, 
who  had  been  educated  at  the  university. 

'•  Mr.  James  Marham,  whose  name  occurs  in 
the  preceding  memoir,  merits  more  particular 
notice,  as  a  conspicuous  and  distinguished  per- 
son among  the  Baptists  in  Lincolnshire  and 
Norfolk.  The  time  and  place  of  his  nativity 
are  not  ascertained.  He  seems  to  have  com- 
menced his  appearance  on  the  stage  of  public 
life  at  Holbeach  in  Lincolnshire,  in  1681  or  1682. 
He  was  the  first  of  that  class  of  Dissenters  in 
that  place ;  and  soon  after  his  settlement  in  it, 
assemblies  for  religious  worship  were  held  ia 
his  house ;  the  original  preachers  were  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Phihps  and  Mr.  William  Rix  ;  the  first  was 
pastor  of  the  church  in  Deadman's  Lane  in  Wis- 
beach.  In  the  reign  of  King  James  he  was  set- 
tled in  Wapool-bell,  a  town  in  Norfolk,  where 
the  people,  having  never  heard  of  the  name  of 
Baptists,  called  liiin  '  an  outlandish  professor.' 
Here  he  laid  the  foundation  of  a  church  of  the 
Baptist  denomination,  which  now  exists,  and 
from  which  originated  another  church  formed  in 
Wisbeach.  On  the  death  of  his  wife,  Mr.  Mar- 
ham  removed  to  Lynn  ;  in  tliis  town,  also,  though 
on  his  settlement  irv  it  there  was  not  another 
Baptist  there,  he  hired  and  furnished  a  place 
for  religious  worship,  and  engaged  the  services 
of  Mr.  Grantham  and  Mr.  Long,  a  messenger 
from  the  Baptist  churches  in  London,  whom  he 
entertained  at  his  own  house  and  table  without 
any  pecuniary  compensation  for  some  months  ; 
and  by  these  means  raised  a  church,  of  which 
he  afterward  became  himself  the  pastor. 

"The  conspicuous  activity  and  zeal  of  this 
excellent  man  exposed  him  to  various  suffer- 
ings. About  three  years  before  the  death  of 
Charles  II.  he  was  harassed  by  prosecutions 
from  court  to  court,  and  carried  from  one  jus- 
tice to  another,  for  four  weeks  ;  and  though  by 
his  vigorous  interference  he  procured  the  liber- 
ation of  his  ministers,  Mr.  Rix  and  Mr.  Phillips, 
he  himself  suffered  imprisonment,  and  a  fine  of 
several  score  pounds  was  levied  on  him,  for  hav- 
ing disturbed  and  broken  the  uniformity  of  the 
religious  profession  of  the  town.  After  this  his 
goods  were  distrained.  When  he  had  lived 
three  weeks  at  Wapool-bell,  he  was  commanded 
by  the  officers  of  the  town  to  frequent  the  par- 
ish church,  or  to  appear  before  the  justice  and 


402 


SUPPLEMENT. 


parson  of  the  parish,  Mr.  Harbe.  He  complied 
with  the  latter  reijiiisitioii,  and  underwent  an 
examination  of  four  hours  in  the  presence  of 
several  gentlemen.  This  did  not  terminate  to 
the  satislaction  of  the  clerical  examiner,  and  a 
time  for  another  investigation  was  fixed  ;  but 
on  the  proclamation  for  liberty  of  conscience, 
this  inquiry  was  declined.  At  Lynn,  new  troub- 
les awaited  him.  In  July,  1691,  he,  with  others, 
as  before  noticed,  were  prosecuted  on  the  Con- 
venticle Act,  though  the  place  of  meeting  had 
been  registered  according  to  the  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  their  goods  were  seized  by  a  levy 
granted  against  him.  He  petitioned  the  judge. 
Sir  E N ,  at  Norwich  in  September  fol- 
lowing, and  was  forced  to  prefer  the  same  com- 
plaint to  some  of  the  great  council  at  the  ses- 
sions of  Parliament.  After  Parliament  had  ris- 
en, he  was  prosecuted  on  the  same  grounds, 
and  involved  in  troubles  that  threatened  his  ruin. 
In  the  following  October,  the  informers  against 
him,  affecting  great  remorse,  obtained  from  him 
a  discharge  from  their  false  information,  by  en- 
tering into  bonds  of  an  amicable  tenour  ;  but 
they  were  base  and  daring  enough  after  this  ac- 
tually to  seize  his  goods  on  the  former  levy. 
On  this  he  was  advised  to  sue  the  bonds,  and 
the  Baptists  at  London  were  solicited  to  unite 
in  his  support  with  all  possible  liberality  and  en- 
ergy. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  no  documents 
offer  themselves  to  throw  light  on  the  termina- 
tion of  this  vexatious  suit,  and  farther  to  eluci- 
date the  history  and  character  of  this  virtuous 
sufferer,  to  whose  piety,  zeal,  and  benevolence 
this  imperfect  detail  affords  pleasing  and  affect- 
ing testimonies.* 

"  Another  character  among  the  Baptists  of 
those  times,  distinguished  by  some  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances, was  Mr.  Edward  Morecock,  a  man 
of  eminence,  of  great  zeal  and  firmness,  and 
much  courted  on  King  James's  accession.  He 
was  born  in  January,  1626,  and  died  in  August, 
1693.  He  was  originally  in  the  naval  service, 
and  in  the  protectorate  was  captain  of  a  man-of- 
war,  when  he  was  shot  in  an  engagement 
through  the  body  with  a  musket-ball.  He  made 
a  handsome  provision  for  a  family  of  nearly 
twenty  children,  by  his  skill  in  fishing  up  ship- 
wrecks;  especially  by  his  recovering,  after  the 
Dutch  war  in  1672,  ships  sunk  in  the  River  Med- 
way,  which  had  come  so  close  to  Chatham  as 
to  throw  many  of  their  shot  into  the  town,  one 
of  which  was  found  in  Captain  Morecock's  gar- 
den. After  this  he  engaged  in  the  pastoral  care 
of  a  church  in  that  place,  and  so  entirely  devo- 
ted himself  to  its  duties,  that  he  declined  very 
advantageous  offers  made  to  him  if  he  would 
undertake  to  recover  wrecks  at  sea.  His  un- 
blamable manners  and  obliging  deportment  gain- 
ed him  the  esteem  and  affection  of  the  gen- 
tlemen in  the  neighbourhood,  insomuch  that 
when  any  warrant  was  issued  for  seizing  his 
person — as  he  was  harassed  by  frequent  war- 
rants against  his  body  and  goods  towards  the 
end  of  King  Charles  the  II. 's  reign — one  of  the 
justices  would  privately  send  his  servant  to  ap- 
prize him  of  it  before  the  officers  could  execute 
it.     On  receiving  the  intelligence,  he  usually 


*  "  A  brief  Relation  of  the  remarkable  Services 
and  Troubles  that  went  before  the  present  Trouble 
of  our  Brother  James  Marham,"  quoted  in  Universal 
Theol.  Mag.,ut  ante,  p.  112,  &c.,note. 


retired  to  the  house  of  one  of  his  daughters  in 
Essex.  He  was,  however,  fined  with  monthly 
penalties  for  non-attendance  at  tue  parish  church, 
till  he  was  exchequered  to  the  amount  of  £800. 
His  house  was  often  plundered,  and  his  goods 
were  seized  and  carried  off.  To  secure  himselt 
from  these  ruinous  depredations,  on  the  ground 
of  his  nonconformity,  he  made  his  fortune  over 
to  an  intimate  friend,  who,  acting  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  justice  and  honour,  restored  it  when 
the  danger  was  past.  One  Hinton,  an  informer 
against  him,  often  threatened  that  he  would 
have  him  cast  into  prison,  and  possess  himself 
of  his  furniture;  which  he  promised  to  give  to  a 
lewd  woman  who  attended  him.  But  Air.  More- 
cock,  through  a  good  Providence,  always  es- 
caped imprisonment,  while  many  of  his  breth- 
ren suffered  by  it.  On  visiting  some  of  them 
once  in  Rochester  jail,  he  saw  this  Hinton  con- 
fined in  it,  upon  which  he  accosted  him,  '  I  see, 
friend,  you  have  got  hither  before  me.'  This  man 
afterward  died  miserably,  the  flesh  rotting  from 
his  bones.  Lord  Roper,  a  Roman  Catholic,  on 
the  accession  of  James  II.,  offered  Mr.  More- 
cock  any  post  that  he  would  accept ;  but  he  ab- 
solutely refused  any  commission  under  that  king, 
assigning  to  his  friends  as  a  reason  for  his  refu- 
sal, '  that  the  favours  offered  by  him  to  Dissent- 
ers were  designed  only  to  draw  them  into  a 
snare  ;'  a  reason  which  did  credit  to  his  sagaci- 
ty, judgment,  and  disinterested  principles.  His- 
firmness  of  conduct  was  at  one  time  the  occa- 
sion of  a  design  against  his  life.  Two  witness- 
es were  suborned  to  swear  that  he  had  been  an 
officer  in  Monmouth's  army  ;  but,  by  unexcep- 
tionable evidence,  he  proved  that  he  was  in  an- 
other place  at  the  time  that  he  was  charged 
with  being  in  the  army.* 

Mr.  John  Miller,  a  native  of  Hinton  Marton, 
in  the  county  of  Dorset,  descended  from  parents 
who  were  in  affluent  circumstances,  a  man  of 
great  piety,  worth,  and  usefulness,  deserves  to 
be  mentioned  with  respect.     He  was  educated 
by  a  Presbyterian  minister,  but  a  studious  and 
diligent  inquiry  in  after  life  led  him  to  embrace 
the  opinions  of  the  Baptists,  and  he  was  pastor 
of  a  congregation  of  this  denomination  at  Min- 
chinton,  in  the  county  in  which  he  drew  his 
first  breath.     He  died  on  the  15th  of  May,  1694. 
His  active  labours  as  a  preacher  were  not  lim- 
ited to  his  own  congregation  ;  he  travelled  from 
place  to  place,  disseminating  the  principles  of 
religion,  and  planting  several  churches  in  agree- 
ment with  his  ideas  of  Christian  truth.     His 
nonconformity  and  opinions  exposed  him  to  se- 
vere sufferings :  he  lay  ten  years  in  prison,  and 
very  narrowly  escaped  a  prasmunire.      In  the 
year  preceding  the  death  of  Charles  II.,  he  was 
harassed  by  vexatious  proceedings,  and  greatly 
injured  in  his  property  by  extortions.     A  dis- 
tress was  first  taken  on  his  goods  on  the  Three 
Week  Act ;  then  he  was  apprehended  and  cast' 
into  prison  at  Dorchester  ;  at  the  summer  assi- 
zes he  was  indicted  for  eleven  months  noncon- 
forming, and  a  neighbouring  justice,  to  supply 
the  deficiency  of  evidence  against  him,  swore 
to  the  indictment ;  and  though  he  pleaded  that 
he  had,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England,  suffer- 
ed already  in  two  courts  for  that  offence,  he 
was  fined  £220.      At  Michaelmas,  possession 
was  taken  of  his  assets  by  the  baliffs  under  the 
*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  109-112. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    BAPTISTS. 


403 


warrant  of  the  under-sheriff,  who  seized  and 
wasted  between  400  and  £500,  and  his  eldest 
son  was  obliged  to  ilee,  in  consequence  of  a 
warrant  granted  against  him  for  taking  an  ac- 
count of  the  goods  that  were  sold.  He  petition- 
ed the  king  for  redress,  not  to  procure  the  res- 
toration of  his  goods,  but  only  to  secure  the 
corn  that  was  left  from  farther  depredation  ;  he 
obtained,  however,  no  other  relief  than  what 
was  implied  in  this  imperious  and  insultory  lan- 
guage, '  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you  :  you  must 
go  home  and  conform.'  The  virtuous  sufferer 
went  home,  but  not  to  sacrifice  principle  by 
conformity  ;  he  sold  his  estate,  retired  to  a  sol- 
itary place,  rented  a  small  farm,  and  spent  his 
remaining  days  in  quiet.  There  was  one  oc- 
currence in  the  life  of  Mr.  Miller,  which  indi- 
cates that  though  he  was  the  mark  of  persecu- 
ting malignity,  his  talents  and  character  com- 
manded respect  ;  and,  in  such  times,  it  was  pe- 
culiarly honourable  to  the  clergymen  who  were 
parties  in  it.  This  was  a  disputation,  after  lib- 
erty of  conscience  was  granted,  held  with  Dr. 
Beach  and  four  other  ministers  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  the  time  and  place  having  been 
first  published  in  three  market-towns.  The  sub- 
jects of  disputation  were  the  consonance  of  their 
baptism,  church,  and  ministry,  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  the  charges  of  schism  against  Mr. 
Miller  and  his  adherents.  The  questions  con- 
cerning baptism  came  first  under  discussion. 
The  clerical  gentlemen  were  so  impressed  with 
Mr.  Miller's  arguments,  that  no  reply  was  made, 
except  that  Dr.  Beach  ingenuously  confessed 
that  the  point  was  difiicult,  and  they  waved  en- 
tering into  the  other  questions.  On  withdrawing 
to  another  house,  they  sent  for  their  opponent, 
received  him  with  politeness  and  respect,  apol- 
ogized for  having  troubled  him,  and  assured  fiim 
that  they  would  never  dispute  the  point  with 
the  Baptists  again  ;  and  thus  they  separated 
with  expressions  of  good-will  and  friendship.* 
"With  the  preceding  names  of  those -who, 
by  their  abilities,  zeal,  and  characters,  did  cred- 
it to  the  denomination  of  Dissenters  of  which 
we  are  speaking,  may  be  enrolled, Mr.  George 
Hammon,  pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Bidden- 
den,  in  the  county  of  Kent,  the  author  of  several 
publications  suitable  to  the  theological  contro- 
versies and  religious  taste  of  the  age.  He  was 
active  in  vindicating  what  appeared  the. truth 
to  his  own  mind  on  all  occasions,  eminent  foi 
his  ministerial  exertions,  and  marked  by  the 
persecutions  which  he  suffered.  He  died  at 
Hasleden's  Wood,  in  the  parish  of  Cranbrook. 
In  connexion  with  him  may  be  mentioned  Mr. 
Richard  Hobbs,  pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Do- 
ver, distinguished  by  his  piety  and  worth,  and 
by  his  sufferings  for  religion.  His  seriousness 
and  piety  spoke  so  strongly  in  his  favour,  that 
when  he  was  a  prisoner  in  Dover,  he  was  now 
and  then  allowed  to  go  from  his  prison.  In  his 
confinement  he  addressed  a  letter  to  Dr.  Hind, 
proposing  for  solution,  in  a  modest  and  candid 
manner,  two  queries  grounded  on  the  Scrip- 
tures. One  was,  whether  the  baptism  practised 
in  the  Church  was  not  at  variance  with  the  di- 
rections of  the  Scriptures,  in  the  administrator, 
subject,  and  administration  !  The  other  was, 
whether  the  Church,  by  forcing  all  into  it  as 
communicants,   however    sinful   and   impious, 


Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  121-124. 


did  not  pervert  the  Gospel,  overthrov;  the  way 
of  the  new  covenant,  and  give  ground  for  pious 
and  conscientious  men  to  question  the  Divine 
authority  of  its  worship!  Dr.  Hmd,  instead  of 
replying  to  these  queries,  instigated  the  magis- 
trates to  deprive  him  of  the  indulgence  which 
he  had  received,  and  to  enjoin  an  unrelaxed 
confinement.  'These  proceedings,'  Mr.  Hobbs 
observed,  '  bore  a  great  likeness  to  those  beyond 
the  seas,  at  Rome,  wliere,  if  any  do  but  ques- 
tion the  truth  of  their  worship,  it  is  a  hundred 
to  one  if  they  have  not  the  Inquisition  for  their 
pains.  Doubtless  such  kind  of  proceedings  do 
sound  more  like  the  pope's  anathemas,  than  in 
the  least  savour  of  a  Protestant  spirit.'* 

"  It  is  a  just  tribute  of  respect  to  integrity 
and  fortitude  to  mention  the  names  of  others 
who  were  great  sufferers  for  nonconformity, 
Mr.  Tidmarsh,  a  Baptist  minister  at  Oxford,  a 
man  greatly  esteemed  ;  Mr.  John  Ainory,  a  man 
of  good  literary  attainments,  of  Wrington,  in 
Somersetshire  ;  Mr.  Thomas  Burgess,  pastor  of 
a  church  at  Taunton  ;  Mr.  James  Hind,  of  Lang- 
port,  and  minister  of  Kinsbury  ;  Mr.  WiHiam 
Richards,  who  preached  at  Draycott ;  Mr.  Pe- 
ter Coles,  of  Downton,  near  Sarum  ;  Mr.  Wal- 
ter Penn,  pastor  of  a  church  in  Sarum  ;  Mr. 
John  Kingman,  of  Burford,  near  that  city;  Mr. 
John  Sanger,  a  schoolmaster  and  minister  at 
Downton  ;  Mr.  Roger  Applin,  of  Ellerton,  and 
pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Whitechurch  ;  Mr. 
John  Tredwell,  a  serious  and  useful  preacher, 
and  a  man  of  unblemished  manners  ;  Mr.  Fran- 
cis Stanley,  of  Northamptonshire,  noted  for  his 
piety  and  zeal ;  Mr.  John  Grauden,  of  Cocket,^ 
near  Towcester  ;  Mr.  John  Staunton,  of  Bliss- 
worth  ;  Mr.  Stephen  Curtis,  a  native  of  Harring- 
worth,  in  Northamptonshire,  and  a  very  useful 
minister  in  that  place  ;  Mr.  Joseph  Slater,  Mr. 
William  Stanger,  and  Mr.  Robert  Bringhurst, 
who  fled  from  the  country  to  escape  imprison- 
ment ;  Mr.  Benjamin  Morley,  of  Ramsthorp  ; 
Mr.  John  Reas,  of  East  Haddon  ;  Mr.  William 
Smith,  Mr.  William  Blisse,  of  Welston  ;  Mr. 
John  Gilby,  of  Long  Bugby,  in  Northampshire, 
suffered  imprisonment,  and  were  despoiled  of 
their  goods  by  distresses,  or  almost  ruined  by 
heavy  fines  and  charges.  Mr.  James  Wilmot, 
a  minister  at  Hooknorton,  Oxfordshire,  besides, 
being  confined  twice  in  the  prison  of  Oxford, 
and  sustaining  losses  by  distresses  and  fines, 
when  he  was  released  from  the  jail  in  Whitney, 
was  excommunicated,  and  was  obliged  to  ab- 
scond, in  order  to  escape  the  writs  which  were 
issued  out  against  him.  In  some  instances  the 
sufferings  of  these  conscientious  professors  were 
aggravated  by  the  fraudulent  practices  of  thcif 
persecutors,  who  seized  their  goods  under  false 
warrants.  This  art  was  practised,  in  Novem- 
ber, 1682,  against  Mr.  Samuel  Taverner,  who 
was  born  at  Romford,  in  Esse.x,  in  July,  1621. 
He  was  originally  an  officer  in  the  army  ;  after- 
ward governor  of  Deal  Castle.  He  embraced 
the  principles  of  the  Baptists,  on  being  led  to 
entertain  their  views  by  his  conversation  with 
Dr.  Prescot,  pastor  of  the  church  at  Dover,  and 
was  baptized  at  Sandwicii,  13th  of  April,  1663. 
He  was  ordained  elder  of  the  church  at  Dover 
on  the  13th  of  October,  168L  He  suffered  much 
for  adherence  to  his  religions  profession,  and  died 
on  the  4th  of  August,  16%,  in  the  75tli  year  of  his 


*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  103, 101. 


404 


SUPPLEMENT. 


age,  having  obtained  celebrity  for  piety  and  use- 
fulness. The  severity  of  the  jailer,  at  times, 
denied  the  imprisoned  the  consolation  of  any 
act  of  social  devotion  among  themselves ;  at 
Oxford  they  were  not  permitted  to  pray  togeth- 
er, and  even  the  usual  expression  of  piety  at 
their  meals  was  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of 
the  jailer  in  a  rage,  and  by  his  taunting  inquiry, 
'  What,  are  you  preaching  over  your  meal !' 

"The  history  of  these  pious  sufferers  affords 
examples  of  the  death  of  persecutors,  which 
were  so  circumstanced  as  to  mark  a  great  de- 
pravity of  character,  and  the  base  principles  by 
which  the  men  were  actuated,  though  it  belong 
not  to  men,  who  are  incompetent  judges  of  the 
ways  of  Providence,  decidedly  to  pronounce 
them  Divine  judgments.  Mr.  Richard  Farmer, 
minister  at  Kihley,  in  Leicestershire,  a  hard  stu- 
dent, and  a  very  affecting  preacher,  by  a  warrant 
to  seize  his  goods,  lost  in  one  year  £120.  One 
of  the  informers  against  him,  who  boasted  on  a 
Christmas,  at  Trinity  Market,  of  his  proceedings 
against  him,  and  declared  exultingly  that  be- 
fore Candlemas  he  should  by  informations  make 
a  good  portion  for  his  daughter,  was  thrown 
from  his  horse  as  he  was  riding  home  over  a 
boggy  place,  where  there  was  a  little  brook,  and 
drowned  in  a  quantity  of  water  not  deep  enough 


to  cover  his  body,  t  Another  informer,  soon  af- 
ter he  had  sworn  against  Mr.  Farmer,  died  of 
a  swollen  tongue,  without  being  suspected  of 
having  taken  a  false  oath.* 

"  If  the  characters  which  have  passed  under 
our  review  be  not  transmitted  down  to  our  times 
as  having  enlarged  the  bounds  of  science,  nor 
as  having  distinguished  themselves  in  the  walks 
of  criticism  or  philosophy,  yet  by  their  religious 
integrity,  and  by  their  zeal  and  fortitude,  they 
gained  the  respect  of  the  sect  to  which  they  con- 
scientiously adhered,  and  the  interests  of  which 
they  were  active  in  promoting.  In  the  history 
of  that  sect,  though  it  be  a  circumscribed  thea- 
tre of  fame,  they  have  a  claim  to  honourable 
mention.  The  hardships,  losses,  and  sufferings 
which  they  experienced  in  the  cause  that  they 
espoused,  hold  forth  instructive  warnings  to 
future  times  of  the  malignity  of  an  intolerant 
and  persecuting  spirit  among  Protestants  ;  and 
show  us  with  what  a  slow  progress,  and  partial 
operation  of  better  principles,  that  spirit  had  de- 
clined among  the  mass  of  those  who  were  dis- 
sidents from  the  Church  of  Rome,  though  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  had  elapsed  since  the 
separation  of  England  from  that  ecclesiastical 
tyranny." — C.) 


*  Crosby,  vol.  iii.,  p.  112,  118, 124-128. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    QUAKERS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FROM  THE  PROTECTORSHIP  OF  CROMWELL  TO  THE 
DECLARATION  OF  INDULGENCE,  1674. 

Mr.  Neal  has  allowed  a  few  pages  only  to  the 
History  of  the  Quakers,  and  they  are  chiefly 
spent  on  the  wild  extravagances  and  sufferings 
of  James  Naylor.  But  the  lot  of  this  people, 
while  other  sectarists  breathed  a  freer  air  under 
the  protectorship  of  Cromwell,  was  peculiarly 
hard  and  afflictive.  The  change  of  government, 
on  his  taking  the  reins,  produced  no  revolution 
in  their  favour,  but  their  sufferings  continued 
to  increase  with  the  increase  of  their  numbers. 
The  subordinate  magistrates  were  continued  in 
office ;  and  the  ecclesiastics,  their  former  per- 
secutors, retained  power,  to  be  troublesome  to 
them.  The  protector  has  been  represented  as 
the  friend  of  religious  liberty ;  and  so,  in  some 
instances,  he  certainly  showed  himself;  but  the 
Quakers  derived  little  benefit  from  his  liberal 
views  and  regard  to  the  rights  of  conscience  ; 
for,  though  he  himself  did  not  openly  disturb 
them  on  account  of  their  religious  opinions  and 
practices,  yet  those  who  acted  under  his  au- 
thority grievously  persecuted  them,  and  he  gave 
little  or  no  check  to  their  intolerance,  although 
he  had  the  power,  and  was  repeatedly  and  ear- 
nestly solicited  to  do  it.  The  dominant  parties 
had  imbibed  a  spirit  of  hatred  and  animosity 
against  this  people  ;  and  the  protector,  it  is  sup- 
posed, might  be  fearful  <f[  disobliging  them,  by 
animadverting  on  their  oppressive  measures  ; 
or  he  might  consider  the  Quakers  as  too  con- 
temptible or  too  pacific  a  body  to  fear  any  dan- 
ger from,  even  under  the  greatest  provocations.* 

To  give  some  colour  of  law  to  the  severities 
practised  against  them,  pretexts  were  drawn 
from  supposed  violations  of  the  regulations  of 
civil  policy.  "  A  Christian  exhortation  to  an 
assembly,  after  the  priest  had  done  and  the 
worship  was  over,  was  denominated  interrupt- 
ing public  worship,  and  disturbing  the  priest  in 
his  office  :  an  honest  testimony  against  sin  in 
the  streets  or  markets  was  styled  a  breach  of 
the  peace  :  and  their  appearing  before  the  magis- 
trates covered,  a  contempt  of  authority  :  hence 
proceeded  fines,  imprisonments,  and  spoiling  of 
goods.  Nay,  so  hot  for  persecution  were  some 
magistrates,  that,  by  an  unparalleled  miscon- 
struction of  the  law  against  vagrants,  they  tor- 
tured with  cruel  whippings  the  bodies  of  both 
men  and  women  of  good  estate  and  reputation, 
merely  because  they  went  under  the  denomina- 
tion of  Quakers. "t 

In  1656,  Henry  Clifton,  omy  ricing  through 
Upwell,  in  Cambridgeshire,  after  having  been 
carried  before  two  justices,  was  sent  to  prison, 
where  he  lay  a  considerable  time  in  the  dun- 
geon among  condemned  felons.  Richard  Hub- 
berthorn  and  Richard  Weaver,  travelling  from 


*  Cough's  Hist,  of  the  Quakers,  vol,  i.,  p.  132, 198. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  139,  140. 


home  to  pay  a  friendly  visit  to  Ann  Blakely, 
who  was,  for  her  open  testimony  against  the 
sins  of  the  times,  imprisoned  at  Cambridge, 
were  also  committed  to  prison.  Thomas  Cur- 
tis, a  woollen-draper  of  Reading,  going  to  Ply- 
mouth on  business,  and  from  thence  to  West 
Alvington,  accompanied  by  John  Martindale,, 
were  both  cast,  as  vagrants,  into  Exeter  jail ; 
and  at  the  ensuing  assizes  brought  before  the 
judge,  where  nothing  was  laid  to  their  charge. 
But,  for  not  taking  off  their  hats,  they  were 
fined  £40  each  for  contempt,  and,  for  nonpay- 
ment, detained  above  a  year  in  prison.  During 
this  term,  Martindale,  having  obtained  leave  of 
the  jailer  to  visit  a  friend  at  Ilchester,  went  to 
a  meeting  at  Colyton  ;  where  he,  Humphrey 
Sprague,  and  Thomas  Dyer,  lodging  at  a  friend's 
house,  were  apprehended  by  a  warrant,  and 
carried  before  the  justices  at  the  quarter  ses- 
sions at  Honiton  ;  and,  though  one  of  them  wai^ 
but  two,  and  another  but  five  miles  from  home, 
were  sentenced,  as  vagrants,  to  be  whipped  in 
the  market-place,  and  sent  with  a  pass  from 
tithing  to  tithing  ;  which  was  accordingly  done. 
George  Whitehead,  a  virtuous  and  learned  young 
man  of  a  reputable  family  in  Westmoreland, 
preaching  at  Nayland  in  Suffolk,  April,  1657, 
was  sentenced  by  two  justices  to  be  openly 
whipped  as  a  vagrant,  till  his  body  was  bloody. 
The  constable  to  whom  the  warrant  was  given 
employed  a  foolish  fellow,  void  of  discretion  and 
feeling,  to  execute  it,  who  laid  on  his  stripes 
with  unmerciful  violence,  whereby  Whitehead's 
back  and  breasts  were  grievously  cut,  his  skin 
torn,  and  his  blood  shed  in  abundance.  But 
the  insensible  fool  went  on,  unrestrained  by  the 
constable,  till  his  hand  was  stayed  by  the  cry 
of  the  spectators,  who,  affected  with  the  cruel- 
ty, called  out  to  him  to  stop.  Humphrey  Smith 
and  Samuel  Curtis,  riding  together  near  Ax- 
minster,  George  Bewley,  John  Ellis,  and  Hum- 
phrey Sprague,  after  a  meeting  in  Bridport,  were- 
whipped  as  vagabonds,  and  sent  away  with 
passes.  Joan  Edmunds,  wife  of  Edward  Ed- 
munds, of  Totness,  about  ten  miles  from  home, 
being  stopped  by  a  drujiken  fellow-,  who  took 
away  her  horse,  on  complaining  to  a  justice, 
was  sent  to  E.xeter  jail  because  she  had  no 
pass  :  her  horse  was  ordered  to  be  sold,  and 
part  of  the  money  applied  to  defray  the  charge 
of  carrying  her  to  prison.  Her  habitation  lying 
in  the  direct  road,  she  was  taken  six  miles 
about,  to  prevent  this  injustice  being  exposed 
among  her  neighbours,  who  well  knew  she  was 
no  vagrant.* 

Another  pretext  on  which  many  of  these  peo- 
ple suffered,  under  the  form  of  law,  very  illegal 
severities,  was  that  of  breaking  the  Sabbath. 
Their  religious  zeal,  in  frequenting  their  as- 
semblies for  public  worship,  obliged  them  to 
travel  to  the  places  where  they  were  held, 
sometimes  at  a  considerable  distance  from  their 
habitations.     This  was  called  a  breach  of  the 


Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  225-232. 


406 


SUPPLEMENT. 


Sabbath  ;  and  it  was  punished  by  impounding 
their  horses,  by  distress  of  goods,  by  fines,  by 
imprisonment,  by  whipping,  and  by  sitting  in 
the  stocks* 

If  magistrates  could  be  guilty  of  such  unrigh- 
teous severities,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  li- 
centious rabble  should  attack  this  people  with 
violence  and  abuse.  In  numerous  instances, 
and  in  various  places,  the  houses  in  which  they 
held  their  assemblies  for  religious  worship  were 
riotously  assaulted.  Their  services  were  inter- 
rupted by  hallooing,  singing,  and  railing  ;  the 
windows  were  broken  by  stones  and  bullets  ; 
their  persons  were  buffeted  and  stoned,  their 
faces  and  clothes  daubed  wiih  filth  and  excre- 
ments ;  some  were  knocked  down,  and  others 
had  their  teeth  beaten  out ;  nor  did  the  tender- 
ness of  sex  protect  the  women.  The  rabble 
■were  too  often  led  and  encouraged  by  clergy- 
men. 

"Many  of  these  abuses,"  observes  the  histo- 
rian, "being  committed  on  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  the  day  they  called  their  Sabbath,  with 
impunity,  under  a  government  and  by  a  people 
who  pretended  to  make  it  a  point  to  observe  it 
with  all  the  pharisaical  strictness,  and  in  many 
cases  beyond  the  stictness,  which  the  Mosaical 
law  appointed  for  observing  the  seventh  day, 
furnish  an  occasion  to  reflect  upon  the  irrational 
inconsistency  of  superstition  in  every  shape,  by 
which  I  understand  an  over-zealous  attachment 
to  some  circumstantials  of  religion,  while  the 
essential  part,  viz.,  the  inwardly  sanctifying 
power  thereof,  whereby  we  are  taught  to  honour 
God,  and  love  and  do  good  to  mankind,  is  over- 
looked. These  men,  it  is  probable,  would  have 
thought  it  a  heinous  crime  to  have  been  employ- 
ed on  that  day  in  any  honest  labour,  though  in 
itself  lawful,  and  in  some  sort  necessary,  and 
yet  showed  no  reluctance  or  compunction  in 
committing  unlawful  actions,  as  opposite  to  good 
government  as  religion,  in  assaulting  persons, 
and  destroying  the  property  of  inoffensive,  un- 
resisting neighbours  and  fellow-citizens  with  vi- 
olence and  outrage,  whose  only  crime  was  the 
applying  the  day  to  the  best  purpose,  the  as- 
sembling to  worship  their  Maker  in  that  way 
they  were  persuaded  in  their  consciences  was 
most  acceptable  to  him."+ 

So  general  was  the  persecution  under  which 
this  people  suffered,  that  scarcely  one  of  them, 
whose  travels  and  services  to  the  society  are 
preserved  on  record,  escaped  personal  abuse  or 
cruel  imprisonment,  in  any  quarter  of  the  nation. 

George  Fox,  in  1653,  was  summoned  before 
the  magistrates  at  Carlisle,  and  committed  to 
prison  till  the  assizes,  as  a  blasphemer,  and  her- 
etic, and  a  seducer.  He  had  exasperated  them 
by  his  plain-dealing,  in  endeavouring  to  show 
them  that,  although  they,  being  Presbyterians 
and  Independents,  were  high  in  the  profession 
of  religion,  they  were  without  the  possession  of 
what  they  professed.  The  ground  of  his  being 
summoned  was  his  having  exhorted  the  people 
to  truth  and  honesty,  at  the  market-cross  on  a 
market-day,  and  having  preached  to  them  on  the 
Sunday  after  the  service  was  concluded  ;  on 
which  he  had  been  assaulted  by  rude  people  in 
the  church,  and  rescued  by  the  governor.     Du- 


*  Cough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  271,  272,  note, 
t  Ibid.,  p.  267-271,  and  the  note. 


ring  his  confinement,  the  general  wish  was  "  that 
he  might  be  hanged  ;"  and  the  high-sheriff  de- 
clared, with  rancour,  that  he  would  guard  hira 
to  execution  himself.  At  the  assizes,  it  was 
found  that  the  charge  of  blasphemy  could  not  be 
made  good,  and  it  was  concluded  not  to  bring 
him  to  trial,  and  he  was  left  with  the  magis- 
trates of  the  town.  By  their  order  he  was  put 
among  the  felons  and  murderers,  in  a  dungeon, 
noisome  and  filthy  to  the  last  degree,  where 
men  and  women  were  kept  together,  one  of 
whom  was  almost  eaten  up  with  lice ;  and  the 
deputy  of  the  jailer  would  often  fall  on  him,  and 
the  friends  who  visited  him,  with  a  cudgel : 
while  the  prisoners,  vile  as  they  were,  behaved 
affectionately  to  him,  received  his  admonitions 
with  deierence,  and  some  embraced  his  doctrine. 
At  length,  the  Parliament,  having  instituted  aa 
inquiry  concerning  his  situation,  and  the  gov- 
ernor having  remonstrated  on  it,  he  was  releas- 
ed. In  1654,  at  Whetstone  in  Leicestershire, 
he  was  brought  before  Colonel  Hacker,  who 
gave  him  liberty  to  go  home,  if  he  would  stay 
there,  and  not  go  abroad  to  meetings.  To  this 
Fox  replied,  "  If  he  should  agree  thereto,  it 
would  imply  that  he  was  guilty  of  something, 
for  which  his  home  was  made  his  prison ;  and 
if  he  went  to  meeting,  they  would  consider  that 
as  a  breach  of  their  order :  therefore  he  plainly 
told  them  he  should  go  to  meeting,  and  could 
not  answer  their  requirings."  Upon  this  he 
was  next  day  carried  prisoner,  by  Captain  Dru- 
ry,  to  London.  When  Cromwell  was  informed 
of  his  arrival,  he  sent  to  him  this  message: 
"  That  the  protector  required  of  George  Fox 
that  he  should  promise  not  to  take  up  the  sword 
or  any  other  weapon,  against  him  or  the  gov- 
ernment as  it  then  was;  that  he  should  write 
it  in  what  words  he  saw  proper,  and  set  his 
hand  to  it."  Fox  returned  an  answer  to  this 
effect,  and  was  afterward  introduced  to  Crom- 
well, and  they  had  much  discourse  about  reli- 
gion, in  which  the  protector  carried  himself  with 
great  moderation  ;  and  Fox  had  his  liberty  giv- 
en him.* 

In  1656,  Fox,  accompanied  by  William  Salt, 
of  London,  and  Edward  Pyott,  of  Bristol,  trav- 
elled through  Devonshire  into  Cornwall,  to  Mar- 
ket Jew,  where  he  wrote  a  paper,  containing 
an  exhortation  to  fear  God,  and  learn  of  Christ 
the  light ;  which  fell  into  the  hands  of  Major 
Ceely,  a  justice  of  St.  Ives,  who  committed  Fox 
and  his  companions  to  Launceston  jail,  on  the 
charge  of  spreading  papers  to  the  disturbance 
of  the  public  peace,  and  having  no  pass,  though 
persons  unknown,  for  travelling  up  and  down, 
and  refusing  to  take  the  oath  of  abjuration,  and 
to  give  sureties  for  their  good  behaviour.  Af- 
ter nine  weeks'  confinement  they  were  brought 
to  their  trial,  before  Judge  Glyn,  at  the  assizes  .- 
here  they  demanded  justice  for  their  false  im- 
prisonment ;  and  Major  Ceely,  not  adhering  to 
the  charges  in  the  mittimus,  brought  up  new 
accusations  of  a  treasonable  proposal,  and  an 
assault ;  and  they  were  indicted  for  coming,  by 
force  and  arms,  into  a  court,  into  which  they 
were  conducted  as  prisoners.  But  on  no  ground 
could  any  illegal  criminality  be  proved  against 
them.  The  judge  ordered  them  to  be  taken 
away,  and,  in  their  absence,  fined  them  twenty 
marks  apiece  for  coming  into  court  with  their 

*  Cough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  132-136,  155,  156. 


HISTORY   OF   THE    QUAKERS. 


407 


hats  on,  and  commanded  that  they  should  be 
detained  in  prison  till  their  fines  were  paid. 
Seeing  no  prospect  of  an  immediate  release  from 
such  a  commitment,  they  discontinued  the  week- 
ly payment  of  seven  shillings  apiece  for  them- 
selves, and  as  much  for  their  horses,  which  the 
jailer  had  extorted.  Upon  this,  they  were  turn- 
ed into  a  dismal  and  most  noisome  dungeon, 
called  Doomsdale,  where  the  excrements  of 
former  prisoners  had  been  accumulating  for 
many  years.  They  were  not  allowed  beds  or 
straw  to  lie  on  ;  and  the  filthiness  of  the  place 
not  allowing  them  room  to  sit  down,  they  were 
obliged  to  stand  all  night.  Neither  were  they 
permitted  to  cleanse  it,  or  to  have  any  victuals 
but  what  they  received  with  difficulty  through 
the  grate.  This  cruel  treatment  continued  till 
the  sessions  at  Bodmin,  when,  on  a  representa- 
tion of  their  case  to  the  justices,  an  order  was 
obtained  for  opening  the  door  of  Doomsdale,  and 
for  permission  to  clean  it,  and  to  buy  their  pro- 
visions in  the  town.  About  the  end  of  thirty 
■weeks  they  were  discharged  by  an  order  from 
Major-general  Desborrow,  in  consequence  of  ap- 
plications made  in  their  favour  to  Cromwell. 
During  this  imprisonment  one  of  Fox's  friends 
ofTered  himself  to  the  protector  to  lie  in  prison, 
body  for  body,  in  his  stead  :  to  which  proposal 
Cromwell  answered,  he  could  not  grant  it,  being 
contrary  to  law ;  and  turning  to  some  of  his 
council  standing  by  him,  asked,  "  Which  of  you 
would  do  as  much  for  me,  if  I  were  in  the  same 
condition  !"*■  The  next  places  at  which  we  find 
Fox  are  Cardiff,  Swansea,  and  Brecknock.  He 
visited  these  towns  in  1657  ;  settled  a  meeting 
at  Swansea  ;  and  at  the  latter  place  met  with 
rude  treatment,  and  was  exposed  to  danger  from 
the  populace,  raised  and  stimulated  to  riot  and 
tumult  by  the  magistrates. t 

Another  sufTerer  among  the  Quakers  was 
Miles  Halhead,  one  of  their  first  zealous  preach- 
ers, who,  at  Skipton  and  Doncaster,  was  sore- 
ly beaten  and  bruised  by  the  populace,  and  left 
for  dead.  Thomas  Briggs,  in  Lancaster,  Robert 
Widders  and  William  Dewsbury,  in  Cumber- 
land, were  also  severely  abused  in  like  manner.} 
John  Cam  and  John  Audland  were  assaulted  at 
Bristol,  to  the  great  risk  of  their  lives,  by  hun- 
dreds of  the  rabble,  instigated  by  Farmer,  a  cler- 
gyman. William  Caton  and  John  Stubbs,  be- 
sides being  haled  before  the  magistrates  at  Do- 
ver, were  at  Maidstone  sent  to  the  House  of 
Correction,  stripped,  and  their  necks  and  arms 
put  into  the  stocks,  and  so  cruelly  whipped  with 
cords  as  to  draw  tears  from  the  spectators.  Af- 
ter this,  under  the  plea  that  "  he  that  would  not 
work  should  not  eat,"  they  were  kept  several 
days  without  victuals,  only  on  the  allowance  of 
a  little  water  once  a  day  ;  and  soon  after  were 
sent  out  of  town,  by  different  ways,  with  a  pass, 
as  vagabonds.!) 

At  Wymondham  in  Norfolk,  Richard  Hubber- 
thorn  was  committed  to  bridewell  for  address- 
ing the  congregation  after  sermon  in  the  parish 
church  ;  and  on  the  next  day  removed  to  a  very 
incommodious  prison,  being  a  poor  hole  in  a  cross 
wall  of  Norwich  Castle,  where  he  was  detained 
tdl  the  sessions.  The  justices  then,  waiving 
the  original  ground  of  the  commitment,  charged 

*  Cough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  210-2 J 7. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  289.  t  Ibid.,  p.  137. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  162,  166,  167. 


him  with  contempt  of  authority  for  appearing 
before  them  with  his  hat  on  and  under  this 
pretence  recommitted  him  to  prison,  where  he 
lay  a  long  time.* 

The  suflTerings  in  which  the  members  of  this 
society  were  involved  by  the  sentence  of  ma- 
gistrates were  in  many  instances  heightened  by 
the  severity  and  injustice  of  the  jailers  :  James 
Lancaster,  George  Whitehead,  and  Christopher 
Atkinson,  for  not  complying  with  the  jailer's  ex- 
travagant demands,  were  obliged  to  lie  in  their 
clothes  on  the  floor,  in  the  prison  of  Norwich, 
for  eight  weeks,  in  the  cold  winter  of  1654. t 
At  St.  Edmundsbury,  1655,  the  same  Whitehead, 
John  Harwood,  George  Rose,  George  Fox  the 
younger,  and  Henry  Marshall,  because  they  re- 
fused to  gratify  the  avaricious  demands  of  the 
jailer  for  lodgmgs,  and  required  a  free  prison, 
were  turned  down  to  the  common  ward  among 
the  felons,  in  a  low  dungeon,  with  a  damp  earthen 
floor,  where  they  lay  upon  rye-straw.  In  this 
situation  they  were  exposed  to  abuse  from  the 
prisoners,  who  frequently  took  away  their  food 
and  other  necessaries,  alleging  the  jailer's  per- 
mission :  one  desperate  fellow  frequently  kicked 
and  smote,  and  m  a  drunken  fit  threatened  to 
kill  them,  saying,  "  If  he  killed  them,  he  should 
not  be  hanged  for  it."  After  they  had  been  in 
prison  thirty  weeks,  arrears  of  dues  of  fourteen 
pence  a  week  were  demanded  from  each  of  them ; 
and  on  their  remonstrating  against  it,  the  turn- 
key was  ordered  to  take  away  their  clothes  and 
boxes,  which  was  done,  with  a  threat  to  take 
their  coats  from  off  their  backs  ;  and,  for  the 
space  of  twenty-four  weeks,  they  were  obliged 
to  lie  upon  part  of  their  body-clothes  on  straw. 
Some  necessaries  of  linen  brought  to  them  by  a 
friend  were  seized,  and  the  provisions  sent  to 
them  were  examined.  Their  friends  were  not 
admitted  in  ;  and,  if  they  attempted  to  speak  to 
them  at  the  window  or  door  of  the  jail,  water 
was  frequently  thrown  on  them  to  drive  them 
away.  At  length,  in  consequence  of  an  applica- 
tion to  the  protector,  an  inquiry  into  the  treat- 
ment they  had  received  was  instituted,  and  the 
jailer  was  restrained  from  exercising  or  permit- 
ting the  cruel  abuse  they  had  hitherto  suffered. 
After  an  imprisonment  of  from  twelve  to  fifteen 
months,  through  repeated  applications  to  Crom- 
well, seconded  by  the  private  solicitations  of  Mrs. 
Mary  Sanders,  a  waiting  gentlewoman  in  his 
family,  an  order  for  their  release  was  obtained, 
directed  to  Sir  Francis  Russel,  a  man  of  mod- 
eration, and  averse  from  persecution,  who  im- 
mediately caused  them  to  be  set  at  full  liberty. t 
But  the  case  of  James  Parnal,  a  native  of  Ret- 
ford in  Nottinghamshire,  who  was  educated  in 
the  schools  of  literature,  in  the  sixteenth  year 
of  his  age  joined  the  Quakers,  and,  though  a 
youth,  was  a  pathetic  preacher  and  able  dispu- 
tant, and  discovered  the  wisdom  and  understand- 
ing of  age  and  experience,  afforded  most  affect-  ^ 
ing  instances  of  the  severities  a  cruel  jailer  could 
inflict.  His  constitution  was  tender,  and  after 
ten  or  eleven  months  sunk  under  the  multiplied 
hardships  of  his  imprisonment,  about  the  age  of 
nineteen,  the  consideration  of  his  youth  exciting 
no  commiseration. ij 

Besides  the  personal  injuries  these  virtuous 
people  suffered,  they  were  exposed  to  great  dep- 


*  Cough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  169.     t  Ibid.,  p.  170. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  176-180.  ()  Ibid.,  p.  180-188. 


408 


SUPPLEMENT. 


redations  in  their  property,  by  unreasonable  fines 
and  exorbitant  distraints,  especially  on  account 
.  of  tithes,  into  the  details  of  which  we  have  not 
room  to  descend.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  in  1659, 
where  .£53  13.?.  6d.  only  could  be  demanded, 
£138  were  exacted.* 

To  sum  up  this  view  of  their  sufferings,  it 
may  be  observed,  that  when  a  printed  account 
of  them  was  presented  to  the  Parliament  which 
the  protector  convened,  it  appeared  that  one 
hundred  and  forty  of  them  were  then  in  prison  ; 
and  of  one  thousand  nine  hundred  who  had  suf- 
fered in  the  preceding  six  years,  twenty-one  had 
died  in  prison,  generally  by  hardship  or  by  vio- 
lent abuses. t 

It  is  to  be  remarked,  that  they  supported 
themselves  under  severe  persecution  with  meek- 
ness, patience,  and  fortitude,  "  as  lambs  dumb 
h-^frtre  *^':e-'"  shearers;"  and  there  were  not  want- 
ing insianc,  "^  their  being  so  borne  up  by  in- 
ward consolav,.,  ind  peace,  by  faith  and  hope 
in  their  afflictions,  as  frequently  to  sing  praises 
to  God,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  spectators 
and  of  their  fellow-prisoners. 

While  they  were  exposed  to  hatred,  contempt, 
and  abuse  from  vi'ithout,  brotherly  kindness  and 
unfeigned  charity  increased,  and  connected  them 
among  themselves.  While  each  seemed  regard- 
less of  his  own  liberty,  they  were  zealous  advo- 
cates for  that  of  their  brethren,  and  almost  in- 
cessant in  their  representations  to  those  in  au- 
thority of  the  sufferings  of  their  friends  ;  going 
so  far  in  their  charity  as  to  offer  them.selves 
freely,  person  for  person,  to  lie  in  prison,  instead 
of  such  as  they  apprehended  were  in  danger  of 
perishing  through  the  length  or  extremity  of 
their  confinement. t 

This  mutual  and  generous  attachment  was 
amiable  ;  their  moral  conduct  was  regular  ;  and 
their  conscientious  regard  to  fidelity  in  their 
commerce  begat  confidence.  They  were  care- 
ful to  manufacture  or  choose  such  goods  as  were 
substantial,  and  would  answer  the  expectations 
of  the  purchasers  ;  moderate  in  their  profits  ; 
sparing  in  their  commendations  ;  punctual  in 
their  payments  ;  they  asked  no  more  for  their 
■ware  than  the  precise  sum  they  were  determin- 
ed to  accept  ;  and  they  took  no  advantage  of  ig- 
norance. So  that,  under  all  their  sufferings, 
they  prospered,  and  verified  the  proverb,  that 
"  Honesty  is  the  best  policy."^ 

It  was  also  a  dislinguishing  trait  in  the  char- 
acter of  this  people,  that  they  attached  them- 
selves to  none  of  the  political  parties  of  the  day, 
nor  entered  into  their  ambitious  views.  It  was 
with  them  a  principle  of  religion  to  have  no  in- 
termeddling with  secular  factions,  and  to  de- 
mean themselves  quietly  and  peaceably  under 
the  existing  government.  When  the  nation  was 
in  great  commotion  and  fluctuation  on  the  death 
of  Cromwell,  George  Fox  addressed  an  exhor- 
tation to  his  friends  "  to  live  in  love  and  peace 
with  all  men,  to  keep  clear  of  all  the  commotions 
of  the  world,  and  not  to  intermeddle  with  the 
powers  of  the  earth,  but  to  let  their  conversa- 
tion be  in  heaven."  He  remarked,  that  '•  all 
who  pretend  to  fight  for  Christ  are  deceived,  for 
his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,  and  therefore 
his  servants  do  not  fight."  When  Sir  George 
Booth  rose  in  arms  in  favour  of  the  exiled  mon- 


*  Goiigh's  History,  p.  284 
t  Ibid,,  p.  140,  175,  176. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  27 1. 
i)  Ibid.,  p.  141. 


arch,  the  committee  of  safety  invited  the  Qua- 
keis  to  take  up  arms,  offering  considerable  posts 
and  commands  to  some  of  tliem.  But  they  es- 
teemed war  and  violence  to  be  inconsistent  with 
pure  Christianity,  and  were  not  to  be  corrupted 
by  the  prospects  of  preferment  and  honours.* 

Unassisted  by  any  alliance  with  the  state, 
nay,  treated  with  severity  by  all  the  contending 
powers  in  their  turn,  and  everywhere  pursued 
with  contempt  and  cruel  abuse,  they  increased, 
and  spread  themselves  over  the  kingdom.  In 
the  year  1652,  meetings  of  them  were  settled  in 
many  of  the  central  and  northern  parts  of  the 
nation.  Their  preachers  were  zealous  and  ac- 
tive ;  not  intimidated  by  sufferings,  nor  wearied 
by  journeys  and  labours.  Francis  Hovvgill  and 
Edward  Boroughs,  with  Anthony  Pearson,  trav- 
elled to  London  ;  John  Cam  and  John  Audland 
to  Bristol  ;  Richard  Hubberthorn  and  George 
Whitehead  to  Norwich,  and  others  to  other 
parts.  And  we  find  George  P'ox  disseminating 
their  principles,  and  meeting  the  severest  suffer- 
ings m  the  remotest  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The 
evils  which  this  people  endured  with  singular 
meekness  and  patience  had  great  effect  in  awa- 
kening attention  to  their  preaching,  and  soften- 
ing the  minds  of  numbers  to  the  reception  of 
their  doctrine.  It  was  justly  remarked  by  Hugh 
Peters  to  Oliver  Cromwell,  "  that  he  could  not 
give  Fox  a  better  opportunity  of  spreading  his 
principles  in  Cornwall  than  by  imprisoning  him 
there. "t 

The  instances  of  the  persecution  and  suffer- 
ings they  endured,  which  we  have  selected,  for 
we  do  not  pretend  to  give  their  history  in  a 
minute  detail,  reflect  disgrace  on  the  magistra- 
cy of  the  age,  and  are  a  reproach  to  the  admin- 
istration of  justice.  But  the  Mayor  of  Oxford, 
in  the  year  1654,  deserves  to  be  mentioned  as 
an  example  of  a  more  equitable  and  humane 
disposition.  Elizabeth  Heavens  and  Elizabeth 
Fletcher,  two  north-country  women,  were  ap- 
prehended and  sent  to  Bocardo,  a  prison  usual- 
ly appropriated  to  the  reception  of  felons  and 
murderers,  for  having  exhorted  the  people,  after 
service,  in  one  of  the  churches.  The  mayor 
being  sent  for  to  meet  the  justices,  by  whose 
order  they  had  been  committed,  to  examine  the 
Quakers,  he  replied  to  the  message,  "  Let  them 
who  committed  them  deal  with  them  according 
to  law  :  for  my  part,  I  have  nothing  against 
them :  if  they  wanted  food,  money,  or  clothes, 
I  would  willingly  supply  them."  The  justices, 
however,  met,  attended  by  Dr.  Owen  the  vice- 
chancellor,  who  was  the  principal  in  examining 
them ;  and  the  sentence  passed  on  them  was, 
that  they  should  be  whipped  out  of  the  city. 
This  sentence,  according  to  the  constitution  of 
the  town,  was  not  valid  without  the  signature 
and  seal  of  the  mayor,  w'hich,  as  he  judged  it 
unmerited  and  unjust,  he  refused  to  affix  to  it. 
But,  by  the  order  of  the  vice-chancellor  and  his 
coadjutors,  it  was  severely  executed  without 
being  legalized  by  his  sanction,  though  the 
conviction  of  their  innocence  affected  even  the 
heart  of  the  executioner  to  that  degree  that  he 
performed  his  office  with  manifest  reluctance.^ 

*  Cough's  History,  p.  273,  274,  277. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  217. 

i  These  women  had,  a  few  days  before,  for  ex- 
horting the  inhabitants  and  students  to  repentance, 
been  pumped  on  by  the  scholars  of  St.  John's  Col- 


HISTORY   OF   THE    QUAKERS. 


409 


Another  more  remarkable  and  more  public 
instance  of  protection  and  justice,  which  this 
people  were  so  happy  as  once  to  receive  in 
those  times,  reflects  honour  on  the  name  of  Gen- 
eral Monk.  On  a  complaint  against  some  of 
his  soldiers  for  disturbing  their  meetings,  he  is- 
sued out  this  order : 

"  St.  James's,  March  9,  1659. 

"  I  do  require  all  officers  and  soldiers  to  for- 
bear to  disturb  the  peaceable  meetings  of  the 
Quakers,  they  doing  nothing  prejudicial  to  the 
Parliament  or  commonwealth  of  England. 

"George  Monk.''- 

I  am  sensible  that  wild  flights  of  rudeness 
and  enthusiasm,  that  violations  of  decency,  de- 
corum, and  order,  are  imputed  to  the  Quakers 
at  this  period.  Mosheim  stigmatizes  them  as 
"  pernicious  fanatics,"  and  speaks,  as  it  were 
with  approbation,  of  their  being  "  severely  chas- 
tised for  their  extravagance  and  folly."  But 
granting  the  justness  of  these  imputations, 
which  1  conceive,  however,  are  by  no  means  to 
be  admitted  in  all  instances  and  to  their  full  ex- 
tent, and  will  scarcely  apply  to  those  cases  of 
suffering  which  we  have  stated,  every  equitable 
and  humane  mind  will  feel  indignant  at  seeing 
folly  illegally  chastised,  and  enthusiastic  ex- 
travagances restrained  by  acts  of  cruelty.  Ex- 
travagance and  folly  rank  almost  with  wisdom 
and  virtue,  when  compared  with  the  injustice 
and  inhumanity  of  the  magistrates  from  whom 
the  Quakers  suffered  persecution. 

The  society  of  those  called  Quakers  consid- 
ered the  restoration  of  Charles  II.  as  a  signal 
instance  of  the  interposition  of  Providence  to 
restore  peace  and  order  to  a  distracted  nation  ; 
and  soon  after  he  was  placed  on  the  throne,  Mr. 
Richard  Hubberthorn  obtained  access  to  the 
king,  and  stated  the  excessive  sufferings  which 
his  friends  had  sustained,  and  under  which 
they  were  still  smarting.  The  king  entered 
into  free  conversation  with  him  on  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Quakers,  and  promised  them  his 
protection,  saying,  "  Of  this  you  may  be  as- 
sured, that  you  shall  none  of  you  suffer  for 
your  opinions  or  religion  so  long  as  you  live 
peaceably,  and  you  have  the  word  of  a  king  for 
it ;  and  I  have  also  given  forth  a  declaration  to 
the  same  purpose,  that  none  shall  wrong  or 
abuse  you."t 

This  assurance  raised  in  their  minds  the  en- 
couraging expectation  of  not  being  molested  in 
iheir  religious  worship  and  profession.  Better 
times  than  they  had  hitherto  experienced  ap- 
peared to  be  opening  upon  them.  Their  meet- 
ings were  large  and  quiet.  Numbers,  drawn 
by  curiosity,  or  better  motives,  flocked  to  them, 
and  embraced  their  sentiments  ;  but  this  calm 
was  of  no  long  duration  ;  and  they  soon  found 
that  the  word  of  a  king  could  be  a  delusive 
ground  of  dependance.  Venner's  insurrection 
brought  on  them  new  and  severe  persecution  ; 
though  they  were,  by  the  dying  testimony  of 


lege  till  they  were  almost  suffocated :  they  v/ere 
then  tied  arm  to  arm,  and  dragged  up  and  down  the 
college,  and  through  a  pool  of  water ;  and  Elizabeth 
Fletcher,  a  young  woman,  was  thrown  over  a  grave, 
whereby  she  received  a  contusion  on  her  side,  from 
which  she  never  recovered,  but  soon  after  died.  Yet 
it  does  not  appear  that  the  magistrates  animadverted 
on  this  inhuman  outrage. — Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p. 
117-149.  *  Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  279. 

,    t  Ibid.,  p.  440. 
r  Vol.  II.— F  f  f 


the  sufferers  at  their  execution,  exculpated 
from  all  knowledge  of  the  design.  Their  meet- 
ings were  broken  up  by  soldiers.  Their  per- 
sons were  abused  by  the  populace.  Their  hou- 
ses were  ransacked.  They  were  forced  from 
their  employments,  and  cast  into  jails  among 
felons,  who  rifled  them  of  their  money  and 
clothes.  And  even  the  sick  were  dragged  out 
of  their  beds  to  prisons  ;  one  of  whom,  Mr. 
Patchen,  a  man  of  considerable  estate,  being  in 
a  fever,  died  there.* 

This  persecution  was  not  confined  to  the  city 
of  London,  but  spread  with  similar  violence  over 
all  or  most  parts  of  the  nation.  They  were, 
without  conviction,  without  crimination,  with- 
out any  legal  cause,  violently  haled  to  prison, 
and  crowded  together  in  close,  damp,  or  un- 
wholesome rooms,  in  such  numbers  as  almost 
to  the  danger  of  suffocation.  In  Bristol,  near 
one  hundred  and  ninety  were  imprisoned  :  in 
Lancaster  were  two  hundred  and  seventy  pris- 
oners :  in  Westmoreland,  one  hundred  and  six- 
teen :  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  were  not 
fewer  than  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine  ;  and 
the  number  in  the  North  Riding  amoimted  to  a 
hundred  and  twenty-six.  And  the  treatment 
which  they  received  in  prison  was  generally  as 
cruel  as  the  commitment  was  unjust. t 

When  the  members  of  this  society  had  clear- 
ed themselves  from  the  imputation  of  being  par- 
ties in  Venner's  insurrection,  they  were  pro- 
ceeded against  on  new  grounds  ;  and  old  laws, 
made  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Queen 
Elizabeth,  were  revived  and  made  rules  for  pro- 
ceeding against  them;  namely,  the  laws  against 
the  subtraction  of  tithes,  and  neglecting  to  re- 
sort to  the  parish  church,  or  some  other,  on  ev- 
ery Sunday  or  holyday.  They  were  also  prose- 
cuted on  an  act  made  in  the  beginning  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign,  for  administering  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  and  on  one  of  the  third  of  James, 
enjoining  the  oath  of  allegiance.  When  there 
remained  no  shadow  of  reason  to  detain  those 
whom  they  had  imprisoned  on  account  of  the  ri- 
sing of  the  fifth-monarchy  men,  it  was  a  usual 
method  with  the  magistrates  to  tender  them  the 
oath  of  allegiance,  which  they  knew  they  would 
not  take,  that  their  refusal  might  be  a  pretext 
for  still  holding  them  in  confinement ;  though 
their  demeanour  was  peaceable  and  unresisting, 
and,  by  the  most  explicit  declarations,  they  sol- 
emnly expressed  and  pledged  their  allegiance.^ 
By  the  misapplication  of  the  law  of  James,  many 
of  them  suffered  the  loss  of  personal  liberty,  and 
of  all  their  substance,  and  were  exposed  to  very 
hard  and  illicit  treatment.  The  case  of  Thomas 
Goodyear  and  Benjamin  Staples,  at  the  Quarter 
Sessions  at  Oxford,  is  a  striking  instance  of 
this.  Thomas  Goodyear,  after  receiving  the 
sentence  of  praemunire,  was  brought  into  court, 
like  a  common  malefactor,  with  bolts  on  his  legs, 
and  on  asking  "  whether  the  jailer  had  orders 
to  fetter  him,"  he  was  answered,  "  The  jailer 
may  do  as  he  will  with  you,  for  you  are  out  of 
the  king's  protection."  This  man,  encouraged 
by  the  example  of  his  superior,  when  he  brought 
them  back  to  prison,  told  the  other  prisoners, 
"  that  if  they  wanted  clothes,  they  might  take 
theirs  off  their  backs,  for  they  can  have  no  law 
against  you."    But  one  of  the  prisoners  humane- 


*  Gough's  History,  p.  441,  445. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  446-451.  t  Ibid.,  p.  457-466.. 


410 


SUPPLEMENT. 


ly  answered,  ho  would  rather  go  naked  than  strij 
honest  men  of  their  clothes,  who  were  strippei 
of  all  they  had  besides.* 

It  is  hut  candid,  however,  to  remark  thai 
thouirli  the  justices  and  inferior  magistrates 
from  their  bitterness  against  the  Nonconform 
ists,  were  disposed,  in  some  cases,  to  put  the! 
351  h  of  Elizabeth  in  full  force,  yet  the  instances  j 
of  enforcing  this  law,  through  the  intervention 
of  higher  authority,  were  not  many,  nor  equally 
encouraged  with  other  modes  of  prosecution  ; 
as  the  lull  enforcing  thereof  must  have  termina- 
ted in  public  executions.! 

But  notwithstanding  this  instance  of  modera- 
tion, violent  prejudices  against  the  Quakers  were 
so  universal,  that  they  were  left  unmolested  in 
few  or  no  parts  of  the  kingdom.  In  1662,  Mr. 
George  Fox  represented  to  the  king  that,  since 
his  restoration,  three  thousand  and  sixty-eight 
of  their  friends  had  been  imprisoned.  A  narra- 
tive signed  by  twelve  witnesses  attested  that 
four  thousand  two  hundred  of  those  called  Qua- 
kers, both  men  and  women,  were  in  prison.  No 
age  or  sex  found  commiseration.  Men  of  sev- 
enty, or  more  years  old,  were  subjected  to  all 
the  rigours  of  a  jail.  In  London  and  its  sub- 
urbs, five  hundred  were,  at  this  time,  confined  ; 
suffering  every  severity,  their  trades  ruined,  and 
their  families  exposed  to  ruin.  The  treatment 
of  this  people,  even  in  this  city,  resembled  the 
French  dragoonings  of  the  Huguenots,  rather 
than  the  condition  of  those  who  were  entitled  to 
the  privileges  of  a  constitution  limited  to  legal 
rule.  They  were  beaten  with  cudgels,  cut  with 
swords,  and  dragged  into  the  streets ;  there  they 
lay  in  the  kennels,  senseless  and  helpless,  be- 
smeared with  their  blood  ;  and  the  passengers 
and  spectators,  moved  by  the  sight  of  their  con- 
dition, would  sometimes  cry  out  shame  upon 
the  perpetrators,  that  such  a  resemblance  of 
massacre  should  be  committed  in  the  streets  of 
London.  Some,  for  these  expressions  of  com- 
passion, had  their  share  of  the  like  treatment. 
The  soldiers  being  asked  why  they  could  be  so 
cruel  to  their  neighbours,  one  of  them  answer- 
ed. "  Nay,  we  are  more  merciful  than  we  ought 
to  be,  for  we  have  orders  to  kill ;  and  that  his 
musket  was  double  charged,  as  most  of  those  of 
the  party  were  to  his  knowledge."  Through 
this  treatment,  some  who  were  haled  out  of  the 
meeting  at  BuU-and-Mouth,  3Ist  of  August, 
1662,  were  so  disabled  as  to  keep  their  beds  for 
some  time  :  one  was  so  wounded  in  the  head 
thatliis  brains  were  visible,  and  one  died  of  the 
bruises  and  wounds  he  received.  The  coro- 
ner's jury,  which  was  iinpanelled  to  view  the 
body,  broke  upwithout  giving  a  verdict ;  alleging 
as  their  reason,  that  if  they  pronounced  it  wilful 
murder,  and  the  perpetrator  could  not  be  found, 
the  city  would  be  liable  to  a  fine.  The  king, 
when  an  account  of  these  barbarous  transac- 
tions was  presented  to  him  by  one  of  the  socie- 
ty, said,  "  I  assure  you  it  was  not  by  my  advice 
that  any  of  your  friends  should  be  slain  ;  you 
must  tell  the  magistrates  of  the  city  of  it,  and 
prosecute  the  law  against  them."  The  mayor 
was,  by  letter,  duly  apprized  of  these  proceed- 
ings, but  offered  no  redress.  The  letter,  accom- 
panied by  a  narrative,  was  printed  and  publish- 
ed ;  for  which  the  author  was  committed   to 

»  Gough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  531,  533. 
•t  Ibid.,  p.  537. 


Newgate  by  Sir  Richard  Brown,  the  mayor,  on 
the  charge  of  dispersing  scandalous  papers.* 

After  the  murder  we  have  mentioned,  the 
meetings  in  the  city  were  generally  undisturbed 
for  six  weeks  ;  then  similar  practices  of  injus- 
tice and  cruelty  were  renewed,  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  magistrates,  and  continued  nearly  to 
the  end  of  the  year  1662.  By  this  time  no  less 
than  twenty  persons  had  died  prisoners  in  New- 
gate, and  seven  more  by  sickness  contracted 
there  soon  after  their  discharge. t 

The  king's  declaration  of  indulgence  retard- 
ed, in  166.3,  the  furious  career  of  the  persecu- 
ting magistrates  ;  and  few  instances  of  suffer- 
ings in  the  metropolis  occur  in  this  year  com- 
pared with  the  preceding.  Yet  the  Quakers 
did  not  remain  quite  unmolested  ;  for  Sir  John 
Robinson,  who  preceded  Sir  R.  Brown  in  the 
mayoralty,  ordered  a  guard  to  be  placed  at  the 
entrance  of  the  Bull-and-Mouth  meetinghouse, 
to  prevent  any  persons  from  entering  into  it. 
The  meetings,  on  this,  were  held  in  the  streets; 
but  those  who  preached  or  prayed  were  gener- 
ally haled  away  to  prison,  and  blows  were  un- 
mercifully dealt  on  the  heads  both  of  men  and 
women  who  did  not  disperse  at  the  command 
of  the  mayor  and  his  officers.  In  this  year 
there  was  also  a  severe  persecution  of  this  peo- 
ple at  Colchester  in  Essex.  Their  meetings 
were  interrupted  by  acts  of  violence  ;  and  many 
were  disabled  and  bruised,  and  the  lives  of  oth- 
ers were  brought  into  great  danger  by  blows 
with  clubs,  carbines,  and  swords.  One  of  them, 
when  a  trooper  was  beating  him  with  a  sword, 
and  the  blade  fell  out  of  the  hilt,  took  and  gave 
it  to  him,  saying,  "  I  will  give  it  thee  up  again  ; 
I  desire  the  Lord  may  not  lay  this  day's  work 
to  thy  charge. "t 

The  operation  of  the  Conventicle  Act,  passed 
in  1664,  though  levelled  at  every  body  of  Dis- 
senters, fell  with  peculiar  weight  on  the  Qua- 
kers ;  numbers  of  them,  and  of  them  only, 
v/ere  condemned  to  transportation  upon  this 
act ;  and  the  proceedings  against  them  were 
conducted  with  peculiar  and  hostile  precipitan- 
cy. For,  "  as  the  penalty  for  the  first  oflTence 
was  imprisonment  for  a  term  not  exceeding 
three  months,  and  for  the  second  not  exceeding 
six,  at  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  two  justices," 
it  was  usual  for  these  justices  to  commit  them 
for  a  few  days  for  the  first  and  second  offences, 
not  out  of  tenderness,  but  in  order  to  subject 
them  more  speedily  to  the  penalty  of  transpor- 
tation for  the  third  offence  ;  for,  from  their 
long-approved  constancy,  they  promised  them- 
selves an  assurance  of  finding  them  again  at 
their  religious  assemblies  as  soon  as  at  liberty. i^ 
The  privileges  of  the  subject  were  held  at  this 
time  by  so  precarious  a  tenure,  that  the  history 
of  this  society  furnishes  instances  of  the  judges 
refusing  to  accept  the  verdict  of  the  grand  jury 
when  they  have  returned  the  bill  ignoramus; 
and  of  his  sending  them  out  again  with  mena- 
ces and  fresh  instructions.il  The  evidence 
produced  against  them,  on  their  trial,  was 
sometimes  so  insufficient,  that  the  jury  remon- 
strated against  it,  and  entreated  not  to  be 
troubled  any  more  with  such  evidence.     When 


*  Gough,  vol.  i..  p.  538-546. 

+  Ibid.,  vol,  ii.,  p.  1,  2.        t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,,  p.  21-24. 

{)  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  112,  116. 

II  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  117,  118. 


HISTORY  OF  THE    QUAKERS. 


411 


neither  persuasions  nor  menaces  could  induce 
a  jury  to  alter  their  verdict  to  the  dictates  of 
the  court,  some  of  them  were  bound  in  £100 
each  to  appear  at  the  King's  Bench  bar  the  first 
day  of  the  following  term.* 

The  awful  visitation  of  Providence,  by  a  de- 
structive pestilence  in  1665,  had  no  effect  in 
softening  the  enmity  of  their  persecutors.  Per- 
secution continued,  and  the  meetings  were  dis- 
turbed as  before.  Many  who  were  cast  into 
the  filthy  holes  of  Newgate  were  released  by 
this  disease,  which  had  infected  the  jails,  from 
a  life  worse  than  death.  "  But,"  says  my  au- 
thor, "  what  must  fix  an  indelible  stamp  of  ut- 
ter insensibility  to  every  motive  of  humanity, 
of  civility,  or  common  decency,  on  the  charac- 
ters of  the  magistrates,  to  the  disgrace  of  the 
government,  and  of  that  church  with  which 
they  were  so  zealous  to  enforce  conformity, 
was,  that  during  the  very  height  of  the  conta- 
gion, they  continued  to  crowd  the  infected  oris- 
ons with  fresh  prisoners. "t 

In  1668  the  Quakers  were  not,  m  comparison 
with  former  years,  much  disturbed  by  the  civil 
power  ;  their  sufferings  were  mostly  by  excom- 
munications, imprisonments,  and  distraints,  for 
'their  conscientious  scruples  against  paying  ec- 
clesiastical demands,  several  of  which,  however, 
were  unreasonably  severe. 

The  third  act  against  conventicles,  which  was 
carried  into  a  law  in  1670,  opened  new  scenes 
of  persecution,  in  which  the  Quakers  had  their 
peculiar  share.  Many  were  cruelly  spoiled  of 
their  property  ;  people  of  considerable  substance 
were  reduced  to  extreme  poverty  ;  and  the  sick 
had  their  beds  taken  from  under  them,  and  were 
reduced  to  lie  on  the  floor.  When  the  sufferers, 
according  to  the  privilege  allowed  by  the  act, 
appealed  against  the  heavy  fines  and  the  exor- 
bitant distraints,  they  generally  obtained  little 
by  the  appeal  but  additional  loss.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  convicting  justice,  the  partiality  of 
the  bench,  corrupt  juries,  or  a  neglect  in  putting 
into  due  execution  the  decrees  of  the  Quarter 
Sessions,  to  which  they  appealed,  left  them  un- 
redressed. A  misconstruction  of  the  word  con- 
venticles, which  the  act  limited  to  meetings  for 
religious  worship  contrary  to  the  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  England,  often  exposed  them  to  ille- 
gal fines  ;  for,  if  they  met  merely  to  provide  for 
their  poor,  or  visited  a  sick  friend,  or  attended 
the  funerals  of  the  deceased,  there  were  not 
wanting  informers  hardy  enough  to  swear  such 
meetings  conventicles,  nor  justices  prejudiced 
against  them  to  issue  their  warrants  to  levy  the 
fines  accordingly  ;  of  which  Mr.  Gough  gives 
various  instances.*  The  penalty  on  the  preach- 
er being  £20  for  the  first  offence,  and  £40  for 
the  second,  the  desire  of  gain  often  tempted  the 
unprincipled  informer  to  swear  against  a  preach- 
er when  there  was  not  a  word  spoken  in  the 
meeting.  At  other  times,  a  word  spoken,  though 
not  on  subjects  of  religion,  was  termed  preach- 
ing ;  and  an  answer  to  an  impertinent  question, 
extorted  from  some  one  or  other  present,  bore 
the  same  construction.  The  magistrates  were 
as  ready  to  fine  as  the  infi>rmer  to  swear  ;  and, 
by  this  iniquitous  combination,  the  innocent 
were  robbed  under  the  cover  of  an  act  of  Par- 
liament.<J     It  is  a  pleasure  to  find,  and  truth  re- 


♦  Gough,vol.ii.,  p.  128,  129. 
t  IbiU.,  p.  305-316. 


+  Ibid.,  p.  139,  140. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  3IC-318. 


quries  one  to  add,  that  some  justices,  apprized 
of  the  villany  of  the  informers,  had  too  much 
honour  to  encourage  their  vicious  disposition  to 
plunder  without  mercy,  and  to  swear  without 
scruple.  The  Lord-mayor  of  London,  in  partic- 
ular, sitting  in  a  court  of  aldermen,  in  the  year 
1670,  when  an  informer  made  his  appearance 
with  such  a  number  of  informations  as  would 
have  wronged  the  accused  of  £1500,  with  ab- 
horrence broke  up  the  court.*  This  year  af- 
fords another  peculiar  instance  of  the  illegal  pro- 
ceedings by  which  this  society  were  harassed  ; 
which,  notwithstanding  the  king's  repeated  pro- 
fessions of  favour  towards  them,  originated 
with  the  court.  On  the  29th  of  July,  an  order 
was  issued  by  the  king  and  council  for  demol- 
ishing the  meeting-house  at  Horsley  Down, 
Southwark.  It  was  grounded  on  a  pretence 
that  the  persons  who  assembled  in  it  behaved 
in  a  riotous  and  tumultuous  manner,  than  which 
charge  nothing  could  be  more  rupugnant  to  their 
avowed  principles  and  uniform  manners.  The 
pulling  down  of  the  building  was.  by  express  com- 
mand, committed  to  Christopher  Wren,  Esq., 
the  surveyor-general  of  his  majesty's  works. 
After  this  order  was  affixed  to  the  meeting- 
house, the  members  of  the  society  continued 
their  assemblies  in  it  till  it  was  demolished  ; 
they  then  met  upon  the  rubbish.  By  this  they 
exposed  themselves  to  repeated  outrages  and 
cruel  abuses  from  the  military,  into  whose  hands 
was  put  the  despotic  treatment  of  this  assembly, 
and  who,  at  one  assault,  sorely  bruised  and 
wounded  twenty,  at  a  second  thirty,  and  at  a 
third  more  than  fifty  persons.  When  the  sol- 
diers were  reprehended  for  their  cruelty,  some 
of  them  answered,  "  If  you  knew  what  orders 
we  have,  you  would  say  we  dealt  mercifully 
with  you."  Others  being  asked.  How  can  you 
deal  thus  with  a  people  that  have  love  and  good- 
will to  all  men,  and  make  no  resistance  or  op- 
position l  replied,  "  We  had  rather,  and  it  would 
be  better  for  us,  if  they  did  resist  and  oppose." 
This  was  looked  upon  by  the  sufferers  as  if  they 
sought  occasion  to  imbrue  their  hands  more 
deeply  in  blood,  and  take  the  lives  and  estates 
of  honest  people  for  their  prey.  At  length  these 
military  violations  of  the  peace  of  the  city  roused 
the  civil  officers  to  interpose  their  authority  ; 
but  it  was  too  weak  to  protect  this  unarmed 
body  against  the  number  of  armed  men  let  loose 
upon  them.  These  proceedings  of  the  soldiers 
having  been  represented  to  the  king  and  coun- 
cil, a  temporary  cessation  of  tliese  cruelties 
was  procured,  but  they  were  not  wholly  discon- 
tinued. A  building  at  Ratcliffe,  belonging  to 
this  society,  was  subjected  to  the  like  violence 
with  that  of  Horsley  Down,  and  on  the  2d  of 
September,  without  any  legal  process,  was  de- 
molished. On  that  day  and  the  night  following, 
twelve  cart-loads  of  doors,  windows,  and  floors, 
with  other  materials,  were  carried  away.  Some 
of  the  materials  were  sold  on  the  spot  for  mon- 
ey and  strong  drink.  Thus,  grievous  sufferings, 
exorbitant  spoil,  and  illegal  depredation,  were 
the  lot  of  an  inoffensive  and  peaceable  class  of 
subjects.  These  evils  were  inflicted  by  those 
whose  duty  it  was  to  protect  the  rights  and  prop- 
erty of  the  subject,  even  by  the  officers  under 
government. t 

*  Goujjh's  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  316-318. 
+  Ibid.,  vol.  li.,  p.  341-352. 


412 


SUPPLEMENT. 


While  these  calamities  awaited  the  general 
body  of  this  people  on  account  of  their  consci- 
entious profession,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  the 
more  active  and  distinguished  members  of  the 
society  were  peculiar  marks  for  prejudice  and 
malignity.  Of  this  the  history  of  the  Quakers 
furnishes  many  examples,  which  we  must  not 
pass  over  unnoticed,  though  our  limits  will  not 
allow  us  to  go  into  a  minute  detail  of  each  case. 

George  Fox,  eminent  for  his  activity  and  zeal 
in  disseminating  his  principles,  was  among  the 
first  who,  after  the  restoration  of  Charles  II., 
and  for  some  years,  felt  the  rage  of  bigotry.  In 
]660  he  was  apprehended  by  a  warrant  from 
Mr.  Henry  Porter,  the  mayor  of  Lancaster,  at 
the  house  of  Margaret  Fell  at  Swaithmore,  and 
carried  to  Ulverston,  where  he  was  guarded  for 
the  night  by  fifteen  or  sixteen  men,  some  of 
whom  kept  sentry  at  the  chimney,  for  fear  he 
should  escape  by  that  passage  ;  "  so  darkened," 
observes  the  historian,  "  were  they  by  supersti- 
tious imaginations."  Next  morning  he  was  es- 
corted, with  abusive  and  contumelious  treat- 
ment, to  Lancaster,  and  brought  before  the  may- 
or, who  committed  him  to  prison,  refused  bail, 
and  denied  him  a  copy  of  the  mittimus.  Two 
friends  having,  however,  been  permitted  to  read 
it,  he  published  an  immediate  reply  to  the  char- 
ges which  they  reported  to  him  it  contained. 
Application  was  made  to  the  king  for  a  habeas 
corpus  to  remove  him  to  London,  and  was  ob- 
tained. In  consequence  of  this  writ,  though 
his  persecutors,  for  two  months,  obstructed  the 
operation  of  it,  he  presented  himself  in  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  ;  the  justices,  being  dis- 
passionate and  favourable,  caused  the  sheriff's 
return  of  the  habeas  corpus  to  be  laid  before  the 
king,  who,  when  Fox  had  suffered  for  more  than 
twenty  weeks  an  unjust  and  severe  imprison- 
ment, gave  directions  for  his  release.  His  en- 
emies, on  his  obtaining  his  liberty,  were  filled 
with  vexation  and  fear,  as  they  were  conscious 
of  the  illegality  of  their  proceedings ;  and  he 
was  advised,  by  some  in  authority,  to  make  the 
mayor  and  the  rest  examples ;  but  he  meekly 
replied,  "  I  shall  leave  them  to  the  Lord  ;  if  He 
forgive  them,  I  shall  trouble  myself  no  farther 
about  them."* 

On  occasion  of  rumours  of  a  conspiracy  set 
on  foot  in  the  north  among  the  Republicans  and 
Separatists,  warrants  were  again  issued  out,  in 
1663,  to  apprehend  George  Fox ;  as  he  was  on 
his  tour  through  the  northern  counties,  he  was 
not  met  with  ;  but  at  length,  finding  that  they 
continued  their  pursuit,  he  resolved  to  stand  his 
ground,  and  was  apprehended  ;  when  no  evi- 
dence could  be  produced  to  justify  committing 
him  on  the  pretended  plot,  the  justices  contented 
themselves  with  his  engaging  to  appear  at  the 
sessions :  he  appeared  at  it,  but  finding  no 
grounds  to  effect  their  purpose,  either  upon  the 
plot  or  the  act  against  meetings,  they  commit- 
ted him,  for  refusing  the  oath  of  allegiance,  to 
a  very  incommodious  room  in  Lancaster  Castle, 
■where  he  was  kept  close  prisoner  till  after  the 
spring  assizes,  1665  ;  after  that  he  was  removed 
to  Scarborough  Castle,  where  he  was  detained 
upward  of  a  year  longer ;  when,  finding  means  to 
have  his  case  laid  before  the  king,  he  soon  after 
obtained  his  release,  having  suffered  an  arbitra- 
ry and  very  rigorous  imprisonment  of  more  than 
*  Cough's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  432-439. 


three  years.*  At  Lancaster,  he  was  locked  up 
in  a  smoky  tower,  sometimes  so  filled  with 
smoke  that  a  burning  candle  was  scarcely  visi- 
ble,! and  so  open  as  to  admit  the  rain  in  upon 
his  bed.  The  room  allotted  to  him  in  Scarbor- 
ough Castle  was  little  better,  if  not  worse ;  and 
when,  at  his  own  expense,  he  had  made  it  toler- 
able, he  was  removed  into  another  room,  with- 
out chimney  or  fireplace,  and  so  open  to  the  sea- 
side, that  the  rain,  violently  driven  by  the  wind, 
poured  into  the  room.  A  sentinel  was  placed 
at  his  door ;  few  or  none  of  his  friends  were 
permitted  to  visit  him,  or  even  to  bring  him 
food  ;  but  numbers  of  others  were  admitted  in 
to  gaze  upon  him  or  dispute  with  him.J  His 
removal  from  one  prison  to  another,  when  he 
was  in  a  very  weak  condition,  was  attended 
with  a  treatment  in  many  respects  uncivil  and 
rude.  To  the  rigour  and  hardships  of  his  im- 
prisonment were  added,  to  terrify  him,  the  fre- 
quent menaces  of  his  keepers.  The  deputy- 
governor  once  told  him,  "  that  the  king,  know- 
ing that  he  had  a  great  interest  in  the  people, 
had  sent  him  thither,  that  if  there  should  be  any 
stirring  in  the  nation,  they  should  hang  him  over 
the  wall."  He  replied  to  this  menace,  "  If  tha.t 
was  what  they  desired,  and  it  was  permitted 
them,  he  was  ready,  for  he  never  feared  death 
or  sufferings  in  his  life  ;  but  was  known  to  be 
an  innocent,  peaceable  man,  free  from  stirrings 
and  plottings,  and  one  that  sought  the  good  of 
all  men."  His  patience  surmounted  the  hard- 
ships to  which  he  was  exposed ;  and  his  inno- 
cence pleading  in  his  favour,  his  keepers  at 
length  relaxed  their  severity,  and  treated  him 
with  favour  and  respect.  When,  on  obtaining 
his  release,  Mr.  Fox  offered  an  acknowledgment 
for  his  late  civility  and  kindness  to  the  govern- 
or of  Scarborough  Castle,  he  refused  it  ;  adding, 
"  whatever  good  he  could  do  him  or  his  friends, 
he  would  do  it,  and  never  do  them  any  hurt." 
His  consequent  conduct  made  good  this  prom- 
ise, for  it  was  ever  favourable  to  the  Quakers. <J 
Mrs.  Margaret  Fell,  who  had  been  a  widow 
about  two  years,  in  1660  was,  in  a  degree,  in- 
volved in  the  severe  proceedings  against  Fox; 
for,  that  they  might  lay  hold  of  him,  they  forci- 
bly entered  and  searched  her  house  ;  of  this  she 
complained  in  an  appeal  to  the  public,  as  an  in- 
jury offered  to  herself,  and  a  violation  of  the  lib- 
erty of  the  subject. II  In  the  year  1663,  this  lady, 
the  widow  of  a  judge  and  a  woman  of  estate, 
was  cited  before  the  justices,  and  questioned 
about  keeping  meetings  at  her  house,  and  the 
oath  of  allegiance  was  tendered  to  her ;  on 
which  she  expostulated  with  them,  that  as 
"  they  knew  she  could  not  swear,  why  should 
they  send  for  her  from  her  own  house  and  her 
lawful  affairs  to  insnare  her  !"  adding,  "What 
have  I  donel"  This  remonstrance,  for  the  in- 
stant, impressed  their  minds,  and  they  declared 
they  would  not  urge  the  oath,  if  she  would  not 
keep  meetings  at  her  house.lF  To  this  proposal 
she   magnanimously  replied,   "  she  would   not 


*  Cough's  Historv,  vol.  ii.,  p.  25-29. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  29.        '  i  Ibid.,  p.  152,  IS.-i. 

()  Ibid.,  p.  150-156.  11  Ibid.,  vol.  i..  p.  435,  43G. 

^  Mr.  Cough  properly  remarks  on  this  proposal, 
that  it  was  a  plain  confession,  that  the  tender  of  the 
oath  was  a  mere  prete.xt  to  be  vexatious  to  the  sub- 
ject, an  arbitrary  measure  assumed  for  the  mere  pur- 
pose of  persecution 


HISTORY   OF  THE  QUAKERS. 


413 


deny  her  faith  and  principles  for  anything  they 
could  do  against  her,  and  while  it  should  please 
the  Lord  to  let  her  have  a  house,  she  would  en- 
deavour to  worship  Him  in  it."  On  this  the 
oath  was  tendered,  and  on  her  refusal,  she  was 
committed  to  Lancaster  Castle,  a  prison  then 
crowded  with  numbers  of  the  same  profession, 
and  the  state  of  which  heightened  the  evil  of 
confinement.  Here  she  was  detained  till  next 
year.* 

When,  in  the  month  of  August,  she  was,  at 
the  assizes,  brought  to  her  trial  on  the  same  ac- 
count, she  persevered  in  refusing  the  oath,  and 
answered  the  judge  with  good  sense  and  pious 
intrepidity.  Her  counsel  was  admitted  to  plead 
an  arrest  of  judgment,  after  the  jury  gave  a  ver- 
dict against  her,  and  found  several  errors  in  the 
indictment,  but  they  were  not  admitted  by  the 
judge,  and  sentence  of  praemunire  was  passed 
upon  her.  She  remamed  in  prison  twenty 
months  before  she  could  obtain  liberty  to  go  to 
her  own  house,  which  she  procured  for  a  little 
time,  and  returned  to  prison  again,  where  she 
continued  about  four  years,  till  released  by  an 
order  of  the  king  and  council.! 

Another  of  the  society  of  Quakers,  whose  suf- 
ferings are  recorded  in  a  distinct  narrative,  was 
their  noted  preacher,  Mr.  Francis  Howgill.  This 
respectable  man,  as  he  was  in  the  market-place 
at  Kendal  on  his  lawful  business,  was  summon- 
ed before  the  magistrates  then  sitting  in  a  tav- 
ern, who  tendered  him  the  oath  of  allegiance, 
and,  on  his  conscientious  refusal  of  it,  commit- 
ted him  to  prison  till  the  next  month.  At  the 
spring  assizes  of  1663,  the  oath  was  agam  ad- 
ministered unto  him,  and  on  his  refusal,  an  in- 
dictment was  drawn  up  against  him,  which  he 
traversed.  A  bond  for  his  good  behaviour  till 
his  trial  came  on  being  required  of  him,  he  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  recommitted  to  prison  rather 
than  give  it,  as  he  apprehended  it  would  be  a 
tacit  acknowledgment  of  past  ill-behaviour,  and 
his  attendance  at  meetings  in  the  mean  time, 
which  a  sense  of  duty  would  not  suffer  him  to 
neglect,  would  be  interpreted  as  a  breach  of  en- 
gagement.t  As  he  was  going  to  the  prison  he 
turned  to  the  people,  and  uttered  this  devout 
wish,  "The  fear  of  God  be  among  you  all." 
And  the  people  generally  appeared  very  affec- 
tionate to  him,  and  pitied  his  hard  circumstan- 
ces ;i^  while  the  justices  of  Westmoreland  en- 
deavoured to  prepossess  the  judge  and  court 
against  him  by  invidious  reflections  on  him  and 
the  society,  and  by  the  weight  of  their  united  in- 
fluence and  enmity. 

At  the  summer  assizes  he  was  agam  brought 
to  the  bar.  Modesty,  equanimity,  good  sense, 
sober  reasoning,  and  deep  impressions  of  reli- 
gion, marked  his  conduct  at  both  assizes,  and 
appear  to  have  softened  the  sternness  of  his 
judges.  The  sentence,  which  confiscated  his 
lands  to  the  king  during  his  life,  and  his  goods 
and  chattels  forever,  and  consigned  him  to  pris- 
on for  the  rest  of  his  days,  was,  however,  pass- 
ed upon  him  ;  the  judge,  it  was  observed,  pro- 
nounced it  with  a  faint  and  low  voice,  as  if  he 
was  sensible  that  this  man  was  greatly  wrong- 
ed, and  that  himself  did  not  entirely  approve  of 
the  sentence  he  was  passing. II     "  In  mistaken 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  29,  &c. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  31,  32. 
II  Ibid.,  p.  108. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  93-96. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  100. 


zeal  for  religion,"  our  historian  remarks,  "  the 
plainest  rules  of  morality  are  violated,  and  in 
forcing  uniformity  in  unessential  points,  the 
substantial  parts,  mercy,  justice,  and  truth,  are 
obliterated." 

The  case  of  Hannah  Trigg,  on  account  of  the 
singular  severity  of  it,  deserves  particular  men- 
tion. She  was  one  of  twelve  Quakers  who  re- 
ceived sentence  of  transportation,  being  tried 
and  convicted  on  a  bill  of  indictment  preferred 
against  them  for  the  third  offence.  The  circum- 
stance which  particularly  marked  the  tyranny 
and  illegality  of  the  treatment  of  this  young 
woman  was,  that  she  was  not  sixteen  years  of 
age,  and  the  certificate  of  her  birth  was  arbi- 
trarily rejected  by  the  justices.  After  sentence 
she  sickened  in  Newgate,  and  died  there.  The 
unfeeling  inhumanity,  which  was  insatiate  with 
her  life,  was  extended  to  her  corpse.  Her  rela- 
tions were  deprived  of  the  consolation  of  inter- 
ring her  as  they  desired,  but  she  was  carried  to 
the  burying-place  of  the  felons ;  and  when  the 
bearers  came  to  the  ground,  finding  no  grave 
made,  they  left  the  corpse  unburied,  saying  they 
would  make  a  grave  next  morning.  The  girl's 
mother  attending  the  funeral,  had  the  grief  and 
anguish  to  behold  this  treatment  of  her  daugh- 
ter's remains  in  silent  sorrow,  without  the  pow- 
er of  remedy.* 

The  sufferings,  also,  of  Joseph  Fuce,  a  man 
of  patient  and  meek  spirit,  and  very  laborious 
as  a  preacher,  who  died  in  the  White  Lion  pris- 
on in  Southwark  in  1665,  should  not  pass  unno- 
ticed. In  1660,  being  at  a  meeting  at  Deal,  he, 
with  twenty-three  others,  was  seized  by  sever- 
al armed  men,  and  being  committed  to  Sandown 
Castle,  they  were  kept  there  several  nights  and 
days,  their  friends  not  being  allowed  to  bring 
them  either  food  to  eat  or  straw  to  lie  on.  He 
and  another  were  afterward  removed  to  Dover 
Castle,  and,  with  five  other  of  their  friends,  were 
locked  up  in  one  room,  from  which  they  were 
permitted  no  egress,  not  even  for  the  necessities 
of  nature,  nor  were  their  friends  allowed  any  ac- 
cess to  them  ;  and  the  servant  of  the  marshal, 
for  showing  them  some  little  favour,  was  dis- 
missed from  his  place.  Joseph  Fuce  remonstra- 
ting, when  an  opportunity  offered,  on  the  cruel 
usage  they  received,  was  answered  with  a  vol- 
ley of  oaths  and  execrations.  His  pious  ears 
being  wounded  with  this  profaneness,  he  bore 
his  testimony  against  it  by  a  serious  reproof. 
The  marshal  at  this,  exasperated  to  rage,  caused 
him  to  be  dragged  headlong  down  several  stone 
steps  into  a  dungeon,  overrun  with  filth  and  with 
vermin,  into  which  no  light  or  air  could  enter 
but  by  some  holes  cut  in  the  door.  He  was  kept 
there  two  days  and  two  nights,  without  fire,  can- 
dle, straw,  or  anything  to  lie  on  but  an  old  blan- 
ket. When  he  had  obtained  some  straw,  for 
want  of  air,  through  the  damp  and  stench  of  his 
dismal  lodging,  he  fell  sick ;  and  after  nine  days' 
confinement,  as  he  seemed  at  the  point  of  death, 
the  fear  of  being  questioned  for  murdering  him 
moved  the  marshal  to  remove  him,  and  to  per- 
mit him  to  return  to  his  fellow-prisoners,  with 
whom  he  continued  several  months  till  released 
by  the  king's  proclamation. t 

Neither  the  calamities  to  which  the  society 
of  Quakers  were  exposed,  nor  the  sufferings 
which  with  peculiar  severity  were  felt  by  some 


Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  127. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  113-145. 


414 


SUPPLEMENT. 


of  its  most  eminent  and  worthy  members,  could 
damp  the  ardour  of  their  zeal  in  defending  their 
cause  and  disseniinaling  their  principles,  but 
served  to  call  forth  their  vigorous  exertions. 
Margaret  Fell,  on  the  apprehension  of  George 
Fox,  published  a  brief  narrative  of  that  violent 
proceedinir,  and  took  a  journey  to  London  to  lay 
the  case  before  the  king,  requesting  his  favour- 
able interposition,  "  to  cause  him  to  be  removed 
to  London,  and  hear  his  cause  himself:"  in 
which  suit  she  was  heard.*  When,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  insurrection  of  the  fifth-monarchy 
men,  many  of  the  Quakers,  without  crimina- 
tion, without  conviction,  were  violently  haled  to 
prison,  in  addition  to  the  endeavours  used  for 
'  their  relief,  by  publishing  and  presenting  to  the 
king  a  declaration  from  that  people  against  all 
sedition,  plotters,  fighters,  &c.,  the  same  lady 
several  times  waited  personally  upon  the  king 
to  solicit  his  indulgence  and  protection  for  them ; 
at  her  first  admission  she  signified  to  him,  "they 
were  an  innocent,  peaceable  people,  who  did  no 
injury,  and  administered  no  occasion  of  offence, 
except  in  keeping  up  their  religious  meetings, 
for  no  other  purpose  than  worshipping  God  in 
that  way  they  were  persuaded  was  most  accept- 
able to  him,  and  edifying  one  another  in  his  fear  ; 
which  being  to  them  a  conscientious  matter  of 
duty  to  God,  they  could  not  violate  it,  in  com- 
pliance with  the  ordinances  or  laws  of  man, 
whatever  they  suffered."  In  consequence  of  her 
applications  and  the  declaration  above  mention- 
ed, the  king  sent  out  a  proclamation,  "  forbid- 
ding soldiers  to  search  any  house  without  a  con- 
stable." At  length  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  is- 
sue out  a  declaration,  ordering  "  the  Quakers  to 
be  set  at  liberty  without  paying  the  fees."t 
Burrough,  Hubberthorn,  and  Whitehead,  among 
others,  were  active  advocates  for  their  suffering 
brethren.  They  attended  Parliament  to  solicit 
against  the  bill  brought  in  in  1661  passing  into 
an  act.  Burrough  presented  to  the  king  and 
council  in  the  same  year  a  paper  entitled  "A 
Just  and  Right  Plea,"  representing  their  senti- 
ments respecting  oaths,  and  their  established 
religious  principle,  "  to  enter  into  no  plots,  com- 
binations, or  rebellion  against  government :  nor 
to  seek  deliverance  from  injustice  or  oppression 
by  any  such  means."  In  this  he  was  seconded 
by  Hubberthorn  and  Whitehead,  who  with  abil- 
ity and  spirit  entered  into  a  vindication  of  the 
religious  meetings  of  their  society.!  Two  let- 
ters, about  this  time,  were  addressed  to  the  king, 
remonstrating  on  the  countenance  given  to  pro- 
fane shows  and  sports,  and  the  encouragement 
afforded  to  prosecutors,  and  boldly  reproving  his 
majesty  for  his  personal  conduct.  The  one  was 
written  by  George  Fox  the  elder,  so  called  for 
distinction,  as  the  elder  brother  of  the  society  ; 
the  other  was  drawn  up  by  George  Fox  the 
younger.  They  afford  a  specimen,  as  the  his- 
torian observes,  "  of  the  honest  plaindealing  of 
men  who,  with  Elihu,  knew  not  to  flatter,  lest, 
in  so  doing,  their  Maker  should  take  them  away." 
When  the  last  of  the  two  letters  was  delivered 
to  the  king,  he  seemed  considerably  affected  with 
the  contents.  His  brother,  the  Duke  of  York, 
whose  temper  was  more  gloomy,  reserved,  and 
vindictive,  being  greatly  exasperated  with  the 
writer,  advised  the  king  to  punish   him  ;  but, 

*  Gough,  vol.  i.,  p.  435-437.      t  Ibid.,  p.  455,  45G. 
i  Ibid.,  p.  500,  505. 


with  much  propriety,  he  replied,  "  It  were  bet- 
ter for  us  to  mend  our  lives."*  These  epistles 
of  the  Foxes,  however,  left  no  permanent  im- 
pression on  the  royal  mind.  In  the  year  1662, 
the  universal  rage  against  the  peaceable  society 
of  the  Quakers  left  them  unmolested  in  few  or 
no  parts  of  the  nation.  On  this,  George  Fox 
again  addressed  the  king  on  behalf  of  the  suffer- 
ing Friends,  and  stated  that  since  his  restoration 
three  thousand  and  sixty-eight  had  been  impris- 
oned, and  a  narrative  signed  by  twelve  witness- 
es was  printed,  which  represented  that  the  num- 
ber of  men  and  women  then  in  prison  amount- 
ed to  upward  of  four  thousand  and  two  hundred. 
Humanity  revolts  at  the  circumstances  of  cru- 
elty with  which  the  members  of  this  society 
were  treated  at  this  time  ;  when  their  meetings 
were  broken  up  by  men  with  clubs,  they  them- 
selves were  thrown  into  the  water,  and  tram- 
pled under  foot  till  the  blood  gushed  out.f 
Among  other  endeavours  that  George  Fox  used 
to  remove  suspicion  and  soften  enmity,  was  a 
paper  which  he  wrote  in  1663,  as  a  testimony 
against  all  plots  and  conspiracies  whatever  ;  to 
admonish  his  friends  to  circumspection  in  their 
words  and  actions,  and  not  to  meddle  in  any 
civil  commotions  :  copies  of  which  he  dispersed 
through  the  northern  counties,  and  sent  one  to 
the  king  and  council.t 

Others  of  this  society,  besides  George  Fox, 
took  up  their  pens  in  the  cause  of  their  innocent 
and  oppressed  brethren.  When  the  Conventi- 
cle Act  was  passed  in  1664,  George  Whitehead 
published  a  piece  to  expose  the  severity  of  the 
persecutors,  to  exculpate  his  friends  from  th& 
charge  of  obstinacy,  to  strengthen  their  stead- 
fastness, and  to  remonstrate  on  the  unequal  and 
arbitrary  manner  in  which  the  judges  enforced 
the  act.  Another  remonstrance  was  also  pub- 
lished about  the  same  time,  by  Josiah  Coale, 
against  persecution,  addressed  to  the  king  and 
both  houses  of  Parliament. ij 

In  the  year  1666  the  cause  of  the  Quakers  be- 
gan to  derive  great  support  and  credit  from  the 
abilities  and  virtues  of  the  celebrated  William 
Penn,  who  in  that  year  joined  their  society,  and 
became  one  of  its  most  eminent  advocates  and 
ornaments.  His  pen  was  soon  employed  in  its 
defence.  His  first  piece  was  entitled  "  The 
Sandy  Foundation  shaken."  This  gave  great 
offence  to  some  powerful  ecclesiastics,  and  it 
was  answered  by  an  accustomed  mode  of  reply, 
namely,  an  order  for  imprisoning  him.  He  was 
closely  confined  seven  months  in  the  Tower, 
and  denied  the  visits  of  his  friends.  This  pre- 
cluded him  from  his  ministerial  labours  ;  but 
several  treatises  were  the  fruits  of  his  solitude, 
particularly  one  of  great  note,  entitled  "  No 
Cross,  no  Crown  ;"  in  which,  Dr.  Henry  More 
observed,  "  Mr.  Penn  has  treated  the  subject  of 
a  future  life  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul  with 
a  force  and  spirit  equal  to  most  writers. "II 

The  first  of  the  above  pieces  was  occasioned 
by  a  particular  circumstance,  which  called  on 
the  Quakers  to  vindicate  themselves  in  a  public 
disputation.  Mr.  Thomas  Vincent,  a  Presbyte- 
rian minister  of  eminent  piety,  and  who  distin- 
guished himself  by  his  ministerial  labours  in  the 
time  of  the  plague,  but  whose  zeal  in  this  in- 

*  Gough,  vol.  i.,  p.  510,  513.  t  Ibid.,  p.  538. 

X  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p-  25.  <J  Ibid  ,  p.  115. 

II  British  iiiography,  vol.  vii.,  p.  133. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  QUAKERS. 


415 


stance  misled  him,  had,  on  two  of  his  hearers 
going  to  the  Quakers'  meetings,  indulged  him- 
self In  invectives  from  the  pulpit  against  that 
people,  and  in  a  license  of  expression  beyond 
the  bounds  of  Christian  moderation  and  com- 
mon decency.  This  reaching  the  ears  of  some 
of  those  at  whom  they  were  cast,  they  demand- 
ed of  him  a  public  meeting  to  vindicate  them- 
selves from  his  severe  reflections,  or  to  give  him 
an  opportunity  to  support  them  by  proof,  to 
which,  after  some  demur,  Mr.  Vincent  agreed. 
Before  the  hour  appointed  the  house  was  filled 
with  his  own  hearers  and  partisans  ;  and  he.,was 
accompanied  by  three  other  Presbyterian  min- 
isters as  his  assistants,  Mr.  Thomas  Dawson, 
Mr.  Thomas  Doolittle,  and  Mr.  William  Mad- 
docks.  George  Whitehead  and  William  Penn, 
on  the  side  of  their  friends,  attended  to  his  char- 
ges against  the  Quakers.  Instead  of  bringing 
them  forward,  Mr.  Vincent  opened  the  confer- 
ence with  this  question,  "  Whether  they  owned 
one  Godhead  in  three  distinct  and  separate  per- 
sons 1"  He  framed  on  this,  according  to  the 
mode  of  argurrientation  then  in  use,  a  syllogism. 
George  Whitehead  rejected  his  terms  as  un- 
scriptural,  and  not  deducible  from  the  text  he 
quoted,  and  desired  him  to  explain  them  so  that 
they  might  be  understood  ;  observing,  "  that 
God  did  not  use  to  wrap  his  truths  in  heathen- 
ish metaphysics,  but  deliver  them  in  plain  lan- 
guage." But  Mr.  Vincent  and  his  coadjutors 
would  neither  keep  to  Scripture  terms  nor  allow 
them  in  their  antagonists.  After  many  insults 
offered  to  the  Quakers,  and  opprobrious  names 
cast  upon  them,  the  meeting  was  broken  up  by 
a  prayer  from  Mr.  Vincent,  in  which  these  peo- 
ple were  accused  as  blasphemers.  Some  peo- 
ple staying  after  he  and  his  brethren  withdrew, 
the  Quakers  found  an  opportunity  of  exculpa- 
ting themselves  from  the  mvectives  of  their  ad- 
versaries. Another  debate  was  desired,  but 
evaded.     On  this,  Penn  appealed  to  the  public* 

It  falls  within  the  period  of  which  we  are  wri- 
ting to  notice  the  remarks  on  the  third  Con- 
venticle Act,  which  George  Fox,  being  in  Lon- 
don at  the  time,  published  in  1670,  in  order,  if 
possible,  to  move  the  government  to  modera- 
tion. Apprehending  an  impending  storm,  he 
wrote  also,  at  the  same  time,  an  epistle  to  his 
friends,  to  exhort  them  to  faithfulness  and  stead- 
fastness in  their  testimony  to  the  truth,  and  to 
Christian  patience,  in  bearing  the  sufferings 
which  might  be  permitted  to  try  their  faith. t 

Under  a  successive  train  of  severe  trials,  this 
people  maintained  patience,  resignation,  and  a 
blameless  demeanour  ;  and,  with  the  powers  of 
the  world  against  them,  their  numbers  were 
continually  increasing.  In  the  year  1666  they 
were  become  a  large  body.  This  gave  them 
courage  and  resolution  to  .erect  in  that  year  a 
new  meeting-house  in  Whitehart  Court,  Grace- 
church-street,  which,  from  its  central  situation, 
became  afterward  the  place  for  their  yearly 
meetings  t 

The  affairs  of  this  society  began  now  to  range 
into  a  regular  and  systematic  form.  George 
Fox,  as  soon  as  he  was  released  from  his  long 
confinement,  proceeded  as  usual  in  his  labours  ; 
and  when  he  was  so  weak,  and  stiff,  and  be- 
numbed in  his  joints,  by  a  cruel  imprisonment 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  226-228. 
X  Ibid.,  p.  157. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  318. 


for  the  greatest  part  of  three  years,  that  it  waa 
with  difficulty  he  could  mount  his  horse  or  alight, 
he  went  from  Yorksliire  to  London.  He  saw 
it  necessary  to  increase  the  number  of  meetings 
of  discipline,  as  the  exigencies  and  the  numbers 
of  the  society  were  increased.  In  1660  a  gen- 
eral meeting  for  church  affairs  had  been  held  at 
Skipton,  in  Yorkshire.  The  business  of  it  was 
confined  to  the  taking  an  account  of  their  suf- 
ferings, and  to  collections  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor.  Quarterly  meetings  were  afterward  es- 
tablished in  London,  which,  in  addition  to  the 
former  subjects  of  attention,  had  the  charge  of 
the  reputation  of  the  society,  to  watch  over  the 
members,  and  admonish  and  exhort  such  as 
might  appear  disorderly  and  uncircumspect  in 
their  conversation,  not  agreeable  to  the  strict- 
ness of  their  religious  profession  ;  besides  the 
women's  meetings,  which  had  chiefly  the  care 
of  poor  widows  and  orphans.  During  George 
Fox's  stay  in  London,  there  were  established, 
at  his  recommendation,  five  monthly  meetings 
of  men  and  women  in  that  city,  to  transact  the 
business  which  had  before  employed  the  quar- 
terly meetings;  and  a  general  meeting  once  ia 
three  months,  as  hitherto,  for  mutual  counsel, 
advice,  and  deliberation  in  relation  to  the  com- 
mon affairs  and  care  of  the  whole  body  in  the 
city.  He  afterward  procured  his  plan  of  month- 
ly meetings  to  be  adopted  through  all  the  coun- 
ties, in  Scotland,  Ireland,  Holland,  and  the  Con- 
tinent of  America.  The  business  of  the  month- 
ly meetings  was,  at  his  advice  and  admonition, 
after  this,  extended  to  the  taking  cognizance  of 
the  orderly  proceedings  towards  marriage,  to 
see  "  that  the  parties  who  proposed  marriages 
were  clear  from  other  engagements,  that  their 
relations  were  satisfied,  that  widows  had  made 
provision  for  their  first  husbands'  children  be- 
fore they  married  again,  and  to  institute  what- 
ever other  inquiries  were  necessary  for  keeping 
all  things  clean  and  pure,  in  good  order  and 
righteousness,  to  the  glory  of  God." 

Some  time  after  monthly  and  quarterly  meet- 
ings were  established,  viz.,  in  the  year  1669,  it 
was  found  expedient,  and  agreed  upon,  to  hold 
a  general  meeting  in  London,  representative  of 
the  whole  body  in  England,  and  all  other  parts 
where  any  of  the  society  were  settled  ;  which 
has,  from  that  time,  been  held  annually,  and  is 
called  '•  The  Yearly  Meeting  in  London."  It  is 
formed  of  deputies  from  each  quarterly  meeting 
in  England,  and  from  the  half  years'  meetings 
in  Ireland,  without  restraining  from  an  attend- 
ance any  member  in  unity  with  the  society. 
Such  places  in  Europe  and  America  as  are  too 
remote  conveniently  to  send  representatives 
keep  up  a  correspondence  with  this  meeting  by 
epistles.  A  committee  of  correspondence  in 
London  and  several  counties  and  other  places, 
to  be  consulted  in  the  intervals  between  the 
yearly  meetings,  upon  any  emergency,  was  also 
established.  The  members  appointed  corre- 
spondents in  London,  to  meet  the  sixth  day  in 
every  week,  to  consult  upon  such  matters  as 
may  be  laid  before  them,  particularly  any  suf- 
fering cases  of  friends,  from  whence  it  is  called 
"  The  Meeting  for  Sufferings,"  and  is  a  meeting 
of  record. 

From  the  meetings  of  discipline  no  members 
of  the  society  are  excluded.  A  regular  record 
of  all  their  proceedings  is  kept  by  a  clerk,  who, 


416 


SUPPLEMENT. 


at  the  desire  of  the  meeting,  voluntarily  under- 
takes the  office.  The  business  of  these  meet- 
ings is  preceded  by  a  solemn  meeting  of  wor- 
ship. An  inquiry  whether  meetings  for  disci- 
pline and  worship  are  duly  attended,  the  pres- 
ervation of  love  and  unity,  the  religious  educa- 
tion of  youth,  are  some  of  the  leading  objects 
of  these  associations.  Inquiries  are  also  made 
whether  a  faithful  and  Christian  testimony  is 
borne  against  the  receiving  or  paying  titties, 
priests'  demands,  or  those  called  church-rates. 
"Whether  friends  are  careful  to  avoid  all  vain 
sports,  places  of  diversion,  gaming,  and  all  un- 
necessary frequenting  of  ale-houses  or  tav- 
erns, excess  in  drinking,  and  intemperance  of 
every  kindl  Whether  friends  are  just  in  their 
dealings,  and  punctual  in  fulfilling  their  engage- 
ments, and  are  advised  carefully  to  inspect  the 
state  of  their  affairs  once  in  the  year  1  Wheth- 
er early  care  be  taken  to  advise  and  deal  with 
such  as  appear  inclinable  to  marry  contrary  to 
the  rules  of  the  society  ;  and  whether  any  re- 
move from  or  into  monthly  or  two  weekly  meet- 
ings without  certificates  !  And  whether  two 
or  more  faithful  friends  are  deputed  in  each 
particular  meeting  to  have  the  oversight  there- 
of; and  care  be  taken,  when  anything  appears 
amiss,  that  the  rules  of  their  discipline  be  put  in 
practice  l 

This  sketch  of  the  discipline  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal government  of  this  society  cannot  fail  to 
give  us  a  favourable  idea  of  the  spirit  and  prin- 
ciples which  actuate  it.  It  is  recommended  by 
the  method  and  regularity  which  mark  it ;  and 
it  is  a  great  excellence  of  it,  that  it  is  directed 
to  the  encouragement  and  promotion  of  good 
morals,  of  a  peaceable,  upright,  and  blameless 
conduct  in  social  life.  For  a  more  full  and  ac- 
curate view  of  its  nature  and  design,  the  reader 
may  be  referred  to  a  long  and  judicious  disqui- 
sition on  it  in  Mr.  Gough's  History  ;*  which 
when  he  has  perused,  he  will  determine  for 
himself  whether  it  may  not  be  justly  extolled, 
as  "  bearing  marks  of  a  peculiar  wisdom  in  the 
contrivance  and  goodness  of  heart  in  the  ends 
in  view,  realized  in  the  beneficial  effects  it  then 
had,  and  hath  since  continued  to  produce." 

The  Quakers,  besides  supporting  a  series  of 
sufferings  with  patience  and  fortitude,  dissem- 
inating their  principles  through  England,  Wales, 
and  Scotland  with  unabating  zeal,  and  forming 
their  society  upon  a  regular  plan  of  govern- 
ment, traversed  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  carried 
their  sentiments  into  America,  and  estabhshed 
themselves  in  the  Western  Continent.  The 
undertaking  was  arduous  ;  new  calamities  and 
persecutions  awaited  them  in  new  countries. t 
Their  pious  efforts,  however,  were  eventually 
successful  in  the  transatlantic  regions.  The 
brevity  we  must  observe  does  not  allow  us  to 
go  here  into  particulars.  But  two  instances  of 
their  zeal,  at  this  period,  to  propagate  their  doc- 
trine in  the  foreign  parts  of  Europe,  were  of  so 
singular  a  nature  as  to  call  for  particular  notice. 

About  the  year  1661,  two  women,  Catharine 
Evans  and  Sarah  Cheevers,  moved  with  a  reli- 
gious concern  to  diffuse  their  principles,  took 
their  passage  in  a  ship  bound  from  London  to 
Leghorn  :  after  various  trials  and  storms,  they 
arrived  at  that  city  ;  and,  during  their  stay  in 

*  Goiigh,  vol.  ii.,  p.  161-198. 
t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  chap.  ix. 


it,  they  dispersed  books,  explaining  the  doc- 
trines of  the  society,  and  discoursed  with  peo- 
ple of  all  ranks,  numbers  of  whom  curiosity 
daily  drew  after  them  ;  and  here  they  met  with 
no  molestation.  They  sailed  from  thence  in  a 
Dutch  ship  bound  to  Alexandria,  the  master  of 
which  put  into  Malta.  Going  on  shore  the  day 
after  their  arrival,  they  were  met  by  an  English 
consul,  who  invited  them  to  his  house,  where 
they  continued  about  three  months.  They 
were  visited  by  many,  whom  they  found  it  their 
concern  to  call  to  repentance,  and  were  repeat- 
edly summoned  before  the  inquisitors,  whose 
interrogatories  they  answered  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  to  give  them  the  advantage  they  sought, 
nor  to  resign  their  own  principles  by  the  least 
compliance  with  the  superstitious  and  showy 
religion  of  the  country.  The  consul,  at  last, 
overcome  by  flattery,  menaces,  and  bribery, 
gave  up  his  guests  to  the  inquisitors,  who  would 
not  venture  to  take  them  without  his  consent  or 
acquiescence.  Having  undergone  an  examina- 
tion, which  they  supported  with  simplicity  and 
firmness,  they  were  imprisoned  in  a  close,  dark 
room,  with  only  two  little  holes  for  light  and 
air,  and  so  extremely  hot  in  that  warm  climate, 
that  it  seemed  as  if  the  intention  of  the  inquis- 
itors was  to  stifle  them  to  death.  This  impris- 
onment lasted  three  or  four  years.  They  were 
continually  beset  and  perplexed  with  the  imper- 
tinences of  monks  and  friars,  to  cajole  or  terri- 
fy them  into  their  superstitions.  But  neither 
flattery  nor  menaces  could  pervert  these  inno- 
cent women  from  their  profession.  Upon  this, 
they  were  put  into  a  room  so  exceedingly  hot, 
close,  and  suffocating,  that  they  were  often 
forced  to  rise  out  of  their  bed,  to  lie  down  at 
the  chink  of  the  door  for  air  to  draw  breath  ; 
their  faces  were  excessively  stung  by  gnats  ; 
and  such  was  the  effect  of  the  heat  of  the  room 
and  the  climate,  their  skin  was  parched,  their 
hair  fell  off,  and  they  frequently  fainted  away. 
They  were  tempted  at  times  to  wish  for  death, 
to  end  their  sorrows.  Catharine  Evans  fell 
into  a  fit  of  sickness,  and  the  physician  said, 
"they  must  have  air,  or  else  they  would  die." 
On  this,  the  door  was  ordered  to  be  set  open 
six  hours  in  the  day.  Soon  after  they  were 
separated,  in  hope  that  an  impression  might  be 
made  on  their  minds  if  they  were  separately  at- 
tacked ;  but  each  was  immovable.  They  not 
only  resisted  every  attempt  to  draw  them  off 
from  their  religious  profession  to  the  supersti- 
tions of  popery,  but,  as  the  house  of  inquisition 
was  rebuilding,  or  repairing  in  some  parts,  for 
the  space  of  a  year  and  half,  they  embraced  the 
opportunities  which  ofTered  to  incite  the  people 
to  repentance,  both  the  workmen  who  were 
obliging  to  them,  and  the  citizens  of  better 
quality  who  came  to  view  the  budding.  The 
apartment  of  Catharine  being  near  the  street, 
she  frequently  accosted  with  admonitions  those 
that  passed  by,  many  of  whom  would  stay  to 
hear  as  long  as  they  durst,  and  were  much  af- 
fected. After  enduring  the  severities  of  an 
imprisonment  in  the  inquisition  upward  of  three 
years,  and  several  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
procure  their  release,  George  Fox  engaged  the 
friendly  and  humane  interposition  of  Lord  d'Au- 
bigny  with  the  magistrates,  whose  mediation 
was  eflfectual ;  and  being  liberated,  they  return- 
ed to  England.     On  their  passage  home,  a  pas- 


HISTORY   OF  THE    QUAKERS. 


417 


senger  who  was  a  knight  of  Malta,  and  the  in- 
•quisitor's  brother,  interested  himself  with  the 
captain  to  secure  them  every  accommodation 
the  ship  could  afford.  The  merchants  at  Leg 
horn,  where  the  vessel  stopped,  treated  them 
with  great  kindness,  and  supplied  them  with 
wine  and  other  articles  for  their  refreshment. 
At  Tangier,  tlie  governor  courteously  received 
them,  and  would  have  given  them  money,  which 
they  declined  accepting,  though  they  gratefully 
acknowledged  his  kindness.  They  freely  ad- 
dressed their  admonitions  to  him,  and  exhorta- 
tions to  amendment  of  life  to  the  people  who 
flocked  to  the  house  where  they  lodged.  Pre- 
viously to  their  discharge  from  Alexandria, 
their  tried  integrity  and  blameless  manners  had 
made  impressions  in  their  favour,  both  on  the 
magistrates  and  the  inquisitor,  the  latter  of 
whom  relaxed  in  his  severity,  and  granted  them 
the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  to  write  to  their 
friends.* 

The  sufferings  of  these  women,  in  the  singu- 
lar enterprise  to  which  their  apprehensions  of 
duty  animated  them,  fell  short  of  those  which 
befell  two  men  in  a  similar  undertaking,  name- 
ly, John  Philly  and  WilUam  Moore.  These  per- 
sons, being  in  Germany  with  other  friends  in  the 
beginning  of  1662,  felt  a  concern  to  proceed  into 
Hungary,  and  to  visit  the  Hortesche  brethren, 
who  were  a  kind  of  Baptist  that  lived  in  a  com- 
munity, hundreds  of  them  together  in  a  family, 
having  their  goods  and  possessions  in  common  ; 
they  also  refused  to  swear  or  fight.  This  was 
a  design  attended  with  peculiar  difficulties  and 
perils,  as  it  would  lead  them,  on  a  long  jour- 
ney, through  a  tract  of  country  unknown  to 
them,  and  among  people  differing  from  them  in 
language,  in  sentiments,  and  in  manners.  But, 
such  were  their  views  of  the  obligations  lying 
upon  them,  they  were  not  intimidated  by  the 
prospect  of  difficulties,  and  actually  made  a  pros- 
perous journey  to  the  nearest  body  of  that  peo- 
ple, residing  at  Cushart,  near  Presburg,  where 
they  were  pretty  hospitably  entertained,  and 
dispersed  some  religious  books,  which  they  had 
taken  for  that  purpose.  From  hence  they  set 
off  for  Pattock,  a  city  three  hundred  miles  far- 
ther on  in  Upper  Hungary,  and  accompanied  each 
other  to  Comora  in  Schut,  an  island  in  the  Dan- 
ube, encompassed  with  dangers  on  all  hands  : 
on  the  one  side,  of  being  killed  by  the  Turks,  or 
of  being  put  to  death  at  Newhausel,  according 
to  the  practice  of  that  garrison  towards  those 
who  were  found  there,  it  being  tributary  to  the 
Turks,  without  permission.  At  Comora,  first, 
Moore  was  apprehended,  searched  and  stripped, 
and  carried  to  the  guards  with  his  hands  and  feet 
shackled,  and  an  insinuation  was  thrown  out 
that  he  sliould  be  roasted  on  a  spit.  Philly  was 
afterward  apprehended  at  his  lodgings.  They 
were  committed  to  separate  prisons  ;  Moore  to 
the  Stock-house,  and  Philly  to  a  room  appropria- 
ted to  the  inhuman  purpose  of  putting  prisoners 
to  the  rack.  On  the  next  day  tiiey  were  brought 
before  the  inquisitor  to  be  examined,  by  whom, 
among  other  questions,  they  were  asked.  If  they 
did  not  know  that  Catholics  had  laws  to  burn 
and  torment  heretics,  and  such  as  carried  such 
books  as  they  had  with  them  ?  To  which  Moore 
warily  replied,  "  I  should  not  have  expected 
such  dealings  among  good  Christians."     They 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  51-63. 
Vol.  II.— G  g  o 


were  for  eight  days  repeatedly  brought  to  ex- 
amination, and  insnaring  questions  put  to  them, 
as.  What  they  thought  of  the  sacrament "!  to 
which  Moore  replied,  "  The  flesh  profiteth  little ; 
it  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth."  This  inquis- 
itor was  so  strangely  unacquainted  with  the 
Scriptures,  that,  in  his  surprise,  he  applied  to  a 
priest  present,  "Sir  father,  how  is  thHt?"  who, 
recollecting  himself  said,  "  He  did  remember 
such  an  expression."  The  inquisitor  next  ask- 
ed him  if  he  would  turn  Catholic  ;  to  which 
he  made  this  rational  reply  :  "  If  I  should  do  so 
for  fear  of  favour  of  you,  the  Lord  not  requiring 
it  of  me,  I  should  not  have  peace  in  my  con- 
science, and  the  displeasure  of  the  Lord  would 
be  more  intolerable  than  yours  ;"  adding,  "that 
compulsion  might  make  hypocrites,  but  not 
Christians,  as  it  did  not  change  the  heart." 

After  this  they  were  put  to  the  torture  ;  first, 
their  thumbs  were  screwed  to  extort  the  con- 
fession of  some  criiue,  and  then  they  were  rack- 
ed, with  such  violence  in  the  case  of  Moore, 
that  his  chin  was  close  to  his  breast,  and  his 
mouth  so  closed  that  he  was  almost  choked. 
They  were  then  threatened  with  death.  Phil- 
ly, by  calling  out  to  the  governor,  as  he  was 
passing  in  his  coach,  obtained  some  redress  of 
their  calamities  ;  and  they  were  allowed  to  earn 
a  trifle,  to  buy  bread,  by  working  at  the  wheel- 
barrow, though  often  their  wages  were  kept 
back.  After  sixteen  weeks  they  were  conveyed 
in  chains,  by  a  wagon,  under  a  guard,  to  Gen- 
eral Nadash,  the  emperor's  lord-chamberlain. 
They  were  examined  before  him  and  several 
lords  of  the  kingdom,  some  of  whom  seemed  af- 
fected with  their  answers,  and  none  objected 
thereto.  They  were  sentenced,  however,  to  be 
burned,  if  they  would  not  embrace  the  popish 
religion  ;  but  the  sentence  was  not  executed, 
and  a  priest  was  sent  to  convert  them.  These 
endeavours  proving  ineffectual,  they  were  re- 
moved to  a  place  within  about  five  German  miles 
of  Vienna,  where,  fallingintothe  handsof  priests, 
their  perils  became  aggravated  :  they  were  again 
searched,  their  books  and  papers  taken  away, 
insnaring  questiims  were  put  to  them,  and  they 
were  threatened  with  the  execution  of  various 
tortures,  and  of  the  sentence  of  death.  But 
the  frauds  and  menaces  of  their  persecutors 
were  frustrated  by  the  steadfastness  of  these 
confessors.  Manacles  were  then  put  on  their 
wrists,  so  small,  as,  when  locked  by  main  force, 
put  them  to  extreme  pain.  They  were  thrust 
into  a  narrow  hole  with  some  Turks,  that  were 
prisoners,  where  they  had  scarcely  room  to  sit 
down.  At  length  they  found  a  friend  in  the 
person  who  was  invested  with  the  chief  civil 
authority  in  the  place,  whose  dispositions  to 
protect  them  and  afford  them  relief  were  much 
strengthened  hy  the  influence  of  one  .\dam  Bien, 
his  barber,  a  religious  man,  who  had  been  edu- 
cated among  the  Hortesche  brethren.  The  priests 
were  restrained  from  keeping  them  any  longer 
in  their  holn  of  a  prison,  and  using  them  with 
the  cruelty  they  iiad  done  before.  Those  who 
had  distinguished  themselves  by  promoting  ma- 
licious insults,  endeavoured  to  ingratiate  them- 
selves; and  after  the  prospects  of  obtaining 
their  liberty  had  been  repeatedly  clouded  over 
by  the  sickness  of  the  governor,  or  by  the  at- 
tention he  had  been  induced  to  give  to  insinua- 
tions against  them,  and  by  some  renewed  suf- 


418 


SUPPLEMENT. 


ferings  from  the  priests  and  soldiers,  by  Adam 
Bien's  steadfast  friendship,  and  persevering  so- 
licitations in  their  favour,  they  were  released, 
September,  1603.* 

Wliatever  opinion  may  be  entertained  of  the 
prudence  of  these  and  other  pious  persons  be- 
longing to  the  society  of  Quakers,  in  exposing 
themselves  to  such  perils,  without  possessing 
ordinary  or  supernatural  means  of  succeeding 
in  their  well-meant  efforts,  the  patience,  firm- 
ness, and  fortitude  which  they  displayed  under 
the  most  trying  circumstances,  must  be  allowed 
singular  merit  and  praise.  Patience  and  meei<- 
ness,  indeed,  were  general  characteristics  of  this 
people.  They  met  and  supported  the  exertions 
of  malicious  violence  and  wanton  despotism 
■with  resigned  acquiescence,  and  in  humble  de- 
pendance  upon  Divine  protection  and  support, 
without  fainting  in  their  minds. 

They  were  also  distinguished,  from  the  begin- 
ning, by  their  charitable  regard  towards  each 
other.  There  were  some  among  them  who 
were  not  only  examples  of  steadfastness,  but, 
by  their  exhortations,  in  word  and  writing,  en- 
couraged their  brethren  to  perseverance.  In 
the  time  of  the  plague  they  were  exemplary  for 
the  care  and  tenderness  with  which  they  reliev- 
ed the  affliction  of  the  widows  and  orphans  of 
their  friends  whom  that  calamity  carried  off. 
They  held  occasional  meetings  in  the  city  to 
provide  for  the  necessities  of  the  poor ;  and 
when  the  number  of  objects  proved  too  many 
for  the  men  to  assist  by  these  meetings,  they 
called  upon  the  most  grave  and  tender-hearted 
of  their  female  friends  to  aid  them  in  the  offices 
of  humanity,  who  for  this  purpose  met  once  a 
week.  Not  the  resident  inhabitants  only  were 
exercised  in  this  care ;  but  several,  as  George 
Whitehead,  Alexander  Parker,  Josiah  Coale, 
and  others,  came  out  of  the  country  to  London, 
as  with  their  lives  in  their  hands,  supported  by 
the  sentiments  of  faith  and  resignation,  to  suf- 
fer with  their  friends  there,  whatever  might  be 
permitted  to  befall  them,  to  strengthen  and  en- 
courage them  to  keep  up  their  meetings,  to  ed- 
ify them  with  their  gifts,  and  to  visit  and  com- 
fort the  sick  and  imprisoned.  And  through  all 
they  were  mercifully  preserved  from  the  mfec- 
tion,  and  from  imprisonment  in  this  season  of 
danger.  + 

The  benevolence  of  their  minds  was  not  con- 
fined to  the  acts  of  fraternal  regards  to  one  an- 
other, in  the  season  of  calamity  and  persecution, 
but  took  a  wider  scope.  Their  attention  to  their 
poor,  that  there  should  be  no  beggar  among 
them,  nor  any  sent  to  the  parish  for  relief;  and 
to  afford  their  children  instruction,  and  put  them 
out  apprentices  to  suitable  trades,  hath  deserv- 
edly attracted  notice,  and  commanded  general 
approbation.  They  have,  moreover,  cheerfully 
paid  their  quota  to  the  poor  of  their  respective 
parishes,  and  proper  objects  of  any  denomina- 
tion have  been  relieved  by  their  private  dona- 
tions.t  It  frequently  happened  that  justices 
and  military  officers,  on  coming  to  break  up 
their  general  meeting  at  Skipton,  when  they 
saw  their  accounts  of  their  collections  and  dis- 
bursements, and  the  care  taken  that  one  county 
should  help  another,  as  circumstances  might  re- 
quire, have  been  obliged  to  commend  their  care, 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  03-83. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  189. 


+  Ibid.,  p.  149,  150. 


and  have  left  them  undisturbed  in  the  exercise- 
of  the  laudable  object  of  their  meeting.  The 
poor  of  other  societies,  frequently  gathered  in 
crowds  upon  these  occasions,  partook  of  their 
liberality  ;  for  it  was  their  custom,  after  the 
inecting  was  over,  to  send  to  tiie  bakers  for 
bread,  and  distribute  a  loaf  to  each,  how  many 
soever  they  were.* 

Our  sketch  ofthe  history  of  this  society  will  not 
be  complete  if  we  do  not  notice  some  who  were 
eminent  ministers  in  it,  and  died  at  this  period. 

The  first  to  be  mentioned  is  Richard  Huhber- 
thnrn,  the  son  of  a  reputable  yeoman  in  the  north 
of  Lancashire,  who,  after  two  months'  imprison- 
ment, through  the  effect  of  the  throng  of  prison- 
ers and  the  vitiated  air  on  his  tender  constitu- 
tion, died  in  Newgate  on  the  17ih  of  June,  1662. 
He  was  from  his  youth  inclined  to  piety,  sobri- 
ety, and  virtue.  When  he  arrived  to  years  of 
maturity,  he  obtained  a  post  in  the  Parliament's, 
array,  and  preached  occasionally  to  the  soldiers. 
When  he  joined  the  society  of  the  Quakers,  he- 
quitted,  agreeably  to  their  principle  of  peace^, 
his  military  employment.  He  was  one  of  the 
first  ministers  of  this  society.  His  stature  was 
low,  his  constitution  infirm,  and  his  voice  weak ; 
but  he  was  powerful,  able,  and  successful  as  a. 
minister.  In  the  exercise  of  this  office  he  trav- 
elled, in  different  parts  of  the  nation,  for  the 
space  of  nine  years.  He  knew  his  season,  whenr 
to  speak  and  when  to  be  silent ;  when  he  spoke, 
he  delivered  himself  with  plainness  and  pertinen- 
cy to  the  subject  before  him.  He  was  a  man  of 
much  meekness,  humility,  patience,  and  broth- 
erly kindness  ;  and  of  distinguished  equanimity, 
neither  easily  depressed  in  adversity,  nor  elated 
in  prosperity.  His  life  was  spent  in  acts  of 
righteousness  and  the  pursuit  of  peace,  of  which 
his  latter  end  exhibited  the  happy  effects,  the 
peaceful  tenour  of  his  conscience  stripping  death 
of  all  its  terrors,  and,  in  the  full  assurance  of 
faith,  he  looked  forward  to  the  near  approach  of 
future  happiness. 

About  the  same  time,  and  in  tne  same  pris- 
on, died,  in  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  his  age, 
having  been  ten  years  a  zealous  and  powerful 
preacher,  Mr.  Edward  Burrough.  He  was  born 
in  or  near  Underbarrovv,  a  village  in  the  barony 
of  Kendal,  in  Westmoreland,  of  parents  in  re- 
pute for  their  honest  and  virtuous  conduct,  and-, 
of  competent  substance.  His  puerile  years  ex- 
hibited proofs  of  manly  sense  and  religious. 
thoughtfulness.  He  was  fond  of  the  conversa- 
tion of  such  as  were  in  esteem  for  piety,  and 
placed  his  satisfaction  in  perusing  the  Scrip- 
tures, in  which  he  was  well  versed.  He  was 
educated  in  the  Episcopal  way  of  worship  ;  but, 
about  the  age  of  twelve  years,  began  to  frequent 
the  meetings  of  the  Prerbyterians,  till  he  was  ■ 
seventeen.  He  then  became  possessed  with  se- 
rious apprehensions  of  great  deficiency  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  internal  purity  of  heart, 
and  felt  considerable  uneasiness  and  fear  ;  and, 
dissatisfied  with  the  doctrine  he  heard,  as  re- 
sulting, in  his  view,  from  mere  speculation  and 
the  experience  of  others,  and  not  the  fruit  of 
t'eir  own  experience,  he  withdrew  from  the 
teachers  of  it.  On  George  Fox's  coming  into 
the  parts  where  he  resided,  he  went  to  hear 
him  preach,  and  afterward  entered  into  reason- 
ing with  him  upon  religious  subjects.  The  con- 
*  Gough,  vol.  i.,  p.  432. 


HISTORY    OF    THE    QUAKERS. 


419 


sequence  was,  that  he  joined  the  society  of  the 
Quakers,  in  which  he  became  a  most  servicea- 
ble member  and  eminent  minister.  On  forming 
this  connexion  his  relations  discarded  him,  his 
father  expelled  him  from  his  house,  and  he  felt 
himself  exposed  to  many  hardships,  all  which 
evils  he  bore  with  exemplary  patience.  His  la- 
borious exertions,  both  by  word  and  writing, 
were  indefatigable,  and  his  religious  exercises 
as  a  preacher  were  the  whole  business  of  his 
life ;  he  allowed  himself  few  hours  of  repose, 
and  did  not  appropriate  one  week  at  a  time,  for 
many  years,  to  himself  or  his  private  concerns. 
He  travelled  through  England,  Scotland,  Ireland, 
and  Flanders;  but  the  principal  field  of  his  min- 
isterial labours  was  London.  As  he  was  preach- 
ing at  the  meeting  at  Bull-and-Mouth,  he  was 
violently  taken  down  by  the  soldiers,  and  carried 
\before  Alderman  Brown,  who  committed  him 
to  Newgate.  Some  weeks  after,  he  was  brought 
to  trial  at  the  Old  Bailey,  fined  by  the  court 
twenty  marks,  and  condemned  to  lie  in  prison 
till  he  paid  the  fine,  which  amounted  to  perpet- 
ual imprisonment,  as  the  principles  of  the  Qua- 
kers led  them  to  consider  a  voluntary  and  ac- 
tive compliance  with  the  penalty  as  a  tacit  con- 
fession of  guilt.  A  special  order  from  the  king 
was  sent  to  the  sheriffs  for  his  release,  and  that 
of  some  other  prisoners,  but  the  magistrates  of 
the  city  found  means  to  prevent  the  execution 
of  it.  He  met  his  dissolution,  brought  on  by 
disease  and  imprisonment,  with  the  consolatory 
review  of  a  life  spent  in  the  service  of  his  Crea- 
tor. "  I  have  had  the  testimony  of  the  Lord's 
love  unto  me,"  said  he,  "  from  my  youth  ;  and 
my  heart,  0  Lord,  hath  been  given  up  to  do  thy 
will.  I  have  preached  the  Gospel  freely  in  this 
city,  and  have  often  given  up  my  life  for  thy 
Gospel's  sake  ;  and  now,  0  Lord,  rip  open  my 
heart,  and  see  if  it  be  not  right  before  thee." 
As  his  dissolution  drew  nigh,  he  said,  "  Though 
this  body  of  clay  must  turn  to  dust,  yet  I  have 
a  testimony  that  I  have  served  God  faithfully  in 
my  generation  ;  and  that  spirit  that  hath  lived, 
and  acted,  and  ruled  in  me,  shall  yet  break  forth 
in  thousands." 

Another  zealous  preacher  among  this  people 
was  William  Ames,  who  travelled  in  the  work 
of  the  ministry  not  in  England  only,  but  much 
in  Holland  and  Germany,  where  several  were 
convinced  by  him,  especially  in  the  palatinate. 
These  palatines,  removing  soon  after  to  Penn- 
sylvania, escaped  the  general  devastation  of 
their  country  by  the  French,  which  happened 
soon  after.  Ames  was,  at  first,  after  his  mind 
took  a  serious  turn,  a  teacher  among  the  Bap- 
tists ;  he  was  also  a  military  officer  in  Crom- 
well's army  in  Ireland,  in  which  post,  being 
strict  and  regular  in  his  own  conduct,  he  exerted 
himself  to  introduce  and  preserve  the  like  regu- 
larity among  the  soldiers  under  his  command 
by  a  strict  discipline.  Francis  Howgill  and  Ed- 
ward Burrough  coming  into  Ireland,  he  went 
to  hear  them,  and  embraced  their  doctrine.  He 
and  several  others  were  afterward  taken,  by 
two  musketeers,  out  of  a  private  house  in  Lon- 
don, forced  to  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  where  they 
were  derided  and  abused  by  the  soldiers,  and 
afterward  taken  before  Alderman  Brown,  who 
committed  them  to  hard  labour  in  Bridewell. 
Here  they  were  so  severely  treated,  that  Ames 
grew  dangerously  ill ;  and  being  an  inhabitant 


of  Amsterdam,  he  was  discharged  for  fear  of  his 
dying  in  prison.  He  returned,  upon  his  release, 
to  this  city,  and  supported  himself  by  wool- 
combing,  but  so  injured  in  his  health  that  he 
never  recovered,  but  died  within  the  current 
year,  1662.*- 

Near  the  close  of  the  year  1662,  John  Aud- 
land,  a  native  of  Camsgill,  in  Westmoreland, 
was  taken  off  by  a  consumption  in  an  early 
stage  of  life.  When  a  child,  he  discovered  a 
quick  understanding  and  retentive  memory.  As 
he  approached  a  state  of  maturity,  he  applied 
the  attention  of  his  mind  to  religious  thought 
and  to  reading  the  Scriptures,  and  became  an 
eminent  teacher  among  the  Independents,  of 
whom  he  had  a  very  numerous  auditory.  He 
was  one  of  the  principal  preachers  at  Firbank 
Chapel,  at  the  time  when  George  Fox  had  a 
memorable  meeting  there,  and  became  a  con- 
vert to  his  doctrine,  which  he  afterward  zeal- 
ously and  ably  exerted  himself  to  disseminate, 
travelling  through  sundry  parts  of  the  nation 
with  this  view ;  foregoing  the  comforts  of  do- 
mestic life,  and  separating  himself,  with  her  con- 
sent, from  his  wife,  who  entered  into  his  views,, 
a  virtuous  and  well-accomplished  young  wom- 
an, of  a  good  family,  to  whom  he  was  married 
about  the  twentieth  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
one  of  the  earliest  preachers  of  this  persuasion 
who  visited  the  city  of  Bristol  and  the  western 
counties.  The  number  of  his  hearers  increased 
to  such  a  degree  in  that  place,  that,  for  want  of 
a  house  large  enough,  the  meetings  were  fre- 
quently held  in  an  orchard.  He  was  a  parta- 
ker with  his  brethren  in  repeated  imprisonments 
and  abuses  of  his  person.  His  sufferings  and 
exertions  were  beyond  his  strength,  and  brought 
on  a  cough,  which  appeared  consumptive,  and 
finally  terminated  in  a  slow  fever,  that  put  a  pe- 
riod to  his  life  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  yearsv 
He  was  not  only  preserved  in  peaceful  serenity 
of  mind  at  this  solemn  season,  but  at  times  filled 
even  with  joy  at  the  prospect  of  his  approaching 
felicity  ;  from  the  impression  whereof  his  soul,, 
under  extreme  bodily  weakness,  was  raised  ui> 
in  praise  to  the  Almighty,  and  in  prayer  for  the 
prosperity  of  his  friends  in  righteousness,  t 

In  1667,  after  about  fifteen  years  spent  in  act- 
ing and  suffering  for  those  doctrines  he  had  re- 
ceived for  truth,  died  Richard  Farnsworth,  ex- 
horting his  friends  with  affecting  energy  and 
strength  of  spirit,  as  if  he  were  in  full  health, 
and  giving  evidence  of  his  full  assurance  of 
faith.  He  was  one  of  the  first  who  embraced 
the  principles  of  George  Fox,  soon  after  his  re- 
lease from  his  imprisonment  at  Derby,  while  the 
name  of  Quaker  was  but  just  known.  He  join- 
ed him  in  society  and  ministerial  labours,  and 
many  were  converted  by  him.  For  not  pulling 
off  his  hat  to  a  justice  of  peace  in  the  streets  of 
Banbury,  in  1656,  he  was,  after  the  justice  bad 
struck  it  off  in  passion,  sent  for  and  committed 
to  prison.  Next  day,  when  passion  subsided,  his 
release  was  offered  him  on  paying  the  jailer's 
fees,  and  promising  to  leave  the  town  that  night. 
He  would  promise  nothing,  knowing  that  he  had 
been  illegally  committed.  The  oath  of  abjura- 
tion was  then  tendered  to  him,  and  on  his  refa. 
sing  it,  he  was  recommitted  to  prison,  where  he 
lay  about  six  months.t 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2-15. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  222,  223. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  83-88. 


420 


SUPPLEMENT. 


In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  16fi8  and  the  he- 
ginning  of  the  next,  this  society  was  deprived 
of  three  eminent  and  serviceahle  members: 
Thomas  Loe,  Josiah  Coale,  and  Francis  How- 
gill. 

Thomas  Loe  was  a  man  of  fine  natural  tem- 
per, easy,  affable,  and  pleasing  in  conversation, 
benevolent  and  sympathizing  in  his  disposition. 
He  travelled  on  foot  through  the  greatest  part  of 
the  nation,  and  visited  Ireland  several  times. 
His  gifts  were  attractive,  and  he  had  generally 
crowded  audiences.     He  was  several  times  im- 
prisoned  for   his   testimony,    and   his    natural 
strength   was  impaired  by  his  travels  and  la 
hours.     His  convert,  William  Penn,  visited  him 
in  his  last  sickness,  whom  he  addressed  thus  ; 
"  Bear  thy  cross  and  stand  faithful  to  God,  then 
He  will  give  thee  an  everlasting  crown  of  glory 
that  shall  not  be  taken  from  thee.     There  is  no 
other  way  which  shall  prosper  than  that  which 
the  holy   men   of  old  walked   in.      God   hath 
brought  immortality  to  light,  and  life  immortal 
is  felt.     His  love  overcomes  my  heart.     Glory 
be  to  His  name  for  evermore."      He  accosted 
others  with  similar  sentiments  ;  and  his  parting 
breath  expressed  a  song  of  praise  to  that  al- 
mighty Being  whose  goodness  preserved  him 
through  life,  and  deserted  him  not  in  his  end.* 
Josiah  Coale  was  horn  at  Winterborne,  Glou- 
cestershire, near  Bristol,  and  received  his  im- 
pressions in  favour  of  the  Quakers'  doctrine  un- 
der the  preaching  of  John  Audland,  about  the 
year   1655.      He   proved  an  able  and   zealous 
minister  :  his  testimony  was  sharp  and  piercing 
iagainst  the  workers  of  iniquity,  while  it  flowed 
in  a  stream  of  life  and  encouraging  consolation 
to  the  pious  and  virtuous.     In  1656,  after  hav- 
ing been  first  grievously  abused  by  the  popu- 
lace, and  dragged  bareheaded  under  the  spouts 
in  a  time  of  rain,  he  was  imprisoned  in  New- 
j^fate,  at  Bristol.     In  the  same  year,  he  was, 
u'ith  three  other  friends,  severely  abused  and 
beiiten  by  the  mob,  and  then  committed  to  prison 
by   the  mayor,  at  Melcomb  Regis.     In  1658,  a 
sense  of  duty  determined  him  to  pay  a  religious 
visit  to  the  English  colonies  in  America.     As 
no  master  of  a  ship  would  take  him  to  New- 
England,  for  fear  of  the  penalties  enacted  in  that 
state  against  such  as  should  bring  in  any  Qua- 
kers, he  got  a  passage,  in  company  with  Thom- 
as Thirston,  to  Virginia  ;    from   whence   they 
made  their  way  on  foot  through  a  wilderness  of 
several  hundred  miles,  till  then  deemed  impas- 
sable for  any  but  the  Indians.     By  these  people, 
of  the  Susquehanna  tribe,  they  were   treated 
with  remarkable  attention  and  hospitality,  en- 
tertained with  lodging  and  provisions,  and  fur- 
nished with  guides  to   the  Dutch  plantations. 
Their   journey  was,   hovv-ever,   attended    with 
great  hardships  and  dangers.     They  met  with 
very  different  treatment  from  the  lofty  profes- 
sors of  New-England,  whose  tempers  were  im- 
biltered,  whose  natural  tenderness  and  compas- 
sion were  eradicated,  by  false  principles  of  re- 
ligion.    Here  Coale  was  violently  haled  out  and 
sent  to  prison,  and  some  time  after  banished  to 
Maryland.     He  travelled  through  this  state  and 
Barbadoes  ;  and,  in  Europe,  through  most  parts 
of  England,  in  Holland,  and  the  Low  Countries  ; 
going  through  many  perds,  imprisonments,  and 
persecutions,  valiant  in  what  he  regarded  as  the 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  229-231;  and  vol.  i.,p.318,  31C, 


cause  of  truth,  undaunted  in  danger,  and  borne 
above  the  fear  of  man  by  the  supports  of  a 
peaceful  conscience.  He  not  only  in  his  travels 
bore  his  own  charges  abroad,  but  was  an  exem- 
plary pattern  of  liberality  at  home,  and  freely 
spent  his  estate  in  the  service  to  which  he  de- 
voted himself  His  natural  temper  was  cheer- 
ful, religion  tempered  it  with  seriousness ;  his 
unaffected  affability  was  mixed  with  a  circum- 
spect and  exemplary  deportment ;  his  whole 
conversation  illustrated  the  purity  of  his  reli- 
gion, and  was  an  ornament  to  his  profession. 
After  ministerial  services  of  twelve  years,  he 
fell  into  a  decline,  and  departed  in  the  arms  of 
his  friends,  as  one  falling  into  a  deep  sleep,  full 
of  consolation,  exhorting  others  to  "  be  faithful 
to  God,  and  have  a  single  eye  to  his  glory,"  ex- 
pressing his  own  confidence  that  "the  majesty 
of  God  was  with  him,  and  his  crown  of  life  upon 
him,"  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  years  and  two 
months.* 

The  last  person  to  oe  noticed  is  Francis  How- 
gill,  a  principal  as  well  as  early  promulgator 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Quakers,  and  a  valuable 
member  of  their  community.  He  was  a  native 
of  Westmoreland,  and  received  his  education, 
for  the  priest's  office  in  the  Church,  at  the  uni- 
versity ;  but,  being  scrupulous  of  complying 
with  the  ceremonies,  he  withdrew  from  the  Na- 
tional Church,  and  joined  the  Independents,  and 
was  an  eminent  preacher  among  them,  labori- 
ous and  zealous  as  a  minister,  and  esteemed  for 
his  virtue  and  exemplary  conversation.  In  1652 
he  became  a  proselyte  to  the  doctrines  of  George 
Fox,  on  hearing  him  at  Firbank  Chapel.  He 
was,  soon  after  this,  sent,  with  James  Naylor, 
to  the  jail  at  Appleby.  In  1654,  he  and  Edward 
Burrough,  in  company  with  Anthony  Pearson, 
travelled  to  London,  and  were  the  first  of  this 
society  who  held  meetings  in  that  city,  and  by 
whose  preaching  many  there  were  brought  over 
to  the  same  profession.  While  he  was  there, 
he  went  to  court  to  intercede  with  Oliver  Crom- 
well, that  a  stop  might  be  put  to  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  members  of  his  society,  and  he  wrote 
also  to  the  protector,  on  the  same  subject,  in  a 
plain  and  bold  strain,  but  without  any  good  ef- 
fects. It  does  not  appear  that  they  met  with 
any  personal  molestations  in  the  metropolis ; 
and  when  they  had  gathered  and  settled  meet- 
ings there,  they  went  to  Bristol.  Multitudes 
flocked  to  hear  them,  and  many  embraced  their 
doctrine.  The  clergy  were  alarmed,  and  they 
were  summoned  belbre  the  magistrates,  and 
were  commanded  to  leave  the  city  immediately. 
To  this  order  they  answered,  "  We  came  not  in 
the  will  of  man,  nor  stand  in  the  will  of  man, 
but  when  He  shall  move  us  to  depart  who  mo- 
ved us  to  come  hither,  we  shall  obey ;  we  are 
free-born  Englishmen,  and  have  served  the  com- 
monwealth faithfully,  being  free  in  the  sight  of 
God  from  the  transgression  of  any  law  :  to  your 
commandments  we  cannot  he  obedient ;  but  if 
by  violence  you  put  us  out  of  the  city,  and  have 
power  to  do  it,  we  cannot  re.-isl."  Having  said 
this,  they  went  out  of  the  court,  but  tarried  in 
the  city,"  preaching  as  before,  for  some  time.-f 
In  1663,  Francis  Howgill  was  summoned  before 
the  justices,  as  he  was  in  the  market-place  at 
Kendal  on  his  business:  and,  for  refusing  the 

*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  231-236. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  112,  126,  144,  &c. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   QUAKERS. 


421 


oath  of  allegiance,  was  committed  to  prison  till 
the  summer  assizes,  at  which  the  oath  was 
again  tendered  to  him,  and  upon  relusal  an  in- 
dictment was  drawn  up  against  him,  which  he 
traversed.  But  as  he  would  not  enter  into  bond 
for  his  good  behaviour,  which  he  considered  as 
a  tacit  acquiescence  in  the  charge  of  ill  beha- 
viour, and  a  bar  to  attendance  on  meetings,  he 
was  recommitted  to  prison.  At  the  spring  as- 
sizes he  was  brought  to  his  trial,  when.  Under  a 
rigorous  sentence  of  praemunire,  he  was  sent  back 
to  the  prison,  where  he  remained,  till  released 
by  death,  for  nearly  five  years,  deprived  of  eve- 
ry comfort  and  convenience  his  persecutors 
could  take  from  him.  He  died,  after  a  sickness 
of  nine  days,  the  20th  of  January,  1668-9.  Du- 
ring his  confinement  he  evidenced  the  peaceful 
and  even  tenour  of  his  soul  by  his  patience,  and 
preserved  to  the  last  an  amiable  equanimity, 
which  had  characterized  him  through  life,  the 
serenity  of  his  conscience  bearing  him  superior 
to  his  sufferings  and  to  the  fear  of  death.  He 
wrote  a  copious  treatise  against  oaths,  wherein 
he  maintained  the  unlawfulness  of  swearing  un- 
der the  Gospel.  His  virtues,  innocence,  and  in- 
tegrity of  life  were  conspicuous.  He  was  gen- 
erally respected  by  those  who  knew  him ;  his 
sufferings  were  commiserated,  and  the  unmer- 
ited enmity  and  cruelty  of  his  persecutors  con- 
demned. Several  of  the  principal  inhabitants 
of  Appleby,  and  particularly  the  mayor,  visited 
him  in  his  sickness  ;  and  some  of  them  praying 
that  God  might  speak  peace  to  his  soul,  he  an- 
swered, "  He  hath  done  it."  He  also  expressed 
himself  thus  :  "  That  he  was  content,  and  ready 
to  die ;  praising  the  Almighty  for  the  many 
sweet  enjoyments  and  refreshing  seasons  he 
had  been  favoured  with  on  his  prison  bed,  where- 
in he  lay,  freely  forgiving  all  who  had  a  hand  in 
his  restraint."  A  few  hours  before  he  departed, 
he  said,  "  I  have  sought  the  way  of  the  Lord 
from  a  child,  and  lived  innocently  as  among 
men ;  and  if  any  inquire  concerning  my  latter 
end,  let  them  know  that  I  die  in  the  faith  in 
which  I  lived  and  suffered  for."  After  these 
words,  he  uttered  some  others  in  prayer  to  God, 
and  so  finished  his  life  in  perfect  peace,  in  the 
fiftieth  year  of  his  age. 

Mr.  Gough  has  preserved  a  letter  of  useful 
instructions,  addressed  to  his  daughter,  which 
he  left  behind  him.  His  will,  made  some  lime 
before  his  decease,  bequeathed  out  of  his  real 
estate,  his  personal  having  been  forfeited  to  the 
king,  a  legacy  to  his  poor  lYiends  in  those  parts 
where  he  lived,  and  a  token  of  his  affectionate 
remembrance  to  several  of  his  brethren  and  fel- 
low-labourers in  the  ministry.* 


CHAPTER  n. 

FROM   THE   DECLARATION   OF   INDULGENCE   TO    THE 
REVOLUTION.       A.D.    1674-1688. 

When  the  king  published  his  declaration  of 
indulgence,  the  Quakers,  wiiodid  not  rank  wilii 
any  political  party  merely  to  enjoy  tiie  ease 
and  liberty  to  which  peaceable  and  virtuous  sub- 
jects have  a  right,  accepted  the  protection  it  af- 
forded. But  those  who  were  at  liberty,  from 
that  spirit  of  sympathy  and  brotherly  concern 


Gough,  vol.  «.,  p.  31,  96-108,  and  iJ36-241. 


which  pervades  the  society,  could  not  enjoy 
their  own  exemption  from  penal  statutes  with- 
out exerting  themselves  for  tlie  relief  of  their 
brethren  who  had  been,  for  several  years,  kept 
immured  in  uncomfortable  prisons.  George 
Whitehead,  Thomas  Moor,  and  Thomas  Green, 
invited  by  the  present  disposition  of  govern- 
ment, waited  on  the  king  and  council  to  solicit 
the  discharge  of  their  friends,  who,  convicted 
on  transportation,  or  on  praemunire,  or  for  fines, 
confiscations,  or  fees,  were  still  in  prison  ;  and 
they  were  so  successful  as  to  obtain  the  king's 
letters  patent,  under  the  great  seal,  for  their 
pardon  and  discharge.  In  the  accomplishing  of 
this  business,  a  difficulty  arose  from  the  amount 
of  the  fees  to  be  paid  in  the  sundry  offices 
through  which  the  letters  patent  would  pass,  as 
upward  of  four  hundred  persons  would  be  in- 
cluded in  them.*  But  when  the  lord-keeper, 
Sir  Orlando  Bridgeman,  generously  and  volunta- 
rily remitted  his  fees,  they  applied  to  the  king 
to  moderate  the  rest,  who  accordingly  issued 
his  order,  "that  the  pardon,  though  compre- 
hending a  great  number  of  persons,  do  yet  pass 
as  one  pardon,  and  pay  but  as  one." 

Their  success  gave  them  an  opportunity  to 
show  the  universality  of  their  charity  to  other 
Dissenters,  many  of  whom  were  confined  in 
prison,  and  whose  solicitors,  observing  the  hap- 
py issue  of  the  Quakers'  suit,  applied  to  White- 
head for  his  advice  and  assistance,  to  have  the 
names  of  their  own  friends  inserted  in  the  same 
instrument.  In  consequence  of  his  advice,  they 
petitioned  the  king,  and  obtained  his  warrant 
for  that  purpose.  "  This  I  was  glad  of,"  says 
Whitehead,  "  that  they  partook  of  the  benefit 
through  our  industry.  And,  indeed,  I  was  nev- 
er backward  to  give  any  of  them  my  advice  for 
their  help,  when  any  of  them  in  straits  have 
applied  for  it ;  our  being  of  different  judgments 
and  societies  did  not  abate  my  sympathy  or 
charity,  even  towards  them  who,  in  some  cases, 
had  been  our  opposers."  The  Quakers  were 
thus  freed,  for  a  time,  from  the  severities  of  per- 
secution. The  public  testimony  which  they 
continued,  in  the  severest  times,  to  bear  to  the 
principles  they  received  as  truth,  and  the  firm- 
ness with  which  they  held  their  meetings  at  the 
appointed  times  and  places,  or,  when  kept  out 
of  their  places  of  worship  by  force,  assembled 
in  the  streets,  baffled  the  scheme  of  estahlisiiing 
uniformity,  countenanced  and  assisted  by  the 
temporizing  conduct  of  other  Dissenters ;  and 
abated  the  heat  of  persecution,  and  blunted  the 
edge  of  the  sword  before  it  reached  the  other 
sects  ;  the  more  ingenuous  of  whom,  therefore, 
esteemed  their  intrepidity,  regarded  them  with 
gratitude  as  the  bulwark  that  kept  off  the  force 
of  the  stroke  from  themselves,  and  prayed  that 
they  might  be  preserved  steadfast,  and  enabled 
to  break  the  strength  of  the  enemy.  Some  ot 
the  Baptists  especially  expressed  a  high  opinion 
both  of  the  people  and  their  principles,  which 
sustained  them  in  undergoing  sufferings  that 
others  thought  of  with  terror. t 

When  the  revocation  of  the  indulgence,  and 
the  displeasure  of  ilie  court  against  the  Dissent- 
ers, let  loose  the  whole  tribe  of  informers,  and 


*  The  patent,  when  made  out,  contained  eleven 
skins  of  vellum. 

+  Cough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  364^ 
3C8. 


422 


SUPPLEMENT. 


gave  fresh  spirit  to  perseeuting  magistrates, 
prosecutions,  in  every  mode  of  distress,  were  re- 
newed against  this  people,  at  the  capricious  will 
of  every°justice.  Severe  proceedings  against 
them  were  grounded  on  the  statute  of  praemu- 
nire of  James  I.  for  refusing  to  swear  ;  on  the 
obsolete  statute  of  £20  per  month  for  absence 
from  the  parish  church,  which  penalty,  or  two 
thirds  of  a  person's  estate,  were  seized  by  ex- 
chequer process  ;  and  for  tithes,  to  excom- 
munication and  procuring  writs  de  excommuni- 
catio  capiendo  to  be  issued,  to  throw  them  into 
prison.  They  became  a  prey  to  idle  and  profli- 
gate informers,  encouraged  ancV  instigated  by 
their  superiors  ;  and,  instead  of  obtaining  du- 
rable and  effectual  relief,  their  sufferings  became 
heavier  and  more  aggravated  during  the  re- 
mainder of  this  reign  to  the  end  of  it.* 

In  1675,  William  Hall,  of  Congleton,  being 
fined  £20  for  a  meeting  at  his  house,  had  his 
house  broken  open,  and  two  cartloads  of  goods, 
to  the  worth  of  £40,  besides  a  mare,  were  car- 
ried away.  About  the  same  time  cattle  and 
goods  to  the  value  of  £100  were  taken  from 
sundry  persons  in  and  about  Nantwich ;  and 
from  one  person  the  bed  on  which  he  lay,  and 
even  the  dunghill  in  his  yard.t 

In  the  next  year,  prosecutions  on  the  Con- 
venticle Act  subsided  in  London,  but  the  rig- 
orous enforcing  of  the  ecclesiastical  laws  was 
rarely  or  never  suspended.  The  number  plun- 
dered, excommunicated,  imprisoned,  and  of 
those  who  died  in  prison,  was  too  large  to  be 
recited.]:  But  while  the  penal  laws  were  suf- 
fered to  lie  dormant  in  London,  they  were  en- 
forced with  rigorous  severity  in  other  parts  of 
the  nation.  In  one  instance,  a  poor  man,  with 
a  wife  and  five  children,  had  little  to  pay  the 
fine  for  being  at  a  meeting  but  his  bed,  which 
the  compassion  of  the  officers  would  not  permit 
them  to  seize  ;  but  the  obdurate  magistrate  com- 
manded them  to  take  it.  The  wife,  endeavour- 
ing afterward  to  maintain  her  children  by  ba- 
king a  little  bread,  and  selling  it  in  the  market, 
it  was  seized  at  one  time  to  the  value  of  nine- 
teen pence,  and  at  another  to  the  value  of  four- 
teen pence.  From  another  person,  for  a  fine  of 
£7,  goods  to  the  worth  of  near  £18  were  taken. <J 
The  distresses  made  this  year  in  Nottingham- 
shire, upon  the  members  of  this  society,  for 
their  religious  assemblies  only,  amounted  to 
£712  and  upward.  In  the  city  of  Hereford,  as 
prosecutions  on  the  law  were  ineffectual  to  sup- 
press their  meetings,  lawless  violence  and  gross 
abuse  were  offered  by  the  populace ;  the  win- 
dows of  their  meeting-houses  were  broken  by 
stones,  and  sometimes  the  roof  was  untiled  ; 
their  assemblies  were  interrupted  by  the  sound 
of  the  horn,  shouting,  and  casting  stones  and 
filth,  and  their  persons  assaulted.  The  mob,  in- 
stead of  being  restrained  and  punished  for  these 
outrages,  were,  if  not  stimulated  to  them,  abet- 
ted and  encouraged  in  them  by  the  magistrates 
and  clergy.  Appeals  to  the  Quarter  Sessions 
for  redress  against  exorbitant  exactions  were 
unsuccessful,  as  the  juries  were  overawed,  or 
their  verdicts  for  the  appellants  rejected. || 

In  the  year  1677,  the  officers,  encouraged  by 
the  magistrate,  who  acted  the  part  of  an  inform- 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  392-397.  t  Ibid.,  p.  406. 

t  Ibid.,  p,  414.  4  Ibid.,  p.  416,  417. 

Jl  Ibid.,  p.  420-424. 


er,  took  away  from  six  friends  in  Cheshire,  for 
one  meeting,  £200.  In  Gloucestershire,  a  jus- 
tice of  the  peace,  besides  indicting  at  the  ses- 
sions twenty- seven  for  absence  from  the  nation- 
al worship,  who  had  suffered  deeply  before  oa 
the  Conventicle  jVct,  and  levying  heavy  fines, 
unmercifully  beat  some  with  his  own  hands, 
plucked  two  out  of  the  meeting  by  the  hair  of 
their  heads,  and  drew  his  knife,  if  he  had  not 
been  prevented  by  his  servants,  to  wound  oth- 
ers. At  Plymouth,  their  meetings  were  forcibly 
interrupted  and  dispersed  :  their  property  suf- 
fered by  fines  and  distresses,  and  their  persons 
were  abused  by  the  rabble,  and  by  the  officers 
and  soldiers  of  the  garrison,  who,  among  other 
insults,  threw  squibs  of  fire  and  hot  burning 
coals  upon  them.  In  many  other  parts  they 
were  treated  with  no  less  severity.  The  parish 
officers  were  sometimes  instigated  by  menacing 
letters,  or  impelled  to  act  against  their  inclina- 
tions by  the  clergy  exciting  the  justices  to  pun- 
ish by  fines  and  imprisonment,  for  neglect  of 
duty,  such  whose  moderation  and  humanity  ren- 
dered them  reluctant  to  prosecute  or  plunder 
their  conscientious  neighbours.* 

Through  the  succeeding  years  they  continued 
to  be  harassed  with  prosecutions  on  all  the  va- 
riety of  penal  laws,  which  were  rigorously  en- 
forced on  great  numbers  of  this  society,  who 
suffered  all  the  hardships  imposed  on  them  by 
unreasonable  men  with  pious  fortitude  and  res- 
ignation. In  1682,  the  persecution  of  this  peo- 
ple broke  out,  and  was  carried  on  with  uncom- 
mon outrage  and  cruelty  at  Bristol.  The  dam- 
age done  to  their  meeting-houses  was  computed 
at  £150.  A  rabble  of  rude  boys  was  encouraged 
to  insult  and  abuse  the  female  part  of  the  as- 
sembly, even  women  of  repute  and  considera- 
tion, and  to  tear  their  dresses.  The  signal  for 
this  attack  was,  "  Have  a  care  of  your  hoods 
and  scarfs."  Many  of  them  were  thrown  into 
prison,  where  their  health  was  endangered  for 
want  of  room,  many  beds  being  crowded  into 
one  small  apartment ;  and  some  were  obliged  to 
lie  on  the  ground,  in  a  filthy  place  which  had 
been  a  dog-kennel.  The  remonstrances  of  the 
prisoners  to  the  magistrates  on  the  straitness 
and  noisomeness  of  their  prison,  and  the  certifi- 
cates of  physicians  on  the  subject,  were  treated 
with  equal  disregard.  "As  their  constancy  in  the 
great  duty  of  assembling  to  worship  God,  while  at 
liberty,  was  invincible,  so  a  prison  could  not  con- 
fine the  freedom  of  their  spirits,  or  the  impulse 
of  their  consciences  :  they  continued  the  prac- 
tice of  this  duty  in  their  imprisonment."  This 
drew  on  them  gross  abuse,  even  from  the  sher- 
iff, who  fell  furiously  on  several,  threw  one  head- 
long down  to  the  great  hazard  of  his  life,  and 
commanded  another  to  be  ironed  and  put  down 
into  the  condemned  felons'  place.  Many  suffer- 
ed, as  in  former  years  and  other  places,  by 
heavy  fines  and  grievous  distraints  :  goods  to 
the  value  of  £  155  being  seized  to  discharge  a  fine 
of  £79.  When  most  or  all  of  the  men  were  im- 
prisoned, the  women  kept  up  their  religious  meet- 
ing, till  they  also  were  cast  into  jail.  When 
their  parents  were  in  confinement,  the  children, 
after  their  example,  regularly  held  their  meet- 
ings, behaving  on  those  occasions  with  much 
gravity  and  composure,  and  undergoing  many 
abuses  with  patience.      Their  age   exempted 


»  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  426-429,  438. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   QUAKERS. 


423 


!them  from  the  lash  of  the  law,  but  their  minori- 
ty could  not  screen  them  from  furious  assaults; 
some  were  put  in  the  stocks,  others  were  un- 
mercifully beaten  with  twisted  whalebone  sticks. 
Persecution  was  not  at  this  period  peculiar  to 
Bristol,  but  carried  on,  in  most  parts,  with  great 
animosity  ;  and  many  families  were  ruined  in 
their  circumstances.  In  1683,  about  eighty  per- 
sons were  at  one  time  committed  to  Chester 
Castle,  where  they  could  find  neither  rooms 
nor  lodgings  for  such  a  number,  so  that  they 
■were  obliged  for  two  nights,  some  of  them  to 
walk  about,  others  to  lie  on  tables  and  bench- 
es, and  some  on  flags  spread  on  the  floor.  At 
length  thirty  of  them  were  put  into  a  filthy  dun- 
geon, out  of  which  the  felons  were  then  remo- 
ved. In  Somersetshire,  informers  were  encour- 
aged against  them,  and  protected  in  perjury  ; 
their  meeting-houses  were  defaced,  and  they 
were,  in  great  numbers,  imprisoned,  fined,  dis- 
trained, and  excommunicated.  When  shut  out 
of  their  meeting-houses  for  divers  years,  in  and 
about  the  city  of  London,  they  assembled  in  the 
streets  in  all  weather  :  this  they  did  in  the  year 
1683,  for  three  months  together,  when  the  River 
Thames  was  so  frozen  that  horses,  coaches, 
and  carts  could  pass  to  and  fro  upon  it,  and  a 
street  be  erected  and  stand  over  it.*  There 
was  computed  to  be  upward  of  seven  hundred 
members  of  this  society  in  the  different  prisons 
of  England  this  year.  Sir  Christopher  Mus- 
grave,  though  a  zealous  churchman,  expressed 
his  utter  dislike  of  the  severe  usage  of  this  peo- 
ple, saying,  "  The  prisons  were  filled  with  them, 
that  many  of  them  had  been  excommunicated 
and  imprisoned  for  small  matters,  and  that  it 
was  a  shame  and  scandal  for  their  church  to 
use  the  Quakers  so  hardly  on  very  trivial  occa- 
sions."! Severe  prosecutions,  similar  acts  of  in- 
justice, oppression,  violence,  and  cruelty,  against 
this  society,  marked  the  year  1684,  which  were 
the  disgrace  of  the  preceding  years. t 

Among  those  who  suffered  from  bigotry, 
armed  with  power,  the  name  of  George  Fox 
takes  the  lead.  After  his  return  from  America 
in  1673,  as  he  was  on  his  road  to  visit  his  moth- 
er on  her  deathbed.  Fox  and  Thomas  Lower, 
who  was  his  wife's  son-in-law,  were  seized  as 
they  were  in  conversation  in  a  friend's  parlour 
at  Tredington  in  Worcestershire,  and  sent  to 
the  county  jail.  They  applied,  by  letter,  to  the 
lord-lieutenant  and  deputy-lieutenant  of  the 
county,  for  the  interposition  of  their  authority 
for  their  release  :  stating  their  case,  the  illegal- 
ity of  their  commitment,  and  Fox's  solicitude 
for  liberty  to  pay  the  last  debt  of  affection  and 
duty  to  his  dying  parent.  But  the  application 
■was  ineffectual.  Lower,  by  the  interposition 
of  his  brother,  who  was  the  king's  physician, 
might  have  obtained  his  liberty,  as  a  letter  to 
Lord  Wmdsor  for  his  release  was  procured ; 
but,  bearing  too  great  a  respect  to  his  father-in- 
law  to  leave  him  in  prison  alone,  he  suppressed 
the  letter,  and  voluntarily  continued  his  com- 
panion there.  At  the  Quarter  Sessions  they 
were  produced  in  court,  when,  on  the  examina- 
tion, it  appearing  that  they  had  been  causeless- 
ly imprisoned,  and  had  a  right  to  an  immediate 
release,  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy 
were  tendered  to  Fox,  and  on  his  refusing  to 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  522-525,  528-532,  547,  548. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  536,  508.  $  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  24-30. 


take  them,  he  was  remanded.  But  Lower,  on 
account  of  his  powerful  connexions,  was  dis- 
charged. Soon  after,  Fox  was  removed  by  a 
habeas  corpus  to  the  King's  Bench  bar  at  West- 
minster. The  judges,  influenced  by  the  reports 
and  representation  which  Parker,  the  justice 
who  first  apprehended  him,  had  dispersed,  re- 
manded him  to  Worcester  jail;  only  indulging 
hiiji  with  liberty  to  go  down  his  own  way,  and 
at  his  leisure,  provided  he  would  not  fail  to  be 
there  by  the  following  assizes,  in  April,  1674. 
He  accordingly  appeared,  when  the  judge.  Tur- 
ner, who  had  before  passed  sentence  of  praemu- 
nire against  him  at  Lancaster,  referred  the 
matter  back  again  to  the  sessions.  He  was 
then  charged  with  holding  a  meeting  at  Tred- 
ington from  all  parts  of  the  nation,  to  the  terri- 
fying of  the  king's  subjects.  Though  Fox  vin- 
dicated himself  from  this  misrepresentation, 
yet,  as  he  again  refused  the  oaths,  an  indict- 
ment was  drawn  up  and  delivered  to  the  jury, 
who,  under  the  instruction  of  the  chairman, 
found  the  bill  against  him.  This  he  determined 
to  traverse  ;  and,  on  refusing  to  give  bail,  or  any 
other  security  for  his  appearance  but  his  prom- 
ise, he  was  sent  back  to  prison.  By  the  inter- 
position of  some  moderate  justices,  however,  in 
about  two  hours  after  he  had  liberty  given  him 
to  go  at  large  till  the  next  Quarter  Sessions. 
In  the  mean  time  he  attended  the  yearly  meet- 
ing in  London,  and  delivered  before  some  of  the 
justices  of  the  King's  Bench  a  declaration  of  his 
fidelity  to  the  king,  and  denial  of  the  pope's  su- 
premacy and  power ;  but,  as  his  case  was  un- 
der cognizance  of  the  Quarter  Sessions  at  Wor- 
cester, the  judges  were  unwilling  to  meddle 
with  it,  not  being  regularly  before  them.  At 
the  next  sessions  he  appeared  to  traverse  the 
indictment ;  but  when  he  proceeded  to  show 
the  errors  which  were  sufficient  to  quash  it, 
the  oath  was  again  required  of  him,  and  upon 
his  refusal  to  take  it,  the  jury  found  him  guilty. 
An  admonition  of  the  consequence  of  a  pra3mu- 
nire  being  given  him  in  court,  this  was,  after 
he  was  sent  out  of  court,  clandestinely  record- 
ed in  his  absence,  for  the  sentence  thereof;  and 
under  it  he  was  remanded  to  prison.  Here  he 
was  seized  with  a  great  sickness,  which  re- 
duced him  to  extreme  weakness,  and  made  his 
recovery  doubtful.  His  wife  came  from  the 
north  to  attend  him,  and  solicit  his  discharge  : 
after  continuing  with  him  three  or  four  months, 
and  her  endeavours  to  procure  his  release  pro- 
ving unsuccessful,  she  -went  to  London,  and  so- 
licited the  king  in  person,  who  would  have  re- 
leased him  by  a  pardon  ;  but  Fox  declined  ob- 
taining his  liberty  in  this  mode,  as  he  conceived 
that  it  would  be  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of 
guilt;  and  he  declared,  "he  had  rather  lie  in 
prison  all  his  days,  than  come  out  in  any  way 
dishonourable  to  the  truth  he  made  profession 
of"  He  preferred  having  tlie  validity  of  his  in- 
dictment tried  before  the  judges,  and  with  this 
view  procured  a  habeas  corpus  to  remove  him 
to  the  King's  Bench  bar.  On  his  appearing  be- 
fore four  judges,  his  counsellor,  Mr.  Thomas 
Corbet,  advanced  a  new  plea  in  his  favour,  and 
gained  himself  great  credit  by  ably  urgmg 
"  that  by  law  they  could  not  imprison  a  man 
upon  praemunire."  The  judges  required  time 
to  consult  their  books  and  statutes  on  this  plea, 
and  postponed    the   hearing  until    next   day. 


424 


SUPPLEMENT. 


They  then  proceeded,  though  they  found  the 
advocate's  opinion  well  founded,  to  examine  the 
indictment,  in  vvliich  the  errors  were  so  many 
and  so  gross,  that  they  were  unanimous  in 
judgment  "that  the  indictment  was  quashed 
and  void,  ami  that  George  Fox  ought  to  be  set 
at  liheity."  Thus  he  honourably  obtained  his 
discharge,  after  an  unjust  imprisonment  of  a 
year  and  almost  two  months.  Some  of  his  en- 
emies, insinuating  "  he  was  a  dangerous  man 
to  he  at  liberty,"  moved  the  judges  that  the 
oaths  might  be  tendered  to  him  ;  hut  Sir  Mat- 
thew Hale  would  not  consent  to  it,  saying,  '-he 
had,  indeed,  heard  some  such  reports  of  George 
Fox,  but  he  had  also  heard  more  good  reports 
of  him."* 

He  appears  to  have  been  unmolested  after, 
till  the  year  1681,  when  he  and  his  wife  were 
sued  in  small  tithes  in  the  Exchequer,  although 
they  had  in  their  answer  to  the  plaintiff's  bill 
proved  that  no  such  tithe  had  been  demanded 
or  paid  off  her  estate  during  forty-three  years 
.she  had  lived  there  :  yet,  because  they  could 
not  answer  upon  oath,  they  were  run  up  to  a 
writ  of  rebellion,  and  an  order  of  court  was  is- 
sued to  take  them  both  into  custody.  Fox,  un- 
derstanding this,  laid  the  case  before  the  barons 
of  the  Exchequer.  On  the  hearing  of  the  cause, 
a  sequestration  was  earnestly  pleaded  for,  on 
the  ground  of  his  being  a  public  man,  as  if  that 
affected  the  merits  and  justice  of  the  cause; 
and  was  obtained,  though  at  first  two  of  the 
barons  declared  that  he  was  not  liable  to  tithes ; 
but  one  of  them  was  afterward  brought  over  to 
decide  with  the  adverse  barons  :  the  sequestra- 
tion was,  however,  limited  to  the  sum  proved 
due,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  the  prose- 
cutor's aim,  who  wanted  it  without  limitation, 
that  they  might  he  their  own  carvers  in  making 
distraint.  In  the  course  of  this  trial  was  pro- 
duced an  engagement,  under  the  hand  and  seal 
of  George  Fox,  that  he  would  never  meddle 
with  his  wife's  estate  :  this  raised  the  admira- 
tion of  the  judges,  as  an  instance  of  self-denial 
rarely  to  be  met  with  in  these  ages.f 

In  1680,  George  Whitehead  and  Thomas  Burr, 
as  they  were  on  a  journey  from  different  quar- 
ters to  pay  a  religious  visit  to  their  friends,  hap- 
pened to  meet  at  Norwich.  As  the  former  was 
preaching  on  the  succeeding  first  day  of  the 
week,  a  rude  company,  chiefly  of  informers, 
rushed  into  the  meeting  with  tumult  and  vio- 
lence, and  pulled  him  down  ;  to  the  requisition 
to  show  some  legal  authority  for  their  proceed- 
ings, they  returned  abusive  language,  only  with 
an  insinuation  to  the  people  "  that  he  might  he 
a  Jesuit."  The  sheriff,  coming  afterward,  took 
them  prisoners,  and  carried  them  before  the  re- 
corder, Francis  Bacon,  Esq.,  who  was  a  justice. 
He  examined  them  of  their  names,  habitations, 
and  trades  ;  "  if  they  were  in  orders,  or  had  or- 
ders from  Rome."  A  fine  of  £20  each  was  de- 
manded of  them  ;  on  refusing  to  pay  this,  the 
oath  of  allegiance  was  proposed.  While  the 
examination  was  going  on,  the  informer,  with 
the  sanction  of  the  justice,  went  to  seize  their 
horses,  hut  was  disappointed  in  his  attempt,  as 
they  had  been  removed  without  the  knowledge 
01  the  prisoners.  The  recorder  poured  out  his 
bitter  invectives,  and  threatened  to  have  them 
hanged  if  they  did  not  abjure  the  realm,  and  if 


Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  377-391.         f  Ibid.,  p.  514,  515. 


the  king  would,  by  his  orders,  enforce  the  exe- 
cution of  a  statute  made  in  the  reign  of  Queeri 
Elizabeth.  They  were  then  committed  to  jail 
till  the  ensuing  sessions.  Then,  after  the  re- 
corder had,  by  taunting  reflections  and  partial 
proceedings,  expressed  his  aversion  to  them, 
they  were  discharged  by  the  court  from  the 
charges  exhibited  in  the  mittimuses;  but  as 
they  refused  again  the  oath,  which  he  insisted 
upon  administering  to  them,  they  were  recom- 
mitted to  prison  till  the  fi)llovving  sessions.  In 
the  mean  time  he  was  deprived  of  his  oflice  ;  in 
consequence  of  which  change  and  the  interpo- 
sition of  friends,  they  were,  at  the  sessions^ 
cleared  by  proclamation,  and  discharged  from 
their  imprisonment,  after  a  confinement  of  six- 
teen weeks.  It  showed  the  prejudice  and  en- 
mity of  this  man,  that  he  first  insinuated  that 
they  were  probably  papists ;  and  when  they- 
procured  certificates  to  the  contrary,  he  would- 
not  permit  them  to  be  read  in  the  court.* 

In  the  next  and  succeeding  year,  George 
Whitehead  was  fined  three  or  four  times ;  and 
the  loss  he  sustained  by  distraints,  and  by  the 
expenses  of  inefficacious  appeals,  besides  the 
damage  done  to  his  house  and  goods,  amounted 
to  £61  7*.  The  evil  of  those  seizures  was  ag- 
gravated by  a  particular  instance  of  injustice  in 
the  distrainers,  who  would  not  suffer  an  inven- 
tory to  be  taken,  or  the  goods,  chiefly  in  grocery 
ware,  to  be  weighed  or  appraised.  On  one  oc- 
casion, two  friends,  for  persuading  the  consta- 
bles to  moderation,  and  to  suffer  an  inventory  to 
be  taken,  were  apprehended  and  prosecuted  for 
a  riot,  on  the  evidence  of  one  constable  ;  for 
which  they  were  fined,  committed  to  Newgate^ 
and  confined  there  ten  weeks. t 

The  fines  levied  on  this  people,  on  the  statute 
of  £20  for  absence  from  the  national  worship,, 
amounted,  in  the  year  1683,  to  the  enormous 
sum  of  £16,400,  for  which  several  were  distrain- 
ed ;  but  how  much  of  these  fines  was  actually 
levied  is  not  certainly  known. 

In  this  year,  the  case  of  Richard  Vickris  de- 
serves particular  notice.     He  was  the  son  of  Mr. 
Robert  Vickris,  a  merchant  and  alderman  of 
Bristol ;    he   embraced  the   sentiments  of  the 
Quakers  in  his  youth  ;  but,  to  divert  him  from 
joining   them,   his  father   sent  him  abroad   to 
travel  in  France.     Here  he  was  a  witness  to 
the  superstitions  of  the  ceremonious  religion  of 
that  country,  which  created  a  disgust,  and  con- 
firmed him  in  the  adoption  of  one  that  rejected 
ceremony  and  vain  show.     His  father's  views 
were  disappointed,  and  on  his  return  home  he 
openly  professed  himself  a  Quaker,  at  the  risk, 
of  a  variety  of  sufferings   and  hardships.     In 
1680  he  was  imprisoned  upon  an  excommunica- 
tion ;  he  was  afterward,  for  attending  meetings,, 
subject  to  frequent  fines  and  distraints,  and  at 
last  he  was  proceeded  against  on  the  statute  of 
the  35th  of  Elizabeth.     At  the  sessions  before- 
Easter,  in  1683,  he  was  indicted  on  that  statute  ; 
demurring  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  and 
refusing  to  plead,  he  was  committed  to  prison. 
At  a  following  sessituis  he  was  admitted  to  bail, 
and  at  the  midsummer  sessions  procured  a  ha- 
beas corpus.     His  trial  was  hastily  brought  oil 
in  August,  though  he  solicited  time  to  prepan* 
his  defence.     He  found  means,  however,  to  re- 
tain counsel,  who  ably  pleaded  his  cause,  as- 
*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  501-505.      t  Ibid,,  p.  520,  52' 


HISTORY   OF   THE   QUAKERS. 


425 


signed  a  variety  of  errors  in  his  indictment,  and 
showed  that  the  witnesses  had  not  established 
the  charge  against  him.  The  court  overruled 
every  plea,  and  the  jury  (selected  from  men  of 
mean  occupation)  found  their  verdict  guilty  ; 
and  sentence  was  passed  on  him  to  conform,  or 
abjure  the  realm  in  three  months  ;  or  suffer 
death  as  a  felon,  without  benefit  of  clergy.  He 
lay  in  prison  under  this  sentence  till  the  next 
year,  when,  the  time  for  his  abjuring  the  realm 
being  expired,  he  was  liable  to  the  execution  of 
it,  to  which  his  enemies  seemed  determined  to 
proceed.  That  they  might  give  some  colour  to 
their  design,  they  blackened  and  calumniated 
his  character,  representing  him  as  a  person 
disaffected  to  government,  and  endeavouring, 
before  they  took  away  his  life,  to  despoil  him  of 
his  good  name.  His  wife,  in  her  distress,  de- 
termined on  a  personal  application  to  govern- 
ment ;  with  this  view,  she  took  a  journey  to 
London,  and,  by  the  assistance  of  her  friends, 
got  admission  to  the  Duke  of  York,  who  bore 
the  chief  sway  at  court,  and  laid  her  husband's 
hard  case  before  him.  When  he  had  heard  it, 
he  replied,  "  that  neither  his  royal  brother  nor 
himself  desired  that  any  of  his  subjects  should 
suffer  for  the  exercise  of  their  consciences  who 
were  of  peaceable  behaviour  under  his  govern- 
ment." Accordingly,  effectual  directions  for 
his  discharge  were  given.  He  was  removed  by 
habeas  corpus  from  Newgate  in  Bristol  to  Lon- 
don, and  brought  to  the  King's  Bench  bar :  there, 
upon  the  errors  in  the  indictment  assigned  by 
Counsellor  Pollexfen,  he  was  legally  discharged 
by  Sir  George  Jefferies.  His  father  survived  his 
return  only  three  days,  by  whose  will  he  suc- 
ceeded to  his  estate  and  seat  at  Chew  Magna, 
in  which  he  fixed  his  residence,  and  lived  in 
honour,  conspicuous  for  his  virtue  and  benevo- 
lence, and  an  ornament  to  his  place  and  station.* 
The  Quakers,  under  the  severe  sufferings  to 
which  their  body  in  general,  and  some  individ- 
ual members  of  their  society  in  particular,  were 
exposed,  were  not  wanting  in  lav/ful  and  com- 
mendable measures  to  procure  an  exemption 
from  these  grievous  evils.  In  the  year  1674, 
application  was  made  to  the  judges,  before  they 
went  their  several  circuits,  for  their  compas- 
sionate attention  to  the  hard  cases  of  several  of 
the  sufferers,  and  to  interpose  their  authority 
to  secure  them  relief,  in  the  following  address  : 

"  To  the  king's  justices  appoiiited  for  the  several 
circuits  throughout  England. 

"  Many  of  our  friends,  called  Quakers,  being 
continued  prisoners,  many  prosecuted  to  great 
spoil  by  informers,  and  on  qui-tam.  writs,  and  by 
presentments  and  indictments  for  £"20  per  men- 
sem, in  divers  counties  throughout  England, 
only  on  the  account  of  religion  and  tender  con- 
science towards  Almighty  God,  we  esteem  it 
our  duty  to  remind  you  of  their  suffering  con- 
dition, as  we  have  done  from  time  to  time,  hum- 
bly entreating  you  in  the  circuits  to  inquire  into 
the  several  causes  of  their  commitments,  and 
other  sufferings  which  they  lie  under,  and  to 
extend  what  favour  you  can  for  their  ease  and 
relief,  praying  the  Almighty  to  preserve  and 
direct  you."t 

But  little  redress  could  be  obtained.  In  1677, 
an  acco'mt  being  taken,  at  the  yearly  meeting. 


♦  Goi.gh,  vol.  ii..  p.  539-544. 
Vol.  II.— H  h  h 


t  Ibid.,  p.  394. 


of  sufferings  by  confiscation  to  two  thirds  of  the 
estates  of  those  who  had  been  prosecuted  on 
the  23d  of  Elizabeth,  a  specification  of  this  griev- 
ance was  drawn  up  and  laid  before  the  Parlia- 
ment then  sitting,  with  a  petition  for  relief,  but 
without  effect.*  Towards  the  close  of  this  year, 
George  Fox,  having  returned  from  Holland,  and 
visited  the  meetings  of  his  friends  in  various 
parts  of  England,  on  coming  to  London  found 
them  engaged  in  fresh  solicitations  for  relief 
from  prosecutions  on  the  laws  made  against  po- 
pish recusants  only  ;  and  he  joined  them  in 
these  applications  ;  but  a  sudden  prorogation 
of  Parliament  put  a  stop  to  their  proceedings. 
When  it  met  again,  he,  William  Penn,  George 
Whitehead,  and  others,  renewed  their  suit,  and 
they  conceived  some  hopes  of  relief,  as  many 
of  the  members,  convinced  that  they  suffered 
grievously  and  unjustly,  and  were  much  mis- 
represented by  their  adversaries,  manifested  a 
tender  and  compassionate  regard  towards  them. 
But  the  attention  of  Parliament  was  soon  called 
off  by  the  discovery  of  what  was  called  the  Po- 
pish Plot ;  an  advantage  was  taken  of  the  alarm 
this  occasioned  to  increase  the  rigorous  perse- 
cution of  a  people  of  opposite  principles  and  con- 
duct, under  the  ptetext  of  the  necessity,  at  this 
season  of  danger,  to  exert  additional  vigilance 
in  guarding  against  seditious  assemblies;  and 
some  members,  whose  residence,  occupation, 
and  manner  of  life  were  well  known,  were  im- 
prisoned under  a  pretended  suspicion  of  being 
papists  or  concealed  Jesuits. t  Penn  had  sev- 
eral years  before  this  been  happily  successful  in 
solicitations  for  friends  suffermg  by  heavy  fines 
and  imprisonments  in  Ireland  :  for,  at  a  half- 
yearly  meeting  held  at  his  house  in  1670,  an  ac- 
count of  their  sufferings  was  drawn  up  in  an 
address  to  the  lord-lieutenant,  which  was  pre- 
sented to  him,  and  an  order  of  council  obtained 
for  the  release  of  those  who  were  imprisoned. t 
In  Scotland,  the  persecuted  members  of  this  so- 
ciety met  with  an  advocate  in  Barclay,  and 
owed  some  relief  to  his  powerful  exertions.  In 
1676,  the  magistrates  of  Aberdeen  made  a  han- 
dle of  the  declaration  issued  by  the  council  at 
Edinburgh,  re-enforcing  former  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment against  conventicles,  to  oppress  the  Qua- 
kers, many  of  whom  were  seized,  committed  to 
prison,  detained  near  three  months  without  be- 
ing called  before  the  commissioners,  and,  not- 
withstanding the  able  defence  they  set  up,  were 
fined  in  different  sums,  but  in  general  to  a  heavy 
amount,  and  remanded  to  prison  till  the  fines 
were  paid.  Robert  Barclay,  being  then  in  Lon- 
don, gained  admittance  to  the  king,  delivered  to 
him  a  narrative  of  the  severe  and  irregular  pro- 
ceedings of  the  magistrates,  and  interceded  with 
him  to  recommend  their  case  to  the  favourable 
notice  of  the  council  of  Scotland.  On  this,  the 
king  ordered  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale  to  recom- 
mend the  narrative  to  their  consideration.  The 
matter  was  referred  to  the  former  commission- 
ers, in  cimjunction  with  three  others  ;  but  their 
liberty  was  not  obtained  till  the  fines  were 
discharged  by  exorbitant  and  oppressive  dis- 
traints Ii^  When,  in  1680,  tlie  Quakers  were 
maliciously  represented  as  concerned  in  the  Po- 
pish Plot,  George  Fox  published  a  declaration, 
addressed  to  the  Parliament,  in  defence  of  him- 


••  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  425. 
1  Ibid.,  p.  479. 


t  Ibid.,  p.  433-435. 
%  Ibid.,  p.  460-470. 


'» 


426 


SUPPLEMENT. 


self  and  friends,  to  remove  such  suspicions,  pro- 
fessing it  to  be  their  "  principle  and  testimony  to 
(ienv  and  renounce  all  plots  and  plotters  against 
the  king  or  any  of  his  subjects  ;  that,  in  tender- 
ness of  conscience,  they  could  not  swear  or 
fight,  but  that  they  would  use  every  endeavour 
in  their  power  to  save  the  king  and  his  subjects, 
by  discovering  all  plots  and  plotters  that  should 
■come  to  their  knowledge  ;  and  praying  not  to  be 
put  OR  doing  those  things  which  they  had  suf- 
fered so  much  and  so  long  for  not  doing."* 
"When,  in  the  same  year,  a  bill  was  brought  into 
Parliament  to  exempt  his  majesty's  Protestant 
subjects,  dissenting  from  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, from  the  penalties  of  the  act  of  the  35th 
of  Elizabeth,  the  Quakers,  with  a  laudable  at- 
tention to  their  own  ease,  and  from  a  generous 
sympathy  with  their  friends  under  persecution, 
improved  the  favourable  opportunity  for  promo- 
ting liberty  of  conscience.  Divers  of  them  at- 
tended the  committee,  when  the  bill  was  com- 
mitted, early  and  late,  in  order  to  solicit  the  in- 
sertion of  such  clauses  as  might  give  ease  to 
the  tender  consciences  of  their  friends,  whose 
religious  dissent  was  scrupulous  in  some  mat- 
ters beyond  other  Dissenters  ;  and  they  obtain- 
led  a  clause  to  be  inserted  for  accepting  a  dec- 
laration of  fidelity  instead  of  the  oath  of  allegi- 
ance. Although  this  design  failed,  by  the  bill 
being  lost,  yet  a  foundation  was  laid  for  reviving 
and  completing  it  in  the  succeeding  reign  of 
-King  William  III.  But  in  the  following  year 
an  event  took  place  which  must  be  considered 
as  giving  a  turn  to  the  fortunes  of  this  society, 
and  advancing  them,  in  the  event,  to  a  peculiar 
degree  of  respectability  and  influence.  Sir  Will- 
lain  Penn  had,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  a  con- 
:siderable  debt  due  to  him  from  the  crown,  either 
for  arrears  or  advances  made  to  government  in 
•the  sundry  expeditions  in  which  he  was  enga- 
.ged,  while  he  was  employed  as  an  admiral,  both 
under  Oliver  Cromwell  and  King  Charles  II. 
To  discharge  this  debt,  the  king,  by  letters  pat- 
•ent  bearing  date  the  4th  of  March,  1680-1,  grant- 
ed to  his  son  William  Penn,  and  his  heirs,  that 
province  lying  on  the  west  of  the  river  of  Dela- 
ware, in  North  America,  formerly  belonging  to 
the  Dutch,  and  then  called  the  New  Nether- 
lands. This  grant,  by  which  Penn  and  his  heirs 
■were  made  governors  and  absolute  proprietors 
of  that  tract  of  land,  was  owing  to  the  influence 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  with  whom  Admiral  Penn 
■was  a  peculiar  favourite.  In  the  summer  of 
1682,  Penn  took  possession  of  this  province,  and 
he  formed  a  government  in  it  on  the  most  lib- 
eral principles  with  respect  to  the  rights  of  con- 
science. The  leading  article  of  his  new  consti- 
tution was  this  ;  "  That  all  persons  living  in 
this  province,  who  confess  and  acknowledge 
the  one  almighty  and  eternal  God  to  be  the  cre- 
ator, upholder,  and  ruler  of  the  world,  and  that, 
hold  themselves  obliged  in  conscience  to  live 
peaceably  and  justly  m  civil  society,  shall  in  no- 
'wise  be  molested  or  prejudiced  for  their  reli- 
gious persuasion  or  practice  in  matters  of  faith 
and  worship ;  nor  shall  they  be  compelled  at 
any  time  to  frequent  or  maintain  any  religious 
worship,  place,  or  ministry  whatsoever."  This 
settlement,  in  the  first  instance,  aflTorded  an  asy- 
lum to  many  of  his  friends,  who  were  glad  to 
remove  to  a  government  formed  on  principles 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  506. 


of  humanity,  and  with  a  religious  regard  to  jus- 
tice and  equity.*  When  the  system  of  legisla- 
tion was  matured  and  completed,  it  excited  the 
admiration  of  the  uni-\rerse.  '^I'his  oppressed  so- 
ciety, in  a  few  years,  had  the  happiness  and 
honour  of  seeing  its  tenets  fi.xed  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  in  security  and  peace,  and 
itself  extending  through  a  wide  territory,  which 
enlarged  the  domains  of  their  native  country, 
and  made  a  principal  figure  in  the  New  World. 
The  wisdom  and  virtues  of  the  founder  of  this 
government,  the  excellent  principles  on  which 
it  was  formed,  and  the  prosperity  to  which  it 
rose,  reflected  credit  on  the  Quakers,  and  gave 
them  weight  in  the  political  scale.  Civil  soci- 
ety has  felt  its  obligations  to  them  ;  and  from. 
this  time  their  religious  profession  became  more 
and  more  secure  and  respectable.  The  prog- 
nostications of  William  Penn,  it  hath  been  ob- 
served, have  been  remarkably  verified.  "If 
friends  here  keep  to  God,  and  in  the  justice, 
mercy,  equity,  and  fear  of  the  Lord,  their  ene- 
mies will  be  their  footstool." 

During  the  preceding  period,  from  the  decla- 
ration of  indulgence  to  the  end  of  Charles  II. 's 
reign,  this  society  lost  several  active  and  emi- 
nent members  by  death. 

Among  these  was  William  Baily,  who  died 
1675,  at  sea,  in  his  voyage  from  the  West  Indies. 
He  had  preached  among  the  Baptists  at  Pool  in 
Dorsetshire,  when,  convinced  by  the  ministry 
of  George  Fox,  he  emhraced  the  principles  of 
the  Quakers  in  16.55,  among  whom  he  became  a 
bold  and  zealous  preacher,  not  in  England  only, 
but  while  he  followed  a  seafaring  life  in  distant 
countries,  being  concerned  to  propagate  righ- 
teousness whenever  an  opportunity  presented  it- 
self, and  he  displayed  a  like  fortitude  in  suffering 
for  his  testimony  ;  for  he  was  frequently  impris- 
oned in  different  jails,  both  during  the  time  of 
the  commonwealth  and  after  the  Restoration. 
He  also  suffered  much  corporeal  abuse  by  blows, 
by  being  thrown  down  and  dragged  along  the 
ground  by  the  hair  of  his  head,  trampled  upon 
by  a  corpulent  man,  and  his  mouth  and  jaws  at- 
tempted to  be  rent  asunder.  On  a  voyage  from 
Barbadoes,  he  was  visited  with  a  disease  which 
terminated  his  life  and  sufferings.  Among  oth- 
er sensible  observations,  expressive  of  the  seren- 
ity of  his  mind,  and  of  devout  confidence  and 
hope,  addressing  himself  to  the  master  of  the 
vessel,  he  said,  "  Shall  I  lay  down  my  head  ia 
peace  upon  the  waters  !t  Well,  God  is  the  God 
of  the  whole  universe  ;  and  though  my  body 
sink,  I  shall  live  atop  of  the  waters."  He  after- 
ward added,  "  The  creating  word  of  the  Lord 
endures  forever. "| 


*  Cough's  History  of  the  Quakers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  515, 
and  vol.  iii.,  p.  131-147. 

■f-  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  407-411. 

t  This  William  Baily  married  Mary  Fisher,  a  wom- 
an of  singular  ardour  and  resolution  in  the  propaga- 
tion of  her  religious  principles  ;  for,  besides  going  to 
Boston  in  America,  and  meeting  severe  sufferings 
there,  she  engaged,  after  her  return  to  England,  in  a 
more  arduous  undertaking.  This  was  to  pay  a  visit 
to  Sultan  Mohammed  IV..  encamped  wilh  his  army 
near  Adrianople.  She  proceeded  on  her  way  as  far 
as  Smyrna,  when  the  English  consul  stopped  her, 
and  sent  her  back  to  Venice.  Not  disheartened  from. 
the  prosecution  of  her  design,  she  made  her  way  by 
land,  and  escaped  any  manner  of  abuse,  through  a 
long'journey  of  rive  or  six  hundred  miles.     She  went 


HISTORY  OF  THE   QUAKERS. 


427 


In  1679  died,  at  Goodnestone  Court  in  Kent, 
in  the  sixty-third  year  of  his  age,  Isaac  Penning- 
ton, of  Clialfont  in  Bucl<inghamshire,  an  honour- 
able, useful,  and  virtuous  member  of  this  socie- 
ty. He  was  heir  to  a  fair  inheritance,  being  the 
eldest  son  of  Alderman  Pennington,  of  London, 
a  noted  member  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and 
nominated,  though  he  never  sat,  one  of  the  king's 
judges.  His  education  had  all  the  advantages 
the  schools  and  universities  of  his  own  country 
could  afford  him  ;  his  rank  in  life  threw  him  into 
the  company  of  some  of  the  most  learned  and 
considerable  men  of  the  age  ;  his  understanding 
was  by  nature  good  ;  his  judgment  and  appre- 
hension quick  ;  his  disposition  was  mild  and  af- 
fable ;  and  his  conversation  cheerful,  but  guard- 
ed, equally  divested  of  moroseness  and  levity. 
From  his  childhood  he  was  religiously  inclined, 
and  conversant  with  the  Scriptures  ;  the  won- 
der of  his  acquaintance,  from  his  awful  frame 
of  mind  and  retired  life.  When  he  first  met 
with  the  writings  of  the  Quakers,  he  threw  them 
aside  with  disdain  ;  and  when  he  fell  into  con- 
versation with  some  of  them,  though  they 
engaged  his  affectionate  regard,  yet  he  could 
not  but  view  thern  in  a  contemptuous  light,  as 
a  poor  and  weak  generation.  But  afterward, 
being  invited  to  a  meeting  in  Bedfordshire  where 
George  Fox  preached,  his  prejudices  gave  way  ; 
he  joined  the  society,  against  all  the  influence 
of  connexions  and  worldly  prospects,  and  be- 
came a  very  eminent  and  serviceable  member 
in  it.  He  diligently  visited  and  administered  to 
the  afflicted  in  body  and  mind.  He  opened  his 
heart  and  house  to  the  reception  of  friends.  His 
preaching  was  very  successful  in  proselyting 
many  and  conforming  many.  He  was  an  ex- 
cellent pattern  of  piety,  virtue,  and  the  strictest 
morality.  He  was  a  most  affectionate  husband, 
a  careful  and  tender  father,  a  mild  and  gentle 
master,  a  sincere  and  faithful  friend,  compas- 
sionate and  liberal  to  the  poor ;  affable  to  all, 
ready  to  do  good  to  all  men,  and  careful  to  in- 
jure none.  But  neither  rank  of  life,  benevolence 
of  disposition,  inculpaple  innocence  of  demean- 
our, nor  the  universal  esteem  of  his  character, 
could  secure  him  from  the  sufferings  attendant 
upon  his  religious  profession.  His  imprison- 
ments were  many,  and  some  of  them  long  and 
severe.  These  he  bore  with  great  firmness  and 
serenity,  and  the  sharp  and  painful  distemper 
which  put  an  end  to  his  life  gave  no  shock  to 
his  internal  peace.* 

In  the  next  year,  1680,  died,  leaving  behind 
him  deep  impressions  of  grateful  respect  and 


to  the  camp  alone,  and  obtained  an  audience  of  the 
saltan,  who  received  her  with  great  courtesy,  and 
heard  her  with  much  seriousness  and  gravity,  invited 
her  to  stay  in  the  country,  and  offerfHl  her  a  guard  to 
Constantinople.  This  she  declined,  but  reached  that 
city  in  safety  without  the  least  injury  or  insult,  and 
afterward  arrived  in  England.  The  conduct  of  ihe 
Mohammedans  towards  her,  as  Gough  remarks,  was 
a  striking  contrast  to  that  of  the  prolessors  of  New- 
England.  "  We  cannot  but  regret."  he  properly  adds, 
"that  the  best  religion  the  world  was  ever  blessed 
with,  and  in  its  own  purity  so  far  surpassing  in  ex- 
cellence, should,  on  comparison  with  human  infidel- 
ity, be  so  tarnished  through  the  degeneracy  of  its 
professors,  who,  under  the  name  of  Christians,  in 
morality,  generosity,  and  humamty,  fall  far  short  of 
those  who  name  not  the  name  of  Christ." — Govgh, 
vol.  i.,  p.  423.  *  Ibid.,  vol.  li.,  p.  439-417. 


honourable  esteem  in  the  hearts  of  many,  Giles 
Barnadiston,  of  Clare  in  Suffolk,  aged  fifty-six. 
He  was  born  in  1624,  of  a  respectable  and  opu- 
lent family,  and  being  designed  for  the  pulpit  ia 
the  Establishment,  he  received  a  liberal  educa- 
tion both  in  seminaries  of  literature  and  at  the 
university,  where  he  spent  six  years.  But  when. 
he  was  called  on  to  accept  an  offer  of  preferment 
in  the  Church,  and  to  take  orders,  from  a  con- 
sciousness of  wanting  the  internal  purity  and 
spiritual  Avisdom  essential  to  a  minister  of  the 
Gospel,  he  resolutely  declined  the  proposal. 
Though  in  this  instance  he  was  governed  by  a 
just  and  serious  view  of  things,  he  had  not  firm- 
ness to  resist  the  allurements  of  pleasure  and 
sensual  gratifications.  On  the  breaking  out  of 
the  civil  war,  he  obtained  a  colonel's  commis- 
sion in  the  army  ;  but  he  soon  grew  weary  of  a 
military  life,  accompanied  with  violence  and 
bloodshed,  laid  down  his  commission,  and  reti- 
red to  Wormingford  Lodge  in  Essex,  commen- 
ced a  stricter  life  than  before,  and  became 
thoughtful  about  the  way  of  salvation.  In  this 
state  of  mind  he  felt  an  inclination  to  acquaint 
himself  with  the  principles  of  the  Quakers,  and 
in  1661  invited  some  of  them  to  his  house  ;  the 
consequence  of  his  conversation  with  George 
Fox  the  younger,  and  George  Weatherly,  who 
paid  him  a  visit,  was  his  joining  himself  with 
this  society  ;  and  he  willingly  took  part  in  the 
storm  of  persecution  to  which  this  people  were 
exposed,  and  constantly  attended  their  religious 
meetings  in  the  hottest  time  of  it.  In  1669  he 
removed  to  Clare,  the  place  of  his  nativity,  and 
in  the  same  year  lie  made  his  appearance  in  the 
ministry,  in  which  he  acquitted  himself  with 
faithfulness,  fervency,  wisdom,  and  success.  He 
had  but  a  tender  constitution  ;  yet,  animated  by 
a  devotedness  to  the  glory  of  God,  and  by  a  gen- 
erous concern  to  promote  the  well-being  of  man- 
kind, he  took  many  journeys,  and  travelled  into 
Holland,  as  well  as  divers  parts  of  England,  to 
make  known  to  others  what  he  judged  to  be  the 
truth.  He  died  on  his  return  from  London  to 
Chelmsford,  after  a  short  illness,  in  which  he 
expressed  his  resignation,  "  that  the  Lord  was 
his  portion,  and  that  he  was  freely  given  up  to 
die,  which  was  gain  to  him.''* 

In  1681  died,  at  Stafford,  where  he  had  resi- 
ded several  years,  and  left  a  good  report  among 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  Thomas  Taylor, 
aged  sixty-five  years,  an  ancient  and  faithful 
minister  of  this  society.  He  was  born  at  or 
near  Shipton  in  Yorkshire,  about  the  year  1616, 
and  received  a  liberal  education  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford.  He  was  first  a  lecturer  in  this 
county,  and  then  obtained  a  living  in  Westmore- 
land, which  he  held  till  the  year  1652,  when  he 
voluntarily  relinquished  it.  His  audience  was 
principally  composed  of  Puritans,  among  whom 
lie  ranked,  for  he  declined  the  use  of  ceremonies, 
and  would  neither  baptize  children  at  the  font, 
nor  sign  thein  with  the  sign  of  the  cross.  On 
having  an  interview  with  George  Fox  at  Swarth- 
more,  he  embraced  his  doctrine,  and  joined  him 
as  a  companion  in  his  travels  and  ministerial  la- 
bours. He  resigned  his  living  on  a  conviction 
of  the  unlawfulness  of  preaching  for  hire.  He 
travelled  through  many  parts  of  England,  dis- 
seminating the  doctrine  of  the  Quakers,  which 
he  maintained  at  Oxford  asaiust  the  learned  Dr. 


Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  549-553. 


428 


SUPPLEMENT. 


Owen,  at  that  time  vice-chancellor  of  the  uni- 
versity, with  great  advantage  in  the  opinion  of 
the  academies.  But  iiis  travels  were  interrupt- 
ed hy  a  succession  of  imprisonirients,  one  of 
whicli  histed  for  ten  years,  till  Charles  II.  issu- 
ed his  letters  patent  for  the  general  discharge 
of  the  Quakers  from  prison  in  1672.  Supported 
by  consciousness  of  a  good  cause,  and  patient 
acquiescence  in  the  Divine  disposals,  he  lield  his 
integrity  to  the  last.* 

In  1684  died  William  Bennet,  of  Woodhridge 
in  Suffolk,  a  man  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind 
from  his  infancy,  which,  as  he  grew  up,  led  him 
to  associate  with  the  strictest  professors.  His 
first  connexions  were  among  the  Independents  ; 
he  then  joined  the  Quakers,  and  continued  a 
steady,  serviceable,  and  honourable  member  of 
their  society  till  his  death.  He  travelled  in  the 
exercise  of  his  ministry,  edifying  his  friends  and 
making  converts,  through  many  parts  of  Eng- 
land, adorning  his  character  by  the  innocence 
and  integrity  of  his  life,  so  as  to  gain  universal 
esteem,  and  to  extort  from  his  adversaries  an 
acknowledgment  of  his  personal  merit.  Yet  his 
sufferings  were  remarkable  ;  he  appears  to  have 
spent,  at  least  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  nearly 
as  much,  if  not  more  time  in  prison,  than  in  the 
enjoyment  of  his  liberty  ;  till,  growing  weaker 
and  weaker  by  close  and  continued  confine- 
ment, he  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  sentence  of  par- 
tial magistrates  and  the  forced  construction  of 
unequal  laws. 

This  year  died  also,  in  Carlisle  jail,  Thomas 
Stordy,  descended  from  a  family  of  repute  in 
Cumberland,  and  born  to  the  inheritance  of  a 
handsome  estate.  About  middle  age  he  became 
seriously  thoughtful  in  the  pursuit  of  pure  reli- 
gion. He  first  jdined  the  Independents,  among 
whom  his  talents  in  exhortations  and  religious 
exercises  were  highly  esteemed.  After  some 
time  he  left  them,  and  connected  himself  with 
the  Quakers ;  in  this  society  he  spent  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life,  respected  in  his  neighbour- 
hood as  a  man  of  circumspect,  sober,  and  tem- 
perate demeanour,  upright  in  his  dealings,  obli- 
ging in  his  disposition,  hospitable  in  his  house, 
and  liberally  charitable  to  the  poor  around  him. 
But  this  honest,  respectable  citizen  was  harass- 
ed by  prosecution  upon  prosecution,  and  penal- 
ty upon  penalty  ;  he  was  detained  a  close  pris- 
oner at  Carlisle,  under  a  prajmunire,  till  released 
by  the  king's  declaration  in  1672.  He  was  fined 
for  a  meeting,  when  he  was  under  restraint  sev- 
eral n)iles  from  it.  On  the  statute  of  the  23(1  of 
Elizabeth  he  was  cast  into  jail,  and  confined 
there  several  years,  till  his  death.  Not  long  be- 
fore his  decease,  being  visited  by  some  of  his 
friends,  he  encouraged  them  to  faithfulness  in 
these  words  :  "  If  you  continue  faithful  unto  the 
Lord  while  you  live  in  this  world,  he  will  re- 
ward you,  as  he  now  rewards  me,  with  his  sweet 
peace."  He  was  so  confident  in  his  opinion 
concerning  tithes,  that  he  not  only  refused  to 
pay,  hut  to  receive  them  ;  for,  inheriting  from 
his  ancestors  an  improjjriation  of  £10  per  an- 
num, he  quilted  all  claim  to  it  for  himself,  his 
heirs,  and  assigns  forever,  and,  bya  legal  instru- 
ment, released  the  owners  of  the  lands  from 
•whence  the  tithes  accrued  t 

Another  eminent  minister  and  member  of  this 
society,  who  finished  a  useful  life  this  year,  was 


Gough,  vol.  li.,  p.  554-557.  t  Ibid.,  p.  34-37. 


William  Gibson,  of  Lpndon.  He  was  born  at 
Caton.  in  Lancashire,  in  1629,  and  in  the  civil 
wars  enlisted  as  a  soldier.  Being  in  the  garri- 
son at  Carlisle,  he  went  to  a  Quakers'  meeting, 
with  three  of  his  comrades,  to  insult  and  abuse 
the  preacher;  arriving  at  the  place  before  his 
companions,  after  the  minister  had  begun,  he 
was  so  impressed  and  affected,  that,  instead  of 
executing  his  purpose,  he  stepped  up  near  to  the 
preacher  to  defend  him  from  insult,  if  it  should 
be  offered.  From  that  time  he  frequented  the 
meetings  of  the  society,  soon  quitted  his  milita- 
ry employment,  and  after  three  years  became  a 
preacher.  In  1662  he  married,  and  settled  near 
Warrington,  and  his  ministry,  while  resident  in 
that  country,  was  very  successful ;  and  on  his 
removal,  he  left  a  good  report,  and  impressions 
of  affectionate  respect  to  his  memory.  He  af- 
terward fixed  in  London,  where  his  service  was 
conspicuous  against  hypocrisy,  formality,  and 
libertinism,  and  his  circumspect  conversation 
was  a  credit  to  his  ministry.  He  suffered  per- 
secution in  the  loss  of  substance  by  various  dis- 
traints, in  divers  imprisonments,  and  in  personal 
abuses.  In  Shropshire,  the  jailer  would  not 
permit  his  food  to  be  taken  to  him,  but  obliged 
him  to  draw  it  up  by  a  rope,  and  also  threw  him 
down  a  pair  of  stone  stairs,  whereby  his  body 
was  greatly  bruised,  and  beat  him  to  that  degree 
that  he  was  ill  near  six  months.  He  was  en- 
gaged in  some  controversies  concerning  tithes  ; 
was  the  author  of  several  treatises  serviceable 
at  the  time,  and  employed  a  part  of  his  time  in 
his  imprisonments  in  writing  epistles  to  his 
friends  for  their  edification  in  righteousness. 
He  died,  recommending  union,  and  exhorting  to 
faithfulness  and  confidence  in  the  Lord,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-five,  and  his  funeral  was  attended  to 
Bunhill  Fields  by  many  hundreds  of  friends  and 
others.* 

While  the  society  derived  honour,  at  this  pe- 
riod, from  the  virtues  of  character,  and  fortitude 
under  sufferings,  of  distinguished  members,  it 
was  greatly  indebted  to  the  able  writings  of 
Penn  and  Barclay.  The  former,  the  year  be- 
fore the  king's  declaration,  1671,  employed  the 
time  of  his  confinement  in  prison  in  writing 
"  The  great  Cause  of  Liberty  of  Conscience 
briefly  debated  and  defended,"  and  several  other 
pieces.  In  1675,  on  account  of  the  divisions  and 
animosities  prevailing  in  the  nation,  he  publish- 
ed a  treatise,  entitled  "  England's  Present  In- 
terest considered,"  to  show  the  consistency  of  a 
general  liberty  of  conscience  with  the  peace  of 
the  kingdom  ;  and  the  remedies  which  he  pro- 
poses to  be  adopted  for  allaying  the  heat  of  con- 
trary interests  were  "  an  inviolable  and  impar- 
tial maintenance  of  English  rights  ;  our  superi- 
ors governing  themselves  upon  a  balance,  as 
near  as  may  be,  towards  the  several  religious 
interests  ;  and  a  sincere  promotion  of  general 
and  practical  religion."  Solid  reasoning  and  a 
multitude  of  authorities  are  employed  to  support 
these  propositions,  which  form  the  groundwork 
of  a  treatise  :  "  a  work,"  says  Gough,  "  wherein 
the  liberal  charity  of  real  Christianity,  and  the 
candid  spirit  of  genuine  patriotism,  are  eminent- 
ly conspicuous."  The  preface,  addressed  to  the 
higher  powers,  exhibits  a  pathetic  representa- 
tion of  the  severities  of  the  times:  when  "to 
see  the  imprisoned  was  crime  enough  for  a  jail ; 

*  Gough,  vol.  iii.,  p.  154-157. 


HISTORY  OF  THE   QUAKERS. 


429 


to  visit  the  sick,  to  make  a  conventicle :  when 
whole  barns  of  corn  were  seized,  thrashed,  and 
carried  away  ;  parents  left  without  their  chil- 
dren, children  withont  their  parents,  and  both 
%viihout  subsistence.  But  that  which  aggra- 
vates the  cruelty,"  he  adds,  "  is,  the  widow's 
mite  hath  not  escaped  their  hands ;  they  have 
made  her  cow  the  forfeiture  of  her  conscience, 
not  leaving  her  a  bed  to  lie  on,  nor  a  blanket  to 
cover  her  ;  and  what  is  yet  more  barbarous,  and 
helps  to  make  up  this  tragedy,  the  poor  orphan's 
milk,  boiling  over  the  fire,  hath  been  flung  to 
the  dogs,  and  the  skillet  made  part  of  the  prize  ; 
so  that,  had  not  nature  in  neighbours  been  stron- 
ger than  cruelty  in  such  informers,  to  open  her 
bowels  for  their  relief  and  subsistence,  they 
must  have  utterly  perished."  In  the  same  year 
in  which  this  piece  appeared,  Penn  likewise 
wrote  a  treatise  on  oaths,  to  show  the  reason 
for  not  swearing  at  all.* 

A  work  of  extensive  and  permanent  celebrity 
came  this  year  from  the  pen  of  Robert  Barclay, 
entitled  "An  Apology  for  the  true  Christian  Di- 
vinity, being  an  Explanation  and  Vindication  of 
the  Principles  and  Doctrines  of  the  People  call- 
ed Quakers."  It  was  prefaced  with  an  address 
to  King  Charles  II.,  remarkable  for  its  plain- 
dealing  and  honest  simplicity,  and  as  important, 
curious,  and  extraordinary  as  any  part  of  the 
work.  It  has  been  admired  both  by  our  own 
countrymen  and  strangers.  The  work  itself  has 
been  universally  allowed  to  surpass  everything 
of  its  kind,  and  to  set  the  principles  of  the  Qua- 
kers in  the  fairest  light  possible.  The  author 
sent  two  copies  of  it  to  each  of  the  public  min- 
isters then  at  the  famous  Congress  of  Nimeguen, 
where  it  was  received  with  all  imaginable  fa- 
"vour  and  respect,  and  the  knowledge,  charity, 
and  disinterested  probity  of  its  author  justly  ap- 
plauded. It  was  printed  in  Latin  at  Amsterdam, 
1676,  and  was  quickly  translated  into  High 
Dutch,  Low  Dutch,  French,  and  Spanish.  "As 
it  attracted  great  notice,  so  it  drew  out  various 
answers,  abroad  and  at  home  ;  some  from  the 
pens  of  men  who  had  before  gained  a  consider- 
able reputation  in  the  learned  world.  These  re- 
plies contributed  to  spread  and  advance  the  fame 
of  Barclay's  work  ;  and  it  is  remarkable,  that 
while  these  have  been  little  regarded  and  sunk 
into  oblivion,  this  treatise  maintains  its  celebri- 
ty. Though  it  had  not  the  desired  effect  of 
stopping  the  persecution  against  the  people  in 
whose  cause  it  was  written,  "  yet  it  answered 
<as  it  is  observed)  a  more  important  end,  by 
showing  that  the  pretences  upon  which  they 
were  persecuted  were  false  and  ill-grounded  ; 
and  that  those  who  on  one  side  represented  them 
as  concealed  papists,  and  such  as  on  the  other 
band  denied  their  being  Christians,  were  equally 
in  the  wrong,  and  equally  misled  by  their  preju- 
dices." The  work  did,  in  this  view,  great  ser- 
vice to  those  of  the  author's  persuasion  ;  while 
Quakerism,  which  before  had  been  looked  on  as 
a  heap  of  extravagancies  and  visions,  assumed 
in  this  treatise  a  systematic  form,  was  reduced 
to  fixed  prmciples,  and  recommended  itself  to 
the  ju.licious  and  enlightened  mind.  "  It  was 
an  essay,"  says  Gougli,  "  t<»  strip  Quakerism  of 
the  disguise  in  which  enmity  or  ignorance  had 
dressed  it  up,  and  to  represent  it  to  the  world  in 
its  genuine  shape  and  complexiim.     A  work 

*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  397-400. 


which,  with  unprejudiced  readers,  answered  the 
end  of  its  publication,  and  gained  the  author  the 
approbation  of  the  ingenuous  in  general."*  It  is 
some  proof  of  the  high  estimation  in  which  it 
hath  been  held,  that  Mr.  Baskerville  printed  a 
very  elegant  edition  of  it.  A  Scots  poet,  wri- 
ting of  the  two  famous  Barclays,  William  and 
John,  hath  concluded  witli  these  verses  upon 
Robert : 

"But,  lo  I  a  third  appears,  with  serious  air  ; 
His  prince's  darling^,  and  his  country's  care. 
See  his  religion,  which  so  late  before 
Was  like  a  jumbled  mass  of  dross  and  ore, 
Refined  by  him,  and  burnish'd  o'er  with  art. 
Awakes  the  spirits,  and  attracts  the  heart. "t 

In  1676  Barclay  published  a  work  entitled 
"  The  Anarchy  of  the  Ranters  and  other  Liber- 
tines, the  Hierarchy  of  the  Romanists  and  other 
pretended  Churches,  equally  refused  and  refu- 
ted." This  is  pronounced  lo  be  a  learned  and 
excellent  treatise,  containing  as  much  sound 
reasoning  as  any  book  of  its  size  in  ours,  or 
perhaps  in  any  modern  language.  The  desiga 
of  it  was  to  vindicate  the  discipline  established 
among  the  Quakers  against  those  who  accused 
them  of  confusion  and  disorder  on  one  hand,  or 
calumniated  them  with  tyranny  and  imposition 
on  the  other.  The  causes  and  consequences  of 
superstition  on  one  hand,  and  of  fanaticism  on 
the  other,  we  are  told,  are  laid  open  in  this  very 
curious  and  instructive  work  with  much  solidity 
and  perspicuity.^  It  drew  upon  its  author,  at 
the  time  of  its  appearance,  much  reproach  and 
invective  from  certain  Separatists,  who  had 
risen  up  several  years. 

The  leaders  of  these  Separatists  were  John 
Wilkinson  and  John  Story,  two  ministers  in  the 
north,  who  took  disgust  at  the  discipline  of  the 
society,  as  an  imposition  on  Gospel  liberty,  and 
setting  up  some  men  in  the  Church  to  usurp 
authority  over  their  brethren  :  "  pleading  that 
nothing  ought  to  be  given  forth  in  the  Church 
of  Christ  but  by  way  of  advice  or  recommenda- 
tion ;  and  that  every  man  ought  to  be  left  at  his 
liberty  to  act  according  to  the  light  of  his  ow'n 
conscience,  without  censure  or  being  accounta- 
ble to  any  man,  but  to  God,  the  sole  proper 
judge  of  conscience.  They  particularly  object- 
ed to  women's  meetings,  as  usurping  authority 
in  the  Church,  contrary  to  the  Apostle  Paul's 
prohibition.  They  gained  over  adherents  from 
the  weaker  and  looser  members  of  the  society  ; 
and  caused  a  rent  and  division  in  the  quarterly 
meeting  of  Westmoreland,  to  which  they  belong- 
ed. After  several  publications  on  this  occasion, 
pro  and  con,  especially  by  William  Rogers,  a 
merchant  at  Bristol,  in  favourof  the  Separatists, 
and  in  reply  by  Thomas  Elwood  ;  and  after  the 
matter  had  been  referred  to  ditferent  meetings, 
and  their   objections   been   heard,  they  found 


*  Gough,  vol.  ii.,  p.  401-406.  Biographia  Britan., 
vol.  ii.,  second  edit.,  art.  Barclay.  Dictionnaire  des 
Heresies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  460.  Mosheim,  however,  has 
not  treated  thus  work  vvith  candour  or  ju.stice,  but 
endeavours  to  depreciate  it,  and  asperses  the  author, 
charging  him  with  duplicity,  and  with  giving  a  falla- 
cious account  of  the  principles  of  this  society,  by 
which  he  has  exposed  himself  to  the  just  animad- 
versions of  the  historian  of  this  society. — Mosheiins^ 
Eccles.  History,  vol,  v.,  p.  36,  note  (b),  second  edit., 
and  Gough,  ut  stupra. 

t  Biograph.  Brit.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  602  of  the  second  ed. ' 
t  Ibid.,  p.  592,  593.    Gough,  vol.  iii.,  p.  15. 


430 


SUPPLEMENT. 


themselves  too  loosely  compacted  to  adhere  long 
together;  some,  judging  llieir  separation  to  be 
causeless,  reunited  themselves  to  the  body  of 
the  society,  and  the  rest  soon  fell  to  pieces  and 
dwindled  away.* 

When  James  It.  came  to  the  throne,  the  Qua- 
kers drew  up  a  petition,  as  we  have  seen,  sta- 
ting their  grievous  sufferings  by  no  less  than 
ten  penal  laws  ;  but  it  is  not  certain  whether 
they  had  an  opportunity  of  presenting  it,  for 
their  proceedings  were  interrupted  bj  the  land- 
ing of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  which  for  a  time 
engaged  all  the  attention  of  the  court  and  the 
nation.  But  in  March,  1685-6,  they  made  an 
application  to  the  throne,  soliciting  the  libera- 
tion of  their  imprisoned  friends,  and  they  ob- 
tained a  warrant  for  their  release,  directed  to  Sir 
Robert  Sawyer,  attorney-general.  He  was  then 
at  his  seat  in  Hampshire  ;  that  this  business 
might  be  expedited,  therefore,  George  White- 
head and  John  Edge,  accompanied  by  Row- 
land Vaughan,  waited  on  him  there,  and  were 
received  and  entertained  with  great  civility,  till 
liberates  could  be  made  out  for  the  prisoners  in 
the  city  ;  after  his  return  to  London,  by  the  ex- 
ertion of  the  said  friends,  the  discharge  of  the 
prisoners  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom  was 
obtained. t 

The  attention  which  the  king  gave  their  griev- 
ances, in  this  and  other  instances,  encouraged 
them  to  present  a  complaint  and  petition  against 
the  informers  and  their  iniquitous  practices. 
This  was  followed  by  a  request  to  the  king  to 
examine  into  the  truth  of  the  allegations,  by 
giving  the  petitioners  an  opportunity  to  prove 
them  to  the  informers'  faces.  The  request  was 
granted,  and  a  commission  was  issued  to  Rich- 
ard Graham  and  Philip  Burton,  Esqrs.,  who 
summoned  the  informers,  sufferers,  and  wit- 
nesses to  appear  before  them  at  Clifford's  Inn, 
the  4th  of  June,  1686.  Fifty-four  cases  were  se- 
lected from  which  to  establish  their  charges. 
When  all  the  parties  came  to  Clifford's  Inn,  the 
informers  seeing  the  numerous  company  that 
appeared  against  them,  expressed  their  malice 
in  this  ribaldry  :  "  Here  come  all  the  devils  in 
hell ;"  and  observing  George  Whitehead,  they 
cried,  "  And  there  comes  the  old  devil  of  all." 
The  first  charge,  proved  in  thirty-four  cases, 
was,  that  "they  had  sworn  falsely  in  fact:" 
then  were  laid  before  the  commissioners  sun- 
dry cases,  wherein  the  doors  of  houses  and 
shops  were  broken  open  with  violence,  by  con- 
stables and  informers,  to  make  severe  and  ex- 
orbitant distraints,  by  which  household  and 
shop  goods  were  carried  away  by  cart-loads. 
The  commissioners  grevi^  weary  before  they  had 
gone  through  one  fourth  of  the  cases,  and  ad- 
journed for  ten  days.  At  the  second  meeting, 
the  lawyer  whom  the  informers  had  employed 
to  plead  their  cause  was  quickly  silenced  by 
the  number  of  facts  and  the  evidence  produced, 
and  before  half  the  cases  prepared  for  cognizance 
were  examined,  the  commissioners  thought  they 
had  sufficient  grounds  for  a  report  to  the  king. 
A  report  was  accordingly  drawn  up,  to  which 
George  Whitehead,  on  a  sight  of  it,  objected  as 
very  deficient  and  improper  ;  being  rather  a  pro- 
posal to  limit  prosecutions  to  the  less  ruinous 
penal  laws,  than  a  plain  statement  of  facts,  and 
of  the  variousjietjuries,  and  of  the  illegal  and 

*  Goiigh,  vol.  lii.,  p.  o_.24^  I  Ibid .7137164-109. 


injurious  acts  of  the  informers.  The  reason  of 
this  was,  that  they  had  received  a  message  from 
a  great  person  or  persons  in  the  Church,  soli- 
citing them  to  do  or  report  nothing  that  might 
invalidate  the  power  of  the  informers.  But,  on 
Whitehead's  pleading  for  justice  to  be  done  in 
regard  to  matters  of  fact,  the  report  was  amend- 
ed, and  framed  more  to  the  purpose.  The 
king,  on  receiving  it,  referred  it  to  the  lord- 
chancellor,  in  order  to  correct  the  irregular  pro- 
ceedings of  some  justices  and  the  informers. 
He  signified,  also,  his  pleasure  to  the  subordi- 
nate magistrates  and  justices,  that  they  should 
put  a  stop  to  the  depredations  of  these  men  ; 
instead,  therefore,  of  being  encouraged,  they 
were  discountenanced.  The  court  withdraw- 
ing its  protection,  other  Dissenters  prosecuted 
them;  and  the  scenes  of  their  iniquity  being 
laid  open,  some  fled  the  country,  and  the  rest 
were  reduced  to  beggary.* 

The  Quakers,  who  had  suffered  more  severe- 
ly than  any  other  sect,  that  they  might  not 
seem  less  sensible  of  the  relief  they  had  re- 
ceived, when  addresses  were  presented  to  the 
king  for  his  declaration  for  liberty  of  conscience, 
also  waited  on  him  with  an  address  of  thanks  ; 
first,  from  those  of  their  society  who  resided  in 
or  about  London,  and  then  in  the  name  and  on 
behalf  of  the  community  at  large.  And  while 
the  other  Dissenters  were  censured  in  this  busi- 
ness, as  countenancing  the  king's  dispensing 
power,  the  Quakers  were  guarded  in  this  re- 
spect ;  for  they  expressed  their  hope  "  that  the 
good  effects  of  the  declaration  of  indulgence  on 
the  trade,  peace,  and  prosperity  of  the  kingdom, 
would  produce  such  a  concurrence  from  the 
Parliament  as  would  secure  it  to  their  posteri- 
ty ;"  modestly  hinting,  it  hath  been  observed, 
their  sentiments  of  what  they  apprehended  yet 
wanting  to  be  done  to  complete  the  favour.! 

When  the  hishops  were  committed  prisoners 
to  the  Tower,  and  it  was  understood  that  they 
reflected  on  the  Quakers  as  belying  them,  and 
reporting  that  they  had  been  the  cause  of  the 
death  of  some  of  them,  Robert  Barclay  paid  the 
bishops  a  visit,  and  laid  before  them  undeniable 
proofs  that  some,  by  order  of  bishops,  had  been 
detained  in  prison  until  death,  though  they  had 
been  apprized  of  their  danger  by  physicians 
who  were  not  Quakers ;  but  hQ  added,  "  that 
since,  through  the  change  of  circumstances, 
they  themselves  were  now  under  oppression,  it 
was  by  no  means  the  intention  of  the  people 
called  Quakers  to  publish  such  incidents,  or  la 
give  the  king  or  their  adversaries  any  advan- 
tage against  them  thereby."  They  were  ac- 
cordingly very  careful  to  refrain  from  every 
measure,  in  word  or  deed,  that  might  in  any 
respect  aggravate  the  case  of  the  prisoners,  es- 
teeming it  no  time  to  aggravate  old  animosities, 
when  the  common  enemy  was  seeking  an  ad- 
vantage.} 

When  persecution  subsided,  and  liberty  of 
conscience  was  enjoyed  without  molestation, 
the  Quakers  thought  it  a  convenient  season  to 
apply  for  relief  in  a  point  where  they  were  still 
exposed  to  considerable  trouble  and  detriment, 
and  at  their  yearly  meeting  in  London,  in  the 
summer  of  1688,  they  drew  up  an  address  to 
the  king,  soliciting  him  to  interpose  for  their 


*  Goiigh,  vol.  ii.,  p.  172-176. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  189-195.       t  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  198,  199. 


HISTORY   OF  THE   QUAKERS. 


431 


relief  from  sufferings  for  tithes,  and  in  the  case 
of  oaths.  The  address  was  presented  and  well 
received,  but  before  the  time  for  holding  a  Par- 
liament arrived,  the  king  found  it  out  of  his 
power  to  redress  their  grievances  or  support 
himself  on  the  throne.  The  legal  confirmation 
and  enlargement  of  their  liberty  were  reserved 
for  the  next  reign.* 

During  the  short  reign  of  James  II.,  the  soci- 
ety of  Quakers  lost  several  respectable  mem- 
bers ;  the  most  eminent  of  whom  was  Colonel 
David  Barclay,  the  father  of  the  apologist,  of 
an  ancient  and  honourable  family  in  Scotland,  a 
man  universally  esteemed  and  beloved.  He 
adopted  the  principles  of  the  Quakers  in  166G, 
and  is  said  to  have  been  brought  over  to  them 
by  Mr.  Swinton,  a  man  of  learning,  very  taking 
in  his  behaviour,  naturally  eloquent,  and  in 
great  credit  among  them.f  The  acquisition  of 
so  considerable  and  respectable  a  person  as 
Colonel  Barclay  was  of  no  small  use  to  this 
persuasion.  He  was  a  man  venerable  in  his 
appearance,  just  in  all  his  actions,  had  showed 
his  courage  in  the  wars  in  Germany,  and  his 
fortitude  in  bearing  all  the  hard  usage  he  met 
with  in  Scotland,  with  cheerfulness  as  well  as 
patience ;  for  he  very  soon  found  himself  ex- 
posed to  persecutions  and  sufferings  on  the 
score  of  his  religion.  He  spent,  however,  the 
last  twenty  years  of  his  life  in  the  profession 
Avith  great  comfort  to  himself,  being  all  along 
blessed  with  sound  health  and  a  vigorous  con- 
stitution ;  and  he  met  death,  in  the  seventy-sixth 
year  of  his  age,  September,  1686,  at  his  seat  at 
Ury  in  Scotland,  with  resignation  and  patience 
under  great  pain,  and  with  the  feelings  of  a 
lively  hope.  His  last  expressions  were  uttered 
in  prayer :  "  Praises  to  the  Lord  !  Let  now 
thy  servant  depart  in  peace.  Into  thy  hands, 
O  Father,  I  commit  my  soul,  spirit,  and  body. 
Thy  will,  0  Lord,  be  done  on  earth,  as  it  is  in 
heaven."  And  soon  after  he  breathed  his  last ; 
and  though  he  gave  express  directions,  agreea- 
bly to  his  principles,  that  none  but  persons  of 
his  own  persuasion  should  be  invited  to  his  fu- 
neral, yet,  the  time  being  known,  many  gentle- 
men, and  those,  too,  of  great  distinction,  attend- 
ed him  to  the  grave,  out  of  regard  to  his  hu- 
manity, beneficence,  and  public  spirit,  virtues 

*  Gough,  vol.  iii.,  p.  199-202. 

t  This  Mr.  Swinton  was  attainted  after  the  res- 
toration of  Charles  II.  for  having  joined  Cromwell, 
and  was  sent  down  into  Scotland  to  be  tried  ;  it  was 
imiversally  believed  that  his  death  was  inevita- 
ble ;  but  when  he  was  brought  before  the  Parliament 
at  Edinburgh,  1661,  to  show  cause  why  he  should 
not  receive  sentence,  having  become  a  Quaker, 
when  he  might  have  set  up  two  pleas,  strong  in 
point  of  law,  he  answered,  consonantly  to  his  reli- 
gious principles,  "  that  he  was,  at  tlie  time  his  poht- 
ical  crimes  were  imputed  to  him,  in  the  gall  of  bit- 
terness and  bond  of  iniquity,  but  that,  God  having 
since  called  him  to  the  light,  he  saw  and  acknowl- 
edged his  past  errors,  and  did  not  refuse  to  ])ay  the 
forfeit  for  them,  even  though  in  their  judgment  this 
should  extend  to  his  life."  His  speech  was,  though 
inodest,  so  majestic,  and  though  expressive  of  the  most 
perfect  patience,  so  pathetic,  that,  notsvith.standing 
he  had  neither  interest  nor  wealth  to  plead  for  him, 
yet  the  impression  made  by  his  discourse  on  that  il- 
lustrious assembly  was  such,  that  they  recommend- 
ed hiin  to  the  king  as  a  proper  object  of  mercy,  when 
they  were  very  severe  against  others. — Biojii.  Brit., 
vol.  ii.,  p.  590 ;  and  Burnet's  History,  vol.  i.,  p.  182. 


which  endeared  him  to  the  good  men  of  all 
parties.* 

On  the  17th  of  July,  1688,  died  at  Warwick, 
in  a  good  age,  William  Dewshury,  who  was 
early  distinguished  among  the  foremost  mem- 
bers of  this  society  by  the  depth  of  his  religious 
experience,  the  eminence  of  his  labours  in  the 
ministry,  and  the  severity  of  his  sufferings.  He 
was  first  bred  to  the  keeping  of  sheep,  and  thea 
was  put  apprentice  to  a  clothier.  In  early  life 
he  was  religiously  inclined,  and  associated  with 
the  Independents  and  Baptists.  In  the  civil 
wars  he  entered  into  the  Parliament  army,  but, 
as  he  grew  more  seriously  attentive  to  religious 
considerations,  the  recollection  of  the  words  of 
Christ,  "  Put  up  thy  sword  into  the  scabbard  ; 
if  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would 
my  servants  fight,"  affected  his  mind  with  a 
lively  conviction  of  the  inconsistency  of  war 
with  the  peaceable  Gospel  of  Christ.  Under 
this  conviction  he  lelt  the  army  and  resumed 
his  trade.  When  George  Fox  was  at  Wakefield, 
he  joined  him  in  fellowship  and  in  the  ministry. 
He  travelled  much  in  different  parts  of  England 
to  promote  righteousness,  and  to  propagate  what 
was,  in  his  view,  Divine  truth  ;  for  which,  like 
his  brethren,  he  met  with  much  personal  abuse, 
and  was  frequently  thrown  into  prison  at  vari- 
ous places,  at  York,  Northampton,  Exeter,  Lon- 
don, and  Warwick.  In  this  last  place  he  was 
detained  till  the  general  release  by  King  James. 
At  length  his  health  and  strength  were  so  im-% 
paired  by  the  many  violent  abuses  and  long  im- 
prisonments he  had  endured,  that  he  was  obli- 
ged to  rest  frequently  in  walking  from  his  house 
to  the  meeting-place  in  the  same  town.  A  dis- 
temper contracted  in  prison  terminated  his  life. 
He  was  seized  with  a  sharp  fit  of  it  when  in 
London  to  attend  the  yearly  meting,  so  that  he 
was  obliged  to  return  home  by  short  journeys, 
but  survived  his  departure  from  the  city  only 
seventeen  days.  To  some  friends  who  came 
to  visit  him,  he  said,  just  before  he  expired, 
"  Friends,  be  faithful,  and  trust  in  the  Lord  your 
God  ;  for  this  I  can  say,  I  never  played  the  cow- 
ard, but  as  joyfully  entered  prisons  as  palaces. 
And  in  the  prison-house  I  sang  praises  to  my 
God,  and  esteemed  the  bolts  and  locks  put  upon 
me  as  jewels,  and  in  the  name  of  the  eternal 
God  I  always  got  the  victory,  for  they  could  not 
keep  me  any  longer  than  the  time  determined 
of  Him."  Continuing  his  discourse,  he  said,. 
"  My  departure  draws  nigh  ;  blessed  be  God,  I 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  die,  and  put  off  this 
corruptible  and  mortal  tabernacle,  this  body  of 
flesh  that  hath  so  many  infirmities  ;  but  the  life 
that  dwells  in  it  ascends  out  of  the  reach  of 
death,  hell,  and  the  grave  ;  and  immortality  and 
eternal  life  is  my  crown  forever  and  ever." 
He  concluded  in  prayer  to  the  Lord  for  all  his 
people  everywhere,  especially  for  the  friends 
then  assembled  in  London,  reaping  the  present 
reward  of  his  fidelity,  patience,  and  sincerity,  in 
the  peaceful  tenour  of  his  mind,  and  looking 
death  in  the  face,  not  only  without  terror,  but 
with  a  holy  triumph  over  its  power. t 

The  history  of  this  society  has,  with  an  im- 
partial and  commendable  disregard  to  the  dis- 
tinction of  sex,  made  honourable   mention  of 


*  Gough,  vol.  iii.,  p.  181-183;  and  Biog.  Brit.,  vol. 
ii.,  p.  590,  591,  second  edition, 
t  Gough,  vol.  iii.,  p.  223-228. 


432 


REFLECTIONS   ON   THE    REVOLUTION 


those  women  to  whose  piety  and  zeal  it  was  in- 
debted. Or)e  of  tliese,  at  this  period,  was  Re- 
becca Travis,  born  1G09,  who  had  received  a 
relijjious  education,  and  was  a  zealous  profet^sor 
among  the  Baptists.  In  the  year  1654,  prompt- 
ed l)y  curiosity,  but  possessed  with  strong  prej- 
udices against  the  Qnai<ers,  as  a  people  in  the 
north  remarliable  for  simplicity  and  rusticity  of 
behaviour,  a  worship  strangely  different  from  all 
others,  and  a  strenuous  opposition  to  all  public 
teachers,  she  attended  a  public  disputation  be- 
tween James  Naylor,  then  in  London,  and  the 
Baptists,  in  which  it  appeared  to  her  he  had  the 
advantage,  by  close  and  powerful  replies,  over 
his  learned  antagonists.  This  excited  her  de- 
sire to  hear  him  in  the  exercise  of  his  ministry  ; 
she  had  soon  an  opportunity  of  gratifying  her 
wishes  ;  and  the  result  was,  that  from  that 
time  she  attended  the  meetings  of  this  people, 
and  after  some  time  laboured  herself  in  the  min- 
istry among  them,  in  London  and  its  neighbour- 
hood. The  impressions  made  on  her  mind  by 
the  preaching  of  Naylor,  and  her  observation  of 
his  circumspect  conduct,  engaged  her  affection- 
ate esteem  for  him,  and  she  cheerfully  adminis 
tered  every  charitable  service  in  her  power  to 
his  relief  under  his  grievous  sufferings  ;  though 
she  was  a  woman  of  too  much  discretion  and 
stability  in  religion  to  carry  her  regard  beyond 
its  proper  limits,  or  to  such  extravagant  lengths 
as  those  weak  people  who  contributed  to  his 
■downfall.  She  had  the  character  of  a  discreet 
and  virtuous  woman,  much  employed  in  acts  of 
charity  and  beneficence ;  of  sympathetic  tender- 
ness towards  the  afflicted,  and  therefore  one  of 
the  first  of  those  faithful  women  to  whom  the 


care  of  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the  imprisoned 
members  of  the  community  was  assigned  ;  this 
care,  in  conjunction  with  others,  she  religiously 
discharired.  After  a  long  life  of  virtuous  and 
charitable  deeds,  she  died  in  much  peace,  on  the 
L'jth  of  July,  1688,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  her 
age.* 

Another  of  these  women,  who  was  esteemed 
an  ornament  to  her  profession,  and  who  un- 
dauntedly suffered  when  it  fell  to  her  lot,  was 
Ann  Downer,  first  married  to  Benjamin  Green- 
well,  a  grocer  in  Bishopsgate-street,  and  theti 
to  the  celebrated  George  Whitehead.  She  was 
one  of  the  first  who  received  the  doctrine  of  the 
Quakers,  when  its  ministers  came  to  London, 
and  at  length  became  a  preacher  of  it.  In  1656 
she  was  sent  for  to  attend  George  Fox  and  his 
fellow  prisoners  at  Launceston,  and  travelled, 
thiiheron  foot,  two  hundred  miles  :  on  her  jour- 
ney she  was  instrumental  to  bring  many  over 
to  the  doctrine  she  published,  some  of  whom 
were  persons  of  account  in  the  world.  In  1658 
she  travelled  in  the  southern  counties  and  the 
li^le  of  Wight.  She  was  remarkably  conspicu- 
ous in  her  day  for  her  singular  piety,  benevo- 
lence, and  charity,  s[)ending  much  of  her  time 
in  visiting  the  poor,  the  imprisoned,  the  sick, 
the  fatherless,  and  widows  in  their  affliction  ; 
and  in  her  exertions  to  do  good  had  few  equals. 
She  died  on  the  27th  of  August,  1686,  aged  six- 
ty-three, expressing  to  her  friends  vvho  visited 
her  the  sentiments  ofresignation  and  lively  hope, 
and  leaving  impressions  of  affectionate  regard  to 
her  memory  in  the  liearts  of  many  whom  she 
had  helped  by  her  charitable  services.! 


REFLECTIONS 


REVOLUTION  AND  THE  ACT  OF  TOLERATION. 


The  Revolution  is  the  grand  event,  in  which 
the  affecting  and  interesting  scenes  and  trans- 
actions of  the  preceding  periods,  from  the  Ref- 
ormation to  the  accession  of  William  III.,  hap- 
pily and  gloriously  close.  Here  the  struggles 
of  the  several  parties  have  their  termination  ; 
and  though  the  Episcopal  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment obtains  at  last  an  establishment  and 
permanent  pre-eminence,  yet  that  superiority  is 
made  easy  to  the  other  parties  by  the  security  to 
their  respective  religious  professions,  and  by  the 
equality  among  themselves  which  they  enjoy  by 
the  Act  of  Toleration.  Here  the  reader  pauses 
with  pleasure  and  hope  ;  humanity  rejoices  that 
there  is  a  period  to  the  animosities  and  calami- 
ties that  had  torn  and  afflicted  this  country  near- 
ly a  century  and  a  half,  and  the  prospect  of 
better  times  opens  before  the  wearied  mind. 
The  history  through  which  he  has  been  led,  by 
its  various  details,  giveth  him  a  strong  impres- 
sion of  the  importance  and  happiness  of  the  era 
to  which  he  is  at  length  arrived.  Here  despo- 
tism hath  drawn  its  last  breath  ;  here  religious 
liberty  commenceth  its  reign  :  royal  prerogative 
bows  and  yields  to  the  voice  of  the  people  ;  and 


conscience  feels  itself,  though  not  entirely  eman- 
cipated, yet  walking  at  large  and  breathing  the 
open  air. 

Our  author's  narrative  affords  convincing  and 
satisfactory  proofs  of  the  importance  and  felici- 
ty of  the  new  state  of  things  to  which  it  brings 
us.  But  yet  some  considerations,  arising  from 
facts  not  mentioned  by  him,  may  be  properly 
presented  to  the  reader,  to  heighten  his  sense 
of  the  deliverance  effected  by  the  Revolution. 
Two  singular  doctrines  had  been  industriously 
disseminated  :  viz,  "That  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  passive  ol)edience  for  the  cause  of  re- 
ligion ;  and  that  kings  are  so  far  infallible,  as 
that  what  religion  they  establish  is  the  true  wor- 
ship of  God  in  their  dominion."  To  insinuate 
more  universally  and  effectually  these  senti- 
ments, they  were  inserted  and  enlarged  upon  in 
the  common  almanacs. t  No  doubt  can  remain 
concerning  the  design  of  James  II.  from  a  re- 
view of  the  measures  he  actually  executed  ;  and 
yet  it  is  useful  and  interesting  to  bring  forward 
the  secret  councils  from  whence  those  measures 


*  Gough.  vol.  iii.,  p.  219-223.        t  lb.,  p.  183-185. 
%  Crosby's  History  of  the  Baptists,  vol.  iii.,  p.  88. 


AND  THE  ACT  OF  TOLERATION. 


433 


flowed,  and  to  exhibit  the  systematical  plan,  for 
which,  if  they  were  not  parts  of  it,  and  first  at- 
tempts at  the'execution  of  it,  they  were  evident- 
ly calculated  to  prepare  the  way. 

Some  time  before  the  abdication  of  James,  a 
"  Memorial"  was  presented  to  him,  drawn  up 
by  a  Jesuit,  and  exhibiting  the  methods  he  should 
pursue,  not  only  to  root  out  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion, but  to  prevent  even  the  possibility  of  its 
revival.  The  great  outlines  of  the  scheme  were, 
"that  a  council  of  reformation  should  be  estab- 
lished, which,  avoiding  the  name,  as  odious  and 
offensive  at  the  beginning,  should  pursue  some 
good  and  sound  manner  of  inquisition  ;  nay, 
should  order,  in  divers  points,  according  to  the 
diligent  and  exact  proceedings  of  the  Court  of 
Inquisition  in  Spain,  that  the  authority  of  the 
Church  should  take  place  of  the  king's  authori- 
ty, and  the  civil  powers  be  subjected  to  the  ec- 
clesiastical ;  that  the  state  of  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion, and  the  succession  of  the  crown,  should 
be  so  linked  together,  that  one  might  depend  on 
and  be  the  assurance  of  the  other ;  that  new 
ways  of  choosing  Parliaments  should  he  follow- 
ed, particularly  one  very  extraordinary,  viz.,  that 
the  bishop  of  the  diocess  should  judge  concern- 
ing the  knights  of  the  shire,  and,  as  they  were 
thought  fit  to  serve  in  Parliament  by  such  bish- 
ops or  not,  so  they  were  to  confirm  the  election 
or  have  a  negative  voice  in  it.  The  Catholic 
prince,  whom  God  should  send,  is  represented 
as  being  well  able  to  procure  such  a  Parliament 
as  he  would  have.  Many  new  laws  were  to  he 
made,  that  should  quite  alter  the  whole  consti- 
tution ;  but  it  was  to  be  made  treason  forever 
for  any  man  to  propose  anything  for  change  of 
the  Catholic  Roman  faith  when  it  was  once  set- 
tled. As  to  those  in  low  circumstances,  effect- 
ual care  was  to  be  taken  to  keep  them  low. 
New  methods  were  to  be  observed  for  letting 
of  lands,  disposing  of  children,  and  ordering  of 
servants."  The  ••  Memorial"  complains,  "that 
in  Queen  Mary's  lime,  when  so  many  were  im- 
prisoned, so  many  stripped  of  their  estates,  and 
so  many  burned,  there  was  a  want  of  zeal,  to 
the  grief  and  discouragement  of  many  ;  that 
some  things  were  then  tolerated  upon  constraint, 
and  fear  of  farther  inconveniences  ;  and  it  is 
added,  that  matters  are  not  to  be  patched  up 
any  more  by  such  gentle  and  backward  proceed- 
ings. For  it  is  laid  down  as  a  first  principle, 
that  as  soon  as  a  good  Catholic  prince  should  be 
established  upon  the  throne  of  these  nations,  he 
must  make  account  that  the  security  of  himself, 
lus  crown,  and  successor  dependeth  principally 
DM  the  assurance  and  good  establishment  of  the 
Catholic  religion  within  his  kingdom."  The 
proposals  in  this  piece  were  brought  forward, 
not  merely  as  measures  which  the  writer  desi- 
red to  see  executed,  but  such  as  he  apprehend- 
ed, nay,  was  confident,  the  temper  and  circum- 
stances of  the  nation  would  soon  afford  an  op- 
portunity to  accomplish.  Several  things  are 
reckoned  up,  which  gave  great  fi)rce  to  the  Ro- 
man Catholics  in  England.  It  is  said  that  Eng- 
land would  more  easily  receive  pupery  than  any 
other  Protestant  country  ;  nay,  that  difliculties 
wliich  arose  in  some  Catholic  countries  would 
not  be  found  here.  "  .'\11  now,"  says  the  au- 
thor, "  is  zeal  and  integrity  in  our  new  cler- 
gy (.\lmighty  God  he  thanked  fi)r  it  !),  and  no 
less  in  our  laitv,  and  Catholic  ffentlemen  in 

Vol..  II.— I  1  i' 


England,  that  have  borne  the  brunt  of  persecu- 
tion." 

These  specimens  of  the  designs  formed  are 
proofs  to  what  extent  the  scheme  of  combining 
the  re-establishment  of  popery  with  arbitrary 
power  was  to  be  carried  ;  and  show  what  vast 
consequences  were  involved  in  the  success  of 
the  spirited  opposition  that  led  James  to  abdi- 
cate the  throne. 

Important,  valuable,  and  happy  as  was  the 
state  of  things  introduced  by  this  event,  espe- 
cially as  it  affected  religious  liberty,  the  opera- 
tion of  it  was  partial  and  limited  :  when  even  a 
bill  of  rights,  after  the  settlement  of  King  Will- 
iam on  the  throne,  defined  our  constitution,  and  . 
fixed  the  privileges  of  the  subject,  the  rights  of 
conscience  were  not  ascertained,  nor  declared 
by  that  noble  deed.  The  Act  of  Toleration, 
moved  by  Lord  Nottingham  in  the  House  of 
Peers,  and  seconded  by  some  bishops,  though 
more  out  of  fear  than  inclination,*  exempted 
from  the  penal  statutes  then  in  existence  Prot- 
estant dissentients  only,  and  not  all  of  them,  for 
the  Socinians  are  expressly  excepted,  nor  did 
secure  any  from  the  influence  of  the  Corporation 
and  Test  Acts.  It  left  the  English  Catholics 
under  severe  disabilities  ;  it  left  many  penal 
statutes  unrepealed.  The  same  reign  which 
gave  us  the  blessing  of  the  Toleration  .Act  was 
marked  by  an  act  of  another  complexion  ;  for 
the  prince  to  whom  we  owe  the  former  was  pre- 
vailed on  to  pass  another  statute,  adjudging 
heavy  penalties,  fines,  and  imprisonments  to 
those  who  should  write  or  speak  against  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  There  are  claims  of 
power  over  conscience  not  yet  abolished  :  there 
are  rights  of  conscience  not  yet  fully  recovered 
and  secured.  The  very  term  toleration  shows 
that  religious  freedom  is  not  yet  enjoyed  in  per- 
fection; it  indicates  that  the  liberty  which  we 
possess  is  a  matter  of  sufferance,  lenity,  and  in- 
dulgence, rather  than  the  grant  of  justice  and 
right.  It  seemelh  to  admit  and  imply  a  power 
to  restrain  conscience  and  to  dictate  to  faith, 
hut  the  exercise  of  which  is  generously  waived. 
The  time  is,  even  now,  at  this  distance  from  the 
Revolution,  yet  to  come  when  the  enjoyment  of 
religious  liberty  shall  no  longer  be  considered  as 
a  favour  ;  the  time  is  yet  to  come  when  Chris- 
tians, of  all  religious  forms  and  creeds,  shall  be 
on  the  equal  fooling  of  brethren,  and  of  children 
in  the  house  of  the  same  heavenly  Parent ;  the 
lime  is  yet  to  come  when  acts  of  toleration  shall 
everywhere  give  place  to  hills  of  right. 

But,  though  much  is  yet  wanting  to  complete 
and  perfect  the  blessings  of  the  Revolution,  yet 
we  cannot  but  review  the  Act  of  Toleration  aa 
a  great  point  gained,  as  a  noble  effort  towards 
the  full  emancipaticm  of  conscience.  The  pre- 
ceding periods  had  been  only  those  of  oppression 
and  thraldom.  The  exertions  of  any  to  procure 
release  from  severe  laws  were  rather  attempts 
to  gain  the  power  of  tyrannizing  over  conscience 
into  their  own  hands,  that  they  themselves  might 
be  free,  and  all  other  parties  remain  slaves,  than 
liberal  endeavours  to  ascertain  and  secure  to 
every  one  security  and  peace  in  following  the 
judgment  of  his  own  mind.  The  preceding  ages 
exhibit  a  series  of  severe  slatutes  following  each 
other  ;  from  passing  the  act  for  burning  of  her- 
ctics  in  the  reian  of  Henry  IV.,  to  the  enacting 

»  Sir  John  Reresby's  Memoirs,  p.  ^23. 


434 


REFLECTIONS  ON  THE   REVOLUTION 


of  that  of  uniformity,  and  of  the  Oxford  conven- 
ticle acts,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  Reformation,  we  have 
seen,  that  on  the  one  hand,  they  who  could  not 
admit,  from  religious  reverence  to  the  pope's 
aulhcirity,  the  supremacy  of  the  king,  and,  on 
the  other,  they  who  discarded  any  of  the  six  ar- 
ticles which  he  formed  into  a  standard  of  faith, 
were  alike  doomed  to  the  sentence  of  death. 
In  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  the  pious  and  amia- 
ble Hooper,  for  refusing  to  wear  a  particular 
dress,  was  imprisoned  ;  and  Joan  Boucher,  who 
religiously  read  and  dispersed  the  New  Testa- 
ment, was  burned  at  the  stake.  Intolerant  stat- 
utes marked  the  government  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
Persecution,  in  various  forms,  by  laws  and  by 
prerogative,  stigmatized  the  successive  reigns 
of  the  Stuarts.  In  the  interval,  during  the  sus- 
pension of  their  power,  a  severe  ordinance 
against  heresy  was  passed :  the  livings  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  were  sequestered  ;  those  min- 
isters suffered  under  severe  oppressions,  and 
Preshyierianism  was  found  to  be  not  more 
friendly  to  the  rights  of  conscience,  or  averse 
from  intolerance,  'ban  had  been  the  fallen  hie- 
rarchy. Among  two  despised  sects,  hated  and 
persecuted  by  all  parties,  the  Baptists  and  Qua- 
kers, among  almost  them  only,  tlie  principles  of 
liberty  had  found  able  and  generous  advocates  ; 
their  writings  placed  the  rights  of  conscience  on 
a  brf)ad  and  liberal  bottom.  But  they  could 
support  them  by  the  pen  only  ;  they  were  never 
in  power,  and,  consequently,  had  never,  in  this 
country,*  an  opportunity  to  carry  their  princi- 
ples into  practice,  and  to  show  that  they  could 
rule  according  to  the  maxims  for  which,  when 
oppressed,  they  could  forcibly  plead. 

This  having  been  the  state  of  things,  the  Act 
of  Toleration,  the  consequence  of  the  Revolu- 
-tion,  was  a  great  acquisition.  It  was  the  first 
legal  sanction  given  to  the  claims  of  conscience  ; 
it  was  the  first  charter  of  religious  freedom  ;  it 
■was  a  valuable,  important,  and  permanent  se- 
curity to  the  dissenting  subject.  It  opened  to 
him  the  temple  of  peace,  and  afforded  the  long- 
wished-for  asylum.  To  adopt  the  language  of 
high  authority  :  "  The  Toleration  Act  rendered 
that  which  was  illegal  before,  now  legal ;  the 
dissenting  way  of  worship  is  permitted  and  al- 
lowed by  that  act ;  it  is  not  only  exempted  from 
punishment,  but  rendered  innocent  and  lawful; 
it  is  established  ;  it  is  put  under  the  protection, 
and  not  merely  the  connivance,  of  the  law."t 
It  hath  been  followed  with  a  universal  good  ef- 
fect and  happy  influence  ;  it  hath  been  the  ba- 
sis of  the  religious  liberty  enjoyed  ever  since 
that  period  ;  and  with  respect  to  the  state  of 
freedom  and  religious  inquiry  in  these  kingdoms, 
it  was,  as  it  were,  a  new  creation.  Before  that 
period,  darkness,  in  a  manner,  hung  over  the 
spacious  field  of  knowledge  and  Divine  truth, 
and  the  path  to  it  was  guarded  by  a  flaming 
sword.  Tliat  act  said,  "  Let  there  be  light,  and 
ligiii  there  was."     "  The  bounds  of  free  inquiry 

*  It  is  said  in  thts  conntry  ;  for  when  the  forming 
the  government  of  Pennsylvania  and  Rhode  Island  in 
America  rested,  the  latter  with  the  Baptists,  and  the 
former  wiih  the  Quakers,  to  their  honour  it  should 
be  si\i(l,  that  their  conduct  was  consistent  with  the 
arguments  they  had  advanced,  and  liberty  of  con- 
science, on  an  extensive  and  Liberal  scale,  was  a  lead- 
ing feature  of  each  constitution.         t  Lord  Mansfield. 


were  enlarged  ;  the  volume  in  which  are  the 
words  of  eternal  life  was  laid  open  to  examina- 
tion." And  the  state  of  knowledge  and  liberty 
has  been,  ever  since,  progressive  and  improving. 
To  this  general  view  of  the  effects  of  the  Rev- 
olution, it  is  proper  to  add,  "  that  it  drew  con- 
siderable consequences  after  it  all  over  Europe. 
It  kept  the  Reformed  interests  from  sinking,  se- 
cured the  liberty  of  the  British  and  the  Nether- 
lands, and  disappointed  the  French  of  that  uni- 
versal monarchy  which  they  had  been  eagerly 
expecting,  and  had  great  hopes  of  reaching. 
And  among  other  happy  fruits  of  it,  it  was  not 
the  least  considerable  that  it  was  the  means  of 
saving  the  poor  Vaudois  of  Piedmont  from  utter 
ruin,  and  of  their  re-establishment  in  their  own 
country.  These  people  were  the  remains  of 
the  primitive  Christians,  who  were  never  taint- 
ed with  the  papal  corruptions  and  impurities. 
In  the  year  1686,  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  at  the  in- 
stigation of  Louis  XIV.,  because  they  would 
not  forsake  their  religion,  drove  them  from  their 
houses  and  possessions,  forced  them  out  of  the 
valleys,  and  obliged  them  to  take  shelter  among 
the  Switzers  and  others  that  would  afford  them 
an  asylum.  But  in  September,  1689,  eight  or 
nine  hundred  of  them  assembled  together  in  the 
woods  of  Nion,  not  far  from  Geneva,  crossed 
the  Lake  Leman  in  the  night,  and  entered  Sa- 
voy under  the  conduct  of  their  minister,  M.  Ar- 
nold. They  inarched  through  that  country,  four- 
teen or  fifteen  days'  journey,  in  which  march 
they  were  obliged  to  climb  up  high  mountains, 
force  divers  strait  passes,  well  guarded  by  sol- 
diers, with  swords  in  their  hands,  till  at  length 
they  reached  their  valleys,  of  which  they  took 
possession,  and  in  which,  under  the  singular 
protection  of  Providence,  they  maintained  them- 
selves, successfully  encountering  their  enemies 
who  at  any  time  assaulted  them."* 

Here  seems  to  be  a  proper  place,  before  the 
history  of  this  period  is  closed,  to  notice  a  noble 
and  generous  exertion  of  a  few  Dissenters, 
which  has  with  great  good  effect  been  resumed 
and  perpetuated  to  the  present  times.  It  was 
the  founding  of  a  school  in  Gravel  Lane,  South- 
wark,  for  the  instruction  of  children  in  reading, 

*  Calamy's  History  of  his  Own  Times,  MS.  Dr. 
Calamy  was  told  several  remarkable  particulars  con- 
cerning this  march  by  Mr.  Arnold,  who  came  after- 
ward to  England  to  solicit  the  assistance  of  King 
William.  One  was,  that  when  they  were  come  pret- 
ty near  to  their  valleys,  they  were  in  such  straits  for 
provisions,  that  they  were  in  great  fear  of  starving. 
But  there  came  a  sudden  thaw,  which  in  a  night's 
time  melted  the  snow,  and  in  the  morning  they  dis- 
covered a  considerable  quantity  of  wheat  standing  in 
the  earth,  ready  for  the  sickle,  which  had  been  left 
there  from  the  preceding  summer,  and  had  been  cov- 
ered all  winter  by  the  snow ;  the  sudden  fall  pre- 
vented the  proprietors  from  reaping  it  at  the  proper 
season.  These  eestitute  people  beheld  it  vvuh  ad- 
miration and  thankfulness,  reaped  it  with  joy,  and 
were  supported  by  it  after  their  return  into  their  val- 
leys, where,  without  such  a  supply,  they  might  have 
perished.  Another  resource,  especially  for  their  min- 
isters and  schoolmasters,  was  derived  from  the  over- 
plus of  the  collections  made  for  them  in  England  du- 
rmg  the  protectorship  of  Cromwell,  which  had  been 
lodged  by  them,  when  their  wants  bad  been  eti'ectu- 
ally  relieved,  in  the  hands  of  the  magistrates  of  Ge- 
neva, on  condition  of  receiving  such  an  allowance 
from  year  to  year  as  was  agreed  on. — Calamy,  ut  su- 
pra. 


AND   THE    ACT    OF   TOLERATION. 


435 


writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  the  girls  in  sewing 
and  knitting  and  furnishing  them  with  booivs 
for  their  instruction  in  these  arts,  and  with  Tes- 
taments, catechisms,  and  Bibles.  One  Poulton 
liail  opened  a  school  in  these  parts,  and  given 
public  notice  that  he  would  teach  the  children 
of  the  poor  gratis.  To  counteract  his  designs, 
and  to  afford  the  poor  an  easy  opportunity  of 
having  their  children  educated  in  Protestant 
principles,  three  worthy  gentlemen,  Mr.  Arthur 
Shallet,  Mr.  Samuel  Warburlon,  and  Mr.  Ferdi- 
nando  Holland,  members  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  Vin- 
cent's church,  instituted  this  seminary,  which 
has  continued  ever  since,  maintained  by  volun- 
tary subscriptions,  annual  collections,  and  leg- 
acies. The  number  of  scholars  at  first  was  for- 
ty ;  afterward  it  increased  to  fifty  ;  then  to  one 
hundred  and  forty  ;  and  has  since  been  two  hun- 
dred. It  was  the  first  institution  of  the  kind 
wherein  the  Protestant  Dissenters  were  con- 
cerned ;  and  into  it  objects  are  received  with- 
out distinction  of  parly.  Such  an  institution 
has  the  merit  of  being  a  rational,  fair,  and  be- 
nevolent mode  of  opposing  superstition  and  big- 
otry, abridging  no  one's  security  and  rights,  and 
leaving  the  event  to  the  operation  of  knowledge 
and  understanding;  and  it  reflects  honour  on 
the  spirit  and  resolution  of  its  first  founders, 
who  set  it  on  foot  in  the  reign  of  the  tyrannical 
and  bigoted  prince,  James  II.,  when  the  Dis- 
senters had  scarcely  emerged  out  of  a  state  of 
persecution. 

It  will  not,  it  is  presumed,  he  thought  be- 
neath the  importance  and  dignity  of  general 
history  to  mention  here  two  small  publications 
which  the  press  produced  at  this  period,  espe- 
cially as  the  history  through  which  the  reader 
has  been  led  records  the  virtuous  and  manly 
struggles  made  to  secure  the  liberty  of  writing 
and  publishing  on  the  subject  of  religion,  ac- 
cording to  ihe  views  any  might  entertain,  and 
exhibits  memoirs  of  the  progress  of  theological 
inquiries.  The  importance  of  publications  is 
also  to  be  estimated,  not  by  the  number  of  pa- 
ges, but  by  the  nature  of  the  subject,  the  ability 
with  which  they  are  executed,  and  the  efTect 
they  produced,  or  the  impression  they  were 
calculated  to  leave,  on  the  public  mind. 

One  of  the  pieces,  both  anonymous,  to  which 
we  refer,  was  entitled  "  A  brief  History  of  the 
Unitarians,  called  also  Socinians  :  in  four  Let- 
ters to  a  Friend."  The  publisher  to  whom  they 
were  written  having  left  them  some  time  with 
a  gentleman,  a  person  of  excellent  learning  and 
worth,  they  were  returned  to  him  with  a  letter, 
expressing  great  approbation  of  them,  which 
was  printed  with  each  edition.  The  first  of 
these  letters  represented  the  Unitarian  doctrine 
concerning  the  unity  of  God,  the  humanity  of 
Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the  power  and 
inspiration  of  God  ;  aimed  to  conform  and  prove 
it  by  a  series  of  scriptural  arguments,  and  closed 
with  a  concise  history  of  it.  The  design  of  the 
three  following  letters  was  to  reply  to  the  argu- 
jTients  of  the  orthodox  ;  and,  that  the  answer 
might  be  full  and  satisfactory,  they  were  occu- 


pied in  the  illustration  of  all  ihe  texts  usually 
alleged  as  proofs  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine. 
The  passages  out  of  the  Old  Testament  are  first 
explained,  then  those  out  of  the  Gospels  and 
Acts,  and,  lastly,  those  out  of  the  Epistles  and 
the  Revelations.  This  mode  of  discussing  a 
question,  which  depends  purely  on  Divine  reve- 
lation, will  be  admitted  to  be  proper  and  fair. 
It  showed  that  the  author  was  not  afraid  to 
lodge  his  appeal  with  the  Scriptures,  and  it  was 
adapted  to  lead  the  reader  into  an  investigation 
of  their  meaning  according  to  the  rules  of  sober 
criticism  and  just  explanation.  It  went,  partic- 
ularly, to  obviate  a  reflection  cast  upon  the 
Unitarians,  as  exalting  their  reasonings  above 
the  plain  and  express  revelation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  first  edition  of  this  tract  was  in 
12mo,  in  1687.  It  was  afterward  reprinted  in 
a  collection  of  Unitarian  Tracts,  in  quarto,  1691. 
The  other  tract  published  at  this  period,  which 
I  have  mentioned  as  worthy  of  particular  notice, 
was  entitled  "  A  Rational  Catechism."  It  was 
distinguished  not  only  by  the  good  sense,  and 
the  vein  of  close  but  familiar  reasoning  which 
ran  through  it,  but  by  the  peculiar  method  in 
which  it  was  drawn  up.  Catechisios,  in  gener- 
al, have  consisted  principally,  if  not  solely,  of 
speculative  points,  drawn  from  the  theological 
systems  of  the  day,  and  of  the  country  where 
they  are  published.  These  are  conveyed  in  an 
authoritative  manner,  as  absolutely  necessary 
to  salvation  ;  and  are  to  be  committed  to  mem- 
ory, without  any  attempt  to  prove  them  by  rea- 
soning level  to  the  capacity  of  the  learner.  The 
author  of  this  tract,  conceiving  that  neglecting 
to  examine  into  the  bottom  of  things  was  the 
cause  of  that  variety  of  opinions  whence  arose 
rash  judgments,  animosities,  hatreds,  and  per- 
secution, began  his  piece  with  the  first  princi- 
ples discernible  in  human  nature;  and,  avoid- 
ing all  sentiments  controverted  aitiong  Chris- 
tians, confined  himself  to  such  truths  only  as  all 
agree  in,  and  which  lead  directly  unto  practice, 
professing  not  to  advance  everything  that  he 
might  think  useful,  but  only  what  he  judged 
most  useful.  The  dialogue  into  which  form 
the  work  is  thrown  divides  itself  into  three 
parts:  the  principles  of  natural  religion  ;  those 
of  Christianity,  or  the  great  advantages  derived 
from  the  Gospel;  and  the  rules  of  conduct 
which  it  supplies.  The  instructions  and  con- 
clusions which  the  catechumen  is  led,  in  a 
great  degree,  to  draw  for  himself,  and  by  his 
own  reflections,  arise  in  a  chain  of  reasoning 
from  this  principle,  "that  every  man  seeks  hap- 
piness ;"  which  happiness  must  be,  principally, 
mental  and  spiritual.  The  means  of  attaining 
to  it  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  he  practice 
of  his  will  are  hence  gradually  developed.  This 
piece  is  ascribed  to  Mr.  Popple.  It  was  first 
printed,  by  license,  in  1688  ;  another  edition  of 
it  appeared  1690,  12mo  ;  and  it  was  reprinted 
at  Amscerdam  in  1712  * 


*  Preface  to  the  work.  Hoiiis's  Memoirs,  p.  263  ; 
and  a  Critical  Review  of  it  in  the  Biblioth^que  Uni- 
verselie  Historique,  torn,  ix.,  p.  95,  &c. 


APPENDIX. 


No.  I 
A  declaration  of  certain  principal  articles  of  reli- 
gion, set  out  by  order  of  both  archbishops,  met- 
Topoiilans,  and  the  rest  of  the  bishops,  for  the 
■unity  of  doctrine  to  be  taught  aiid  hulden  of  all 
parsons,  vicars,  and  curates :  as  well  in  testifi- 
cation of  their  common  consent  in  the  said  doc- 
trine, to  the  slopping  of  the  mouths  of  them  that 
go  about  to  slander  the  mimslcrs  of  the  Church 
for  diversity  of  judgment,  and  as  necessary  for 
the  instruction  of  their  people,  to  be  read  by  the 
said  parsuns,  vicars,  and  curates,  at  their  pos- 
session taking,  or  first  entry  into  their  cures  ; 
and  also  after  that  yearly,  at  two  several  times  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  Sunday  next  following  Easter 
Day,  and  St.  Michael  the  Archangel,  or  on  some 
ether  Sunday  within  one  month  after  those  feasts, 
immediately  after  the  Gospel. 

Forasmuch  as  it  appertaineth  to  all  Chris- 
tian men,  but  especially  to  the  ministers  and 
pastors  of  the  Church,  being  teachers  and  in- 
structers  of  others,  to  be  ready  to  give  a  reason 
of  their  faith  when  they  shall  be  thereunto  re- 
i]uired  ;  I,  for  my  part,  now  appointed  your 
parson,  vicar,  or  curate,  having  before  mine  eyes 
the  fear  of  God,  and  the  testimony  of  my  con- 
science, do  acknowledge  for  myself,  and  require 
you  to  assent  to  the  same  : 

1.  "  That  there  is  but  one  living  and  true  God, 
of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  ;  the 
maker  and  preserver  of  all  things  ;  and  that  in 
unity  of  this  Godhead  there  be  three  persons  of 
one  substance,  of  equal  power  and  eternity,  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 

2.  "  I  believe,  also,  whatsoever  is  contained 
in  the  holy  canonical  Scriptnres,  in  the  which 
Scriptures  are  contained  all  things  necessary  to 
salvation  ;  by  the  which,  also,  all  errors  and 
heresies  may  sufficiently  be  reproved  and  con- 
victed, and  all  doctrines  and  articles  necessary 
to  salvation  are  established.  I  do  also  most 
firmly  believe  and  confess  all  the  articles  con- 
tained in  the  three  creeds ;  the  Nicene  Creed, 
Athanasius's  Creed,  and  our  common  creed, 
called  the  Apostles'  Creed  ;  for  these  do  briefly 
contain  the  principalarticlesof  our  faith,  which 
are  at  large  set  forth  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

3.  "  I  do  acknowledge,  also,  that  church  to  be 
the  spouse  of  Christ  wherein  the  Word  of  God 
is  truly  taught,  the  sacraments  orderly  minis- 
tered according  to  Christ's  institution,  and  the 
authority  of  the  keys  duly  used  ;  and  that  every 
such  particular  church  hath  authority  to  insti- 
tute, to  change,  and  clean  to  put  away,  ceremo- 
nies, and  other  ecclesiastical  rights,  as  they  be 
superfluous  or  abused  ;  and  to  constitute  others, 
makmg  more  to  seemliness,  to  order,  or  edifica- 
tion. 

4.  "  Moreover,  I  confess  that  it  is  not  lawful 
for  any  man  to  take  upon  him  any  office  or  min- 
istry, either  ecclesiastical  or  secular,  but  such 


only  as  are  lawfully  thereunto  called  by  the  high 
authorities,  according  to  the  ordinances  of  the 
realm. 

5.  "Furthermore,  I  do  acknowledge  the  queen's 
majesty's  prerogative  and  superiority  of  gov- 
ernment of  all  estates,  and  in  all  causes,  as  well 
ecclesiastical  as  temporal,  within  this  realm 
and  other  her  dominions  and  countries,  to  be 
agreeable  to  God's  Word,  and  of  right  to  apper- 
tain to  her  highness,  in  such  sort  as  in  the  late 
act  of  Parliament  expressed,  and  since  then  by 
her  majesty's  injunctions  declared  and  expound- 
ed, 

6.  "  Moreover,  touching  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
I  do  acknowledge  and  confess  that,  by  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  Word  of  God,  he  hath  no  more 
authority  than  other  bishops  have  in  their  prov- 
inces and  diooesses,  and  therefore  the  power 
which  he  now  challengeth,  that  is,  to  be  the  su- 
preme head  of  the  universal  Church  of  Chr^t, 
and  so  to  be  above  all  emperors,  kings,  and  prin- 
ces, is  a  usurped  power,  contrary  to  the  Scrip- 
tures and  Word  of  God,  and  contrary  to  the  ex- 
ample of  the  primitive  Church  ;  and  therefore 
is,  for  most  just  causes,  taken  away  and  abol- 
ished in  this  realm. 

7.  "  Furthermore,  I  do  grant  and  confess  that 
the  book  of  Common  Prayer  and  administration 
of  the  holy  sacraments  set  forth  by  the  authority 
of  Parliament  is  agreeable  to  the  Scriptures  ; 
and  that  it  is  catholic  and  apostolic,  and  most 
for  the  advancing  of  God's  glory,  and  the  edify- 
ing of  God's  people:  both  for  that  it  is  in  a 
tongue  that  may  be  understood  of  the  people, 
and  also  for  the  doctrine  and  form  of  adminis- 
tration contained  in  the  same. 

8.  "And  although  in  the  administration  of 
baptism  there  is  neither  exorcism,  oil,  salt,  spit- 
tle, nor  hallowing  of  the  water  now  used  ;  and 
for  that  they  were  of  late  years  abused  and  es- 
teemed necessary,  whereas  they  pertain  not  to 
the  substance  and  necessity  of  the  sacrament, 
and  therefore  be  reasonably  abolished  ;  yet  is 
the  sacrament  full  and  perfectly  administered, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  agreeable  to  the  in- 
stitution of  our  Saviour  Christ. 

9.  "  Moreover,  I  do  not  only  acknowledge 
that  private  masses  were  never  used  among  the 
fathers  of  the  primitve  Church,  I  mean,  public 
minisrtation  and  receiving  of  the  sacrament  by 
the  priest  alone,  without  a  just  number  of  com- 
municants, according  to  Christ's  saying,  '  Take 
ye,  and  eat  ye,'  &c.,  but  also  that  the  doctrine 
that  maintaineth  the  mass  to  be  a  propitiatory 
sacrifice  for  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and  a  mean 
to  deliver  souls  out  of  purgatory,  is  neither 
agreeable  to  Christ's  ordinance,  nor  grounded 
upon  doctrine  apostolic,  but  contrariwise  most 
ungodly,  and  most  injurious  to  the  precious  re- 
demption of  our  Saviour  Christ,  and  his  only 
sufficient  sacrifice,  ofTered  once  forever  upon 
the  altar  of  the  cross. 


438 


APPENDIX. 


10.  "  I  am  of  that  mind,  also,  that  the  holy 
communion  or  sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ,  for  the  due  obedience  to  Christ's  in- 
stitution, and  to  express  the  virtue  of  the  same, 
outjht  to  be  ministered  unto  the  people  under 
both  kinds  ;  and  that  it  is  avouched  by  certain 
fathers  of  the  Ciiurch  to  be  a  plain  sacrilege  to 
rob  them  of  the  mystical  cup  for  whom  Christ 
has  shed  his  most  precious  blood,  seeing  he  him- 
self hath  said,  '  Drink  ye  all  of  this  ;'  consider- 
ing, also,  that  in  the  time  of  the  ancient  doctors 
of  the  Church,  as  Cyprian,  Jerome,  Augustine, 
Gelasius,  and  others,  six  hundred  years  after 
Christ,  and  more,  both  the  parts  of  the  sacra- 
ment were  ministered  to  the  people. 

Last  of  all,  "  As  I  do  utterly  disallow  the  ex- 
tolling of  images,  relics,  and  feigned  miracles  ; 
and  also  all  kind  of  expressing  God  invisible,  in 
the  form  of  an  old  man,  or  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
the  form  of  a  dove  ;  and  all  other  vain  worship- 
ping of  God,  devised  by  men's  fantasy,  besides 
or  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  ;  as  wandering  on 
pilgrimages,  setting  up  of  candles,  praying  upon 
beads,  and  such  like  superstition  ;  which  kind  of 
works  have  no  promise  of  reward  in  Scripture, 
but  contrariwise,  threatenings  and  maledictions ; 
so  I  do  exhort  all  met  to  the  obedience  of  God's 
law,  and  to  the  works  of  faith,  as  charity,  mer- 
cy, piety,  alms,  devout  and  fervent  prayer,  with 
the  affection  of  the  heart,  and  not  with  the 
mouth  only;  godly  abstinence  and  fasting,  chas- 
tity, obedience  to  the  rulers  and  superior  pow- 
ers, with  such  like  works,  and  godliness  of  life 
commanded  by  God  in  his  Word  ;  which,  as  St. 
Paul  saith,  '  hath  the  promise  both  of  this  life, 
and  of  the  life  to  come  ;'  and  are  works  accept- 
able only  in  God's  sight. 

"  These  things  above  rehearsed,  though  they 
be  appointed  by  common  order,  yet  do  I,  with- 
out ail  compulsion,  with  freedom  of  mind  and 
conscience,  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  and 
upon  most  sure  persuasion,  acknowledge  to  be 
true,  and  agreeable  to  God's  Word.  And  there- 
fore I  exhort  you  all  to  whom  I  have  care,  heart- 
ily and  obediently  to  embrace  and  receive  the 
same  ;  that  we  all  joining  together  in  unity  of 
spirit,  faith,  and  charity,  may  also  at  length  be 
joined  together  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  that 
through  the  merits  and  death  of  our  Saviour  Je- 
sus Christ ;  to  whom,  with  the  Father  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  be  all  glory  and  empire,  now  and 
forever.     Amen." 


No.  n. 

A  copy  of  the  Letter  sent  to  the  Bishops  and  Pas- 
tors of  England,  who  have  renounced  the  Roman 
Antichrist,  and  profess  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
in  sincerity. 

The  superintendent  ministers,  and  commissioners  of  char- 
ges within  the  realm  of  Scotland,  to  their  brethren  the 
bishops  and  pastors  of  England,  who  have  renounced  the 
Roman  antichrist,  and  do  profess  with  them  the  Lord  .Je- 
sus in  sincerity,  desire  the  perpetual  increase  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

By  word  and  writ,  it  is  come  to  our  knowl- 
edge, reverend  pastors,  that  divers  of  our  dear- 
est brethren,  among  whom  are  some  of  the  best 
learned  within  that  realm,  are  deprived  from 
ecclesiastical  function,  and  forbidden  to  preach, 
and  so  by  you,  that  they  are  straight  to  promote 
the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ,  because  their  con- 
sciences will  not  suffer  to  take  upon  them  (at 


the  commandment  of  authority)  such  garments 
as  idolaters,  in  time  of  blindness,  have  used  in 
their  idolatry,  which  bruit  cannot  but  be  most 
dolorous  to  our  hearts,  mindful  of  that  sentence 
of  the  apostle,  saying,  "  If  ye  bite  and  devour 
one  another,  take  heed,  lest  ye  be  consumed  one 
of  another."  We  purpo.se  not  at  this  present  to 
enter  into  the  ground  of  that  question  which  we 
hear,  of  either  part,  to  be  agitate  with  greater 
vehemency  than  well  liketh  us  ;  to  wit,  wheth- 
er that  such  apparel  is  to  be  accounted  among 
things  that  are  simply  indifferent  or  not ;  hut  in 
the  bowels  of  the  Lord  Jesus  we  crave  that 
Christian  charity  may  so  prevail  in  you,  we  say, 
the  pastors  and  leaders  of  the  flock  within  that 
realm. 

That  ye  do  not  to  others  that  which  ye  would 
not  others  should  do  to  you.  Ye  cannot  be  ig- 
norant how  tender  a  thing  the  conscience  of 
man  is.  All  that  have  knowledge  are  not  alike 
persuaded  ;  your  consciences  reclaim  not  at 
wearing  of  such  garments,  but  many  thousands, 
both  godly  and  learned,  are  otherwise  persuaded, 
whose  consciences  are  continually  stricken  with 
these  sentences  :  "  What  hath  Christ  Jesus  to 
do  with  Beliall"  "What  fellowship  is  there 
betwixt  darkness  and  light  1"  If  surplice,  cor- 
ner cap,  and  tippet  have  been  badges  of  idola- 
ters in  the  very  act  of  their  idolatry,  what  have 
the  preachers  of  Christian  liberty,  and  the  open 
rebukers  of  all  superstition,  to  do  with  the  dregs 
of  the  Romish  beast"!  Our  brethren,  that  of 
conscience  refuse  that  unprofitable  apparel,  do 
neither  damn  yours,  nor  molest  you  that  use  such 
vain  trifles  :  if  ye  shall  do  the  like  to  them,  we 
doubt  not  but  therein  ye  shall  please  God,  and 
comfort  the  hearts  of  many  which  are  wounded 
with  extremity,  which  is  used  against  those  god- 
ly, and  our  beloved  brethren.  Colour  of  rhetoric 
or  manly  persuasion  will  we  use  none,  but  char- 
itably we  desire  you  to  call  that  sentence  of  pity 
to  mind  :  "  Feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is  com- 
mitted to  your  charge,  caring  for  them,  not  by 
constraint,  but  willingly;  not  as  though  ye  were 
lords  over  God's  heritage,  but  that  ye  may  be 
examples  to  the  flock."  And  farther,  also,  we 
desire  you  to  meditate  that  sentence  of  the 
apostle,  saying,  "  Give  none  offence,  neither  to 
the  Jews  nor  to  the  Grecians,  nor  to  the  Church 
of  God."  In  what  condition  of  time  ye  and  we 
both  travel  in  the  promoting  of  Christ's  king- 
dom, we  suppose  you  not  to  be  ignorant ;  and 
therefore  we  are  more  bold  to  exhort  you  to 
walk  more  circumspectly,  than  that  for  such 
vanities  the  godly  should  be  troubled.  For  all 
things  that  may  seem  lawful,  edify  not.  If  the 
commandment  of  authority  urge  the  consciences 
of  your  and  our  brethren  more  than  they  can 
bear,  we  unfeignedly  crave  of  you  that  ye  re- 
member that  ye  are  called  the  light  of  the  world 
and  the  earth. 

All  civil  authority  hath  not  the  light  of  God 
always  shining  before  their  eyes  in  their  statutes 
and  commandments  ;  but  their  affections  oft- 
I  ime  savour  too  much  of  the  earth,  and  of  world- 
ly wisdom. 

And  therefore  we  think  that  ye  should  boldly 
oppose  yourselves  to  all  power  that  will  or  dare 
extol  itself,  not  only  against  God,  but  also  against 
all  such  as  do  burden  the  consciences  of  the 
faithful  farther  than  God  hath  burdened  them  by 
his  own  Word.     But  herein  we  confese  our  of- 


APPENDIX. 


439 


fence,  in  that  we  have  entered  farther  m  reason- 
ing than  we  purposed  and  promised  at  the  be- 
ginning ;  and  therefore  we  shortly  return  to  our 
former  humble  supplication,  which  is,  that  our 
brethren  who  among  you  refuse  the  Romish 
rags,  may  find  of  you,  the  prelates,  such  favours 
as  our  Head  and  Master  commands  every  one 
of  his  members  to  show  one  to  another,  which 
we  look  to  receive  of  your  gentleness,  not  only 
for  that  ye  fear  to  offend  God's  majesty,  in 
troubling  of  your  brethren  for  such  vain  trifles  ; 
but  also  because  ye  will  not  refuse  the  humble 
requests  of  us  your  brethren  and  fellow-preach- 
ers of  Jesus  Christ,  in  whom,  albeit,  there  ap- 
pear no  great  worldly  pomp,  yet  we  suppose  ye 
will  not  so  far  despise  us,  but  that  ye  will  es- 
teem us  to  be  of  the  number  of  those  that  fight 
against  the  Roman  antichrist,  and  travail  that 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  Jesus  universally  may  be 
maintained  and  advanced.  The  days  are  evil; 
iniquity  abounds  ;  Christian  charity,  alas  !  is 
waxen  cold ;  and  therefore  we  ought  the  more 
diligently  to  watch  ;  for  the  hour  is  uncertain 
when  the  Lord  Jesus  shall  appear,  before  whom 
we  your  brethren,  and  ye,  may  give  an  account 
of  our  administration. 

And  thus,  in  conclusion,  we  once  again  crave 
favour  to  our  brethren,  which  granted,  ye  in  the 
Lord  shall  command  us  in  things  of  double  more 
importance.  The  Lord  Jesus  rule  your  hearts 
in  his  true  fear  to  the  end,  and  give  unto  us  vic- 
tory over  that  conjured  enemy  of  all  true  reli- 
gion ;  to  wit,  over  that  Roman  antichrist,  whose 
wounded  head  Satan,  by  all  means,  labours  to 
cure  again,  but  to  destruction  shall  he  and  his 
maintainers  go,  by  the  power  of  the  Lord  Jesus : 
to  whose  mighty  power  and  protection  we  heart- 
ily commit  you. 

Subscribed  by  the  hands  of  superintendents, 
one  part  of  ministers,  and  scribed  in  our  gener- 
al assemblies,  and  fourth   session  thereof,  at 
Edinburgh,  the  28th  day  of  December,  1566. 
Your  loving  brethren  and  fellow-preachers 
in  Christ  Jesus, 

Jo.  Craig,  Rob.  Pont, 

Da.  Lyndesay,  Jo.  Wiram, 

Guil.  Gislisomus,      Jaco.  Mailvil, 
Jo.  Spottiswood,       Jo.  Erskin, 
Jo.  Row,  Nic.  Spital. 


No.  m 


John  Fox's  Letter  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  to  dissuade 
her  from  burning  two  Dutch  Anabaptists  for  her- 
esy in  Smitkficld.     1575. 

Serenissima  bcatissima  princeps,  regina  il- 
lustrissima,  patrice  decus,  sseculi  ornamentum ! 
Ut  nihil  ab  animo  meo  omnique  expectatione 
abfuit  longius  quam  ut  majestatis  tuaj  amplissi- 
mam  excelientiam  molesta  interpellatione  ob- 
turbarem  ;  ita  vehementer  dolet  silentium  hoc, 
quo  hactenus  constanter  sum  usus,  non  eadem 
conslantia  perpetuo  tueri  ita  ut  volebam  licuisse. 
Ita  nunc  prater  spem  ac  opinionem  meam  nescio 
qua  infelicitate  evenit,  ut  quod  omnium  volebam 
minime,  id  contra  me  maxime  faciat  hoc  tem- 
pore. Qui  cum  ita  vixerim  hucusque,  ut  mo- 
lestus  fuerim  nemini,  invitus  nunc  cogor  contra 
naluram  principi  etiani  ipsi  esse  importunus,  non 
re  ulla  aut  causa  mea,  sed  aliena  inductus  ca- 
lamitate.     Qum  quo  acerbior  sit  et  luctuosior, 


hoc  acriores  mihi  addit  ad  deprecandum  stimu- 
los.  Nonnullos  intelligo  in  Anglia  hie  esse  non 
Anglos,  sed  adventitios,  Belgas  quidem  opinor, 
partim  viros,  partim  feminas,  nuper  ob  improba- 
ta  dogmata  in  judicium  advocatos.  Quorum 
aliquot  feliciter  reducti  publica  luerunt  pcenilen- 
tia ;  complures  in  exilium  sunt  condemnati, 
idque  rectissime  meo  judicio  factum  esse  arbi- 
tror.  Jam  ex  hoc  numero  unum  esse  aut  alte- 
rum  audio,  dequibus  ultimum  exustionis  suppli- 
cium  (nisi  succurrat  lua  pietas)  brevi  est  sialu- 
endum.  Qua  una  in  re  duo  contineri  perspicio, 
quorum  alterum  ad  errorumpravitatem,  alterum 
ad  supplicii  acerbitatem  attinet.  Ac  erroribus 
quidem  ipsis  nihil  possit  absurdius  esse,  sanus 
nemo  est  qui  dubitat,  mirorque  tam  faeda  opin- 
ionum  portenta  in  quosquam  potuisse  Chris- 
tianos  cadere.  Sed  ita  habet  humanse  infirmi- 
tatis  conditio,  si  divina  paululum  luce  destituti 
nobis  relinquimur,  quo  non  ruimus  preecipites  T 
Atque  hoc  nomine  Christo  gratias  quam  maxi- 
mas  habeo,  quod  Anglorum  hodie  neminem  huic 
insanife  video.  Quod  igitur  ad  phanaticas  istas 
sectas  attinet,  eas  certe  in  republica  nullo  modo 
fovendas  esse,  sed  idonea  comprimendas  cor- 
rectione  censeo.  Verum  enim  vero  ignibus  ac 
flammis  pice  ac  sulphure  aestuantibus  viva  mis- 
erorum  corpora  torrefacere,  judicii  magis  cceci- 
tate  quam  impetu  voluntatis  errantium,  durum 
istud  ac  Romani  magis  exempli  esse  quam 
evangelicae  consuetudinis  videtur,  ac  plane  ejus- 
modi,  ut  nisi  a  Romanis  pontificibus,  authore 
Innocentio  tertio,  primum  profluxisset,  nunquam 
istum  Perilli  taurum  quisquam  in  mitem  Christi 
ecclesiam  importavisset.  Non  quod  maleficiis 
delecter,  aut  erroribus  cujusquam  faveam,  dicta 
haec  esse  velim  ;  vitae  hominum,  ipse  homo  cum 
sim,  faveo  ;  ideoque  faveo,  non  ut  erret,  sed  ut 
resipiscat :  ac  neque  hominum  solum,  utinam  et 
pecudibus  ipsis  opitulari  possem.  Ita  enim  sum 
(stulte  fortassis  haec  de  meipso,  at  vere  dico), 
macellum  ipsum,  ubi  mactantur  etiam  pecudes, 
vix  praetereo,  quin  tacito  quodam  doloris  sensu 
mens  refugiat.  Atque  equidem  in  eo  Dei  ipsius 
valde  admirer,  venerorque  toto  pectore  clemen- 
tiam,  qui  in  jumentis  illis  brutis  et  abjectis,  quae 
sacrificiis  olim  parabantur,  id  prospexerat,  ne 
prius  ignibus  mandarentur  quam  sanguis  eorum 
ad  basim  altaris  effunderetur.  Unde  disceremus, 
in  exigendis  suppliciis,  quamvis  justis.  non  quid 
omnino  rigori  liceat,  sed  ut  dementia  siraul  adhi- 
bita  rigoris  temperet  asperitatem. 

Quamobrem  si  tantum  mihi  apud  principis 
tanti  majestatem  audere  liceret  suppiex  pro 
Christo  rogarem  clementissimam  hanc  regiae 
sublimitatis  excelientiam,  prae  authoritate  hac 
mea  {If-ge  tua)  qua.  ad  vitam  multorum  consecran- 
dum  pellere  (/.  conservandam  pollere)  te  divina 
voluit  dementia,  ut  vita  si  fieri  possit  (quid  enim 
non  posset  iis  in  rebus  authoritas  tua  !),  mise- 
rorum  parcatur,  saltern  ut  horrori  obsistatur, 
atque  in  aliud  quodcunque  commutetur  suppli- 
cii genus.  Sunt  ejectiones,  inclusiones  retrusae, 
sunt  vincula,  sunt  perpetua  exilia,  sunt  stigmata 
et  n?i^yuara  aut  etiain  patibula  ;  id  unum  valde 
deprecor,  ne  piras  ac  flammas  Smitiifiddianas 
jam  diu  faustissimis  tuis  auspiciis  hue  usque 
sopitas,  sinas  nunc  recandescere.  Quod  si  ne 
id  quidem  obtineri  possit,  id  saltern  omnibus 
supplicandi  modis  efflagito,  -ovro  to  TVE^.apyiKov 
pectoris  tui  implorans,  ut  mensem  tamen  unum 
aut  alterum  nobis  concedas,  quo  interim  ex- 


440 


APPENDIX. 


periamur,  an  a  periculosis  erroribus  dederit  dom- 
inus  ut  resanescant,  ne  cum  corp  rum  jactura, 
animaj  pariter  cum  corporibus  de  selerno  peri- 
clitenlur  exitio.* 

No.  IV. 
A  Dlrccto'>y  of  Church  Government,  anciently  con- 
tended for,  and,  as  far  as  the  times  would  suffer, 

practised  by  the  first  Nonconformists  in  the  days 

of  Queen  Elizabeth,  found  in  the  study  of  the 

must   accomplished   divine,  Mr.   Thomas    Cart- 

icright,  after  his  decease. 
The  sacred  Discipline  of  the  Church  described  in 
the  Word  of  God. 

The  discipline  of  Christ's  Church,  that  is 
necessary  li)r  all  times,  is  delivered  by  Christ, 
and  set  down  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  therefore 
the  true  and  lawful  discipline  is  to  be  fetched 
from  thence,  and  from  thence  alone ;  and  that 
which  resteth  upon  any  other  foundation  ought 
to  be  estemed  unlawful  and  counterfeit. 

Of  all  particular  churches,  there  is  one  and 
the  same  right,  order,  and  form  :  therefore,  also, 
no  one  may  challenge  to  itself  any  power  over 
others,  nor  any  right  which  doth  not  alike  agree 
to  others. 

The  ministers  of  public  charges,  in  every  par- 
ticular church,  ought  to  be  called  and  appointed 
to  tlieir  charges  by  a  lawful  ecclesiastical  call- 
ing, such  as  hereafter  is  set  down. 

All  these,  for  the  divers  regard  of  their  sev- 
eral kinds,  are  of  equal  power  among  them- 
selves. 

J\'o  man  can  be  lawfully  called  to  public  charge 
in  any  church  but  he  that  is  fit  to  discharge  the 
same.  And  none  is  to  be  accounted  lit  but  he 
that  is  endued  wiih  the  common  gifts  of  all  the 
godly,  that  is,  with  faith,  and  a  blameless  life ; 
and  farther,  also,  with  those  that  are  proper  to 
that  ministry  wherein  he  is  to  be  used,  and  ne- 
cessary for  the  executing  of  the  same  ;  where- 
upon, for  trial  of  those  gifts,  some  convenient 
way  and  examination  are  to  be  used. 

The  party  to  be  called  must  first  be  elected  ; 
then  he  is  to  be  ordained  to  that  charge  where- 
unto  he  is  chosen  by  the  prayers  of  that  church 
whereunto  he  is  to  be  admitted,  the  mutual  du- 
ties of  him  and  of  the  church  being  before  laid 
open. 

The  ministers  of  the  church  are,  first,  they 
that  are  ministers  of  the  Word.  In  their  exam- 
ination, it  is  specially  to  be  taken  heed  unto 
that  they  be  apt  to  teach,  and  tried  men,  not  ut- 
terly unlearned,  nor  newly  planted  and  convert- 
ed to  the  faith. 

INow  these  ministers  of  the  Word  are,  first, 
pastors  which  do  administer  the  Word  and  sac- 
raments ;  then,  teachers,  which  are  occupied 
in  wholesome  doctrine. 

Besides,  there  are  also  elders,  which  watch 
over  the  life  and  behaviour  of  every  man  ;  and 
deacons,  which  have  care  over  the  poor. 

Farther,  in  every  particular  church  thereought 
to  be  a  presbytery,  which  is  a  consistory,  and, 
as  it  were,  a  senate  of  elders.  Under  the  name 
of  elders  here  are  contained,  they  who  in  the 
Church  mi. lister  doctrine,  and  they  who  are 
properly  called  elders. 

By  the  common  counsel  of  the  eldership  all 


*  Fuller's  Church  History  of  Britain,  p.  104,  105. 


things  are  directed  that  belong  to  the  state  of 
their  church.  First,  such  as  belong  to  the  gui- 
dance of  the  whole  body  of  it  in  the  holy  and 
common  assembly,  gathered  together  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,  that  all  things  may  be  done 
in  them  duly,  orderly,  and  to  edification.  2. 
Then,  also,  such  as  pertain  to  particular  per- 
sons. First,  to  all  the  members  of  that  church, 
that  the  good  may  enjoy  all  the  privileges  that 
belong  unto  them  ;  that  the  wicked  may  be  cor- 
rected with  ecclesiastical  censures,  according 
to  the  quality  of  the  fault,  private  and  public,  by 
admonishing  and  by  removing  either  from  the 
Lord's  Supper  by  suspension  (as  it  is  common- 
ly called),  or  out  of  the  church  by  excommuni- 
cation. The  which  belong  specially  to  the  min- 
isters of  public  charge  in  the  church  to  their 
calling,  either  to  be  begun  or  ended,  and  ended 
either  by  relieving  or  punishing  them,  and  that 
for  a  time  by  suspension,  or  altogether  by  dep- 
osition. 

For  directing  of  the  eldership,  let  the  pastors 
be  set  over  it ;  or  if  there  be  more  pastors  thaa 
one  in  the  same  church,  let  the  pastors  do  it  in 
their  turns. 

But  yet,  in  all  the  greater  affairs  of  the  church, 
as  in  excommunicating  of  any,  and  in  choosing 
and  deposing  of  church  ministers,  nothing  niay 
be  concluded  without  the  knowledge  and  con- 
sent of  the  church. 

Particular  churches  ought  to  yield  mutual 
help  one  to  another  ;  for  which  cause  they  are 
to  communicate  among  themselves. 

The  end  of  this  communicating  together  is, 
that  all  things  in  them  may  be  so  directed,  both 
in  regard  of  doctrine,  and  aiso  of  discipline,  as 
by  the  Word  of  God  they  ought  to  be. 

Therefore  the  things  that  belong  hereunto 
are  determined  by  the  common  opinion  of  those 
who  meet  so  to  communicate  together,  and 
whatsoever  is  to  be  amended,  furthered,  or  pro- 
cured in  any  of  those  several  churches  that  be- 
long to  that  assembly.  Wherein,  albeit,  no  par- 
ticular church  hath  power  over  another,  yet  ev- 
ery particular  church  of  the  same  resort,  meet- 
ing, and  counsel,  ought  to  obey  the  opinion  of 
more  churches  with  whom  they  communicate. 
For  holding  of  these  meetings  and  assem- 
blies, there  are  to  be  chosen,  by  every  church 
belonging  to  that  assembly,  principal  men  from 
among  the  elders,  who  are  to  have  their  in- 
structions from  them,  and  so  to  be  sent  to  the 
assembly.  There  must  also  be  a  care  had  that 
the  things  they  shall  return  to  have  been  godly 
agreed  on  by  the  meetings  be  diligently  observ- 
ed by  the  churches. 

Farther,  in  such  assemblies  there  is  also  to 
be  chosen  one  that  may  be  set  over  the  assem- 
blies, who  may  moderate  and  direct  them.  His 
duty  is  to  see  that  the  assemblies  be  held  godly, 
quietly,  and  comely  :  therefore  it  belongeth  unto 
him  to  begin  and  end  the  conference  with  pray- 
er ;  to  know  every  man's  instructions  ;  to  pro- 
pound in  order  the  things  that  are  to  be  han- 
dled ;  to  gather  their  opinions,  and  to  propound 
what  is  the  opinion  of  the  greater  part.  It  is 
also  the  part  of  the  rest  of  the  assembly  to 
speak  their  opinions  of  the  things  propounded 
godly  and  quietly. 

The  Synodical  Discipline  feathered  out  of  the  Syn^ 
ods  and  use  of  the  Churches  which  have  re- 
stored it  according  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  out 


SC)™dJfl©  ChLAmY^^JD. 


ru-vrr.K-  !^'- 


APPENDIX. 


441 


of  sundry  Rooks  that  are  written  of  the  same, 
and  leferred  under  c  i  ain  Heads. 

Of  the  Necessity  of  a  Calling. 
Let  no  man  thrust  himself  into  the  executing 
of  any  part  of  public  charge  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  Word,  sacraments,  discipline,  or  care 
over  the  poor.  Neither  let  any  such  sue  or  seek 
for  any  public  charge  of  the  church  ;  but  let  ev- 
ery one  tarry  until  he  be  lawfully  called. 

The  Manner  of  entering  and  determining  of  a  Call- 
ing, and  against  a  Ministry  of  no  certain  Place, 
and  the  Desertion  of  a  Church. 
Let  none  be  called  but  unto  some  certain 
charge  ordained  of  God,  and  to  the  exercising 
of  the  same  in  some  particular  congregation  ; 
and  he  that  is  so  called,  let  him  be  so  bound  to 

that church,  that  he  may  not  after  be  of 

any  other,  or  depart  from  it  witliout  the  con- 
sent thereof.  Lei  none  be  called  but  they  that 
have  lirst  subscribed  the  confession  of  doctrine 
and  of  discipline,  whereof  let  tliein  be  aduion- 
jslied  to  have  copies  with  themselves. 

In  the  examination  of  ministers,  the  testimo- 
ny of  the  place  from  whence  they  come  is  to  be 
demanded,  whereby  it  may  be  understood  what 
life  and  conversation  he  hath  been  of,  and 
whether  he  hath  been  addicted  to  any  heresy, 
or  to  the  reading  of  any  heretical  books,  or  to 
curious  and  strange  questions,  and  idle  specu- 
lations ;  or,  rather,  whether  he  be  accounted 
sound  and  consenting  in  all  things  to  the  doc- 
trine received  in  the  church.  Whereunto  if 
he  agree,  he  is  also  to  expound  some  part  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  twice  or  oftener,  as  it  shall 
seem  meet  to  the  examiners,  and  that  before 
the  conference,  and  that  church  which  is  inter- 
ested. Let  him  also  be  demanded  of  the  prin- 
cipal heads  of  divinity  ;  and  whether  he  will 
diligently  execute  and  discharge  his  ministry  ; 
and  in  the  execution  thereof  propound  unto  him- 
self, not  his  own  desires  and  commodities,  but 
the  glory  of  God  and  edification  of  the  church. 
Lastly,  whether  he  will  be  studious  and  careful 
to  maintain  and  preserve  wholesome  doctrine 
and  ecclesiastical  discipline.  Thus,  let  the  min- 
ister be  examined,  not  only  by  one  eldership, 
but  also  by  some  greater  meeting  and  assembly. 

Of  Election. 
Before  the  election  of  a  minister,  and  the  de- 
liberation of  the  conference  concerning  the  same, 
let  there  be  a  day  of  fast  kept  in  the  church  in- 
terested. 

Of  the  Place  of  exercising  this  Calling. 
Albeit  it  be  lawful  for  a  minister,  upon  just 
occasion,  to  preach  in  another  church  than  that 
■where«)f  he  is  minister,  yet  none  may  exercise 
any  ordinary  ministry  elsewhere  but  for  a  cer- 
tain time,  upon  great  occasion,  and  by  the  con- 
sent of  his  church  and  conference. 

Of  the  Office  of  the  Ministers  of  theWord ;  and,  first, 
of  the  Order  of  Liturgy  or  Common  Prayer. 
Let  the  minister  that  is  to  preach  name  a 
psalm,  or  a  part  of  a  psalm,  beginning  with  the 
first,  and  so  proceeding,  that  may  be  sung  by 
the  church,  noting  to  them  the  end  of  their  sink- 
ing, to  wit,  the  glory  of  God  and  their  own  edi- 
fication. After  tlie  psalm,  ht  a  sh m  admoni- 
tion to  the  people  follow,  of  preparing  them- 

VOL.  II. K  K  K 


selves  to  pray  duly  unto  God :  then  let  there 
be  made  a  prayer  containing  a  general  confes- 
sion, first  of  the  guilt  of  sin,  both  original  and 
actual,  and  of  the  punishment  which  is  due  bj 
the  law  for  them  both  :  then,  also,  of  the  prom- 
ise of  the  Gospel,  and,  in  respect  of  it,  supplica- 
tion of  pardon  for  the  said  guilt  and  punishment, 
and  petition  of  grace  promised,  as  for  the  duties 
of  the  whole  life,  so  especially  for  the  godly  ex- 
pounding and  receiving  of  the  Word.  Let  this 
petition  be  concluded  with  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
After  the  sermon,  let  prayer  be  made  again  ; 
first,  for  grace  to  profit  by  the  doctrine  deliver- 
ed, the  principal  heads  thereof  being  remember- 
ed :  then  for  all  men,  but  chiefly  for  the  univer- 
sal Church,  and  for  all  estates  and  degrees  of 
the  people  ;  which  is  likewise  to  be  ended  with 
the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  singing  of  a  psalm, 
as  before.  Last  of  all,  let  the  congregation  be 
dismissed  with  some  convenient  form  of  bless- 
ing taken  out  of  the  Scripture ;  such  as  is  Numb., 
vi.,  24;  2  Cor.,  xiii.,  14. 

Of  Preaching. 

Let  him  that  shall  preach  choose  some  part 
of  the  canonical  Scripture  to  expound,  and  not 
of  the  Apocrypha.  Farther,  in  his  ordinary  min- 
istry, let  him  not  take  postils,  as  they  are  called, 
but  some  whole  book  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  es- 
pecially of  the  New  Testament,  to  expound  ia 
order  :  in  choice  whereof  regard  is  to  be  had 
both  of  the  minister's  ability,  and  of  the  edifica- 
tion of  the  church. 

He  that  preacheth  must  perform  two  things  : 
the  first,  that  his  speech  be  uncorrupt  ;  which 
is  to  be  considered  both  in  regard  of  the  doc- 
trine, that  it  be  holy,  sound,  wholesome,  and 
profitable  to  edification  ;  not  devilish,  heretical, 
leavened,  corrupt,  fabulous,  curious,  or  conten- 
tious ;  and  also  in  respect  of  the  manner  of  it, 
that  it  be  proper  to  the  place  which  is  handled, 
that  is,  which  either  is  contained  plainly  in  the 
very  words  ;  or  if  it  be  gathered  by  consequent, 
that  the  same  be  fit  and  clear,  and  such  as  may 
rise  upon  the  property  of  the  Word,  grace  of 
speech,  and  suit  of  the  matter ;  and  not  be  alle- 
gorical, strange,  wrested,  or  far-fetched.  Now 
let  that  which  is  such,  and  chiefly  which  is  fit- 
test for  the  times  and  occasions  of  the  church, 
be  delivered.  Farther,  let  the  explication,  con- 
firmation, enlargement,  and  application,  and  the 
whole  treatise  and  handling  of  it,  be  in  the  vul- 
gar tongue  ;  and  let  the  whole  confirmation  and 
proof  be  made  by  arguments,  testimonies,  and 
examples  taken  only  out  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
applied  fitly,  and  according  to  the  natural  mean- 
ing of  the  places  that  are  alleged. 

The  second  thing  to  be  performed  by  him  that 
preacheth  is  a  reverend  gravity  ;  this  is  consid- 
ered first  in  the  style,  phrase,  and  manner  of 
speech,  that  it  be  spiritual,  pure,  proper,  simple, 
and  applied  to  the  capacity  of  the  people  ;  nor 
such  as  huiTian  wisdom  teacheth,  nor  savouring 
of  new-fangledness,  nor  either  so  affectate  as  it 
may  serve  for  pomp  and  ostentation,  or  so  care- 
less and  base  as  becometh  not  ministers  of  the 
Word  of  God.  Secondly,  it  is  also  to  be  re- 
garded as  well  in  ordering  the  voice,  in  which 
a  care  must  be  had  that  (avoiding  the  keeping 
always  of  one  tone)  it  may  be  ecjual.  and  both 
rise  and  fall  by  degrees  :  as  also  in  ordering 
the  gesture,  wherein  (the  body  being  upright) 


442 


APPENDIX. 


the  guiding  and  ordering  the  whole  hody  is  to 
follow  the  voice,  there  being  avoided  in  it  all 
unseemly  gestures  of  the  head  or  other  parts, 
and  often  turning  of  the  body  to  divers  sides 
Finally,  let  the  gesture  be  grave,  modest,  and 
seemly,  not  utterly  none,  nor  too  much,  neither 
like  the  gestures  of  players  or  fencers. 

These  things  are  to  be  performed  by  him  that 
preacheth  ;  whereby,  when  need  requireth,  they 
may  be  examined  who  are  trained  and  exer- 
ci.sed,  to  be  made  fit  to  preach  :  let  there  be,  if 
it  may  be,  every  Sabbath-day,  two  sermons,  and 
let  them  that  preach  always  endeavour  to  keep 
themselves  within  one  hour,  especially  on  the 
week-days.  The  use  of  preaching  at  burials  is 
to  be  left  as  it  may  be  done  conveniently,  be- 
cause there  is  danger  that  they  may  nourish  the 
superstition  of  some,  or  be  abused  to  pomp  and 
vanity. 

Of  the  Catechism. 
Let  the  catechism  be  taught  in  every  church. 
Let  there  be  two  sorts  :  one  more  large,  applied 
to  the  delivering  of  the  sum  of  religion  by  a  suit 
and  order  of  certain  places  of  the  Scriptures, 
according  to  which  some  point  of  the  holy  doc- 
trine may  be  expounded  every  week  ;  another 
of  the  same  sort,  but  shorter,  fit  for  the  exami- 
nation of  the  rude  and  ignorant  before  they  be 
admitted  to  the  Lord's  Supper. 

Of  the  other  Parts  of  Liturgy  or  Divine  Service. 
All  the  rest  of  the  liturgy  or  Divine  service 
consisteth  in  the  administration  of  the  sacra- 
ments, and,  by  the  custom  of  the  Church,  in  the 
blessing  of  marriage  :  the  most  commodious 
form  thereof  is  that  which  is  used  by  the  church- 
es that  have  reformed  their discipline  ac- 
cording to  the  Word  of  God. 

Of  Sacraments . 
Let  only  a  minister  of  the  Word,  that  is,  a 
preacher,  minister  the  sacraments,  and  that  af- 
ter the  preaching  of  the  Word,  and  not  in  any 
other  place  than  in  the  public  assemblies  of  the 
Church. 

Of  Baptism. 
Women  only  may  not  offer  unto  baptism  those 
that  are  to  be  baptized,  but  the  father,  if  it  may 
be,  or,  in  his  name,  some  other.  They  which 
present  unto  baptism  ought  to  be  persuaded  not 
to  give  those  that  are  baptized  the  names  of 
God,  or  of  Christ,  or  of  angels,  or  of  holy  offices, 
as  of  Baptist,  Evangelist,  &.c.,  nor  such  as  sa- 
vour of  paganism  or  popery  ;  but  chiefly  such 
whereof  there  are  examples  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, in  the  names  of  those  who  are  reported 
in  them  to  have  been  godly  and  virtuous. 

Of  the  Communion. 

Let  the  time  of  celebrating  the  Communion 
be  made  known  eight  days  before,  that  the  con- 
gregation may  prepare  themselves,  and  that  the 
elders  may  do  iheir  duty  in  going  to  and  visiting 
whom  they  ought. 

Of  signifying  their  Names  that  are  to  commmiirate. 
Let  them  which  before  have  not  been  receiv- 
ed to  the  Lord's  Table,  when  they  first  desire  to 
come  to  it,  give  their  names  to  the  minister 
seven  days  before  the  Communion,  that  care  of 
inquiring  of  them  may  be  committed  to  the  el- 


ders ;  that  if  there  be  any  cause  of  hinderance, 
there  may  be  stay  made  betimes  ;  but  if  there 
be  no  such  thing,  let  them  proceed  (where  need 
may  be)  to  the  examining  of  their  faith,  before 
the  Communion.  Let  this  whole  treatise  of 
disciplme  be  read  in  the  consistory  ;  and  let  the 
ministers,  elders,  and  deacons  be  censured  one 
after  another,  yet  so  that  the  minister  concern- 
ing doctrine  be  censured  of  ministers  only. 

Let  them  only  be  admitted  to  the  Communion 
that  have  made  confession  of  their  faith,  and 
submitted  themselves  to  the  discipline  :  unless 
they  shall  bring  letters  testimonial  of  good  cre<l- 
it  from  some  other  place,  or  shall  approve  them- 
selves by  some  other  sufficient  testimony. 

Children  are  not  to  be  admitted  to  the  Com- 
munion before  they  be  of  the  age  of  fourteen 
years,  except  the  consistory  shall  otherwise  de- 
termine. 

On  the  Sabbath-day  next  before  the  Commu- 
nion, let  mention  be  made  in  the  sermon  of  the 
examination  whereunto  the  apostle  exhorteth, 
and  of  the  peace  that  is  by  faith  ;  in  the  day  of 
the  Communion,  let  there  be  speech  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  sacraments,  and  especially  of  the 
Lord's  Supper. 

Of  Fasting. 
Let  the  day  of  fasting  be  published  by  the 
pastor  according  to  the  advice  of  the  consistory, 
either  for  supplication,  for  turning  away  of  ca- 
lamities present,  or  for  petition  of  some  special 
grace.  Let  the  sermons  upon  the  same  day, 
before  and  after  noon  (as  on  the  Lord's  Day),  be 
such  as  may  be  fit  for  the  present  occasion. 

Of  Holydays. 

Holydays  are  conveniently  to  be  abolished.. 
Of  Marriage. 

Let  espousing  go  before  marriage.  I^et  the 
words  of  espousing  be  of  the  present  time,  and 
without  condition,  and  before  sufficient  witness- 
es on  both  sides.  It  is  to  be  wished  that  the 
minister,  or  any  elder,  be  present  at  the  espou- 
sals, who,  having  called  upon  God,  may  admon- 
ish both  parties  of  their  duties.  First,  may  have 
care  of  avoiding  the  degrees  forbidden  both  by 
the  law  of  God  and  man  ;  and  then  they  may 
demand  of  them  whether  they  be  free  from  any 
bond  of  marriage  :  which,  if  they  profess  and  be 
strangers,  he  may  also  require  sufficient  testi- 
mony. Farther,  also,  they  are  to  be  demanded 
whether  they  have  been  married  before,  and  of 
the  death  of  the  party  with  whom  they  were 
married,  which,  if  they  acknowledge  and  be 
strangers,  he  may  demand  convenient  testimony 
of  the  death  of  the  other  party.  Finally,  let 
them  be  asked  if  they  be  under  the  government 
of  any  ;  whether  they  whom  it  concerneth  have 
consented. 

The  espousals  being  done  in  due  order,  let 
them  not  be  dissolved,  though  both  parties 
should  consent.  Let  the  marriage  be  solemni- 
zed within  two  months  after.  Before  the  mar- 
riage let  the  promise  be  published  tiiree  several 
Sabbath-days  ;  but  first,  let  the  parties  espous- 
ed, with  their  parents  or  governors,  desire  the 
publishing  thereof  ol'liie  minister  and  two  elders 
at  the  least,  that  tliey  may  be  demanded  of  those 
things  that  are  needful  ;  and  let  them  require  to 
see  the  instrumont  of  the  covenant  of  the  mar- 
riage, or,  at  least,  sufficient  tcstmiony  of  the  es- 


APPENDIX. 


443 


pousals.  Marriage  may  be  solemnized  and  bless- 
ed upon  any  ordinary  day  of  public  prayer,  sa- 
ving upon  a  day  of  fast. 

Of  Schools. 
Let  children  be  instructed  in  schools,  both  in 
other  learning,  and  especially  in  the  catechism, 
that  they  may  repeat  it  by  heart,  and  understand 
it  :  when  they  are  so  instructed,  let  them  be 
brought  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  after  they  have 
been  examined  by  the  minister  and  allowed  by 
him. 

Of  Students  of  Divinity,  and  their  Exercises. 

In  every  church  where  it  may  conveniently 
be  done,  care  is  to  be  had  that  some  poor  schol- 
ars, studious  of  divinity,  being  fit  for  theological 
exercises,  and  especially  for  expounding  of  Holy 
Scripture,  may,  by  the  liberality  of  the  godly 
rich,  be  taught  and  trained  up  to  preach. 

Let  that  exposition,  as  often  as  it  shall  be 
convenient  to  be  had,  be  in  the  presence  at  least 
of  one  minister,  by  whose  presence  they  may 
be  kept  in  order,  and  in  the  same  sort  (as  touch- 
ing tlie  manner  of  preaching)  that  public  ser- 
mons are  made :  which  being  ended,  let  the  oth- 
er students  (he  being  put  apart  that  was  speak- 
er) note  wherein  he  hath  failed  in  any  of  those 
things  that  are  to  be  performed  by  him  that 
preacheth  publicly,  as  is  set  down  before  ;  of 
whose  opinion  let  the  minister  that  is  present, 
and  is  moderator  of  their  exercise,  judge  and 
admonish  the  speaker  as  he  shall  think  meet. 

Of  Elders. 
Let  the  elders  know  every  particular  house 
and  person  of  the  church,  that  they  may  inform 
the  minister  of  the  condition  of  every  one,  and 
the  deacons  of  the  sick  and  poor,  that  they  may 
take  care  to  provide  for  them  :  they  are  not  to 
be  perpetual,  neither  yet  easily  to  be  changed. 

Of  Consistories. 
In  the  consistory  the  most  voices  are  to  be 
yielded  unto.  In  it  only  ecclesiastical  things 
are  to  be  handled.  Of  them,  first,  they  are  to 
be  dealt  with  such  as  belong  to  the  common  di- 
rection of  the  public  assembly,  in  the  order  of 
liturgy,  or  Divine  service,  sermon,  prayers,  sac- 
raments, marriages,  and  burials.  Then  with 
such  also  as  pertain  to  the  oversight  of  every 
one,  and  their  particular  deeds.  Farther,  they 
are  to  cause  such  things  as  shall  be  thought 
meet  to  be  registered  and  written  in  a  book. 
They  are  also  to  cause  to  be  written  in  another 
book  the  names  of  them  that  are  baptized,  with 
the  names  of  their  parents  and  sureties  :  like- 
wise of  the  communicants.  Farther,  also,  are 
to  be  noted  their  names  that  are  married,  that 
die,  and  to  whom  letters  testimonial  are  given. 

Of  the  Censures. 

None  is  to  be  complained  of  unto  the  consist- 
ory, unless  first  the  matter  being  uttered  with 
silencing  the  parties'  names,  if  it  seem  meet  so 
to  be  done  by  the  judgment  of  the  consistory. 

In  private  and  less  faults,  the  precept  of 
Christ,  Matt.,  xviii.,  is  to  be  kept. 

Greater  and  public  offences  are  to  be  handled 
by  the  consistory.  Farther,  public  offences  are 
to  be  esteemed,  first,  such  as  are  done  openly 
before  all,  or  whomsoever,  the  whole  church 
knowing  of  it.     Secondly,  such  as  be  done  in  a 


public  place,  albeit  few  know  it.  Thirdly,  that 
are  made  such  by  pertinacity  and  contempt. 
Fourthly,  that  for  the  heinousness  of  the  offence 
are  to  be  punished  with  some  grievous  civil 
punishment. 

They  that  are  to  be  excommunicated,  being 
in  public  charge  in  the  church,  are  to  be  de- 
posed also  from  their  charges.  They  also  are 
to  be  discharged  that  are  unfit  for  the  ministry, 
by  reason  of  their  ignorance,  or  of  some  incura- 
ble disease,  or  by  any  other  such  cause  are  dis- 
abled to  perform  their  ministry ;  but  in  the  room 
of  such  as  are  disabled  by  means  of  sickness  or 
age,  let  another  be  placed  without  the  reproach 
of  him  that  is  discharged  ;  and  farther,  so  as 
the  reverence  of  the  ministry  may  remain  unto 
him,  and  he  may  be  provided  for,  liberally  and 
in  good  order. 

When  there  is  question  concerning  a  here- 
tic complained  of  to  the  consistory,  straight  let 
two  or  three  neighbour  ministers  be  called,  men 
godly  and  learned,  and  free  from  that  suspicion, 
by  whose  opinion  he  may  be  suspended  till  such, 
time  as  the  conference  may  take  knowledge  of 
his  cause. 

The  obstinate,  after  admonition  by  the  con- 
sistory, though  the  fault  have  not  been  so  great, 
are  to  be  suspended  from  the  Communion  ;  and. 
if  they  continue  in  their  obstinacy,  this  shall  be 
the  order  to  proceed  to  their  excommunication. 
Three  several  Sabbath-days  after  the  sermon, 
publicly  let  be  declared  the  offence  committed 
by  the  offender.  The  first  Sabbath  let  not  the 
offender's  name  be  published :  the  second,  let 
it  be  declared,  and  withal  a  certain  day  of  the 
week  named  to  be  kept  for  that  cause  in  fasting 
and  prayer:  the  third,  let  warning  be  given  of 
his  excommunicating  to  follow  the  next  Sabbath 
after,  except  there  may  he  showed  some  suffi- 
cient cause  to  the  contrary  :  so,  upon  the  fourth 
Sabbath-day,  let  the  sentence  of  excommunica- 
tion be  pronounced  against  him,  that  his  spirit 
may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the  Lord. 

He  that  hath  committed  great  offences,  op- 
probrious to  the  church,  and  to  be  grievously 
punished  by  the  magistrate's  authority,  albeit  he 
profess  his  repentance  in  words,  yet  for  the  trial 
thereof,  and  to  take  away  the  offence,  let  him 
for  a  time  be  kept  from  the  Communion  ;  which, 
how  often  and  how  long  it  is  to  be  done,  let  the 
consistory,  according  to  their  discretion,  deter- 
mine ;  after  which,  if  the  party  repent,  he  is 
brotherly  to  be  received  again,  but  not  until  he 
have  openly  professed  his  repentance  before  the 
church,  by  consent  whereof  he  should  have  been 
excommunicated. 

If  the  ministers  of  any  public  charge  of  the 
church  commit  any  such  thing,  they  are  to  be 
deposed  from  their  charge. 

Of  the  Assemblies  of  the  Church. 

Particular  churches  are  to  communicate  one 
with  another,  by  common  meetings  and  resorts  : 
in  them  only  ecclesiastical  matters  are  to  be 
handled,  and  of  those,  only  such  as  pertain  to 
the  churches  of  that  resort ;  concerning  other 
churches,  unless  they  be  desired,  they  are  to  de- 
termine nothing  farther  than  to  refer  such  mat- 
ters to  their  next  common  and  great  meeting. 

Let  the  order  of  proceeding  in  them  be  this  : 
first,  let  the  survey  be  taken  of  those  that  are 
present,  and  the  names  of  those  that  are  absent. 


444 


APPENDIX. 


and  should  be  there,  be  noted,  that  they  may 
give  a  reason  at  their  next  meeting  of  their  ab- 
sence, or  be  censured  by  the  judgment  of  the 
-assembly.  Next,  let  the  acts  of  the  last  assem- 
bly of  that  kind  be  read,  that  ifany  of  the  same 
remain  unfinished,  they  may  be  despatched  : 
then,  let  those  things  be  dealt  in  that  are  prop- 
erly belonging  to  the  present  assembly,  where 
first  the  instructions  sent  from  the  churches  are 
to  be  delivered  by  every  one  in  order,  as  they 
sit  together,  with  their  letters  of  credence.  Sec- 
ondly, let  the  state  of  the  churches  of  that  re- 
sort be  considered  ;  to  wit,  how  they  are  in- 
structed and  guided  :  whether  the  holy  doctrine 
and  discipline  be  taught  and  exercised  in  them  ; 
and  whether  the  ministers  of  public  charges  do 
their  duty,  and  such  like,  f'urthermore,  they 
shall  determine  of  those  things  that  do  apper- 
tain to  the  common  state  of  all  the  churches  of 
that  resort,  or  unto  any  of  the  same  ;  which 
way  may  be  sufficient  for  the  oversight  of  the 
churches.  Lastly,  if  it  seem  meet,  the  delegates 
present  may  be  censured. 

They  that  are  to  meet  in  such  assemblies  are 
to  be  chosen  by  the  consent  of  the  churches  of 
that  assembly  and  conference  to  whom  it  may 
appertain. 

Let  such  only  be  chosen  that  exercise  public 
•function  in  the  church  of  ministry  or  eldership, 
and  which  have  subscribed  to  the  doctrine  and 
discipline,  and  have  promised  to  behave  them- 
selves according  to  the  Word  of  God  ;  notwith- 
standing, it  may  be  lawful  also  to  be  present 
for  other  elders  and  other  ministers  ;  and  like- 
wise (if  the  assembly  think  it  meet)  for  deacons, 
and  for  students  in  divinity,  especially  those 
that  exercise  themselves  in  expounding  the  Holy 
Scriptures  in  the  conferences,  and  be  asked  their 
opinion  ;  which  in  students  is  to  this  end,  that 
their  judgment,  in  handling  matters  ecclesiasti- 
cal, may  be  both  tried  and  sharpened.  But  they 
only  are  to  give  voice  which  are  chosen  by  the 
churches,  and  have  brought  their  instructions 
signed  from  them. 

If  there  fall  out  any  very  weighty  matter  to 
be  consulted  of,  let  notice  of  it  be  given  to  the 
moderator  of  the  assembly  next  going  before,  or 
to  the  minister  of  that  church  where  the  next 
meeting  is  to  be :  the  same  is  to  send  word  of 
it  in  due  time  to  the  minister  of  every  church 
of  that  assembly,  that  they  may  communicate  it 
aforehand  with  those  to  whom  it  appertaineth, 
that  the  delegates  resorting  to  the  next  meeting 
may  understand  and  report  their  judgments. 

In  appointing  of  the  place  for  the  assembly, 
regard  must  be  had  of  the  convenient  distance, 
and  other  commodities,  that  no  part  may  just- 
ly complain  that  they  are  burdensome  above 
others. 

In  every  such  ecclesiastical  assembly  it  is 
meet  there  be  a  moderator  :  he  is  to  have  charge 
of  the  assembly,  to  see  it  kept  in  good  order. 
He  is  always,  if  it  may  be  conveniently,  to  be 
changed.     The  choice  is  to  be  in  this  manner: 

The  modeiator  of  the  former  assembly  of  that 
kind,  or,  in  his  absence,  the  minister  of  the 
church  where  they  meet,  having  first  prayed 
fitly  to  that  purpose,  is  to  move  the  assembly 
to  choose  a  moderator.  He  being  chosen  is  to 
provide  that  the  things  done  in  the  assembly 
may  be  written,  that  the  delegates  of  every 
church  may  write  them  out,  and  communicate 


them  with  the  conferences  from  whence  they 
came. 

The  moderator  is  also,  by  the  order  and  judg- 
ment of  the  assembly,  to  give  answer,  either  by 
speech  or  by  letters,  to  such  as  desire  any  an- 
swer; and  to  execute  censures,  if  any  be  to  he 
executed.  Farther,  he  is  to  procure  all  things 
to  be  done  in  it  godlily  and  quietly  ;  exhorting  to 
meekness,  moderation  of  spirit,  and  forbearing 
one  of  another  wiiere  need  shall  be,  and  refer- 
ring it  to  the  assembly  to  take  order  for  such  as 
are  obstinate  and  contentious.  Lastly,  he  is  to 
remember  them  of  the  next  meeting  following, 
with  thanks  for  their  pains,  and  exhortation  to 
proceed  cheerfully  in  their  callings;  and  socoui- 
teously  to  dismiss  the  assembly  Before  such 
time  none  may  depart  without  leave  of  the  as- 
sembly. 

Those  assemblies,  according  to  their  kinds, 
have  great  authority  if  they  be  greater,  and  less 
if  they  be  less.  Therefore,  unless  it  be  a  plain 
act,  and  manifest  unto  all,  if  any  think  himself 
injured  by  the  less  meeting,  he  may  appeal  siill 
unto  a  greater,  till  he  come  to  a  general  coun- 
cil, so  that  he  ascend  orderly  from  the  le.ss  to 
the  next  greater.  But  it  is  to  be  understood 
that  the  sentence  of  the  assemblies  be  holden 
firm  until  it  be  otherwise  judged  by  an  assembly 
of  greater  authority. 

Assemblies  or  Mceiincrs  are  either  Conferences  or 
Synods. 

Conferences  are  the  meetings  of  the  elders  of 
a  few  churches,  as,  for  example,  of  twelve. 
There  are  to  meet  in  a  conference,  chosen  of 
the  eldership  of  every  particular  church,  one 
minister  and  one  elder.  The  conferences  are 
to  be  kept  once  in  six  weeks. 
•  They  are  specially  to  look  into  the  state  of 
the  churches  of  that  resort  and  conference, 
examining  particularly  these  several  pomts  : 
Whether  all  things  be  done  in  them  according 
to  the  holy  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  Gos- 
pel ;  to  wit,  whether  any  questions  be  moved 
concerning  any  point  of  doctrine'!  Whether 
the  ecclesiastical  discipline  be  duly  observed! 
Whether  any  minister  be  wanting  in  any  of 
those  churches,  that  a  sufficient  one  in  due 
time  may  be  procured  1  Whether  the  other  min- 
isters of  public  charge  in  the  church  be  appoint- 
ed in  every  congregation  1  Whether  care  be 
had  of  schools,  and  for  the  poor  1  Finally,  they 
are  to  be  demanded  wherein  any  of  them  need- 
eth  the  advice  of  the  conference  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  Gospel  among  them. 

Before  the  end  of  the  meeting,  if  it  shall  be 
so  thought  good  by  them,  let  one  of  the  minis- 
ters assembled  in  conference,  either  chosen  by 
voice,  or  taking  it  by  turn,  preach  publicly.  Of 
his  speech,  let  the  rest  judge  among  themselves, 
the  elders  being  put  apart,  admonish  him  broth- 
erly, if  there  be  any  cause,  examining  all  things 
according  to  those  rules  that  are  before  declared 
in  the  chapter  concerning  the  things  that  are  to 
be  performed  by  those  that  preach. 
0/  Synods. 

A  synod  is  the  meeting  of  chosen  men  of 
many  conferences  :  in  them  let  the  whole  trea- 
tise of  discipline  be  read:  in  them,  also,  other 
things  first  being  finished,  as  was  said  before, 
let  all  those  that  are  present  be  censured,  if  it 
may  be  done  conveniently,  and  let  them  also 


APPENDIX. 


445 


have  a  communion  in  and  with  the  church  where 
tliey  were  called. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  synods :  the  first  is  par- 
ticular, which  comprehenileth  both  the  provin- 
cial and  national  synod.  A  provincial  synod  is 
the  meeting  of  the  chosen  men  of  every  c(mfer- 
ence  within  the  province.  A  province  conlain- 
etli  lour  and-twenty  conferences. 

A  fit  way  to  call  a  provincial  council  may  be 
this:  the  care  thereof,  except  themselves  will 
determine  of  it,  may  be  committed  to  the  par- 
ticular eldership  of  some  conference  within  the 
province  ;  which,  by  advice  of  the  same  ccmfer- 
ence,  may  appoint  the  place  and  tune  for  the 
meeting  of  the  provincial  synod. 

To  that  church  or  eldership  are  to  be  sent 
the  matters  that  seemed,  to  the  particular  con- 
ferences, more  difficult  for  I  hem  to  take  order 
in,  and  such  as  belong  to  the  churches  of  the 
whole  province  ;  which  is  to  he  done  diligently 
and  in  good  time,  that  the  same  may,  in  due 
season,  give  notice  of  the  place  and  time  of  the 
synod,  and  of  the  matters  to  be  debated  therein, 
that  they  which  shall  be  sent  may  come  the 
beuer  prepared,  and  judge  of  them  according  to 
the  aovice  of  the  conferences. 

Two  ministers,  and  as  many  elders,  are  to  be 
sent  from  every  confe'^ence  unto  the  provincial 
.«ynod.  The  satne  is  to  be  held  every  half  year, 
or  oftener,  till  the  discipline  be  settled.  It  is  to 
be  held  three  months  before  every  national 
synod,  that  they  may  prepare  and  make  ready 
those  things  that  pertain  to  the  national.  The 
acts  of  the  provincial  synod  are  to  be  sent  unto 
the  national,  by  the  eldership  of  that  church  in 
v^hil•h  it  was  holden  ;  and  every  minister  is  to 
be  lurnished  with  a  copy  of  them,  and  with  the 
reasons  of  the  same.  A  national  synod,  or  con- 
vocation, is  a  meeting  of  the  chosen  men  of  ev- 
ery province  within  the  dominion  of  the  same 
nation  and  civil  government.  The  way  to  call 
it,  unless  it  shall  determine  otherwise,  may  be 
the  same  with  the  provincial,  that  is,  by  the  el- 
dership of  some  particular  church,  which  shall 
appoint  the  time  and  place  of  the  next  national 
convocation  ;  but  not  otherwise  than  by  the  ad- 
vice of  their  provincial  synod. 

Out  of  every  provincial  synod  there  are  to  be 
chosen  three  ministers,  and  as  many  elders,  to 
be  sent  to  the  national.  They  are  to  handle  the 
things  pertaining  to  the  churches  of  the  whctle 
nation  or  kingdom,  as  the  doctrine,  discipline, 
ceremonies,  things  noi  decided  by  inferior  meet- 
ings, appeals,  and  such  like.  By  the  order  of  the 
same,  one  is  to  be  appointed  which  may  gather 
into  one  book  the  notes  of  every  particular 
church. 

Thus  much  for  particular  meetings  ;  the  uni- 
versal followeth,  which  is  called  a  general  or  cecu- 
nienical  council,  which  is  a  meeting  of  the  cho- 
sen men  of  every  national  synod.  The  acts  of 
all  such  councils  are  to  be  registered  and  re- 
ported in  a  book. 

The  discipline,  entitled  "The  Discipline  of 
the  Church,"  described  in  the  Word  of  God,  as 
I'ar  as  we  can  judge,  is  taken  and  drawn  from  the 
iriost  pi.re  fountain  of  the  Word  of  God,  and  con- 
taineth  in  it  the  discipline  of  the  Church  that  is 
necessary,  essential,  and  common  to  all  ages  of 
the  Church. 

The  synodical  also  adjoined,  as  it  resteth  upon 
the  same  foundations,  is  likewise  necessary  and 


perpetual ;  but  as  far  as  it  is  not  expressly  con- 
firmed by  authority  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  hutr 
is  applied  to  the  use  and  times  of  the  Church  as 
their  divers  states  may  require,  according  ta 
the  analogy  and  geneial  rules  of  the  same  Scrip- 
ture, is  to  be  judged  profitable  for  the  churches 
that  receive  it,  but  may  be  changed  in  such 
things  as  belong  not  to  the  essence  of  the  dis- 
cipline upon  a  like  godly  reason,  as  the  divers 
estates  of  the  Church  may  require. 

The  Form  of  the  Subscription. 

The  brethren  of  the  conference  of  N.,  whose 
names  are  here  underwritten,  have  subscribed 
this  discipline  after  this  manner:  This  disci- 
pline we  allow  as  a  godly  discipline,  and  agree- 
able to  the  Word  of  God  ;  yet  so  as  we  may  be 
satisfied  in  the  things  hereunto  noted,  and  de- 
sire the  same  so  acknowledged  by  us,  to  be  fur- 
thered by  all  lawful  means,  that  by  public  au- 
thority of  the  magistrate  and  of  our  church  it 
may  he  established. 

Which  thing,  if  it  may  be  obtained  of  her  rign* 
excellent  majesty,  and  other  the  magistrates  or 
this  kingdom,  we  promise  that  we  will  do  no- 
thing against  it,  whereby  the  public  peace  of  the 
Church  may  be  troubled.  In  the  mean  time, 
we  promise  to  observe  it,  as  far  as  may  be  law- 
ful for  us  so  to  do,  by  the  public  laws  of  this 
kingdom,  and  by  the  peace  of  our  church. 


No.  V. 

A  Letter  of  the  Puritan  Ministers  imprisoned  to 
her  Majesty,  in  Vindication  of  their  Innocence, 
dated  April,  1592. 

"May  it  please  your  excellent  majesty, 
"  There  is  nothing,  right  gracious  sovereign, 
next  to  the  saving  mercy  of  Almighty  God,  that 
can  be  more  comfortable  than  your  higliness's 
favour,  as  to  all  other  your  faithful  and  dutiful 
subjects,  so  to  ns  your  majesty's  most  humble 
suppliants,  who  are  by  our  calling  ministers  of 
God's  holy  Word,  and  by  our  present  conditioa 
now,  and  of  long  time,  prisoners  in  divers  pris- 
ons in  and  about  the  city  of  London,  for  which 
cause  our  most  humble  suit  is,  that  it  may  please 
your  most  excellent  majesty  graciously  to  un- 
derstand our  necessary  answer  to  such  grievous 
charges  as  we  hear  to  he  informed  against  us, 
which,  if  they  were  true,  might  be  just  cause  of 
withdrawing  forever  from  ns  your  higliness's 
gracious  protection  and  favour,  which,  above 
all  other  earthly  things,  we  most  desire  to  en- 
joy. The  reason  of  our  trouble  is  a  suspicion 
that  we  should  be  guilty  of  many  heinous 
crimes  ;  but  these  supposed  crimes  we  have  not 
been  charged  with  in  any  due  and  ordinary 
course  of  proceeding,  by  open  accusation  and 
witnesses.  But  being  called  up  to  London  by 
authority  of  soirie  of  your  majesty's  commis- 
sioners in  causes  ecclesiastical,  we  have  bcea 
required  by  them  to  take  an  oath  of  inquisition 
or  office,  as  it  is  called,  for  not  taking  whereof 
we  were  first  committed  to  pris(m,  and  since 
have  continued  there  a  long  time,  notwithstand- 
ing that  ail  of  us,  save  one,  have  been  deprived 
of  our  livings  and  degraded  of  our  ministry. 

"  Wherefore,  l()r  that  the  oath  is  the  next  and 
immediate  cause  of  our  trouble,  we  have  made 
our  answer  first  to  that,  and  then  alter  also  to 


446 


APPENDIX. 


tJie  crimes  that  are  suggested,  and  secretly  in- 
formed against  us. 

The  Oath. 
"  As  for  the  oath,  the  reason  why  we  took  it 
not  is  because  it  is  vvithout  limitation  of  any  cer- 
tain matter,  infinite  and  general,  to  answer  wliat- 
soever  siiall  be  demanded  of  us.  Of  this  kind 
of  oath  we  find  neither  rule  nor  example  in  the 
Word  of  God  ;  but  contrariwise,  both  precepts 
and  precedents  of  ail  lawful  oaths  reported  in 
the  same  tend  to  this,  that  an  oath  ouglit  to  be 
taken  with  judgment,  and  so  as  he  that  swear- 
eth  may  see  the  bounds  of  his  oath,  and  to  what 
condition  it  does  bind  him,  &c.  But  tliis  oath 
is  to  inquire  of  our  private  speeches  and  confer- 
ences with  our  dearest  and  nearest  friends : 
yea,  of  the  very  secret  thoughts  and  intents  of 
our  hearts,  that  so  may  we  furnish  both  matter 
of  accusation  and  evidence  of  proof  against  our- 
selves, which  was  not  used  to  be  done  in  causes 
of  heresy  or  high  treason  ;  for  these  are  the 
words  of  the  statutes  of  your  most  noble  father, 
Henry  VIII.  :*  '  For  that  the  most  expert  and 
best  learned  cannot  escape  the  danger  of  such 
captious  interrogatories  (as  the  law  calleth  them) 
which  are  accustomed  to  be  administered  by  the 
ordinaries  of  this  realm  ;  as  also  that  it  stand- 
eth  not  with  the  right  order  of  justice,  or  good 
equity,  that  any  person  should  be  convicted,  or 
put  to  the  loss  of  life,  good  name,  or  goods,  un- 
less it  be  by  due  accusation  and  witness,  or  by 
presentment,  verdict,  confession,  or  process  of 
outlawry  ;  and  farther,  for  the  avoiding  untrue 
accusations  and  presentments  which  might  be 
maliciously  conspired,  and  kept  secret  and  un- 
revealed,  till  time  might  be  espied  to  have  men 
thereof  by  malice  convicted,'  it  was  ordained 
that  none  should  be  put  to  answer  but  upon  ac- 
cusation and  presentments  taken  in  open  and 
manifest  courts,  by  the  oath  of  twelve  men.t 

Schism. 

"As  to  the  charge  of  schism,  and  that  we  so 
far  condemned  the  state  of  the  Church,  that  we 
hold  it  not  for  any  true,  visible  Church  of  God, 
as  it  is  established  by  public  authority  within  the 
land,  and  therefore  refuse  to  have  any  part  or 
communion  with  it  in  public  prayers,  or  in  the 
ministry  of  the  Word  and  sacraments  :  if  this 
were  true,  we  were  of  all  men  living  the  most 
unthankful,  first  to  Almighty  God,  and  next  to 
your  excellent  majesty,  by  whose  blessed  means 
we  are  partakers  of  that  happy  liberty  of  the 
profession  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  the  true  service 
of  God,  that  by  your  highness's  gracious  gov- 
ernment we  do  enjoy.  We  acknowledge  un- 
feignedly,  as  in  the  sight  of  God,  that  this  our 
church,  as  it  is  by  your  highness's  laws  and  au- 
thority established  among  us,  having  that  faith 
professed  and  taught  publicly  in  it  that  was 
agreed  of  in  the  Convocation  of  1562,  and  such 
form  of  public  prayers  and  administration  of  the 
sacraments  as  in  the  first  year  of  your  most 
gracious  reign  was  established  (nolwithstand- 
mg  anything  that  may  need  to  be  revised  and 
farther  reformed),  is  a  true  visible  Church  of 
Christ,  from  the  holy  communion  whereof,  by 
way  of  schism,  it  is  not  lawful  to  depart. 

"  Our  whole  life  may  show  the  evident  proof 


*  An.  25  Hen.  VIII.,  cap.  xiv. 
i  Ibid.,  cap.  XV.,  ^  3. 


hereof;  for  always  before  the  time  of  our  trouble 
we  have  lived  in  the  dady  communion  of  it,  not 
only  as  private  men,  but  at  the  time  of  our  re- 
straint (as  many  years  before)  preached  and  ex- 
ercised our  ministry  in  the  same  ;  and  at  this 
[)resent  most  earnestly  beseech  all  in  authority 
iliat  is  set  over  us,  especially  your  excellent 
majesty,  that  we  may  so  proceed  to  serve  God 
and  your  highness  all  the  days  of  our  life. 

Rebellion. 
"  Another  crime  suggested  against  us  is,  that 
we  should  practice  or  purpose  rebelliously  to 
procure  such  farther  reformation  of  our  church 
as  we  desire  by  violent  and  undutiful  means. 
Whereunto  our  answer  is,  that  we  think  it  not 
lawful  to  make  a  schism  in  the  Church  for  any- 
thing that  we  esteem  needful  to  be  reformed  in 
it,  so  do  we,  in  all  simplicity  and  sincerity  of 
heart,  declare,  in  the  presence  of  Ahniglity  God, 
to  whom  all  secrets  are  known,  and  of  your  ex- 
cellent majesty,  to  whom  the  sword  is  given  of 
God  for  just  vengeance  and  punishment  of 
transgressors,  that  for  procuring  reformation  of 
anything  that  we  desire  to  be  redressed  in  the 
stale  of  our  church,  we  judge  it  most  unlawful 
and  damnable  by  the  Word  of  God  to  rebel,  and 
by  force  of  arms  or  any  violent  means  to  seek 
redress  thereof;  and  moreover,  that  we  never 
intended  to  use  or  procure  any  other  means  for 
the  furtherance  of  such  reformation  than  only 
prayer  to  Almighty  God,  and  most  humble  suit 
to  your  excellent  majesty,  and  others  in  author- 
ity, with  such  like  dutiful  and  peaceful  means 
as  might  give  information  of  this  our  suit,  and 
of  the  reasons  moving  us  thereunto. 

Supremacy. 

"The  third  crime  misinformed  against  us  is, 
that  we  impeach  your  majesty's  supremacy. 
For  answer  whereunto  we  unfeignedly  protest 
(God  being  witness  that  we  speak  the  truth 
herein  from  our  hearts)  that  we  acknowledge 
your  highness's  sovereignty  and  supreme  pow- 
er, next  and  immediately  under  God,  over  all 
persons,  and  in  all  causes,  as  well  ecclesiastical 
as  civil,  in  as  large  and  ample  manner  as  it  is 
agnized  by  the  High  Court  of  Parliament  in  the 
statute  of  recognition,  as  is  set  down  in  the 
oath  of  supremacy  enacted  by  the  same  ;  and 
as  It  is  farther  declared  in  your  majesty's  injunc- 
tions, and  also  in  the  articles  of  religion  agreed 
in  the  Convocation,  and  in  sundry  books  of  learn- 
ed men  of  our  nation,  published  and  allowed  by 
public  authority.  We  add  yet  hereunto,  that 
we  acknowledge  the  same  as  fully  as  ever  it 
was  in  old  time  acknowledged  by  the  prophets 
to  belong  to  the  virtuous  kings  of  Judab  ;  and 
as  all  the  Reformed  churches  in  Christendom 
acknowledge  the  same  to  their  sovereign  prin- 
ces, in  the  confessions  of  their  faith  exhibited 
unto  them,  as  they  are  set  down  in  a  book  named 
the  Harmony  of  Confessions,  and  the  observa- 
tions annexed  thereunto. 

"  And  besides  the  protestation,  we  appeal  to 
the  former  whole  course  of  our  lives,  wherein  it 
cannot  be  showed  tliat  we  ever  made  question 
of  it  ;  and  more  particularly  by  our  public  doc- 
trine, declaring  the  same  ;  and  by  our  taking 
the  oath  of  supremacy  as  occasion  hath  required. 

Excommunica/ion. 

"  It  hath  been  odiously  devised  against  us, 


APPENDIX. 


44T 


concerning  tlie  persons  subject  to  excommuni- 
cation, and  the  power  thereof,  how  far  it  ex- 
tendeth  ;  touching  the  former,  we  judge  not  oth- 
erwise herein  than  all  the  Reformed  churches 
that  are  this  day  in  the  Christian  world,  nor 
than  our  own  English  Church,  both  always  here- 
tofore hath  judged,  and  doth  still  at  this  present, 
as  may  appear  by  the  articles  of  religion  agreed 
by  the  Convocation,  and  by  a  book  of  homilies 
allowed  by  the  same,  and  also  by  sundry  other 
books  of  greatest  credit  and  authority  in  our 
church  ;  which  is,  that  the  Word  of  God,  the 
sacraments,  and  the  power  of  binding  and  loos- 
ing, are  all  ordinances  of  Almighty  God,  gra- 
ciously ordained  for  the  comfort  and  salvation 
of  the  whole  Church  ;  and  that  therefore  no  part 
or  member  of  it  is  to  be  denied  the  comfortable, 
wholesome  aid  and  benefit  thereof,  for  the  fur- 
therance of  their  faith,  and  (as  need  may  require) 
of  their  repentance,  &c. 

"  For  the  other  part,  how  far  this  censure  ex- 
tendeth,  we  profess  that  it  depriveth  a  man  only 
of  spiritual  comforts,  as  of  being  partaker  of  the 
Lord's  Table,  and  being  present  at  the  public 
prayers  of  the  Church,  or  such  like,  without  ta- 
king away  either  liberty,  goods,  lands,  govern- 
ment private  or  public  whatsoever,  or  any  other 
civil  or  earthly  commodity  of  this  life.  Where- 
fore, from  our  hearts  we  detest  and  abhor  that 
intolerable  presumption  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
taking  upon  him,  in  such  cases,  to  depose  sov- 
ereign princes  from  their  highest  seats  of  su- 
preme government,  and  discharging  their  sub- 
jects from  that  dutiful  obedience  that,  by  the  laws 
of  God,  they  ought  to  perform. 

Conferences. 

"  Concernmg  our  conferences,  we  have  been 
charged  to  have  given  orders,  and  made  minis- 
ters, and  to  have  administered  the  censures  of 
the  Church,  and,  finally,  to  have  exercised  all 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  To  which  sugges- 
tion we  answer,  that  indeed  of  long  time  we 
have  used,  as  other  ministers  have  done  (as  we 
think  in  most  parts  of  the  land),  to  meet  some- 
times and  conjjpr  together;  which  being  granted 
to  all  good  and  dutiful  subjects  upon  occasion  to 
resort  and  meet  together,  we  esteem  it  is  law- 
ful for  us  to  do  so. 

"  For  besides  the  common  affairs  of  all  men, 
which  may  give  them  just  cause  to  meet  with 
their  acquaintance  and  friends,  mutually  to  com- 
municate for  their  comfort  and  help  one  with 
another,  men  professing  learning  have  more  ne- 
cessary and  special  use  of  such  conferences,  for 
their  furtherance  in  such  knowledge  as  they 
profess.  But  such  as  are  professed  ministers  of 
the  Word  have  sundry  great  and  necessary 
causes  so  to  do  more  than  others,  because  of 
the  manifold  knowledge  both  of  divinity,  and 
also  of  divers  tongues  and  sciences,  that  are  of 
great  use  for  the  better  enabling  them  for  their 
ministry  ;  in  which  respect  the  conferences  of 
the  ministers  were  allowed  by  many  bishops 
within  their  diocesses,  and  to  our  knowledge 
never  disallowed  or  forbidden  by  any.  Some 
late  years,  also,  have  given  us  more  special 
cause  of  conferring  together,  where  Jesuits, 
Seminarists,  and  other  heretics  sought  to  seduce 
many ;  and  wherein,  also,  some  schismatics  con- 
demned the  whole  state  of  our  church,  as  no 
part  of  the  true  visible  Church  of  Christ,  and 


therefore  refused  to  have  any  part  or  commu- 
nion with  it :  upon  which  occasion,  it  is  needful 
for  us  to  advise  of  the  best  way  and  means  we 
could  to  keep  the  people  that  we  had  charge  to 
instruct  from  such  damnable  errors. 

"Farther  also  particularly,  because  some  reck- 
oned us  to  have  part  with  their  schism,  and  re- 
ported us  to  agree  in  nothing,  but  to  differ  one 
from  another  in  the  reformation  we  desiie  ;  we 
have  special  cause  to  confer  together,  that  we 
might  set  down  some  things  touching  such  mat- 
ters, which  at  all  times,  whensoever  we  should 
be  demanded,  might  be  our  true  and  just  de- 
fence, both  to  clear  us  from  partaking  with  the 
schism,  and  to  witness  for  us  that  we  agreed  in 
the  reformation  we  desire. 

"  But  as  touching  the  thing  surmised  of  our 
meetings,  that  we  exercise  in  them  all  ecclesi- 
astical jurisdiction,  in  making  ministers,  in  cen- 
suring and  excomiTiunicating,  in  ordaining  con- 
stitutions and  orders  upon  such  censures  to 
bind  any,  we  protest  before  God  and  the  holy 
angels  that  we  never  exercised  any  part  of  such 
jurisdiction,  nor  had  any  purpose  agreed  among 
us  to  exercise  the  same,  before  we  should  by 
public  law  be  authorized  thereunto. 

"  Farther,  also,  touching  such  our  meetings, 
we  affirm  that  they  were  only  of  ministers  (sa- 
ving in  some  parts  where  a  schoolmaster,  two  or 
three,  desirous  to  train  themselves  to  the  minis- 
try, joined  with  us),  and  the  same,  but  of  six  or 
seven,  or  like  small  number  in  a  conference, 
without  all  deed  of  appearance  that  might  be 
offensive  to  any. 

Singularity. 

"  Which,  though  it  be  not  subject  to  any  pun- 
ishment of  law,  yet  is  suggested  against  us  by 
such  as  favour  not  our  most  humble  desire  of  a 
farther  reformation,  to  disgrace  us,  and  make 
us  odious  with  others,  and  chiefly  with  your  ex- 
cellent majesty  ;  whereunto  our  answer  is,  that 
the  discipline  of  the  primitive  Church  is  ancient, 
and  so  acknowledged  by  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  in  these  words,  'that  there  was  a  god- 
ly discipline  in  the  primitive  Church  ;  instead 
whereof,  until  the  said  discipline  may  be  resto- 
red again  (which  thing  is  much  to  be  wished), 
it  is  thought  convenient  to  use  such  a  form  of 
comminaiion  as  is  prescribed.' 

"  Farther,  also,  if  it  please  your  majesty  with 
favour  to  understand  it  from  us,  we  are  ready 
to  show,  that  in  such  points  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline  of  our  church,  which  we  desire  most 
humbly  may  be  reformed,  we  hold  no  singular 
or  private  opinion,  but  the  truth  of  the  Word  of 
God,  acknowledged  to  be  such  by  all  the  best 
churches  and  writers  of  ancient  time,  and  of  this 
present  age. 

"  Thus  have  we  declared,  right  gracious  sov- 
ereign, truly  and  sincerely,  as  we  will  answer  it 
before  God,  and  to  your  majesty  upon  our  alle- 
giance, what  judgment  we  are  of  concerning 
the  matters  informed  against  us;  and  farther 
testify,  that  no  minister  within  this  land  desi- 
ring a  farther  reformation,  with  whom  we  have 
had  any  private  accjuaintance  or  conference  of 
these  matters  (whosoever  may  be  otherwise  in- 
formed), is  of  any  other  mind  or  opinion  in  these 
cases  that  have  been  named  :  by  which  declara- 
tion, if  (according  to  our  earnest  prayers  to  Al- 
mighty God)  your  majesty  shall  clearly  discern 


448 


APPENDIX. 


us  to  stand  free  from  all  such  matters  as  we  are 
charged  with,  our  most  humble  suit  is,  that  your 
majesty's  gracious  favour  (which  is  more  dear 
and  precious  to  us  than  our  lives)  loay  be  extend- 
ed to  us,  and  that  by  means  thereof  we  may 
enjoy  the  comfortable  liberty  of  our  persons  and 
ministry,  as  we  did  before  our  troubles ;  wliich,  if 
by  your  highness's  special  mercy  and  goodness 
we  may  obtain,  we  promise  and  vow  to  Almiglity 
God,  and  your  excellent  majesty,  to  heliave 
ourselves  in  so  peaceable  and  dutiful  sort  in  ev- 
ery respect,  as  may  give  no  just  cause  of  your 
highness's  offence,  but  according'  to  our  callings, 
both  in  doctrine  and  example  as  heretofore,  so 
always  hereafter,  to  teach  due  obedience  to 
your  majesty  among  other  parts  of  holy  doc- 
trine ;  and  to  pray  for  your  majesty's  long  and 
blessed  reign  over  us,"  &c.* 


No.  VI. 
Articles  of  Religion  agreed  upon  by  the  Archbish- 
ops and  Bishops,  and  the  rest  of  the  Clergy  of 
Ireland,  in  the  Convocation  holdcn  at  Dublin,  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  1615,  for  the  avoiding  of 
Diversities  of  Opinions,  and  the  establishing  of 
Consent  touching  true  Religion. 

N.B.  In  these  articles  are  comprehended,  almost  word  for 
word,  the  nine  articles  agreed  on  at  Lambeth,  the  20th  of 
November,  1593.  This  mark  *  points  at  each  of  them, 
and  their  number. 

Of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  Three  Creeds. 

1.  The  ground  of  our  religion,  and  the  rule  of 
faith,  and  all  saving  truth,  is  the  Word  of  God, 
contained  in  the  Holy  Scripture. 

2.  By  the  name  of  Holy  Scripture  we  under- 
stand all  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  viz., 

Of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  five  books  of  Moses,  Job, 

Joshua,  Psalms, 

Judges,  Proverbs, 

Ruth,  Ecclesiastes, 

The  first  and  second  of  Sam-  The  Song  of  Solomon, 

uel,  Isaiah, 

The  first  and  second  of  Kings,  Jeremiah,  his  prophecy  and 
The    first    and    second    of         Lamentation, 

Chronicles,  Ezekiel, 

Ezra,  Daniel, 

Nehemiah,  The  twelve  less  prophets. 
Esther, 

Of  the  New  Testament. 

The  Gospels  according  to  The  First  and  Second  Epis- 
iVIatthew,  tie  to  the  Thessalimians, 

Mark,  The  First  and  Second  Epis- 

Luke,  tie  to  Timothy, 

John,  Titus, 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Philemon, 

The  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  Hebrews, 

the  Romans,  The  Epistle  of  St.  James, 

The  First  and  Second  Epis-  The  two  Epistles  of  St.  Pe- 
tle  to  the  Corinthians.  ter, 

Galatians,  The   three   Epistles   of  St. 

Ephesians,  John, 

Philippians,  St   Jude, 

Colossians,  The  Revelation  of  St.  John. 

All  which  we  acknowledge  to  be  given  by  the 
inspiration  of  God,  and  in  that  regard  to  be  of 
most  certain  credit  and  highest  authority. 

3.  The  other  books,  commonly  called  Apoc- 
ryphal, did  not  proceed  from  such  inspiration, 
and  therefore  are  not  of  sufficient  authority  to 
establish  any  point  of  doctrine;  but  the  Church 
doth  read  them  as  books  containing  many  wor- 
thy things  for  example  of  life  and  instruction  of 
manners. 


*  Strype's  Ann.,  vol.  ult.,  p.  85,  &c. 


Such  are  these  following. 

The  third  book  of  Esdras.  Barach,  with  the  Epistle  ol 

The  fourth  book  of  Esdras,  Jeremiah, 

The  hook  of  Tobias,  The  Song  of  the  Throe  ChU- 

Tlie  book  of  Judith,  dren, 

Additiiius  to  the  book  of  Es-  Susannah, 

ther,  iiel  ai;d  the  Drasfon, 

The  book  of  Wisdom,  The  Prayer  of  Manasses, 

The  book  of  Jesus  the  Son  The  first  book  of  Macrabecs, 

of  Sirach,  called  Ecclesi-  The  second  book  of  Macca- 

asticus.  bees. 

4.  The  Scriptures  ought  to  be  translated  out 
of  the  original  tongues  into  all  languages,  for 
the  common  use  of  all  men.  Neither  is  any 
person  to  he  discouraged  from  reading  the  Bi- 
ble in  such  language  as  he  doth  understand,  but 
seriously  exhorted  to  read  the  same  with  great 
humility  and  reverence,  as  a  special  means  to 
bring  him  to  the  true  knowledge  of  God,  and  of 
his  own  duty. 

5.  Although  there  be  some  hard  things  in  the 
Scriptures  (especially  such  as  have  proper  rela- 
tion to  the  times  in  which  they  were  first  ut- 
tered, and  prophecies  of  things  which  were, af- 
terward to  be  fulfilled),  yet  all  things  necessary 
to  be  known  untoeverlasting  salvation  are  clear- 
ly delivered  therein  :  and  nothing  of  that  kind  is 
spoken  under  dark  mysteries  in  one  place,  which 
is  not  in  other  places  spoken  more  familiarly 
and  plainly  to  the  capacity  both  of  learned  and 
unlearned. 

6.  The  Holy  Scriptures  contain  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation,  and  are  able  to  instruct 
suflicienliy  in  all  points  of  faith  that  we  are 
bound  to  believe,  and  all  duties  that  we  are 
bound  to  practise. 

7.  All  and  every  the  articles  contained  in  the 
Nicene  Creed,  the  creed  of  Athanasius,  and  that 
which  is  commonly  called  the  Apostles'  Greed, 
ought  firmly  to  be  received  and  believed,  for 
they  may  be  proved  by  most  certain  warrant  of 
Holy  Scripture. 

Of  Faith  in  the  Holy  Trinity. 

8.  There  is  but  one  living  and  true  God,  ever- 
lasting. Without  body,  parts,  or  passions,  of 
infinite  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness  ;  the  ma- 
ker and  preserver  of  all  things,  both  visible  and 
invisible.  And  in  unity  of  this  Godhead  there 
be  three  persons  of  one  and  the  same  substance, 
power,  and  eternity,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

9.  The  essence  of  the  Father  doth  not  beget 
the  essence  of  the  Son  ;  but  the  person  of  the 
Father  begetteth  the  person  of  the  Son,  by  com- 
municating his  whole  essence  to  the  person  be- 
gotten from  eternity. 

10.  The  Holy  Ghost,  proceeding  from  the  Fa- 
ther and  the  Son,  is  of  one  substance,  majesty, 
and  glory  with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  very 
and  eternal  God. 

Of  GotVs  eternal  Decree  and  Predestination. 

11.  God  from  all  eternity  did,  by  his  unchange- 
able counsel,  ordain  whatsoever  in  time  should 
come  to  pass  ;  yet  so  as  thereby  no  violence  is 
offered  to  the  wills  of  the  reasonable  creatures, 
and  neither  the  liberty  nor  the  contingency  of 
the  second  cause  is  taken  away,  but  established 
rather. 

*  12.  "By  the  same  eternal  counsel  God 
hath  predestinated  some  unto  life,  and  rep- 
robated some  unto  death  ;  of  both  which 
there  is  a  certain  number,  known  only  to 


APPENDIX. 


449 


God,  which  can  neither  be  increased  nor 

diminished." 
13.  Predestination  to  life  is  the  everlasting 
purpose  of  God,  whereby,  before  the  foundations 
of  the  world  were  laid,  he  hath  constantly  de- 
creed in  his  secret  counsel  to  deliver  from  curse 
and  damnation  those  whom  he  hath  chosen  in 
Clirist  out  of  mankind,  and  to  bring  them  by 
Christ  unto  everlasting  salvation,  as  vessels 
made  to  hononr. 

*  II.  14.  "The  cause  moving  God  to  predes- 
tinate unto  life  is  not  the  foreseeing  of  faith, 
or  of  perseverance,  or  of  goods  works,  or 
of  anything  which  is  in  the  person  predes- 
tinated, but  only  the  good  pleasure  of  God 
himself" 

For  all  things  being  ordained  for  the  manifes- 
tation of  his  glory,  and  his  glory  being  to  appear 
both  in  the  works  of  his  mercy  and  of  his  jus- 
tice, it  seemed  good  to  his  heavenly  wisdom  to 
choose  out  a  certain  number,  towards  whom  he 
would  extend  his  undeserved  mercy,  leaving  the 
rest  to  be  spectacles  of  his  justice. 

15.  Such  as  are  predestinated  unto  life  be 
called  according  unto  God's  purpose  (his  Spirit 
working  in  due  season),  and  through  grace  they 
obey  the  callmg  ;  they  be  justified  freely  ;  they 
be  made  sons  of  God  by  adoption  ;  they  be 
made  like  the  image  of  his  only-begotten  Son 
Jesus  Christ ;  they  walk  religiously  in  good 
works,  and  at  length,  by  God's  mercy,  they  at- 
tain to  everlasting  felicity. 

*  IV.  "But  such  as  are  not  predestinated  to 
salvation  shall  finally  be  condemned  for 
their  sins." 

16  The  godly  consideration  of  predestination, 
and  our  election  in  Christ,  is  full  of  sweet,  pleas- 
ant, and  unspeakable  comfort  to  godly  persons, 
and  such  as  feel  in  themselves  the  working  of 
the  Spirit  of  Christ,  mortifying  the  works  of  the 
iflesh,  and  their  earthly  members,  and  drawing 
up  their  minds  to  high  and  heavenly  things,  as 
well  because  it  doth  greatly  confirm  and  estab- 
lish their  faith  of  eternal  salvation  to  be  enjoyed 
through  Christ,  as  because  it  doth  fervently 
kindle  their  love  towards  God  ;  and  on  the  con 
trary  side,  Ibr  curious  and  carnal  persons  lack- 
ing the  Spirit  of  Christ,  to  have  continually  be- 
fore their  eyes  the  sentence  of  God's  predesti- 
nation, is  very  dangerous. 

17.  We  must  receive  God's  promises  in  such 
wise  as  they  be  generally  set  forth  unlo  us  in 
Holy  Scripture  ;  and  in  our  doings,  that  will  of 
God  is  to  be  followed  which  we  have  expressly 
declared  unto  us  in  the  Word  of  God. 

Of  the  Creation  and  Government  of  all  Things. 

18.  In  the  beginning  of  time,  when  no  crea- 
ture had  any  bemg,  God  by  his  word  alone,  in 
the  space  of  six  days,  created  all  things  ;  and 
afterward  by  his  Providence  doth  continue,  prop- 
agate, and  order  them  according  to  his  own  will. 

19.  The  principal  creatures  are  angels  and 
men. 

20.  Of  angels,  some  continued  in  that  holy 
stale  wherein  they  were  created,  and  are  by 
God's  grace  forever  established  therein  ;  others 
fell  from  the  same,  and  are  reserved  in  chains 
of  darkness  unto  the  judgment  of  the  great  day. 

21.  Man  being  at  the  beginning  created  ac- 
cording to  the  image  of  God  (which  consisted 
especially  in  the  wisdom  of  his  mind   and  the 

Vol.  II. — L  l  l 


true  holiness  of  his  free-will),  had  the  covenant 
of  the  law  ingrafted  in  his  heart,  whereby  God 
did  promise  unto  him  everlasting  life,  upon  con- 
dition that  he  performed  entire  and  perfect  obe- 
dience unto  his  corniTiatidmenls,  according  to 
that  measure  of  strength  wherewith  he  was 
endued  in  his  creation,  and  threatened  death 
unto  him  if  fie  did  not  perform  the  same. 

Of  the  Fall  of  Man,  Original  Sin,  and  the  State 
of  Man  before  Justification. 

22.  By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world, 
and  death  by  sin,  and  so  death  went  over  ail 
men,  forasmuch  as  all  have  sinned. 

23.  Original  sin  standeth  not  in  the  imita- 
tion of  Adam  (as  the  Pelagians  dream),  but  is 
the  fault  and  corruption  of  the  nature  of  every 
person  that  naturally  is  engendered  and  propa- 
gated from  Adam,  whereby  it  cometh  to  pass 
that  man  is  deprived  of  original  righteousness, 
and  by  nature  is  bent  unto  sin  ;  and,  therefore, 
in  every  person  born  into  the  world,  it  deserveth 
God's  wrath  and  damnation. 

24.  This  corruption  of  nature  doth  remain 
even  in  those  that  are  regenerated,  whereby  the 
flesh  always  lusteth  against  the  Spirit,  and  can- 
not be  made  subject  to  the  law  of  God.  And 
howsoever,  for  Christ's  sake,  there  be  no  con- 
demnation to  siich  as  are  regenerate  and  do  be- 
lieve, yet  doth  the  apostle  acknowledge  that  in 
itself^  this  concupiscence  hath  the  nature  of  sin. 

*  IX.  25.  "The  condition  of  man  after  the 
fall  of  .Adam  is  such,  that  he  cannot  turn 
and  prepare  himself,  by  his  own  natural 
strength  and  good  works,  to  faith,  and  call- 
ing upon  God." 
Wherefore  we   have  no  power  to  do  good 
works,  pleasing  and  acceptable  unto  God,  with- 
out the  grace  of  God  preventing  us,  that  we 
may  have  a  good-will,  and   working  with  us, 
when  we  have  that  good-will. 

26.  Works  done  before  the  grace  of  Christ 
and  the  inspiration  of  his  Spirit  are  not  pleasing 
unto  God,  forasmuch  as  they  spring  n.ot  of  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ,  neither  do  they  make  men  meet 
to  receive  grace  (or,  as  the  school  authors  say, 
to  deserve  grace  of  congruity) ;  yea.  rather,  for 
that  they  are  not  done  in  such  sort  that  God 
haih  willed  and  commanded  them  to  be  done, 
we  doubt  not  but  they  are  sinful. 

27.  All  sins  are  not  equal,  but  some  far  more 
heinous  than  others  ;  yet  the  very  least  is  of  its 
own  nature  mortal,  and  without  God's  mercy 
maketh  the  offender  liable  unto  everlasting  dam- 
nation. 

28.  God  is  not  the  author  of  sin  :  howbeit  he 
doth  not  only  permit,  but  also  by  his  providence 
govern  and  order  the  same,  guiding  it  in  such 
sort  by  his  infinite  wisdom  as  it  turneth  to  the 
manifestation  of  his  own  glory,  and  to  the  good 
of  his  elect. 

Of  Christ,  the  Mediator  of  the  Second  Covenant. 

29.  The  Son,  which  is  the  Word  of  the  Fa- 
ther, begotten  from  everlasting  of  the  Father, 
the  true  and  eternal  God,  of  one  substance  with 
the  Father,  took  man's  nature  in  the  womb  of 
the  blessed  Virgin,  of  her  substance;  so  that 
two  whole  and  perfect  natures,  that  is  to  say, 
the  Godhead  and  manhood,  were  inseparably 
joined  in  one  person,  making  one  Christ,  very 
God  and  very  man. 


450 


APPENDIX. 


30.  Christ,  in  the  truth  of  our  nature,  was 
made  like  unto  us  in  all  things,  sin  only  except- 
ed, from  which  he  was  clearly  void,  both  in  his 
life  and  in  his  nature.  He  came  as  a  lamh  with- 
out spot  to  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world,  by 
the  sacrifice  of  himself  once  made,  and  sin  (as 
St.  John  saith)  was  not  in  him.  He  fulfilled  the 
law  for  us  perfectly  ;  for  our  sakef  he  endured 
most  grievous  torments  immediately  in  his  soul, 
and  most  painful  sufferings  in  his  body.  He 
wasi^ crucified,  and  died  to  reconcile  his  Father 
unto  us  ;  and  to  be  a  sacrifice  not  only  for  ori- 
ginal guilt,  but  also  for  all  our  transgressions. 
He  was  buried,  and  descended  into  hell,  and 
the  third  day  rose  from  the  dead,  and  took  again 
his  body,  with  flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  apper- 
taining to  the  perfection  of  man's  nature,  where- 
with he  ascended  into  heaven,  and  there  sitteth 
at  the  right  hand  of  his  Father,  until  he  return 
to  judge  all  men  at  the  last  day. 

Of  the  communicating  of  the  Grace  of  Christ. 

31.  They  are  to  be  condemned  that  presume 
to  say  that  every  man  shall  be  saved  by  the  law 
or  sect  which  he  professeth,  so  that  he  be  dili- 
gent to  frame  his  life  according  to  that  law,  and 
the  light  of  nature  ;  for  Holy  Scripture  doth  set 
out  unto  us  only  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  where- 
by men  must  be  saved. 

32.  *  Vni.  "  None  can  come  unto  Christ  un- 
less it  be  given  unto  him,  and  unless  he 
draw  him.  And  all  men  are  not  so  drawn 
by  the  Father,  that  they  may  come  unto  the 
Son  [*  Vn.];  neither  is  there  such  a  suffi- 
cient measure  of  grace  vouchsafed  unto 
every  man,  whereby  he  is  enabled  to  come 
unto  everlasting  life." 

33.  All  God's  elect  are  in  their  time  insepara- 
bly united  unto  Christ,  by  the  effectual  and  vital 
influence  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  derived  from  him, 
as  from  the  head,  unto  every  true  member  of  his 
mystical  body.  And  being  thus  made  one  with 
Christ,  they  are  truly  regenerated,  and  made 
partakers  of  him  and  all  his  benefits. 

Of  Justification  and  Faith. 

34.  We  are  accounted  righteous  before  God 
only  for  the  merit  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Je- 
sus Christ,  applied  by  faith,  and  not  for  our  own 
works  or  merits.  And  this  righteousness,  which 
we  so  receive  of  God's  mercy  and  Christ's  mer- 
its, embraced  by  faith,  is  taken,  accepted,  and 
allowed  of  God  for  our  perfect  and  full  justifica- 
tion. 

35.  Although  this  justification  be  free  unto 
us.  yet  it  cometh  not  so  freely  unto  us  that  there 
is  no  ransom  paid  therefore  at  all.  God  show- 
ed his  mercy  in  delivering  us  from  our  former 
captivity,  without  requiring  any  ransom  to  be 
paid,  or  amends  to  be  made,  on  our  parts,  which 
thing  by  us  had  been  impossible  to  be  done. 
And  whereas  all  the  world  was  not  able  of  them- 
selves to  pay  any  part  towards  their  ransom,  it 
pleased  our  heavenly  Father,  of  his  infinite  mer- 
cy, without  any  desert  of  ours,  to  provide  for  us 
the  most  precious  merits  of  his  own  Son,  where- 
by our  ransom  might  be  fully  paid,  the  law  ful- 
filled, and  his  justice  fully  satisfied  ;  so  that 
Christ  is  now  the  righteousness  of  all  them  that 
truly  believe  in  him  :  he  for  them  paid  their 
ransom  by  his  death  ;  he  for  them  fulfilled  the 
law  in  his  life  ;  that  now  in  him,  and  by  him, 
every  true  Christian  man  may  be  called  a  ful- 


filler  of  the  law  ;  forasmuch  as  that  which  our 
infirmity  was  not  able  to  effect,  Christ's  justice 
hath  performed  ;  and  tiius  the  justice  and  mer- 
cy of  God  do  embrace  each  other,  the  grace  of 
God  not  shutting  out  the  justice  of  Goc  in  (he 
matter  of  our  justification,  but  only  shutting  out 
the  justice  of  man  (that  is  to  say,  the  justice  of 
our  own  works)  from  being  any  cause  of  deserv- 
ing our  justification. 

3G.  When  we  say  that  we  are  justified  by 
faith  only,  we  do  not  mean  that  the  said  justify- 
ing faith  is  alone  m  man  without  true  repent- 
ance, hope,  charity,  and  the  fear  of  God  (for 
such  a  faith  is  dead,  and  cannot  justify);  neiiher 
do  we  mean  that  this  our  act  to  believe  in  Christ, 
or  this  our  faith  in  Christ,  which  is  within  us, 
doth  of  itself  justify  us.  or  deserve  our  justifica- 
tion unto  us  (for  that  were  to  account  ourselves 
to  be  justified  by  the  virtue  or  dignity  of  some- 
thing that  is  within  ourselves);  but  the  true 
understanding  and  meaning  thereof  is,  that  al- 
though we  hear  God's  Word,  and  believe  it ; 
although  we  have  faith,  hope,  charity,  repent- 
ance, and  the  fear  of  God  within  us,  and  add 
never  so  many  good  works  thereunto,  yet  we 
must  renounce  the  merit  of  all  our  said  virtues, 
of  faith,  hope,  charity,  and  all  our  other  virtues 
and  good  deeds,  which  we  either  have  done, 
shall  do,  or  can  do,  as  things  that  be  far  too 
weak,  and  imperfect,  and  insufficient  to  deserve 
remission  of  our  sins,  and  our  justification  ;  and 
therefore  we  must  trust  only  in  God's  mercy, 
and  the  merits  of  his  most  dearly-beloved  Son, 
our  only  Redeemer,  Saviour,  and  Justifier.  Jesus 
Christ.  Nevertheless,  because  faith  doth  direct- 
ly send  us  to  Christ  for  our  justification,  and  that 
by  faith,  given  us  of  God.  we  embrace  the  prom- 
ise of  God's  mercy  and  the  remission  of  our  sins 
(which  thing  none  other  of  our  virtues  or  works 
properly  doth),  therefore  the  Scripture  useth  to 
say,  that  faith  without  works,  and  the  ancient 
fathers  of  the  Church  to  the  same  purpose,  that 
only  faith  doth  justify  us. 

37.  By  justilying  faith  we  understand,  not 
only  the  common  belief  of  the  articles  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  a  persuasion  of  the  truth 
of  God's  Word  in  general,  but  also  a  particular 
application  of  the  gracious  promises  of  the  Gos- 
pel to  the  comfort  of  our  own  souls,  whereby 
we  lay  hold  on  Christ  with  all  his  benefits,  having 
an  earnest  trust  and  confidence  in  God,  that  he 
will  be  merciful  unto  us  for  his  only  Son's  sake. 

*  VI.  "  So  that  a  true  believer  may  be  cer- 
tain, by  the  assurance  of  faith,  of  the  for- 
giveness of  his  sins,  and  of  his  everlasting 
salvation  by  Christ." 

38.  *  V.  "  A  true,  lively,  justifying  faith,  and 
the  sanctifying  Spirit  of  God,  is  not  extin- 
guished, nor  vanisheth  away  in  the  regen- 
erate, either  finally  or  totally." 

Of  Sanctificaiion  and  Good  Works. 

39.  All  that  are  justified  are  likewise  sancti- 
fied, their  faith  being  always  accompanied  with 
true  repentance  and  good  works. 

40.  Repentance  is  a  gift  of  God,  whereby  a 
godly  sorrow  is  wrought  in  the  heart  of  the 
faithful  for  offending  God,  their  merciful  Father, 
by  their  former  transgressions,  together  with  a 
constant  resolution  for  the  time  to  come  to 
cleave  unto  God,  and  to  lead  a  new  life. 

41.  Albeit  that  good  woiks,  which  are  the 


APPENDIX. 


451 


fruits  of  faith,  and  follow  after  justification,  can- 
not make  satisfaction  for  our  sins,  and  endure 
the  severity  of  God's  judgment ;  yet  are  they 
pleasing  to  God,  and  accepted  of  him  in  Christ, 
and  do  spring  from  a  true  and  lively  faith, 
which  by  them  is  to  be  discerned  as  a  tree  by 
the  fruit. 

42.  The  works  wnich  God  would  have  his 
people  to  walk  in  are  such  as  he  hath  command- 
ed in  his  Holy  Scripture,  and  not  such  works  as 
men  have  devised  out  of  their  own  brain,  of  a 
blind  zeal  and  devotion,  without  the  warrant  of 
the  Word  of  God. 

43.  The  regenerate  cannot  fulfil  the  law  of 
God  perfectly  in  this  life,  for  in  many  things 
we  offend  all ;  and  if  we  say  we  have  no  sin, 
we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us. 

44.  Not  every  heinous  sin  willingly  commit- 
ted after  baptism  is  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  unpardonable  ;  and,  therefore,  to  such  as 
fall  into  sin  after  baptism,  place  for  repentance 
is  not  to  be  denied. 

45.  Voluntary  works,  besides  over  and  above 
God's  commandments,  which  they  call  works  of 
supererogation,  cannot  be  taught  without  arro- 
gancy  and  impiety  ;  for  by  them  men  do  declare 
that  they  not  only  render  unto  God  as  much  as 
they  are  bound  to  do,  but  that  they  do  more  for 
his  sake  than  of  bounden  duty  is  required. 

Of  the  Service  of  God. 

46.  Our  duty  towards  God  is  to  believe  in  him, 
to  fear  him,  and  to  love  him  with  all  our  heart, 
with  all  our  mind,  and  with  all  our  soul,  and  with 
all  our  strength  :  to  worship  him,  and  to  give 
him  thanks,  to  put  our  whole  trust  in  him,  to 
call  upon  him,  to  honour  his  holy  name  and  his 
Word,  and  to  serve  him  truly  all  the  days  of  our 
life. 

47.  In  all  our  necessities  we  ought  to  have 
recourse  unto  God  by  prayer,  assuring  ourselves 
that  whatsoever  we  ask  of  the  Father  in  the 
name  of  his  Son  (our  only  mediator  and  inter- 
cessor) Christ  Jesus,  and  according  to  his  will, 
he  will  undoubtedly  grant  it. 

48.  We  ought  to  prepare  our  hearts  before 
we  pray,  and  understand  the  things  that  we 
ask  when  we  pray,  that  both  our  hearts  and 
voices  may  together  sound  in  the  ears  of  God's 
majesty. 

49.  When  Almighty  God  smiteth  us  with  af- 
fliction, or  some  great  calamity  hangeth  over 
us,  or  any  other  weighty  cause  so  requireth,  it 
is  our  duly  to  humble  ourselves  in  fasting,  to 
bewail  our  sins  with  a  sorrowful  heart,  and  to 
addict  ourselves  to  earnest  prayer,  that  it  might 
please  God  to  turn  his  wrath  from  us,  or  sup- 
ply us  with  such  graces  as  we  greatly  stand  in 
need  of. 

50.  Fasting  is  a  withholding  of  meat,  drink, 
and  all  natural  food,  with  other  outward  delights, 
from  the  body,  for  the  determined  time  of  fast- 
ing. "  As  for  those  abstinences  which  are  ap- 
pointed by  public  order  of  our  state  for  eating 
of  fish,  and  forbearing  of  flesh  at  certain  times 
and  days  appointed,  they  are  noways  meant  to 
be  religious  fasts,  nor  intended  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  any  superstition  in  the  choice  of  meats, 
but  are  grounded  merely  upon  politic  consider- 
ations, for  provision  of  things  tending  to  the  bet- 
ter preservation  of  the  commonwealth." 

51.  We  must  not  fast  with  this  persuasion  of 


mind,  that  our  fasting  can  bring  ns  to  heaven,  or 
ascribe  outward  holiness  to  the  work  wrought ; 
for  God  alloweth  not  our  fast  for  the  work's  sake 
(which  of  itself  is  a  thing  merely  indifferent),  but 
chiefly  respecteth  the  heart,  how  it  is  affected 
therein  ;  it  is  therefore  requisite  that  first,  before 
all  things,  we  cleanse  our  hearts  from  sin,  and 
then  direct  our  fast  to  such  ends  as  God  will 
allow  to  be  good  ;  that  tiie  flesh  may  thereby  be 
chastened,  the  spirit  may  be  more  fervent  in 
prayer,  and  that  our  fasting  may  l)e  a  testimo- 
ny of  our  humble  submission  to  God's  majesty 
when  we  acknowledge  our  sins  unto  him,  and  are 
inwardly  touched  with  sorrowfulness  of  heart, 
bewailing  the  same  in  the  aflliction  of  our  bod- 
ies. 

52.  All  worship  devised  by  man's  fantasy,  be- 
sides or  contrary  to  the  Scriptures  (as  wander- 
ing on  pilgrimages,  setting  up  of  candles,  sta- 
tions, and  jubilees,  pharisaical  sects,  and  feigned 
religions,  praying  upon  beads,  and  such  like  su- 
perstition), hath  not  only  no  promise  of  reward 
in  Scripture,  but  contrariwise,  threatenings  and 
maledictions. 

53.  All  manner  of  expressing  God  the  Father, 
the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  in  an  outward 
form,  is  utterly  unlawful ;  as  also  all  other  im- 
ages devised  or  made  by  man  to  the  use  of  reli- 
gion. 

54.  All  religious  worship  ought  to  be  given  to 
God  alone,  from  whom  all  goodness,  health,  and 
grace  ought  to  be  both  asked  and  looked  for,  as 
from  the  very  author  and  giver  of  the  same,  and 
from  none  other. 

55.  The  name  of  God  is  to  be  used  with  all  rev- 
erence and  holy  respect,  and  therefore  all  vain 
and  rash  swearing  is  utterly  to  be  condemned  ; 
yet  notwithstanding,  upon  lawful  occasions,  an 
oath  may  be  given  and  taken,  according  to  the 
Word  of  God,  justice,  judgment,  and  truth. 

56.  The  first  day  of  the  week,  which  is  the 
Lord's  Day,  is  wholly  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  God,  and  therefore  we  are  bound 
therein  to  rest  from  our  common  and  daily  bu- 
siness, and  to  bestow  that  leisure  upon  holy  ex- 
ercises, both  public  and  private. 

Of  the  Ckil  Magistrate, 

57.  The  king's  majesty  Under  God  hath  the 
sovereign  and  chief  power,  within  his  realms 
and  dominions,  over  all  manner  of  persons,  of 
what  estate,  either  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  soever 
they  be,  so  as  no  other  foreign  power  hath  or 
ought  to  have  any  superiority  over  them. 

58.  We  do  profess  that  the  supreme  govern- 
ment of  all  estates  within  the  said  realms  and 
dominions,  in  all  causes,  as  well  ecclesiastical  as 
temporal,  doth  of  right  appertain  to  the  king*s 
highness.  Neither  do  we  give  unto  him  here1)y 
the  administration  of  the  Word  and  sacraments, 
or  the  power  of  the  keys,  but  that  prerogative 
only  which  we  see  to  have  been  always  given 
unto  all  godly  princes  in  Holy  Scripture  by  God 
himself;  that  is,  that  he  should  contain  all  estates 
and  degrees  committed  to  his  charge  by  God, 
whether  they  be  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  within 
their  duty,  and  restrain  the  stubborn  and  evil- 
doers with  the  power  of  the  civil  sword. 

59.  The  pope,  neither  of  himself,  nor  by  any 
authority  of  the  Church  or  See  of  Rome,  nor  by 
any  other  means  with  any  other,  hath  any  pow- 
er or  authority  to  depose  the  king,  or  dispose  of 


452 


APPENDIX. 


any  of  his  kingdoms  or  dominions,  or  to  author- 
ize any  other  prince  to  invade  or  annoy  him  or 
his  countries,  or  to  discharge  any  of  his  subjects 
of  their  allegiance  and  obedience  to  his  majes- 
ty, or  to  give  license  or  leave  to  any  of  ihein  to 
bear  arms,  raise  tumult,  or  to  offer  any  violence 
or  hurt  to  his  royal  person,  stale,  or  govern- 
ment, or  to  any  of  his  subjects  within  his  maj- 
esty's dominions. 

60.  That  prmces  which  be  excommunicated 
or  deprived  by  the  pope  may  be  deposed  or  mur- 
dered by  their  subjects,  or  any  other  whatso- 
ever, is  impious  doctrine. 

61.  The  laws  of  the  realm  may  punish  Chris- 
tian men  with  death  for  heinous  and  grievous 
offences. 

62.  It  is  lawful  for  Christian  men,  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  magistrate,  to  bear  arms,  and  to 
serve  in  just  wars. 

Of  our  Duty  towards  our  Neighbours. 

63.  Our  duty  towards  our  neighbours  is  to 
love  them  as  ourselves,  and  to  do  to  all  men  as 
we  would  they  should  do  to  us  :  to  honour  and 
obey  our  superiors,  to  preserve  the  safety  of 
men's  persons,  as  also  their  chastity,  goods,  and 
good  names  ;  to  bear  no  malice  nor  hatred  in 
our  hearts  ;  to  keep  our  bodies  in  temperance, 
soberness,  and  chastity  ;  to  be  true  and  just  in 
all  our  doings  ;  not  to  covet  other  men's  goods, 
but  labour  truly  to  get  our  own  living,  and  to 
do  our  duty  in  that  estate  of  life  unto  which  it 
pleaselh  God  to  call  us. 

64.  For  the  preservation  of  the  chastity  of 
men's  persons,  wedlock  is  commanded  unto  all 
persons  that  stand  in  need  thereof  Neither  is 
there  any  prohibition  by  the  Word  of  God,  but 
that  the  ministers  of  the  Church  may  enter  into 
the  state  of  matrimony,  they  being  nowhere 
commanded  by  God's  law  either  to  vow  the 
stale  of  single  life,  or  to  abstain  from  marriage  ; 
therefore  it  is  lawful  also  for  them,  as  well  as 
for  all  other  Christian  men,  to  marry  at  their 
own  discretion,  as  they  shall  judge  the  same  to 
serve  better  to  godliness. 

65.  The  riches  and  goods  of  Christians  are 
Bot  common,  as  touching  the  right,  title,  and 
possession  of  the   same,  as   certain   Anabap- 

'  tists  falsely  affirm  ;  notwithstanding,  every  man 
ought,  of  such  things  as  he  possesseth,  liberally 

•  to  give  alms  to  the  poor,  according  to  his  abil- 
ity. 

66.  Faith  given  is  to  be  kept,  even  with  her- 
etics and  infidels. 

67.  The  popish  doctrine  of  equivocation  and 
mental  reservation  is  most  ungodly,  and  tendeth 
plainly  to  the  subversion  of  all  human  society. 

iOjlhe  Church  and  outward  Ministnj  of  the  Gospel. 
v6R^  There  is  but  (.i1e  Catholic  Churcii  (out  of 
whicli  liieie  is  no  salvation),  containing  the  uni- 
versal company  of  all  the  saints  that  ever  were, 
are  or  shall  he  gathered  together  in  one  body, 
under  one  bead,  Christ  Jesus  ;  part  whereof  is 
already  in  heaven  triumphant,  part  as  yet  mil- 
itant here  upon  earth.    And  because  this  Church 
consistetb  of  all  those,  and  those  alone,  which 
are  elected  by  God  unto  salvation,  and  regen- 
erated by  tlie  power  of  his  Spirit,  the  number  of 
whom  is  kndwn  only  unto  God  himself,  there- 
fore it  is  called  the  catholic  or  universal,  and 
the  invisible  Church. 


69.  But  particular  and  visible  churches  (con- 
sisting of  those  who  make  profession  of  the 
faith  of  Christ,  and  live  under  the  outward  means 
of  salvation)  be  many  in  number;  wherein,  the 
more  or  Ii'.'js  sincerely,  according  to  Christ's  in- 
stitution, the  Word  of  Gud  is  taught,  the  sacra- 
ments are  administered,  and  the  authority  of 
the  keys  used  is,  the  more  or  less  pure  are  such 
churches  to  be  accounted. 

70.  Although  in  the  visible  Church  the  evil  be 
ever  mingled  with  the  good  ;  and  sometimes 
the  evil  have  chief  authority  in  the  ministration 
of  the  Word  and  sacraments,  yet,  forasmuch  as 
they  do  not  the  same  in  their  own  name,  but  in 
Christ's,  and  minister  by  his  own  commission 
and  authority,  we  may  use  their  ministry  both 
in  hearing  the  Word,  and  in  receiving  the  sac- 
raments. Neither  is  the  effect  of  Christ's  ordi- 
nance taken  away  by  their  wickedness,  nor  the 
grace  of  God's  gifts  diminished  from  such  as  by 
laith  do  rightly  receive  the  sacraments  minister- 
ed unto  them,  which  are  effectual,  because  of 
Christ's  institution  and  promise,  although  they 
be  ministered  by  evil  men.  Nevertheless,  it 
appertaineth  to  the  discipline  of  the  Church  that 
inquiry  be  made  of  evil  ministers,  and  that  they 
be  accused  by  those  that  have  knowledge  of 
their  offences,  and  finally,  being  found  guilty  by 
just  judgment,  be  deposed. 

71.  It  is  not  lawful  for  any  man  to  take  upon 
him  the  office  of  public  preaching,  or  minister- 
ing the  sacraments  of  the  Church,  unless  he  be 
first  lawfully  called,  and  sent  to  execute  the 
same.  And  those  we  ought  to  judge  lawfully 
called  and  sent  which  be  chosen  and  called  to 
this  work  by  men  who  have  public  authority 
given  them  in  the  Church  to  call  and  send  min- 
isters into  the  Lord's  vineyard. 

72.  To  have  public  prayer  in  the  Church,  or 
to  administer  the  sacraments  in  a  tongue  not 
understood  of  the  people,  is  a  thing  plainly  re- 
pugnant to  the  Word  of  God  and  the  custom  of 
the  primitive  Church. 

73.  That  person  which,  by  public  denuncia- 
tion of  the  Church,  is  rightly  cut  off  from  the 
unity  of  the  Church,  and  excommunicate,  ought 
to  be  taken  of  the  whole  multitude  of  the  faith- 
ful as  a  heathen  and  publican,  until,  by  repent- 
ance, he  be  openly  reconciled  and  received  into 
the  Church  by  the  judgment  of  such  as  have 
authority  in  that  behalf. 

74.  God  hath  given  power  to  his  ministers 
not  simply  to  forgive  sins  (which  prerogative  he 
hath  reserved  only  to  himself),  but  in  his  name 
to  declare  and  pronounce  unto  such  as  truly  re- 
pent, and  unfeignedly  believe  his  holy  Gospel,  the 
absolution  and  forgiveness  of  sins.  Neither  is 
it  God's  pleasure  that  his  people  should  be  tied 
to  make  a  particular  confession  of  all  tlieirknown 
sins  unto  any  mortal  man  ;  howsoever,  any  per- 
son grieved  in  his  conscience  upon  any  special 
cause,  may  well  resort  unto  any  godly  and  learn- 
ed minister,  to  receive  advice  and  comfort  at 
his  hands. 

Of  the  Authority  of  the  Church,  General  Councils, 
and  Bishop  of  Rome. 

75.  It  is  not  lawful  for  the  Church  to  ordain 
anything  that  is  contrary  to  God's  Word  ;  nei- 
ther may  it  so  expound  one  place  of  Scripture 
that  it  be  repugnant  to  another.  Wherefore, 
although  the  Church  be  a  witness,  and  a  keeper 


APPENDIX. 


453 


of  holy  writ,  yet,  as  it  ought  not  to  decree  any- 
thing against  the  same,  so  besides  the  same 
ought  it  not  to  enforce  anything  to  be  believed 
upon  necessity  of  salvation. 

76.  General  councils  may  not  be  gathered  to- 
gether without  the  commandment  and  will  of 
princes  ;  and  when  they  be  gathered  together 
(forasmuch  as  they  be  an  assembly  of  men  not 
always  governed  with  the  Spirit  and  Word  of 
God),  they  may  err,  and  sometimes  have  erred, 
even  in  things  pertaining  to  the  rule  of  piety  ; 
wherefore  things  ordained  by  them  as  necessa- 
ry to  salvation  have  neither  strength  nor  author- 
ity, unless  it  may  be  showed  that  they  be  taken 
out  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

77.  Every  particular  church  hath  authority 
to  institute,  to  change,  and  clean  to  put  away, 
ceremonies  and  other  ecclesiastical  rites,  as  they 
be  superfluous,  or  be  abused,  and  to  constitute 
other,  making  more  to  seemliness,  to  order,  or 
edification. 

78.  As  the  churches  of  Jerusalem,  Alexan- 
dria, and  Antioch  have  erred,  so  also  the  Church 
of  Rome  hath  erred,  not  only  in  those  things 
which  concern  matters  of  practice  and  point  of 
ceremonies,  but  also  in  matters  of  faith. 

79.  The  power  which  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
now  chalJengelh,  to  be  the  supreme  head  of  the 
universal  Gliurch  of  Christ,  and  to  be  above  all 
emperors,  kings,  and  princes,  is  a  usurped  pow- 
er, contrary  to  the  Scriptures  and  Word  of  God, 
and  contrary  to  the  example  of  the  primitive 
Church,  and  therefore  is,  for  most  just  causes, 
taken  away  and  abolished  within  the  king's 
majesty's  realms  and  dominions. 

80.  The  Bishop  of  Rome  is  so  far  from  being 
the  supreme  head  of  the  universal  Church  of 
Christ,  that  his  works  and  doctrine  do  plainly 
discover  him  to  be  that  man  of  sin  foretold  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  '•  whom  the  Lord  shall  con- 
sume with  the  spirit  of  his  mouth,  and  abolish 
with  the  brightness  of  his  coming." 

Of  the  Stale  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament. 

81.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  commandments 
of  the  law  were  more  largely,  and  the  promises 
of  Christ  more  sparingly  and  darkly,  propound- 
ed ;  shadowed  with  a  multitude  of  types  and 
figures,  and  so  much  more  generally  and  ob- 
scurely delivered,  as  the  manifesting  of  them 
was  farther  off. 

82.  The  Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to 
the  New ;  for  both  in  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment everlasting  life  is  offered  to  mankind  by 
Christ,  who  is  the  only  mediator  between  God 
and  man,  being  both  God  and  man  ;  wherefore 
they  are  not  to  be  heard  which  feign  that  the 
old  fathers  did  look  only  for  transitory  promises, 
for  they  looked  for  all  the  benefits  of  God  the 
Father,  through  the  merits  of  his  Son  Jesus 
Christ,  as  we  now  do  ;  only  they  believed  in 
Christ  which  should  come,  we  in  Christ  already 
come. 

83.  The  New  Testament  is  full  of  grace  and 
truth,  bringing  joyful  tidings  unto  mankind,  that 
whatsoever  formerly  was  promised  of  Christ  is 
now  accomplished  ;  and  so,  instead  of  the  an- 
cient types  and  ceremonies,  exhibitelh  the  things 
themselves,  with  a  large  and  clear  declaration 
of  all  the  benefits  of  the  Gospel.  Neither  is  the 
ministry  thereof  restrained  any  longer  to  one 
circumcised  nation,  but  is  indifferently  propound- 


ed unto  all  people,  whether  they  be  Jews  or 
Gentiles  :  so  that  there  is  now  no  nation  which 
can  truly  complain  that  they  be  shut  forth  from 
the  communion  of  samts,  and  the  liberties  of 
the  people  of  God. 

84.  Although  the  law  given  from  God  by  Mo- 
ses, as  touching  ceremonies  and  rites,  be  abol- 
ished, and  the  civil  precepts  thereof  be  not  of 
necessity  to  be  received  in  any  commonwealth, 
yet  notwithstanding,  no  Christian  man  whatso- 
ever is  freed  from  the  obedience  of  the  com- 
mandments which  are  called  moral. 

Of  the  Sacraments  of  the  Neic  Testament. 

85.  The  sacraments  ordained  by  Christ  are 
not  only  badges  or  tokens  of  Christian  men's 
profession,  but  rather  certain  sure  witnesses, 
and  effectual  or  powerful  signs,  of  grace  and 
God's  good-will  towards  us,  by  which  he  doth 
work  invisibly  in  us,  and  not  only  quicken,  but 
also  strengthen  and  confirm,  our  faith  in  him. 

86.  There  be  two  sacraments  ordained  of 
Christ  our  Lord  in  the  Gospel,  that  is  to  say, 
baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper. 

87.  Those  five  which  by  the  Church  of  Rome 
are  called  sacraments,  to  wit,  confirmation,  pen- 
ance, orders,  matrimony,  and  extreme  unction, 
are  not  to  be  accounted  sacraments  of  the  Gos- 
pel, being  such  as  have  partly  grown  from  cor- 
rupt imitation  of  the  apostles,  partly  are  states 
of  life  allowed  in  the  Scriptures,  but  yet  have 
not  like  nature  of  sacraments  with  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper,  fin-  that  they  have  not  any 
visible  sign  or  ceremony  ordained  of  God,  to- 
gether with  a  promise  of  saving  grace  annexed 
thereunto. 

88.  The  sacraments  were  not  ordained  of 
Christ  to  be  gazed  upon  or  to  be  carried  about, 
but  that  we  should  duly  use  them.  And  in  such 
only  as  worthily  receive  the  same,  they  have  a 
wholesome  effect  and  operation  ;  but  they  that 
receive  them  unworthily,  thereby  draw  judgment 
upon  themselves. 

Of  Baptism. 

89.  Baptism  is  not  only  an  outward  sign  of 
our  profession,  and  a  note  of  difference,  where- 
by Christians  are  discerned  from  such  as  are  no 
Christians  ;  but  much  more,  a  sacrament  of  our 
admission  into  the  Church,  sealing  unto  us  our 
new  birth  (and,  consequently,  our  justification, 
adoption,  and  sanctification)  by  the  communion 
which  we  have  with  Jesus  Christ. 

90.  The  baptism  of  infants  is  to  be  retained 
in  the  Church,  as  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God. 

91.  In  the  administration  of  baptism,  exor- 
cism, oil,  salt,  spittle,  and  superstitious  hallow- 
ing of  the  water,  are  for  just  causes  abolished  ; 
and  without  them  the  sacrament  is  fully  and 
perfectly  administered  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, agreeably  to  the  institution  of  our  Saviour 
Christ. 

Of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

92.  The  Lord's  Supper  is  not  only  a  sign  of 
the  mutual  love  which  Christians  ought  to  bear 
one  towards  another,  but  much  more,  a  sat^ra- 
ment  of  our  preservation  in  the  Church,  sealing 
unto  us  our  spiritual  nourishment,  and  continu- 
al growth  in  Christ. 

93.  The  change  of  the  substance  of  bread  and 
wine  into  the  substance  of  the  body  aiul  blood 
of  Christ,  commonly  called  transubstantialion, 


454 


APPENDIX. 


cannot  he  proved  by  holy  writ,  but  is  repugnant 
to  plain  testimonies  of  the  Scripture,  overthrow- 
eth  the  nature  of  a  sacrament,  and  hath  given 
occasion  to  most  gross  idolatry  and  manifold 
superstitions. 

94.  In  the  outward  part  of  the  Holy  Commu- 
nion, the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  is  in  a  most 
lively  manner  represented,  being  no  otherwise 
present  with  the  visible  elements  than  things 
signified  and  sealed  are  present  with  the  signs 
and  seals  ;  that  is  to  say,  symbolically  and  rela- 
tively. But  in  the  inward  and  spiritual  part,  the 
same  body  and  blood  is  really  and  substantially 
presented  unto  all  those  who  have  grace  to  re- 
ceive the  Son  of  God,  even  to  all  those  that  be- 
lieve in  his  name.  And  unto  such  as  in  this 
manner  do  worthily  and  with  faith  repair  unto 
the  Lord's  Table,  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ 
is  not  only  signified  and  offered,  but  also  truly 
exhibited  and  communicated. 

95.  The  body  of  Christ  is  given,  taken,  and 
eaten,  in  the  Lord's  Supper,  only  after  a  heav- 
enly and  spiritual  manner  ;  and  the  iTiean  where- 
by the  body  of  Christ  is  thus  received  and  eaten 
is  faith. 

96.  The  wicked,  and  such  as  want  a  lively 
faith,  although  they  do  carnally  and  visibly,  as 
St.  Augustine  speaketh,  press  with  their  teeth 
the  sacrament  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
yet  in  nowise  are  they  made  partakers  of  Christ, 
but  rather  to  their  condenmation  do  eat  and 
drink  the  sign  or  sacrament  of  so  great  a  thing. 

97.  Both  the  parts  of  the  Lord's  sacrament, 
according  to  Christ's  institution  and  the  prac- 
tice of  the  ancient  Church,  ought  to  be  minister- 
ed unto  all  God's  people  ;  and  it  is  plain  sacri- 
lege to  rob  them  of  the  mystical  cup,  for  whom 
Clirist  hath  shed  his  most  precious  blood. 

98.  The  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  was 
not  by  Christ's  ordinance  reserved,  carried 
about,  lifted  up,  or  worshipped. 

99.  The  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  wherein  the 
priest  is  said  to  offer  up  Christ  for  obtaining  the 
remission  of  pain  or  guilt  for  the  quick  and  the 
dead,  is  neither  agreeable  to  Christ's  ordinance, 


nor  grounded  upon  doctrine  apostolic  ;  but  con- 
trariwise, most  ungodly,  and  most  injurious 
to  that  all-sufficient  sacrifice  of  our  Saviour 
Christ,  offered  once  forever  upon  the  cross, 
which  is  the  only  propitiation  and  satisfaction 
for  all  our  sins. 

100.  Private  mass,  that  is,  the  receiving  the 
Eucharist  by  the  priest  alone,  without  a  compe- 
tent number  of  communicants,  is  contrary  to  the 
institution  of  Christ. 

Of  the  Slate  of  the  Souls  of  Men  after  they  he  de- 
parted out  of  this  Life,  together  with  the  general 
Resurrection  and  the  last  Judgment. 

101.  After  this  life  is  ended,  the  souls  of  God's 
cliildren  are  presently  received  into  heaven, 
there  to  enjoy  unspeakable  comforts  ;  the  souls 
of  the  wicked  are  cast  into  hell,  there  to  endure 
endless  torments. 

102.  The  doctrine  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
concerning  limhus  patrum,  limbus  puerorum,  pur- 
gatory, prayer  for  the  dead,  pardons,  adoration 
of  images  and  relics,  and  also  invocation  of 
saints,  is  vainly  invented,  without  all  warrant 
of  Holy  Scripture,  yea,  and  is  contrary  to  the 
same. 

103.  At  the  end  of  this  world  the  Lord  Jesus 
shall  come  in  the  clouds  with  the  glory  of  his 
Father,  at  which  time,  by  the  almighty  power 
of  God,  the  living  shall  be  changed,  and  the  dead 
shall  be  raised,  and  all  shall  appear  both  in  body 
and  soul  before  his  judgment-seat,  to  receive 
according  to  that  which  they  have  done  in  theii 
bodies,  whether  good  or  evil. 

104.  When  the  last  judgment  is  finished, 
Christ  shall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  his  Fa- 
ther, and  God  shall  be  all  in  all. 

The  Decree  of  the  Synod. 
If  any  minister,  of  what  degree  or  quality  so- 
ever he  be,  shall  publicly  teach  any  doctrine 
contrary  to  these  articles  agreed  upon,  if,  after 
due  admonition,  he  do  not  conform  himself,  and 
cease  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  Church,  let  him 
be  silenced,  and  deprived  of  all  spiritual  promo- 
tions he  doth  enjoy. 


No.  VII. 
ARTICLES  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND,  THE  ARTICLES  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND, 

Revised  and  altered  by  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  at  Westmin- 
ster, in  the  year  1643,  with  Scripture  References. 

AUTICLE    I.  ARTICLE    I. 

Of  Faith  in  the  Holy  Trinity.  Of  Faith  in  the  Holy  Trinity. 

There  is  but  one(l)  living-  ami  true  God, (2)  everlast-  There  is  but  one  living  and  true  God,everlasting,  with- 

ing',(3)  without  body,  parts, (4)  or  passions  ;(5)  of  infinite  out  body,  parts,  or  passions  ;  of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and 

power,(6)  wisdom, (7)  and  goodness  ;(8)   the  maker  and  pre-  goodness  ;  the  maker  and  preserver  of  all  things,  both  visible 

server  of  all  things,  both  visible   and  invisible. (9)     And  in  and  invisible.     And  in  unity  of  this  Godhead  there  be  three 

unity  of  this  Godhead  there  be  three  persons,  of  one  sub-  persons,  of  one  substance,  power,  and  eternity,  the  Father, 

stance,  power,  and  eternity,  tlje  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Holy  Ghost.{10) 

ARTICLE    II.  ARTICLE    H. 

Of  the  Ward,  or  Son  of  God,  which  was  made  very  Man.  Of  the  Word,  or  Son  of  God,  which  was  made  very  Man. 

The  Son,  which  is  the  Word  of  the  Father,  begotten  from  The  Son,  which  is  the  Word  of  the  Father,  begotten  from 

everlasting  of  the    Father,(Il)   the   very(12)   and   eternal  everlasting  of  the   Father,  the   very  and   eternal  God,  of 

God, (13)  of  one  substance  with  the  Father, (14)  took  man's  one  substance  with  the  Father,  tooit  man's  nature   in  the 

nature  in  the    womb  of   the  blessed    Virgin,   of  her  sub-  womb  of  the  blessed  Virgin,  of  her  substance  ;  so  that  two 

stance  ;(15)  so  that  two  whole  and  perfect  natures,  that  is  whole  and  perfect  natures,  that  is  to  say,  the  Godhead  and 

to  say,  the  Godhead  and  the  manhood,  were  joined  together  manhood,  were  joined  together  in  one  person,  never  to  be 

in  one  person,  never  to  he  divided,  whereof  is  one  Christ,  divided,  whereof  is  one  Christ,  very  God  and  very  man,  who 

very  God  and  very  man,(16)  who  for  our  sakes  truly  suffer-  truly  suftered,  was  crucified,  dead,  and  buried,  to  reconcile 

(I)  Isa.,  xlvi.,  9.  1  Cor.,  viii.,  4,  6.— (2)  Jer.,  x.,  10.  1  Thes.,  i.,  9.— (3)  Psal.  xc,  2.  Rom.,  xvi.,26  —(4)  Deut.,  it., 
15,  16.  John,  iv.,  24,  with  Luke,  xxiv.,  39.— (5)  Acts,  xiv.,  15.  James,  i.,  17.— (6)  Jer.,  xxxii.,  17,  27.  Mark,  x.,  27.— 
(7)  Psal.  cxlvii.,  5.  Rom.,  xi.,  33.— (8)  Psal.  cxix.,  68,  with  Matt.,  xix.,  17.— (9)  Neh.,  ix.,  6.  Col.,  i.,  16,  17.— (10)  Matt., 
Hi.,  Ifi,  17  ;  xxviii.,  19.  I  John,  iv.,  7.  2  Cor.,  xiii.,  14  —(11)  Prov.,  vii.,  22-31.  .Tohn,  i.,  12,  14.— (12)  1  John,  v.,  20. 
Rom.,  IX.,  5.— (13)  John,  xvii.,  5.  Heb.,  i.,  8,  with  Psal.  xlv.,  6.— (14)  John,  x.,  30.  Heb.,  i..  3.  — (15)  John,  i.,  14.  Isa., 
vii.,  14.     Luke,  1.,  35.     Gal.,  iv.,  4.— (16)  Isa.,  vii.,  14,  with  Matt.,  i.,  23.     Rom.,  i.,  3,  4.     Heb.,  xiii.,  8. 


APPENDIX 


455 


A  rtichs  revised. 
ed  most  grievous  torments  in  his  soul  from  God, (I)  was 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried, (2)  to  reconcile  his  Father  to 
us,(3)  and  to  be  a  sacrifice,  not  only  for  original  guilt,  but 
also  for  actual  sins  of  men.  (4) 

ARTICLE    III. 

As  Christ  died  for  us,  and  was  buried,  so  it  is  to  be  be- 
lieved that  he  continued  in  the  state  of  the  dead,  and  under 
the  power  and  dominion  of  death, (5)  from  the  time  of  his 
death  and  burial  until  his  resurrection  ;(6)  which  hath 
been  otherwise  expressed  thus  :  he  went  down  into  hell. 

ARTICLE  IV. 
Of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ. 
Christ  did  truly  rise  again  from  death, {")  and  took  again 
his  body,  with  flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining  to 
the  perfection  of  man's  nature, (8)  wherewith  he  ascend- 
ed into  heaven,  and  there  sitteth,(9)  until  he  return  to 
judge(lO)  all  mpn(ll)  at  the  general  resurrection  of  the 
body  at  the  last  day.(12) 

ARTICLE    V. 

Of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Holy  Ghost  is  very  and  eternal    God,  of  one   sub- 
stance,(13)  majesty, (14)  and  glory,  with  the  Father  and  the 
Son, (15)  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the  Son. (16) 

ARTICLE    VI. 

Of  the  Sufficiency  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  for  Salvation. 

Holy  Scriptured")  containeth  all  things  necessary  to  sal- 
vation ;(18)  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  therein,  nor  may 
be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  believed  as  an  article  of  faith, 
or  necessary  to  salvation. (19) 

By  the  name  of  Holy  Scripture  we  understand  all  the  ca- 
nonical Books  of  the  01   and  New  Testament  which  follow  : 


Of  the  Old  Testament. 
Genesis,  Exodus,  &c. 

Of  the  New  Testament. 
The  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  &c. 

All  which  books,  as  they  are  commonly  received,  we  do 
receive,  and  acknowledge  them  to  be  given  by  the  inspira- 
tion of  God  ;  and  in  that  regard,  to  be  of  most  certain  credit, 
and  highest  authority. 


Articles  of  the  Church  of  England. 
his  Father  to  us,  and  to  be  a  sacrifice,  not  only  for  original 
guilt,  but  also  for  all  actual  sins  of  men. 


ARTICLE    III. 


Of  the  going  down  of  Christ  into  Hell. 

As  Christ  died  for  us,  and  was  buried,  so  also  is  it  to  bu 
bebeved  that  he  went  down  into  hell. 


ARTICLE  IV. 
Of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ 
Christ  did  truly  rise  again  from  death,  and  took  again  his 
body,  with  flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining  to  the 
perfection  of  man's  nature,  wherewith  he  ascended  into 
heaven,  and  there  sitteth.  until  he  return  to  judge  all  men 
at  the  last  day. 

ARTICLE    V. 

Of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Holy  Ghost,  proceeding  from  the  Father  and   the 
Son,  is  of  one  substance,  majesty,  and  glory  with  the  Fa- 
ther and  the  Son,  very  and  eternal  God. 

ARTICLE    VI. 

Of  the  Sufficiency  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  for  Salvation 

Holy  Scripture  containeth  all  things  necessary  to  salva- 
tion ;  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read  therein,  nor  maybe 
proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  required  of  any  man  that  it 
should  be  believed  as  an  article  of  the  faith,  or  be  thought 
requisite  or  necessary  to  salvation.  In  the  name  of  the  Holy 
Scripture,  we  do  understand  those  canonical  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  of  whose  authority  was  never  any 
doubt  in  the  Church. 

Of  the  Names  and  Number  of  the  Canonical  Books. 
Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  &c. 

And  the  other  books,  as  Hierome  saith,  the  Church  doth 
read  for  example  of  life  and  instruction  of  manners,  but  yet 
doth  it  not  apply  them  to  establish  any  doctrine  :  such  are 
these  following : 

Third  of  Esdras,  Book  of  Tobias,  Fourth  of  Esdras,  .Ju- 
dith, &c. 

All  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  as  they  are  com- 
monly received,  we  do  receive,  and  account  them  for  canon- 
ical. 

ARTICLE    VII. 

Of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to  the  New  ;  for  both 
in  the  Old  and  new  Testament  everlasting  life  is  offered  to 
mankind  by  (Christ,  who  is  the  only  mediator  between  God 
and  man,  being  both  God  and  man.  Wherefore  they  are 
not  to  be  heard  which  feign  that  the  old  fathers  did  look 
only  for  transitory  promises.  Although  the  law  given  from 
God  by  Moses,  as  touching  ceremonies  and  rites,  do  not 
bind  Christian  men  ;  nor  the  civil  precepts  thereof  ought  of 
necessity  to  be  received  in  any  commonwealth  ;  yet  not- 
withstanding, no  Christian  man  whatsoever  is  free  from  the 
obedience  of  the  commandments  which  are  called  moral. 


ARTICLE    VII. 

Of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to  the  New,  in  the 
doctrine  contained  in  them  ;{20)  for  both  in  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  everlasting  life  is  offered  to  mankind  by 
Christ,(21)  who  is  the  only  mediator  between  God  and 
man, (22)  being  both  God  and  man. (23)  Wherefore  they 
are  not  to  be  heard  which  feign  that  the  old  fathers  did 
Jook  only  for  temporary  promises.(24) 

Although  the  law  given  from  God  by  Moses,  as  touching 
ceremonies  and  rites,  do  not  bind  Christians  ;(25)  nor  the 
civil  precppts  given  by  Moses,  such  as  were  peculiarly  fitted 
to  the  commonwealth  of  the  Jews,  are  of  necessity  to  be  re- 
ceived in  any  commonwealth  ;(26)  yet  notwithstanding,  no 
Christian  man  whatsoever  is  free  from  the  obedience  of 
the  commandments  which  are  called  moral. (27)  By  the 
moral  law,  we  understand  all  the  Ten  Commandments  taken 
in  their  full  extent. 

ARTICLE    VIII. 

Of  the  Three  Creeds. 

The  three  creeds,  Nice  Creed,  Athanasius's  Creed,  and 

that  which  is  commonly  called  the  Apostles'  Creed,  ought 

thoroughly  to  be  received  and   believed,   for  they  may  be 

proved  by  most  certain  Warrants  of  holy  writ. 

(1)  Isa.,  liii.,  10,  11.  Mark,  xiv.,  33,  34.— (2)  I  Peter,  ii.,  24.  Phil.,  ii.,  1.  1  Cor.,  xv.,  3,  4.— 13)  Ezek.,  ivi.,  63 
Rom.,  iii.,  25.  2  Cor.,  v.,  12.— (4)  Isa.,  liii.,  10.  Eph.,  v.,  2.  1  John,  i.,  7.  Heb.,  ix.,  26.— (5)  Psal.  xvi.,  10,  with 
Acts,  ii., 24-27,  31 —(6)  Rom.,  vi.,9.  Matt.,  xii.,  40.— (7)  1  Cor.,  xv.,  4.  Roin.,  viii.,  34.  Psal.  xvi.,  10,  with  Acts,  ii., 
31.  Luke,  xxiv.,  34 —(8)  Luke,  xxiv.,  39,  with  John,  xx.,  25,  27.— (9)  Psal.  Ixviii.,  18,  with  Eph.,  iv.,  8.  Psal.  ex.,  J, 
■with  Acts,  ii.,  34,  35.  Mark,  xix.,  10.  Rom.,  viii.,  34.— (10)  Act.s,  iii.,  21.  Psal.  ex.,  1,  with  1  Cor.,  xv.,  25, 26.  Acts,  i.. 
ll.— (1 1)  2  Cor.,  v.,  20.  Acts,  xvii.,  34.— (12)  Exod.,  iii.,  6,  with  Luke,  XX.,  37,  38.  Acts,  xxiv.,  14,15.  1  Cor.,  xv.,  12, 
tothe  end.  John, v.,  28,  29.— (13)  2  Sam.,xxiii.,  2,  3.  Isa.,  vi.,  5,  8,  with  Acts,  xxviii.,25,  andv.,  3,  4.  1  Cor.,  iii.,  16, 
and  vi..  19.— (14)  Job,  ixvi.,  13,  33,  34.  1  Cor.,  xii.  Matt.,  xx^-iii.,  19.  2  Cor.,  xiii..  14.— (15)  1  Cor,  xii  ,  1 1.  Eph., 
i.,  17,  and  1  Cor.,ii.,8,  with  1  Pet.,  iv.,  14.— (16)  John,  xv.,  26,  and  Matt.,  i.,  20,  and  1  Cor.,  ii.,  11,  12.  wuh  Gal.,  iv., 
6,  and  Rom.,  viii.,  9,  and  Phil.,  i.,  9.  John,  xvi.,  14.  Isa.,  xi.,  2.  Isa.,  Ixi.,  1.  Gen.,  i.,  2.  2  Chron.,  xv.,  1.— 
U7)Rom.,  i,2.  2  Tim.,  iii.,  15.  2  Pet.,  i.,  20,  21.— (18)  Psal.  xix.,  7.  2  Tim.,  iii.,  15-17.  James,  i.,  21,  25.  Acts, 
xi.,32.— (19)  Prov.,xxx.,5,  6.  Isa.,  viii.,20.  Acts,  xrvi.,  22,  with  ver.  20,  27.  Gal.,  i.,  8,  9.  John,  v.,  39.— (20)  Acis, 
xxvi.,  21,  23.  2  Pet.,  iii.,  2.  Luke,  xxiv.,  44.  Rom.,  iii.,  31.  Gal.,  iii.,  21,  23,  24.— (21)  Gen.,  iii,  15  ;  xxii.,  18,  with 
Gal.,  iii.,  8,  14.  1  Cor.,  x.,  2-4.  Luke,  i.,  69,  70.  Acts,  iii.,  24.  Isa.,  liii.— (22)  Dan.,  ix.,  17.  Rom.,  viii.,  .14.  1 
John,ii.,l.  Heb.,vii.,25.  1  Tim.,  ii.,  5.  John,  xiv.,  6.— (23)  Gal.,  iv.,  4,  5.  Acts,  xx.,2S.  Phil.,  ii.,  7,  8.— (24)  Acts, 
xxvi,6,  7.  Rom.,  iv.,  11.  Gal.,  iii.,  9.  Heb.,  xi.,  10,  16,  35.- (25)  Gal.,  iv.,  9,  10.  Col.,  ii.,  14,  16,  17.  Heb.,  ix.,  9. 
10.— (26)  Acts,  IXT.,  9,  10,  25,  with  Deut.,  xvii.,  8-13.  Rom.,  xiii..  1,  5.  Tit.,  iii.,  1.  1  Pet.,  ii.,  13,  14.— (27)  Matt., 
».,  17,  to  the  end.     Rom.,  xiii.,  8-10.     Eph.,  vi.,  1-3.     James,  ii.,  &-I2.     Rom.,  vii.,  25;  iii.,  31.     Matt.,  vii.,  12. 


456 


APPENDIX. 


Articles  revised. 

ARTICLE  IX. 
0/  Original  or  Birth  Sin. 
On-final  sin(l)  standeth  not  in  the  following  of  Adam, 
as  the  l\'la^;miis  do  vainly  talk, (2)  but,  together  with  his 
(irst  sill  iiM|iuu;d,  it  )s  the  fault  and  corruption  of  the  nature 
of  evc-ry  man  that  naturally  is  propagated  from  Adam  ;(3) 
whcreliy  man  is  wholly  deprived  of  original  righteous- 
ness,(4)  and  is  of  his  own  nature  inclined  only  to  evil.(5) 
So  that  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  called  in  Greek  (ppovrj/ia  aupKui, 
winch  some  do  expound  the  wisdom,  some  sensuality,  some 
the  affection,  some  the  desire  of  the  flesh,  is  not  subject  to 
the  law  of  God  ;(6)  and,  therefore,  in  every  person  born  into 
this  world,  it  deserveth  God's  wrath  and  damnation. (7) 
And  this  infection  of  nature  doth  remain,  yea,  in  them  that 
are  regenerate, (8)  whereby  the  flesh  lusteth  always  con- 
trary to  the  Spirit. (9)  And  although  there  is  no  condem- 
nation for  them  that  are  regenerate,  and  do  believe, (10)  yet 
the  apostle  doth  confess  that  concupiscence  and  lust  is  truly 
and  properly  sin.()l) 

ARTICLE    I. 

Of  Free- Will. 
The  condition  of  man  after  the  fall  of  Adam  is  such,  that 
he  cannot  turn  or  prepare  himself,  by  his  own  natural 
strength  and  good  works,  to  faith  and  calling  upon  God  ;( 12) 
wherefore  we  have  no  power  to  do  good  works  pleasing  and 
acceptable  to  God, (13)  without  the  grace  of  God  by  Christ, 
both  preventing  us,  that  we  may  have  a  good  will,  and 
working  so  efl'ectually  in  us,  as  that  it  determineth  our  will 
to  do  that  which  is  good,(  14)  and  also  working  with  us  when 
we  have  that  will  unto  good. (15) 

ARTICLE    XI. 

Of  the  Justification  of  Man  before  God. 

We  are  justified,  that  is,  we  are  accounted  righteous  be- 
fore God,  and  have  remission  of  sins, (16)  not  for  nor  by  our 
own  works  or  deservings,(17)  but  freely  by  his  grace, (18) 
only  for  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ's  sake,(l9)  his 
whole  obedience  and  satisfaction  being  by  God  imputed 
unto  us, (20)  and  Christ,  with  his  righteousness,  being  ap- 
prehended and  rested  on  by  faith  only.(21)  The  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  otdyis  a  wholesome  doctrine,  and  very 
full  of  comfort  ;(2a)  notwithstanding,  God  doth  not  forgive 
them  that  are  impenitent,  and  go  on  still  in  their  trespass- 
es.(23) 

ARTICLE    XII. 

Of  Good  Works. 

Good  worlis,  which  are  the  fruits  of  faith, (24)  and  follow 
after  justification, (25)  csniiot  put  away  our  sins, (26)  and 
endure  the  severity  of  God's  judgment  ;(27)  yet  are  they, 
notwithstanding  their  imperfections,  in  the  sight  of  God 
pleasing  and  acceptable  unto  him  in  and  for  Christ, (28)  and 
do  spring  out  necessarily  of  a  true  and  lively  faith, (29)  in- 
somuch that  by  them  a  lively  faith  may  be  evidently  known 
as  a  tree  discerned  by  the  fruits. (30) 
ARTICLE  xm. 
Of  Works  before  Justification. 

Works  done  before  justification  by  Christ,  and  regenera- 
tion by  his  Spirit,  are  not  pleasing  unto  God, (31)  forasmuch 
as  they  spring  not  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  :(32)  neither  do 
they  make  men  meet  to  receive  grace,  or  (as  the  school  au- 
thors say)  deserve  grace  of  congruity  ;  yea,  rather,  for  that 
they  are  not  done  as  God  hath  willed  and  commanded  them 
to  be  done,  they  are  sinful. (33) 

ARTICLE    XIV. 

Of  Works  of  Supererogation. 
Voluntary  works,  besides  over  and  above  God's  command- 
ments, which  they  call  works  of  supererogation,  cannot  be 
taught(34)  without  arrogancy  and  impiety  ;(35)  for  by  them 
we  do  declare  that  they  do  not  only  render  unto  God  as 


Articles  of  the  Church  of  England. 
ARTICLE  IX. 
Of  Original  or  Birth  Sin. 
Original  sin  standeth  not  in  the  following  of  Adam,  as  the' 
Pelagians  do  vainly  talk,  but  it  is  the  fault  and  corruption 
of  the  nature  of  every  man  that  naturally  is  engendered  of 
the  offspring  of  Adam,  whereby  man  is  very  far  gone  from 
original  righteousness,  and  is  of  liis  own  nature  inclined  to 
evil,  so  that  the  flesh  lusteth  always  contrary  to  the  Spirit, 
and  therefore  in  every  person  born  into  this  world,  it  de- 
serveth God's  wrath  and  damnation.  And  this  infection  of 
nature  doth  remain,  yea,  in  them  that  are  regenerated, 
whereby  the  lust  ol  the  flesh,  called  in  Greek  tppovrtnn  anfi- 
(cfli,  which  some  do  expound  the  wisdom,  some  sensuality, 
some  the  affection,  some  the  desire  of  the  flesh,  is  not  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  God.  And  although  there  is  no  condem- 
nation for  them  that  believe  and  are  baptized,  yet  the  apos- 
tle doth  confess  that  concupiscence  and  lust  hath  of  itself 
the  nature  of  sin. 

ARTICLE    X. 

Of  Free- Will 

The  condition  of  man  after  the  fall  of  Adam  is  such  that 
he  cannot  turn  and  prepare  himself  by  his  own  natural 
strength  and  good  works  to  faith  and  calling  upon  God. 
Wherefore  we  have  no  power  to  good  works  pleasant  and 
acceptable  to  God,  without  the  grace  of  God  by  Christ  pre- 
venting us,  that  we  may  have  a  good  will,  and  working  with. 
us  when  we  have  that  good  v.'ill. 


ARTICLE  XI. 
Of  the  Justification  of  Man. 
We  are  accounted  righteous  before  God  only  for  the 
merit  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  (Jhrlst,  by  faith,  and 
not  for  our  own  works  or  deservings.  Wherefore,  that  we 
are  justified  by  faith  only,  is  a  must  wholesome  dortnnei, 
and  very  full  of  comfort,  as  more  largely  expressed  in  the 
homily  of  justification. 


ARTICLE  XII. 
Of  Good  Works. 
Albeit  that  good  works,  which  are  the  fruits  of  faith,  and 
follow  after  justification,  cannot  put  away  our  sins,  and  en- 
dure the  severity  of  God's  judgment,  yet  are  they  pleasing 
and  acceptable  to  God  in  Christ,  and  do  spring  out  neces- 
sarily of  a  true  and  lively  faith,  insomuch  that  by  them  a 
lively  faith  may  be  as  evidently  known  as  a  tree  discerned 
by  the  fruit. 

ARTICLE    XIII. 

Of  Works  before  Justification. 

Works  done  before  the  grace  of  Christ  and  the  inspiration 

of  his  Spirit  are  not  pleasant  to  God,  forasmuch  as  they 

spring  not  of  faith  in   Jesus   Christ,  neither  do  they  make 

men  meet  to  receive  grace,  or  (as  the  school  authors  say) 

deserve  grace  of  congruity  ;  yea,  rather,  for  tliat  they  are 

not  done  as  God   hath  willed  and  commanded  them  to  be 

done,  we  doubt  not  but  they  have  the  nature  of  sin. 

ARTICLE    XIV. 

Of  Works  of  Supererogation. 

Voluntary  works,  besides  over  and  above  God's  command- 
ments, which  they  call  works  of  supererogation,  cannot  be 
taught  without  arrogancy  and  impiety  ;  for  by  them  men 
do  declare  that  they  do  not  only  render  unto  God  as  much 


(1)  Psal.  li.,  5.  .John,  iii.,  5,  0.— (2)  Job,  xiv.,  4  ;  xv.,  14.  Rom.,  vi.,  6.  John,  ill.,  3,  5,  7.— (3)  Rom.,  v.,  12-19 
Gen.,  ii.,  17,  with  I  Cor.,  xv.,  22.— (4)  Col.,  ii.,  13.  Rom.,  vii.,  1.8.  Eccl.,  vii.,  29.-(5)  Gen.,  vl.,  5  ;  viii.,  21.  Jer., 
xvii.,  9.  Rom.,  vii.,  8.  James,  i,  14.— (6)  Rom.,  viii.,  7.  1  Cor.,  ii.,  14.  Col.,  i.,  21.— (7)  Eph.,  ii.,  3.  Rom.,  viii., 
G,  7.— (8)  Prov.,  XX.,  9.  Rom.,  vii.,  17,  20,  23,  25.— (9)  Gal.,  v.,  17.— (10)  Rom.,  viii.,  I,  13.  John,  ill.,  13.-(11)  Rom., 
?iii.,  17,  20.— (12)  Eph.,  li.,  1,  5.  1  Cor.,  ii  ,  14.  Eph.,  ii.,  8-10.  .lohn,  vi.,  44,  65.— (13)  Rom.,  viii.,  8.  Heb.,  xi.,  6. 
— (14)  Ezek.,  xi.,  19,  20;  xxxvi.,  26,  27.  Jer,  xxxi.,  32,  33,  with  Heb.,  x.,  11.  Phil.,  li.,  12,  13.  John,vi.,45.  Eph., 
i.,  19,  20.  1  Cor.,  IV.,  7.— (15)  Heb.,  xiii.,  21.  Phil.,  viii.,  1,  6.  Heb.,  xii.,  22.  1  Pet.,  v.,  10.  1  Thes.,  v.,  23,  24.  1 
Kings,  viii.,  57,  58.— (16)  Rom.,  iv.,  5-7.  Psal.  xxxil.,  1,  2.— (17)  Rom.,  iii.,  20.  Gal.,  ii.,  16;  lii.,  10,  II.  Phil.,  in., 
9.— (18)  Rom.,  iii.,  24.  Tit.,  ill.,  7.— (19)  Rom.,  iii.,  24,  25  ;  v.,  1.  2  Cor.,  v.,  18,  19.— (20)  Rom.,  v.,  9,  17-19  ;  iii..  25, 
26  ;  iv.,  6,  24.  2  Cor.,  v.,  21.— (21)  Rom.,  in.,  22,  25,  26,  28.  Gal.,  ii.,  16.  Isa.,  xxviii.,  16,  with  Rom.,  ix.,  33,  and  1 
Pet.,  ii.,  6.  Phil.,  iii.,  9.— (22)  2  Tim.,  i.,  13.  Rom.,  v.,  1,  2,  8,  11  ;  xv.,  13.  I  Pet.,  i.,  8.— 123)  Psal.  l.xviii..  20.  21. 
Exod.,  xxxlv.,  fi,  7.  Luke,  xlii.,  3,  5.— (24)  Gal.,  v.,  6.  James,  ii.,  17,  18.  22.— (25)  Tit.,  ii.,  14  ;  in.,  7,  8.  Eph.,  n., 
8,  9,  18.— (26)  Rom,,  iii.,  20,  21  ;  iv.,  4-9.  Dan.,  ix.,  18,  19.— (27)  Neh.,  xlii..  22.  Fsal.  cxliii.,  2.  Job.  ix.,  14,  J5,  19, 
20.  Exod.,  xxviii.,  38.  Rev.,  viii.,  3,  4.— (28)  1  Peter,  li.,  5.  Ilcb.,  xiii.,  16,  20,  21.  Col.,  i.,  10.  Phil.,  iv.,  18  — 
(29)  James,  ii.,  16.  1  John,  i.,  4.— (30)  James,  ii.,  18,  19.  John,  xv.,  4,  5.  1  John,  ii.,  3,  5.  Malt.,  xn.,  ,13.— (31)  Tit., 
i.,  15,  10.  .Matt.,  vii.,  18.  Rom.,  viii  ,  8.  Prov.,  xv.,  8,  26  ;  xxi.,  27.  Rom.,  iii.,  12.— (321  Heb.,  xi.,  5.6.  Gdl.,  v..  6 
— (33)  2  Tim.,  i.,  9.  John,  i.,  13.  Rom.,  viii.,  7,  8.  Hag.,  ii.,  14.  Isa.,  Iviii.,  1-5  ;  Ixv,.,  2.  3.— (34)  Watt.,  v.,  48  . 
Mark,  xii.,  30,  31.     Phil.,  iv.,  8,  9.— (35)  Job,  ix.,  2,  3,  20,  21.     Psal.  cxliii.,  2.     Prov.,  xx.,  9.     Phil.,  in.,  8-15. 


APPENDIX. 


45T 


Articles  revised. 
much  as  they  are  bound  to  do,  but  that  they  do  more  for 
kis  sake  than  of  bounden  duty  is  required  ;  whereas  Christ 
saith  plainly,  "  When  ye  have  done  all  those  things  that 
are  commanded  you,  say.  We  jire  unprofitable  servants,  we 
kave  done  that  which  was  our  duty  to  do."(l) 

ARTICLE    XV. 
Of  Christ  alone  without  Sin. 
Christ,  in  the  truth  of  our  nature,  was  made  like  unto  us 
all  things,  sin  only  excepted, (2)   from   which  he    was 
early  void  both  in  his  flesh  and  in  his  spirit ;  he  came  to 
the    Lamb  without  spot, (3)   who,   by  sacrifice   of  him- 
»elf(4)  once   made, (5)  should   take   away  the   sins  of  the 
world  ;(6)  and  sin  (as  St.  .Tohn  saith)  was  not  in  hira.(7) 
But  all  we  the  rest,  although  baptized  and  regenerate,  yet 
offend  in  many  things  ;  and  "  if  we  say  we  have  no  sin,  we 
deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth  is  not  in  us. "(8) 


N.B.  The  Assembly  proceeded  no  farther  in  the  revisal. 


Articles  of  the  Church  of  England. 
as  they  are  bound  to  do,  but  that  they  do  more  for  his  sake 
than  of  bounden  duty   is  required  ;   whereas   Christ  saith 
plainly,  "  When  ye  have  done  all  that  are   commanded  to 
you,  say,  We  are  unprofitable  servants." 

ARTICLE  XV. 
Of  Christ  alone  without  Sin. 
Christ,  in  the  truth  of  our  nature,  was  made  like  unto  us 
in  all  things,  sin  only  except,  from  which  he  was  clearly 
void,  both  in  his  flesh  and  in  his  spirit.  He  came  to  be  a 
Lamb  without  spot,  who,  by  sacrifice  of  himself  once  made, 
should  take  away  the  sins  of  the  world  ;  and  sin  (as  St. 
John  saith)  was  not  in  him.  But  all  the  rest  (although 
baptized,  and  bom  again  in  Christ)  yet  offend  in  many 
things;  and  "if  we  say  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  our- 
selves and  the  truth  is  not  in  us." 

Charles  Herle,  Prolocutor. 
Henry  Roborough,  Scribe. 
Adoniram  Byfield,  Scribe. 


No.  VIII. 

THE  DIRECTORY  FOR  THE  PUBLIC  WORSHIP 
OF  GOD, 

Agreed  upon  by  the  Assemlily  of  Divines  at  West- 
minster ;  examined  and  approved,  Anno  16.54, 
hy  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land, and  ratified  by  Act  of  Parliament  the  same 

-    Year. 

THE    PREFACE. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  blessed  Reformation, 
our  wise  and  pious  ancestors  took  care  to  set 
forth  an  order  for  redress  of  many  things,  which 
they  then  by  the  Word  discovered  to  be  vain, 
erroneous,  superstitious,  and  idolatrous,  in  the 
public  worship  of  God.  This  occasioned  many 
godly  and  learned  men  to  rejoice  much  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  at  that  time  set  forth  ; 
because  the  mass,  and  the  rest  of  the  Latin 
service,  being  removed,  the  public  worship  was 
celebrated  in  our  own  tongue  ;  many  of  the 
common  people  also  received  benefit  by  hearing 
the  Scriptures  read  in  their  own  language,  which 
formerly  were  unto  them  as  a  book  that  is  seal- 
ed. 

Howbeit,  long  and  sad  experience  hath  made 
it  manifest  that  the  liturgy  used  in  the  Church 
of  England  (notwithstanding  all  the  pains  and 
religious  intentions  of  the  compilers  of  it)  hath 
pioved  an  offence,  not  only  to  many  of  the  god- 
ly at  home,  but  also  to  the  Reformed  churches 
abroad.  For,  not  to  speak  of  urging  the  read- 
ing of  all  the  prayers,  which  very  greatly  in- 
creased the  burden  of  it,  the  many  unprofitable 
and  burdensome  ceremonies  contained  in  it 
have  occasioned  much  mischief,  as  well  by  dis- 
quieting the  consciences  of  many  godly  minis- 
ters and  people,  who  could  not  yield  unto  tlieni, 
as  by  depriving  them  of  the  ordinances  of  God, 
which  they  might  not  enjoy  without  conforming 
or  subscribing  to  those  ceremonies,  sundry  good 
Christians  have  been,  by  means  thereof,  kept 
from  the  Lord's  Table,  and  divers  able  and 
faithful  ministers  debarred  from  the  exercise  of 
their  ministry  (to  the  endangering  of  many  thou- 
sand souls,  in  a  time  of  such  scarcity  of  faithful 
pastors),  and  spoiled  of  their  livelihood,  to  the 
undoing  of  them  and  their  families,   f'relates  and 

(1)  Luke,  xvii.,  10,  with  ver.  7-9.— (2)  Isa.,  liii.,  3-5. 
Heb.,  ii.,  17,  with  v.,  15.— (3)  Luke,  i.,  35,  with  Acts,  iii.. 
14.  John,  xiv.,  30.  2  Cor.,  v.,  21.  Heb.,  vii.,  26.— (4)  1 
Pet.,  i.,  19.— (5)  Eph.,  v.,  2.— (6)  Heb  ,  ix.,  2(5,  28  ;  i.,  II, 
12.— (7)  John,  i.,  29.— (8)  1  John,  iii.,  5.  James,  iii.,  2. 
1  John,  i.,  8,  10. 
Vol.  II. — M  m  m 


their  faction  have  laboured  to  raise  the  estima- 
tion of  it  to  such  a  height,  as  if  there  were  no  oth- 
er worship  or  way  of  worship  of  God  among  us 
but  only  the  Service  Book  ;  to  the  great  hinder- 
ance  of  the  preaching  of  the  Word,  and  (in  some 
places,  especially  of  late)  to  the  justlingof  it  out, 
as  unnecessary,  or,  at  best,  as  far  inferior  to  the 
reading  of  common  prayer,  which  was  made  no 
better  than  an  idol  by  many  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious people,  who,  pleasing  themselves  in  their 
presence  at  that  service,  and  their  lip-labour  ia 
bearing  a  part  of  it,  have  thereby  hardened  them- 
selves, in  their  ignorance  and  carelessness  of 
saving  knowledge  and  true  piety. 

In  the  mean  time,  papists  boasted  that  the. 
book  was  a  compliance  with  them  in  a  great 
part  of  their  service  ;  and  so  were  not  a  little 
confirmed  in  their  superstition  and  idolatry,  ex- 
pecting rather  our  return  to  them,  than  endeav- 
ouring the  reformation  of  themselves  :  in  which, 
expectation  they  were  of  late  very  much  en- 
couraged, when,  upon  the  pretended  warranla- 
bleness  of  imposing  the  former  ceremonies,  new 
ones  were  daily  obtruded  upon  the  Church. 

Add  hereunto  (which  was  not  foreseen,  but 
since  hath  come  to  pass),  that  the  liturgy  hath, 
been  a  great  means,  as  on  the  one  hand  to  make, 
and  increase  an  idle  and  unedifying  ministry,, 
which  contented  itself  with  set  forms  made  to 
their  hands  by  others,  without  putting  forth 
themselves  to  exercise  the  gift  of  prayer,  with 
which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  pleaseth  to  fur- 
nish all  his  servants  whom  he  calls  to  that  of- 
fice :  so,  on  the  other  side,  it  hath  been  (and 
ever  would  be,  if  continued)  a  matter  of  endless 
strife  and  contention  in  the  Church,  and  a  snare 
both  to  many  godly  and  faithful  muiisters,  who 
have  been  persecuted  and  silenced  upon  that  oc- 
casion, and  to  others  of  hopeful  parts,  many  of 
which  have  been,  and  more  still  would  be,  di- 
verted from  all  thoughts  of  the  ministry  to  other 
studies;  especially  in  these  later  times,  wherein 
God  vouchsafed  to  bis  people  more  and  better 
means  fiir  the  discovery  of  error  and  supersti- 
tion, and  for  attaining  of  knowledge  in  the  mys- 
teries of  godliness,  and  gifts  in  preaching  and 
prayer. 

Upon  these,  and  many  the  like  weighty  con- 
siderations, in  reference  to  the  whole  book  in 
general,  and  because  of  divers  particulars  con- 
tained in  it;  not  trom  any  love  to  novelty,  or 
intention  to  disparage  our  first  Reformers  (of 
whom  we  are  persuaded  that,  were  they  now 


453 


APPENDIX. 


alive,  they  would  join  with  us  in  this  work,  and 
■whom  we  acknowledge  as  excellent  instru- 
ments, raised  by  God,  to  begin  the  purging  and 
building  of  his  house,  and  desire  that  they  may 
be  had  of  us  and  posterity  in  everlasting  remem- 
brance, with  thankfulness  and  honour),  but  that 
we  may,  in  some  measure,  answer  the  gracious 
providence  of  God,  which  at  this  time  calleth 
upon  us  for  farther  reformation,  and  may  satis- 
fy our  own  consciences,  and  answer  the  expec- 
tation of  other  Reformed  churches,  and  the  de- 
sires of  many  of  the  godly  among  ourselves, 
and,  withal,  give  some  public  testimony  of  our 
endeavours  for  uniformity  in  Divine  worship, 
which  we  have  promised  in  our  solemn  League 
and  Covenant :  we  have,  after  earnest  and  fre- 
quent calling  upon  the  name  of  God,  and  after 
much  consultation,  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  but 
with  his  holy  Word,  resolved  to  lay  aside  the 
former  liturgy,  with  the  many  rites  and  cere- 
monies formerly  used  in  the  worship  of  God, 
and  have  agreed  upon  this  following  Directory 
for  all  the  parts  of  public  worship,  at  ordinary 
and  extraordinary  times. 

Wherein  our  care  hath  been  to  hold  forth  such 
things  as  are  of  Divine  institution  in  every  ordi- 
nance; and  other  things  we  have  endeavoured 
to  set  forth  according  to  the  rules  of  Christian 
prudence,  agreeably  to  the  general  rules  of  the 
Word  of  God  :  our  meaning  therein  being  only, 
that  the  general  heads,  the  sense  and  scope  of 
the  prayers,  and  other  parts  of  public  worship, 
being  known  to  all,  there  may  be  a  consent  of 
all  the  churches  in  those  things  that  contain 
the  substance  of  the  service  and  worship  of 
God  ;  and  the  ministers  may  be  hereby  direct- 
ed, in  their  administrations,  to  keep  like  sound- 
ness in  doctrine  and  prayer ;  and  may,  if  need 
be,  have  some  help  and  furniture  ;  and  yet  so, 
as  they  become  not  hereby  slothful  and  negli- 
gent, in  stirring  up  the  gifts  of  Christ  in  them  ; 
but  that  each  one,  by  meditation,  by  taking  heed 
to  himself,  and  the  flock  of  God  committed  to 
Jiim,  and  by  wise  observing  the  ways  of  Divine 
Providence,  may  be  careful  to  furnish  his  heart 
and  tongue  with  farther  or  other  materials  of 
prayer  and  of  exhortation  as  shall  be  needful 
upon  all  occasions. 

Of  the  assembling  of  the  Consregation,  and  their 
Behaviour  in  the  Public  Worship  of  God. 

When  the  congregation  is  to  meet  for  public 
worship,  the  people  (having  before  prepared  their 
hearts  thereunto)  ought  all  to  come,  and  join 
therein ;  not  absenting  themselves  from  the 
public  ordinances  through  negligence,  or  upon 
pretence  of  private  meetings. 

Let  all  enter  the  assembly,  not  irreverently, 
but  in  a  grave  and  seemly  manner,  taking  their 
seats  or  places  without  adoration,  or  bowing 
themselves  towards  one  place  or  other. 

The  congregation  being  assembled,  the  min- 
ister, after  solemn  calling  on  them  to  the  wor- 
shipping of  the  great  name  of  God,  is  to  begin 
with  prayer. 

"  In  all  reverence  and  humility  acknowledg- 
ing the  incomprehensible  greatness  and  majes- 
ty of  the  Lord  (in  whose  presence  they  do  then 
in  a  special  manner  appear),  and  their  own  vile- 
ness  and  unworthiness  to  approach  so  near  him, 
with  their  utter  inability  of  themselves  to  so 
great  a  work  ;  and  humbly  beseeching  him  for 


pardon,  assistance,  and  acceptance  in  the  whole 
service  then  to  be  performed  ;  and  fur  a  bless- 
ing on  that  particular  portion  of  his  Word  then 
to  be  read  ;  and  all  in  the  name  and  mediation 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

The  public  worship  being  begun,  the  people 
are  wholly  to  attend  upon  it,  forbearing  to  read 
anything  except  what  the  ministers  is  then 
reading  or  citing;  and  abstaining  much  more 
from  all  private  whisperings,  conferences,  salu- 
tations, or  doing  reverence  to  any  persons  pres- 
ent or  coming  in  ;  as  also  from  all  gazing,  sleep- 
ing, or  other  indecent  behaviour,  which  may 
disturb  the  minister  or  people,  or  hinder  them- 
selves and  others  in  the  service  of  God. 

If  any,  through  necessity,  be  hindered  from 
being  present  at  the  beginnmg,  they  ought  not, 
when  they  come  into  the  congregation,  to  be- 
take themselves  to  their  private  devotions,  but 
reverently  to  compose  themselves  to  join  with 
the  assembly  in  that  ordinance  of  God  which  is 
then  in  hand. 

Of  Public  Reading  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

Reading  of  the  Word  in  the  congregation,  be- 
ing part  of  the  public  worship  of  God  (wherein 
we  acknowledge  our  dependance  upon  him,  and 
subjection  to  him),  and  one  means  sanctified  by 
him  for  the  edifying  of  his  people,  is  to  be  per-' 
formed  by  the  pastors  and  teachers. 

Howbeit,  such  as  intend  the  ministry  may  oc- 
casionally both  read  the  Word,  and  exercise 
their  gift  in  preaching  in  the  congregation,  if 
allowed  by  the  presbytery  thereunto. 

All  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  (but  none  of  those  which  are  com- 
monly called  Apocrypha)  shall  be  publicly  read 
in  the  vulgar  tongue,  out  of  the  best  allowed 
translation,  distinctly,  that  all  may  hear  and  un- 
derstand. 

How  large  a  portion  shall  be  read  at  once  is 
left  to  the  wisdom  of  the  minister;  hut  it  is 
convenient  that  ordinarily  one  chapter  of  each 
Testament  be  read  at  every  meeting  ;  and  some- 
times more,  where  the  chapters  be  short,  or  the 
coherence  of  matter  requireth  it. 

It  is  requisite  that  all  the  canonical  books  be 
read  over  in  order,  that  the  people  may  be  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  the  whole  body  of  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  and,  ordinarily,  where  the  reading  in 
either  Testament  endeth  on  one  Lord's  Day,  it 
is  to  begin  the  next. 

We  commend,  also,  the  more  frequent  read- 
ing of  such  Scriptures  as  he  that  readeth  shall 
think  best  for  edification  of  his  hearers,  as  the 
book  of  Psalms,  and  such  like. 

When  the  minister  who  readeth  shall  judge  it 
necessary  to  expound  any  part  of  what  is  read, 
let  it  not  be  done  until  the  whole  chapter  or 
psalm  be  ended  ;  and  regard  is  always  to  be 
had  unto  the  time,  that  neither  preaching,  nor 
other  ordinances,  be  straitened  or  rendered  te- 
dious ;  which  rule  is  to  be  observed  in  all  other 
public  performances. 

Besides  public  reading  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
every  person  that  can  read  is  to  be  exhorted  to 
read  the  Scriptures  privately  (and  all  others  that 
cannot  read,  if  not  disabled  by  age  or  otherwise, 
are  likewise  to  be  exhorted  to  learn  to  read), 
and  to  have  a  Bible. 

Of  Public  Prayer  before  the  Sermon. 

After  reading  of  the  Word  (and  singing  of  the 


APPENDIX. 


4S^ 


psalm),  the  minister  who  is  to  preach  is  to  en- 
deavour to  get  his  own  and  his  hearers'  hearts 
to  be  rightly  affected  with  their  sins,  that  they 
may  all  mourn  in  sense  thereof  before  the  Lord, 
and  hunger  and  thirst  after  the  grace  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ,  by  proceeding  to  a  more  full  con- 
fession of  sin,  with  shame  and  holy  confusion 
efface,  and  to  call  upon  the  Lord  to  this  effect; 

"  To  acknowledge  our  great  sinfulness  ;  first, 
by  reason  of  original  sin,  which  (besides  the 
guilt  that  makes  us  liable  to  everlasting  damna- 
tion) is  the  seed  of  all  other  sins,  hath  depraved 
and  poisoned  all  the  faculties  and  powers  of 
soul  and  body,  doth  defile  our  best  actions,  and 
(were  it  not  restrained,  or  our  hearts  renewed 
by  grace)  would  break  forth  into  innumerable 
transgressions,  and  greatest  rebellions  against 
the  Lord,  that  ever  were  committed  by  the  vi- 
lest of  the  sons  of  men.  And,  next,  by  reason 
of  actual  sins,  our  own  sins,  the  sins  of  magis- 
trates, of  ministers,  and  of  the  whole  nation, 
unto  which  we  are  many  ways  accessory  ;  which 
sins  of  ours  receive  many  fearful  aggravations, 
we  having  broken  all  the  commandments  of  the 
holy,  just,  and  good  law  of  God,  doing  that  which 
is  forbidden,  and  leaving  undone  what  is  en- 
joined ;  and  that  not  only  out  of  ignorance  and 
infirmity,  but  also  more  presumptuously,  against 
the  light  of  our  minds,  checks  of  our  conscien- 
ces, and  motions  of  his  own  Holy  Spirit,  to  the 
contrary,  so  that  we  have  no  cloak  for  our  sins  ; 
yea,  not  only  despising  the  riches  of  God's  good- 
ness, forbearance,  and  long-suffering,  but  stand- 
ing out  against  many  invitations  and  offers  of 
grace  in  the  Gospel ;  not  endeavouring,  as  we 
ought,  to  receive  Christ  into  our  hearts  by  faith, 
■or  to  walk  worthy  of  him  in  our  lives. 

■"To  bewail  our  blindness  of  mind,  hardness 
of  heart,  unbelief,  impenitency,  security,  luke- 
warmness,  barrenness  ;  our  not  endeavouring 
after  mortification  and  newness  of  life,  nor  af- 
ter the  exercise  of  godliness  in  the  power  there- 
of; and  that  the  best  of  us  have  not  so  stead- 
fastly walked  with  God,  kept  our  garments  so 
unspotted,  nor  been  so  zealous  of  his  glory,  and 
the  good  of  others,  as  we  ought ;  and  to  mourn 
over  such  other  sins  as  the  congregation  is  par- 
ticularly guilty  of,  notwitiistanding  the  manifold 
and  great  mercies  of  our  God,  the  love  of  Christ, 
the  light  of  the  Gospel,  and  reformation  of  reli- 
gion, our  own  purposes,  promises,  vows,  solemn 
covenant,  and  other  special  obligations,  to  the 
contrary. 

"  To  acknowledge  and  confess  that,  as  we 
are  convinced  of  our  guilt,  so,  out  of  a  deep 
sense  thereof,  we  judge  ourselves  unworthy  of 
the  smallest  benefits,  most  worthy  of  God's 
fiercest  wrath,  and  of  all  the  curses  of  the  law, 
and  heaviest  judgments  inflicted  upon  the  most 
rebellious  sinners  ;  and  that  he  might  most  just- 
ly take  his  kingdom  and  Gospel  from  us,  plague 
us  with  all  sorts  of  spiritual  and  temporal  judg- 
jnents  in  this  life,  and  after  cast  us  into  utter 
darkness,  in  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire  and 
brimstone,  where  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of 
teeth  for  evermore. 

"Notwithstanding  all  which,  to  draw  near  to 
the  throne  of  grace,  encouraging  ourselves  with 
hope  of  a  gracious  answer  of  our  prayers,  in  the 
riches  and  all-sufficiency  of  that  one  only  obla- 
tion, ilie  satisfaction  and  intercession  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  at  the  right  hand  of  his  Fa- 


ther, and  our  Father  ;  and  in  confidence  of  the 
exceeding  great  and  precious  promises  of  mer- 
cy and  grace  in  the  new  covenant,  through  the 
same  Mediator  thereof,  to  deprecate  the  heavy 
wrath  and  curse  of  God,  which  we  are  not  able 
to  avoid  or  bear  ;  and  humbly  and  earnestly  to 
supplicate  for  mercy,  in  the  free  and  full  remis- 
sion of  all  our  sins  ;  and  that  only  for  the  bitter 
sufferings  and  precious  merits  of  our  only  Sav- 
iour Jesus  Christ. 

"  That  the  Lord  would  vouchsafe  to  shed 
abroad  his  love  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
seal  unto  us,  by  the  same  Spirit  of  adoption,  the 
full  assurance  of  our  pardon  and  reconciliation  ; 
comfort  all  that  mourn  in  Zion,  speak  peace  to 
the  wounded  and  troubled  spirit,  and  hind  up 
the  broken-hearted  ;  and  as  for  secure  and  pre- 
sumptuous sinners,  that  he  would  open  their 
eyes,  convince  their  consciences,  and  turn  them 
from  darkness  unto  light,  and  from  the  power 
of  Satan  unto  God,  that  they  also  may  receive 
forgiveness  of  sin,  and  an  inheritance  among 
them  that  are  sanctified  by  faith  in  Christ  Jesus. 

"  With  remission  of  sins  through  the  blood  of 
Christ,  to  pray  for  sanctification  by  his  Spirit ; 
the  mortification  of  sin  dwelling  in,  and  many 
times  tyrannizing  over  us  ;  the  quickening  of 
our  dead  spirits  with  the  life  of  God  in  Christ ; 
grace  to  fit  and  enable  us  for  all  duties  of  con- 
versation and  calling  towards  God  and  men  ; 
strength  against  temptations,  the  sanctified  use 
of  blessings  and  crosses,  and  perseverance  in 
faith  and  obedience  unto  the  end. 

"  To  pray  for  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
and  kingdom  of  Christ  to  all  nations,  for  the 
conversion  of  the  Jews,  the  fulness  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, the  fall  of  antichrist,  and  the  hastening  of 
the  second  coming  of  our  Lord  ;  for  the  deliv- 
erance of  the  distressed  churches  abroad  from 
the  tyranny  of  the  antichristian  faction,  and 
from  the  cruel  oppressions  and  blasphemies  of 
the  Turk  ;  for  the  blessing  of  God  upon  all  the 
Reformed  churches,  especially  upon  the  cliurch- 
es  and  kingdoms  of  Scotland,  England,  and  Ire- 
land, now  more  strictly  and  religiously  united 
in  the  solemn  national  League  and  Covenant ; 
and  for  our  plantations  in  the  most  remote  parts 
of  the  world  ;  more  particularly  for  that  church 
and  kingdom  whereof  we  are  members,  that 
therein  God  would  establish  peace  and  truth, 
the  purity  of  all  his  ordinances,  and  the  power 
of  godliness ;  prevent  and  remove  heresy, 
schism,  profaneness,  superstition,  security,  and 
unfruitfulness,  under  the  means  of  grace  ;  heal 
our  rents  and  divisions,  and  preserve  us  from 
breach  of  our  solemn  covenant. 

"  To  pray  for  all  in  authority,  especially  for 
the  king's  majesty,  that  God  may  make  him 
rich  in  blessings,  both  in  his  person  and  govern- 
ment ;  establish  his  throne  in  religion  and  righ- 
teousness, save  him  fiom  evil  counsel,  and  make 
him  a  blessed  and  glorious  instrutnent  for  the 
conservation  and  propagation  of  the  Gospel,  for 
the  encouragement  and  protection  of  them  that 
do  well,  the  terror  of  all  that  do  evil,  and  the 
great  good  of  the  whole  Church,  and  of  all  his 
kingdoms  ;  for  the  conversion  of  the  queen,  the 
religious  education  of  the  prince,  and  the  rest 
of  the  royal  seed  ;  for  the  comforting  the  afflict- 
ed Queen  of  Bohemia,  sister  to  our  sovereign  ; 
and  for  the  restitution  and  establishment  of  the 
illustrious  Prince  Charles,  elector  oalatine  of 


460 


APPENDIX. 


the  Rhine,  to  all  his  dominions  and  dignities  ; 
for  a  hiessing  on  our  High  Court  of  Parliament 
^vvhen  silling  in  any  of  these  kingdoms  respect- 
ively), the  nobility,  the  sutmrdinale  judges  and 
magistrates,  the  gentr}',  and  all  the  commonal- 
ty ;  for  all  pastors  and  teachers,  that  God  would 
fill  them  with  his  Spirit,  make  them  exemplari- 
]y  holy,  sober,  just,  peaceable,  and  gracious  in 
their  lives ;  sound,  faithful,  and  powerful  in 
their  ministry  ;  and  follow  all  their  labours  wiili 
abundance  of  success  and  blessing  ;  and  give 
unto  all  his  people  pastors  according  to  their 
own  heart ;  for  the  universities,  and  all  schools 
and  religious  seminaries  of  Church  and  com- 
monwealth, that  they  may  flourish  more  and 
more  in  learning  and  piety  ;  for  the  particular 
city  or  congregation,  that  God  would  pour  out  a 
blessing  upon  the  ministry  of  the  Word,  sacra- 
ments, and  discipline,  upon  the  civil  govern- 
ment, and  all  the  several  families  and  persons 
therein  ;  for  mercy  to  the  afflicted  under  any 
inward  or  outward  distress ;  for  seasonable 
weather  and  fruitful  seasons,  as  the  time  may 
require ;  for  averting  the  judgments  that  we 
either  feel,  or  fear,  or  are  liable  unto,  as  famine, 
pestilence,  the  sword,  and  such  like. 

"And,  with  confidence  of  his  mercy  to  his 
whole  Church,  and  the  acceptance  of  our  per- 
sons, through  the  merits  and  mediation  of  our 
high-priest  the  Lord  Jesus,  to  profess  that  it  is 
the  desire  of  our  souls  to  have  fellowship  with 
God,  in  the  reverend  and  conscionable  use  of 
his  holy  ordinances  ;  and  to  that  purpose,  to 
pray  earnestly  for  his  grace  and  effectual  assist- 
ance to  the  sanctificalion  of  his  holy  Sabbalh, 
the  Lord's  Day,  in  all  the  duties  thereof,  public 
and  private,  both  to  ourselves,  and  to  all  other 
congregations  of  his  people,  according  to  the 
riches  and  excellence  of  the  Gospel,  this  day 
celebrated  and  enjoyed. 

"And  because  we  have  been  unprofitable 
hearers  in  times  past,  and  now  cannot  of  our- 
selves receive,  as  we  should,  the  deep  things  of 
God,  the  mysteries  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  re- 
quire a  spiritual  discerning,  to  pray  that  the 
Lord,  who  teacheth  to  profit,  would  graciously 
please  to  pour  out  the  Spirit  of  grace,  together 
with  the  outward  means  thereof,  causing  us  to 
attain  such  a  measure  of  the  excellence  of  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  and  in  him, 
of  the  things  which  belong  to  our  peace,  that 
we  may  account  all  things  but  as  dross  in  compar- 
ison of  him  ;  and  that  we,  tasting  the  first-fruits 
of  the  glory  that  is  to  he  revealed,  may  long  for 
a  more  full  and  perfect  communion  with  him, 
that  where  he  is  we  may  be  also,  and  enjoy  the 
fulness  of  those  joys  and  pleasures  which  are 
at  his  right  hand  for  evermore. 

"  More  particularly,  that  God  would  in  spe- 
cial manner  furnish  his  servant  (now  called  to 
dispense  the  bread  of  life  unto  his  household) 
with  wisdom,  fidelity,  zeal,  and  utterance,  thai 
he  may  divide  the  Word  of  God  aright,  lo  every 
one  his  portion,  in  evidence  anil  demonstration 
of  the  Spirit  and  power  ;  and  that  the  Lord 
would  circumcise  the  ears  and  hearts  of  the 
hearers,  to  hear,  love,  and  receive  with  meek- 
ness the  ingrafted  Word,  which  is  able  to  save 
their  souls ;  make  them  as  good  ground  to  re- 
ceive in  the  good  seed  of  the  Word,  and 
strengthen  them  against  the  temptations  of  Sa- 
tan, the  cares  of  the  world,  the  hardness  of 


their  own  hearts,  and  whatsoever  else  may 
hinder  their  profitable  and  saving  hearing;  that 
so  Christ  may  be  so  formed  in  them,  and  live 
in  them,  that  all  their  thoughts  may  be  brought 
into  captivity  to  the  obedience  of  Christ,  and 
their  hearts  established  in  every  good  word  and 
work  forever." 

We  judge  this  to  be  a  convenient  order  in  the 
ordinary  public  prayers  ;  yet  so  as  the  minister 
may  defer  (as  in  prudence  he  shall  think  meet) 
some  part  of  these  petitions  till  after  his  ser- 
mon, or  offer  up  to  God  some  of  the  thanksgiv- 
ings hereafter  appointed,  in  his  prayer  before 
his  sermon. 

Of  the  Preaching  of  the  Word. 

Preaching  of  the  Word  being  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation,  and  one  of  the  greatest  and 
most  excellent  works  belonging  to  the  ministry 
of  the  Gospel,  should  be  so  performed  that  the 
workman  need  not  be  ashamed,  but  may  save 
himself,  and  those  that  hear  him. 

It  is  presupposed  (according  to  the  rules  for 
ordination)  that  the  minister  of  Christ  is  ia 
some  good  measure  gifted  for  so  weighty  a  ser- 
vice by  his  skill  in  the  original  languages,  and 
in  such  arts  and  sciences  as  are  handmaids  unto 
divinity;  by  his  knowledge  in  the  whole  body 
of  theology,  but  most  of  all  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, having  his  senses  and  heart  exercised  in 
them  above  the  common  sort  of  believers  ;  and 
by  the  illumination  of  God's  Spirit,  and  other 
gifts  of  edification,  which  (together  with  read- 
ing and  studying  of  the  Word)  he  ought  still  to 
seek  by  prayer  and  an  humble  heart,  resolving 
to  admit  and  receive  any  truth  not  yet  attained, 
whenever  God  shall  make  it  known  unto  him. 
All  which  he  is  to  make  use  of,  and  improve  in 
his  private  preparations,  before  he  deliver  in 
public  what  he  hath  provided. 

Ordinarily,  the  subject  of  his  sermon  is  to  be 
some  text  of  Scripture,  holding  forth  some 
principle  or  head  of  religion,  or  suitable  to  some 
special  occasion  emergent ;  or  he  may  go  on  in 
some  chapter,  psalm,  or  book  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, as  he  shall  see  fit. 

I.,et  the  introduction  to  his  text  be  brief  and 
perspicuous,  drawn  from  the  text  itself,  or  con- 
text, or  some  parallel  place,  or  general  sentence 
of  Scripture. 

If  the  text  be  long  (as  in  histories  and  para- 
bles it  sometimes  must  be),  let  him  give  a  brief 
sum  of  it ;  if  short,  a  paraphrase  thereof,  if  need 
be  :  in  both,  lookmg  diligently  to  the  scope  of 
the  text,  and  pointing  at  the  chief  heads  and 
groimds  of  doctrine  vvliich  he  is  to  raise  from  it. 

In  analyzing  and  dividing  his  text,  he  is  to 
regard  more  the  order  of  matter  than  of  words  ; 
and  neither  to  burden  the  memory  of  the  hear- 
ers in  the  beginning  with  too  many  members 
of  division,  nor  to  trouble  their  minds  with  ob- 
scure tenns  of  art. 

In  raising  doctrines  from  the  text,  his  care 
ought  to  be,  first,  that  the  matter  he  the  truth 
of  God  ;  secondly,  that  it  be  a  truth  contained 
in  or  grounded  on  that  text,  that  the  hearers  may 
discern  how  God  teacheth  it  from  thence  :  third- 
ly, that  he  chiefly  insist  upon  tlio.sc  doclriiics 
which  are  principally  intended,  and  make  most 
for  the  edification  of  the  hearers. 

The  doctrine  is  to  he  expressed  in  plain  terms ; 
or,  if  anything  in  it  need  explication,  it  is  to  be 


APPENDIX. 


461 


opened,  and  the  consequence  also  from  the  text 
cleared.  The  parallel  places  of  Scripture,  con- 
firming the  doctrine,  are  rather  to  be  plain  and 
pertinent  than  many,  and  (if  need  be)  somewhat 
insisted  upon,  and  applied  to  the  purpose  in 
hand. 

The  arguments  and  reasons  are  to  be  solid, 
and,  as  much  as  may  be,  convincing.  The  il- 
lustrations, of  what  kind  soever,  ought  to  be  full 
of  light,  and  such  as  may  convey  the  truth  into 
the  hearer's  heart  with  spiritual  delight. 

If  any  doubt  obvious  from  Scripture,  reason, 
■or  prejudice  of  the  hearers  seem  to  arise,  it  is 
very  requisite  to  remove  it  by  reconciling  the 
seeming  differences,  answering  the  reasons,  and 
discovering  and  taking  away  the  causes  of  prej- 
udice and  mistake;  otherwise  it  is  not  ht  to 
detain  the  hearers  with  propounding  or  answer- 
ing with  vain  or  wicked  cavils,  which,  as  they 
are  endless,  so  the  propounding  and  answering 
of  them  doth  more  hinder  than  promote  edifica- 
tion. 

He  is  not  to  rest  in  general  doctrine,  although 
never  so  much  cleared  and  confirmed,  but  to 
bring  it  home  to  special  use  by  application  to 
his  hearers;  which,  albeit  it  prove  a  work  of 
great  difficulty  to  himself,  requiring  much  pru- 
dence, zeal,  and  meditation,  and  to  the  natural 
and  corrupt  man  will  be  very  unpleasant,  yet 
he  is  to  endeavour  to  perform  it  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  his  auditors  may  feel  the  Word  of  God 
to  be  quick  and  powerful,  and  a  discernerof  the 
thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart ;  and  that,  if 
any  believer  or  ignorant  person  be  present,  he 
may  have  the  secrets  of  his  heart  made  mani- 
fest, and  give  glory  to  God. 

In  the  use  of  instruction  or  information  in 
the  knowledge  of  some  truth,  which  is  a  conse- 
quence from  his  doctrine,  he  may  (when  con- 
venient) confirm  it  by  a  few  firm  arguments 
from  the  text  in  hand,  and  other  places  of  Scrip- 
ture, or  from  the  nature  of  that  commonplace 
in  divinity  whereof  that  truth  is  a  branch. 

In  confutation  of  false  doctrines,  he  is  neither 
to  raise  an  old  heresy  from  the  grave,  nor  to 
mention  a  blasphemous  opinion  unnecessarily  ; 
but  if  the  people  be  in  danger  of  an  error,  he  is 
to  confute  it  soundly,  and  endeavour  to  satisfy 
their  judgments  and  consciences  against  all  ob- 
jections. 

In  exhorting  to  duties,  he  is,  as  he  seeth 
cause,  to  teach  also  the  means  that  help  to  the 
performance  of  them. 

In  dehortation,  reprehension,  and  public  ad- 
monition (which  require  special  wisdom),  let 
him,  as  there  shall  be  cause,  not  only  discover 
the  nature  and  greatness  of  the  sin,  with  the 
misery  attending  it,  but  also  show  the  danger 
his  hearers  are  in  to  be  overtaken  and  surprised 
by  it,  together  with  the  remedies  and  best  way 
to  avoid  it. 

In  applying  comfort,  whether  general  against 
all  temptations,  or  particular  against  some  spe- 
cial troubles  or  terrors,  he  is  carefully  to  an- 
swer such  objections  as  a  troubled  heart  and 
afflicted  spirit  may  suggest  to  the  contrary. 

It  is  also  somciimes  requisite  to  give  some 
notes  of  trial  (which  is  very  profitable,  espe- 
cially when  performed  by  able  and  experienced 
ministers,  with  circumspection  and  prudence, 
and  the  signs  clearly  grounded  on  the  Holy 
Scripture),  whereby  the  hearers  may  be  able 


to  examine  themselves  whether  they  have  at- 
tained those  graces  and  performed  those  duties 
to  which  he  exhorteth,  or  be  guilty  of  the  sin 
reprehended  and  in  danger  of  the  judgments 
threatened,  or  are  such  to  whom  the  consola- 
tions propounded  do  belong;  that  accordingly 
they  may  be  quickened  and  excited  to  duty, 
humbled  for  their  wants  and  sins,  affected  with 
their  danger,  and  strengthened  with  comfort, 
as  their  condition  upon  examination  shall  re- 
quire. 

And  as  he  needeth  not  always  to  prosecute 
every  doctrine  which  lies  in  his  text,  so  is  he 
wisely  to  make  choice  of  such  uses  as,  by  his 
residence  and  conversing  with  his  flock,  he  find- 
eth  most  needful  and  seasonable ;  and  among 
these,  such  as  may  most  draw  their  souls  to 
Christ,  the  fountain  of  light,  holiness,  and  com- 
fort. 

This  method  is  not  prescribed  as  necessary 
for  every  man  or  upon  every  text,  but  only  rec- 
ommended as  being  found  by  experience  to  be 
very  much  blessed  of  God,  and  very  helpful  for 
the  people's  understandings  and  memories. 

But  the  servant  of  Christ,  whatever  his  meth- 
od be,  is  to  perform  his  whole  ministry, 

1.  Painfully,  not  doing  the  work  of.the  Lord 
negligently. 

2  Plainly,  that  the  meanest  may  understand, 
delivering  the  truth,  not  in  the  enticing  words 
of  man's  wisdom,  but  in  demonstration  of  the 
Spirit  and  of  power,  lest  the  cross  of  Christ 
should  be  made  of  none  effect ;  abstaining  also 
from  an  unprofitable  use  of  unknown  tongues, 
strange  phrases,  and  cadences  of  sounds  and 
words,  sparingly  citing  sentences  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal or  other  human  writers,  ancient  or  modern, 
be  they  never  so  elegant. 

3.  Faithfully  looking  at  the  honour  of  Christ, 
the  conversion,  edification,  and  salvation  of  the 
people,  not  at  his  own  gain  or  glory,  keeping 
nothing  back  which  may  promote  those  holy 
ends,  giving  to  every  one  his  own  portion,  and 
bearing  indifferent  respect  unto  all,  without  neg- 
lecting the  meanest,  or  sparing  the  greatest  m 
their  sins. 

4.  Wisely  framing  all  doctrines,  exhortations, 
and  especially  his  reproofs,  in  such  a  manner 
as  may  be  most  likely  to  prevail,  showing  all 
due  respect  to  each  man's  person  and  place,  and 
not  mixing  his  own  passion  or  bitterness. 

5.  Gravely,  as  becometh  the  Word  of  God, 
shunning  all  such  gesture,  voice,  and  expressions 
as  may  occasion  the  corruptions  of  men  to  de- 
spise him  and  his  ministry. 

6.  With  loving  affection,  that  the  people  may 
see  all  coming  from  his  godly  zeal  and  hearty 
desire  to  do  them  good. 

7.  As  taught  of  God,  and  persuaded  in  his 
own  heart  that  all  that  he  teacheth  is  the  truth 
of  Christ,  and  walking  before  his  flock  as  an  ex- 
ample to  them  in  it ;  earnestly,  both  in  private 
and  public,  recommending  his  labours  to  the 
blessing  of  God,  and  watchfully  looking  to  him- 
self and  the  flock  whereof  the  Lord  halh  made 
him  overseer  ;  so  shall  the  doctrine  of  truth  be 
preserved  uncorrupt,  many  souls  converted  and 
built  up,  and  himself  receive  manifold  comforts 
of  his  labours  even  in  this  life,  and  afierward 
the  crown  of  glory  laid  up  for  him  in  the  world 
to  come. 

Where  there  are  more  ministers  in  a  congre- 


462 


APPENDIX. 


gation  than  one,  and  they  of  different  gifts,  each 
may  more  especially  apply  himself  to  doctrine 
or  exhortation,  according  to  the  gift  wherein  he 
most  excelleth,  and  as  they  shall  agree  between 
themselves. 

Of  Prayer  after  Sermon. 

The  sermon  being  ended,  the  minister  is  "  to 
give  thanks  for  the  great  love  of  God  in  sending 
his  Son  Jesus  Christ  unto  us  ;  for  the  commu- 
nication of  his  Holy  Spirit  ;  for  the  light  and 
liberty  of  the  glorious  Gospel,  and  the  rich  and 
heavenly  blessings  revealed  therein — as,  name- 
ly, election,  vocation,  adoption,  justification, 
sanctification,  and  hope  of  glory  ;  for  the  admi- 
rable goodness  of  God  in  freeing  the  land  from 
antichristian  darkness  and  tyranny,  and  for  all 
other  national  deliverances  ;  for  the  reformation 
of  religion,  for  the  Covenant,  and  for  many  tem- 
poral blessings. 

"  To  pray  for  the  continuance  of  the  Gospel, 
and  all  ordinances  thereof,  in  their  purity,  pow- 
er, and  liberty  ;  to  turn  the  chief  and  most  use- 
ful heads  of  the  sermon  into  some  few  petitions ; 
and  to  pray  that  it  may  abide  in  the  heart,  and 
bring  forth  fruit. 

"  To  pray  for  preparation  for  death  and  judg- 
ment, and  a  watching  for  the  coming  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ ;  to  entreat  of  God  the  forgiveness 
of  the  iniquities  of  our  holy  things,  and  the  ac- 
ceptation of  our  spiritual  sacrifice,  through  the 
merit  and  mediation  of  our  great  High-Priest 
and  Saviour  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

And  because  the  prayer  which  Christ  taught 
his  disciples  is  not  only  a  pattern  of  prayer,  but 
itself  a  most  comprehensive  prayer,  we  recom- 
mend it  also  to  be  used  in  the  prayers  of  the 
Church. 

And  whereas,  at  the  administration  of  the 
sacraments,  the  holding  public  fasts,  and  days 
of  thanksgiving,  and  other  special  occasions, 
which  may  afford  matter  of  special  petitions  and 
thanksgivings,  it  is  requisite  to  express  some- 
what in  our  public  prayers  (as  at  this  time  it  is 
our  duty  to  pray  for  a  blessing  upon  the  Assem- 
bly of  Divines,  the  armies  by  sea  and  land,  for 
the  defence  of  the  king.  Parliament,  and  king- 
dom), every  minister  is  herein  to  apply  himself 
in  his  prayer,  before  or  after  sermon,  to  those 
occasions  ;  but  for  the  manner  he  is  left  to  his 
liberty,  as  God  shall  direct  and  enable  him,  in 
piety  and  wisdom  to  discharge  his  duty. 

The  prayer  ended,  let  a  psalm  be  sung,  if  with 
convenience  it  may  be  done  ;  after  which  (un- 
less some  other  ordinance  of  Christ,  that  con- 
cerneth  the  congregation  at  that  time,  be  to  fol- 
low), let  the  minister  dismiss  the  congregation 
with  a  solemn  blessing. 

THE  ADMINISTRATION  OF  THE 
SACRAMENTS. 

AND,  FIRST,  OF  BAPTISM. 

Baptism,  as  it  is  not  unnecessarily  to  be  de- 
layed, so  it  is  not  to  be  administered  in  any 
case  by  any  private  person,  but  by  a  minister  of 
Christ,  called  to  be  the  steward  of  the  mysteries 
of  God. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  administered  in  private  places 
or  privately,  but  in  the  place  of  public  worship, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  congregation,  whore  the 
people  may  most  conveniently  see  and  hear, 
and  not  in  the  places  where  fonts,  in  the  time 


of  popery,  were  unfitly  and  superstitiously  pla- 
ced. 

The  child  to  be  baptized,  after  notice  given  to 
the  minister  the  day  before,  is  to  be  presented 
by  the  father,  or  (in  case  of  his  necessary  ab- 
sence) by  some  Christian  friend  in  his  place,  in 
professing  his  earnest  desire  that  the  child  may 
t)C  baptized. 

Before  baptism,  the  minister  is  to  use  some 
wordsof  instruction,  touching  the  in  St  itut  ion,  na- 
ture, use,  and  ends  of  this  sacrament,  showing, 

"  That  it  is  instituted  by  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ ;  that  it  is  a  seal  of  the  covenant  of  grace, 
of  our  ingrafting  into  Christ,  and  of  our  union 
with  him,  of  remission  of  sins,  regeneration, 
adoption,  and  life  eternal.  That  the  water  in 
baptism  representeth  and  signifielh  both  the 
blood  of  Christ,  which  taketh  away  all  guilt  of 
sin,  original  and  actual ;  and  the  sanctifying 
virtue  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  against  the  domin- 
ion of  sin,  and  the  corruption  of  our  sinful  na- 
ture ;  that  baptizing,  or  sprinkling  and  washing 
with  water,  signifielh  the  cleansing  from  sin  by 
the  blood  and  for  the  merit  of  Christ,  together 
with  the  mortification  of  sin,  and  rising  from  sin 
to  newness  of  life  by  virtue  of  the  death  and  res- 
urrection of  Christ;  that  the  promise  is  made  to 
believers  and  their  seed  ;  and  that  the  seed  and 
posterity  of  the  faithful,  born  within  the  Church, 
have  by  their  birth  interest  in  the  covenant,  and 
right  to  the  seal  of  it,  and  to  the  outward  privi- 
leges of  the  Church  under  the  Gospel,  no  less 
than  the  children  of  Abraham  in  the  time  of  the 
Old  Testament  ;  the  covenant  of  grace,  for  sub- 
stance, being  the  same,  and  the  grace  of  God 
and  the  consolation  of  believers  more  plentiful 
than  before;  that  the  Son  of  God  admitted  little 
children  into  his  presence,  embracing  and  bless- 
ing them,  saying,  '  For  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  God  ;'  that  children,  by  baptism,  are  solemn- 
ly received  into  the  bosom  of  the  visible  Church, 
distinguished  from  the  world  and  them  that  are 
without,  and  united  with  believers  ;  and  that  all 
who  are  baptized  in  the  name  of  Christ  do  re- 
nounce, and  by  their  baptism  are  bound  to  fight 
against,  the  devil,  the  world,  and  the  flesh  ;  that 
they  are  Christians,  and  federally  holy  before 
baptism,  and  therefore  they  are  baptized  ;  that 
the  inward  grace  and  virtue  of  baptism  is  not 
tied  to  that  very  moment  of  time  wherein  it  is 
administered,  and  that  the  fruit  and  power  there- 
of reacheth  to  the  whole  course  of  our  life  ;  and 
that  outward  baptism  is  not  so  necessary,  that 
through  the  want  thereof  the  infant  is  in  danger 
of  damnation,  or  the  parents  guilty,  if  they  do 
not  contemn  or  neglect  the  ordinance  of  Christ, 
when  and  where  it  may  be  had." 

In  these,  or  the  like  instructions,  the  minis- 
ter is  to  use  his  own  liberty  and  godly  wisdom, 
as  the  ignorance  or  errors  in  the  doctrine  of  bap- 
tism, and  the  edification  of  the  people  shall  re- 
quire. 

He  in  also  to  admonish  all  Chat  are  present 

"To  look  back  to  their  baptism  ;  to  repent  of 
their  sins  against  their  covenant  with  God  ;  to 
stir  up  their  faith  ;  to  improve  and  make  the 
right  use  of  their  baptism,  and  of  the  covenant 
sealed  thereby  between  God  and  their  souls." 
He  is  to  exhort  the  parent 

"  To  consider  the  great  mercy  of  God  to  hira 
and  his  child ;  to  bring  up  the  child  in  the  knowl- 


APPENDIX. 


4G3 


edjje  of  the  grounds  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord  : 
and  1(1  let  hinn  know  the  danger  of  God's  wrath 
to  himself  and  child  if  he  be  negligent,  requiring 
his  solemn  promise  for  the  performance  of  his 
duty." 

'I'his  being  done,  prayer  is  also  to  be  joined 
with  the  word  of  instruction  for  sanctifying  the 
water  to  this  spiritual  use,  and  the  minister  is 
to  pray  to  this  or  the  like  effect : 

"  That  the  Lord,  who  hath  not  left  us  as  stran- 
gers without  the  covenant  of  promise,  but  called 
us  to  the  privileges  of  his  ordinances,  would 
graciously  vouchsafe  to  sanctify  and  bless  his 
own  ordmance  of  baptism  at  this  time  ;  that  he 
would  join  the  inward  baptism  of  his  Spirit  with 
the  outward  baptism  of  water  ;  make  this  bap- 
tism to  the  infant  a  seal  of  adoption,  remission 
of  sin,  regeneration,  and  eternal  life,  and  all 
other  promises  of  the  covenant  of  grace  ;  that 
the  child  may  be  planted  into  the  likeness  of  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  Christ ;  and  that  the 
body  of  sin  being  destroyed  in  him,  he  may  serve 
God  in  newness  of  life  all  his  days." 

Then  the  minister  is  to  demand  the  name  of 
the  child,  which  being  told  him,  he  is  to  say 
(calling  the  child  by  his  name),  I  baptize  thee  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

As  he  pronounceth  these  words,  he  is  to  bap- 
tize the  child  with  water ;  which,  for  the  man- 
ner of  doing  it,  is  not  only  lawful,  but  sufficient, 
and  most  expedient  to  be,  by  pouring  or  sprink- 
ling of  the  water  on  the  face  of  the  child,  with- 
out adding  any  other  ceremony. 

This  done,  he  is  to  give  thanks,  and  to  pray 
to  this  or  the  like  purpose  : 

"Acknowledging  with  all  thankfulnes  that 
the  Lord  is  true  and  faithful  in  keeping  cove- 
nant and  mercy  ;  that  he  is  good  and  gracious, 
not  only  in  that  he  numbereth  us  among  his 
saints,  but  is  pleased  also  to  bestow  upon  our 
children  this  singular  token  and  badge  of  his 
love  in  Christ ;  that  in  his  truth  and  special 
providence  he  daily  bringeth  somejnto  the  bo- 
som of  his  Church,  to  be  partakers'  of  his  ines- 
timable benefits,  purchased  by  the  blood  of  his 
dear  Son  for  the  continuance  and  increase  of 
his  Church. 

"  And  praying  that  the  Lord  would  still  contin- 
ue and  daily  confirm  more  and  more  this  his  un- 
speakable favour  ;  that  he  would  receive  the  in- 
fant now  baptized,  and  solemnly  entered  into  the 
household  of  faith,  into  his  fatherly  tuition  and 
defence,  and  remember  him  with  the  favour  that 
heshoweth  tohis  people;  that  if  he  shall  betaken 
out  of  this  life  in  his  infancy,  the  Lord,  who  is 
rich  in  mercy,  would  be  pleased  to  receive  him  up 
into  glory  ;  and  if  he  live,  and  attain  the  years 
of  discretion,  that  the  Lord  would  so  teach  him 
by  his  Word  and  Spirit,  and  make  his  baptism 
effectual  to  him,  and  so  uphold  him  by  his  di- 
vme  power  and  grace,  that  by  faith  he  may 
prevail  against  the  devil,  the  world,  and  the 
flesh,  till  in  the  end  he  obtain  a  full  and  final 
viiUory,  and  so  be  kept  by  the  power  of  God 
through  faith  unto  salvation,  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord." 

Of  the  Celehralion  of  the  Communion,  or  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

The  Communion,  or  Supper  of  the  Lord,  is 


frequently  to  be  celebrated  ;  hut  how  often,  may 
be  considered  and  determined  by  the  ministers 
and  other  church  governors  of  each  congrega- 
tion, as  they  shall  find  it  most  convenient  for 
the  comfort  and  edification  of  the  people  com- 
mitted to  their  charge  :  and  when  it  shall  he 
administered,  we  judge  it  convenient  to  be  done 
after  the  morning  sermon. 

The  ignorant  and  the  scandalous  are  not  fit 
to  receive  this  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

Where  this  sacrament  cannot  with  conveni- 
ence be  frequently  administered,  it  is  requisite 
that  public  warning  be  given  the  Sabbath-day 
before  the  administration  thereof;  and  that  ei- 
ther then,  or  on  some  day  of  that  week,  some- 
thing concerning  that  ordinance,  and  the  due 
preparation  thereunto,  and  participation  thereof 
be  taught,  that  by  the  diligent  use  of  all  means 
sanctified  of  God  to  that  end,  both  in  public  and 
private,  all  may  come  better  prepared  to  that 
heavenly  feast. 

When  the  day  is  come  for  administration,  the 
minister  having  ended  his  sermon  and  prayer, 
shall  make  a  short  exhortation, 

"  Expressing  the  inestimable  benefit  we  have 
by  this  sacrament,  together  with  the  ends  and 
use  thereof;  setting  forth  the  great  necessity 
of  having  our  comforts  and  strength  renewed 
thereby  in  this  our  pilgrimage  and  warfare  ; 
how  necessary  it  is  that  we  come  unto  it  with 
knowledge,  faith,  repentance,  love,  and  with 
hungering  and  thirsting  souls  after  Christ  and 
his  benefits;  how  great  the  danger  to  eat  and 
drink  unworthily. 

"  Next,  he  is,  in  the  name  of  Christ  on  the 
one  part,  to  warn  all  such  as  are  ignorant,  scan- 
dalous, profane,  or  that  live  in  any  sin  or  of- 
fence against  their  knowledge  or  conscience, 
that  they  presume  not  to  come  to  that  holy  ta- 
ble, showing  them  that  he  that  eateth  and  drink- 
eth  unworthily,  eateth  and  drinketh  judgment 
unto  himself;  and  on  the  other  part,  he  is  in 
especial  manner  to  invite  and  encourage  all  that 
labour  under  the  sense  of  the  burden  of  their 
sins,  and  fear  of  wrath,  and  desire  to  reach  out 
unto  a  greater  progress  in  grace  than  yet  they 
can  attain  unto,  to  come  to  the  Lord's  Table,  as- 
suring them,  in  the  same  name,  of  ease,  refresh- 
ing, and  strength  to  their  weak  and  wearied 
souls." 

After  this  exhortation,  warning,  and  invita- 
tion, the  table  being  before  decently  covered, 
and  so  conveniently  placed  that  the  communi- 
cants may  orderly  sit  about  it  or  at  it,  the  min- 
ister is  to  begin  the  action  with  sanctifying  and 
blessing  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine  set  be- 
fore him  (the  bread  in  comely  and  convenient 
vessels,  so  prepared,  that,  being  broken  by  him, 
and  given,  it  may  be  distributed  among  the  com- 
municants, the  wine  also  in  large  cups) ;  having 
first,  in  a  few  words,  showed  that  those  ele- 
ments, otherwise  common,  are  now  set  apart 
and  sanctified  to  this  holy  use  by  the  word  of 
institution  and  prayer. 

Let  the  words  of  institution  be  read  out  of 
the  Evangelists,  or  out  of  the  First  Epistle  of  the 
.\postle  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  chap  xi.,  verse 
23  :  "  I  have  received  of  the  Lord,"  &,c.,  to  the 
twenty-seventh  verse,  which  the  minister  may, 
when  he  seeth  requisite,  explain  and  apply. 

Let  the  prayer,  thanksgiving,  or  blessing  of 
the  bread  and  wine  be  to  this  effect ; 


464 


APPENDIX. 


"With  humble  and  hearty  acknowledgment 
of  the  greatness  of  our  misery,  from  which  nei- 
ther man  ni)r  angel  was  able  to  deliver  us,  and 
of  our  great  unvvorthiness  of  the  least  of  all 
God's  mercies;  to  give  thanks  to  God  for  all 
Ills  bonefits,  and  especially  for  that  great  benefit 
of  our  redemption,  the  love  of  God  the  Father, 
tiie  sufferings  and  merits  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
the  Son  of  God,  by  which  we  are  delivered  ;  and 
for  all  means  of  grace,  the  Word,  and  sacra- 
ments ;  and  for  this  sacrament  in  particular,  by 
wiilfh  Christ,  and  all  his  benefits,  are  applied 
and  sealed  up  unto  us,  which,  notwithstanding 
the  denial  of  them  unto  others,  are  in  great 
mercy  continued  unto  us,  after  so  much  and 
long  abuse  of  them  all. 

"  To  profess  that  there  is  no  other  name  un- 
der heaven  by  which  we  can  be  saved  but  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  alone  we  re- 
ceive liberty  and  life,  have  access  to  the  throne 
of  grace,  are  admitted  to  eat  and  drink  at  his 
own  table,  and  are  sealed  up  by  his  Spirit  to  an 
assurance  of  happiness  and  everlasting  life. 

"  Earnestly  to  pray  to  God,  the  Father  of  all 
mercies  and  God  of  all  consolation,  to  vouch- 
safe his  gracious  presence,  and  the  effectual 
working  of  his  Spirit  in  us,  and  so  to  sanctify 
these  elements,  both  of  bread  and  wine,  and  to 
bless  his  own  ordinance,  that  we  may  receive 
by  faith  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cru- 
cified for  us,  and  so  to  feed  upon  him  that  he  may 
be  one  with  us  and  we  with  him  ;  that  he  may 
live  with  us,  and  we  in  him  and  to  him  who 
hath  loved  us,  and  given  himself  for  us." 

All  which  he  is  to  endeavour  to  perform  with 
suitable  affections,  answerable  to  such  a  holy 
action,  and  to  stir  up  the  like  in  the  people. 

The  elements  being  now  sanctified  by  the 
Word  and  prayer,  the  minister,  being  at  the  ta- 
ble, is  to  take  the  bread  in  his  hand,  and  say,  in 
tiiese  expressions  (or  other  the  hke,  used  by 
Christ  or  his  apostle  upon  this  occasion), 

"  According  to  the  holy  institution,  command, 
and  example  of  our  blessed  Saviour  Jesus  Christ, 
I  take  this  bread,  and  having  given  thanks,  I 
break  it,  and  give  it  unto  you  [there  the  minis- 
ter, who  is  also  himself  to  communicate,  is  to 
break  the  bread  and  give  it  to  the  communi- 
cants] :  '  Take  ye,  eat  ye  ;  this  is  the  body  of 
Christ  which  is  broken  for  you ;  do  this  in  re- 
membrance of  him.'  " 

In  like  manner  the  minister  is  to  take  the  cup, 
and  say,  in  these  expressions  (or  other  the  like, 
used  by  Christ  or  the  apostle  upon  the  same  oc- 
casion), 

"  According  to  the  institution,  command,  and 
example  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  take  this 
cap,  and  give  it  unto  you  [here  he  giveth  to  the 
communicants]  :  'This  cup  is  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  blood  of  Christ,  which  is  shed  for 
the  remission  of  the  sins  of  many  ;  drink  ye  all 
of  it.'" 

After  all  have  communicated,  the  minister 
may,  in  a  few  words,  put  them  in  mind 

"  Of  the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  held 
forth  in  this  sacrament,  and  exhort  them  to  walk 
worthy  of  it." 

The  minister  is  to  give  solemn  thanks  to  God 

"  For  his  rich  mercy  and  invaluable  goodness 
vouchsafed  to  them  in  that  sacrament,  and  to 
entreat  for  pardon  for  the  defects  of  the  whole 
service,  and  lor  the  gracious  assistance  of  his 


good  Spirit,  whereby  they  may  be  enabled  to 
walk  in  the  strength  of  that  grace,  as  becometh 
those  who  have  received  so  great  pledges  of 
salvation." 

The  collection  for  the  poor  is  so  to  be  ordered 
that  no  part  of  the  public  worship  be  thereby 
hindered. 

Of  the  Sanciification  of  ihc  Lord's  Day. 

The  Lord's  Day  ought  to  be  so  remembered 
beforehand  as  that  all  worldly  business  of  our 
ordinary  callings  may  be  so  ordered,  and  so 
timely  and  seasonably  laid  aside,  as  they  may 
not  be  impediments  to  the  due  sanctifying  of 
the  day  when  it  comes. 

The  whole  day  is  to  be  celebrated  as  holy  to 
the  Lord,  both  in  public  and  private,  as  being 
the  Christian  Sabbath  ;  to  which  end  it  is  requi- 
site that  there  be  a  holy  cessation,  or  resting  all 
the  day,  from  all  unnecessary  labours;  and  an 
abstaining,  not  only  from  all  sports  and  pastimes, 
but  also  from  all  worldly  words  and  thoughts. 

That  the  diet  on  that  day  be  so  ordered  as 
that  neither  servants  be  unnecessarily  detamed 
from  the  public  worship  of  God,  nor  any  other 
persons  hindered  from  the  sanctifying  that  day. 

That  there  be  private  preparation  of  every 
person  and  family,  by  prayer  for  themselves, 
and  for  God's  assistance  of  the  minister,  and 
for  a  blessing  upon  his  ministry  ;  and  by  such 
other  holy  exercises  as  may  farther  dispose  them 
to  a  more  comfortable  communion  with  God  in 
his  public  ordinances. 

That  all  the  people  meet  so  timely  for  public 
worship  that  the  whole  congregation  may  be 
present  at  the  beginning,  and  with  one  heart 
solemnly  join  together  in  all  parts  of  the  public 
worship,  and  not  depart  till  after  the  blessing. 

That  what  time  is  vacant  between  or  after 
the  solemn  meetings  of  the  congregation  in  pub- 
lic be  spent  in  reading,  meditation,  repetition  of 
sermons  (especially  by  calling  their  families  to 
an  account  of  what  they  have  heard),  and  cat- 
echising of  them,  holy  conferences,  prayer  tor 
a  blessing  upon  the  public  ordinances,  singing 
of  psalms,  visiting  the  sick,  relieving  the  poor, 
and  such  like  duties  of  piety,  charity,  and  mer- 
cy, accounting  the  Sabbath  a  delight. 

The  Solemnization  of  Marriage. 

Although  marriage  be  no  sacrament,  nor  pe- 
culiar to  the  Church  of  God,  but  common  to 
mankind,  and  of  public  interest  in  every  com- 
monwealth, yet,  because  such  as  marry  are  to 
marry  in  the  Lord,  and  have  special  need  of  in- 
struction, direction,  and  exhortation  from  the 
Word  of  God  at  their  entering  into  such  a  new 
condition,  and  of  the  blessing  of  God  upon  them 
therein,  we  judge  it  expedient  that  marriage  be 
solemnized  by  a  lawful  minister  of  the  Word, 
that  he  may  accordingly  counsel  them,  and  pray 
for  a  blessing  upon  them. 

Marriage  is  to  be  between  one  man  and  one 
woman  only,  and  they  such  as  are  not  within 
the  degrees  of  consanguinity  or  affinity  prohib- 
ited by  the  Word  of  God  ;  and  the  parties  are 
to  be  of  years  of  discretion,  fit  to  make  their 
own  choice,  or  upon  good  grounds  to  give  their 
mutual  consent. 

Before  the  solemnizing  of  marriage  between 
any  persons,  their  purpose  of  marriage  shall  be 
published  by  the  minister,  three  several  Sab- 
bath-days, in  the  congregation,  at  the  place  or 


APPENDIX. 


465 


places  of  their  most  usual  and  constant  abode 
respectively.  And  of  this  publication,  the  min- 
ister who  is  to  join  them  in  marriage  shall  have 
sufficient  testimony,  before  he  proceed  to  sol- 
emnize the  marriage. 

Before  that  publication  of  such  their  purpose 
(if  tiie  parties  be  under  age),  the  consent  of  the 
parents,  or  others  under  whose  power  they  are 
(in  case  the  parents  be  dead),  is  to  be  made 
known  to  the  church  officers  of  that  congrega- 
tion, to  be  recorded. 

The  like  is  to  be  observed  in  the  proceedings 
of  ail  others,  although  of  age,  whose  parents 
are  living,  for  their  first  marriage.  And  in  after 
marriages  of  either  of  those  parties,  they  shall 
be  e.xhorted  not  to  contract  marriage  without 
first  acquainting  their  parents  with  it  (if  with 
conveniency  it  may  be  done),  endeavouring  to 
obtain  their  consent. 

Parents  ouglit  not  to  force  their  children  to 
marry  without  their  free  consent,  nor  deny  their 
own  consent  witiiout  just  cause. 

After  the  purpose  or  contract  of  marriage 
liath  been  thus  published,  the  marriage  is  not 
to  be  long  deterred.  Therefore,  the  minister 
having  had  convenient  warning,  and  nothing 
being  objected  to  hinder  it,  is  pnblicly  to  sol- 
emnize it  in  the  place  appointed  by  authority 
for  public  worship,  before  a  competent  number 
of  credible  witnesses,  at  some  convenient  hour 
of  the  day,  at  any  time  of  the  year,  except  on  a 
day  of  public  humiliation.  And  we  advise  that 
it  be  not  on  the  Lord's  Day. 

And  because  all  relations  are  sanctified  by  the 
Word  and  prayer,  the  minister  is  to  pray  for  a 
blessing  upon  them  to  this  effect: 

"  Acknowledging  our  sins,  whereby  we  have 
made  ourselves  less  than  the  least  of  all  the 
mercies  of  God,  and  provoked  him  to  imbitter 
all  our  comforts  ;  earnestly,  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  to  entreat  the  Lord  (whose  presence 
and  favour  is  the  happiness  of  every  condition, 
and  sweetens  every  relation)  to  be  their  portion 
and  to  own  and  accept  them  in  Christ,  who  are 
now  to  be  joined  in  the  honourable  estate  of 
marriage,  the  covenant  of  their  God  ;  and  that, 
as  he  hath  brought  them  together  by  his  provi- 
dence, he  would  sanctify  them  by  his  Spirit, 
giving  them  a  new  frame  of  heart,  fit  for  their 
new  estate ;  enriching  them  with  all  graces, 
whereby  they  may  perform  the  duties,  enjoy  the 
comforts,  undergo  the  cares,  and  resist  the 
temptati<ms  which  accompany  that  condition,  as 
becometh  Christians." 

The  prayer  being  ended,  it  is  convenient  that 
the  minister  do  briefly  declare  unto  them  out  of 
the  Scripture, 

"  The  institution,  use,  and  ends  of  marriage, 
•witli  the  conjugal  duties  which,  in  all  faithful- 
ness, they  are  to  perform  each  to  other  ;  ex- 
horting them  to  study  the  holy  Word  of  God, 
that  tliey  may  learn  to  live  by  faith,  and  to  be 
content  in  the  midst  of  all  marriage  cares  and 
troubles,  sanctifying  God's  name,  in  a  thankful, 
sober,  and  holy  use  of  all  conjugal  comforts  ; 
praying  much  with  and  for  one  anctther  ;  watch- 
ing over  and  provoking  each  other  to  love  and 
good  works ;  and  to  live  together  as  the  heirs 
of  the  grace  of  life." 

After  solemn  charging  of  the  persona  to  be 
ma'ried  before  the  great  God,  who  searcheth 
all  hearts,  and  to  whom  they  must  give  a  strict 

Vol.  IL— x\  n  n 


account  at  the  last  day,  that  if  either  of  thera 
know  any  cause,  by  precontract  or  otherwise, 
why  they  may  not  lawfully  proceed  to  marriage, 
that  they  now  discover  it :  the  minister  (if  no 
impediment  be  acknowledged)  shall  cause  first 
the  man  to  take  the  woman  by  the  right  hand, 
saying  these  words  : 

'•  I,  N.,  do  take  thee,  N.,  to  be  my  married 
wife,  and  do,  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  before 
this  congregation,  promise  and  covenant  to  be 
a  loving  and  faithful  husband  unto  thee,  until 
God  shall  separate  us  by  death." 

Then  the  woman  shall  take  the  man  by  his 
right  hand,  and  say  these  words  : 

"  I,  N.,  do  take  thee,  N.,  to  be  my  married 
husband,  and  I  do,  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
before  this  congregation,  promise  and  covenant 
to  be  a  loving,  faithful,  and  obedient  wife  unto 
thee,  until  God  shall  separate  us  by  death." 

Then,  without  any  farther  ceremony,  the 
minister  shall,  in  the  face  of  the  congregation, 
pronounce  them  to  be  husband  and  wife,  accord- 
ing to  God's  ordinance;  and  so  conclude  the 
action  with  prayer  to  this  effect  : 

"That  the  Lord  would  be  pleased  to  accom- 
pany bis  own  ordinance  with  his  blessing,  be- 
seeching him  to  enrich  the  persons  now  mar- 
ried, as  with  other  pledges  of  his  love,  so  par- 
ticularly with  the  comforts  and  fruits  of  mar- 
riage, to  the  praise  of  his  abundant  mercy,  in 
and  through  Christ  Jesus." 

A  register  is  to  be  carefully  kept,  wherein 
the  names  of  the  parties  so  married,  with  the 
time  of  their  marriage,  are  forthwith  to  be  fairly 
recorded  in  a  book  provided  for  that  purpose, 
for  the  perusal  of  all  whom  it  may  concern. 

Concerning  Visitation  of  the  Sick. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  minister,  not  only  to 
teach  the  people  committed  to  his  charge  in 
public,  but  privately  and  particularly  to  admon- 
ish, exhort,  reprove,  and  comfort  them,  upon 
all  seasonable  occasions,  so  far  as  his  time, 
strength,  and  personal  safety  will  permit. 

He  is  to  admonish  them,  in  time  of  health,  to 
prepare  for  death  ;  and  for  that  purpose,  they 
are  often  to  confer  with  their  minister  about 
the  estate  of  their  souls  ;  and  in  times  of  sick- 
ness, to  desire  his  advice  and  help,  timely  and 
seasonably,  before  their  strength  and  under- 
standing fail  them. 

Times  of  sickness  and  affliction  are  special 
opportunities  put  into  his  hand  by  God  to  min- 
ister a  word  in  season  to  weary  souls,  because 
then  the  consciences  of  men  are  or  should  be 
more  awakened  to  bethink  themselves  of  their 
spiritual  estates  for  eternity  ;  and  Satan  also 
takes  advantage  then  to  load  them  more  with 
sore  and  heavy  temptations :  therefore,  the 
minister  being  sent  for,  and  repairing  to  the 
sick,  is  to  apply  himself,  with  all  tenderness 
and  love,  to  administer  some  spiritual  good  to 
his  soul  to  this  effect. 

He  may,  from  the  consideration  of  the  present 
sickness,  instruct  him  out  of  Scripture,  that 
diseases  come  not  by  chance,  or  by  distempers 
of  body  only,  hut  by  the  wise  and  orderly  gui- 
dance of  the  good  hand  of  God,  to  every  partic- 
ular person  smitten  by  them.  And  that,  wheth- 
er it  be  laid  upon  him  out  of  displeasure  fi)r  sin, 
ft)r  his  correction  and  amendment,  or  for  trial 
and  exercise  of  his  graces,  or  for  other  special 


466 


APPENDIX. 


and  excellent  ends,  all  his  sufferings  shall  turn 
to  his  profit,  and  work  together  for  his  good,  if 
he  sincerely  labour  to  make  a  sanctified  use  of 
God's  visitation,  neither  despising  his  chasten- 
ing, nor  waxing  weary  of  his  correction. 

[{  he  suspect  him  of  ignorance,  he  shall  ex- 
amine him  m  the  principles  of  religion,  espe- 
cially touching  repentance  and  faith  ;  and  as  he 
seeth  cause,  instruct  him  in  the  nature,  use,  ex- 
cellence, and  necessity  of  those  graces  ;  as  also 
touching  the  covenant  of  grace,  and  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  the  mediator  of  it,  and  concerning 
remission  of  sins  by  faith  in  him. 

He  shall  exhort  the  sick  person  to  examine 
himself,  to  search  and  try  his  former  ways,  and 
his  estate  towards  God. 

And  if  the  sick  person  shall  declare  any  scru- 
ple, doubt,  or  temptation  that  is  upon  him,  in- 
structions and  resolutions  shall  be  given  to  sat- 
isfy and  settle  him. 

If  it  appear  that  he  hath  not  a  due  sense  of 
his  sins,  endeavours  ought  to  be  used  to  con- 
vince him  of  his  sins,  of  the  guilt  and  desert  of 
them  ;  of  the  filth  and  pollution  which  the  soul 
contracts  by  them  ;  and  of  the  curse  of  law, 
and  wrath  of  God,  due  to  them;  that  he  may 
be  truly  affected  with  and  humble  for  them  ; 
and,  withal,  to  make  known  the  danger  of  de- 
ferring repentance,  and  of  neglecting  salvation 
at  any  time  offered  ;  to  awaken  his  conscience, 
and  rouse  him  up  out  of  a  stupid  and  secure 
condition,  to  apprehend  the  justice  and  wrath 
of  God,  before  whom  none  can  stand  but  he 
that,  being  lost  to  himself,  layeth  hold  upon 
Christ  by  lailh. 

If  he  have  endeavoured  to  walk  in  the  ways 
of  holiness,  and  to  serve  God  in  uprightness,  al- 
though not  without  many  failings  and  infirmi- 
ties;  or  if  his  spirit  be  broken  with  the  sense 
of  sin,  or  cast  down  through  want  of  the  sense 
of  God's  favour,  then  it  will  be  fit  to  raise  him 
up,  by  setting  before  him  the  freeness  and  ful- 
ness of  God's  grace,  the  sufficiency  of  righte- 
ousness in  Christ,  the  gracious  offers  in  the 
Gospel,  that  all  who  repent  and  believe  with  all 
their  heart  in  God's  mercy  through  Christ,  re- 
nouncing their  own  righteousness,  shall  have 
life  and  salvation  in  him  :  it  may  also  be  useful 
to  show  him  that  death  hath  in  it  no  spiritual 
evil  to  be  feared  by  those  that  are  in  Christ,  be- 
cause sin,  the  sting  of  death,  is  taken  away  by 
Christ,  who  hath  delivered  all  that  are  his  from 
the  bondage  of  the  fear  of  death,  triumphed  over 
the  grave,  given  us  victory,  is  himself  entered 
into  glory,  to  prepare  a  place  for  his  people  :  so 
that  neither  life  nor  death  shall  be  able  to  sep- 
arate them  from  God's  love  in  Christ,  in  whom 
such  are  sure,  though  now  they  must  be  laid  in 
the  dust,  to  obtain  a  joyful  and  glorious  resur- 
rection to  eternal  life. 

Advice  also  may  be  given,  as  to  beware  of  an 
ill-grounded  persuasion  on  mercy,  or  on  the 
goodness  of  his  condition  for  heaven,  so  to  dis- 
claim all  merit  in  himself,  and  to  cast  himself 
wholly  upon  God  for  mercy,  in  the  sole  merits 
and  mediation  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  en- 
gaged himself  never  to  cast  off  them  who  in 
truth  and  sincerity  come  unto  him.  Care  also 
must  be  taken  that  the  sick  person  be  not  cast 
down  into  despair,  by  such  a  severe  representa- 
tion of  the  wrath  of  God  due  to  him  for  his  sins, 
as  is  not  mollified  by  a  seasonable  propounding, 


of  Christ  and  his  merit,  for  a  door  of  hope  to 
every  penitent  believer. 

When  the  sick  person  is  best  composed,  may 
be  least  disturbed,  and  other  necessary  offices 
about  him  least  hindered,  the  minister,  if  de- 
sired, shall  pray  with  him,  and  for  him,  to  this 
effect  : 

"Confessing  and  bewailing  of  sin,  original  and 
actual,  the  miserable  condition  of  all  by  nature, 
as  being  children  of  wrath,  and  under  the  curse  ; 
ackowledging  that  all  diseases,  sicknesses,  death, 
and  hell  itself,  are  the  proper  issues  and  effet-ts 
thereof ;  imploring  God's  mercy  for  the  sick  per- 
son through  the  blood  of  Christ ;  beseeching  that 
God  would  open  his  eyes,  discover  unto  hiin  his 
sins,  cause  him  to  see  himself  lost  in  himself, 
make  known  to  him  the  cause  why  God  smiieth 
him,  reveal  Jesus  Christ  to  his  soul  for  righte- 
ousness and  life,  give  unto  him  his  Holy  Spirit 
to  create  and  strengthen  faith,  to  lay  hold  upon 
Christ,  to  work  in  him  comfortable  evidences  of 
his  love,  to  arm  him  against  temptations,  to 
take  off  his  heart  from  the  world,  to  sanctify  his 
present  visitation,  to  furnish  him  with  patience 
and  strength  to  bear  it,  and  to  give  him  perse- 
verance in  faith  to  the  end. 

"  That  if  God  shall  please  to  add  to  his  days, 
he  would  vouchsafe  to  bless  and  sanctify  all 
means  of  his  recovery,  to  remove  the  disease, 
renew  his  strength,  and  enable  him  to  walk 
worthy  of  God,  by  a  faithful  remembrance  and 
diligent  observing  of  such  vows  and  promises 
of  holiness  and  obedience  as  men  are  apt  to 
make  in  times  of  sickness,  that  he  may  glorify 
God  in  the  remaining  part  of  his  life. 

"And  if  God  have  determined  to  finish  his 
days  by  the  present  visitation,  he  may  find  such 
evidence  of  the  pardon  of  all  his  sins,  of  his  in- 
terest in  Christ,  and  eternal  life  by  Christ,  as 
may  cause  his  inward  man  to  be  renewed,  while 
his  outward  man  decayelh;  that  he  may  behold 
death  without  fear,  cast  himself  wholly  upun 
Christ  without  doubting,  desire  to  be  dissolved 
and  be  with  Christ,  and  so  receive  the  end  of  his 
faith,  the  salvation  of  his  soul,  through  the  only 
merits  and  intercession  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
our  alone  Saviour,  and  all-sufficient  Redeemer." 

The  minister  shall  admonish  him  also  (as 
there  shall  be  cause)  to  set  his  house  in  order, 
thereby  to  prevent  inconveniences;  to  take  care 
for  the  payment  of  his  debts,  and  to  make  resti- 
tution or  satisfaction  where  he  hath  done  any 
wrong,  to  be  reconciled  to  those  with  whom  he 
hath  been  at  variance,  and  fully  to  forgive  all 
men  their  trespasses  against  him,  as  he  expects 
forgiveness  at  the  hand  of  God. 

Lastly,  the  minister  may  improve  the  present 
occasion  to  exhort  those  about  the  sick  person 
to  consider  their  own  mortality,  to  return  to  the 
Lord  and  make  peace  with  him  ;  in  health  to 
prepare  for  sickness,  death,  and  judgment ;  and 
all  the  days  of  their  appointed  time  so  to  wait 
until  their  change  come,  that  when  Christ,  who 
is  our  life,  shall  appear,  they  may  appear  with 
him  in  glory. 

Concerning  Burial  of  the  Dead. 
When  any  person  departeth  this  life,  let  the 
dead  body,  upon  the  day  of  burial,  be  decently 
attended  from  the  house  to  the  place  appointed 
for  public  burial,  and  there  immediately  inter- 
red, without  any  ceremony. 


APPENDIX. 


467 


■  And  because  the  customs  of  kneeling  down, 
and  praying  by  or  towards  the  dead  corpse,  and 
other  such  usages,  in  the  place  where  it  lies, 
before  it  be  carried  to  burial,  are  superstitious  ; 
and  for  that  praying,  reading,  and  singing,  both 
in  going  to,  and  at  the  grave,  have  been  grossly 
abused,  are  no  way  beneficial  to  the  dead,  and 
have  proved  many  ways  hurtful  to  the  living, 
therefore  let  all  such  things  be  laid  aside. 

Howbeit,  we  judge  it  very  convenient  that  the 
Christian  friends  which  accompany  the  dead 
body  to  the  place  appointed  for  public  burial,  do 
apply  themselves  to  meditations  and  conferen- 
ces suitable  to  the  occasion  ;  and  that  the  min- 
ister, as  upon  other  occasions,  so  at  this  time, 
if  he  be  present,  may  put  them  in  remembrance 
of  their  duty. 

That  this  shall  not  extend  to  deny  any  civil 
respects  or  deferences  at  the  burial  suitable  to 
the  rank  and  condition  of  the  party  deceased 
while  he  was  living. 

Concerning  Public  Solemn  Fasting. 
When  some  great  and  notable  judgments  are  ei- 
ther inflicted  upon  a  people,  or  apparently  immi- 
nent, or  by  some  extraordinary  provocations  no- 
toriously deserved  ;  as,  also,  when  some  special 
blessing  is  to  be  sought  and  obtained,  public  sol- 
emn fasting  (which  is  to  continue  the  whole 
day)  is  a  duty  that  God  expecteth  from  that  na- 
tion or  people. 

A  religious  fast  requires  total  abstinence,  not 
only  from  all  food  (unless  bodily  weakness  do 
manifestly  disable  from  holding  out  till  the  fast 
be  ended,  in  which  case  somewhat  may  be  ta- 
ken, yet  very  sparingly,  to  support  nature,  when 
ready  to  faint),  but  also  from  all  worldly  labour, 
discourses,  and  thoughts,  and  from  all  bodily 
delights  (although  at  other  times  lawful),  rich 
apparel,  ornaments,  and  such  like,  during  the 
fast ;  and  much  more  from  whatever  is,  in  the 
nature  or  use,  scandalous  and  offensive,  as 
gaudish  attire,  lascivious  habits  and  gestures, 
and  other  vanities  of  either  sex  ;  which  we  rec- 
ommend to  all  ministers,  in  their  places,  dili- 
gently and  zealously  to  reprove,  as  at  other 
times,  so  especially  at  a  fast,  without  respect  of 
persons,  as  there  shall  be  occasion. 

Before  the  public  meeting,  each  family  and 
person  apart  are  privately  to  use  all  religious 
care  to  prepare  their  hearts  to  such  solemn  work, 
and  to  be  early  at  the  congregation. 

So  large  a  portion  of  the  day  as  conveniently 
may  be  is  to  be  spent  in  public  reading  and 
preaching  of  the  Word,  with  singing  of  psalms, 
lit  to  quicken  affections  suitable  to  such  a  duty, 
but  especially  in  prayer,  to  this  or  the  like  ef- 
fect : 

"  Giving  glory  to  the  great  majesty  of  God, 
the  creator,  preserver,  and  supreme  ruler  of  all 
the  world,  the  better  to  affect  us  thereby  with  a 
holy  reverence  and  awe  of  him  ;  acknowledging 
his  manifold,  great,  and  tender  mercies,  espe- 
cially to  the  Church  and  nation,  the  more  ef- 
fectually to  soften  and  abase  our  hearts  before 
him  ;  humbly  confessing  of  sins  of  all  sorts, 
with  their  several  aggravations ;  justifying  God's 
righteous  judgments,  as  being  far  less  than  our 
sins  do  deserve  ;  yet  humbly  and  earnestly  im- 
ploring his  mercy  and  grace  for  ourselves,  the 
Church,  and  nation,  for  our  king,  and  all  in  au- 
thority, and  for  all  others  for  whom  we  are  boun4 


to  pray  (according  as  the  present  exigence  re- 
quireth),  with  more  special  importunity  and  en- 
largement than  at  other  times ;  applymg  by  faith 
the  promises  and  goodness  of  God  for  pardon, 
help,  and  deliverance  from  the  evils  felt,  feared, 
or  deserved  ;  and  for  obtaining  the  blessings 
which  we  need  and  expect,  together  with  a  giv- 
ing up  of  ourselves  wholly  and  forever  unto  the 
Lord." 

In  all  these,  the  ministers,  who  are  the  mouths 
of  the  people  unto  God,  ought  so  to  speak  from 
their  hearts,  upon  serious  and  thorough  premed- 
itation of  them,  that  both  themselves  and  the 
people  may  be  much  affected,  and  even  melted 
thereby  ;  especially  with  sorrow  for  their  sins, 
that  it  may  be  indeed  a  day  of  deep  humiliatioa 
and  afflicting  of  the  soul. 

Special  choice  is  to  be  made  of  such  Scrip- 
tures to  be  read,  and  of  such  texts  for  preaching, 
as  may  best  work  the  hearts  of  the  hearers  to 
the  special  business  of  the  day,  and  most  dispose 
them  to  humiliation  and  repentance  ;  insisting 
most  on  those  particulars  which  each  minis- 
ter's observation  and  experience  tell  him  are 
most  conducing  to  the  edification  and  reforma- 
tion of  that  congregation  to  which  he  preach- 
eth. 

Before  the  close  of  the  public  duties,  the  min- 
ister is,  in  his  own  and  tiie  people's  names,  to 
engage  his  and  their  hearts  to  be  the  Lord's, 
with  professed  purpose  and  resolution  to  reform 
whatever  is  amiss  among  them,  and  more  par- 
ticularly such  sins  as  they  have  been  more  re- 
markably guilty  of ;  and  to  draw  nearer  unto 
God,  and  to  walk  more  closely  and  faithfully 
with  him  in  new  obedience,  than  ever  before. 

He  is  also  to  admonish  the  people,  with  all 
importunity,  that  the  work  of  that  day  doth  not 
end  with  the  public  duties  of  it,  but  tliat  they  are 
so  to  improve  the  remainder  of  the  day,  and  of 
their  whole  life,  in  re-enforcing  upon  themselves 
and  their  families  in  private,  all  those  godly  af- 
fections and  resolutions  which  they  professed  in 
public,  as  that  they  may  be  settled  in  their 
hearts  forever,  and  themselves  may  more  sensi- 
bly find  that  God  hath  smelt  a  sweet  savour  in 
Christ  from  their  performances,  and  is  pacified 
towards  them,  by  answers  of  grace,  in  pardoning 
of  sin,  in  removing  of  judgments,  in  averting  or 
preventing  of  plagues,  and  in  conferring  of  bless- 
ings, suitable  to  the  conditions  and  prayers  of 
his  people  by  Jesus  Christ. 

Besides  solemn  and  general  fasts  enjoined  by- 
authority,  we  judge  that  at  other  times  congre- 
gations may  keep  days  of  fasting,  as  Divine 
Providence  shall  administer  unto  them  special 
occasions.  And  also,  that  families  may  do  »'^jg 
same,  so  it  be  not  on  days  wherein  the  congre- 
gation to  which  they  do  belong  if  to  meet  for 
fasting  or  other  public  duties  of  worship. 

Concerning  the  Observation  of  Days  of  Public 
Thanksgiving. 

When  any  such  day  is  to  be  kept,  let  notice 
be  given  of  it,  and  of  the  occasion  thereof, 
some  convenient  time  before,  that  the  people 
may  the  better  prepare  themselves  thereunto 

The  day  being  come,  and  the  congregation 
(after  private  preparations)  being  assembled  the 
minister  is  to  begin  with  a  worvj  of  exhortation 
to  stir  up  the  people  to  the  duty  for  which  they 
are  met,  and  with  a  short  prayer  for  God's  as- 


468 


APPENDIX. 


sistance  and  blessing  (as  at  other  conventions 
for  public  woisliip),  according  to  the  particular 
occasion  of  their  meeting. 

Let  hull  then  make  some  pithy  narration  of 
the  deliverance  obtained,  or  mercy  received,  or 
of  whatever  hatli  occasioned  that  assembling 
of  the  congregation,  that  all  may  better  under- 
stand it,  or  be  minded  of  it,  and  more  affected 
with  it. 

And  because  singing  of  psalms  is  of  all  other 
the  most  proper  ordinance  for  expressmg  of 
joy  and  thanksgiving,  let  some  pertinent  psalm 
or  psalms  be  sung  for  that  purpose,  before  or  af- 
ter the  reading  of  some  portion  of  the  Word, 
suitable  to  the  present  business. 

Then  let  the  minister  who  is  to  preach  proceed 
to  farther  exhortation  and  prayer  before  his  ser- 
mon, with  special  reference  to  the  present  work ; 
after  which,  let  him  preach  upon  some  text  of 
Scripture  pertinent  to  the  occasion. 

The  sermon  ended,  let  him  not  only  pray,  as 
at  other  time  after  preaching  is  directed,  with 
reniembrance  of  the  necessities  of  the  Church, 
king,  and  slate  (if  before  the  sermon  they  were 
omitted),  hut  enlarge  himself  in  due  and  solemn 
thanksgiving  for  former  mercies  and  deliveran- 
ces, but  more  especially  for  that  which  at  the 
present  calls  them  together  to  give  thanks  :  with 
humble  petition  for  the  continuance  and  renew- 
ing of  God's  wonted  mercies,  as  need  shall  be, 
and  for  sanctifying  grace  to  make  a  right  use 
thereof  And  so,  having  sung  another  psalm 
suitable  to  the  mercy,  let  him  dismiss  the  con- 
gregation with  a  blessing,  that  they  have  some 
convenient  time  for  their  repast  and  refresh- 
ment. 

But  the  minister  (before  their  dismission)  is 
solemnly  to  admonish  them  to  beware  of  all  ex- 
cess and  not,  tending  to  gluttony  or  drunken- 
ness, and  much  more  of  these  sins  themselves, 
in  their  eating  and  refreshing  ;  and  to  take  care 
that  their  mirth  and  rejoicing  be  not  carnal,  but 
spiritual,  which  may  make  God's  praise  to  be 
glorious,  and  themselves  humble  and  sober  ; 
and  that  both  their  feeding  and  rejoicing  may 
render  them  more  cheerful  and  enlarged,  far- 
ther to  celebrate  his  praises  in  the  midst  of  the 
congregation,  when  they  return  unto  it,  in  the 
j-emainmg  part  of  that  day. 

When  the  congregation  shall  be  again  assem- 
bled, the  like  course  in  praying,  reading,  preach- 
ing, singing  of  psalms,  and  offering  up  of  more 
praise  and  thanksgiving,  that  is  before  directed 
for  the  morning,  is  to  be  renewed  and  contin- 
ued, so  far  as  the  time  will  give  leave. 

At  one  or  both  of  the  public  meetings  that 
^aY  a  collection  is  to  be  made  for  the  poor  (and 
in  il'ie  liJie  manner  upon  the  day  of  public  humil- 
iation) that  -tlieir  loms  may  bless  us,  and  rejoice 
the  more  with  :JS.  And  the  people  are  to  be 
exhorted,  at  the  end  of  the  latter  meeting,  to 
spend  the  residue  of  that  day  in  holy  duties,  and 
testifications  of  Christian  love  and  chanty  one 
towards  another,  and  of  rejoicing  more  and  more 
in  the  Lord,  as  becomelh  those  who  make  the 
joy  of  the  Lord  their  strength. 

Of  Singing  of  Psalms. 

It  is  the  duty  of  Christians  to  praise  God  pub- 
licly, bv  singing  of  psalms  together  in  the  con- 
gregation, and  also  privately  in  the  family. 

In  smging  of  psalms,  the  voice  is  to  be  tuna- 


bly  and  gravely  ordered  ;  but  the  chief  must  be 
to  sing  with  understanding,  and  with  grace  in 
the  heart,  making  melody  unto  the  Lord. 

That  the  whole  congregation  may  join  here- 
in, every  one  that  can  read  is  to  have  a  psalm- 
book  ;  and  all  others,  not  disabled  by  age  or 
otherwise,  are  to  be  exhorted  to  learn  to  read. 
But  for  the  present,  where  many  in  the  congre- 
gation cannot  read,  it  is  convenient  that  the 
minister,  or  some  other  fit  person  appointed  by 
him,  and  the  other  ruling  oflicers,  do  read  the 
psalm  line  by  line,  before  the  singing  thereof 

An  Afpcndix,  touching  Days  and  Places  of  Pub- 
lic Worship. 

There  is  no  day  commanded  in  Scripture  to 
be  kept  holy  under  the  Gospel  but  the  Lord's 
Day,  which  is  the  Christian  Sabbath. 

Festival  days,  vulgarly  called  holydays,  hav- 
ing no  warrant  in  the  Word  of  God,  are  not  to 
be  continued. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  lawful  and  necessary,  upon 
special  emergent  occasions,  to  separate  a  day 
or  days  for  public  fasting  or  thanksgiving,  as 
the  several  eminent  and  extraordinary  dispen- 
sations of  God's  providence  shall  administer 
cause  and  opportunity  to  his  people. 

As  no  place  is  capable  of  any  holiness,  under 
pretence  of  whatsoever  dedication  or  consecra- 
tion, so  neither  is  it  subject  to  such  pollution  by 
any  superstition  formerly  used,  and  now  laid 
aside,  as  may  render  it  unlawful  or  inconvenient 
for  Christians  to  meet  together  therein  for  the 
public  worship  of  God  ;  and  therefore  we  hold 
It  requisite  that  the  places  of  public  assembling 
for  worship  among  us  should  be  continued  and 
employed  to  that  use. 

THE    CONTENTS   OF   THE   DIRECTORY  FOR   THE    PUB- 
LIC  WOKHIP  OF   GOD. 


The  prefice. 

Of  the  assembling  of  the 
congregatiun. 

Of  public  reading  of  the  Ho- 
ly Scripture. 

Of  public  prayer  before  ser- 
mon. 

Of  preaching  of  the  Word. 

Of  prayer  after  the  sermon. 

Of  the  sacrament  of  baptism. 

Of  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper. 


Of  the  sanctification  of  the 
Lord's  Day. 

Of  the  solemnization  of  mar- 
riage. 

Of  the  visitation  of  the  sick. 

Of  burial  of  the  dead. 

Of  public  solemn  fasting. 

Of  the  observation  of  days  of 
public  thanksgiving. 

Of  singing  of  psalins. 

An  Appendix,  touching  days 
and  places  of  public  worship. 


No.   IX. 

THE  FORM  OF  PRESBYTERIAL  CHURCH  GOV- 
ERNMENT 

Agreed  upon  by  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  West- 
minister ;  examined  and  approved,  Anno  1645, 
by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land, ^c. 

THE  PREFACE. 

Jesus  Christ,  upon  whose  shoulders  the  gov- 
ernment is,  whose  name  is  called  Wonderful, 
Counsellor,  the  mighty  God,  the  everlasting  Fa- 
ther, the  Prince  of  Peace,*  of  the  increase  of 
whose  government  and  peace  there  shall  be  no 
end,  who  sits  upon  the  throne  of  David,  and 
upon  his  kingdom,  to  order  it,  and  to  estahlisli 
it  with  judgment  and  justice,  from  henceforth 
even  forever,  having  all  power  given  unto  him 
even  in  heaven  and  in  earth  by  the  Father,  who 


♦  Isa.,  ix.,  6,  7. 


APPENDIX. 


469 


raised  him  from  the  dead,  and  set  him  at  his 
own  right  liand,  far  above  all  principalities,  and 
power,  and  might,  and  dominion,  and  every 
name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this  world,  but 
also  in  that  which  is  to  come,  and  put  all  things 
under  his  feet,  and  gave  him  to  be  the  head  over 
all  things  to  the  Church,  which  is  his  body,  the 
fulness  of  him  that  fiUeth  all  in  all :  he  being 
ascended  up  far  above  all  heavens,  that  he  might 
fill  all  things,  received  gifts  for  his  Church,  and 
gave  offices  necessary  for  the  edification  of  his 
Church,  and  perfecting  of  his  saints. 

Of  the  Church. 

There  is  one  general  Church  visible  held 
forth  in  the  New  Testament,  1  Cor.,  xii.,  12, 
13,  28,  together  with  the  rest  of  the  chapter. 

The  ministry,  oracles,  and  ordinances  of  the 
New  Testament,  given  by  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
general  Church  visible,  for  the  gathering  and 
perfecting  of  it  in  this  life,  until  his  second  com- 
ing, 1  Cor.,  xii.,  28  ;  Eph.,  iv.,  4,  5,  compared 
with  ver.  10-16  of  the  same  chapter. 

Particular  visible  churches,  members  of  the 
general  Church,  are  also  held  forth  in  the  New 
Testament,  Gal,  i.,  21,  22  ;  Rev.,  i.,  4,  20,  and 
Rev.,  ii.,  1.  Particular  churches,  in  the  primi- 
tive times,  were  made  up  of  visible  saints,  viz., 
of  such  as,  being  of  age,  professed  faith  in 
Christ,  and  obedience  unto  Christ,  according  to 
the  rules  of  faith  and  life  taught  by  Christ  and 
his  apostles  ;  and  of  their  children.  Acts,  ii., 
38,  41  ;  and  ver.  last,  compared  with  v.  14  ;  1 
Cor.,  i.,  2,  compared  with  2  Cor.,  ix.,  13  ;  Acts, 
ii.,  39  ;  1  Cor.,  vii.,  14  ;  Rom.,  ix.,  16,  and  so 
forward;  Mark,  x.,  14,  compared  with  Matt., 
xix.,  13,  14;  Luke,  xviii.,  15,  16.* 

Of  the  Officers  of  the  Church. 

The  officers  which  Christ  hath  appointed  for 
the  edification  of  his  Church,  and  the  perfect- 
ing of  the  saints,  are, 

Some  extraordinary,  as  apostles,  evangelists, 
and  prophets,  which  are  ceased. 

Others  ordinary  and  perpetual,  as  pastors, 
teachers,  and  other  church  governors  and  dea- 
cons. 

Pastors. 

The  pastor  is  an  ordinary  and  perpetual  of- 
ficer in  the  Church  :  Jer.,  iii.,  15-17  ;  prophesy- 
ing of  the  time  of  the  Gospel :  1  Pet.,  v.,  2-4  ; 
Eph.,  iv.,  11-13. 

First,  it  belongs  to  his  office 

To  pray  for  and  with  his  flock,  as  the  mouth 
of  the  people  unto  God,  Acts,  vi.,  2-4 ;  Acts,  xx., 
36  ;  where  preaching  and  prayer  are  joined  as 
several  parts  of  the  same  office,  James,  v.,  15. 
The  office  of  the  elder,  that  is,  the  pastor,  is  to 
pray  for  the  sick,  even  in  private,  to  which  a 
blessing  is  especially  promised  :  much  more, 
therefore,  ought  he  to  perform  this  in  the  pub- 
lic execution  of  his  office,  as  a  part  thereof,  1 
Cor.,  xiv.,  15,  16. 

To  read  the  Scripture  publicly  ;  for  the  proof 
of  which, 

1.  That  the  priests  and  Levites  in  the  Jewish 
Church  were  trusted  with  the  public  reading  of 
the  Word,  as  is  proved  Deul.,  xxxi.,  9-11  ; 
Neh.,  viii.,  1,  2,  13. 


*  Matt.,  xxviii.,  19-20.     Eph.,  i.,  20-22,  compared 
with  IV.,  8-11,  and  Psalm  Ixviii.,  18. 


2.  That  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  have  as 
ample  a  charge  and  commission  to  dispense 
the  Word,  as  well  as  other  ordinances,  as  the 
priests  and  Levites  had  under  the  law,  proved 
Isa.,  Ixvi.,  21,  and  Matt.,  xxiii.,  34,  where  our 
Saviour  entitleth  the  officers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, whom  He  will  send  forth,  by  the  same 
names  as  the  teachers  of  the  Old. 

Which  propositions  prove,  that  therefore  (the 
duty  being  of  a  moral  nature)  it  followeth,  by 
just  consequence,  that  the  public  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  belongeth  to  the  pastor's  office. 

To  feed  the  flock,  by  preaching  of  the  Word, 
according  to  which  he  is  to  teach,  convince,  re- 
prove, exhort,  and  comfort. — 1  Tim.,  iii.,  2.  2 
Tim.,  iii.,  16,  17.     Tit.,  i.,  9. 

To  catechise,  which  is  a  plain  laying  down  the 
first  principles  of  the  oracles  of  God,  Heb.,  v., 
12  :  or  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  and  is  a  part  of 
preaching. 

To  dispense  other  Divine  mysteries,  1  Cor., 
iv.,  1,  2. 

To  administer  the  sacraments.  Matt.,  xxviii., 
19,  20.  Mark,  xvi.,  15,  16.  1  Cor.,  xi.,  23-25, 
compared  with  x.,  16. 

To  bless  the  people  from  God,  Numb.,  vi., 
23-26,  compared  with  Rev.,  xiv.,  5  (where  the 
same  blessings,  and  persons  from  whom  they 
come,  are  expressly  mentioned) ;  Isa.,  Ixvi.,  21, 
where,  under  the  names  of  priests  and  Levites 
to  he  continued  under  the  Gospel,  are  meant 
evangelical  pastors,  who,  therefore,  are  by  office 
to  bless  the  people,  Deut.,  x.,  8.  2  Cor.,  xiii., 
14.     Eph.,  i.,  2. 

To  take  care  of  the  poor,  Acts,  xi.,  30  ;  iv., 
34-37;  vi.,  2-4.  i:Cor.,  xvi.,  1-4.  Gal,  ii., 
9,  10. 

And  he  hath  also  a  ruling  power  over  the 
flock  as  a  pastor,  1  Tim.,  v.,  17.  Acts,  xx.,  17, 
28.     1  Thess.,  v.,  12.    Heb.,  xiii.,  7,  17. 

Teacher  or  Doctor. 

The  Scripture  doth  hold  out  the  name  and  ti- 
tle of  teacher  as  well  as  of  pastor,  1  Cor.,  xii., 
28.    Eph.,  iv.,  11. 

Who  is  also  a  minister  of  the  Word  as  well 
as  the  pastor,  and  hath  power  of  administration 
of  the  sacraments. 

The  Lord  having  given  different  gifts,  and 
divers  exercises  according  to  these  gifts,  in  the 
ministry  of  the  Word,  Rom.,  xii.,  6-8  ;  1  Cor., 
xii.,  1,  4-7,  though  these  different  gifts  may 
meet  in,  and  accordingly  be  exercised  by,  one 
and  the  same  minister,  1  Cor.,  xiv.,  3  ;  2  Tim., 
iv.,  2  ;  Tit.,  i.,  9  ;  yet,  where  be  several  minis- 
ters in  the  same  congregation,  they  may  be  de- 
signed to  several  employments,  according  to  the 
different  gifts  in  which  each  of  them  doth  most 
excel.  Rum.,  xii.,  6-8  ;  1  Pet.,  iv..  10,  11.  And 
he  that  doth  more  excel  in  exposition  of  Scrip- 
tures, in  teaching  sound  doctrine,  and  in  con- 
vincing gainsayers,  than  he  doth  in  application, 
and  is  accordingly  employed  therein,  may  be 
called  a  teacher  or  doctor  (the  places  alleged  by 
the  notation  of  the  Word  do  prove  the  proposi- 
tion);  nevertheless,  where  is  but  one  minister 
in  a  particular  congregation,  ho  is  to  perform, 
so  far  as  he  is  able,  the  whole  work  of  the  min- 
istry, as  appcareth  in  2  Tim.,  vi.  2;  Tit.,  i.  9, 
before  alleged,  1  Tim.,  vi.,  2. 

A  teacher  or  doctor  is  of  most  excellent  use 
in  schools  and  universities  :  as  of  old  in  the 


470 


APPENDIX. 


schools    of  the  prophets,   and    at   Jerusalem, 
where  GamaUel  and  others  taught  as  doctors. 

Other  Church  Governors. 
As  there  were  in  the  Jewish  Church  elders 
of  the  people  joined  with  tiie  priests  and  Levites 
in  the  g-)Vt;rnment  of  the  Cliurch  (as  appeareth 
in  1  Chron.,  xix.,  8-10),  so  Christ,  who  hath  in- 
stituted a  government  and  governors  ecclesias- 
tical in  the  Church,  hath  furnished  some  in  his 
Church,  besides  the  ministers  of  the  Word, 
v'iih  gifts  for  government,  and  with  commis- 
sion to  execute  the  same  when  called  thereun- 
to, who  are  to  join  with  the  minister  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church,  Rom.,  xii.,  7,  8  ;  1  Cor., 
xii.,  28  ;  which  officers  Reformed  churches 
commonly  call  elders. 

Deacons. 

The  Scripture  doth  hold  out  deacons  as  dis- 
tinct officers  in  the  Church. — Phil.,  i.,  1.  1  Tim., 
iii.,  8. 

Whose  office  is  perpetual. — 1  Tim.,  iii.,  8,  to 
verse  15.  Acts,  vi.,  1-4.  To  whose  office  it 
belongs  not  to  preach  the  Word  or  administer 
the  sacraments,  but  to  take  special  care  in  dis- 
tributing to  the  necessities  of^  the  poor. — Acts, 
vi.,  1-4,  and  the  verses  following. 

Of  Particular  Congregations. 

It  is  lawful  and  expedient  that  there  be  fixed 
congregations,  that  is,  a  certain  company  of 
Christians  to  meet  in  one  assembly  ordinarily 
for  public  worship.  When  believers  multiply 
to  such  a  number  that  they  cannot  conveniently 
meet  in  one  place,  it  is  lawful  and  expedient 
that  they  should  be  divided  into  distinct  and 
lixed  congregations,  for  the  better  administra- 
tion of  such  ordinances  as  belong  unto  them, 
and  the  discharge  of  mutual  duties. — 1  Cor., 
xiv.,  26:  "Let  all  things  be  done  unto  edify- 
ing ;"  and  33  and  40.  * 

The  ordinary  way  of  dividing  Christians  into 
distinct  congregations,  and  most  expedient  for 
edification,  is  by  the  respective  bounds  of  their 
dwellmgs. 

1st.  Because  they  who  dwell  together,  being 
bound  to  all  kind  of  moral  duties  one  to  another, 
have  the  better  opportunity  thereby  to  discharge 
them  ;  which  moral  tie  is  perpetual,  for  Christ 
came  not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to  fulfil  it. — 
Dent.,  XV.,  7,  11.     Matt.,  xxii.,  39  ;  v.,  17. 

2dly.  The  communion  of  saints  must  be  so 
ordered  as  may  stand  with  the  most  convenient 
use  of  the  ordinances  and  discharge  of  moral 
duties,  without  respect  of  persons. — 1  Cor.,  xiv., 
26  :  "  Let  all  things  be  done  unto  edifying." 
Heb.,  X.,  24,  25.     James,  ii.,  1,  2. 

3dly.  The  pastor  and  people  must  so  nearly 
cohabit  together  as  that  they  may  mutually  per- 
form their  duties  each  to  other  with  most  con- 
veniency. 

In  this  company  some  must  be  set  apart  to 
bear  office. 

Of  the  Officers  of  a  Particular  Congregation. 

For  officers  in  a  single  congregation,  there 
ought  to.  be  one,  at  the  least,  both  to  labour  in 
the  Word  and  doctrine,  and  to  rule. — Prov., 
xxix  ,  18.     1  Tim.,  v.,  17.     Heb.,  xiii.,  7. 

It  is  also  requisite  that  there  should  he  others 
to  join  in  government. — 1  Cor.,  xii.,  28. 

And  likewise  it  is  requisite  that  there  should 


be  others  to  take  special  care  for  the  relief  of 
the  poor. — Acts,  vi.,  2,  3. 

The  number  of  each  of  which  is  to  be  propor- 
tioned according  to  the  condition  of  the  congre- 
gation. 

These  officers  are  to  meet  together  at  conve- 
nient and  set  times,  for  the  well  ordering  the 
affairs  of  that  congregation,  each  according  to 
his  office. 

It  is  most  expedient  that,  in  these  meetings, 
one  whose  office  is  to  labour  in  the  Word  and 
doctrine,  do  moderate  in  their  proceedings. — 
1  Tim.,  v.,  17. 

Of  the  Ordinances  in  a  Particular  Congregation. 
The  ordinances  in  a  single  congregation  are, 
prayer,  thanksgiving,  and  singing  of  psalms  (I 
Tim.,  ii.,  1  ;  1  Cor.,  xiv.,  15,  16),  the  Word  read 
(although  there  follow  no  immediate  explication 
of  what  is  read),  the  Word  expounded  and  ap- 
plied, catechising,  the  sacraments  administered, 
collection  made  for  the  poor,  dismissing  the 
people  with  a  blessing. 

Of  Church  Government,  and  the  several  sorts  of 
Assemblies  for  the  same. 

Christ  hath  instituted  a  government,  and  gov- 
ernors ecclesiastical  in  the  Church :  to  that 
purpose  the  apostles  did  immediately  receive 
the  keys  from  the  hand  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  did 
use  and  exercise  them  in  all  the  churches  of  the 
world,  upon  all  occasions. 

And  Christ  hath  since  continually  furnished 
some  in  his  Church  with  gifts  of  government, 
and  with  commission  to  execute  the  same,  when 
called  thereunto. 

It  is  lawful  and  agreeable  to  the  Word  of 
God  that  the  Church  be  governed  by  several 
sorts  of  assemblies,  which  are  congregational, 
classical,  and  synodical. 

Of  the  Power  i?i  Common  of  all  these  Assemblies. 

It  is  lawful  and  agreeable  to  the  Word  of 
God  that  the  several  assemblies  before  men- 
tioned have  power  to  convene,  and  call  before 
them,  any  person  within  their  several  bounds 
whom  the  ecclesiastical  business  which  is  be- 
fore them  doth  concern  ;  proved  by  Matt.,  xviii. 

They  have  the  power  to  hear  and  determine 
such  causes  and  differences  as  do  orderly  come 
before  them. 

It  is  lawful  and  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God 
that  all  the  said  assemblies  have  some  power  to 
dispense  church  censures. 

Of  Congregational  Assemblies,  that  is,  the  Meet- 
ing of  the  ruling  Officers  of  a  particular  CongrC' 
gation  for  the  Government  thereof. 
The  ruling  officers  of  a  particular  congrega- 
tion have  power,  authoritatively,  to  call  before 
them  any  member  of  the  congregation,  as  they 
shall  see  just  occasion. 

To  inquire  into  the  knowledge  and  spiritual 
estate  of  the  several  members  of  the  congrega- 
tion. 
To  admonish  and  rebuke. 
Which  three  branches  are  proved  by  Heb., 
xiii.,  17;   1  Thess.,  v.,  12,  13;  Ezek,  xxxiv.,4. 
Authoritative  suspension  from  the  Lord's  Ta- 
ble of  a  person  not  yet  cast  out  of  the  Church, 
is  agreeable  to  the  Scripture  : 

1st.  Because  the  ordinance  itself  must  not  be 
profaned. 


APPENDIX; 


471 


2dly.  Because  we  are  charged  to  withdraw 
from  those  tliat  walk  disorderly. 

3dly.  Because  of  the  great  sin  and  danger, 
both  to  him  that  comes  unworthily,  and  also  to 
the  whole  Church. — Malt.,  vii..  6.  2  Thess., 
iii ,  6,  14,  15.  1  Cor.,  xi.,  27,  to  the  end  of  the 
cliapter,  compared  with  Jude  23.  1  Tim.,  v., 
22.  And  there  was  power  and  authority,  under 
the  Old  Testament,  to  keep  unclean  persons 
from  holy  things. — Levit.,  xiii.,  5.  Numb.,  ix., 
7.     2  Chron  ,  xxiii.,  19. 

The  like  power  and  authority,  by  way  of  anal- 
ogy) continues  under  the  New  Testament. 

The  ruling  otiicers  of  a  particular  congrega- 
tion have  power  authoritatively  to  suspend 
from  the  Lord's  Table  a  person  not  yet  cast  out 
of  the  Church. 

1st.  Because  those  who  have  authority  to 
judge  of  and  admit  such  as  are  fit  to  receive  the 
sacrament,  have  authority  to  keep  back  such  as 
shall  be  found  unworthy. 

2dly.  Because  it  is  an  ecclesiastical  business 
of  ordinary  practice  belonging  to  that  congrega- 
tion. 

When  congregations  are  divided  and  fixed, 
they  need  all  mutual  help  one  from  another,  both 
in  regard  to  their  intrinsic  weaknesses  and  mu- 
tual dependance,  as  also  in  regard  of  enemies 
■from  without. 

Of  Classical  Asscmhlies. 

The  Scripture  doth  hold  out  a  presbytery  in 
the  Church,  both  in  the  First  Epistle  to  Timo- 
thy, iv.,  14,  and  in  Acts,  xv.,  2,  4,  6. 

A  presbytery  consisteth  of  ministers  of  the 
Word,  and  such  other  public  officers  as  are 
agreeable  to,  and  warranted  by,  the  Word  of 
God,  to  be  church  governors,  to  join  with  the 
ministers  in  the  government  of  the  Church  ;  as 
appeareth  Rom.,  xii.,  7,  8 ;   1  Cor.,  xii.,  28. 

The  Scripture  doth  hold  forth  that  many  par- 
ticular congregations  may  he  under  one  pres- 
byterial  government. 

This  proposition  is  proved  by  instances  : 

I.  First.  Of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  which 
consisted  of  more  congregations  than  one,  and 
-all  these  congregations  were  under  one  presby- 
terial  government. 

This  appeareth  thus  : 

1.  First.  The  Church  of  Jerusalem  consisted 
■of  more  congregations  than  one,  as  is  mani- 
,fest, 

1st.  By  the  multitude  of  believers  mentioned 
in  divers  places  :  both  before  the  dispersion  of 
the  believers  there  by  the  persecution  (mention- 
•ed  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  chap.  viii.  ;  in 
the  beginning  thereof,  witness  chap,  i.,  verse  1 1 ; 
ii.,  41,  46,  47  ;  iv.,  4  ;  v.,  14,  and  vi.  of  the  same 
book  of  the  Acts,  verses  1  and  7),  and  also  after 
the  dispersion,  ix.,  31 ;  xii ,  24  ;  and  xxi.,  20,  of 
the  same  book. 

2dly.  By  the  many  apostles  and  other  preach- 
ers in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  if  there 
■werebut  one  congregation  there,  then  each  apos- 
tle preached  but  seldom  ;  which  will  not  consist 
■with  chap,  vi.,  verse  2,  of  the  same  book  of  the 
>Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

3dly.  The  diversity  of  languages  among  the 
believers,  mentioned  both  in  the  second  and 
sixth  chapters  of  the  Acts,  doth  argue  more 
•congregations  than  one  in  that  church. 

2.  Secondly.    All  those  congregations  were 


under  one  presbyterial  government ;  because, 
1st.  They  were  one  church,  Acts,  viii ,  1 ;  ii.,  47, 
compared  with  v.,  1 1  ;  xii.,  5  ;  and  xv.,  4,  of  the 
same  book. 

2dly,  The  elders  of  the  Church  are  mention- 
ed. Acts,  xi.,  30  ;  XV.,  4.  6,  22  ;  and  xxi.,  17,  18, 
of  the  same  book. 

3dly.  The  apostles  did  the  ordinary  acts  of 
presbyters,  as  presbyters  in  that  kirk;  which 
proveth  a  presbyterial  church  before  the  disper- 
sion.— Acts,  vi. 

4thly.  The  several  congregations  in  Jerusa- 
lem being  one  church,  the  elders  of  tliat  church 
are  mentioned  as  meeting  together  for  acts  of 
government.  Acts,  xi.,  30;  xv.,  4,  6,  22;  and 
xxi.,  17,  18,  and  so  forward  ;  which  proves  that 
those  several  congregations  were  under  one 
presbyterial  government. 

And  whether  these  congregations  were  fixed 
or  not  fixed  in  regard  of  officers  or  members, 
it  is  all  one  as  to  the  truth  of  the  proposition. 

Nor  doth  there  appear  any  material  difference 
betwixt  the  several  congregations  in  Jerusalem, 
and  the  many  congregations  now  in  the  ordina- 
ry condition  of  the  Church,  as  to  the  point  of 
fixedness  required  of  officers  or  members. 

3.  Thirdly.  Therefore  the  Scripture  doth  hold 
forth  that  many  congregations  may  be  under 
one  presbyterial  government. 

II.  Secondly.  By  the  instance  of  the  Church 
of  Ephesus ;  for, 

1.  That  there  were  more  congregations  than 
one  in  the  Church  of  Ephesus,  appears  by  Acts, 
XX.,  31,  where  is  mention  of  Paul's  continuance 
at  Ephesus  in  preaching  for  the  space  of  three 
years  ;  and  Acts,  xix.,  18-20,  where  the  special 
effect  of  the  Word  is  mentioned  ;  and  verses  10 
and  17  of  the  same  chapter,  where  is  a  distinc- 
tion of  Jews  and  Greeks  ;  and  1  Cor.,  xvi.,  8,  9, 
where  is  a  reason  of  Paul's  stay  at  Ephesus  un- 
til Pentecost;  and  verse  19,  where  is  mention 
of  a  particular  church  in  the  house  of  Aquilla 
and  Priscilla,  then  at  Ephesus  ;  as  appears  Acts, 
xviii.,  19,  24,  26.  All  which  laid  together,  doth 
prove  that  the  multitude  of  believers  did  make 
more  congregations  than  one  in  the  Church  of 
Ephesus. 

2.  That  there  were  many  elders  over  these 
many  congregations,  as  one  flock,  appeareth 
Acts,  XX.,  17,  25,  28,  30,  36,  37. 

3.  That  these  many  congregations  were  one 
church,  and  that  they  were  under  one  presbyte- 
rial government,  appeareth  Rev.,  ii.,  the  first  six 
verses,  joined  with  Acts,  xx.,  17,  18. 

Of  Synodical  Assemblies. 

The  Scripture  doth  hold  out  another  sort  of 
assemblies,  for  the  government  of  the  Church, 
besides  classical  and  congregational,  all  which 
we  call  synodical.  Acts,  xv.  Pastors  and  teach- 
ers, and  other  church  governors (as  also  other 
fit  persons,  when  it  shall  be  deemed  expedient), 
are  members  of  those  assemblies  which  we  call 
synodical,  where  they  have  a  lawful  calling 
thereunto. 

Synodical  assemblies  may  lawfully  be  of  sev- 
eral sorts,  as  provincial,  national,  and  oecumeni- 
cal. 

It  is  lawful  and  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  Go. I 
that  there  be  a  subordination  of  congregational, 
classical,  provincial,  and  national  assemblie.<, 
for  the  government  of  the  Church. 


472 


APPENDIX. 


OF    THE    ORDINATION    OF    MINtSTERS. 

Under  the  head  of  ordination  of  ministers  is 
to  he  considered,  either  the  doctrine  of  ordina- 
tion, or  the  power  of  it. 

Touching  the  Doctrine  of  Ordination. 

No  man  ought  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of 
a  minister  of  the  Word  without  a  lawful  calling. 
— John,  iii.,  27.  Rom.,  x,,  14,  15.  Jer.,  xiv., 
14.     Heh.,  v.,  4. 

Ordination  is  always  to  be  continued  in  the 
Church.— -Tit.,  i.,  5.     1  Tim.,  v.,  21,  22. 

Ordination  is  the  solemn  setting  apart  of  a 
person  to  some  public  church  office. — Numb., 
viii.,  10,  11,  14,  19,  22.    Acts,  vi.,  3,  5,  G. 

Every  minister  of  the  Word  is  to  be  ordained 
by  imposition  of  hands  and  prayer,  with  fast- 
ing, by  those  preaching  presbyters  to  whom  it 
doih  belong. — 1  Tim.,  v.,  12.  Acts,  iv.,23,  and 
xiii.,  3. 

It  is  agreeable  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  very 
expedient,  that  such  as  are  to  be  ordained  min- 
isters be  designed  to  some  particular  church,  or 
other  ministerial  charge. — Acts,  xiv.,  23.  Tit., 
i.,  5.    Acts,  XX.,  17,  28. 

He  that  is  to  be  ordained  minister  must  be 
duly  qualified,  both  for  life  and  ministerial  abil- 
ities, according  to  the  rules  of  the  apostle. — 1 
Tim.,  iii,  2-6.    Tit.,  i.,  5-9. 

He  is  to  be  examined  and  approved  by  those 
by  whom  he  is  to  be  ordained. — 1  Tim.,  iii.,  7, 
10,  and  v.,  22. 

No  man  is  to  be  ordained  a  minister  for  a 
particular  congregation  if  they  of  that  congre- 
gation can  show  just  cause  of  exception  against 
him.— 1  Tim.,  iii.,  2.    Tit.,  i.,  7. 

Touching  the  Power  of  Ordination. 

Ordination  is  the  act  of  a  presbytery,  1  Tim., 
iv.,  14.  The  power  of  ordering  the  whole  work 
of  ordination  is  in  the  whole  presbytery,  which, 
when  it  is  over  more  congregations  than  one, 
whether  those  congregations  be,  fixed  or  not 
fixed  in  regard  of  officers  or  members,  it  is  in- 
different as  to  the  point  of  ordination. — 1  Tim., 
iv.,  14. 

It  is  very  requisite  that  no  single  congrega- 
tion, that  can  conveniently  associate,  do  as- 
sume to  itself  all  and  sole  power  in  ordination. 

1.  Because  there  is  no  example  in  Scripture 
that  any  single  congregation,  which  might  con- 
veniently associate,  did  assume  to  itself  all  and 
sole  power  in  ordination  ;  neither  is  there  any 
rule  which  may  warrant  such  a  practice. 

2.  Because  there  is  in  Scripture  example  of 
an  ordination  in  a  presbytery  over  divers  con- 
gregations :  as  in  the  Church  of  Jerusalem, 
where  were  many  congregations,  these  many 
congregations  were  under  one  presbytery,  and 
this  presbytery  did  ordain. 

The  preaching  presbyters  orderly  associated, 
either  in  cities  or  neighbouring  villages,  are 
those  to  whom  the  imposition  of  hands  doth 
appertain  for  those  congregations  within  their 
bounds  respectively. 

CONCERNING    THE   DOCTKINAL    PART    OF    ORDINA- 
TION   OF    MINISTKRS. 

1.  No  man  ought  to  take  upon  him  the  office 
of  a  minister  of  the  Word  without  a  lawful  call- 
ing.—Juhn,  iii.,  27.  Rom.,  x.,  14,  15.  Jer., 
xiv.,  14.     Heb.,  v.,  4. 


2.  Ordination  is  always  to  be  continued  in 
the  Church. — Tit.,  i.,  5.     1  Tim.,  v.,  21,  22. 

3.  Ordination  is  the  solemn  setting  apart  of  a 
person  to  some  public  church  office. — Numb., 
viii.,  10,  11,  14,  19,  22.    Acts,  vi.,  3,  5,  6. 

4.  Every  minister  of  the  Word  is  to  be  or- 
dained by  imposition  of  hands  and  prayer,  with 
fasting,  by  those  preaching  presbyters  to  whom 
it  doth  belong. — 1  Tim.,  v.,  22.  Acts,  xiv.,  23  ; 
xiii.,  3. 

'  5.  The  power  of  ordering  the  whole  work  of 
ordination  is  in  the  whole  presbytery,  which,, 
when  it  is  over  more  congregations  than  one,, 
whether  those  congregations  be  fixed  or  not 
fixed  in  regard  of  officers  or  members,  it  is  in- 
different as  to  the  point  of  ordination. — 1  Tim., 
iv.,  14. 

6.  It  is  agreeable  to  the  Word,  and  very  ex- 
pedient, that  such  as  are  to  be  ordained  minis- 
ters be  designed  to  some  particular  church,  or 
other  ministerial  charge. — Acts,  xiv.,  23.  Tit.,, 
i.,  5.     Acts,  XX.,  17,  28. 

7.  He  that  is  to  be  ordained  minister  must 
be  duly  qualified,  both  for  life  and  ministerial 
abilities,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  apostle. 
— 1  Tim.,  iii.,  2-6.    Tit.,  i.,  5-9. 

8.  He  is  to  be  examined  and  approved  of  by 
those  by  whom  he  is  to  be  ordained. — 1  Tim., 
iii.,  7,  10  ;  v.,  22. 

9.  No  man  is  to  be  ordained  a  minister  for  a 
particular  congregation  if  they  of  that  congre- 
gation can  show  just  cause  of  exception  against 
him.— 1  Tim,  iii.. 2.    Tit,  i,  7. 

10.  Preaching  presbyters  orderly  associated, 
either  in  cities  or  neighbouring  villages,  are 
those  to  whom  the  imposition  of  hands  do  ap- 
pertain for  those  congregations  within  their 
bounds  respectively. — 1  Tim.,  iv.,  14. 

11.  In  extraordinary  cases,  something  ex- 
traordinary may  be  done,  until  a  settled  order 
may  be  had,  yet  keeping,  as  near  as  possible 
may  be,  to  the  rule. — 2  Chron.,  xxix.,  34-36  ; 
XXX.,  2-5. 

12.  There  is  at  this  time  (as  we  humbly  con- 
ceive) an  extraordinary  occasion  for  a  way  of 
ordination  for  the  present  supply  of  ministers. 

The  Directory  for  the  Ordination  of  Ministers. 
It  being  manifest,  by  the  Word  of  God,  that 
no  man  ought  to  take  upon  him  the  office  of  a 
minister  of  the  Gospel  until  he  be  lawfully  call- 
ed and  ordained  thereunto ;  and  that  the  work 
of  ordination  is  to  be  performed  with  all  due 
care,  wisdom,  gravity,  and  solemnity,  we  hum- 
bly tender  these  directions  as  requisite  to  be 
observed. 

1.  He  that  is  to  be  ordained,  being  either 
nominated  by  the  people,  or  otherwise  com- 
mended to  the  presbytery  for  any  place,  must 
address  himself  to  the  presbytery,  and  bring 
with  him  a  testimonial  of  his  taking  the  Cove- 
nant of  the  three  kingdoms  ;  of  his  diligence 
and  proficiency  in  his  studies  ;  what  degrees  he 
hath  taken  in  the  university,  and  what  hath 
been  the  time  of  his  abode  there  ;  and,  withal, 
of  his  age,  which  is  to  be  twenty-four  years  ; 
but  especially  of  his  life  and  conversation. 

2.  Which  being  considered  by  the  presbytery, 
they  are  to  proceed  to  inquire  touching  the- 
grace  of  God  in  him,  and  whether  he  he  of  such 
holiness  of  lilc  as  is  requisite  in  a  minister  of 
the  Gospel ;  and  to  examine  him  touching  his 


APPENDIX. 


473 


learning  and  sufficiency,  and  touching  the  evi- 
dences of  his  calling  to  the  holy  ministry,  and, 
in  pariicular,  his  fair  and  direct  calling  to  that 
place. 

THE  RULES  FOR  EXAMINATION  ARE  THESE. 

1.  That  the  party  examined  be  dealt,  withal, 
in  a  brotherly  way,  with  mildness  of  spirit,  and 
with  special  respect  to  the  gravity,  modesty,  and 
quality  of  every  one. 

2.  He  shall  be  examined  touching  his  skill  in 
the  original  tongues,  and  his  trial  to  be  made 
by  reading  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Testaments, 
and  rendering  some  portion  of  some  into  Latin  ; 
and  if  he  be  defective  in  them,  inquiry  shall  be 
made  more  strictly  after  his  other  learning,  and 
whether  he  hath  skill  in  logic  and  philosophy. 

3.  What  authors  in  divinity  he  hath  read,  and 
is  best  acquainted  with.  And  trial  shall  be 
made  in  his  knowledge  of  the  grounds  of  reli- 
gion, and  of  his  ability  to  defend  the  orthodox 
doctrine  contained  in  them  against  all  unsound 
and  erroneous  opinions,  especially  those  of  the 
present  age  ;  of  his  skill  in  the  sense  and  mean- 
ing of  such  places  of  Scripture  as  shall  be  pro- 
posed unto  hi.m  in  eases  of  conscience,  and  in 
the  ciironology  of  the  Scripture,  and  the  eccle- 
siastical history. 

4.  If  he  hath  not  before  preached  in  public, 
with  approbation  of  such  as  are  able  to  judge, 
he  shall,  at  a  competent  time  assigned  him,  ex- 
pound before  the  presbytery  such  a  place  of 
Scripture  as  shall  be  given  him. 

5.  He  shall  also,  within  a  competent  time, 
frame  a  discourse  in  Latin  upon  such  a  common- 
place or  controversy  in  divinity  as  shall  be  as- 
signed him,  and  exhibit  to  the  presbytery  such 
theses  as  express  the  sum  thereof,  and  maintain 
a  dispute  upon  them. 

6.  He  shall  preach  before  the  people,  the  pres- 
bytery, or  some  of  the  ministry  of  the  Word  ap- 
pointed by  them,  being  present. 

7.  The  proportion  of  his  gifts,  in  relation  to 
the  place  unto  which  he  is  called,  shall  be  con- 
sidered. 

8.  Besides  the  trial  of  his  gifts  in  preaching, 
he  shall  undergo  an  examination  in  the  premises 
two  several  days,  and  more,  if  the  presbytery 
shall  judge  it  necessary. 

9.  And  as  for  him  that  hath  formerly  been 
ordained  a  minister,  and  is  to  be  removed  to  an- 
other charge,  he  shall  bring  a  testimonial  of  his 
ordination,  and  of  his  abilities  and  conversa- 
tion, whereupon  his  fitness  for  that  place  shall 
be  tried  by  his  preaching  there  (if  it  shall  be 
judged  necessary)  by  a  farther  examination  of 
him. 

3.  In  which  he  being  approved,  he  is  to  be 
sent  to  the  church  where  he  is  to  serve,  there 
to  preach  three  several  days,  and  to  converse 
with  the  people,  that  they  may  have  trial  of  his 
gifts  for  their  edification,  and  may  have  time 
and  occasion  to  inquire  into,  and  the  better  to 
know  his  li((3  and  conversation. 

4.  In  the  last  of  these  three  days  appointed 
for  the  trial  of  his  gifts  in  preaching,  there  shall 
be  sent  from  the  presbytery  to  the  congrrgation 
a  public  intimation  in  writing,  which  shall  be 
pui)licly  read  before  the  people,  and  after  affixed 
to  the  church  door,  to  signify  that  such  a  day, 
a  competent  number  of  the  members  of  that  con- 

VoL.  II.— O  o  o 


gregation,  nominated  by  themselves,  shall  appear 
before  the  presbytery,  to  give  their  consent  and 
approbation  to  such  a  man  to  be  their  minister; 
or  otherwise  to  put  in,  with  all  Christian  discre- 
tion and  meekness,  what  exceptions  they  have 
against  him  ;  and  if,  upon  the  day  appointed, 
there  be  no  just  exception  against  him,  but  the 
people  give  their  consent,  then  the  presbytery 
shall  proceed  to  ordination. 

5.  Upon  the  day  appointed  for  ordination, 
which  is  to  be  performed  in  that  church  where 
he  that  is  to  be  ordained  is  to  serve,  a  solemn 
fast  shall  be  kept  by  the  congregation,  that  they 
may  the  more  earnestly  join  in  prayer  for  a 
blessing  upon  the  ordinance  of  Christ,  and  the 
labours  of  his  servant  for  their  good.  The  pres- 
bytery shall  come  to  the  place,  or  at  least  three 
or  four  ministers  of  the  Word  shall  be  sent  thith- 
er from  the  presbytery ;  of  which  one,  appointed 
by  the  presbytery,  shall  preach  to  the  people 
concerning  the  office  and  duty  of  ministers  of 
Christ,  and  how  the  people  ought  to  receive 
them  for  their  work's  sake. 

6.  After  the  sermon,  the  minister  who  hath 
preached  shall,  in  the  face  of  the  congregation, 
demand  of  him  who  is  now  to  be  ordained  con- 
cerning his  faith  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  his  persua* 
sion  of  the  truth  of  the  Reformed  religion  ac- 
cording to  the  Scripture  ;  his  sincere  intentions 
and  ends  in  desiring  to  enter  into  this  Calling  ; 
his  diligence  in  prayer,  reading,  meditation^ 
preaching,  ministering  the  sacraments,  disci- 
pline, and  doing  all  ministerial  duties  towards  his 
charge  ;  his  zeal  and  faithfulness  in  maintaining 
the  truth  of  the  Gospel,  and  unity  of  the  Church 
against  error  and  schism  ;  his  care  that  himself 
and  his  family  may  be  unblameable,  and  exam- 
ples to  the  flock  ;  his  willingness  and  humility, 
in  meekness  of  spirit,  to  submit  unto  the  admo- 
nitions of  his  brethren  and  discipline  of  the 
Church  ;  and  his  resolution  to  continue  in  his 
duty  against  all  trouble  and  persecution. 

7.  In  all  which  having  declared  himself,  pro- 
fessed his  willingness,  and  promised  his  endeav- 
ours, by  the  help  of  God,  the  minister  likewise 
shall  demand  of  the  people  concerning  their 
willingness  to  receive  and  acknowledge  him  as 
the  minister  of  Christ ;  and  to  obey,  and  submit 
unto  him,  as  having  rule  over  them  in  the  Lord; 
and  to  maintain,  encourage,  and  assist  him  ia 
all  parts  of  his  office. 

8.  Which  being  mutually  promised  by  the 
people,  the  presbytery,  or  the  ministers  sent 
from  them  for  ordination,  shall  solemnly  set  hinn 
apart  to  the  office  and  work  of  the  ministry,  by 
laying  their  hands  on  him,  which  is  to  be  ac- 
companied with  a  short  prayer  or  blessing,  to 
this  effect  : 

"Thankfully  acknowledging  the  great  mercy 
of  God  in  sending  Jesus  Christ  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  his  people  ;  and  for  his  ascension  to  the 
right  hand  of  God  the  Father,  and  thence  pour- 
ing out  his  Spirit,  and  giving  gifts  to  men,  apos- 
tles, evangelists,  prophets,  pastors,  and  teach- 
ers, for  the  gathering  and  building  up  of  his 
("hurch  ;  and  for  fitting  and  inclining  this  man 
to  this  great  work  ;*  to  entreat  him  to  fit  him 
with  his  Holy  Spirit  to  give  him  (who  in  his 
n;ime  we  thus  set  apart  to  this  holy  service)  to 
fulfil  the  work  of  his  ministry  in  all  things,  that 


Here  let  them  impose  hands  on  his  head. 


474 


APPEN  DIX. 


he  may  both  save  himself,  and  his  people  com- 
mitted to  his  charge." 

9.  This,  or  the  like  form  of  prayer  and  bless- 
ing being  ended,  let  the  minister  who  preached 
briefly  exhort  him  to  consider  of  the  greatness 
of  his  office  and  work,  the  danger  of  negligence 
both  to  himself  and  his  people,  the  blessing 
which  will  accompany  his  faithfulness  in  this 
life,  and  that  to  come ;  and,  withal,  exhort  the 
people  to  carry  themselves  to  him,  as  to  their 
minister  in  the  Lord,  according  to  their  solemn 
promise  made  before  ;  and  so  by  prayer  com- 
mending both  him  and  his  flock  to  the  grace  of 
God,  after  singing  of  a  psalm,  let  the  assembly 
be  dismissed  with  a  blessing. 

10.  If  a  minister  be  designed  to  a  congregation 
who  hath  been  formerly  ordained  presbyter,  ac- 
cording to  the  form  or  ordination  which  hath 
been  in  the  Church  of  England,  which  we  hold 
for  substance  to  be  valid,  and  not  to  be  dis- 
claimed by  any  who  have  received  it,  then,  there 
being  a  cautious  proceeding  in  matters  of  ex- 
amination, let  him  be  admitted  without  any  new 
ordination. 

11.  And  in  case  any  person  already  ordained 
minister  in  Scotland,  or  in  any  other  Reformed 
church,  be  designed  to  another  congregation  in 
England,  he  is  to  bring  from  that  church  to  the 
presbytery  here,  within  which  that  congregation 
is,  a  sufficient  testimonial  of  his  ordination,  of 
his  life  and  conversation  while  he  lived  with 
them,  and  of  the  causes  of  his  removal ;  and  to 
undergo  such  a  trial  of  his  fitness  and  sufficien- 
cy, and  to  have  the  same  course  held  with  him 
in  other  particulars,  as  is  set  down  in  the  rule 
immediately  going  before,  touching  examina- 
tion and  admission. 

12.  That  records  be  carefully  kept  in  the  sev- 
eral presbyteries  of  the  names  of  the  persons 
ordained,  with  their  testimonials,  the  time  and 
place  of  their  ordination,  of  the  presbyters  who 
did  impose  hands  upon  them,  and  of  the  charge 
to  which  they  are  appointed. 

13.  That  no  money  or  gift  of  what  kind  soev- 
er shall  be  received  from  the  person  to  be  or- 
dained, or  from  any  on  his  behalf,  for  ordina- 
tion, or  aught  else  belonging  to  it,  by  any  of  the 
presbytery,  or  any  appertaining  to  any  of  them, 
upon  what  pretence  soever. 

Thus  far  of  Ordinary  Rules,  and  Course  of  Ordi- 
nation in  the  Ordinary  Way ;  that  which  con- 
cerns the  Extraordinary  Way,  requisite  to  be  now 
practised,  folLowcth. 

1.  In  these  present  exigencies,  while  we  can- 
not have  any  presbyteries  formed  up  to  their 
whole  power  and  work,  and  that  many  minis- 
ters are  to  be  ordained  for  the  service  of  the  ar- 
mies and  navy,  and  to  many  congregations  where 
there  is  no  minister  at  all ;  and  where  (by  rea- 
son of  the  public  troubles)  the  people  cannot 
either  themselves  inquire,  and  find  out  one  who 
may  be  a  faithful  minister  for  them,  or  have 
any  with  safety  sent  unto  them  for  such  a  sol- 
emn trial  as  was  before  mentioned  in  the  ordi- 
nary rules,  especially  when  there  can  be  no 
presbytery  near  unto  them  to  whom  they  may 
address  themselves,  or  which  may  come  or  send 
to  them  a  fit  man  to  be  ordained  in  that  congre- 
gation, and  fur  that  people  ;  and  yet,  notwith- 
standing, it  is  requisite  that  ministers  be  or- 
dained for  them  by  some  who,  being  set  apart 


themselves  for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  have 
power  to  join  in  the  setting  apart  others  who 
are  found  fit  and  worthy.  In  those  cases,  un- 
til, by  God's  blessing,  the  aforesaid  difficulties 
may  be  in  some  good  measure  removed,  let  some 
godly  minister  in  or  about  the  city  of  London 
be  designed  by  public  authority,  who,  being  as- 
sociated, may  ordain  ministers  for  the  city  and 
the  vicinity,  keeping  as  near  to  the  ordinary 
rules  forementioned  as  possibly  they  may  ;  and 
let  this  association  be  for  no  other  intent  or  pur- 
pose but  only  for  the  work  of  ordination. 

2.  Let  the  like  association  be  made  by  the 
same  authority  in  great  towns,  and  the  neigh- 
bwiring  parishes  in  tiie  several  counties,  which 
are  at  the  present  quiet  and  undisturbed,  to  do 
the  like  for  the  parts  adjacent. 

3.  Let  such  as  are  chosen,  or  appointed  for 
the  service  of  the  armies  or  navy,  be  ordained 
as  aforesaid,  by  the  associated  ministers  of  Lon- 
don, or  some  others  in  the  country. 

4.  Let  them  do  the  like  when  any  man  shall 
duly  and  lawfully  be  recommended  to  them  for 
the  ministry  of  any  congregation,  who  cannot 
enjoy  liberty  to  have  a  trial  of  his  parts  and  abil- 
ities, and  desire  the  help  of  such  ministers  so 
associated  for  the  better  furnishing  of  them  with 
such  a  person  as  by  them  shall  be  judged  fit  for 
the  service  of  that  church  and  people. 

THE  CONTENTS  OF  THE  FORM  OF  PRESBYTERIAL 
CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Of  congregational  assemblies, 
that  IS,  the  meeting  of  the 
ruling  officers  of  a  partic- 
ular congregation  for  the 
government  thereof. 

Of  classical  assemblies. 

Of  synodical  assemblies. 

Of  ordination  of  ministers. 

Touching  the  doctrine  of  or- 
dination. 

Touching  the  power  of  ordi- 
nation. 

Concerning  the  doctrinal  part 
of  the  ordination  of  minis- 
ters. 

The  directory  for  the  ordina- 
tion of  ministers. 


The  preface. 

Of  the  (,'hurch. 

Of  the  officers  of  the  Church. 

Pa.'itors. 

Teaclier  or  doctor. 

Other  church  governors. 

Deacons. 

Of  particular  congregations. 

Of  the  officers  of  a  iiartic- 
ulur  congregation. 

Of  the  ordinances  in  a  par- 
ticular congregation. 

Of  church  government,  and 
the  several  sorts  of  assem- 
blies lor  the  same. 

Of  the  power  in  common  of 
all  these  assemblies. 


No.  X. 


The  Assernbly^s  Declaration  of  the  Falsehood  and 
Forgery  of  a  lying,  scandalous  Pamphlet,  put 
forth  under  the  Name  of  their  Reverend  Broth- 
er, Master  Alexander  Henderson,  after  his  Death. 
The  General  Assembly  of  this  kirk  having 
seen  a  printed  paper,  entitled  "  The  Declaration 
of  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson,  principal  Minister 
of  the  Word  of  God  at  Edinburgh,  and  Chief- 
commissioner  for  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  to  the 
Parliament  and  Synod  of  England,  made  upon 
his  Deathbed  ;"  and  taking  into  their  serious 
consideration  how  many  gross  lies  and  impu- 
dent calumnies  are  therein  contained ;  out  of 
the  tender  respect  which  they  do  bear  to  his 
name  (which  ought  to  be  very  precious  to  them 
and  all  posterity,  for  his  faithful  service  in  the 
great  work  of  reformation  in  these  kingdoms, 
wherein  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  make  him  em- 
inently instrumental) ;  and  lest,  through  the 
malice  of  some,  and  ignorance  of  others,  the 
said  pamphlet  should  gain  belief  among  the 
weaker  sort,  they  have  thought  fit  to  make 
known  and  declare,  concerning  the  same,  as 
followeth  ; 


APPENDIX. 


475 


That  after  due  search  and  trial,  they  <io  find 
that  their  worthy  brother,  Master  Alexander 
Henderson,  did,  from  the  time  of  his  coming 
from  London  to  Newcastle,  till  the  last  moment 
of  his  departure  out  of  this  life,  upon  all  occa- 
sions manifest  the  constancy  of  his  judgment 
touching  the  work  of  reformation  in  these  king- 
doms, namely,  in  all  his  discourses  and  confer- 
ences with  his  majesty,  and  with  his  brethren 
who  were  employed  with  him  in  the  same  trust 
at  Newcastle  :  in  his  letters  to  the  commission- 
ers at  London,  and  particularly  in  his  last  dis- 
couise  to  his  majesty,  at  his  departing  from 
Newcastle,  being  very  weak,  and  greatly  de- 
cayed in  his  natural  strength.  When  he  was 
come  from  Newcastle  by  sea  to  this  kingdom, 
he  was  in  such  a  weak,  worn,  and  failed  condi- 
tion, as  it  was  evident  to  all  who  saw  him  that 
he  was  not  able  to  frame  any  such  declaration  : 
for  he  was  so  spent,  that  he  died  within  eight 
days  after  his  arrival ;  and  all  that  he  was  able 
to  speak  in  that  time  did  clearly  show  his  judg- 
ment of,  and  affection  to,  the  work  of  reforma- 
tion and  cause  of  God,  to  be  every  way  the 
same  then  that  it  was  in  the  beginning  and  prog- 
ress thereof;  as  divers  reverend  brethren  who 
■visited  him  have  declared  to  this  assembly,  and 
particularly  two  brethren  who  constantly  at- 
tended him  from  the  time  he  came  home  till  his 
breath  expired.  A  farther  testimony  may  be 
brought  from  a  short  confession  of  faith  under 
his  hand,  found  among  his  papers,  which  is  ex- 
pressed as  his  last  words,  wherein,  ainong  oth- 
er mercies,  he  declareth  himself  most  of  all 
obliged  to  the  care  and  goodness  of  God,  for 
calling  him  to  believe  the  promises  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  for  exalting  him  to  be  a  preacher  of 
them  to  others ;  and  to  be  a  willing,  though 
a  weak  instrument,  in  this  great  and  wonderful 
work  of  reformation,  which  he  earnestly  be- 
seeched  the  Lord  to  bring  to  a  happy  conclusion. 
Other  reasons  may  be  added  from  the  levity  of 
the  style,  and  manifest  absurdities  contained  in 
that  paper.  Upon  consideration  of  all  which, 
this  assembly  doth  condemn  the  said  pamphlet 
as  forged,  scandalous,  and  false,  and  farther  de- 
clare the  author  and  contriver  of  the  same  to 
be  void  of  charity  and  a  good  conscience,  and 
a  gross  liar  and  calumniator,  led  by  the  spirit 
of  the  accuser  of  the  brethren. 

August  7,  1648.     Ante  meridiem.     Sess.  3L 


No.  XI. 


A  Confession  of  Faith  of  Seven  Congregations  or 
Churches  of  Christ  in  hondon,  which  are  com- 
monly, but  unjustly,  called  Anabaptists  ;  publish- 
ed for  the  Vindication  of  the  Truth  and  Informa- 
tion of  the  Ignorant :  likewise  for  the  taking  off 
those  Aspersions  which  are  frequcnlly,  both  in 
Pulpit  and  Print,  unjustly  cast  upon  them. 
Printed  at  London,  Anno  1646. 

L  The  Lord  our  God  is  but  one  God,  whose 
subsistence  is  in  himself;  whose  essence  can- 
not be  comprehended  hy  any  but  himself;  who 
only  hath  immortality,  dwelling  in  the  light 
which  no  man  can  approach  unto;  who  is  in 
himself  most  holy,  every  way  infinite,  in  great- 
ness, wisdom,  power,  love ;  merciful  and  gra- 
cious, long-sufiering,  and  abundant  in  goodness 


and  truth  :  who  giveth  being,  moving,  and  pres- 
ervation to  all  creatures.* 

II.  In  this  divine  and  infinite  Being  there  is 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Spirit ;  each 
having  the  whole  Divine  essence,  yet  the  es- 
sence undivided  ;  all  infinite  without  any  be- 
ginning, therefore  but  one  God,  who  is  not  to 
be  divided  in  nature  and  being,  but  distinguish- 
ed by  several  peculiar  relative  properties! 

III.  God  hath  decreed  in  himself,  before  the 
world  was,  concerning  all  things,  whether  ne- 
cessary, accidental,  or  voluntary,  with  all  the 
circumstances  of  them,  to  work,  dispose,  and 
bring  about  all  things  according  to  the  counsel 
of  his  own  will,  to  his  glory  (yet  without  be- 
ing the  author  of  sin,  or  having  fellowship  with 
any  therein) :  in  which  appears  his  wisdom  ia 
disposing  all  things,  unchangeableness,  power, 
and  faithfulness  in  accomplishing  his  decree ; 
and  God  hath,  before  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
foreordained  some  men  to  eternal  life,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  his 
grace  :  leaving  the  rest  in  their  sin,  to  their  just 
condemnation,  to  the  praise  of  his  justice. t 

IV.  In  the  beginning  God  made  all  things 
very  good  :  created  man  after  his  own  image, 
filled  with  all  meet  perfection  of  nature,  and  free 
from  all  sin  ;  hut  long  he  abode  not  in  this  hon- 
our, Satan  using  the  subtlety  of  the  serpent  to 
seduce  first  Eve,  then  by  her  seducing  Adam, 
who,  without  any  compulsion,  in  eating  the  for- 
bidden fruit,  transgressed  the  command  of  God, 
and  fell,  whereby  death  came  upon  all  his  pos- 
terity :  who  now  are  conceived  in  sin,  and.  by 
nature  the  children  of  wrath,  the  servants  of  sin, 
the  subjects  of  death,  and  other  miseries  in  this 
world,  and  forever,  unless  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
set  them  free.<^ 

V.  God,  in  his  infinite  power  and  wisdom, 
doth  dispose  all  things  to  the  end  for  which  they 
were  created  ;  that  neither  good  nor  evil  befalls 
any  by  chance,  or  without  his  providence  ;  and 
that  whatsoever  befalls  the  elect  is  by  his  ap- 
pointment, for  his  glory,  and  their  good. II 

VI.  All  the  elect,  being  loved  of  God  with  an 
everlasting  love,  are  redeemed,  quickened,  and 
saved,  not  by  themselves,  nor  their  own  works, 
lest  any  man  should  boast,  but  only  and  wholly 
by  God,  of  his  free  grace  and  mercy,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  who  is  made  unto  us  by  God,  wis- 
dom, righteousness,  sanctification,  and  redemp- 
tion, and  all  in  all,  that  he  that  rejoiceth  might 
rejoice  through  the  Lord.H 


*  1  Cor.,viii.,6.  Isa.,  xliv.,  6  ;  and  xlvi.,9.  Exod., 
iii.,14.  1  Tim.,  vi.,16.  Isa.,  xliii.,  15.  Psalm  cxlvii., 
5.  Deut.,xxxii  ,3.  Job,  xxxvi.,  5.  Jer.,x.,  12.  Exod., 
xxxiv.,  6,  7.    Acts,  xvii.,  28.     Rom.,  xi.,  36. 

tlCor.,i.,3.  John,  i.,  1 ;  and  XV.,  26.  Exod.,iii., 
14.     1  Cor.,  viii.,  6. 

X  Isa..xlvi.,  10.  Eph.,i.,ll.  Rom.,  xi.,  33.  Psalm 
xxviii.,  15;  cxv.,  3;  cxxxv.,  6;  and  cxliv.  1  Sam., 
X.,  9,  26.  Prov.,  xvi.,  4,  33  ;  and  xxi.,  6.  Exod.,xxi., 
13.  Isa.,  xlv.,  7.  Matt.,  vi.,  28,  30.  Col.,  i.,  16,  17. 
Numb  ,  xxiii.,  19,  20.  Rom.,iii.,4.  Jer.,  x.,  10;  xiv., 
22.     Eph.,  i.,  4,  5.     Jude,  4,  6. 

i)  Gen.,  i.,  1  ;  and  iii.,  1,4,  5.  Col.,  i.,  16.  Isa., 
xlv.,  12.  1  Cor.,  XV.,  45,  46.  Eccles.,  vii.,  29.  2  Cor., 
xi.,  3.  1  Tim.,  ii.,  14.  Gal.,  iii.,  22.  Rom.,  v.,  12; 
vi.,  22  ;  and  xviii.,  19.     Eph.,  ii.,  3. 

II  Job,  xxxviii.,  11.  Isa.,  xlvi.,  10,  11.  Eccles., 
iii..  14.  Mark,  x.,  29,  30.  Exod.,  xxi.,  13.  Prov., 
xvi.,  3.3.     Rom.,  viii.,  28. 

%  Jer.,  xxiii.,  6  ;  and  xxxi.,  2.    Eph.,  i.,  3,  7;  and 


476 


APPENDIX. 


VII.  And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  we  might 
know  him  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  he  hiitli  sent.  And  on  the  contrary,  the 
Lord  will  render  vengeance,  in  flammg  fire,  to 
them  that  know  not  God,  and  obey  not  the  Gos- 
pel of  Jesus  Christ.* 

VIII.  The  rule  of  this  knowledge,  faith,  and 
obedience  concerning  the  worship  of  God,  in 
which  is  contained  the  whole  duty  of  man,  is 
(not  men's  laws,  or  unwritten  traditions,  but) 
only  the  Word  of  God  contained  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  ;  in  which  is  plainly  recorded  what- 
soever is  needful  for  us  to  know,  believe,  and 
practise  ;  which  are  the  only  rules  of  holiness 
and  obedience  for  all  saints,  at  all  times,  in  all 
places,  to  be  observed. t 

IX.  The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  Moses 
and  the  prophets  wrote,  the  apostles  preached, 
he  is  the  Son  of  God,  the  brightness  of  his  glo- 
ry, &c.,  by  whom  he  made  the  world  ;  who  up- 
holdeth  and  governeth  all  things  that  he  hath 
made  ;  who  also,  when  the  fulness  of  time  was 
come,  was  made  of  a  woman,  of  the  tribe  of  Ju- 
dah,  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  and  David  ;  to  wit, 
of  the  Virgin  Mary,  the  Holy  Spirit  coming  down 
upon  her,  the  power  of  the  Most  High  overshad- 
owing her  ;  and  he  was  also  templed  as  we  are, 
yet  without  sin.t 

X.  Jesus  Christ  is  made  the  mediator  of  the 
new  and  everlasting  covenant  of  grace  between 
God  and  man,  ever  to  be  perfectly  and  fully  the 
prophet,  priest,  and  king  of  the  Church  of  God 
for  evermore.^ 

XI.  Unto  this  office  he  was  appointed  by  God 
from  everlasting  ;  and  in  respect  of  his  man- 
hood, from  the  womb  called,  separated,  and 
anointed  most  fully  and  abundantly  with  all 
gifts  necessary,  God  having  without  measure 
poured  out  his  Spirit  upon  him.H 

XII.  Concerning  his  mediatorship,  the  Scrip- 
ture holds  forth  Christ's  call  to  his  office  ;  for 
none  takes  this  honour  upon  him  but  he  that  is 
called  of  God,  as  was  Aaron,  it  being  an  action 
of  God,  whereby  a  special  promise  being  made, 
he  ordains  his  Son  to  this  office  ;  which  promise 
is,  that  Christ  should  be  made  a  sacrifice  for 
sin  ;  that  he  should  see  his  seed,  and  prolong 
his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  pros- 
per in  his  hand  ;  all  of  mere  free  and  absolute 
grace  towards  God's  elect,  and  without  any  con- 
dition foreseen  in  them  to  procure  it.lF 

XIII.  This  office  to  be  mediator,  that  is,  to  be 
prophet,  priest,  and  king  of  the  Church  of  God, 
is  so  proper  to  Christ,  that  neither  in  whole,  nor 


ii.,  8,  9.  1  Thess.,  v.,  9.  Acts,  xiii.,38.  2  Cor.,  v., 
21.     Jar.,  xi.,  23,  24.     1  Cor.,  i,  30,  31. 

*  John,  vi.,  36;  and  xvii.,3.  Heb.,v.,9.  1  Thess., 
i.,8. 

t  Col.,  li.,  23.  Matt.,  xv.,  9,  6.  John,  v.,  39.  2 
Tim.,  iii,  15-17.  Isa.,  viii.,  20.  Ga!.,  i.,8,  9.  Acts, 
iii.,  22,  23. 

i  Gen.,  iii.,  15;  xxii.,  18  ;  and  xlix.,  9.  10.  Dan., 
vii.,  13;  and  ix.,21,  &c.  Prov.,  viii.,  23.  John,  i., 
1-3.  Heb.,  i..  8  ;  li.,  IG  ;  iv.,  15  ;  and  vii.,  14.  Gal., 
iv.,  4.  Kev.,  v.,  1.  Horn  ,  i.,  3  ;  and  ix.,  10.  Matt., 
i.,  IG.     Luke.,  iii.,  23,  26.     Isa.,  lih.,  3-5. 

^  1  Tim.,ii.,5.  Heb..  ix.,  15.  John.,  xiv.,  6.  Isa., 
ix.,  G,  7. 

II  Prov.,  viii.,  23.  Isa.,  xi.,  2-5  ;  xliii.,  6 ;  xlix., 
15;  and  Ixi.,  1,  2.  Luke,  iv.,  17,  22.  John,  i.,  14, 
26  ;  and  iii.,  34. 

"f  Heb.,  v.,  4-G.  Isa.,  Iii ,  10,  11.  John,  iii.,  16. 
Rom ,  viii.,  32 


any  part  thereof,  it  can  be  transferred  from  him 
to  any  other.* 

XIV.  This  office  to  which  Christ  is  called  is 
threefold — a  prophet,  priest,  and  king  :  this  num- 
ber and  order  of  offices  is  necessary,  for,  in  re- 
spect of  our  ignorance,  we  stand  in  need  of  his 
prophetical  office  ;  and  in  respect  of  our  great 
alienation  from  God,  we  need  his  priestly  office 
to  reconcile  us  ;  and  in  respect  of  our  nverse- 
ness  and  utter  inability  to  return  to  C5od,  we  need 
his  kingly  office,  to  convince,  subdue,  draw, 
uphold,  and  preserve  us  to  his  heavenly  king- 
dom! 

XV.  Concerning  the  prophecy  of  Christ,  it  is 
that  whereby  he  hath  revealed  the  will  of  God, 
whatsoever  is  needful  for  his  servants  to  know 
and  obey  ;  and  therefore  he  is  called  not  only  a 
prophet  and  doctor,  and  the  apostle  of  our  pro- 
fession, and  the  angel  of  the  covenant,  but  also 
the  very  wisdom  of  God,  in  whom  are  hid  all 
the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  who 
forever  continueth  revealing  the  same  truth  of 
the  Gospel  to  his  people. t 

XVI.  That  he  might  be  a  prophet  every  way 
complete,  it  was  necessary  he  should  be  God, 
and  also  that  he  should  be- man  :  for  unless  he 
had  been  God,  he  could  never  have  perfectly 
understood  the  will  of  God  ;  and  unless  he  had 
been  man,  he  could  not  suitably  have  unfolded 
it  in  his  own  person  to  men.ij 

That  Jesus  Christ  is  God,  is  wonderfully 
clearly  expressed  in  the  Scriptures.  He  is  call- 
ed the  mighty  God,  Isa.,  ix.,  6.  That  Word 
was  God,  John.,  i.,  1.  Christ,  who  is  God  over 
all,  Rom.,  ix.,  5.  God  manifested  in  the  flesh, 
1  Tim.,  iii.,  16.  The  same  is  very  God,  John, 
v.,  20.  He  is  the  first.  Rev.,  i.,  8.  He  gives 
being  to  all  things,  and  without  him  was  nothing 
made,  John.,  i.,  2.  He  forgiveth  sins.  Matt.,  ix., 
6.  He  is  before  Abraham,  John.,  viii.,  58.  He 
was,  and  is,  and  ever  will  be  the  same,  Heb., 
xiii.,  8.  He  is  always  with  his  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  Matt.,  xxviii.,  20.  Which  could  not 
be  said  of  Jesus  Christ,  if  he  were  not  God. 
And  (o  the  Son  he  saith,  Thy  throne,  O  God,  is 
forever  and  ever,  Heb.,  i.,  8.     John.,  i.,  18. 

Also,  Christ  is  not  only  perfectly  God,  but 
perfect  man,  made  of  a  woman.  Gal.,  iv.,  4. 
Made  of  the  seed  of  David,  Rom.,  i.,  3.  Coming 
out  of  the  loins  of  David,  Acts.,  ii.,  30.  Of  Jesse 
and  Judah,  Acts  ,  xiii.,  23.  In  that  the  children 
were  partakers  of  flesh  and  blood,  he  himself 
likewise  took  part  with  them,  Heb.,  ii.,  14.  He 
took  not  on  him  the  nature  of  angels,  but  the 
seed  of  Abraham,  ver.  16.  So  that  we  are  bone 
of  his  bone,  and  flesh  of  his  flesh,  Eph.,  v.,  30. 
So  that  he  that  sanctifieth,  and  they  that  are 
sanctified,  are  all  of  one,  Heb.,  ii.,  11.  See 
Acts  ,  iii.,  22.     Deut..  xviii.,  15.     Heb.,  i.,  I. 

XVII.  Concerning  his  priesthood,  Christ,  hav- 
ing sanctified  himself,  hath  appeared  once  to  put 
away  sin  by  that  one  offering  of  himself  a  sacri. 


*  1  Tim.,  ii.,  5.  Heb.,  vii.,  24.  Dan.,  vii.,  14. 
Acts.,  iv.,  12.     Luke,  i.,  33.    John,  xiv..  6. 

t  Dent.,  viii..  15.     Acts,  iii.,  2:?,  23;  and  xxvi.,  18, 
Heb.,  iii.,  3  ;  and  iv,  14,  15.    Psalm  ii.,  6.     2  Cor,  v., 
20.     Col.,i.,21.   John,  xvi.,8.     Psalm  ex.,  3.    Cant. 
1 ,  3.     John,  vi.,  44.    Phil.,  iv.,  13.     2  Tini.,  iv.,  18. 

t  John,  i.,  18;  xii.,  49,  50;  and  xvii.,  8.  Matt., 
xxiii.,  10.  Deut.,  xviii.,  15.  Heb.,  in.,  1.  Gal.,  iii., 
I.     1  Cor.,  i.,  24.     Col.,  ii.,  .3.     Mai.,  iii..  2. 

(J  John,  i.,  18.  Acts,  iii.,  22.  Deut.,  xvhi.,  15^ 
Heb.,  i.,  i. 


APPENDIX. 


477 


fice  for  sin,  by  which  he  hath  fully  finished  and 
suffered  all  things.  God  required  for  the  salva- 
tion of  his  elect,  and  removed  all  rites  and  shad- 
ows, &c.,  and  is  now  entered  within  the  veil 
into  the  holy  of  holies,  which  is  the  presence  of 
God.  Also,  he  makes  his  people  a  spiritual 
house,  a  holy  priesthood,  to  offer  up  spiritual 
sacrifice  acceptable  to  God  through  him.  Nei- 
ther doth  the  Father  accept,  nor  Christ  offer  to 
the  Father,  any  other  worship  or  worshippers.* 

XVIII.  This  priesthood  was  not  legal  or  tem- 
porary, but  according  to  the  order  of  Melchise- 
deck,  and  is  stable  and  perfect,  not  for  a  time, 
but  forever,  which  is  suitable  to  Jesus  Christ,  as 
to  him  that  ever  liveth.  Christ  was  the  priest, 
sacrifice,  and  altar  ;  he  was  a  priest  according 
to  both  natures  ;  he  was  a  sacrifice  according 
to  his  human  nature  ;  whence  in  Scripture  it  is 
attributed  to  his  body,  to  his  blood  ;  yet  the  ef- 
fectualness  of  this  sacrifice  did  depend  upon  his 
Divine  nature  ;  therefore  it  is  called  tiie  blood 
of  God.  He  was  the  altar  according  to  his  Di- 
vine nature,  it  belonging  to  the  altar  to  sanctify 
that  which  is  offered  upon  it,  and  so  it  ought  to 
be  of  greater  dignity  than  the  sacrifice  itself  t 

XIX.  Concerning  his  kingly  office,  Christ 
being  risen  from  the  dead,  and  ascended  into 
heaven,  and  having  all  power  in  heaven  and 
earth,  he  doth  spiritually  govern  his  Church, 
and  doth  exercise  his  power  over  all,  angels 
and  men,  good  and  bad,  to  the  preservation  and 
salvation  of  the  elect,  and  to  the  overruling  and 
destruction  of  his  enemies.  By  this  kingly 
power  he  applieth  the  benefits,  virtue,  and  fruits 
of  bis  prophecy  and  priesthood  to  his  elect,  sub- 
duing their  sins,  preserving  and  strengthening 
them  in  all  their  conflicts  against  Satan,  the 
world,  and  the  flesh,  keeping  their  hearts  in 
faith  and  filial  fear  by  his  Spirit ;  by  this  his 
mighty  power  he  ruleth  the  vessels  of  wrath, 
using,  limiting,  and  restraining  them,  as  it 
seems  good  to  his  infinite  wisdom. J 

XX.  This  his  kingly  power  shall  be  more 
fully  manifested  when  he  shall  come  in  glory  to 
reign  among  his  saints,  when  he  shall  put  down 
all  rule  and  authority  under  his  feet,  that  the 
glory  of  the  Father  may  be  perfectly  manifested 
in  his  Son,  and  the  glory  of  the  Father  and  the 
Son  in  ail  his  members.^ 

XXI.  Jesus  Christ  by  his  death  did  purchase 
salvation  for  the  elect  that  God  gave  unto  him; 
these  only  have  interest  in  him,  and  fellowsliip 
with  him,  for  whom  he  makes  intercession  to 
liis  Father  in  their  behalf,  and  to  them  alone 
doth  God  by  his  Spirit  apply  this  redemption  ; 
as  also  the  free  gift  of  eternal  hfe  is  given  to 
them,  and  none  else.  11 


*  John,  xvii.,  19.  Heb.",  v.,  7-10,  12.  Rom.,  v., 
19.  Eph.,  v.,  2.  Col.,  i.,  20.  Eph.,  ii.,  14,  &c 
Rom.,  viii.,  34.  Heb.,  viiL,  1 ;  and  ix.,  24.  1  Pel., 
ii.,  5.    John,  iv.,  23,  24. 

t  Heb.,  v.,  6;  viL,  IG,  &c.,  is.,  13,  14;  x.,  10; 
and  xiii.,  10,  12,  15.     1  Pet.,  i.,  18,  19.     Col.,  i.,  20, 

22.  Acts,  XX.,  28.     Matt.,xxiii.,  17.     John,  xvii.,  19. 
t  1  Cor.,  XV.,  4.     1  Pet.,  iii.,  21,22.    Matt.,  xxviii., 

18,  19.  Luke,  xxiv.,  51.  Act.s,  i.,  1 ;  and  v.,  30,31. 
John,  v.,  20,  27;  xix.,  30;  and  xvi.,  15.  Rom.,  )., 
21 ;  v..  6-8  ;  xiv.,  9,   17  ;  and  xvii..  18.    Gal.,  v.,  22, 

23.  Mark,  i.,27.  Heb.,  i..  14.  Job,  ii.,  8  ;  and  xvii., 
18.    Eph.,  iv.,  17,  18.    2  Pet.,  ii. 

()  1  Cor.,  XV.,  24,  28.    Heb.,  ix.,  28.    1  Thess.,  iv., 
15-17.    2  Thess.,  i.,  9,  10.    John,  xii.,  21,  26. 
II  Eph.,  i.,  14.    Heb.,  v.   19  •  and  vii.,  25.    Matt., 


XXII.  Faith  is  the  gift  of  God,  wrought  in 
the  hearts  of  the  elect  by  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  by 
which  faith  they  come  to  know  and  believe  tlio 
truth  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  excellence  of 
them  above  all  other  writings,  and  all  things  in 
the  world,  as  they  hold  forth  the  glory  of  God 
in  his  attributes,  the  excellence  of  Christ  in  hia 
nature  and  offices,  and  of  the  power  and  fulness 
of  the  Spirit  in  his  workings  and  operations  ;  and 
so  are  enabled  to  cast  their  souls  upon  this  truth 
thus  believed.* 

XXIII.  All  those  that  have  this  precious  faith 
wrought  in  them  by  the  Spirit  can  never  finally 
nor  totally  fall  away,  seeing  the  gifts  of  God 
are  without  repentance  ;  so  that  he  still  begets 
and  nourisheth  in  them  faith,  repentance,  love, 
joy,  hope,  and  all  the  graces  of  the  Spirit,  unto 
immortality ;  and  though  many  storms  and 
floods  arise,  and  beat  against  them,  yet  they 
shall  never  be  able  to  take  them  off  that  found- 
ation and  rock,  which  by  faith  they  are  fasten- 
ed upon  ;  notwithstanding,  through  unbelief, 
and  the  temptations  of  Satan,  the  sensible  sight 
of  this  light  and  love  be  clouded  and  over- 
whelmed for  a  time  ;  yet  God  is  still  the  same, 
and  they  shall  be  sure  to  be  kept  by  the  power 
of  God  unto  salvation,  where  they  shall  enjoy 
their  purchased  possession,  they  being  engraved 
upon  the  palms  of  his  hands,  and  their  names 
having  been  written  in  the  Book  of  Life  from 
all  eternity. t 

XXIV.  Faith  is  ordinarily  begotten  by  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel,  or  Word  of  Christ, 
without  respect  to  any  power  or  agency  in  the 
creature  ;  but  it  being  wholly  passive,  and  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins,  doth  believe  and  is  con- 
verted by  no  less  power  than  that  which  raised 
Christ  from  the  dead.t 

XXV.  The  preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
conversion  of  sinners  is  absolutely  free  ;  no 
way  requiring,  as  absolutely  necessary,  any 
qualifications,  preparations,  or  terrors  of  the 
law,  or  preceding  ministry  of  the  law,  but  only 
and  alone  the  naked  soul,  a  sinner,  and  ungod- 
ly, to  receive  Christ  crucified,  dead,  and  buried, 
and  risen  again  ;  who  is  made  a  prince  and  sav- 
iour for  such  sinners  as  through  the  Gospel 
shall  be  brought  to  believe  on  him.ij 

XXVI.  The  same  power  that  converts  to 
faith  in  Christ  carrieth  on  the  soul  through  all 
duties,  temptations,  conflicts,  sufferings  ;  and 
whatsoever  a  believer  is,  he  is  by  grace,  and  is 
carried  on  in  all  obedience  and  temptations  by 
the  same. II 

XXVII.  All  believers  are  by  Christ  united  to 
God  ;  by  which  union  God  is  one  with  them, 
and  they  are  one  with  him  ;  and  that  all  be- 
lievers are  the  sons  of  God,  and  joint  heirs  with 


i.,  21.  John,  xvii.,  6.  1  Corinthians,  ii.,  12.  Rom., 
viii.,  29,  30.  1  John,  v.,  12.  John,  xv.,  13  ;  and  iii., 
16. 

♦  Eph.,  ii.,  8.  John,  ix.,  10  ;  vi.,  29,  63  ;  and  xvii., 
17.     Phil.,  1,29.     Gal.,  V.     Heb.,  iv.,  1 1,  12. 

t  Matt.,  vii.,  24,  25.  John,  xiii.,  10 ;  and  x.,  28, 
29.     1  Pet.,  i.,  4-6.     Isa.,  xhx.,  13-16. 

JRom.  X.,  17.  ICor.,  i.,28.  Rom.,  i.,  16  ;  iii.,  12  ; 
and  ix.,  16.  Ezek.,  xvi.,  16.  Eph.,  i.,  19.  Col.,  ii., 
12. 

()  .John,  i.,  12;  and  iii..  14.  15.  Isa.,  Iv.,  1.  John, 
vii.,  37.  1  Tim.,  i.,  15.  Rom.,  iv.,  5 ;  and  v.,  6, 
Acts,  v.,  30,  31  ;  and  ii.,  36.     I  Cor.,  i..  22,  24. 

II  1  Pet.,  i.,  5.  1  Cor.,  XV.,  10.  2  Cor.,  xii.,  9.  Phil., 
ii..  12, 13.    John,  xv.,  5.    Gal.,  ii.,  19,  20. 


478 


APPENDIX. 


Christ,  to  whom  belong  all  the  promises  of  this 
life,  and  that  which  is  to  come.* 

XXVIII.  Those  that  have  union  with  Christ 
are  justified  from  all  their  sins  by  the  blood  of 
Christ,  which  justification  is  a  gracious  and  full 
acquittance  of  a  guilty  sinner  from  all  sin,  by 
God,  through  the  satisfaction  that  Christ  hath 
made  by  his  death  for  all  their  sins,  and  this  ap- 
plied (in  the  manifestation  of  it)  through  faith. t 

XXIX.  All  believers  area  holy  and  sanctified 
people,  and  that  sanctification  is  a  spiritual 
grace  of  the  new  covenant,  and  an  effect  of  the 
love  of  God  manifested  in  the  soul,  whereby  the 
believer  presseth  after  a  heavenly  and  evangel- 
ical obedience  to  all  the  commands  which 
Christ,  as  head  and  king  in  his  new  covenant, 
hath  prescribed  to  them.J 

XXX.  All  believers,  through  the  knowledge 
of  that  justification  of  life  given  by  the  Father, 
and  brought  forth  by  the  blood  of  Christ,  have, 
as  their  great  privilege  of  that  new  covenant, 
peace  with  God,  and  reconciliation,  whereby 
they  that  were  alar  off  are  made  nigh  by  that 
blood,  and  have  peace  passing  all  understanding ; 
yea,  joy  in  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
by  whom  we  have  received  the  atonement. >J 

XXXI  All  believers,  in  the  time  of  this  life, 
are  in  a  continual  warfare  and  combat  against 
sin,  self,  the  world,  and  the  devil  ;  and  are  lia- 
ble to  all  manner  of  afflictions,  tribulations,  and 
persecutions,  being  predestinated  and  appointed 
thereunto  ;  and  whatsoever  the  saints  possess 
or  enjoy  of  God  spiritually,  is  by  faith  ;  and  out- 
ward and  temporal  things  are  lawfully  enjoyed 
by  a  civil  right  by  them  who  have  no  faith. II 

XXXII.  The  only  strength  by  which  the 
saints  are  enabled  to  encounter  with  all  opposi- 
tion and  trials  is  only  by  Jesus  Christ,  who  is 
the  captain  of  their  salvation,  being  made  per- 
fect through  sufferings  ;  who  hath  engaged  his 
faithfulness  and  strength  to  assist  them  in  all 
their  afflictions,  and  to  uphold  them  in  all  their 
temptations,  and  to  preserve  them  by  his  power 
to  his  everlasting  kingdom.^ 

XXXIII.  Jesus  Christ  hath  here  on  earth  a 
spiritual  kingdom,  which  is  his  Church,  whom 
he  hath  purchased  and  redeemed  to  himself  as 
a  peculiar  inheritance ;  which  Church  is  a  com- 
pany of  visible  saints,  called  and  separated  from 
the  world  by  the  Word  and  Spirit  of  God,  to 
the  visible  profession  of  the  faith  of  the  Gospel, 
being  baptized  into  that  faith,  and  joined  to  the 
Lord,  and  each  to  other,  by  mutual  agreement 
in  the  practical  enjoyment  of  the  ordinances 
commanded  by  Christ,  their  head  and  king.** 

XXXIV.  To  this  Church  he  hath  made  his 

*  1  Thess.,  i.,  L  John,  xvii.,  21  ;  and  xx.,  17. 
Heb.,  ii.,  11.     1  John,  iv.,  16.     Gal.,  ii.,  19,  20. 

tlJohn,i.,7.  Heb.,  X.,  14;  and  IX.,  26.  2  Cor.,  v., 
19.    Rom.,iii.,23,25,  30;and  v.,  1.   Acts,  xiii.,  38, 39. 

J  1  Cor.,  xii.  lPet.,ii.,  9.  Eph.,  i.,  4.  1  John, 
iv..  16.     Matt.,xxviii.,  20. 

()  2  Cor.,  v.,  19.  Rom.,  v.,  9,  10.  Isa.,  xx. ;  and 
liv.,  10.    Eph.,ii.,  13, 14;  andiv.,  7.    Rom.,  v.,  10, 11. 

II  Rom.,  vii.,  23,  24  ;  and  viii.,  29.  Eph.,  vi.,  10, 
11,  &c.  Heb.,  u.,  9,  10.  2  Tim.,  iii.,  13.  1  Thess., 
iii.,  3.    Gal.,  ii.,  19,  20.    2  Cor.,  v.,  7.     Deut.,  ii.,  5. 

IT  John,  XV.,  5  ;  and  xvi.,  33.  Phil.,  iv.,  11.  Heb., 
ii.,  9,  10.     2  Tim.,  iv.,  18. 

**  Man.,  xi.,  11 ;  xviii.,  IJ),  20.  2  Thess.,  i.,  1.  1 
Cor.,  i.,  2.  Eph.,  i.,  1.  Rom.,  i,  7.  Acts,  xix.,  8,  9; 
and  xxvi.,  18.  2  Cor.,  vi.,  17.  Rev.,  xviii.,  4.  Acts, 
ii.,  37,  42  ;  ix.,  26  ;  and  x.,  37.  Rom.,  x.,  10.  1  Pet., 
Ji.,  5. 


promises,  and  giveth  the  signs  of  his  covenant, 
presence,  acceptation,  love,  blessing,  and  pro- 
tection. Here  are  the  fountains  and  springs  of 
his  heavenly  graces  flowing  forth  to  refresh  and 
strengthen  them.* 

XXXV.  And  all  his  servants  of  all  estates 
are  to  acknowledge  him  to  be  their  prophet, 
priest,  and  king;  and  called  thither  to  be  en- 
rolled among  iiis  household  servants,  to  present 
their  bodies  and  souls,  and  to  bring  their  gifts 
God  hath  given  them,  to  be  under  his  heavenly 
conduct  and  government,  to  lead  their  lives  in 
this  walled  sheepfold  and  watered  garden,  to 
have  communion  here  with  liis  saints,  that  they 
may  be  assured  that  they  are  made  meet  to  be 
partakers  of  their  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  ;  and  to  supply  each  other's  wants,  inward 
and  outward  (and  although  each  person  hath  a 
property  in  his  ovi^'n  estate,  yet  they  are  to  sup- 
ply each  other's  wants,  according  as  their  ne- 
cessities shall  require,  that  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  may  not  be  blaspiiemed  through  the  ne- 
cessity of  any  in  the  Church) ;  and  also  being 
come,  they  are  here  by  himself  to  be  bestowed 
in  their  several  order,  due  place,  peculiar  use, 
being  fitly  compact  and  knit  together,  according: 
to  the  effectual  working  of  every  part,  to  the 
edifying  of  itself  in  love.t 

XXXVI.  Being  thus  joined,  every  church; 
hath  power  given  them  from  Christ,  for  their 
well-being,  to  choose  among  themselves  meet 
persons  for  elders  and  deacons,  being  qualified 
according  to  the  Word,  as  those  which  Christ 
hath  appointed  in  his  Testament  for  the  feeding, 
governing,  serving,  and  building  up  of  his 
Church  ;  and  that  none  have  any  power  to  im- 
pose on  them  either  these  or  anv  other.t 

XXXVII.  That  the  ministers'lawfully  called, 
as  aforesaid,  ought  to  continue  in  their  calling 
and  place,  according  to  God's  ordinance,  and 
caref^ully  to  feed  the  flock  of  God  committed  to 
them,  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a  ready  mind.^ 

XXXVIII.  The  ministers  of  Christ  ought  to 
have  whatsoever  they  shall  need,  supplied  free- 
ly by  the  Church,  that,  according  to  Christ's 
ordinances,  they  tliat  preach  the  Gospel  should 
live  of  the  Gospel  by  the  law  of  Christ. || 

XXXIX.  Baptism  is  an  ordinance.of  ihe  New 
Testament,  given  by  Christ,  to  be  dispensed 
upon  persons  professing  faith,  or  that  are  made 
disciples ;  who,  upon  profession  of  faith,  ought 
to  be  baptized,  and  after  to  partake  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.ir 

XL.  That  the  way  and  manner  of  the  dis- 
pensing this  ordinance  is  dipping  or  plunging 
the  body  under  water ;  it  being  a  sign,  must  an- 
swer the  things  signified,  which  is,  that  interest 


*  Matt.,  xxviii.,  18,  &c.  1  Cor.,  iii.,  21 ;  and  xi., 
24.  2  Cor.,  vi.,  18.  Rom.,ix.,4, 5.  Psalm  cxxxiii., 
3.    Rom.,  iii.,  7,  10.     Ezek.,  xlvii.,  2. 

t  Acts,  ii.,  41,44,  45,  47.  Isa.,  iv.,3.  lCor.,xii., 
6,  7,  &c.  Ezek.,  XX.,  37,  40.  Cant,,  iv.  12.  Eph., 
li.,  19.  Rom.,  xh.,  4-6.  Col.,  i.,  12  ;  and  ii.,  5,  6, 19. 
Acts,  iv..  34,  35  ;  v.,  4 ;  and  xx.,  32.    Luke,  xiv.,  26. 

1  Tim.,  vi.,  1.     Eph.,  iv.,  16. 

t  Acts,  i.,  23,  26  ;  vi.,  3 ;  and  xv.,  22,  25.  Rom., 
xii.,  7,8.  1  Tun.,  iii.,  2, 6,  7.  1  Cor.,  xii.,8,28.  Heb., 
xiii.,  7,  17.     1  Pet.,  v.,  1-3  ;  and  iv.,  15. 

■^j  Heb.,  v.,  4.  John,  x.,  3,  4.  Acts,  xx.,  28,  29. 
Rom.,  xii.,  7,  8.    Heb.,  xiii.,  7,  17.     1  Pet.,  v.,  1-3. 

II  1  Cor.,  ix.,7.  14.    Gal.,vi.,  8.     Phil.,  iv.,  15, 16 

2  Cor.,  X.,  4.     1  Tim.,  i.,  2.    Psalm  ex.,  3. 

IT  i\latt.,  x.Kviii.,  18.  19.  John,  iv.,  1.  Mark,  xvi., 
15,  16.    Acts,  ii.,  37  38  •  and  viii.,  36,  37,  &c. 


APPENDIX. 


479- 


the  saints  have  in  the  death,  burial,  and  resur- 
rection of  Christ;  and  that,  as  certainly  as  the 
body  is  buried  under  water,  and  risen  again,  so 
certainly  shall  the  bodies  oC  the  saints  be  raised 
by  the  power  of  Christ,  in  the  day  of  the  resur- 
rection, to  reign  with  Christ.* 

The  word  baplizo  signifies  to  dip  or  plunge 
(yet  so  as  convenient  garments  be  both  upon 
the  administrator  and  subject  with  all  modesty). 

XLI.  The  person  designed  by  Christ  to  dis- 
pense baptism,  the  Scripture  holds  forth  to  be  a 
disciple  ;  it  being  nowhere  tied  to  a  particular 
church  officer,  or  person  extraordinarily  sent, 
the  coiimiission  enjoining  the  administration 
being  given  to  them  as  considered  disciples,  be- 
ing men  able  to  preach  the  Gospel. t 

XLII.  Ctirist  hath  likewise  given  power  to 
his  Church  to  receive  in  and  cast  out  any  mem- 
ber that  deserves  it  ;  and  this  power  is  given 
to  every  congregation,  and  not  to  one  particular 
person,  either  member  or  officer,  but  in  relation 
to  the  whole  body,  in  reference  to  their  faith 
and  fellowship. t 

XLIH.  And  every  particular  member  of  each 
church,  how  excellent,  great,  or  learned  soever, 
is  subject  to  this  censure  and  judgment  ;  and 
that  the  Church  ought  not,  without  great  care 
and  tenderness,  and  due  advice,  but  by  the  rule 
of  faith,  to  proceed  against  her  members. ij 

XLIV.  Christ,  for  the  keeping  of  this  Church 
in  holy  and  orderly  communion,  placeth  some 
special  men  over  the  Church,  who,  by  their  of- 
lice.  are  to  govern,  oversee,  visit,  watch  ;  so, 
likewise,  for  the  better  keeping  thereof,  in  all 
places  by  the  members,  he  hath  given  authori- 
ty, and  laid  duty  upon  all  to  watch  over  one 
another. II 

XLV.  Also,  such  to  whom  God  hath  given 
gifts  in  the  Church  may  and  ought  to  prophesy, 
according  to  the  proportion  of  faith,  and  so  to 
teach  publicly  the  Word  of  God,  for  the  edifica- 
tion, exhortation,  and  comfort  of  the  Church. IT 

XLVI.  Thus,  being  rightly  gathered,  and  con- 
tinuing in  the  obedience  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
none  are  to  separate  for  faults  and  corruptions 
(for  as  long  as  the  Church  consists  of  men  sub- 
ject to  failings,  there  will  be  difference  in  the 
*  true  constituted  Church),  until  they  Iiave  in  due 
order  and  tenderness  sought  redress  thereof** 

XLVII.  And  although  the  particular  congre- 
gations be  distinct,  and  several  bodies,  every 
one  as  a  compact  and  knit  city  within  itself,  yet 
are  they  all  to  walk  by  one  rule  of  truth  :  so 
also  they  (by  all  means  convenient)  are  to  have 
the  counsel  and  help  one  of  another,  if  necessi- 


*  Malt.,  ui.,  0,  16.  Mark,  xv.,  9,  reads  [into  Jor- 
dan] in  Greek.  John,  iii.,  23.  Acts,  vui.,  38.  Rev., 
i.,  5  ;  and  vii.,  14.  Heb.,  x.,  22.  Rom.,  vi.,  3-6.  1 
Cor.,  XV.,  28,  29. 

t  Isa.,  viii.,  16.  Eph.,  ii.,  7.  Matt.,  xxviii.,  19. 
John,  iv.,  2.  Acts,  xx.,  7;  and  xi.,  10.  1  Cor.,  xi., 
2  ;  and  x.,  16,  17.     Rom.,  xvi.,  2.     Matt.,  xviii.,  17. 

X  Kom.,  xvi.,  2.  Matt.,  xviii.,  17.  1  Cor.,  v.,  4, 
11,  13  ;  xii.,  6  ;  and  ii.,  3.    2  Cor.,  ii.,  6,  7. 

()  Matt.,  xviii.,  16  ;  and  xvii.,  18.  Acts,  xi.,  2,  3. 
1  Tim  .  v.,  19,  &c.     Col.,  iv,,  17.     Acts,  xv.,  1-3. 

II  Acts,  XX..  27,28.  Heb.,  xiii.,  17,  24.  Matt.,  xxiv., 
45.  1  Thess.,  v.,  2,  14.  Jude  3,  20.  Heb.,  x.,  34, 
35;  and  xii.,  15. 

IT  I  Cor.,  xiv.,  3,  &c.  Rom.,  xii.,  6.  1  Pet.,  iv., 
10,  11.     1  Cor.,  xii.,  7.     1  Thess.,  v.,  19,  &c. 

*  «  Rev.,  ii.  and  iii.  Acts,  xv.,  12.  1  Cor.,  i.,  10. 
Heb.,  X.,  25.  Jude,  19.  Rev.,  ii.,  20,  21,  27.  Acts, 
XV.,  1,  2.     Rom.,  xiv.,  1 ;  and  xv.,  1-3. 


ty  require  it,  as  members  of  one  body,  in  the 
common  faith,  under  Christ,  their  head.* 

XLVIII.  A  civil  magistracy  is  an  ordinance 
of  God,  set  up  by  him  for  the  punishment  of 
evildoers,  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that  do 
well ;  and  that  in  all  lawful  things  commanded 
by  them,  subjection  ought  to  be  given  by  us  in 
the  Lord,  not  only  for  wrath,  but  for  conscience' 
sake  ;  and  that  we  are  to  make  supplications 
and  prayers  for  kings,  and  all  that  are  in  author- 
ity, that  under  them  we  may  live  a  quiet  and 
peaceable  life,  in  all  godliness  and  honesty. t 

The  supreme  magistracy  of  this  kingdom  we 
acknowledge  to  be  the  king  and  Parliament  (now 
established)  freely  chosen  by  the  kingdom,  and 
that  we  are  to  maintain  and  defend  all  civil 
laws  and  civil  officers  made  by  them,  which  are 
for  the  good  of  the  commonwealth.  And  we 
acknowledge  with  thankfulness,  that  God  hath 
made  this  present  king  and  Parliament  honour- 
able in  throwing  down  the  prelatical  hierarchy, 
because  of  their  tyranny  and  oppression  over  us, 
under  which  this  kingdom  long  groaned,  for 
which  we  are  ever  engaged  to  bless  God,  and 
honour  them  for  the  same.  And  concerning^ 
the  worship  of  God  :  there  is  but  one  lawgiver, 
which  is  able  to  save  and  destroy,  James,  iv., 
12,  which  is  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  given  laws 
and  rules  suificient  in  his  word  for  his  worship ; 
and  for  any  to  make  more,  were  to  charge  Christ 
with  want  of  wisdom,  or  faithfulness,  or  both, 
in  not  making  laws  enough,  or  not  good  enough 
for  his  house :  surely  it  is  our  wisdom,  duty, 
and  privilege,  to  observe  Christ's  laws  only. 
Psalm  ii.,  6,  9,  10,  12.  So  it  is  the  magistrates' 
duty  to  tender  the  liberty  of  men's  consciences, 
Eccles.,  viii.,  8  (which  is  the  tenderest  thing  to 
all  conscientious  men,  and  most  dear  unto  them, 
and  without  which  all  other  liberties  will  not  be 
worth  the  naming,  much  less  enjoying),  and  to 
protect  all  under  them  from  all  wrong,  injury, 
oppression,  and  molestation  ;  so  it  is  our  duty 
not  to  be  wanting  in  anything  which  is  for  their 
honour  and  comfort,  and  whatsoever  is  for  the 
well-being  of  the  commonwealth  wherein  we 
live,  it  is  our  duty  to  do  ;  and  we  believe  it  to 
be  our  express  duty,  especially  in  matters  of 
religion,  to  be  fully  persuaded  in  our  minds  of 
the  lawfulness  of  what  we  do,  as  knowing  what- 
soever is  not  of  faith  is  sin.  And  as  we  cannot 
do  anything  contrary  to  our  understandings  and 
consciences,  so  neither  can  wo  forbear  the  do- 
ing of  that  which  our  understandings  and  con- 
sciences bind  us  to  do.  And  if  the  magistrates 
should  require  us  to  do  otherwise,  we  are  to 
yield  our  persons  in  a  passive  way  to  their  pow- 
er, as  the  saints  of  old  have  done,  James,  v.,  4. 
And  thrice  happy  shall  he  be  that  shall  lose  his 
life  for  witnessing  (though  but  for  the  least  tit- 
tle) of  the  truth  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  1  Pet., 
v.;  Gal,  v. 

XLIX.  But  in  case  we  find  not  the  magis- 
trate to  favour  us  herein,  yet  we  dare  not  sus- 
pend our  practice,  because  we  believe  we  ought 
to  go  in  obedience  to  Christ,  in  professing  the 
faith  which  was  once  delivered  to  the  saints, 

*  1  Cor.,  iv.,  17  ;  xiv.,  33, 36  ;  and  xvi.,  1.  Psalm 
cxxii.,  3.  Eph.,  ii.,  12.,  19.  Rev.,  xxi.  1  Tnn.,  iii., 
15;  vi.,  13,14.  1  Cor.,iv.,17.  Acts,  xv., 2,  3.  Cant., 
viii.,  8,  9.    2  Cor.,  viii.,  1,  4 ;  and  xiii.,  14. 

1  Rom.,  xiii.,  1,2,  «Sic.  1  Pel.,  ii.,  13, 14.  1  Tim., 
ii.,  1-3. 


480 


APPENDIX. 


Which  faith  is  declared  in  tne  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  this  our  confession  of  failh  a  part  of  them, 
and  that  we  are  to  witness  to  the  truth  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  unto  the  death,  if  ne- 
cessity require,  in  the  midst  of  all  trials  and  af- 
flictions, as  his  saints  of  old  have  done ;  not 
accounting  our  goods,  lands,  wives,  children, 
lathers,  mothers,  brethren,  sisters,  yea,  and  our 
own  lives,  dear  to  us,  so  we  may  finish  our 
course  with  joy  ;  rememhering,  always,  that  we 
ought  to  ohey  God  rather  than  men,  who  will, 
when  we  have  finished  our  course,  and  kept  the 
faith,  give  us  the  crown  of  righteousness ;  to 
whom  we  must  give  an  account  of  all  our  ac- 
tions, and  no  man  being  able  to  discharge  us  of 
the  same.* 

L.  It  is  lawful  for  a  Christian  to  be  a  magis- 
trate or  civil  officer  ;  and  also  it  is  lawful  to 
tai<e  an  oath,  so  it  be  in  truth,  and  in  judgment, 
and  in  righteousness,  for  confirmation  of  truth, 
and  ending  of  all  strife;  and  that  by  rash  and 
vain  oaths  the  Lord  is  provoked,  and  this  land 
mourns. t 

LI.  We  are  to  give  unto  all  men  whatsoever 
is  their  due,  as  their  place,  age,  estate,  requires  ; 
and  that  we  defraud  no  man  of  anything,  but 
to  do  unto  all  men  as  we  would  they  should  do 
unto  us.t 

LII.  There  shall  be  a  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  both  of  the  just  and  unjust,  and  everyone 
shall  give  an  account  of  himself  to  God,  that 
every  one  may  receive  the  things  done  in  his 
body,  according  to  that  he  hath  done,  whether 
it  be  good  or  bad.^ 

THE    CONCLUSION. 

Thus  we  desire  to  give  unto  Christ  that 
which  is  his ;  and  unto  all  lawful  authority  that 
which  is  their  due  ;  and  to  owe  nothing  to  any 
man  but  love;  to  live  quietly  and  peaceably,  as 
it  becometh  saints,  endeavouring  in  all  things  to 
keep  a  good  conscience,  and  to  do  unto  every 
man  (of  what  judgment  soever)  as  we  would 
they  should  do  unto  us,  that  as  our  practice  is, 
so  It  may  prove  us  to  be  a  conscionable,  quiet, 
and  harmless  people  (no  ways  dangerous  or 
troublesome  to  human  society),  and  to  labour 
and  work  with  our  hands,  that  we  may  not  be 
chargeable  to  any,  but  to  give  to  him  that  need- 
eth,  both  friends  and  enemies,  accounting  it 
more  excellent  to  give  than  to  receive.  Also, 
we  confess  that  we  know  but  in  part,  and  that 
we  are  ignorant  of  many  things  which  we  de- 
sire and  seek  to  know  ;  and  if  any  shall  do  us 
that  friendly  part,  to  show  us  from  the  Word  of 
God  that  we  see  not,  we  shall  have  cause  to  be 
thankful  to  God  and  them  ;  but  if  any  man  shall 
impose  upon  us  anything  that  we  see  not  to  be 
commaneled  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  we  should 
in  his  strength  rather  embrace  all  reproaches 

*  Acts,  ii.,  40,  41  ;  iv.,  19  ;  v.,  28,  29 ;  and  sx.,  23. 
1  Thess..  iii.,  3.  Phil.,  i.,  28,  29.  Dan.,  in.,  16,  17  ; 
and  vi.,  7,  10,  22,  23.  1  Tim.,  vi.,  13,  14.  Rom., 
xii.,  1,8.  1  Cor.,  xiv.,37.  Uev.,  ii.,  20.  2Tim.,iv., 
6-8.  Rom.,  xiv.,  10, 12.  2  Cor.,  v.,  10.  Psal.  xlix., 
7;  and  1.,  22. 

t  Acts,  viii.,  38  ;  and  x.,  1,  2,  35.  Rom.,  xvi.,  23. 
Deut.,  VI.,  13.  Rom.,  i.,  9.  2  Cor.,  x.,  11.  Jer., 
iv.,  2.     Heb.,  vi.,  16. 

X  1  Thess.,  iv.,  6.  Rom.,  xiii.,  5-7.  Matt.,  xxii., 
21.  Titus,  ill.  1  Pet.,  li.,  15.  17  ;  and  v.,  5.  Eph., 
v.,  21,  23  ;  find  vi.,  1,  9.     Titus,  iii.,  1-3. 

^  Acts,  ijdv.,  15.     1  Cor.,  v.,  10.    Rom.,  xiv.,  12. 


and  tortures  of  men,  to  be  stripped  of  all  out- 
ward comforts,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  to  die  a 
thousand  deaths,  rather  than  to  do  anything 
against  the  least  tittle  of  the  truth  of  God,  or 
against  the  light  of  our  own  consciences.  And 
if  any  shall  call  what  we  have  said  heresy,  then 
do  we  with  the  apostle  acknowledge,  that  after 
the  way  they  call  heresy,  worship  we  the  God 
of  our  fathers,  disclaiming  all  heresies,  rightly 
so  called,  because  they  are  against  Christ,  and 
to  be  steadfast  and  immovable,  always  abound- 
ing in  obedience  to  Christ,  as  knowing  our  la- 
bour shall  not  be  in  vain  in  the  Lord.* 

Arise,  O  God,  plead   thine  own   cause ;    re- 
member how  the  foolish  man  blasphemeth  thee 
daily.     Oh,  let  not  the  oppressed  returned  asha- 
med, but  let  the  poor  and  needy  praise  thy  name. 
Come,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly 

No.  XIL 

A  CONCISE  VIEW  OF  THE  CHIEF  PRINCIPLES 
OF  TdE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION,  AS  PROFESSED 
BY  THE  PEOPLE  CALLED  QUAKERS.  BY  ROB- 
ERT BARCLAY. 

THE    FIRST  TROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  true  Foundation  of  Knowledge. 
Seeing  the  height  of  all  happiness  is  placed 
in  the  true  knowledge  of  God  (this  is  life  eter- 
nal, to  know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus 
Christ  W'hom  thou  hath  sent),t  the  true  and  riglit 
understanding  of  this  foundation  and  ground  of 
knowledge  is  that  which  is  most  necessary  to 
be  known  and  believed  in  the  first  place. 

THE    SECOND  PROPOSITION. 

Ooncerning  immediate  Revelation. 
Seeing  no  man  knoweth  the  Father  but  the 
Son,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son  revealelh  him  ■,X 
and  seeing  the  revelation  of  the  Son  is  in  and 
by  the  Spirit ;  therefore  the  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  is  that  alone  by  which  the  true  knowledge 
of  God  hath  been,  is,  and  can  be,  only  revealed  ; 
who  as,  by  the  moving  of  his  own  Spirit,  he  con- 
verted the  chaos  of  this  world  into  that  wonder- 
ful order  wherein  it  was  in  the  beginning,  and 
created  man  a  living  soul,  to  rule  and  govern  , 
it,  so  by  the  revelation  of  the  same  Spirit  he 
hath  manifested  himself  all  along  unto  the  sons 
of  men,  both  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  apostles; 
which  revelations  of  God  by  the  Spirit,  whether 
by  outward  voices  and  appearances,  dreams,  or 
inward  objective  manifestations  in  the  heart, 
were  of  old  the  formal  object  of  their  faith,  and 
remain  yet  so  to  be  ;  since  the  object  of  the 
saint's  faith  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  though  set 
forth  under  divers  administrations.  Moreover, 
these  Divine  inward  revelations, which  we  make 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  building  up  of  true 
faith,  neither  do  nor  can  ftontradict  the  outward 
testimony  of  the  Scriptures,  or  right  and  sound 
reason.  Yet  from  hence  it  will  not  follow  that 
these  Divine  revelations  are  to  be  subjected  to 
the  examination  either  of  the  outward  testimo- 
ny of  the  Scriptures,  or  of  the  natural  reason  of 
man,  as  to  a  more  noble  orcertain  rule  or  touch- 
stone ;  for  this  Divine  revelation  and  inward  il- 
lumination is  that  which  is  evident  and  clear  of 
itself,  forcing,  by  its  own  evidence  and  clear- 
ness, the  well-disposed  understanding  to  assent, 


*  Psalm  Ixxiv.,  21,  22. 
t  John,  xvii.,  3. 


t  Matt.,  xi.,  27. 


APPENDIX. 


4S1 


irresistibly  moving  the  same  thereunto ;  even 
as  the  couimon  principles  of  natural  truths  move 
and  incline  the  mind  to  a  natural  assent  ;  as 
that  the  whole  is  greater  than  its  parts  ;  that 
two  contradictory  sayings  cannot  be  both  true, 
nor  both  I'alse  ;  which  is  also  manifest  accord- 
ing to  our  adversaries'  principle,  who  (suppo- 
sing the  p<jssibility  of  inward  Divine  revelations) 
will  nevertheless  confess,  with  us,  that  neither 
Scripture  nor  sound  reason  will  contradict  it; 
and  yet  it  will  nut  follow,  according  to  them, 
that  the  Scripture  or  sound*  reason  should  be 
subjected  to  the  examination  of  the  Divine  rev- 
elations in  the  heart. 

THE  THIRD  PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  Scriptures. 
From  these  revelations  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  the  saints  have  proceeded  the  Scriptures  of 
truth,  which  contain,  1.  A  faithful  historical 
account  of  the  actings  of  God's  people  in  divers 
ages,  with  many  singular  and  remarkable  prov- 
idences attending  them.  2.  A  prophetical  ac- 
count of  several  things,  whereof  some  are  al- 
ready past,  and  some  yet  to  come.  3.  A  full 
and  ample  account  of  all  the  chief  principles  of 
the  doctrine  of  Christ,  held  forth  in  divers  pre- 
cious declarations,  exhortations,  and  sentences, 
which,  by  the  moving  of  God's  Spirit,  were  at 
several  limes,  and  upon  sundry  occasions,  spo- 
ken and  written  unto  some  churches  and  their 
pastors  ;  nevertheless,  because  they  are  only  a 
declaration  of  the  Fountain,  and  not  the  Fount- 
ain itself,  therefore  they  are  not  to  be  esteemed 
the  principal  ground  of  all  truth  and  knowledge, 
nor  yet  the  adequate  primary  rule  of  faith  and 
manners.  Nevertheless,  as  that  which  giveth 
a  true  and  faithful  testimony  of  the  first  found- 
ation, they  are  and  may  be  esteemed  a  sec- 
ondary rule,  subordinate  to  the  Spirit,  from 
which  they  have  all  their  excellence  and  cer- 
tainty :  for  as  by  the  inward  testimony  of  the 
Spirit  we  do  alone  truly  know  them,  so  they 
testify  that  the  Spirit  is  that  guide  by  which 
the  saints  are  led  into  all  truth  ;*  therefore,  ac- 
cording to  the  Scriptures,  the  Spirit  is  the  first 
and  principal  leader.  And  seeing  we  do  there- 
fore receive  and  believe  il>e  Scriptures,  because 
they  proceeded  from  the  Spirit;  therefore,  also, 
the  Spirit  is  more  originally  and  principally  the 
rule,  according  to  that  received  maxim  in  the 
schools,  "  Propter  quod  unumquodque  est  tale, 
illud  ipsum  est  magis  tale."  Englished  thus  : 
That  for  which  a  thing  is  such,  that  thing  itself 
is  more  such. 

THE    FOURTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  Condition  of  Man  in  the  Fall. 

All  Adam's  posierity  (or  mankind),^  both 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  as  to  the  first  Adam  or 
earthly  man,  is  fallen,  degenerated,  and  dead, 
deprived  of  the  sensation  or  feeling  of  this  in- 
ward testimony  or  seed  of  God  ;  and  is  subject 
unio  the  power,  nature,  and  seed  of  the  serpent, 
which  he  sows  in  men's  hearts,  while  they 
abide  in  this  natural  and  corrupted  state ;  from 
whence  it  comes,  that  not  their  words  and  deeds 
only,  but  all  their  imaginations,  are  evil  perpet- 
ually in  the  sight  of  God.  as  proceeding  from 


this  depraved  and  wicked  seed.  Man,  there- 
fore, as  he  is  in  this  state,  can  know  nothing 
aright  ;  yea,  his  thoughts  and  conceptions  con- 
cerning God  and  things  s[)irilual,  until  he  be  dis- 
joined from  this  evil  seed,  and  united  to  the 
Divine  light,  are  unprofitable  both  to  himself 
and  others.  Hence  are  rejected  the  Socinian 
and  Pelagian  errors,  in  exalting  a  natural  light ; 
as  also  those  of  the  papists,  and  most  Protest- 
ants, who  afKrm  that  man,  without  the  true 
grace  of  God,  may  be  a  true  minister  of  the 
Gospel.  Nevertheless,  this  seed  is  not  imputed 
to  infants  until,  by  transgression,  they  actually 
join  themselves  therewith  :  for  "  they  are  by 
nature  the  children  of  wrath,  who  walk  accord- 
ing to  the  power  of  the  prince  of  the  air."* 

THE    FIFTH    AND    SIXTH    PROPOSITIONS. 

Coiicerning  the  Universal  Redcmp/ion  by  Christ, 
and  also  the  Saving  and  Spiritual  Light,  where- 
with every  Man  is  enlightened. 

THE    FIFTH   PROPOSITION. 

God,  out  of  his  infinite  love,  who  delighteth 
not  in  the  death  of  a  sinner,  but  that  all  should 
live  and  be  saved,  hath  so  loved  the  world,  that 
he  hath  given  his  only  Son  a  light,  that  whoso- 
ever believeth  in  him  should  be  saved;  who 
enlighteneth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world,  and  maketh  manifest  all  things  that  are 
reprovable,  and  teacheth  all  temperance,  righte- 
ousness, and  godliness:!  and  this  light  enlight- 
eneth the  hearts  of  all  in  a  day,1:  in  order  to  sal- 
vation, if  not  resisted.  Nor  is  it  less  universal 
than  the  seed  of  sin,  being  the  purchase  of  his 
death,  who  "  tasted  death  for  every  man  :"  "  for 
as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all 
be  made  alive. "ij 

THE    SIXTH    PROPOSITION. 

According  to  which  principle,  or  hypothesis, 
all  the  objections  against  the  universality  of 
Christ's  death  are  easily  solved  ;  neither  is  it 
needful  to  recur  to  the  ministry  of  angels,  and 
those  other  miraculous  means,  which,  they  say, 
God  makes  use  of  to  manifest  the  doctrine  and 
history  of  Christ's  passion  unto  such  who  (liv- 
ing in  those  places  of  the  world  where  the  out- 
ward preaching  of  the  Gospel  is  unknown)  have 
well  improved  the  first  and  common  grace :  for 
hence  it  well  follows,  that  as  some  of  the  old 
philosophers  might  have  been  saved,  so  also 
may  now  some  (wlio  by  Providence  are  cast  into 
those  remote  parts  of  the  world,  where  the 
knowledge  of  the  history  is  wanting)  be  made 
partakers  of  the  Divine  mercy,  if  they  receive 
and  resist  not  that  grace,  a  manifestation  where- 
of is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal  I!  This 
certain  doctrine,  then,  being  received,  to  wit, 
that  there  is  an  evangelical  and  saving  light  and 
grace  in  all,  the  universality  of  the  love  and 
mercy  of  God  towards  mankind,  both  in  the 
death  of  his  beloved  Son,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  in  the  manifestation  of  the  light  in  the  heart, 
is  established  and  confirmed  against  all  the  ob- 
jections of  such  as  deny  it.     Therefore  Christ 


*  John,  xvi.,  13.    Rom.,  viii.,  14. 
+  Rom.,  v.,  12,  15. 
Vol.  II  _P  p  p 


*  Eph.,  ii.,  1. 

t  Ezek.,  xviii.,  23.     Isa.,  xlix.,  6.    John,  iii.,  16; 
and  i.,  9.    Titus,  ii.,  11.     Eph.,  v.,  13.     Heb.,  li.,  9. 
t  Pro  tempore,  for  a  time.  ^  1  Cor.,  iv.,  22. 

II  1  Cor.,  xii.,  7. 


482 


APPENDIX. 


"  hath  tasted  death  for  every  man  ;"♦  not  only 
for  all  kinds  of  men,  as  some  vainly  talk,  but 
for  every  one,  of  all  kinds;  ihe  benefit  of  whose 
offermg  is  not  only  extended  to  suc-li  who  have 
thedisiinct  <iuiward  knowledge  of  liis  death  and 
sufTeriiigs,  as  the  same  is  declared  in  the  Si-rip- 
lures,  bill  even  unto  those  who  are  necessarily 
excluded  from  the  benefit  of  this  knowledge  by 
some  inevitable  accident ;  which  knowledge  we 
willingly  confess  to  be  very  profitable  and  com- 
fortable, but  not  absolutely  needful  nnio  such, 
from  whom  God  himself  hath  withheld  it ;  yet 
they  may  be  made  partakers  of  the  mystery  of 
his  death,  though  ignorant  of  the  history,  if  they 
suffer  his  seed  and  light,  enlightening  their 
hearts,  to  take  place,  in  which  light,  communion 
wiih  the  Father  and  Son  is  enjoyed,  so  as  of 
wicked  men  to  become  holy,  and  lovers  of  that 
power,  by  whose  inward  and  secret  touches 
they  feel  themselves  turned  from  the  evil  to  the 
good,  and  learn  to  do  to  others  as  they  would 
be  done  by  ;  in  which  Christ  himself  affirms  all 
to  be  included.  As  they,  then,  have  falsely  and 
erroneously  taught,  who  have  denied  Christ  to 
have  died  for  all  men  ;  so  neither  have  they 
sufficiently  taught  the  truth,  who,  affirming  him 
to  have  died  for  all,  have  added  the  absolute  ne- 
cessity of  the  outward  knowledge  thereof,  in 
order  to  the  obtaining  its  saving  effect :  among 
whom  the  remonstrants  of  Holland  have  been 
chiefly  wanting,  and  many  other  asserters  of 
universal  redemption,  in  that  they  have  not 
placed  the  extent  of  this  salvation  in  that  Di- 
Tine  and  evangelical  principl,e  of  light  and  life 
wherewith  Christ  hath  enlightened  every  man 
that  comes  into  the  world  ;  which  is  excellently 
and  evidently  held  forth  in  these  Scriptures  : 
Gen.,  vi.,  3.  Deut.,  xxx.,  14.  John,  i.,  7-9. 
Rom.,  X.,  8.     Tit.,  li.,  11. 

THE    SEVENTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  Justification. 
As  many  as  resist  not  this  light,  but  receive 
the  same,  in  them  is  produced  a  holy,  pure,  and 
spiritual  birth,  bringing  forth  holiness,  righte- 
ousness, purity,  and  all  those  other  blessed  Iruits 
which  are  acceptable  to  God,  by  which  holy 
birth  (to  wit,  Jesus  Christ  formed  within  us,  and 
working  his  works  within  us),  as  we  are  sanc- 
tified, so  are  we  justified  in  the  sight  of  God, 
according  to  the  apostle's  words ;  "  But  ye  are 
washed,  but  ye  are  sanctified,  but  ye  are  justi- 
fied, in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  by  the 
Spirit  of  our  God."t  Therefore,  it  is  not  by  our 
works  wrought  in  our  will,  nor  yet  by  good 
works,  considered  as  of  themselves,  but  by 
Christ,  who  is  both  the  gift  and  the  giver,  and 
the  cause  producing  the  effects  in  us  :  who,  as 
he  hath  reconciled  us  while  we  were  enemies, 
doth  also  in  his  wisdom  save  us,  and  justify  us 
after  this  manner,  as  saith  the  same  apostle  else- 
where, "According  to  his  mercy  he  saved  us, 
by  the  washing  of  regeneration,  and  the  renew- 
ing of  the  Holy  Ghost."t 

THE    EIGHTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  Perfection. 
In  whom  this  holy  and  pure  birth  is   fully 
brought  forth,  the  body  of  death  and  sin  comes 


*  Heb.,  li.,  9.        t  1  Cor.,  vi.,  11.      J  Tit.,  iii.,  5. 


,  to  be  crucified  and  removed,  and  their  hearts 
united  and  subjected  to  the  truth,  so  as  not  to 
obey  any  suggestion  or  temptation  of  the  evil 
one,  but  to  be  Iree  from  actual  sinning  and 
transgressing  the  law  of  God,  and  in  that  re- 
spect perfect.*  Yet  doth  this  perfection  still 
admit  of  a  growth  ;  and  there  remainelh  a  pos- 
sibility of  sinning,  where  the  mind  doth  not 
most  diligently  and  watchfully  attend  unto  the 
Lord. 

THE    NINTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  Perseverance,  and  the  Possibility  of 
failing  from  Grace. 
Although  this  gift  and  inward  grace  of  God 
he  sufficient  to  work  out  salvation,  yet  in  those 
in  whom  it  is  resisted,  it  both  may  and  doth 
become  their  condemnation.  Moreover,  in 
whom  it  hath  wrought  in  part,  to  purify  and 
sanctify  them,  in  order  to  their  farther  perfec- 
tion, by  disobedience  such  may  fall  from  it,  and 
turn  it  to  wantonness,  making  shipwreck  of 
faith  ;  and  after  having  tasted  of  the  heavenly 
gift,  and  been  made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
again  fall  away.+  Yet  such  an  increase  and 
stability  in  the  truth  may  in  this  life  be  attain- 
ed, from  which  there  cannot  be  a  total  apostacy. 

THE    TENTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  Ministry. 
As  by  this  gift,  or  light  of  God,  all  true  knowl- 
edge in  things  spiritual  is  received  and  reveal- 
ed ;  so  by  the  same,  as  it  is  manifested  and  re- 
ceived in  the  heart,  by  the  strength  and  power 
thereof,  every  true  minister  of  the  Gospel  is  or- 
dained, prepared,  and  supplied  in  the  work  of 
the  ministry  ;  and  by  the  leading,  moving,  and 
drawing  hereof,  ought  every  evangelist  and 
Christian  pastor  to  be  led  and  ordered  in  his 
labour  and  work  of  the  Gospel,  both  as  to  the 
place  where,  as  to  the  persons  to  whom,  and  as 
to  the  times  when,  he  is  to  minister.  More- 
over, those  who  have  this  authority  may  and 
ought  to  preach  the  Gospel,  though  without  hu- 
man commission  or  literature,  as,  on  the  other 
hand,  those  who  want  the  authority  of  this  Di- 
vine gift,  however  learned  or  authorized  by  the 
commissions  of  men  and  churches,  are  to  bees- 
teemed  but  as  deceivers,  and  not  true  ministers 
of  the  Gospel.  Also,  who  have  received  this 
holy  and  unspotted  gift,  as  they  have  freely  re- 
ceived, so  are  they  Ireely  to  give,}  without  hire 
or  bargaining,  far  less  to  use  it  as  a  trade  to 
get  money  by  it ;  yet  if  God  hath  called  any 
Irom  their  employments  or  trades,  by  which 
they  acquire  their  livelihood,  it  may  be  lawful 
for  such,  according  to  the  liberty  which  they 
feel  given  them  in  the  Lord,  to  receive  such 
temporals,  to  wit,  what  may  be  needful  to  them 
for  meat  and  clothing,  as  are  freely  given  them 
by  those  to  whom  they  have  communicated 
spirituals. 

THE    ELEVENTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  Worship. 

All  true  and  acceptable  worship  to  God  is 

offered  in  the  inward  and  immediate  moving 

and  drawingof  his  own  Spirit,  which  is  neither 

limited  to  places,  times,  nor  persons  :  for  though 


•>  Rom.,  vi.,  2,  14,  18,  and  viii.,  13. 
t  1  Tim.,  i.,  6.    Heb.,  vi.,  4-6. 


1  John,  iii.,  6. 
X  Matt.,  X.,  8. 


APPENDIX. 


483 


we  he  to  worship  him  always,  in  that  we  are  to 
fear  before  him,  yet,  as  to  the  outward  signifi- 
cation thereof  in  prayers,  praises,  and  preach- 
inijs,  we  oiigiit  not  to  do  it  where  and  when  we 
will,  but  where  and  when  we  are  moved  there- 
unto by  the  secret  inspirations  of  liis  Spirit  in 
our  hearts  ;  which  God  heareth  ami  accepleth 
of,  and  is  never  wanting  to  move  us  thereunto 
when  need  is,  of  which  he  himself  is  tlie  aUme 
proper  judge.  All  other  worship,  then,  both 
praises,  prayers,  and  preachings,  which  man 
sets  about  in  his  own  will,  and  at  his  own  ap- 
pointment, which  he  can  both  begin  and  end  at 
lii.s  pleasure,  do  or  leave  undone  as  himself  sees 
meet ;  whether  they  be  a  prescribed  form,  as  a 
liturgy,  or  prayers  conceived  extemporarily,  by 
the  natural  strength  and  faculty  of  the  mind, 
Ihey  are  all  but  superstitions,  will-worship,  and 
abominable  idolatry  in  the  sight  of  God  ;*  which 
are  to  be  denied,  rejected,  and  separated  from, 
in  this  day  of  his  spiritual  arising:  however  it 
might  have  pleased  him,  who  winked  at  the 
times  of  ignorance,  with  respect  to  the  simplici- 
ty and  integrity  of  some,  and  of  his  own  inno- 
cent seed,  which  lay,  as  it  were,  buried  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  under  the  mass  of  superstition, 
to  blow  upon  the  dead  and  dry  bones,  and  to 
raise  some  breathings,  and  answer  them,  and 
that  until  the  day  should  more  clearly  dawn  and 
break  forth. 

THE    TWELFTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  Baptism,. 
As  there  is  one  Lord  and  one  faith,  so  there 
is  one  baptism;  which  is  not  putting  away  the 
filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer  of  a  good  con- 
science before  God,  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ.t  And  this  baptism  is  a  pure  and  spir- 
itual thing,  to  wit,  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit  and 
fire,  by  which  we  are  buried  with  him,  that,  be- 
ing washed  and  purged  from  our  sins,  we  may 
wallv  in  newness  of  life  ;$  of  which  the  baptism 
of  John  was  a  figure,  which  was  commanded 
for  a  time,  and  not  to  continue  forever.  As  to 
the  baptism  of  infants,  it  is  a  mere  human  tra- 
dition, for  which  neither  precept  nor  practice  is 
to  be  found  in  all  the  Scripture. 

THE  THIRTEENTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  Communion,  or  Parlicipalion  of 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ. 
The  communion  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ  is  inward  and  spiritual,")  which  is  the 
participation  of  his  flesh  and  blood, ll  by  which 
the  inward  man  is  daily  nourished  in  the  hearts 
of  those  in  whom  Christ  dwells  ;  of  which  things 
the  breaking  of  bread  by  Christ  with  his  disci- 
ples was  a  figure,  which  they  even  used  in  the 
Church  for  a  time,  who  had  received  the  sub- 
stance, fi)r  the  cause  of  the  weak  ;  even  as  ab- 
staining from  things  strangled,  and  from  blood, 
the  washing  one  another's  feet,  and  the  anoint- 
ing of  the  sick  with  oil  ;ir  all  which  are  com- 
manded with  no  less  authority  and  solemnity 

*  Ezek.,  xiii.  Mark,  x.,  20.  Acts,  ii.,  4,  and 
xviii.,  5.  John,  iii.,6,  andiv.,  21.  Jude,  19.  Acts, 
xvii ,  23. 

tEph.,  iv.,  5.  1  Pet.,  iii.,  21.  Rom.,vi.,4.  Gal., 
iii.,27.    t;ol.,ii.,12.    John,  ill., 30.        J  I  Cor., i.,  17. 

(}  1  Cor..x.,  16,  17. 

II  Jotiii,  VI.,  32,  33,  35.     1  Cor.,  v.,  8. 

%  Acts,  XV.,  20.    Jolin,  xiij.,  14.    James,  v.,  14. 


than  the  former;  yet  seeing  they  are  but  the 
shadows  of  better  things,  they  cease  in  such  as 
have  obtained  the  substance. 

THE    FOURTEENTH    PROPOSITION 

Concerning  the  Power  of  the  Civil  Magistrate  in 
Matters  piuclij  Riligious,  and  pertaining  to  the 
Conscience. 

Since  God  hath  assumed  to  himself  the  pow- 
er and  dominion  of  the  conscience,  who  alone 
can  rightly  instruct  and  govern  it,  therefore  it 
is  not  lawful  for  any  whatsoever,  by  virtue  of 
any  authority  or  principality  they  bear  in  the 
government  of  this  world,  to  force  the  conscien- 
ces of  others  ;*  and  therefore  all  killing,  banish- 
ing, fining,  imprisoning,  and  other  such  things 
which  men  are  afllicted  with,  for  the  alone  ex- 
ercise of  their  conscience  or  difl^erence  in  wor- 
ship or  opinion,  proceedeth  from  the  spirit  of 
Cain  the  murderer,  and  is  contrary  to  the  truth  : 
provided,  always,  that  no  man,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  conscience,  prejudice  his  neighbour  in 
his  life  or  estate,  or  do  anything  destructive  to, 
or  inconsistent  with,  human  society;  in  which 
case  the  law  is  for  the  transgressor,  and  justice 
to  be  administered  upon  all,  without  respect  of 
persons. 

THE    FIFTEENTH    PROPOSITION. 

Concerning  the  Salutations  and  Recreations,  d^-c. 
Seeing  the  chief  end  of  all  religion  is  to  re- 
deem man  from  the  spirit  and  vain  conversa- 
tion of  this  world,  and  to  lead  into  inward  com- 
munion with  God,t  before  whom,  if  we  fear  al- 
ways, we  are  accounted  happy,  therefore  all 
the  vain  customs  and  habits  thereof,  both  in 
word  and  deed,  are  to  be  rejected  and  forsaken 
by  those  who  come  to  this  fear ;  such  as  the  ta- 
king off  the  hat  to  a  man,  the  bowings  and  crin- 
gings  of  the  body,  and  such  other  salutations  of 
that  kind,  with  all  the  foolish  and  superstitious 
formalities  attending  them  ;  all  which  man  has 
invented  in  his  degenerate  state,  to  feed  his  pride 
in  the  vain  pomp  and  glory  of  this  world  ;  as 
also  the  unprolitahle  plays,  frivolous  recreations, 
sportings  and  gamings,  which  are  invented  to 
pass  away  the  precious  time,  and  divert  the 
mind  from  the  witness  of  God  in  the  heart,  and 
fiom  the  living  sense  of  his  fear,  and  from  that 
evangelical  spirit  wherewith  Christians  ought 
to  be  leavened,  and  which  leads  into  sobriety, 
gravity,  and  godly  fear  ;  in  which,  as  we  abide, 
the  blessing  of  the  Lord  is  felt  to  attend  us  in 
those  actions  in  which  we  are  necessarily  en- 
gaged, in  order  to  the  taking  care  for  the  sus- 
tenance of  the  outward  man. 


No.  XIIL 
The  Toleralinn  Act,  entitled  "An  Act  for  exempt- 
ing their  Majesties'  Protestant  Subjects  dissent- 
ing from  the  Church  of  England  from  the  Pen- 
alties of  certain  Laws." 

FoR.\sMucH  as  some  ease  to  scrupulous  con- 
sciences, in  the  exercise  of  religion,  may  be  an 
efl!eclual  means  to  unite  their  majesties'  Prot- 
estant subjects  in  interest  and  aflfection  :t 

*  Luke,  ii.,55,56.  Malt.,  vii.,  12,29.    Titus.iii.,  IQ 
t  Eph.,  v.,  11.     1  Pet.,  i.,  14.    John,  v.,  4  J.    jer. 
X.,  3.     Acts,  X.,  26.     Matt.,  .w.,  13.    Col.,ii.,  8. 
I  1  William  and  Mary,  cap.  xviii. 


484 


APPENDIX. 


I .  Be  it  enacted  by  the  king  and  queen's  most 
excellent  majesties,  and  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  liie  lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and 
commons  in  lliis  present  Parliament  assembled, 
and  by  the  authority  of  the  same,  that  neither 
the  statute  made  in  the  twenty-third  year  of  the 
reign  of  the  late  Queen  Elizabeth,*  entitled  "  An 
Act  to  retain  the  Queen's  Majesty's  Subjects  in 
their  due  Obedience  ;"  nor  that  statute  made 
in  the  twenty-ninth  year  of  the  said  queen, t  en- 
titled "  An  Act  for  the  more  speedy  and  due 
Execution  of  certain  Branches  of  the  Statute 
made  in  the  twenty-third  Year  of  the  Queen's 
Majesty's  Reign,"  viz.,  the  aforesaid  acts;  nor 
that  branch  or  clause  of  a  statute  made  in  the 
first  year  of  the  reign  of  the  said  queen,  entitled 
"An  Act  (or  the  Uniformity  of  Common  Pray- 
er and  Service  in  the  Church  and  Administra- 
tion of  the  Sacraments, "J  whereby  all  persons, 
having  no  lawful  or  reasonable  excuse  to  be  ab- 
sent, are  required  to  resort  to  their  parish  church 
or  chapel,  or  some  usual  place  where  the  Com- 
mon Prayer  shall  be  used,  upon  pain  of  punish- 
ment by  the  censures  of  the  Church  ;  and  also 
upon  pain  that  every  person  so  offending  shall 
forfeit  for  every  such  offence  twelve-pence; 
nor  that  statute  made  in  the  third  year  of  the  late 
King  James  the  First, ij  entitled  "An  Act  for  the 
belter  discovering  and  repressing  Popish  Re- 
cusants ;"  nor  that  after  statute  made  in  the 
same  year,||  entitled  "An  Act  to  prevent  and 
avoid  Dangers  which  may  grow  by  Popish  Re- 
cusants ;"  nor  any  other  law  or  statute  of  this 
realm  made  against  papists  or  popish  recusants, 
except  the  statute  made  in  the  twenty-fifth  year 
of  King  Charles  II., If  entitled  "  An  Act  for  pre- 
venting Dangers  which  may  happen  from  Popish 
Recusants;"  and  except,  also,  the  statute  made 
in  the  thirtieth  year  of  the  reign  of  the  said 
King  Charles  II.,**  entitled  "  An  Act  for  the 
more  effectual  preserving  the  King's  Person  and 
Government,  by  disabling  Papists  from  sitting 
in  either  House  of  Parliament,"  shall  be  con- 
strued to  extend  to  any  person  or  persons  dis- 
senting from  the  Church  of  England,  that  shall 
take  the  oaths  mentioned  in  a  statute  made  this 
present  Parliament,  entitled  "An  Act  for  re- 
moving and  preventing  all  Questions  and  Dis- 
putes concerning  the  assembling  and  sitting  of 
the  present  Parliament,"  shall  make  and  sub- 
scribe the  declaration  mentioned  in  a  statute 
made  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  the  reign  of  King 
Charles  Il.,+t  entitled  "An  act  to  prevent  Pa- 
pists from  silting  in  either  Houseof  Parliament." 
Which  oatlis  and  declaration  the  justices  of 
peace,  at  the  general  sessionsof  the  peace  to  be 
held  for  the  county  or  place  where  such  per- 
son shall  live,  are  hereby  required  to  tender  and 
administer  to  such  persons  as  shall  offer  them- 
selves to  take,  make,  and  subscribe  the  same, 
anu  thereof  to  keep  a  register.  And  likewise 
none  of  tiie  persons  aforesaid  shall  give  or  pay, 
as  any  fee  or  reward,  to  any  oflScer  or  officers 
belonging  to  the  court  aforesaid,  above  the  sum 
of  sixpence,  nor  that  more  than  once,  of  his  or 
their  entry  of  his  taking  the  said  oaths,  and  ma- 
king and  subscribing  the  said  declaration  ;  nor 


*  i3  Eliz.,  cap.  i.  +  29  EIiz.,  cap.  vi. 

t  Ibid.,  cap.  u.  ^  3  Jac.  1.,  cap.  iv. 

II  Ibid.,  cap.  V.  f  25  Car.  II.,  cap.  ii. 

**  30  Car  11.,  slat.  2,  cap.  i. 
+t  Ibid.,  Stat.  2,  chap.  i. 


above  the  farther  sum  of  sixpence  for  any  cer- 
tificate of  the  saiTie,  to  be  made  out  and  signed 
by  the  olficer  or  officers  of  the  said  court. 

II.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  all  and  every  person  and  persons 
already  convicted,  or  prosecuted  in  order  to 
conviction,  of  recusancy,  by  indictment,  infor- 
mation, action  of  debt,  or  otherwise  grounded 
upon  the  aforesaid  statutes,  or  any  of  them,  that 
shall  take  the  said  oaths  mentioned  in  the  said 
statutes  made  this  present  Parliament,  and  make 
and  subscribe  the  declaration  aforesaid,  in  the 
Court  of  Exchequer,  or  Assize,  or  General  or 
Quarter  Sessions,  to  be  held  for  the  county 
where  such  person  lives,  and  to  be  thence  re- 
spectively certified  into  the  exchequer,  shall  be 
thenceforth  exempted  and  discharged  from  all 
the  penalties,  seizures,  forfeitures,  judgments, 
and  executions  incurred  by  force  of  any  of  the 
aforesaid  statutes,  without  any  composition,  fee, 
or  farther  charge  whatsoever. 

III.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  all  and  every  person  and  persons 
that  shall,  as  aforesaid,  take  the  said  oaths,  and 
make  and  subscribe  the  declaration  aforesaid, 
shall  not  be  liable  to  any  pains,  penalties,  or  for- 
feitures mentioned  in  an  act  made  in  the  thirly- 
fiflh  year  of  the  reign  of  the  late  Queen  Eliza- 
beth,* entitled  "An  Act  to  retain  the  Queen's 
Majesty's  Subjects  in  their  due  Obedience." 
Nor  in  an  act  made  in  the  twenty-second  year 
of  the  reign  of  the  late  King  Charles  II. ,t  enti- 
tled "  An  Act  to  prevent  and  suppress  Seditious 
Conventicles."  Nor  shall  any  of  the  said  per- 
sons be  prosecuted  in  any  ecclesiastical  court 
for  or  by  reason  of  their  nonconforming  to  the 
Church  of  England. 

IV.  Provided,  always,  and  be  it  enacted  by 
the  authority  aforesaid,  that  if  any  assembly  of 
persons  dissenting  from  the  Church  of  England 
shall  be  held  in  any  place  for  religious  worship, 
with  the  doors  locked,  barred,  or  bolted,  during 
any  time  of  such  meeting  together,  all  and  every 
person  or  persons  that  shall  come  to  and  be  at 
such  meeting  shall  not  receive  any  benefit  from 
this  law,  but  be  liable  to  all  the  pains  and  pen- 
alties of  all  the  aforesaid  laws  recited  in  this 
act,  for  such  their  meeting,  notwithstanding  his 
taking  the  oaths,  and  his  making  and  subscribing 
the  declaration  aforesaid. 

V.  Provided,  always,  that  nothing  herein  con- 
tained shall  be  construed  to  exempt  any  of  the 
persons  aforesaid  from  paying  of  tithes,  or  other 
parochial  duties,  or  any  other  duties,  to  the 
church  or  minister  ;  nor  from  any  prosecution 
in  any  ecclesiastical  court,  or  elsewhere,  for  the 
same. 

VI.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  if  any  person  dissenting  from  the 
Church  of  England,  as  aloresaid,  shall  hereafter 
be  chosen,  or  otherwise  appointed  to  bear  the  of- 
fice of  high-constable,  or  petit-constable,  church- 
warden, overseer  of  the  poor,  or  any  other  paro- 
chial or  ward  office,  and  such  person  shall  scru- 
ple to  take  upon  him  any  of  ttie  said  offices,  in 
regard  of  the  oaths,  or  any  other  matter  or  thing 
required  by  the  law  to  be  taken  or  done  in  respect 
of  such  office,  every  such  person  shall  and  may 
execute  such  office  or  employment  by  a  sufficient 
deputy,  by  him  to  be  provided,  that  shall  comply 
with  the  laws  on  this  behalf;  provided,  always, 


*  25  Eliz.,  cap.  i. 


+  22  Car.  II.,  cap.  i. 


APPENDIX. 


4S5 


the  said  deputy  be  allowed  and  approved  by  such 
person  or  persons,  in  such  manner  as  such  offi- 
cer or  officers  respectively  should  by  law  have 
been  allowed  and  approved. 

VII.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  author- 
ity aforesaid,  that  no  person  dissenting  from  the 
Church  of  England  in  holy  orders,  or  pretended 
holy  orders,  or  pretending  to  holy  orders,  nor 
any  preacher  or  teacher  of  any  congregation  of 
dissenting  Protestants,  that  shall  make  and  sub- 
scribe the  declaration  aforesaid,*  and  tal^e  the 
said  oaths,  at  the  General  or  Quarter  Sessions 
of  the  peace  to  be  held  for  the  county,  town, 
parts,  or  division  where  such  person  lives,  which 
court  is  hereby  empowered  to  administer  the 
same  ;  and  shall  also  declare  his  approbation  of, 
and  subscribe  the  articles  of  religion  mentioned 
in  the  statute  made  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  the 
reign  of  the  late  Queen  Elizabeth,!  except  the 
34th,  35th,  and  36th,  and  these  words  of  the  20th 
article,  viz.,  "  the  Church  hath  power  to  decree 
rites  or  ceremonies,  and  authonity  in  controver- 
sies of  faith ;"  nor  yet  shall  be  liable  to  any  of  the 
pains  or  penalties  mentioned  in  an  act  made  in 
the  seventeenth  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Charles 
II. ,t  entitled  "  An  Act  for  restraining  Noncon- 
formists from  inhabiting  in  Corporations  ;"  nor 
the  penalties  mentioned  in  the  aforesaid  act 
made  in  the  twenty-second  year  of  his  said  late 
majesty's  reign,  for  or  by  reason  of  such  persons 
preachmg  at  any  meeting  for  the  exercise  of  re- 
ligion. Nor  to  the  penalties  of  £100  mentioned 
in  an  act  made  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
of  King  Charles  II., <)  entitled  "  An  Act  for  the 
Uniformity  of  Public  Prayers,  and  administering 
of  Sacraments,  and  other  Rites  and  Ceremonies  ; 
and  for  establishing  the  Form  of  making,  ordain- 
ing, and  consecrating  of  Bishops,  Priests,  and 
Deacons  in  the  Church  of  England,"  for  officia- 
ting in  any  congregation  for  the  exercise  of  re- 
ligion permitted  and  allowed  by  this  act. 

VIII.  Provided,  always,  that  the  making  and 
subscribing  the  said  declaration,  and  the  taking 
the  said  oaths,  and  making  the  declaration  of 
approbation  and  subscription  to  said  articles,  in 
manner  as  aforesaid,  by  every  respective  person 
or  persons  hereinbefore  mentioned,  at  such  Gen- 
eral or  Quarter  Sessions  of  the  peace  as  afore- 
said, shall  be  then  and  there  entered  of  record  in 
the  said  court,  for  which  sixpence  shall  be  paid  to 
the  clerk  of  the  peace,  and  no  more  ;  provided 
that  such  person  shall  not  at  any  time  preach  in 
any  place  but  with  the  doors  not  locked,  barred, 
or  bolted,  as  aforesaid. 

IX.  And  whereas  some  dissenting  Protest- 
ants scruple  the  baptizing  of  infants,  be  it  en- 
acted by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  every  per- 
son in  pretended  holy  orders,  or  pretending  to 
holy  orders,  or  preacher,  or  teacher,  that  shall 
subscribe  the  aforesaid  articles  of  religion,  ex- 
cept as  before  excepted  ;  and  also  except  part  of 
the  27iii  article  teaching  infant  baptism,  and  shall 
take  the  oaths,  and  make  and  subscribe  the  dec- 
laration aforesaid,  in  manner  aforesaid  ;  every 
such  person  shall  enjoy  all  the  privileges,  bene- 
fits, and  advantages  which  any  other  dissenting 
minister,  a.s  aforesaid,  might  have  or  enjoy  by 
virtue  of  this  act. 

X.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 


*  17  Car.  II.,  cap.  ii.,  13  and  14.     Car.  If.,  cap.  iv. 
t  13  Eliz  ,  cap.  xii.  t  17  Car.  11.,  cap.  ii. 

()  13  and  14  Car.  II.,  cap.  iv. 


aforesaid,  that  every  teacher  or  preacher  in  holy 
orders,  or  pretended  holy  orders,  that  is,  a  min- 
ister, preacher,  or  teacher  of  a  congregation,  that 
shall  take  the  oaths  herein  required,  and  make 
and  subscribe  the  declaration  aforesaid,  and  also 
subscribe  such  of  the  aforesaid  articles  of  the 
Church  of  England  as  are  required  by  this  act  in 
manner  aforesaid,  shall  be  thenceforth  exempt- 
ed from  serving  upon  any  jury,  or  from  being 
chosen  or  appointed  to  bear  tbe  office  of  church- 
warden, overseer  of  the  poor,  or  any  other  pa- 
rochial or  ward  office,  or  other  office  in  any  hun- 
dred, or  any  shire,  city,  town,  parish,  division, 
or  wapentake. 

XI.  And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  author- 
ity aforesaid,  that  any  justice  of  the  peace  may 
at  any  time  hereafter  require  any  person  that 
goes  to  any  meeting  for  exercise  of  religion,  to 
make  and  subscribe  the  declaration  aforesaid, 
and  also  to  take  the  said  oaths,  or  declaration 
of  fidelity  hereinafter  mentioned,  in  case  such 
person  scruple  the  taking  of  an  oath  ;  and  upon 
the  refusal  thereof,  such  justice  of  the  peace  is 
hereby  required  to  comn)it  such  person  to  pris- 
on, without  bail  or  mainprize,  and  to  certify  the 
name  of  such  person  to  the  next  General  or 
Quarter  Sessions  of  the  peace  to  be  held  for  that 
county,  city,  town,  part,  or  division  where  such 
person  then  resides  ;  and  if  such  person  so 
committed  shall,  upon  a  second  tender  at  the 
General  or  Quarter  Sessions,  refuse  to  make  and 
subscribe  the  declaration  aforesaid,  such  person 
refusing  shall  be  then  and  there  recorded,  and 
shall  be  taken  thenceforth  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  for  a  popish  recusant  convict,  and  suf- 
fer accordingly,  and  incur  all  the  penalties  and 
forfeitures  of  the  aforesaid  laws. 

XII.  And  whereas  there  are  certain  other 
persons,  dissenters  from  the  Church  of  England, 
who  scruple  the  taking  of  any  oath,  be  it  enacted 
by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  every  such  per- 
son shall  make  and  subscribe  the  aforesaid  dec- 
laration, and  also  this  declaration  of  fidelity  fol- 
lowing :* 

I,  A.  B.,  do  sincerely  promise,  and  solemnly 
declare  before  God  and  the  world,  that  I  will 
be  true  and  faithful  to  King  William  and  Queen 
Mary.  And  I  solemnly  profess  and  declare 
that  I  do  from  my  heart  abhor,  detest,  and  re- 
nounce, as  impious  and  heretical,  that  damna- 
ble doctrine  and  position,  that  princes  excom- 
municated, or  deprived  by  the  pope,  or  any  au- 
thority of  the  See  of  Rome,  may  be  deposed  or 
murdered  by  their  subjects,  or  any  other  what- 
soever. And  I  do  declare  that  no  foreiga 
prince,  person,  prelate,  state,  or  potentate  hath, 
or  ought  to  have,  any  power,  jurisdiction,  su- 
periority, pre-eminence,  or  authority,  ecclesias- 
tical or  spiritual,  within  this  realm. 

And  shall  subscribe  a  profession  of  their 
Christian  belief  in  these  words: 

I,  A.  B.,  profess  faith  in  God  the  Father,  and 
in  Jesus  Christ  his  eternal  Son,  the  true  God, 
and  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  one  God  blessed  for  ev- 
ermore ;  and  do  acknowledge  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  giv- 
en by  Divine  inspiration. 

Which  declaration  and  subscription  shall  be 
made  and  entered  on  record  at  the  General  Quar- 
ter Sessions  of  the  peace  for  the  county,  city,  or 
place  where  every  such  person  shall  then  re- 

8  Geo.  I.,  cap.  vi. 


436 


APPENDIX. 


side.  And  every  such  person  that  shall  make 
and  siihscribe  ilie  two  declarations  and  profes- 
sion aforesaid,  being  tliercunlo  required,  shall 
be  exempted  from  ail  the  pams  and  penalties 
of  all  and  every  the  aforementioned  statutes 
made  ay;ainst  popish  recusants  or  Protestant 
Nonconformists,  and  also  from  the  penalties  of 
an  act  niade  in  tlie  fifth  year  of  tlie  reign  of  the 
late  Queen  Elizabeth,*  entitled  "An  Act  for  the 
assurance  of  the  Queen's  Royal  Power  over  all 
Estates  and  Subjects  within  her  Dominions," 
for  or  by  reason  of  such  persons  not  taking  or 
refusing  to  take  the  oath  mentioned  in  the  said 
act ;  and  also  from  the  penalties  of  an  act  made 
in  the  tiiirteenlh  and  fourteenth  years  of  the 
reign  of  King  Charles  11. ,t  entitled  "An  Act 
lor  preventing  Mischiefs  tiiat  may  arise  by  cer- 
tain Persons  called  Quakers  refusing  to  take 
lawful  Oaths,"  and  enjoy  all  other  the  benefits, 
privileges,  and  advantages,  under  the  like  limita- 
tions, provisoes,  and  conditions,  which  any  oth- 
er Dissenters  should  or  ought  to  enjoy  by  virtue 
of  this  act. 

XIII.  Provided,  always,  and  be  it  enacted  by 
the  authority  aforesaid,  that  in  case  any  person 
shall  refuse  to  take  the  said  oaths  when  ten- 
dered to  ibeni,  which  every  justice  of  the  peace 
is  hereby  empowered  to  do,  such  person  shall 
not  be  admitted  to  make  and  subscribe  the  two 
declarations  aforesaid,  though  required  there- 
unto, either  before  any  justice  of  the  peace,  or  at 
the  General  or  Quarter  Sessions,  before  or  after 
any  conviction  of  popish  recusancy  as  aforesaid, 
unless  such  person  can,  within  thirty-one  days 
after  such  tender  of  the  declaration  to  him,  pro- 
duce two  sufficient  Protestsnt  witnesses  to  tes- 
tify upon  oath  that  they  believe  him  to  be  a 
Protestant  Dissenter,  or  a  certificate  under  the 
hands  of  four  Protestants  who  are  conformable 
to  the  Church  of  England,  or  have  taken  the 
oaths  and  subscribed  the  declaration  above  na- 
med, and  shall  produce  a  certificate  under  the 
hands  and  teals  of  six  or  more  sufficient  men  of 
the  congregation  to  which  he  belongs,  owning 
him  for  one  of  them. 

XIV.  Provided,  also,  and  be  it  enacted  by  the 
authority  aforesaid,  that  until  such  certificate, 
under  the  hands  of  six  of  his  congregation,  as 
aforesaid,  be  produced,  and  two  Protestant  wit- 
nesses come  to  attest  his  being  a  Protestant 
Dissenter,  or  a  certificate  under  the  hands  of 
four  Protestants,  as  aforesaid,  be  produced,  the 
justice  of  peace  shall,  and  hereby  is  required  to 
take  a  recognisance,  with  two  sureties,  in  the 
penal  sum  of  £50,  to  be  levied  on  his  goods  and 
chattels,  lands  and  tenements,  to  the  use  of  the 
king's  and  queen's  niajeslies,  their  heirs  and 
successors,  for  his  producing  the  same;  and  if 
he  cannot  give  such  security,  to  commit  him  to 
prison,  there  to  remain  until  he  has  produced 
such  certificate,  or  two  witnesses  as  aforesaid. 

XV.  Provided,  always,  and  it  is  the  true  in- 
tent and  meaning  of  this  act,  that  all  the  laws 
made  and  provided  for  the  frequenting  of  Divine 
service  on  the  Lord's  Day,  commonly  called 
Sunday,  shall  be  still  in  force,  and  executed 
against  all  persons  that  oflend  against  tlie  said 
laws,  except  such  persons  come  to  some  con- 
gregation, or  assenjhiy  of  religious  worship,  al- 
lowed or  permuted  by  this  act. 

XVI.  Provided,  always,  and  be  it  farther  en- 


5  Eliz.,  cap.  i. 


t  13  and  14  Car.  II.,  cap.  i- 


acted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  neither 
this  act,  nor  any  clause,  article,  or  thing  herein 
contained,  shall  extend,  or  be  construed  to  ex- 
tend, to  give  any  ease,  benefit,  or  advantage  to 
any  papist  or  popish  recusant  whatsoever,  or 
any  person  that  shall  deny,  in  his  preaching  or 
writing,  the  doctrine  of  the  blessed  Trinity,  as  it 
is  declared  in  the  aforesaid  articles  of  religion. 

XVII.  Provided,  always,  and  he  it  enacted  by 
the  authority  an)resaid,  that  if  any  person  or 
persons,  at  any  time  or  times  after  the  lOih  day 
of  June,  do,  and  shall  willingly  and  of  purpose, 
maliciously,  or  contemptuously,  come  into  any 
cathedral  or  parish  church,  chapel,  or  other 
congregation  permitted  by  this  act,  and  disquiet 
or  disturb  the  same,  or  misuse  any  preacher  or 
teacher,  su(;h  person  or  persons,  upon  proof  there- 
of befi)re  any  justice  of  the  peace,  by  two  or 
more  sufficient  witnesses,  shall  find  two  sureties 
to  be  bound  by  recognisance  in  the  penal  sum  of 
£50,  and  in  default  of  such  sureties  shall  be  com- 
mitted to  prison,  there  to  remain  till  the  next 
General  or  Quarter  Sessions;  and  upon  convic- 
tion of  the  said  offence  at  the  said  General  or 
Quarter  Sessions,  shall  suffer  the  pain  and  pen- 
alty of  £20,  to  the  use  of  the  king  s  and  queen's 
majesties,  their  heirs  and  successors* 

XVIII.  Provided,  always,  that  no  congrega- 
tion or  assembly  for  religious  worship  shall  be 
permitted  or  allowed  by  this  act  until  the  place 
of  such  meeting  shall  be  certified  to  the  bishop 
of  the  diocess,  or  to  the  archdeacon  of  that  arch- 
deaconry, or  to  the  justices  of  the  peace  at  the 
General  or  Quarter  Sessions  of  the  peace  for  the 
county,  city,  or  place  in  which  such  meeting 
shall  be  held,  and  registered  in  the  said  bishop's 
or  archdeacon's  court  respectively,  or  recorded 
at  the  said  General  or  Quarter  Sessions,  the  reg- 
ister or  clerk  of  the  peace  whereof  respectively 
is  hereby  required  to  register  the  same,  and  to 
give  certificate  thereof  to  such  person  as  shall 
demand  the  same,  for  which  there  shall  be  no 
greater  fee  or  reward  taken  than  the  sum  of 
sixpence. 

No.  XIV. 
The  occasional  Conformity  Act,  entitled  "  An  Act 
for  Preserving  the  Frolestanl  Religion,  by  bet- 
ter securing  the  Church  of  England,  as  by  law 
established ;  and  for  rnyifirming  the  Toleration 
granted  to  Protestant  Dissenters  by  an  Act,  en- 
titled '■An  Act  for  excnrptrng   their  Majesties' 
Protestant  Subjects,  dissenting  from  the  Church 
of    England,   from    the    Penalties    of    certain 
Lauis,'  "  and  fur  supplying  the  Defects  thereof ; 
and  for  the  farther  securing  the  Protestant  Suc- 
cession, by  requiring  the  Practisers  of  the  Law 
in  North  Britain  to  take  the  Oaths  and  subscribe 
the  Declaration  therein  mentioned.  \ 
Where.\s,  an  act  was  made  in  the  thirteenth 
year  of  the  reign  of  the  late  King  Charles  II., 
entitled  "An  Act  for  the  well-governing  and 
regulating  of  Corporations ;"   and  another  act 
was  made  in  the  five  and-twentieth  year  of  the 
reign  of  the  said  late  King  Charles  il .  entitled 
"  .\n  Act  for  the  preventing  Dangers  which  may 
happen  from  Popish  Recusants."  l)oth  which  acts 
were  made  fi)r  the  security  of  the  Church  of 
England,  as  by  lnw  established  :  Now,  fur  the 


*  .See  tieo.  I.,  slat,  n.,  cap  v.,  sec.  iv. 
+  10th  of  Queen  Anne. 


APPENDIX. 


487 


better  securing  the  said  church,  and  quieting 
the  minds  tif  her  majesty's  Protestant  subjects 
dissenting  from  the  Ghuich  of  England,  and  ren- 
dering them  secure  in  liie  exercise  of  their  reli- 
gious worship;  as  also  for  the  farther  strength- 
ening the  provision  already  made  for  the  secu- 
rity of  the  succession  to  the  crown  in  the  house 
of  Hanover;  be  it  enacted  by  the  queen's  most 
excellent  majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and 
commons  in  Parliament  assembled,  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  same,  that  if  any  person  or 
persons,  after  the  five-and-twentieth  day  of 
March,  which  shall  be  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  twelve,  either 
peers  or  commoners,  who  have  or  shall  have 
any  office  or  offices,  civil  or  military,  or  receive 
any  pay,  salary,  fee,  or  wages,  by  reason  of  any 
patent  or  grant  from  or  under  her  majesty, 
or  any  of  her  majesty's  predecessors,  or  of  her 
heirs  or  successors,  or  shall  have  any  command 
or  place  of  trust  from  or  under  her  inajesty,  her 
heirs  or  successors,  or  from  any  of  her  majes- 
ty's predecessors,  or  by  iier  or  their  authority, 
or  by  authority  derived  from  her  or  them,  with- 
in that  part  of  Great  Britain  called  England,  the 
dominion  of  Wales,  or  town  of  Berwick-upon- 
Tweed,  or  in  the  navy,  or  in  the  several  islands 
of  Jersey  or  Guernsey,  or  shall  be  admitted  into 
any  service  or  employment  in  the  household  or 
family  of  her  majesty,  her  heirs  or  successors  ; 
or  if  any  mayor,  alderman,  recorder,  bailiff", 
town-clerk,  common-councilman,  or  other  per- 
son bearing  any  office  of  magistracy,  or  place' 
of  trust,  or  other  employment  relating  to  or 
concerning  the  government  of  any  of  the  re- 
spective cities,  corporations,  boroughs,  cinque- 
ports,  and  their  members,  or  other  port  towns 
within  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called  England, 
the  dominion  of  Wales,  town  of  Berwick,  or 
either  of  the  isles  aforesaid,  who  by  the  said  re- 
cited acts,  or  either  of  them,  were  or  are  obliged 
to  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
according  to  the  rites  and  usage  of  the  Church 
of  England,  as  aforesaid,  shall,  at  any  time  af- 
ter their  admission  into  their  respective  offices 
or  employments,  or  after  having  such  patent  or 
grant,  command  or  place  of  trust,  as  aforesaid, 
during  his  or  their  continuance  in  such  office  or 
offices,  employment  or  employments,  or  having 
such  patent  or  grant,  command  or  place  of  trust, 
or  any  profit  or  advantage  from  the  same,  know- 
ingly or  willingly  resort  to,  or  be  present  at, 
any  conventicle,  assembly,  or  meeting,  within 
England,  Wales,  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  or  the 
isles  aforesaid,  for  the  exercise  of  religion  in 
other  iTianner  than  according  to  the  liturgy  and 
practice  of  the  Church  of  England,  in  any  place 
■within  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called  Eng- 
land, dominion  of  Wales,  and  town  of  Berwick- 
upon-Tweed,  or  the  isles  aforesaid,  at  which 
conventicle,  assembly,  or  meeting,  there  shall 
be  ten  persons  or  more  assembled  together,  over 
and  besides  those  of  the  same  household,  if  it 
be  in  any  house  where  there  is  a  family  inhab- 
iiing,  or  if  it  be  in  a  house  or  place  where  there 
is  no  family  irdiabiting,  then  where  any  such 
ten  persons  are  so  assembled,  as  aforesaid  ;  or 
shall  knowingly  and  willingly  be  present  at  any 
such  meeting,  in  such  hotrse  or  place  as  afore- 
said, although  the  liturgy  be  there  used,  where 
her  majesty,  whom  God  long  preserve,  and  the 


Princess  Sjphia,  or  such  others  as  shall  from 
time  to  time  be  lawfully  appointed  to  be  prayed 
for,  shall  not  there  he  prayed  for  in  express 
words  according  to  the  liturgy  of  the  Cluiich  of 
England,  except  where  such  particular  offices 
of  the  liturgy  are  used,  wherein  there  are  no 
express  directions  to  pray  for  her  majesty  and 
the  royal  family,  shall  forfeit  £40,  to  he  recov- 
ered by  him  or  them  that  shall  sue  for  the  same, 
by  any  action  of  debt,  bill,  plaint,  or  informa- 
tion, in  any  of  her  majesty's  courts  at  West- 
minster, wherein  no  essoin,  protection,  or  wager 
of  law  shall  be  allowed,  or  any  more  than  one 
imparlance. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted,  that  every  person 
convicted  in  any  action  to  be  brought,  as  afore- 
said, or  upon  any  information,  presentment,  or 
indictment  in  any  of  her  majesty's  courts  at 
Westminster,  or  at  the  assizes,  shall  be  disabled 
from  thenceforth  to  hold  such  office  or  offices, 
eioployment  or  employments,  or  to  receive  any 
profit  or  advantage  by  reason  of  them,  or  of  any 
grant  as  aforesaid,  and  shall  be  adjudged  inca- 
pable to  bear  any  office  or  employment  whatso- 
ever within  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called 
England,  the  dominion  of  Wales,  or  the  town 
of  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  or  the  isles  of  Jersey 
or  Guernsey. 

Provided,  always,  and  be  it  farther  enacted 
by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  if  any  person  or 
persons  who  shall  have  been  convicted  as  afore- 
said, and  thereby  made  incapable  to  hold  any 
office  or  employment,  or  to  receive  any  profit 
or  advantage  by  reason  of  them,  or  of  any  grant 
as  aforesaid,  shall,  after  such  conviction,  con- 
form to  the  Church  of  England,  for  the  space 
of  one  year,  without  having  been  present  at 
any  conventicle,  assembly,  or  meeting  as  afore- 
said, and  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  according  to  the  right  usage  of  the 
Church  of  England,  at  least  three  times  in  the 
year,  every  such  person  or  persons  shall  be  ca- 
pable of  the  grant  of  any  of  the  offices  or  em- 
ployments aforesaid. 

Provided,  also,  and  be  it  farther  enacted,  that 
every  such  person  so  convicted,  and  afterward 
conforming  in  manner  as  aforesaid,  shall,  at  the 
next  term  after  his  admission  into  any  such  of- 
fice or  employment,  make  oath  in  writing,  in 
some  one  of  her  majesty's  courts  at  Westmin- 
ster, in  public  and  open  court,  or  at  the  next 
Quarter  Sessions  for  that  county  or  place  where 
he  shall  reside,  between  the  hours  of  nine  and 
twelve  in  the  forenoon,  that  he  hath  conformed  to 
the  Church  of  England  for  the  space  of  one  year 
before  such  his  admission,  without  having  been 
present  at  any  conventicle,  assembly,  or  meet- 
ing as  aforesaid,  and  that  he  hath  received  the 
sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  at  least  three 
times  in  the  year ;  which  oath  shall  be  there 
enrolled  and  kept  upon  record. 

Provided  that  no  person  shall  suffer  any  pun- 
ishment for  any  offence  committed  against  this 
act,  unless  oath  be  made  of  such  offence  be- 
fore some  judge  or  justice  of  the  peace  (who  is 
hereby  cmpow^eied  and  required  to  lake  the  said 
oath)  within  ten  days  after  the  said  offence  com- 
niitled,  and  unless  the  said  offender  be  prosemi- 
ted  for  the  same  within  three  mnntlis  afier  the 
said  offence  committed  ;  nors  hall  any  per.son  be 
convicted  for  any  such  offence,  unless  u[)oii  the 
oaths  of  two  credible  witnesses  at  the  least. 


488 


APPENDIX. 


Provided,  always,  that  this  act,  or  anything 
therein  contained,  or  any  offence  against  the 
same,  shall  not  extend  or  be  judged  to  take 
away  or  make  void  any  office  of  mheritance, 
nevertheless,  so  as  such  person  having  or  enjoy- 
ing any  such  office  of  inheritance  do  or  shall  sub- 
stitute and  appoint  his  sufficient  deputy  (which 
such  officer  is  hereby  empowered  from  time  to 
time  to  make  or  change,  any  former  law  or 
usage  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding)  to  exer- 
cise the  said  office,  until  such  time  as  the  per- 
son having  such  office  shall  conform  as  afore- 
said. 

And  it  is  hereby  farther  enacted  and  decla- 
red by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  tolera- 
tion granted  to  Protestant  Dissenters,  by  the 
act  made  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  King 
William  and  Queen  Mary,  entitled  "  An  Act  for 
exempting  their  Majesties'  Protestant  Subjects, 
dissenting  from  the  Church  of  England,  from 
the  Penalties  of  certain  Laws,"  shall  be,  and  is 
hereby  ratified  and  confirmed,  and  that  the  same 
act  shall  at  all  times  be  inviolably  observed,  for 
the  exempting  of  such  Protestant  Dissenters  as 
are  thereby  intended  from  the  pains  and  penal- 
ties therein  mentioned. 

And  for  rendering  the  said  last-mentioned  act 
more  efTectual,  according  to  the  true  mlent  and 
meaning  thereof,  be  it  farther  enacted  and  de- 
clared by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  if  any 
person  dissenting  from  the  Church  of  England 
(not  in  holy  orders,  or  pretended  holy  orders,  or 
pretending  to  holy  orders,  nor  any  preacher  or 
teacher  of  any  congregation),  who  should  have 
been  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the  said  last-men- 
tioned act,  if  such  person  had  duly  taken,  made, 
and  subscribed  the  oaths  and  declaration,  or 
otherwise  qualified  him  or  herself,  as  required 
by  the  said  act,  and  now  is  or  shall  be  prosecu- 
ted upon  or  by  virtue  of  any  of  the  penal  stat- 
utes from  which  Protestant  Dissenters  are  ex- 
empted by  the  said  act,  shall,  at  any  time  du- 
ring such  prosecution,  take,  make,  and  subscribe 
the  said  oaths  and  declaration,  or,  being  of  the 
people  called  Quakers,  shall  make  and  subscribe 
the  aforesaid  declaration,  and  also  the  declara- 
tion of  fidelity,  and  subscribe  the  profession  of 
their  Christian  belief  according  to  the  said  act, 
or  before  any  two  of  her  majesty's  justices  of 
the  peace  (who  are  hereby  required  to  take  and 
return  the  same  to  the  next  Quarter  Sessions 
of  the  peace,  to  be  there  recorded),  such  person 
shall  he  and  is  hereby  entitled  to  the  benefit  of 
the  said  act,  as  fully  and  effisctually  as  if  such 
person  had  duly  qualified  himself  within  the 
time  prescribed  by  the  said  act,  and  shall  be 
thenceforth  exempted  and  discharged  from  all 
the  penalties  and  forfeitures  incurred  by  force 
of  any  of  the  aforesaid  penal  statutes. 

And  whereas  it  is  or  may  be  doubted  wheth- 
er a  preacher  or  teacher  of  any  congregation  of 
dissenting  Protestants,  duly  in  all  respects  qual- 
ified according  to  the  said  act,  be  allowed,  by 
virtue  of  the  said  act,  to  officiate  in  any  congre- 
gation, in  any  county  other  than  that  in  wliich 
he  so  qualified  hiinself,  although  in  a  congrega- 
tion or  place  of  meeting  duly  certified  and  re- 
gistered as  is  required  by  the  said  act ;  be  it  de- 
clared and  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid, 
that  any  such  preacher  or  teacher,  so  dulv  qual- 
ified according  to  the  said  act,  shall  be  "and  is 
hereby  allowed  to  officiate  in  any  congregation, 


although  the  same  be  not  in  the  county  where- 
in he  was  so  qualified  ;  provided  that  the  said 
congregation  or  place  of  meeting  liatli  been,  be- 
fore such  officiating,  duly  certified  and  regis- 
tered or  recorded  according  to  the  said  act; 
and  such  preacher  or  teacher  shall,  if  required, 
produce  a  certificate  of  his  having  so  qualified 
himself  under  the  hand  of  the  clerk  of  the  peace 
for  the  county  or  place  where  he  so  qualified 
himself,  which  certificate  such  clerk  of  the  peace 
is  hereby  required  to  make  ;  and  shall  also,  be- 
fore any  justice  of  the  peace  of  such  county  or 
place  where  he  shall  so  officiate,  make  and  sub- 
scribe such  declaration,  and  take  such  oaths  as 
are  mentioned  in  the  act,  if  thereunto  required. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  on  or  before  the  fifteenth  day  of 
June  next,  all  advocates,  writers  to  the  signet, 
notaries  public,  and  other  members  of  the  col- 
lege of  justice,  within  that  part  of  her  majesty's 
kingdom  of  Great  Britain  called  Scotland,  shall 
he  and  are  hereby  obliged  to  take  and  subscribe 
the  oath  appointed  by  the  act  of  the  sixth  year 
of  her  majesty's  reign,  entitled  "  An  Act  for  the 
better  security  of  her  Majesty's  Person  and  Gov- 
ernment," before  the  lords  of  session  of  the 
aforesaid  part  of  her  majesty's  kingdom,  except 
such  of  the  said  persons  who  have  already  taken 
the  same  ;  and  if  any  of  the  persons  aforesaid 
do,  or. shall  neglect  or  refuse  to  lake  and  sub- 
scribe the  said  oath  as  aforesaid,  such  persoa 
shall  be  ipso  facto  adjudged  incapable,  and  disa- 
bled in  law  to  have,  enjoy,  or  exercise  in  any 
manner  his  said  employment  or  practice. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  in  all  time  coming,  no  person  or 
persons  shall  be  admitted  to  the  employment  of 
advocate,  writer  to  the  signet,  notary  public,  or 
any  other  office  belonging  to  the  said  college  of 
justice,  until  he  or  they  have  taken  and  subscri- 
bed the  aforesaid  oath,  in  manner  as  is  above 
directed. 

No.  XV. 
The  Schism  Act,  entitled  "An  Act  to  prevent  the 

Growth  of  Schism,  and  for  the  farther  security 

of  the  Churches  of  England  and  Ireland,  as  by 

Law  established.'"* 

Whereas,  by  an  act  of  Parliament  made  in 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  years  of  his  late 
majesty  King  Charles  II.,  entitled  "  An  Act  for 
the  Uniformity  of  Public  Prayers,  and  Adminis- 
tration of  Sacraments,  and  other  Rites  and  Cer- 
emonies ;  and  for  establishing  the  Form  of 
making,  ordaining,  and  consecrating  Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land," it  is,  among  other  things,  enacted,  that 
every  schiiolmaster  keeping  any  public  or  private 
school,  and  every  person  instructing  or  teaching 
any  youth  in  any  house  or  private  family,  as  a 
tutor  or  schoolmaster,  should  subscribe,  before 
his  or  their  respective  archbishop,  bishop,  or 
ordinary  of  the  diocess,  a  declaration  or  ac- 
knowledgment, in  which,  among  other  things, 
was  contained  as  follows  ,viz.,  "  I,  A.  B.,  do  de- 
clare that  I  will  conform  to  the  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  it  is  now  by  law  establish- 
ed ;"  and  if  any  sctio(dmaster  or  other  person,  in- 
structing or  teaching  youth  in  any  private  houso 
or  family,  as  a  tutor  or  schoolmaster,  should  in- 


12lh  of  Queen  Anne. 


APPENDIX. 


489^ 


struct  or  teach  any  youth  as  a  tutor  or  schoolmas- 
ter before  license  obtained  from  his  respective 
archbishop,  bishop,  or  ordinary  of  the  diocess,  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  realm, 
lor  wliich  he  should  pay  twelve-pence  only,  and 
before  such  subscription  and  acknowledgment 
made  as  aforesaid,  then  every  such  schoolmas- 
ter and  other,  instructing  and  teaching  as  afore- 
said, should,  for  the  first  offence,  suffer  three 
months'  imprisonment,  without  bail  or  main- 
prize  ;  and  for  every  second  and  other  such  of- 
fence, should  suffer  three  months'  imprison- 
ment, without  bail  or  mainprize,  and  also  for- 
feit to  his  majesty  the  sum  of  five  pounds. 
And  whereas,  notwithstanding  the  said  act, 
sundry  papists,  and  other  persons  dissenting 
from  the  Church  of  England,  have  taken  upon 
them  to  instruct  and  teach  youth,  as  tutors  or 
schoolmasters,  and  have  for  such  purpose  open- 
ly set  up  schools  and  seminaries,  whereby,  if 
due  and  speedy  remedy  be  not  had,  great  dan- 
ger might  ensue  to  this  church  and  state  :  for 
the  making  the  said  recited  act  more  effectual, 
and  preventing  the  danger  aforesaid,  be  it  en- 
acted by  the  queen's  most  excellent  majesty, 
by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons  in 
this  present  Parliament  assembled,  and  by  the 
authority  of  the  same,  that  every  person  or  per- 
sons who  shall,  from  and  after  the  first  day  of 
August  next  ensuing,  keep  any  public  or  private 
school  or  seminary,  or  teach  and  instruct  any 
youth,  as  tutor  or  schoolmaster,  within  that  part 
of  Great  Britain  called  England,  the  dominion 
of  Wales,  or  town  of  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  be- 
fore such  person  or  persons  shall  have  subscri- 
bed so  much  of  the  said  declaration  and  ac- 
knowledgment as  is  before  recited,  and  shall 
have  had  and  obtained  a  license  from  the  re- 
spective archbishop,  bishop,  or  ordinary  of  the 
place,  under  his  seal  of  office  (for  which  the 
party  shall  pay  one  shilling,  and  no  more,  over 
and  above  the  duties  payable  to  her  majesty  for 
the  same),  and  shall  be  thereof  lawfully  convict- 
ed, upon  an  information,  presentment,  or  indict- 
ment, in  any  of  her  majesty's  courts  of  record 
at  Westminster,  or  at  the  assizes,  or  before 
justices  of  Oyer  and  Terminer,  shall  and  may 
be  committed  to  the  common  jail  of  such  coun- 
ty, riding,  city,  or  town  corporate  as  aforesaid, 
there  to  remain,  without  bail  or  mainprize,  for 
the  space  of  three  months,  to  commence  from 
the  time  that  such  person  or  persons  shall  be 
received  into  the  said  jail. 

Provided,  always,  and  be  it  hereby  enacted, 
that  no  license  shall  be  granted  by  an  archbish- 
op, bishop,  or  ordinary,  unless  the  person  or 
persons  who  shall  sue  for  the  same  shall  produce 
a  certificate  of  his  or  their  having  received  the 
sacrament  according  to  the  usage  of  the  Church 
of  England,  in  some  parish  church,  within  the 
space  of  one  year  next  before  the  grant  of  such 
license,  under  the  hand  of  the  minister  and  one 
of  the  church-wardens  of  the  said  parish,  nor 
until  such  person  or  persons  shall  have  taken 
and  subscribed  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  su- 
premacy, and  abjuration,  as  appointed  by  law, 
and  shall  have  made  and  subscrihed  the  declara- 
tion agamsttransubstantiation,  contained  in  the 
act  made  in  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  the  reign  of 
King  Charles  II.,  entitled  "  An  Act  for  prevent- 
ing Dangers  which  may  happen  from  Popish 

Vol.  II.— Q  q  q 


Recusants,"  before  the  said  archbishop,  bishop, 
or  ordinary  ;  which  said  oaths  and  declarations 
the  said  archbishop,  bishop,  or  ordinary  is  here- 
by empowered  and  required  to  administer  and 
receive ;  and  such  archbishops,  bishops,  and 
ordinaries  are  required  to  file  such  certificates, 
and  keep  an  exact  register  of  the  same,  and  of 
the  taking  and  subscribing  such  oath  and  dec- 
larations. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  any  person  who  shall  have  ob- 
tained a  license,  and  subscribed  the  declara- 
tions, and  taken  and  subscribed  the  oaths  as 
above  appointed,  and  shall  at  any  time  after, 
during  the  time  of  his  or  their  keeping  any  pub- 
lic or  private  school  or  seminary,  or  instructing 
any  youth  as  tutor  or  schoolmaster,  knowingly 
or  willingly  resort  to  or  be  present  at  any  con- 
venticle, assembly,  or  meeting,  within  England, 
Wales,  or  town  of  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  for 
the  exercise  of  religion  in  any  other  manner 
than  according  to  the  liturgy  and  practice  of  the 
Church  of  England,  or  shall  knowingly  and  will- 
ingly be  present  at  any  meeting  or  assembly 
for  the  exerciseof  religion,  although  the  liturgy 
be  there  used,  where  her  majesty  (whom  God 
long  preserve),  and  the  Elector  of  Brunswick,  or 
such  others  as  shall  from  time  to  time  be  law- 
fully appointed  to  be  prayed  for,  shall  not  there 
be  prayed  for  in  express  words,  according  to 
the  liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England,  except 
where  such  particular  offices  of  the  liturgy  are 
used  wherein  there  are  no  express  directions  to 
pray  for  her  majesty  and  the  royal  family,  shall 
be  liable  to  the  penalties  in  this  act,  and  from 
thenceforth  be  incapable  of  keeping  any  public 
or  private  school  or  seminary,  or  instructing- 
any  youth  as  tutor  or  schoolmaster. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  if  any  person  licensed  as  afore- 
said shall  teach  any  other  catechism  than  the 
catechism  set  forth  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  the  license  of  such  person  shall  from 
thenceforth  be  void,  and  such  person  shall  be 
liable  to  the  penalties  of  this  act. 

And  be  it  farther  enacted  by  the  authority 
aforesaid,  that  it  shall  and  maybe  lawful  to  and 
for  the  bishop  of  the  diocess,  or  other  proper 
ordinary,  to  recite  any  person  or  persons  what- 
soever, keeping  school  or  seminary,  or  teaching 
without  license  as  aforesaid,  and  to  proceed 
against  and  punish  such  person  or  persons  by 
ecclesiastical  censure,  subject  to  such  appeals 
as  in  cases  of  ordinary  jurisdiction  :  this  act  or 
any  other  law  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Provided,  always,  that  no  person  offending 
against  this  act  shall  be  punished  twice  for  the 
same  offence. 

Provided,  also,  that  where  any  person  shall 
be  prosecuted  without  fraud  or  covin  in  any  of 
the  courts  aforesaid  for  any  offence  contrary  to 
this  act,  the  saine  person  shall  not  afterward 
be  prosecuted  for  the  same  offence  in  any  of  the 
said  courts  while  such  former  prosecution  shall 
be  pending  and  carried  on  without  any  wilful 
delay  ;  and  in  case  of  any  such  after-prosecu- 
tion," the  person  so  doubly  prosecuted  may  al- 
lege, plead,  or  show  forth  in  his  defence  against 
the  saine,  such  former  prosecution,  pending,  or 
judgment,  or  sentence  thereupon  given,  the  said 
pleader  first  making  oath  before  the  judge  or 
judges  of  the  court  where  such  afler-proseca- 


460 


APPENDIX. 


•tion  shall  be  pend  ng,  and  which  said  oalli  he 
or  lliey  are  hereby  empowered  and  required  lo 
adminisier,  that  tlie  said  prior  proseculion  was 
not  coniiiienced  or  carried  on  by  his  means,  or 
with  his  consent  or  procureuienl,  or  by  any 
fraud  or  collusion  of  any  oLlier  person,  to  liia 
knowledge  or  belief. 

Provided,  always,  that  this  act,  or  anything 
therein  contained,  shall  not  extend,  nor  be  con- 
strued to  extend,  to  any  tutor  teaching  or  in- 
structing youth  in  any  college  or  hall  within  ei- 
ther of  the  universities  of  that  part  of  Great  Brit- 
ain called  England,  nor  to  any  tutor  who  shall  be 
employed  by  any  nobleman  or  noblewoman  to 
teach  his  or  her  own  children,  grandchildren,  or 
great-grandchildren  only,  in  his  or  her  family  ; 
provided  such  tutor  so  teaching  any  nobleman 
or  nol)lewoman's  family  do  in  every  respect 
qualify  himself  according  to  this  act,  except 
only  in  that  of  taking  a  license  from  the  bishop. 

Provided,  also,  that  the  penalties  in  this  act 
shall  not  extend  to  any  foreigner  or  alien  of  the 
foreign  Reformed  churches  allowed  or  to  be  al- 
lowed by  the  queen's  majesty,  her  heirs  or  suc- 
cessors, in  England,  for  instructing  or  teaching 
any  child  or  children,  or  any  such  foreigner  or 
alien  only,  as  a  tutor  or  schoolmaster. 

Provided,  always,  and  be  it  farther  enacted 
by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  if  any  person 
who  shall  have  been  convicted  as  aforesaid,  and 
thereby  made  incapable  to  teach  or  instruct  any 
youth  as  aforesaid,  shall,  afier  such  conviction, 
conform  to  the  Church  of  England  for  the  space 
of  one  year,  without  having  been  present  at  any 
conventicle,  assembly,  or  meeting  as  aforesaid, 
and  receive  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, according  to  the  rites  and  usage  of  the 
Church  of  England,  at  least  three  limes  in  that 
jear,  every  such  person  or  persons  shall  be 
again  capable  of  having  and  using  a  license  to 
teach  school,  or  to  instruct  youth  as  a  tutor  or 
schoolmaster,  he  or  they  also  performing  all 
that  is  made  requisite  thereunto  by  this  act. 

Provided,  also,  and  be  it  farther  enacted,  that 
every  such  person  so  convicted,  and  afterward 
conforming  in  manner  as  aforesaid,  shall,  at  the 
next  term  after  his  being  admitted  to,  or  taking 
upon  him,  to  teach  or  instruct  youth  as  afore- 
said, make  oath  in  writing,  in  some  one  of  her 
majesty's  courts  at  Westminster,  in  public  and 
open  court,  or  at  the  next  Quarter  Sessions  for 
that  county  or  place  where  he  shall  reside,  be- 
tween the  hours  of  nine  and  twelve  in  the  fore- 
noon, that  he  hath  conformed  to  the  Church  of 
England  for  the  space  of  one  year  before  such 
his  admission,  without  having  been  present  at 
any  conventicle,  assembly,  or  meeting  as  afore- 
said, and  that  he  hath  received  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  at  least  three  times  in  the 
■year,  which  oath  shall  be  there  enrolled,  and 
kept  upon  record. 

Provided,  always,  that  this  act  shall  not  ex- 
tend, or  be  construed  to  extend,  to  any  person 
who,  as  a  tutor  or  schoolmaster,  shall  instruct 
youth  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  or  any 
part  of  mathemaiical  learning  only,  so  far  as 
such  mathemaiical  learning  relates  to  naviga- 
tion, or  any  mechanical  art  only,  and  so  as  such 
reading,  writing,  arillimetic,  or  mathematical 
learning  shall  be  taught  in  the  English  tongue 
only. 

And  whereas,  by  act  of  Parliament  made  in 


Ireland,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  years 
of  his  said  late  majesty  King  Cliarles  II.,  en- 
titled "An  Act  for  the  Uiiiforinily  of  Public 
Prayers,  and  ,\(lministration  of  the  Sacraments, 
and  other  Rites  and  Ceremonies;  and  for  es- 
tablishing the  Form  of  making,  ordaining,  and 
consecrating  of  Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons 
in  the  (Jliurch  of  Ireland,"  it  is  enacted,  con- 
cerning schoolmasters,  and  other  persons  in- 
structing youth  in  private  families  in  Ireland, 
as  in  and  by  the  above-recited  act  is  enacted 
concerning  schoolmasters  and  others  instruct- 
ing youth  in  private  families  in  that  part  of 
Great  Britain  called  England  ;  and  whereas  it 
is  reasonable,  that  where  the  law  is  the  same, 
the  remedy  and  means  for  enforcing  the  execu- 
tion of  the  law  should  be  the  same,  be  it  there- 
fore enacted,  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  all 
and  every  the  remedies,  provisions,  and  claus- 
es in  and  by  this  act  given,  made,  and  enacted, 
shall  extend,  and  be  deemed,  construed,  and 
a<ljudged  to  extend,  to  Ireland,  in  as  full  and 
effectual  mariner  as  if  Ireland  had  been  express- 
ly named  and  mentioned  in  all  and  every  the 
clauses  in  this  act. 


No.  XVI. 

The  Repeal,  enlilhd  "An  Art  for  strengthening 
the  /'roleslant  Interest  in  these  Kingdoms."* 
Whebe.\s  an  act  of  Parliament  was  made  in 
the  tenth  year  of  the  reign  of  the  late  Queen 
Anne,t  entitled  "  An  Act  for  preserving  the 
Protestant  Religion  by  better  securing  the 
Church  of  England  as  by  Law  established,  and 
for  confirming  the  Toleration  granted  to  Prot- 
estant Dissenters,  by  an  Act  entitled  '  An  Act 
for  exempting  their  Majesties'  Protestant  Sub- 
jects dissenting  from  the  Church  of  England 
from  the  Penalties  of  certain  Laws  ;'  and  for 
supplying  the  Defects  thereof,  and  for  the  far- 
ther securing  the  Protestant  Succession,  by  re- 
quiring the  Practisers  of  the  Law  in  North  Brit- 
ain to  take  the  Oaths  and  subscribe  the  Decla- 
ration therein  mentioned  ;"  and  whereas  part 
of  the  said  act,  as  also  another  act  hereinafter 
mentioned,  have  been  found  to  be  inconvenient, 
be  It  therefore  enacted  by  the  king's  most  ex- 
cellent majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice  of  the 
lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons  in 
Parliament  assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of 
the  same,  that  the  said  recited  act,  passed  in 
the  tenth  year  of  the  late  Queen  Anne.t  from 
the  beginning  thereof  to  these  words,  "  And  it  is 
hereby  farther  enacted  and  declared,  by  the  au- 
thority aforesaid,  that  the  toleration  granted  to 
Protestant  Dissenters  ;"  and  also  one  act  made 
in  the  twelfth  year  of  the  reign  of  the  late 
Queen  Anne,  entitled  "  An  Act  to  prevent  the 
Growth  of  Schism,  and  for  the  farther  security 
of  the  Churches  of  England  and  Ireland  as  by 
Law  established,"  shall  be  and  are  hereby  re- 
pealed, annulled,  and  made  void. 

Provided,  always,  and  be  it  enacted  by  the 
authority  aforesaid,  that  if  any  mayor,  bailifl",  or 
other  magistrate,  in  that  part  of  Great  Britain 
called  England,  the  dominion  of  Wales,  or 
town  of  i3erwick-upon-Tweed,  or  the  isles  of 
Guernsey  or  Jersey,  shall  knowingly  or  willing- 

*  Slhof  KingGeo.  I.,cap.  iv.         t  10  Annaj,  cap.  ii, 
%  10  Anna;,  cap.  ii. ;  .ind  12  Annse,  stat.  ii.,  cap.  vii. 


APPENDIX. 


491 


ly  resort  to,  or  be  present  at,  any  public  meet- 
ing for  religious  worship,  other  than  the  Church 
of  England  as  hy  law  established,  in  the  gown, 
or  other  peculiar  habit,  or  attended  with  the  en- 
sign or  ensigns  of  or  belonging  to  such  his  of- 
fice, that  every  such  mayor,  bailiff,  or  other 
magistrate,  being  thereof  convicted  by  due 
course  of  law,  shall  be  disabled  to  hold  such  of- 
fice or  offices,  employment  or  employments,  and 
shall  be  adjudged  incapable  to  bear  any  public 
office  or  employment  whatsoever  within  that 
part  of  Great  Britain  called  England,  the  do- 
minion of  Wales,  and  town  of  Berwick-upon- 
Tweed,  or  isles  of  Jersey  and  Guernsey. 


No.  xvir. 

Notice  of  James  Naylor. 

Naylor  Was  one  of  the  first  persons  who  in- 
vented and  published  the  doctrines,  and  adopted 
the  manners  of  the  Quakers,  and  as  a  preacher 
of  Quakerism  was  scarcely  inferior  in  celebrity 
to  George  Fox  himself;  continually  travelling 
through  the  kingdom,  and  everywhere  harangu- 
ing, not  only  in  private  rooms,  where  Friends 
usually  met,  but  in  streets  and  fields,  wherever 
he  could  find  an  audience  inclined  to  hear  him. 
He  was  born  at  Ardisloe,  near  Wakefield,  in 
Yorkshire,  and  was  bred  up  as  a  husbandman, 
and  possessed  some  property  ;  there  he  lived 
twenty  two  or  twenty-three  years  according  la 
the  world,  as  he  expressed  it ;  then  he  married 
and  removed  into  the  parish  of  Wakefield,  where 
he  continued  till  the  civil  wars  began,  in  which 
he  was  a  soldier  in  the  Parliament's  army,  serv- 
ing under  several  commanders,  particularly  un- 
<ler  Lord  Fairfax,  and  was  at  last  quartermaster 
in  iMajor-general  Lambert's  troop,  in  which  ser- 
vice he  continued  till  disabled  by  sickness  in 
Scotland,  after  which  he  retired  to  his  own 
home,  having  been  a  soldier  eight  or  nine  years, 
from  which  service  arrears  were  due  to  him  at 
the  time  of  his  punishment.  Some  five  or  six 
years  after  this,  being  at  plough,  and  meditating 
on  the  things  of  God,  suddenly,  says  he,  "I 
heard  a  voice  saying  unto  me,  'Get  thee  out 
from  thy  kindred  and  from  thy  father's  house.' 
And  shortly  after,  going  a  gate-ward  with  a 
friend  from  my  own  house,  having  on  an  old 
suit,  without  any  money  ;  having  neither  taken 
leave  of  wife  or  children,  not  thinking  then  of 
any  journey,  (as)  I  was  commanded  to  go  into 
the  west  (Westmoreland),  not  knowing  whither 
I  should  go,  nor  what  I  was  to  do  there ;  but 
when  I  had  been  there  a  little  while,  I  had  giv- 
en me  what  I  was  to  declare  ;  and  ever  since  I 
have  remained,  not  knowing  to-day  what  I  was 
to  do  to-morrow."  It  was  in  1652  that  he  was 
first  noticed  in  Westmoreland  as  a  preacher 
among  the  Quakers,  and  there,  after  a  very  cu- 
rious examination  before  the  magistrates,  he 
was  imprisoned  at  Appleby  for  the  apparent 
blasphemy  of  his  doctrines,  and  for  the  contu- 
macy of  his  behaviour  in  not  pulling  off  his  hat, 
&c.  In  lef).!  he  went  to  London,  soon  after 
which  it  must  have  been  that  he  made  a  prog- 
ress into  tiie  west,  of  England,  intending  to  go 
into  Cornwall.  By  this  time  he  had  t)y  his 
preacliing  attached  to  himself  a  considerable 
number  of  followers,  men  and  women,  who  at- 
tended him  with  the  most  enthusiastic  devotion, 


considering  him  as  the  very  Word  of  God,  and 
calling  him,  as  mentioned  above,  by  the  most 
blasphemous  appellations.  These  enthusiastic 
tokens  of  devotion  overthrew  his  reason,  and 
he  became  (as  he  afterward  confessed)  actually 
crazed.  His  friend  and  editor  thus  expresses 
his  situation  :  "He  came  to  be  clouded  in  his 
understanding,  bewildered,  and  at  a  loss  in  his 
judgment.  Thus,  poor  man  !  he  stood  not  in 
his  dominion,"  &c. ;  and  afterward  he  mentions 
his  recovery  :  nevertheless,  his  conduct  and  his 
language  during  his  whole  life  gave  manifest  to- 
kens of  insanity.  At  the  time  of  which  we  are 
now  speaking,  instead  of  rebuking  the  madness 
of  his  followers,  he  suffered  them  to  go  on  with 
their  blasphemous  conduct.  After  some  slay 
in  London,  where  he  was  imprisoned,  he  went 
to  Bristol,  and  from  thence  to  Exeter.  At  Ex- 
eter he  was  brought  before  Major  Saunders, 
and  dismissed  with  leave  to  prosecute  his  jour- 
ney ;  but,  after  having  gone  twenty  miles,  he 
was  brought  back,  fined  20  marks  for  not  ta- 
king off  his  hat,  and  committed  to  the  common 
jail  as  a  vagrant,  whence  he  and  his  company 
being  delivered  by  an  order  from  the  council, 
they  set  out  on  their  return  to  Bristol.  During 
their  progress  through  Somersetshire,  their  fa- 
naticism reached  its  utmost  height  of  absurdity 
and  impiety  ;  for  as  he  rode  into  Wells,  Glaston- 
bury, and  other  towns,  his  company  spread  their 
garments  before  him,  handkerchiefs,  aprons, 
scarves,  and  the  like,  and  even  gloves,  singing 
"  Holy,  holy,  holy,"  &c.  October  24th,  1656. 
they  came  through  Bedminster :  Naylor  rode 
on  horseback,  and  there  were  six  more  in  his 
company,  one  of  whom,  a  young  man,  bare- 
headed, "  led  his  horse  by  the  bridle,  and  an- 
other uncovered  before  him,  through  the  dirty 
way  in  which  carts  and  horses,  and  none  else, 
usually  go,  and  with  them  two  men  on  horse- 
back, with  each  of  them  a  woman  behind  him, 
and  one  woman  walking  on  the  better  way  or 
path.  In  this  posture  did  they  march  ;  and  in 
such  a  case,  that  one  George  Wetherley,  noting 
their  condition,  asked  them  to  come  into  the 
better  road,  adding  that  God  expected  no  such 
extremity  ;  but  they  continued  on  their  way, 
not  answering  in  any  other  notes  but  what  were 
musical,  singing  'Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord  God 
of  Sabbaolh,'  &c.  ' 

"  Thus  continued  they  till  by  their  wandering 
they  came  to  the  almshouse  within  the  suburbs 
of  Bristol,  where  one  of  the  women  alighted, 
and  she,  with  the  other  of  her  own  sex,  loving- 
ly marched  on  either  side  of  Naylor's  horse. 
This  Wetherley  saith  he  supposes  they  could 
not  be  less  deep  in  the  muddy  way  than  to  the 
knees  (and  at  this  very  time  it  happened  to  rain 
so  violently  that  the  water  ran  in  streams  from 
their  cloathes),  and  he  saith  they  sang,  but  some- 
times with  such  a  buzzing,  mcl-oDious  noyse, 
that  he  could  not  understand  what  it  was. 
This  the  said  Wetherley  gave  in  upon  oaih. 
Thus  (lid  they  reach  Raicliffe  Gate,  with  Tim- 
othy Wedlock,  of  Devon,  bareheaded,  and  Mar- 
tha Syinonds,  with  the  bridle  on  one  side,  and 
H.miiali  Stranger  on  the  other  side  of  the  horse. 
This  Martha  Symonds  is  the  wife  of  Thomas 
Symonils,  of  Lon(i(u),  bookt)in(ler  (and  sister  to 
(ides  Calvert,  the  bookseller,  living  at  the  Black 
S|)read-Eagle  at  the  west  end  of  Paul's,  pub- 
lisher of  must  of  the  fanatic  books  of  that  day), 


492 


APPENDIX. 


and  Hannali  Stranger  is  the  wife  of  John  Stran- 
ger (alias  Siaiiger),  of  London,  conibmaker,  wlio 
sang  '  Holy,  holy,  holy  Lord  God  of  Israel.'  Thus 
did  he  ride  to  the  High  Crosse  in  Bristol,  and 
after  that  to  the  While  Hart  in  Broad-street, 
which  the  magistrates  hearing,  they  were  ap- 
prehended and  committed  to  prison  by  Joseph 
Jackson,  the  mayor  ;  being  searched,  letters  and 
other  papers,  twenty-one  in  all,  were  found  upon 
them,  some  extracts  from  which  are  here  sub- 
joined, for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  great  ig- 
norance (rather  than  impiety),  as  well  as  the 
inconceivable  nonsense  of  the  early  Quakers." 
A  Letter  from  Hannah  Stranger  to  James  Naylor, 
of  Exeter. 
"  James  Naylor,  in  the  pure  feare  and  power 
of  God  my  soule  salutes  thee,  thou  everlasting 
son  of  righteousnesse  and  prince  of  peace. 
Oh  !  how  my  soule  travelleth  to  see  this  day, 
which  Abraham  did  and  was  glad,  and  shall  all 
that  are  of  faitlifull  Abraham.  Oh  !  suffer  me 
to  speake  what  the  Lord  hath  moved.  There 
is  one  temptation  neere,  the  like  unto  the  first ; 
and  is  like  the  wisdome  of  God,  but  it  is  not, 
and  therefore  it  must  be  destroyed  :  oh,  it  defi- 
leth  and  hateth  the  innocent ;  I  beseech  thee 
wait :  my  soule  travelleth  to  see  a  pure  image 
brought  forth,"  &c. :  the  remainder  being  of 
the  same  kind. 

"  From  London,  16th  day  of  the  7th  month." 

Another  letter  she  begins  thus  : 

"  Oh  thou  fairest  of  ten  thousand,  thou  only- 
begotten  son  of  God,  how  my  heart  panteth  af- 
ter thee,"  &c. 

Her  husband,  John  Stranger,  adds  this  post- 
script : 

"  Remember  my  dear  love  to  thy  master  ;  thy 
name  is  no  more  to  be  called  James,  but  Jesus." 

The  magistrates  of  Bristol,  on  Saturday,  Oc- 
tober 25th,  examined  the  whole  company,  and 
the  several  examinations  are  printed  in  the 
pamphlet  marked  E,  from  which  the  following 
passages  are  extracted  : 

Being  asked  whether  his  name  was  James 
Naylor,  he  replied,  "The  men  of  this  world  call 
me  James  Naylor." 

Q.  "  Art  not  thou  the  man  that  rid  on  horse- 
back into  Bristol!?"  &c. 

A.  "  I  rid  into  a  town,  but  what  its  name  was 
I  know  not ;  and  by  the  Spirit  a  woman  was 
commanded  to  hold  my  horse's  bridle  ;  and 
some  there  were  that  cast  down  cloathes,  and 
sang  praises  to  the  Lord,  such  songs  as  the 
Lord  put  into  their  hearts,  and  it's  like  it  might 
be  the  song  of  '  Holy,  holy,  holy,'  "  &c. 

Q.  "  Whether  or  no  didst  thou  reprove  those 
women  1" 

A.  "Nay,  but  I  bad  them  take  heed  that 
they  sang  nothing  but  what  they  were  moved  to 
of  the  Jjord" 

Q.  "  Dost  thou  own  this  letter  which  Hannah 
Stranger  sent  unto  theel" 

A.  "  Yea,  I  do  own  that  letter." 

Q.  "Art  thou,  according  to  that  letter,  the 
fairest  of  ten  thousand  V 

A.  "  As  to  the  visible,  I  deny  such  attribute 
to  be  due  unto  me  ;  but  if  as  to  that  which  the 
Father  has  begotten  in  me,  I  shall  own  it." 

Q.  "  Have  any  called  thee  by  the  name  of 
Jesus  1" 


A.  "  Not  as  unto  the  visible,  but  as  Jesus,  the 
Christ  that  is  in  me." 

Q.  "  Whether  art  thou  more  sent  than  oth- 
ers 1" 

A.  "As  to  that,  I  have  nothing  at  present 
given  me  of  my  Father  to  answer." 

Q.  "  Art  thou  the  everlasting  Son  of  God  1" 

A.  "  Where  God  is  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
there  is  the  everlasting  Son,  and  I  do  witness 
God  in  the  flesh.  I  am  the  Son,  and  the  Son 
of  God  is  but  one." 

Q.  "Art  thou  the  Prince  of  Peace  1" 

A.  "  The  Prmce  of  everlasting  Peace  is  be- 
gotten in  me." 

Q.  "  Art  thou  the  everlasting  Son  of  God, 
the  King  of  Righteousness?" 

A.  "  I  am,  and  the  everlasting  righteousness 
is  wrought  in  me  :  if  ye  were  acquainted  with 
the  Father,  ye  would  also  be  acquainted  with 
me." 

Q.  "Did  any  kisse  thy  feet  V 

A.  "It  might  be  they  did  ;  but  I  minded  them 
not." 

Q.  "  How  dost  thou  provide  for  a  livelyhood  1" 

A.  "As  do  the  lillies,  without  care,  being 
maintained  by  my  Father." 

Q.  "  What  businesse  hadst  thou  at  Bristoll, 
or  that  way  ]" 

A.  "  I  was  guided  and  directed  by  my  Fa- 
ther." 

Q.  "  What  wentest  thou  for  to  Exeter  V 

A.  "  I  was  to  Lawson  (perhaps  Launceston) 
to  see  the  brethren." 

Q.  "  What  estate  hast  thou  1" 

A.  "  I  take  no  care  for  that." 

Q.  "  Doth  God,  in  an  extraordinary  manner, 
sustain  thee  without  any  corporeal  food?" 

A.  "Man  doth  not  live,  &;c.  :  the  same  life  is 
mine  that  is  in  the  Father,  but  not  in  the  same 
measure." 

Q.  "  How  art  thou  clothed  V 

A.   "  I  know  not." 

Q.  "  Dost  thou  live  without  bread  I" 

A.  "  As  long  as  my  heavenly  Father  will.  I 
have  tasted  of  that  bread,  of  which  he  that  eat- 
eth  shall  never  die." 

Q.  "  How  long  hast  thou  lived  without  any 
corporeal  sustenance?" 

A.  "  Some  fifteen  or  sixteen  days,  sustained 
without  any  other  food  except  the  Word  of 
God." 

Q.  "  Thou  hast  a  wife  at  this  time  1" 

A.  "  A  woman  I  have,  whom  by  the  world  is 
called  my  wife ;  and  some  children  I  have, 
which  according  to  the  flesh  are  mine,"  &,c., 
&c. 

Martha  Symonds  being  examined,  saith  "  she 
knew  James  Naylor  formerly  ;  for  he  is  no  more 
James  Naylor,  but  refined  to  a  more  excellent 
substance." 

Q.  "What  made  thee  lead  his  horse  ?"  &c. 

A.  "  I  was  forced  thereto  by  the  power  of  the 
Lord." 

Q.  "  He  is  styled  in  Hannah  Stranger's  letter 
the  fairest  of  ten  thousand,  &c.  :  dost  thou  so 
esteem  him !" 

A.  "  That  James  Naylor  of  whom  thou  speak- 
est  is  buried  in  me,  and  he  hath  promised  to 
come  again." 

Q.  "  Hast  thou  a  husband  ?" 

A.  "  I  have  a  man,  which  thou  callest  my 
husband." 


APPENDIX. 


493 


Q.  "  What  made  thee  to  leave  him,  and  to 
follow  James  Naylor  in  such  a  manner  T" 

A.  "  It  is  our  life  to  praise  the  Lord  ;  and  the 
Lord  my  strength,  who  filleth  heaven  and  earth, 
is  manifest  in  James  Naylor." 

Q.  "  Oughtest  thou  to  worship  James  Nay- 
lor, as  thou  didst,  upon  thy  knees'!" 

A.  "Yea,  I  ought  so  to  do." 

Q.  "  Why  oughtest  thou  so  to  do  1" 

A.  "He  is  the  Son  of  Righteousness;  and 
the  new  man  within  him  is  the  everlasting  Son 
of  Righteousness  ;  and  James  Naylor  wdl  be 
Jesus  when  the  new  life  is  born  in  him,"  &c., 
&c- 

The  examinations  of  Hannah  Stranger  and 
her  husband,  and  of  Timothy  Wedlock,  contain 
matter  of  the  same  kind.  The  extravagance  of 
Dorcas  Erbury  goes  beyond  them  all.  She  says 
that  James  Naylor  raised  her  from  the  dead. 

Q.  "In  what  manner T' 

A.  "  He  laid  his  hand  on  my  head  after  I  had 
been  dead  two  daies,  and  said,  '  Dorcas,  arise  !' 
and  I  arose,  and  live,  as  tliou  seest." 

Q.  "Jesus  Christ  doth  sit  at  the  right  hand 
of  I  lie  Father,  where  the  world  shall  be  judged 
by  him  V 

A.  "  He  whom  thou  callest  Naylor  shall  sit 
at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  and  shall  judge 
the  world  with  equity." 

The  author  of"  Rabshakeh's  Outrage,"  &c., 
wishes  it  to  he  believed  that  the  seven  persons 
■who  attended  Naylor  into  Bristol  were  not  Qua- 
kers, giving  as  a  reason  because  there  were 
then  many  more  than  700  Quakers  in  and  about 
Bristol,  not  one  of  whom  attended  him,  and 
these  seven  were  publicly  disowned.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  does  not  appear  that  they  were 
inhabitants  of  Bristol,  and  therefore  they  could 
not  belong  to  the  congregation  at  Bristol,  but 
they  might  have  belonged  to  some  other  con- 
gregation :  their  language  and  manners  were 
those  of  the  Quakers,  and  the  two  who  were 
dismissed,  Samuel  Cater  and  Robert  Crab,  went 
to  the  Quakers'  meeting  the  same  day.  The 
■writer  would  have  done  well  if  he  had  mention- 
ed how,  and  when,  and  where  they  were  dis- 
owned by  the  Quakers;  but  if  they  were  dis- 
owned at  all,  it  was  not  until  after  their  mad 
behaviour  at  Bristol.  As  for  Naylor  himself, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  he  was  a  Qua- 
ker before  and  after  his  folly,  and  a  principal 
one  ;  he  is  considered  as  such  in  all  the  con- 
temporary books  that  I  have  seen,  and  was  usu- 
ally called  so  ;  his  editor,  George  Wetherley,  in 
1716,  himself  a  Quaker,  and  well  acquainted 
with  him,  speaks  of  him  as  such,  and  generally 
with  great  approbation  ;  and  Naylor  himself 
calls  George  Fox  his  dear  brother  George;  and 
if  Naylor  was  a  Quaker,  the  probability  is  that 
his  followers  were  of  the  same  description. 

The  examination  taken  before  the  magistrates 
of  Bristol  were  attested  by  the  mayor,  sealed 
with  the  city  seal,  and  sent  by  letter  to  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Aldworth,  their  goodly  town-clerk  and  bur- 
gess of  Parliament,  and  upon  this  report  the 
House  sent  a  messenger  for  Naylor,  who,  with 
four  of  his  company,  were  sent  off  November 
10th.  With  ihern  the  Common  Council  sent 
Mr.  Philip  Dorney,  their  clerk,  and  Mr.  William 
Griggp,  a  member  of  the  Common  Council,  a 
tanner,  living  in  St.  James's  parish,  near  the 
Quakers'  Meeting-house,  in  Broadmead. 


The  author  of  "  Rabshakeh's  Outrage,"  &c., 
says  that  Mr.  Grigge  would  not  set  out  on  his 
journey  until  he  had  five  pounds  paid  to  him  to- 
wards his  expenses,  and  in  ail  respects  he  ex- 
presses a  very  contemptuous  opinion  of  him. 
These  are  his  words:  "Without  reflecting  on 
the  magistrates  of  Bristol  their  wisdom,  let  me 
say  it,  it  was  not  their  master-piece  to  send 
such  a  busie,  pragmatical  person  as  thou  art  to 
London,  there  to  make  a  speech  to  a  committee 
of  Parliament,  which  had  in  it  neither  head  nor 
tail,  nor  good  sense  nor  reason,  but  for  the 
greatest  part  composed  of  fawning,  falsehood, 
and  pitiful,  lame  compliments,  crying  '  Sir,  Gen- 
tlemen, and  Your  Honours,'  but  speai\ing  of  no- 
thing of  weight  or  importance  relating  to  the 
matter  then  in  debate.  Reader,  thou  must  know 
that  this  envious  person  is  a  great  speech-ma- 
ker in  the  Common  Council  of  Bristol ;  and  if 
he  had  so  high  an  esteem  of  that  which  he  made 
in  the  Painted  Chamber  as  to  judge  it  polite  and 
learned  enough  to  merit  the  public  views,  thou 
mayest  thence  easily  judge  what  sad  oratory  do 
serve  the  turn  within  the  walls  of  that  council." 
The  House  of  Commons  appointed  a  committee 
to  examine  the  whole  affair,  which  sat  in  the 
Painted  Chamber,  and  of  which  "godly  Mr. 
Bainfield,  of  Exeter,  was  chairman."  Here 
James  Naylor  and  his  company  were  charged 
with  blasphemy  in  assuming,  first,  the  gesture, 
words,  honour,  worship,  and  miracles  of  our 
blessed  Saviour ;  and,  secondly,  the  names  and 
incommunicable  attributes  and  titles  of  our 
Lord.  The  committee  re-e.xamined  all  the  pris- 
oners, at  which  the  answers  given  and  the  facts 
proved  seem  to  have  been  nearly  the  same  as  at 
Bristol  ;  with  this  additional  information,  on 
the  oath  of  Thomas  Perkins  and  Thomas  Cole  : 
Thomas  Perkins  informeth,  that  "after  Nay- 
lor's  imprisonment  at  Bristol,  Dorcas  Erbury 
fell  down  at  his  feet  and  kissed  them  ;  and  the 
same  evening  one  Alice  Brooks  fell  on  her 
knees  before  the  said  Naylor,  and  Naylor  put 
his  hands  upon  her  head,  and  said,  '  Stand  fast,' 
&c.  And  Thomas  Cole  informeth,  that  on  the 
25th  of  October,  Martha  and  Hannah  Stranger, 
being  called  out  of  Naylor's  room  into  their 
own  lodging,  they  one  after  another  kneeled  he- 
fore  Naylor  and  laid  their  heads  on  his  knees, 
and  he  laid  his  hands  on  their  heads,  making  a 
groaning  noise  within  himself,  and  before  they 
rose  from  their  knees,  he  crossed  his  hands  over 
their  heads."  And  it  appeared  to  the  commit- 
tee, by  the  information  of  John  Baynam,  deputy 
to  the  sergeant  of  the  House,  to  whose  custody 
Naylor  and  his  company  were  committed,  "  that 
the  usual  posture  of  James  Naylor  is  sitting  in 
a  chair,  and  his  company,  both  men  and  wom- 
en, do  sometimes  kneel ;  and  when  they  were 
weary  of  kneeling,  they  sat  upon  the  ground  be- 
fore him,  singing  these  and  divers  other  words 
to  the  like  purpose,  '  Holy,  holy,'  &c.,  and  thus 
they  do  usually  ail  the  day  long;"  but  the  in- 
former never  heard  Naylor  sing  as  aforesaid. 
And  he  saiih  "there  is  great  resort  to  the  said 
Naylor  by  divers  persons,  who  most  of  them 
kneel  before  him  in  the  manner  aforesaid." 
(However,  the  note  says  that  this  they  did, 
whether  James  Naylor  was  absent  or  present.) 
"And  Martha  Symonds,  in  the  posture  afore- 
said, sung,  '  This  is  the  joyful  dnv ;  behold,  the 
King  of  Righfieousness  is  come;'  "  and  farther 


494 


APPENDIX. 


the  informer  saith,  "that  he  never  knew  the 
sai.l  iv^\|i.r  s'm)w  any  dislike,  eillier  hy  reproof 
or  olheiwi&e,  of  that  honour  or  worsiii|)  which 
John  Stranger  and  his  wife,  Martha  Syinonds, 
Dorcas  Erbury.  and  the  rest,  gave  hiim  as  afore- 
said." And  a  memherof  the  House  heing  late- 
ly at  the  place  where  Naylor  is  now  a  prisoner, 
informs  the  committee  "  that  he  saw  Naylor 
and  his  company  in  tlie  posture  aforesaid,  and 
heard  John  Stranger  and  one  of  the  women 
sing  '  Holy,  holy,  holy  Lord  God,  and  holy,  holy 
to  thee,  thee,  Lord  God  ;'  and  while  John  Stran- 
ger sang  these  words,  he  did  sometimes  look 
upward  and  sometimes  upon  James  Naylor." 
Another  member  informs  us,  as  upon  his  own 
view,  to  the  same  purpose.  And  at  Naylor's 
last  examination  before  the  committee,  heing 
Wednesday,  December  3,  one  William  Piggot 
did  inform  "  that  Naylor,  sitting  in  a  chair  where 
he  is  now  a  prisoner,  one  Sarah  Blackberry 
came  to  him  and  took  him  by  the  hand,  and 
said,  '  Rise  up,  my  love,  my  dove,  my  fair  one, 
and  come  away ;  why  sittest  thou  among  the 
pots'!'  and  presently  put  her  mouth  upon  his 
hand,  and  sunk  down  upon  the  ground  before 
him."  Being  asked  what  he  had  finally  to  offer 
in  his  own  vindication,  he  said,  "I  do  abhor 
that  any  of  that  honour  that  is  done  to  God 
should  be  given  to  me,  as  I  am  a  creature.  But 
it  pleased  the  Lord  to  set  me  up  as  a  sign  of 
the  coming  of  the  righteous  one  ;  and  what  hath 
been  done  in  my  passing  through  the  towns,  I 
was  commanded  by  the  power  of  the  Lord  to 
suffer  such  things  to  be  done  to  the  outward 
man  as  a  sign  :  I  abhor  my  honour  as  a  crea- 
ture." 

The  trial  lasted  several  days,  and  the  com- 
mittee agreed  that  all  the  charges  were  proved. 
Their  report,  consisting  of  fifteen  sheets  of  pa- 
per, was  received  and  read  in  the  House  De- 
cember 5th,  and  debated  thirteen  separate  days, 
when  at  last  they  convicted  him  of  horrid  blas- 
phemy, and  nem.  con.  voted  him  to  he  a  grand 
impostor,  and  deceiver  of  the  people.  Decem- 
ber 16,  it  was  proposed  that  the  punishment  of 
James  Naylor  should  be  death,  and  the  question 
being  put,  "  the  noes  went  forth  96,  the  yeas  82, 
so  it  passed  in  the  negative."  On  the  next  day 
(Wednesday,  the  17th)  the  House  agreed  to  the 
following  sentence : 

"Resolved,  That  James  Naylor  be  set  on  the 
pillory,  with  his  head  in  the  pillory,  in  the  Pal- 
ace-yard, Westminster,  during  the  space  of  two 
hours,  on  Thursday  next,  and  shall  be  whipped 
by  the  hangman  through  the  streets  from  West- 
minster to  the  Old  Exchange,  London,  and  there 
likewise  be  set  on  the  pillory,  with  his  head  in 
the  pillory,  for  the  space  of  two  hours,  between 
the  hours  of  eleven  and  one,  on  Saturday  next, 
in  each  place  wearing  a  paper  containing  an  in- 
scription of  his  crimes  ;  and  that,  at  the  Old 
Exchange,  his  tongue  be  bored  through  with  a 
hot  iron,  and  that  he  be  there  also  stigmatized 
in  the  forehead  with  the  letter  B,  and  that  he  be 
afterward  sent  to  Bristol,  and  be  conveyed  into 
and  through  the  said  city  on  horseback,  bare- 
ridged,  with  his  face  backward,  and  there  also 
publicly  whipped  the  next  market-day  after  he 
conies  thither  ;  and  that  from  thence  he  be  com- 
mitted to  prison  in  Bridewell,  London,  and  there 
restrained  from  the  society  of  all  people,  and 
there  to  labour  hard,  till  he  shall  be  released  by 


Parliament ;  and  dut'ing  that  time  he  debarred 
the  use  of  the  pen,  ink,  and  jiaper,  and  sh;fll 
have  no  relief  but  what  he  earns  by  his  daily 
labours." 

This  inhuman  sentence  was  fully  executed  on 
the  uniiappy  maniac.  Thursday,  December  18, 
he  stood  in  the  pillory  in  Palace-yard,  and  was 
from  thence  whipped  to  the  Old  Exchange,  re- 
ceiving 310  lashes,  one  on  crossing  each  gutter. 
On  this  same  day  si^veral  petitions  were  pre- 
sented to  Parliament,  containing  cotnplaints 
against  the  growth  and  exorbitance  of  the  peo- 
ple called  Quakers  :  one  from  Devonshire  and 
Exeter;  one  from  the  ministers  in  Northum- 
berland, Durham,  and  Newcastle  ;  one  from  the 
justices  of  the  peace,  gentry,  ministers  of  the 
Gospel,  &c.  ,  in  Cheshire;  another  from  the 
mayor,  aldermen,  and  ministers  of  Chester; 
another  from  divers  well-affected  persons,  gen- 
tlemen, ministers,  &c.,  in  Cornwall  ;  and  an- 
other humble  remonstiance  and  petition  from 
the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  council,  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel,  and  other  chief  inhabitants 
of  Bristol,  in  which  they  complain  that  "they 
have  lyen  long  under  much  reproach  and  igno- 
miny, occasioned  by  the  increase  of  a  genera- 
tion of  seduced  and  seducing  Quakers,  who 
were  at  first  supported  and  upheld  by  some  sol- 
diers (Captain  Beal  and  Captain  Watson),  then 
in  chief  command,  in  the  absence  of  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  garrison."  They  complain  of  the 
frequent  disturbance  which  they  gave  to  the 
public  worship,  and  of  their  confused  and  tu- 
multuous meetings,  and  of  their  profaning  the 
Sabbath  by  multitudes  of  their  proselytes  flock- 
ing from  all  parts  of  the  country  round  about  us 
on  that  day.  They  particularly  complain  of 
Naylor,  a  ringleader  and  head  of  that  faction  ; 
they  complain  that  they  have  not  power  to  re- 
strain these  enormities,  and  pray  the  Parliament 
"to  restrain  the  insolencies  of  this  people,  that 
so  the  reproach,  not  only  of  this  city,  hut  of  the 
whole  nation  and  government,  may  be  rowled 
away."  All  these  petitions  were  referred  to  a 
committee  to  consider  of  them,  and  to  collect 
the  heads  of  a  bill  for  suppressing  the  mischiefs 
and  inconveniences  complained  of 

Saturday,  December  20,  Jaines  Naylor  was 
to  have  suffered  the  remaining  part  of  his  sen- 
tence, but  on  the  morning  of  that  same  day  a 
petition  was  presented  to  the  House,  signed  by 
Joshua  Sprigge,  formerly  an  eminent  Independ- 
ent preacher,  author  of  a  book  quoted  above, 
T.  Z.  and  Jer.  White  [Cromwell's  chaplain],  C. 
H.,  representing  the  wretched  condition  of  the 
prisoner,  and  the  danger  to  his  life  if  he  should 
receive  the  remainder  of  his  punishment,  and 
praying  in  the  name  of  many  honourable  per- 
sons, both  citizens  and  others,  wholly  uncon- 
nected with  him,  for  a  week's  respite,  which 
was  granted.  Meanwhile  many  well-affected 
and  respectable  persons,  of  whom  Colonel 
Scrope,  some  time  governor  of  the  castle  and 
fort  of  Bristol,  was  the  first  name  shocked  at 
the  inhumanity  of  the  sentence,  petitioned  Par- 
liament for  a  remission  of  the  remaining  part 
of  it.  Many  of  the  members  were  against  ad- 
mitting the  petition  ;  but  being  put  to  the  vote, 
it  was  admitted.  The  petition  was  presented 
on  Tuesday,  December  23,  at  the  bar  of  the 
House,  by  Mr.  Joshua  Sprigge  above  mentioned, 
accompanied   by  about  one  hundred  eminent 


APPENDIX. 


495 


persons  in  behalf  of  the  whole.  Mr.  Sprigs;e 
made  a  ^r.o  t  speech  on  presenting  it,  but  it  was 
unsuccessful.  The  petitioners  then  applied  to 
his  higliness  the  Protector,  still  without  effect 
On  Wednesday,  December  21,  five  Preshyterinn 
or  Independent  ministers,  Caryl,  Manton,  Nye, 
Griffith,  and  Reynolds,  went  to  James  Naylor 
in  Newgate,  and  it  was  said  that  they  did  so  by 
order  of  the  Parliament ;  hut  Nayhir  persisting 
in  his  ordinary  discourse  and  usual  answers, 
they  left  him  wroih. 

On  Saturday,  December  27,  he  suffered  the 
remaining  part  of  his  punishment.  "Abdut  11 
o'clock  he  was  carried  in  a  coach  from  Newgate 
to  the  Black  Boy,  near  the  Koyal  Exchange, 
in  which  house  he  continued  till  the  clock  had 
struck  12  at  noon,  when,  by  divers  on  foot,  with 
halberds,  he  was  guarded  to  the  pillory,  where, 
when  he  came,  they  presently  put  his  head  into 
the  same,  and  having  piimed  it  down,  came  up 
Martha  Sy mends,  and  with  her  two  otliers,  who 
were  said  to  be  Hannah  Stranger  and  Dorcas 
Erbury  ;  the  first  seated  herself  just  behind  on 
the  right,  and  the  two  latter  before  him,  and 
Robert  Rich  likewise  accompanied  him  with 
comfortable  words,  kissing  and  stroking  on  his 
face.  He  having  stood  till  two,  the  executioner 
took  him  out,  and  having  bound  his  artns  with 
cords  to  the  pillory,  and  he  having  put  forth 
his  tongue,  which  he  freely  did,  the  executioner, 
with  a  red-hot  iron  about  the  bigness  of  a  quill, 
bored  the  same,  and  hy  order  from  the  sheriff 
held  it  in  a  small  place,  to  the  end  that  the  be- 
holders might  see  and  bear  witness  that  the 
sentence  was  thoroughly  executed  :  then  hav- 
ing taken  it  out,  and  pulled  the  cap  off  that  cov- 
ered his  face,  he  put  a  handkerchief  over  his 
eyes,  and  putting  his  left  hand  to  the  back  part 
of  his  head,  and  taking  the  red-hot  iron  letter 
in  his  other  hand,  put  it  to  his  forehead  till  it 
smoked  :  all  of  which  time  James  never  so  much 
as  winced,  hut  bore  it  with  astonishing  and 
heart  melting  patience.  Being  unbound,  he 
took  the  executioner  in  his  arms,  embracing 
and  hugging  him  ;  after  which,  Robert  Rich, 
through  his  ardent  love,  licked  the  wound  on 
his  forehead.  And  James  was  conveyed  to  the 
Black  Boy,  and  from  thence  to  Newgate." 

This  Robert  Rich  had  been  a  merchant  in 
T>"!iilon,  an  enthusiastic  follower  of  Naylor,  a 
pt- rfect  maniac,  but  religious  and  harmless.  Af- 
ter James  Naylor  had  been  on  the  pillory  some 
time,  "  he  took  a  paper  out  of  his  pocket,  and 
placed  it  over  his  head,  whereon  was  written, 
'  It  is  written,  Luke,  xxiii.,  38,  This  is  the  King 
of  the  Jews.'  But  presently  an  officer  stepped 
up  and  pulled  it  down,  and  turned  Robert  Rich 
and  the  two  women  off  the  pillory ;  but  after  a 
while  they  lifted  up  Robert  Rich  again  on  the 
pillory,  where  he  stayed  till  James  Naylor  had 
undergone  his  sufferings  for  that  time,  and  held 
him  by  the  hand  while  he  was  burning,  and  af- 
terward licked  and  sucked  the  fire  out  of  his 
tongue,  and  led  him  by  the  hand  from  off  the 
pillory.  This  also  was  very  remarkable,  that 
notwiihstanding  there  might  be  many  thousands 
of  people,  yet  they  were  very  quiet,  few  being 
lieard  to  revile  him,  or  seen  to  throw  any  one 
thing  at  him.  And  when  he  was  a  burning,  all 
the  people  before  him,  and  behind  him,  and  on 
both  sides  of  him,  with  one  consent  stood  bare- 
headed. 


"Afterward  he  was  sent  hy  the  sheriffs  of 
London  to  Bristol,  and  the  sheriffs  of  Bristol 
h;id  warrant  under  the  s()eaker's  hand  to  see 
the  sentence  executed  as  far  as  they  were  con- 
cerned therein.  January  16,  16.56-7,  he  arrived 
at  Lawfoid's  Gate,  where  he  slept.  January 
17,  this  day  James  Naylor  took  horse  at  Law- 
ford's  Gale,  and  rode  on  a  horse  bareridged, 
with  his  face  to  the  tail,  through  the  city  with- 
out RedclifT  Gate,  and  there  alighted,  and  was 
brought  to  the  middle  of  Thomas-street,  and 
there  stripped  and  tied  to  the  horse,  to  be  whip- 
ped from  thence  back  again  to  the  middle  of 
Broad-street." 

Before  his  whipping  the  following  order  was 
sent  to  the  keeper  of  Newgate  : 

"  Mr.  Roch  :  Cause  Naylor  to  ride  in  at  Law- 
ford's  Gate,  from  thence  along  Wine-street  ta 
the  Tolsey,  thence  down  Hiu^h-street  over  the 
bridge,  and  so  out  at  RedclifT  Gate.  There  let 
him  alight,  and  bring  him  into  Thomas-sireet, 
and  cause  him  to  be  stripped,  and  there  made 
fast  to  the  carthorse,  and  in  the  market  first 
whipped  ;  from  thence  to  the  foot  of  the  bridge, 
there  whipped  ;  thence  to  the  end  of  the  bridge, 
there  whipped  ;  thence  to  the  middle  of  High- 
street,  there  whipped  ;  thence  to  the  Tolsey, 
there  whipped  ;  thence  to  the  middle  of  Broad- 
street,  there  whipped,  and  then  tane  (turn  i  into 
the  Tailors'  Hall :  there  release  him  from  the 
carthorse,  and  let  him  put  on  his  clothes,  and 
carry  him  thence  to  Newgate  by  Tower  Lane, 
the  back  way." 

And  whereas,  of  custom,  the  bellman  goes 
before  and  makes  proclamation  of  the  offence  of 
the  ofl^ender,  yet  here  the  keeper  commanded 
the  bellman  to  the  contrary  (as  was  said),  and 
suffered  one  Jones  (a  coppersmith  and  ugly 
Quaker)  to  hold  back  the  beadle's  arm  when, 
striking,  so  that  in  all  the  way  the  bell  rang  but 
six  times — a  trait  of  mercy  in  the  midst  of  such 
brutality  which  ought  to  be  recorded  to  the 
credit  of  the  magistracy  of  Bristol. 

All  the  while  he  passed  ahmg,  his  dear  and 
worthy  friend,  Robert  Rich,  the  maniac  above 
mentioned,  rode  bareheaded  before  him,  having 
a  mermaid's  head  (such  was  the  length  of  his 
hair),  singing  "  Holy,  holy,"  &c.  After  this 
the  sheriffs  of  Bristol  sent  him  up  to  the  govern- 
ors of  Bridewell,  London,  who  had  before  re- 
ceived orders  from  the  speaker  as  to  that  part 
of  the  sentence  wherein  they  were  concerned, 
where  he  continued  till  the  wise  providence  of 
God  released  him.  After  his  discharge  from 
Bridewell  he  returned  to  this  city,  and  in  a 
meeting  with  some  of  his  friends  he  made  a 
public  recantation  of  his  errors  in  so  aflt'Cting 
a  manner  that  they  were  convinced  of  the  sin- 
cerity of  his  repentance.  He  lived  some  time 
afterward  in  this  city  in  a  serious  and  becoming 
manner,  and  died  on  a  journey  from  hence  to 
Wakefield,  in  Yorkshire,  where  he  was  born  in 
1616. — S'tyer's  History  of  Bristol,  in  4tO,  1828, 
vol.  ii.,  chap,  xxix.— C. 


No.  XVIII. 

The  closing  chapter  of  Godwin's  History  of  the  Common- 
wenllh. 

Government  of  Cromwell  considered. — Chnrarler 
of  the  Nation  over  irhich  he  presided. — Mujor- 
tly  of  the  Nation  hostile. — The  People  in  gen- . 


496 


APPENDIX. 


eral  favourable  to  the  ancient  Line  of  their 
Kings. — Spirit  of  Liberty  thai  had  sprung  up. 
—  Sentimnils  extensively  prcvatlmg  in  behalf 
of  a  Government  according  to  Law. — Religious 
Character  of  the  Nation. — The  People  divided 
into  the  Humorous  and  the  Demure. —  The 
Noble  and  Rich  unfriendly  to  Cromwell. — Rcli 
gious  and  Moral  Charar/er  of  the  Proleclor. — 
He  aims  at  the  Reformation  of  the  Laiv. — His 
Clemency  and  humane  Disposition. — His  Pat- 
ronage of  Letters  and  Learned  Men. — A  free 
Parliament  icould  have  restored  the  Stuarts. — 
Arbitrary  Imprisonments  resorted  to  by  Crom- 
well.—  Unpalatable  Measures  to  which  he  had 
recourse.  —  Some  of  them  unavoidable. — Others 
of  a  doubtful  Character. — Dissatisfaction  they 
produced. — High  Reputation  of  his  Lawyers. — 
Violent  Character  of  his  Administration. — Its 
apparent  Versatility. — Sequel  of  his  Govern- 
ment, if  he  had  lived  longer,  considered. 

Having  traced  the  reign  of  Cromwell  from  its 
Tise  to  its  terniinaiirin,  it  now  becomes  one  of 
the  duties  of  history  to  look  back  on  the  sum 
of  the  path  through  which  we  have  travelled. 

The  first  characteristic  of  this  period  of  his- 
tory, from  the  day  on  which  the  Independents 
and  army  rose  upon  the  Parliament,  is,  that  the 
affairs  of  the  nation  were  directed  by  a  small 
portion  of  themselves,  seizing  on  the  supreme 
authority  by  force,  and  retaining  it  by  superior 
talents  and  intellect. 

The  government  of  a  nation,  particularly  in 
such  circumstances,  is  a  complicated  science, 
with  difficulty  mastered  in  theory,  and  with 
difficulty  reduced  to  practice.  It  is  compara- 
tively easy  for  the  philosopher  in  his  closet  to 
invent  imaginary  schemes  of  policy,  and  to  show 
how  mankind,  if  they  were  without  passions 
and  without  prejudices,  might  best  be  united  in 
the  form  of  a  political  community.  But,  unfor- 
tunately, men  in  all  ages  are  the  creatures  of 
passions,  perpetually  prompting  them  to  defy 
the  rein,  and  break  loose  from  the  dictates  of 
sobriety  and  speculation.  Thus  far  as  to  the 
general  nature  of  man.  And,  besides  these  gen- 
eralities, in  each  particular  age  men  have  as- 
pirations and  prejudices,  sometimes  of  one  sort, 
and  sometimes  of  another,  rendering  them  very 
unlike  the  pieces  on  a  chessboard,  which  the 
skilful  practitioner  moves  this  way  and  that, 
without  its  being  necessary  to  take  into  his  es- 
timate the  materials  of  which  they  are  made, 
and  adapting  his  proceedings  to  their  internal 
modifications. 

Neither  the  Republicans,  who  governed  Eng- 
land for  four  or  five  years  from  the  death  of 
Charles  the  First,  nor  Cromwell,  who  displaced 
them,  were  fated  to  lie  on  a  bed  of  roses,  or  to 
■wander  upon  a  soft  and  level  carpet  of  verdure. 
Let  us  apply  this  to  the  history  of  Cromwell. 

The  people  of  England,  whom  we  may  call 
his  subjects,  were  divided  into  different  bodies 
and  factions  of  men,  none  of  them  disposed  pas- 
sively to  1)6  guided  by  his  wishes  or  his  will. 

The  first  consideration  that  occurs  under  this 
head  is  that  of  the  government  under  which 
England  had  been  placed  for  ages  previously 
to  the  civil  war.  The  thing  most  obvious  to 
the  grossest  capacity,  and  which,  therefore,  had 
a  mighty  influence  with  a  great  portion  of  the 
community,  was,  that  we  had  had  at  the  head 


of  our  government  an  individual  with  the  appel- 
lation of  king.  From  the  days  of  William  the 
(!()nqueror  at  least,  this  office  had  continued  in 
;m  hereditary  line,  with  such  deviations  as  cir- 
cumstances seemed  to  dictate,  but  never  with 
a  total  disregard  of  this  ground  of  succession. 

Charles  the  Second  was  the  eldest  son  of  his 
father,  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  Edwards 
and  Henries,  who  figure  so  greatly  in  our  his- 
tory, and  the  legal  successor  of  Elizabeth, 
whose  memory  was  dear,  and  worthily  dear,  to 
the  people  of  this  coimtry.  A  prince,  laying 
indisputable  claim,  so  far  as  this  circumstance 
is  of  force,  to  the  crown  of  a  country,  is  an  in- 
telligible object,  to  which  persons  of  the  plain- 
est understanding  may  attach  and  devote  them- 
selves. A  great  part  of  the  people  of  England 
had  rallied  round  the  standard  of  his  father,  and 
been  loyal  to  his  cause;  a  very  small  portion 
had,  even  in  thought,  thrown  off"  the  claim  of 
him  and  his  son  to  the  throne.  It  was  impos- 
sible, therefore,  that  this  circumstance,  the  ex- 
istence of  the  lawful  prince  in  exile,  the  multi- 
tudes of  men  that  superstitiously  loved  him,* 
and  the  great  numbers  who,  without  personal 
partiality,  had  yet  the  feeling  that  the  throne  of 
England  was  his  proper  place,  and  that  Eng- 
land would  never  be  as  it  should  be  without 
him,t  should  not  materially  modify  the  purposes 
and  authority  of  Cromwell. 

The  next  circumstance  to  which  it  was  ne- 
cessary for  Cromwell,  whether  he  would  or  not, 
to  attend,  was  the  spirit  of  liberty  which  was 
abroad  in  the  land. 

The  men  who  understood  this  best,  and  lov- 
ed it  with  the  purest  affection,  were  the  Repub- 
licans. And  these  men,  alike  from  their  talents, 
their  station  in  society,  and  their  ascendency 
in  the  army,  were  at  all  times  formidable  to  the 
protector. 

But  there  were  various  men  and  bodies  of 
men,  who,  without  so  illuminated  an  under- 
standing, had  still  a  strong  partiality  to  the 
doctrines  of  liberty.  These  were  the  men  who 
claimed  a  government  according  to  law  ;  and 
they  had  always  formed  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  people  of  England.  And  this,  in  how- 
ever confined  <^ointof  view,  in  a  certain  sense 
is  liberty.  The  vilest  of  all  slaveries  is  subjec- 
tion to  the  arbitrary  will  of  a  master;  to  live, 
as  is  said  to  be  the  case  in  some  Oriental  sov- 
ereignties, where  the  supreme  magistrate  can 
at  his  pleasure  take  from  you  your  property,  and 
subject  you  to  corporeal  punishment  or  death. 
To  live  under  the  empire  of  law  has  two  advan- 
tages ;  though,  alas  !  these  advantages  are  often 
visionary.  If  the  law  be  ever  so  iniquitous,  you 
seem  to  know  what  you  have  to  look  to,  and 
can  shape  your  conduct  accordingly.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  where  the  law  has  interpret- 
ers, professional  men  whose  business  it  is  to 
quibble  on  words  and  explain  away  equity,  this 
benefit  is  very  equivocal.  Secondly,  we  are 
told  that  justice  is  l)lind,  and  the  law  speaks  the 
same  language  indifl^erently  to  all.  But  this  is 
by  no  means  universally  the  case.  The  rich 
man,  and  the  man  of  powerful  connexions,  will 
often  be  successful  in  the  courts,  where  the  poor 
and  the  friendless  man  has  a  small  chance. 
These,  however,  are  exceptions.     In  the  ma- 


The  Royalists. 


t  The  Presbyterians. 


APPENDIX. 


4sn 


jority  of  cases  law  is  a  rule  serving  to  protect 
the  p'ain  man  in  his  honest  undertakings  and 
pursuits. 

The  English  people  are  habitually  a  calcula- 
ting and  reasoning  race.  They  find  themselves 
more  at  home  and  more  satislied  with  a  logical 
process  than  most  other  nations.  Hence  the 
subtleties  of  law^  have  been  extensively  culti- 
vated among  us.  And  we  feel  ourselves  better 
contented  with  the  issue  of  our  controversy,  be 
it  what  it  will,  when  all  is  done  by  the  applica- 
tion of  a  rule,  than  when  the  whole  is  disposed 
of  by  barefaced  power,  and  the  sudden  impulse 
of  an  arbitrary  will. 

A  third  thing  of  material  importance  to  Crom- 
well was  the  religious  state  of  the  community.  In 
this  respect  the  English  nation  was  much  divided. 
Many  still  adhered  to  the  discipline  and  forms 
of  the  old  Episcopal  Church  as  patronised  by 
Elizabeth  ;  the  bulk  of  the  nation  seems  to  have 
been  wedded  to  the  exclusive  doctrines  of  Pres- 
byterianism  ;  and  a  party  by  no  means  con- 
temptible for  either  numbers  or  importance, 
were  the  strenuous  advocates  of  independence 
and  toleration.  Cromwell  courted  the  Presby- 
terians, but  secretly,  and  in  his  heart,  was  the 
friend  of  the  Independents. 

The  latter  of  these  parties,  with  all  their  nu- 
merous divisions,  demanded  the  greatest  de- 
gree of  attention,  on  account  of  the  fervour  of 
their  religious  entlmsiasm.  A  large  portion  of 
the  Independents,  and  the  whole  body  of  the 
Anabaptists,  were  strenuous  Republicans,  and 
more  directly  and  openly  thwarted  Cromwell  in 
his  favourite  projects  than  any  other  set  of 
men  in  the  nation. 

Nothing  can  be  of  greater  importance  in  a 
state  than  the  religious  dispositions  of  its  mem- 
bers. It  not  unusually  happens  that,  when  all 
other  things  give  way,  these  will  prove  invin- 
cible to  all  the  arts  and  the  force  that  can  be 
brought  against  them.  The  influence  of  the 
priestliood,  the  inspirations  of  fanaticism,  and 
the  salvation  of  souls,  will  often  present  an  im- 
penetrable barrier  to  all  the  designs  of  the  pol- 
itician. And  the  influence  of  religious  consid- 
erations was  never  so  powerfulas  m  the  times 
of  the  English  Commonwealth. 

The  enemies  of  the  protector  may  be  divided 
into  two  classes,  the  grave  and  the  humorous 
The  people  of  England,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Royalists,  were  for  the  most  part  sedate, 
atrabilarious,  and  demure.  The  adherents  of 
the  house  of  Stuart  ran  into  the  opposite  ex- 
treme of  licentiousness  and  buffoonery.  They 
assailed  Cromwell  with  all  the  weapons  of  rid- 
icule, scurrility,  and  contempt.  This,  how- 
ever, scarcely  rendered  them  less  formidable  on 
occasions  of  moment.  They  hated  him  more 
sincerely  than  they  pretended  to  despise  him, 
and  were  perpetually  ready  with  plots,  conspir- 
acies, and  the  dagger,  to  bring  his  power  to  a 
sudden  termination. 

The  ancient  nobility  and  the  great  land  pro- 
prietors of  England  are  also  well  entitled  to 
consideration.  A  small  number  in  these  classes 
were  friendly  to  the  present  system,  but  the 
great  mass  of  them  were  by  no  means  so. 
This  was  an  unnatural  situation  in  the  slate, 
and  could  only  be  found  to  prevail  in  unquiet 
times.  The  friends  of  constitutional  liberty  in 
the  early  periods  of  the  civil  war,  and  the  com- 

VOL.  II.— R  R  R 


monwealthsmen  afterward,  bore  down  by  theii 
energies  what  are  commonly  found  to  be  the 
most  influential,  but  the  least  enterprising  part 
of  the  community.  These,  for  the  greater  part, 
took  refuge  in  a  sullen  and  temporizing  neutral- 
ity. The  Earl  of  Northumberland  may  serve 
as  a  specimen  of  this  class.  It  was  reasonable 
to  expect  that  Cromwell  would  bear  this  de- 
scription of  men  much  in  his  mind  ;  and  we  find, 
in  fact,  that  he  did  so. 

Such  were  the  elements'of  the  nation  Crom- 
well took  upon  himself  to  rule  ;  and  materials 
more  intractable  to  command  could  scarcely 
be  found  in  any  climate  or  age.  The  Lord 
Protector  of  England  had  no  friends,  except 
the  few  that  he  made  so  by  his  personal  qual- 
ities, and  his  immediate  powers  of  concilia- 
tion. The  Royalists,  and  the  votaries  of  lib- 
erty in  general,  the  Episcopalians,  the  Presby- 
terians, and  the  Independents,  the  fanatics  of 
all  descriptions,  and  a  great  part  of  the  army, 
were  his  inveterate  foes.  He  stood  alone, 
with  little  else  to  depend  upon  but  the  ener- 
gies of  his  mind,  and  the  awe  which  his  char- 
acter impressed  on  unwilling  subjects.  And 
all  this  happened,  not  so  much  from  any  ill  qual- 
ities that  could  be  ascribed  to  him,  but  as  the 
natural  result  of  his  ambition.  His  enemies 
for  the  most  part  confessed  his  talents  and  the 
elevation  of  his  soul,  his  high  courage,  his  emi- 
nent sagacity,  the  vastness  of  his  comprehen- 
sion and  his  spirit,  his  intellectual  intrepidity 
of  purpose,  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  his 
mind,  his  good-nature,  his  generosity,  and  the 
clemency  and  humanity  that  governed  his  decis- 
ions. His  fault  was  ambition.  The  pride  of 
the  English  nation  could  not  endure  that  a  man 
who  but  the  other  day  had  been  one  of  the 
ranks,  and  whom  they  would  scarcely  allow  to 
be  a  gentleman,  should  now  claim  to  be  lord  of 
all.  Divided  they  were  among  themselves  into 
a  thousand  factions  ;  but  they  all  agreed  in  this, 
to  condemn  the  protector. 

It  is  only  by  dint  of  bringing  these  circum- 
stances together  that  we  are  enabled  to  form 
a  judgment  of  the  administration  of  Cromwell. 
His  was  strictly  a  government  of  expedients  ; 
and  he  could  only  pursue  the  object  he  had  most 
at  heart  by  means  of  a  thousand  deviations  and 
in  the  most  circuitous  manner. 

The  object  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  the  pro- 
tector, as  has  repeatedly  been  said,  was  the  true 
interest  and  happiness  of  the  people  over  whom 
he  presided.  He  believed  of  himself  that  he 
had  only  accepted  the  rule  for  the  purpose  oi 
securing  their  welfare.  He  was  most  anxious 
for  the  moral  and  religious  improvement  of  his 
subjects,  and  aimed  at  the  merit  of  being  the 
father  of  his  people. 

The  character  of  Cromwell  has  been  little 
understood.  No  wonder.  The  man  who  has 
many  enemies  will  be  sure  to  be  greatly  mis- 
represented. And  no  man  had  ever  so  many 
enemies  in  the  compass  of  one  island  composed 
of  forty  little  counties,  as  Cromwell  had.  The 
Restoration  speedily  followed  upon  his  decease. 
And  it  behooved  the  adherents  of  the  house  of 
Stuart  to  blacken  by  all  imaginable  means  the 
memory  of  the  protector,  that  they  might  thus 
spread  a  sort  of  borrowed  lustre,  the  result  of 
the  darker  shades  of  the  picture,  upon  Charles 
the  Second. 


496 


APPENDIX, 


Cromwell  was  a  man  most  sincere  in  his  re- 
ligion, and  singularly  devoted  (o  the  cause  of 
good  morals.  It  is  thus  that  Milton  speaks  of 
him:  "  If  thou,"  says  he,  "the  patron  of  our 
liberty,  and  its  tutelar  divinity  :  if  he,  of  whom 
we  have  held  that  no  mortal  was  evor  more  just, 
more  saintlike  and  unspotted,  should  undermine 
our  freedom,  which  he  had  so  lately  huilt  up, 
this  would  prove  not  only  deadly  and  destruc- 
tive to  his  own  fame,  hut  to  the  entire  and  uni- 
versal cause  of  religion  and  virtue." 

The  beginning  of  Cromwell's  public  life  was 
answerable  to  this  character.  He  says  of  him- 
self, "  I  raised  such  men  as  had  the  fear  of  God 
before  them,  and  made  conscience  of  what  they 
did  ;  and  from  that  day  forward  they  never  were 
beaten,  but  beat  the  enemy  continually."  Mil- 
ton expands  this  circumstance  in  his  beautiful 
language.  "He  was  a  soldier  thoroughly  ac- 
complished in  the  art  of  self  knowledge,  and  his 
first  successes  were  against  the  internal  enemies 
of  human  virtue,  vain  hopes,  fears,  aspirings, 
and  ambition.  His  first  triumphs  were  over 
himself;  and  he  was  thus  enabled,  from  the  day 
that  he  beheld  an  enemy  in  the  field,  to  exhibit 
the  endowments  of  a  veteran.  Such  was  the 
temper  and  discipline  of  his  mind,  that  all  the 
good  and  the  valiant  were  irresistibly  drawn  to 
his  camp,  not  merely  as  the  best  school  of  mar- 
tial science,  but  also  of  piety  and  religion  ;  and 
those  who  joined  it  were  necessarily  rendered 
such  by  his  example.  In  his  empire  over  the 
minds  of  his  followers  he  was  surpassed  neither 
by  Epaminondas,  nor  Cyrus,  nor  any  of  the 
nost  vaunted  generals  of  antiquity.  Thus  he 
formed  to  himself  an  army  of  men,  who  were 
no  sooner  under  his  command,  than  tliey  be- 
came the  patterns  of  order,  obedient  to  his 
slightest  suggestions,  popular  and  beloved  by 
their  fellow-citizens,  and  to  the  enemy  not  more 
terrible  in  the  field  than  welcome  in  their  quar- 
ters. In  the  towns  and  villages  where  they  so- 
jniirned,  in  no  way  nflensive  or  repacious,  ab- 
btdimiig  from  violence,  wine,  intemperance,  and 
impiety,  so  that  suddenly  the  inhabitants,  re- 
joicing in  their  disappointment,  regarded  them 
not  as  enemies,  but  as  guests  and  protectors,  a 
terror  to  the  disorderly,  a  safeguard  to  the  good, 
and  by  precept  and  example  the  teachers  of  all 
piety  and  virtue."  Milton  concludes,  "  As  long 
as  you,  Cromwell,  are  preserved  to  us,  he  must 
want  reliance  on  the  providence  of  God  who 
fears  for  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the 
English  nation,  you  being  so  evidently  the  object 
of  Divine  favour  and  protecrtion." 

Remarkably  coincident  with  the  above  pic- 
ture is  what  is  related  '^f  him  in  1654  on  the 
authority  of  George  Fox,  the  founder  of  the 
Quakers.  Fox,  being  brought  into  his  pres- 
ence, "  expatiated  with  that  zest  and  unction 
upon  true  religion,  and  a  holy  and  disinterested 
zeal  for  its  cau.se,  with  which  he  was  so  remark- 
ably endowed  ;  and  the  protector,  who  had  been 
accustomed  deeply  to  interest  himself  in  such 
discourses,  was  caught  by  his  eloquence.  He 
pressed  his  hand,  and  said.  Come  again  to  iny 
liouse  ;  if  thou  and  I  were  together  but  one  hour 
in  every  day,  we  should  be  nearer  to  each 
other." 

In  perfect  correspondence  with  this  is  the 
declaration  made  by  Cromwell  respecting  the 
Protestants  of  Piedmont,  that  "the  calamities 


of  these  poor  people  lay  as  near,  or  rather  nearer 
to  his  heart,  than  if  it  had  concerned  the  dear-. 
est  relations  he  had  in  the  world." 

One  of  the  measures  of  Cromwell,  which 
may  be  cited  as  an  example  of  his  anxiety  for 
the  moral  and  religious  improvement  of  his 
countrymen,  is  his  ordinance  for  ejecting  scan- 
dalous and  insufllcient  ministers  among  those 
who  received  stipends  from  the  public.  This, 
like  almost  all  his  measures,  was  made  a  sub- 
ject of  misrepresentation.  Let  us  call  to  mind 
the  judgment  of  Baxter  on  the  subject.  "  The 
commissioners  under  this  act  saved  many  a 
congregation  from  ignorant,  ungodly,  drunken 
teachers,  that  sort  of  men  who  intend  no  more 
in  the  ministry  than  to  say  a  sermon,  as  read- 
ers say  their  common  prayers,  and  so  patch  a 
few  good  words  together  to  talk  the  people 
asleep  on  Sunday,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  week 
go  with  them  to  the  ale-house,  and  harden  them 
in  sin  ;  and  that  sort  of  ministers  who  either 
preach  against  a  holy  life,  or  preach  as  men  that 
were  never  acquainted  with  it :  these  they  usu- 
ally rejected,  and  in  their  stead  admitted  any^ 
that  were  able,  serious  preachers,  and  lived  a 
godly  life,  of  what  tolerable  opinion  soever  they 
were.  So  that,  though  many  of  them  were 
somewhat  partial  to  the  Independents,  Separ- 
atists, Fifth-monarchy  Men,  and  Anabaptists, 
and  against  the  Prelatists  and  Arminians,  yet  so 
great  was  the  benefit,  above  the  hurt  that  they 
brought  to  the  Church,  that  many  thousands  of 
souls  blessed  God  for  the  faithful  ministers 
whom  they  let  in,  and  grieved  when  the  Pre- 
latists afterward  [in  August,  1662]  cast  thera. 
out  again." 

In  the  instructions  and  orders  given  to  the 
major-generals  in  1655,  particular  attention  was 
bestowed  on  the  question  of  the  public  morals. 
They  were  required  "  in  their  carriage  and  con- 
versation to  promote  godliness  and  virtue,  and 
to  endeavour,  with  the  justices  of  peace,  clergy, 
and  proper  officers,  to  put  down  drunkenness, 
blasphemy,  and  licentiousness  ;  to  inform  them- 
selves of  idle  and  loose  persons,  who  had  no 
visible  means  of  livelihood,  that  they  might  be 
compelled  to  work,  or  sent  out  of  the  common- 
wealth ;  to  take  bonds  of  such  masters  of  fami- 
lies as  had  been  in  arms  against  the  Parliament 
for  the  good  and  orderly  behaviour  of  their  ser- 
vants ;  and  to  put  down  in  London  and  West- 
minster all  gaming-houses  and  houses  of  ill 
fame."* 

In  Cromwell's  speech  respecting  the  omis- 
sions and  imperfections  of  the  petition  and  ad- 
vice, he  notices  that  they  had  said  nothing  re- 
specting the  reformation  of  manners.  He  rec- 
ommends that  particular  attention  should  be 
paid  as  to  the  education  of  gentlemen's  sons.  ■  He 
complains  that  in  many  cases  our  children  are 
sent  into  France,  and  return  with  all  the  licen- 
tiousness of  that  nation  ;  no  care  being  taken  to 
educate  them  before  they  go,  nor  to  keep  them 
in  good  order  wlren  they  coine  home.  He  ur- 
ges the  necessity  of  simietliing  effectual  being 
done  on  the  subject  of  public  morality,  without 
sparing  any  condition  of  men,  and  the  youth  ot 
the  nation,  though  they  be  noblemen's  sons. 
Let  them  be  who  they  will  that  are  debauched, 
he  adds,  it  is  for  the  glory  of  God  that  nothing 

*  Parliamentary  Historv,  vol.  xx.,  p.  462,463. 467. 


APPENDIX. 


499 


of  outward  consideration  should  save  them 
from  just  punishment  and  reformation;  and 
truly  there  was  nothing  for  which  he  would  more 
bless  God,  than  to  see  something  done,  and  that 
heartily,  not  only  in  reference  to  the  persons 
mentioned,  but  to  all  the  nation,  that  there 
might  be  a  general  stop  put  to  the  current  of 
vice  and  wickedness.* 

The  reformation  of  the  law  was  the  perpetual 
subject  of  Cromwell's  solicitude.  He  says  in  the 
speech  just  quoted,  "  If  any  man  should  ask  me 
how  tlws  is  to  be  done,  I  confess  I  am  not  fully 
prepared  to  enter  into  particulars.  But  1  think, 
at  least,  the  delays  of  suits,  the  costliness  of 
suits,  the  excessiveness  of  fees,  and  those 
things  they  call  demurrers,  loudly  demand  the 
interference  of  the  Legislature. "t 

In  a  conversation  recorded  by  Ludlow,  Crom- 
well affirmed  to  him,  that  the  main  operation  of 
the  law,  as  at  present  constituted,  was  to  main- 
tain the  lawyers,  and  assist  the  rich  in  oppress- 
ing the  poor.  He  added,  that  Cooke,  then 
justice  in  Ireland,  by  proceeding  in  a  summary 
and  expeditious  way,  determined  more  causes 
in  a  week  than  Westminster  Hall  in  a  year. 
Ireland,  said  Cromwell,  is  a  clean  paper  in  that 
particular,  and  capable  of  being  governed  by 
such  laws  as  shall  be  found  most  agreeable  to 
justice;  and  these  may  be  so  impartially  ad- 
ministered there,  as  to  afford  a  good  precedent 
to  England  itself,  where,  when  we  shall  once 
perceive  that  property  may  be  preserved  at  so 
easy  and  cheap  a  rale,  we  shall  certainly  never 
allow  ourselves  to  be  cheated  and  abused  as  we 
have  been. 

The  clemency  which  Cromwell  practised  on 
so  many  occasions  is  closely  allied  to  those 
moral  and  religious  habits  which  he  so  remark- 
ably cultivated.  Even  with  regard  to  his  cam- 
paign in  Ireland,  which  was  stained  with  san- 
guinary proceedmgs  the  most  alien  to  his  na- 
ture, he  says  in  his  despatches.  This  bitter- 
ness, I  am  persuaded,  will  hereafter  prevent 
much  effusion  of  blood  ;  and  adds,  These  are 
the  satisfactory  grounds  to  such  actions,  which 
otherwise  cannot  but  work  remorse  and  regret. 
He  would  have  saved  the  life  of  Love,  the  min- 
ister, had  it  not  been  that  he  was  necessarily 
absent  from  the  capital ;  and  he  told  Manton 
that  Hewit,  who  was  executed  three  months 
before  the  death  of  the  protector,  should  not 
have  died,  but  for  his  invincible  persistence  in 
disingenuily  and  prevarication.  He  never  al- 
lowed sentence  of  death  to  pass  upon  any  Re- 
publican but  Sindercombe,  the  assassin ;  and 
the  short  imprisonments  that  he  imposed  upon 
the  majority  of  those,  both  Republicans  and 
Royalists,  who  were  accused  of  treason  against 
him,  and  their  early  dismission,  have  had  the 
efff?ct  with  his  enemies  of  inducing  them  to  al- 
lege that  he  got  up  imaginary  plots,  to  make  it 
appear  that  his  government  was  in  greater  dan- 
ger than  that  to  which  it  was  actually  exposed. 

The  clemency  of  Cromwell  was  doubly  meri- 
torious, inasmuch  as  he  was  so  extensively  ha- 
ted. The  consciousness  of  the  ill-will  of  others 
is  the  most  irresistible  spur  to  blood-guiltiness 
and  cruelty.  It  was  this  that  made  such  mon- 
sters of  Tiberius,  and  Caligula,  and  Nero.  But 
the  soul  of  Cromwell  was  so  well  balanced,  that 


*  Monarchy  Asserted,  p.  105,  106.     r  Ibid.,  p.  105. 


nothing  could  move  it  from  its  centre ;  and  the 
knowledge  that  the  eyes  of  nine  tenths  of 
those  be  governed  were  animated  with  hostility 
against  him,  could  not  for  a  moment  destroy  the 
serene  and  exemplary  composure  of  bis  mind. 

A  nother  feature  of  t he  character  of  Cromwell 
proper  to  be  recorded  in  this  place,  is  his  anxi- 
ety for  the  prosperous  condition  of  letters  and 
learning.  We  have  seen  in  the  eighth  chapter 
of  this  hook  how  firm  was  the  stand  he  made 
against  the  mistaken  fanatics  who  aimed  at  the 
destruction  of  the  universities,  and  to  what 
eminence  science  and  polite  literature  conse- 
quently rose  under  him  in  those  seminaries. 
He  also  founded  a  college  at  Durham  for  the 
convenience  of  students  in  the  north,  with  a 
provost,  four  professors,  and  a  certain  number 
of  fellows  and  tutors.*  He  settled  a  pension 
on  Usher.t  He  applied  toCudworth  to  recom- 
mend to  him  proper  persons  to  be  employed  in 
political  and  civil  affairs  t  He  made  a  proposal 
to  Dr.  Meric  Casaubon  to  write  a  history  of  the 
civil  war.f}  He  issued  bis  orders  that  the  pa- 
per employed  by  Dr.  Bryan  Walton  in  printing 
bis  Polyglot  Bible  should  be  allowed  to  be  im- 
ported duty  free. II  We  have  already  spoken  of 
the  pensions  and  appointments  bestowed  by  hira 
on  Milton,  Marvel,  Hartlip,  and  Biddle. 

Reviewing  all  these  qualities  and  dispositions 
in  the  Lord  Protector  of  England,  we  should  be 
almost  disposed  to  place  him  in  the  number  of 
the  few  excellent  princes  that  have  swayed  a 
sceptre,  were  it  not  for  the  gross  and  unauthor- 
ized manner  in  which  he  climbed  to  this  emi- 
nence, by  forcibly  dispersing  the  remains  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  that  Parliament  by  which  he 
had  originally  been  intrusted  with  the  command, 
and  then  promulgating  a  constitution,  called 
the  Government  of  tlie  Commonwealth,  which 
originated  singly  in  the  council  of  military  offi- 
cers. To  this  we  must  add,  that  he  became 
the  chief  magistrate  solely  through  his  apostacy, 
and  by  basely  deceiving  and  deserting  the  illus- 
trious band  of  patriots  with  whom  he  had  till 
that  time  been  associated  in  the  cause  of  liberty. 

With  the  admirable  dispositions  above  enu- 
merated, Cromwell  committed  the  grossest 
faults,  left  behind  him  a  memory  which  few 
were  disposed  to  cherish  ;  and  all  his  projects, 
and  his  plans  for  a  permanent  settlement  of  the 
people  of  England  under  a  system  of  rational 
liberty,  and  a  dynasty  of  kings  sprung  from  his 
own  issue,  were  buried  in  the  same  grave  with 
their  author. 

How  happened  this!  It  was  not  for  the 
want  of  taletits  and  the  most  liberal  intentions. 
But  he  was  not  free.  He  governed  a  people 
that  was  hostile  to  him.  His  reign,  therefore 
was  a  reign  of  experiments.     He  perpetually 


*  Peck's  Memoirs  of  Cromwell,  Appendix,  No.  20 

t  Bernard,  chaplain  to  Usher,  in  a  Life  of  him 
published  durmg  the  protectorate,  p.  103,  104,  af- 
firms this,  and  says  the  money  passed  regularly 
through  his  hands.  Parr,  another  of  his  chaplains 
m  a  Life  published  under  James  the  Second,  denies 
it.     Such  is  the  voice  of  fame. 

t  Life  of  Cudworth,  prefixed  to  Intellectual  Sys- 
tem, p.  8,  0.  ^ 

()  Aihencc  Oxonienses,  vol.  ii..  p.  485,  486. 

il  This  fact  is  mentioned  in  Waltou's'original  Pref- 
ace to  his  publication  in  1657,  but  was  suppressed 
afterward  The  advantage  was  first  eiH'.n  by  the 
Council  of  State  in  lt)52. 


500 


APPENDIX. 


did  the  thing  he  desired  not  to  do,  and  was 
driven  from  one  inconsistent  and  undesiral)le 
mode  of  proceeding  to  another,  as  the  necessity 
of  the  situation  in  which  he  was  placed  im- 
pelled him. 

The  nucleusof  all  the  difBculties  which  Crom- 
well's administration  had  to  strnggle  with  is 
comprehended  in  the  assertion  of  Whitlocke, 
confirmed  by  every  page  of  this  history,  that  the 
calling  a  "  truly  free  Parliament  was  the  ready 
way  for  the  king's  restoration."  This  consid- 
eration heightened  the  prejudices  of  all  against 
him,  and  gave  new  vigour  to  the  hatred  of  the 
Royalist,  the  man  of  rank,  the  Episcopalian,  the 
fanatic,  and  the  leveller. 

The  Commonwealthsmen  had  distinctly  seen 
this,  and  for  that  reason  had  set  themselves  by 
every  method  they  could  devise  to  protract  the 
dissolution  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and,  when 
that  event  should  occur,  to  provide  that  the 
present  sitting  members  should  be  authorized  to 
take  their  places  in  the  new  Parliament  with- 
out a  fresh  election.  Cromwell,  during  the  last 
period  of  the  Long  Parliament,  did  not  see  this, 
or  pretended  not  to  see  it,  and  made  this  pidicy 
his  ground  of  accusation  against  the  Republi- 
cans, as  if  it  had  been  dictated  by  no  other  mo- 
tive than  a  grovelling  ambition,  and  that  they 
could  not  bear,  having  tasted  the  sweets  of 
power,  to  resign  it  even  for  a  moment,  and 
place  themselves  on  the  same  level  as  their 
iiellow-citizens.  But  he  had  no  sooner,  by  the 
strong  hand  of  power,  thrust  them  from  their 
places,  and  made  a  clear  space  for  any  practi- 
cable system  of  representative  government,  than 
he  was  compelled  to  feel,  and  by  his  actions  to 
confess,  the  truth  of  the  maxim  which  had  reg- 
ulated their  conduct. 

The  worst  and  most  unjustifiable  things  that 
Cromwell  did  in  his  protectorate  probably  were 
the  frequent  imprisonments  without  reason  as- 
signed, that  he  authorized  from  political  motives. 
"When  Harrison  and  others  were  repeatedly  put 
in  durance  for  a  week  or  a  month,  and  then  dis- 
missed without  anything  farther  being  done 
respecting  thein,  it  seems  not  unjust  to  con- 
clude that  this  proceeding  was  by  no  means  ne- 
cessary, and  that  it  afforded  proof  of  some  de- 
ficiency in  Cromwell  for  holding  the  reins  of  a 
civil  government.  In  enumerating  the  good 
qualities  of  the  protector,  we  spoke  of  the  short 
imprisonments  he  inflicted  upon  both  Republi- 
cans and  Royalists,  as  instances  of  his  clem- 
ency. But  they  may  also  be  considered  in  an- 
other point  of  view.  They  are  the  indications 
and  the  sallies  of  an  arbitrary  temper.  Crom- 
well was  drunk  with  the  philtre  of  his  power. 
The  impulses  of  his  mind  were  quick  and  im- 
patient ;  and  he  decided  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot 
of  difficulties,  being  destitute  of  the  moderation 
reuuirH.j  to  unloose  it.  The  protector  did  not 
check  himself  in  proceedmgs  of  this  kind,  when 
the  question  was  of  individuals  against  whom 
there  existed  a  presumptive  case.  But  it  may 
be  doubted  wlietber  he  ever  suffered  an  undue 
precipitation  to  interfere,  in  the  cardinal  ques- 
tions upon  which  the  safety  of  the  state  was 
suspended. 

A  great  part  of  his  proceedings,  as  has  ap- 
pfaied  in  the  progress  of  our  narrative,  even 
vhen  they  bore  most  the  hue  of  an  arbitrary 
character,  were  such  as  it  was  impossible  for 


him  to  omit,  without  striking  a  blow  at  the  very 
root  of  the  political  power  which  now  guided 
the  helm  of  the  state.  The  dissolution  of  the 
two  Parliaments  of  1654  and  1656  has  appear- 
ed to  be  of  this  sort.  His  conduct  in  the  law- 
suit of  Cony,  and  respecting  the  resignation  of 
three  of  his  judges,  Rolle,  Newdigate,  and 
Thorpe,  could  not  have  been  other  than  it  was, 
without  an  immediate  dissolution  of  the  gov- 
ernment. 

Sometimes,  however,  his  measures  bore  an 
arbitrary  stamp,  at  the  contemplation  of  which 
a  cool  judgment  and  an  impartial  mind  feels  it- 
self called  on  to  pause.  The  extraordinary  pro- 
viso in  the  government  of  the  C-ommonwealth, 
that  the  protector  and  council  should  have  power 
to  raise  money  for  the  public  defence,  and  to 
promulgate  laws  and  ordinances  which  should 
be  of  force  till  the  Parliament  might  otherwise 
direct,  was,  perhaps,  under  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  then  state  of  England,  unavoidable.  But 
the  institution  of  the  major-generals,  and  the 
decimation  of  the  income  of  the  Royalists,  were 
proceedings  that  we  shall  find  it  more  difficult 
fully  to  vindicate.  The  capricious  exclusion  of 
one  hundred  of  the  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple at  the  meeting  of  the  Parliament  of  1G56 
was,  perhaps,  the  most  violent  and  astounding 
of,  all  the  acts  of  Cromwell.  It  may  be  that 
each  of  these  acts  was  necessary  to  prevent  the 
immediate  dissolution  of  the  government ;  and 
a  necessity  of  this  kind  is  the  strongest  of  all 
arguments ;  but  such  a  necessity  the  contem- 
plative politician  and  the  historian  can  scarcely 
at  any  time  fully  perceive  ;  and  the  measures 
must,  therefore,  always  remain  impressed  with 
at  least  a  very  equivocal  character. 

But  all  the  actions  of  Cromwell  of  which  we 
have  here  spoken,  as  they  had  the  appearance  of 
being  dictated  by  the  bare  will  of  the  chief  ma- 
gistrate, had  a  powerful  tendency  to  increase 
the  number  of  his  disapprovers  and  enemies. 
The  Royalists  and  the  Republicans  would  prob- 
ably never  have  been  contented,  and  would  have 
condemned  whatever  he  did.  But  there  was 
another  set  of  political  critics  who  had  a  very 
considerable  influence  in  fixing  finally  the  char- 
acter of  the  protectorate.  These  were  the  per- 
sons calling  themselves  friends  of  liberty,  whose 
favourite  theme  and  object  was  a  government 
according  to  law. 

The  period  of  the  protectorate  was  eminently 
a  period  of  accomplished  lawyers.  There  have 
seldom  existed  in  any  epoch  of  English  history 
men  more  profound  in  this  science  than  St. 
John,  and  Glyn,  and  Maynard,  and  Hale :  to 
whom  we  may  add  Whitlocke,  Widdrington, 
and  Rolle.  The  judges  of  Charles  the  Second 
sink  into  utter  contempt  in  the  comparison. 
Clarendon  has  sufficiently  described  those  of 
the  period  that  preceded,  where  he  says,  "  The 
damage  and  mischief  cannot  be  expressed  that 
the  crown  and  state  sustained  by  the  deserved 
reproach  and  infamy  that  attended  the  judges, 
who  were  made  use  of  in  the  affair  of  ship- 
money  and  other  the  like  acts  of  power."' 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  Cromwell  was  in  a  very  imperfect 
degree  a  government  according  to  law.  A  set- 
tlement was  the  thing  wanted.  The  state  had 
been  wrenched  from  its  basis.  The  institution 
of  a  king  and  a  House  of  Lords  had  been  abolish- 


APPENDIX. 


501 


ed  by  the  laws  of  February,  1649.  It  may,  per- 
haps, be  admilted  by  the  man  who  looks  down 
upon  all  ages  and  nations  from  the  unclouded 
regions  of  philosophy,  that  as  good  a  constitu- 
tion may  be  found  as  the  constitution  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  England,  as  it  previously  existed  in 
its  elements,  and  as  it  has  been  practised  since 
the  year  1688.  But  a  beneficent  and  sound  con- 
stitution was  the  present  desideratum,  a  consti- 
tution in  which  the  spirit  of  liberty  should  be 
combined  with  the  venerableness  of  order;  and 
especially  (which  is  implied  in  the  very  name 
constitution)  a  system  in  which  sobriety  and 
consistency  should  be  principal  features,  a  sys- 
tem in  which  every  man  should  know  what  to 
look  to  and  to  expect,  in  which  the  rights  of  all 
should  be  distinctly  recognised,  and  where  they 
should  be  never,  or  in  as  few  and  slight  in- 
stances as  possible,  impeached  and  violated. 

But  the  administration  of  Cromwell  was  a 
government  of  experiments.  He  began  with  the 
daring  blow  of  dispersing  the  remains  of  the 
Long  Parliament,  the  only  legitimate  authority 
at  that  time  existing  in  England.  The  power 
of  the  state  by  that  act  devolved  into  the  hands 
of  his  council  of  officers.  They  nominated  an 
assembly  of  one  hundred  and  forty-four  persons, 
arbitrarily  styled  representatives  for  the  differ- 
ent counties  of  England,  for  Ireland,  Scotland, 
and  Wales,  but  really  chosen  by  the  council  of 
officers  only.  This  assembly  is  known  in  his- 
tory bythe  name  of  Barebone's  Parliament.  It 
was,  after  a  sitting  of  somewhat  more  than  live 
months,  brought  to  an  irregular  termination. 
The  council  of  officers  then  resumed  the  power 
of  the  state,  and,  four  days  after,  produced  an 
instrument,  entitled  the  Government  of  the 
Commonwealth,  by  which  Cromwell,  having 
waived  the  title  of  king,  was  constituted  Lord 
Protector  of  England,  a  Parliament  regularly 
chosen  was  directed  to  meet  in  the  autumn  of 
that  year,  and  afterward  once  in  every  three 
years,  and  in  the  mean  time  Cromwell  and  his 
council  were  authorized  to  raise  money,  and  to 
make  such  laws  and  ordinances  as  the  public 
welfare  might  require.  The  Parliament  sat  at 
the  appointed  time,  and  after  a  session  some- 
what shorter  than  that  of  Barebone,  during 
which  it  ran  in  almost  all  things  counter  to  the 
purposes  of  the  protector,  was  suddenly  dis- 
solved without  completing  any  one  measure  for 
the  maturing  which  Parliaments  in  this  country 
have  usually  been  summoned.  A  second  Par- 
liament was  assembled  after  an  interval  of 
twenty  months ;  and  the  first  occurrence  that 
signalized  their  meeting  was  Cromwell's  ex- 
clusion of  one  hundred  of  its  members  by  his 
sole  authority.  This  Parliament,  however, 
though  with  diminished  numbers,  entered  on 
the  most  important  functions,  gave  to  the  pro- 
tector a  species  of  legal  authority,  and  decreed 
the  existence  of  all  future  Parliaments  in  the 
form  of  two  houses.  Meanwhile,  the  experi- 
ment of  a  second  house  of  the  Legislature  seem- 
ed to  turn  out  unfortunately,  and  led  to  another 
example  of  an  abrupt  dissolution,  a  proceeding 
which,  especially  in  critical  times,  must  in  a 
considerable  degree  tend  to  weaken  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  government. 

The  result  of  all  this  was  most  unfortunate 
for  the  friends  of  a  Republican  government,  and 
for  those  who  desired  the  establishment  of  mon- 


archy in  a  new  race  of  kings,  and  most  favour- 
able for  the  adherents  of  the  house  of  Stuart. 
The  obvious  inference  to  draw  from  these  per- 
petual vicissitudes  was,  England  will  never  be 
well,  nor  her  government  fixed  on  a  secure 
basis,  till  the  restoration  of  the  exiled  family. 
Sober  and  moderate  men  of  various  classes  in 
the  community  became  daily  more  favourable 
to,  or  more  fixed  in  the  opinion,  that  the  old 
constitution  of  government  by  king,  lords,  and 
commons,  as  it  had  prevailed  ever  since  the  days 
of  Edward  the  First,  must  be  set  up  again. 

What  would  have  been  the  result,  if  Crom- 
well's life  had  been  prolonged  to  the  established 
period  of  human  existence,  or  ten  years  longer 
than  it  was,  it  may  be  allowed,  and,  indeed,  it  is 
almost  unavoidable,  that  we  should  inquire. 
His  character  perpetually  rose  in  the  estimation 
of  his  subjects.  He  appeared  to  iliem  every 
day  more  like  a  king,  and  less  like  the  plain  and 
unambitious  descendant  of  the  Cromwells  of 
Hinchinbrook  and  Ramsey.  His  abilities  were 
every  hour  more  evident  and  confessed.  At 
first  he  showed  like  a  presumptuous  demagogue, 
like  the  man  in  the  Bible,  who  began  to  build, 
but  was  not  able  to  finish.  He  was,  such  was 
the  judgment  that  in  the  beginning  was  passed 
upon  him  by  many,  a  bold,  bad  man,  a  common 
disturber  and  incendiary,  well  qualified  to  throw 
everything  into  confusion,  and  to  leave  no 
memory  but  that  of  calamity  and  desolation  be- 
hind him.  His  capacity  for  government  became 
daily  more  unquestionable.  He  looked  into 
everything;  he  provided  for  everything ;  he 
stood,  himself  unmoved,  yet  causing  every 
threatening  and  tempestuous  phenomenon  by 
which  he  was  assailed  to  fly  before  him. 

Distinguished  as  were  his  talents  for  govern- 
ing from  the  hour  he  assumed  the  sceptre,  they 
daily  became  more  consummate.  He  felt  his 
situation,  and  his  ideas  accommodated  them- 
selves to  whatever  it  required.  He  dwelt  at 
home  ;*  he  scarcely  at  any  time  dismissed  the 
character  and  the  views  that  befitted  the  first 
magistrate  of  a  great  country.  Fluctuating  and 
uncertain  as  his  government  had  been  hiiherto, 
he  deeply  felt  the  necessity  of  its  being  render- 
ed unalterable  and  unchanged.  This  had  been 
especially  his  view  in  calling  the  Parliament  of 
1656.  Ill  satisfied  as  he  was  with  the  tenure 
of  his  government  as  it  originated  with  the  coun- 
cil of  officers,  he  determined  to  obtain  for  it  a 
legislative  sanction.  It  was  with  this  purpose 
that  he  was  induced  to  concur  in  the  otherwise 
unpalatable  provisions,  that  no  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  should  henceforth  be  moved 
from  his  seat  hut  by  the  will  of  the  House  itself, 
that  no  law  should  he  promulgated  but  by  par- 
liamentary authority,  and  that  another  house  of 
legislature  should  be  constituted  to  stand  be- 
tween the  chief  executive  magistrate  and  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  It  was  with  the 
same  purpose  that  he  desired  the  title  of  kmg. 
He,  no  doubt,  was  profoundly  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  what  he  had  said  to  Desboiough  and 
Fleetwood,  that  the  diadem  was  but  a  feather 
in  a  man's  cap,  to  please  children  of  whatever 
stature  and  age.  But  he,  at  the  same  time, 
felt  the  truth  of  what  was  alleged  by  the  lawyers, 
that  the  name  and  the  powers  of  a  king  are  in- 


Tecum  habita. — Persius. 


502 


APPENDIX. 


extricably  bound  up  in  our  laws.  And  he  saw 
that  the  assumption  of  tiie  crown  was  the  only 
sure  method  fur  obLainiiig  that  favourite  pur- 
pose of  liis  thoughts,  the  eiilaihng  the  chief 
magistracy  in  the  line  of  his  descendants. 

Tlie  system  of  Cromwell's  government  was 
more  consistent  and  of  gieaier  steadiness,  as  it 
related  to  other  countries,  than  his  own.  He 
gave  prosperity  to  Scotland ;  he  gave  tranquillity 
to  Ireland.  He  was,  perhaps,  himself  superior 
to  the  contagion  of  prejudices.  But  he  saw  that 
government  could  not  he  carried  on  among  the 
people  with  whom  he  had  to  do  hut  with  a  cer- 
tain accommodation  to  prejudices.  His  author- 
ity, as  it  regarded  foreign  countries,  had  always 
been  great ;  but  it  had  lately  been  greater  than 
ever.  The  homage  that  had  been  paid  him  by 
the  court  of  France  was  truly  surprising  ;  and 
he  had,  in  the  course  of  the  last  campaign,  dis- 
armed the  hostility  of  Spain,  and  rendered  the 
threatened  invasion  impossible.  The  govern- 
ment of  England  had  never  been  so  completely 
freed  from  the  fear  of  all  enemies,  both  from 
wiliiout  and  within,  as  at  the  period  of  the  death 
of  Cromwell.  In  a  word,  we  are  almost  com- 
pelled to  conclude  that,  if  he  had  lived  ten  years 
longer,  the  system  of  his  rule  would  continually 
have  grown  more  firm  and  substantial,  and  the 
purposes  and  ideas  to  the  accomplishment  of 
which  he  had  devoted  all  the  powers  of  his  soul 
"would  not  have  been  antiquated  and  annihilated 
almost  as  soon  as  they  were  deprived  of  his 
energies  to  maintain  them. 

It  was  not  (lifRcult  for  a  sagacious  mind,  ri- 
sing above  the  atmosphere  of  prejudice,  to  fore- 
see, from  the  death  of  Cromwell,  that  the  res- 
toration of  Charles  the  Second  was  inevitable. 
The  details  of  what  occurred  in  the  interval  may 
at  some  time  be  given  ;  but  whether  by  the  writer 
of  these  volumes  under  the  title  of  a  History  of 
the  Restoration,  is  altogether  uncertain. — C. 


No.  XIX. 

CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  NONCONFORMISTS 
OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  AND  NINETEENTH 
CENTURIES. 

{From  the  London  Congregational  Magazine  for 
February,  1844.) 

As  it  is  now  very  frequently  asserted  that  the 
Nonconformists  of  England  have  changed  their 
opinions  on  Christian  doctrine  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal polity,  it  may  be  interesting  and  seasonable 
to  take  a  rapid  historical  survey  of  the  charac- 
teristics, both  of  their  ministers  and  people,  two 
centuries  ago  and  in  the  present  age;  which 
may  assist  the  reader  to  ascertain  what  amount 
of  truth  there  is  in  that  assertion,  and  how  far 
it  reflects  on  the  piety  and  intelligence  of  those 
to  whom  it  applies. 

The  existence  of  Nonconformity  in  this  coun- 
try must  be  dated  from  the  commencement  of 
the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  whose  taste  and 
temper  led  her  to  procure  the  first  Act  of  Uni- 
fomiiiy.  That  legislative  measure,  which  not 
only  prescribed  a  unifi)rmily  of  Common  Prayer 
and  service  in  the  Church  and  administration  of 
the  sacraments,  hut  also  empowered  the  queen 
"toordam  and  publish  such  farther  ceremonies 
and  rites  as  may  be  for  the  advancement  of 
God's  glory,  and  edifying  of  his  Church,  and 


the  reverence  of  Christ's  holy  mysteries  and 
sacraments,"  passed  through  Parliament  in  the 
month  of  April,  1559,  and  received  the  royal  as- 
sent without  any  sanction  from  the  convocatioa 
of  the  clergy — a  circumstance  which  led  Heath, 
the  Archbishop  of  York,  to  observe,  "that  not 
only  the  orthodox,  but  even  the  Arian  emperors 
ordered  that  points  of  faith  should  be  examined 
by  councils;  and  Gallio  by  the  light  of  naturo 
knew  that  a  civil  judge  ought  nut  to  meddle 
with  matters  of  religion."*  Fond  of  pompous 
ceremonies,  and  most  tenacious  of  royal  pre- 
rogatives, Elizabeth  was  little  disposed  to  con- 
sult the  feelings  of  those  who  desired  to  see 
the  work  of  reformation  from  popery  carried 
forward,  and  who  longed  to  witness  the  eccle- 
siastical polity  of  the  country  in  better  agree- 
ment with  the  genius  and  pattern  of  the  New 
Testament.  Her  haughty  temper  led  her  to 
maintain  with  unyielding  firmness  the  suprem- 
acy her  father  had  usurped,  and  throughout  her 
long  reign,  to  punish  the  unhappy  Nonconform- 
ist, whether  papist  or  Puritan,  who  dared  to 
question  it,  with  a  severity  that  will  ever  be  a 
reproach  on  her  character  and  government.  Her 
Stuart  successors  inherited  all  her  Tudor  no- 
tions, and  resisted  with  equal  dislike,  though 
not  with  equal  success,  the  many  attempts  that 
were  made  for  civil  and  ecclesiastical  reforma- 
tion. 

A  combination  of  disastrous  measures, 
throughout  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  Charl&s 
I.,  at  length  brought  on  a  civil  war,  which  ter- 
minated in  the  overthrow  of  the  prelacy,  and 
the  decapitation  of  the  king.  That  impolitic 
and  unconstitutional  measure  was,  however, 
followed  by  a  degree  of  religious  liberty  before 
unknown  ;  and  while  we  must  deplore  many 
events  that  transpired  during  those  twenty 
years  of  civil  conflict  and  constrained  legisla- 
tion, yet  it  must  be  regarded  by  all  impartial 
persons  as  a  period  eminently  favourable  to  re- 
ligious freedom,  biblical  learning,  and  true  piety. 
The  Puritan  ministers  who  had  outlived  the 
cruelties  of  the  preceding  reigns  now  taught 
from  the  pulpit,  the  press,  and  the  professor's 
chair,  those  opinions  which  they  had  derived 
from  primitive  Christianity  as  exhibited  in  the 
Word  of  God. 

While,  however,  there  prevailed  among  them 
a  very  general  agreement  respecting  Christian 
doctrines,  as  was  demonstrated  by  their  una- 
nimity on  the  doctrinal  articles  of  the  confession 
of  divines  at  Westminster,  yet  there  existed 
considerable  diversity  of  opinion  upon  all  the 
questions  of  church  polity  and  discipline.  Their 
grand  object,  however,  was  to  difl'use  among 
the  people  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  religion  never 
was  in  a  more  prosperous  stale  in  this  country 
than  during  the  period  of  their  unrestricted 
ministrations.  The  restoration  of  the  Stuart 
family  to  the  British  throne  was  quickly  follow- 
ed by  the  second  Act  of  Uniformity,  which  eject- 
ed from  their  livings  more  than  two  thousand 
ministers,  who,  on  various  considerations,  chose 
rather  to  expose  themselves  and  their  families 
to  all  the  inconveniences  of  poverty  and  perse- 
cution, than  to  sacrifice  their  consciences  on 
the  altar  of  a  state  religion.  These  venerable 
men  were  the  fathers  of  nonconformity  in  the 

*  Neal's  Puritans,  chap.  iv. 


APPENDIX. 


503 


«eventeenth  century,  and  it  is  the  characteris- 
tics of  them  and  their  people  that  we  propose 
•to  compare  with  those  of  the  Nonconformists 
of  the  present  age. 

In  proceeding  to  portray  the  Nonconformist 
ministers  of  the  seventeenth  century,  we  may 
-observe,  that  time  has  not  destroyed  the  efforts 
of  art  to  preserve,  for  the  gratification  of  their 
posterity,  the  venerated  features  of  those  extra- 
ordinary men.  We  gaze  upon  their  portraits, 
and  imagine  that  we  beiiold  in  the  countenan- 
ces of  the  Puritans  and  the  confessors  of  Bar- 
tholomew's Day  the  traces  of  inflexible  firm- 
ness protracted  labour,  and  unusual  suffering  ; 
■while  in  the  pictures  of  the  later  Nonconform- 
ists we  discover  the  fine  intelHgence,  the  phil- 
osophic wisdom,  the  poignant  wit,  and  the  court- 
ly bearing,  which  were  developed  by  their  con- 
troversies, and  demanded  by  their  associations 
But  it  is  not  with  their  appearance,  but  with 
their  characters  that  we  have  to  do  ;  and  we 
Shall  attempt  to  describe  them. 

1.  As  Divines. — Besides  the  advantages  which 
they  derived  from  having  prosecuted  their  stud- 
ies either  in  the  British  or  Continental  univer- 
sities, at  a  period  when  the  spirit  of  the  Refor- 
mation had  just  unsealed  the  fountains  of  learn- 
ing, and  had  cast  therein  the  salt  of  godliness, 
by  which  they  were  sweetened  and  sanctified  ; 
besides  these  advantages,  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  their  times  were  highly  favourable  to 
their  eminence  in  theological  learning.  While 
civil  war  desolated  the  provinces,  and  a  deadly 
pestilence  wasted  the  population  of  our  cities, 
and  persecution  forbade  their  approach  to  any 
market  town,  they  were  necessarily  shut  up  to 
the  seclusion  of  their  studies  for  years  together. 
The  activity  of  minds  like  theirs  could  only  find 
relief  in  the  exercises  of  extraordinary  devotion, 
and  in  interesting  efforts  of  intellectual  labour. 
To  solve  the  problems  of  Christian  casuistry,  to 
sound  the  depths  of  theological  truth,  to  devel- 
op the  secrets  of  Christian  experience,  to  illus- 
trate the  duties  of  a  life  of  godliness,  were  the 
business  of  their  days  and  nights  through  many 
dreary  years.  Often,  no  doubt,  they  looked  forth 
from  their  secluded  homes  upon  the  giddy  mul- 
titudes who  were  living  in  pleasure,  and  were 
dead  while  they  lived,  with  tender  compassion, 
and  longed  for  permission  to  beseech  them  in 
Christ's  stead  to  be  reconciled  to  God.  But  an 
all-wise,  though  to  them  inscrutable  Providence, 
had  determined  that  their  profound  views  of  Di- 
vine truth,  their  rich  experience  of  the  power 
and  grace  of  Christ,  and  their  elevated  maxims 
of  practical  godliness,  should  not  all  evaporate 
in  the  routine  labours  of  the  ministry,  but  should 
be  condensed  like  some  precious  essence,  and 
preserved  in  their  works  to  refresh  and  gladden 
succeeding  generations.  In  those  works  our 
fathers  have  bequeathed  to  us  a  rich  inheritance. 
In  the  expository  labours  of  Ainsworth  and 
Hildersbam,  of  Cradock  and  Greenhill,  of  Caryl 
and  Borroughs,  of  Gouge  and  Owen,  of  Henry 
and  Poole,  what  stores  have  we  of  sound  criti- 
cism, and  faithful  interpretation  of  the  sacred 
text !  While  the  wri'.ings  of  Bates  and  Howe, 
Owen  and  Baxter,  Manton  and  Flavel,  Char- 
nock  and  Goodwin,  with  a  multitude  of  their 
coadjutors,  have  supplied  the  text-books  of  most 
■who,  in  succeeding  times,  have  wished  to  com- 
bine harmonious  views  of  evangelical  truth  with 


an  experience  of  its  power  in  consoling  the 
heart  and  sanctifying  the  l:fe. 

Most  blessed  men !  Your  watchings  and 
prayers  have  not  been  in  vain.  Multitudes, 
since  you  entered  into  the  joy  of  your  Lord, 
have  learned  from  your  labours  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus;  and  wlnle  the  works  of  licentious 
poets  and  scoffing  philosophers  are  accumula- 
ting for  them,  from  age  to  Hge,  a  fearful  amount 
of  retribution,  it  is  well  tor  you  that  the  fruits 
of  your  assiduous  studies,  painful  sufferings, 
and  persevering  prayers  continue  to  multiply 
from  age  to  age.  ami  will  at  length  be  seen  in 
an  innumerable  company  turned  by  your  toils 
to  righteousness,  among  whom  you  shall  shine 
forth  as  stars  forever  and  ever. 

2.  As  Preachers. — On  this  part  of  their  charac- 
ter there  exists  a  great  diversity  of  evidence. 
Were  you  to  consult  the  sermons  of  Dr.  South, 
you  would  find  that  he  described  their  preach- 
ing "  as  crude  incoherences,  nauseous  tautolo- 
gies, and  saucy  familiarities  with  God."  He 
will  tell  you  that  "  Latin  was  with  them  a  mor- 
tal crime;  and  Greek,  instead  of  being  owned 
for  the  language  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  looked 
upon  as  a  sin  against  it ;  so  that,  in  a  word, 
they  had  all  the  confusion  of  Babel  among  t  hem, 
without  the  diversity  of  tongues."  But  this  was 
Dr.  South.  Happily,  we  possess  testimony  of  a 
very  different  class.  In  "The  Directory  for 
the  Publig  Worship  of  God,"  &c.,  put  forth  by 
the  Assembly  of  Divines,  there  is  a  section  on 
preaching  the  Word,  from  which  we  shall  see 
that  a  very  different  method  was  recommended 
by  the  preachers  at  Westminster. 

"  It  is  presupposed  (according  to  the  rules  for 
ordination)  that  the  minister  of  Christ  is  in  some 
good  measure  gifted  for  so  weighty  a  servK^e, 
by  his  skill  in  the  original  languages,  and  in 
such  arts  and  sciences  as  are  handmaids  unto 
divinity,  by  his  knowledge  in  the  whole  body  of 
theology,  but  most  of  all  in  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
having  his  senses  and  heart  exercised  in  them 
above  the  common  sort  of  believers  ;  and  by 
the  illumination  of  God's  Spirit,  and  other  gifts 
of  edification,  which  (together  with  reading  and 
studying  of  the  Word)  he  ought  still  to  seek  by 
prayer,  and  an  humble  heart,  resolving  to  admit 
and  receive  any  truth  not  yet  attained,  when- 
ever God  shall  make  it  known  unto  him.  AH 
which  he  is  to  make  use  of.  and  improve,  in  his 
private  preparations,  before  he  deliver  in  public 
what  he  hath  provided." 

"  He  is  not  to  rest  in  general  doctrine,  al- 
though never  so  much  cleared  and  confirmed, 
but  to  bring  it  home  to  special  use,  by  applica- 
tion to  his  hearers;  which,  albeit  it  prove  a 
work  of  great  difficulty  to  himself,  requiring 
much  prudence,  zeal,  and  meditation,  and  to  the 
natural  and  corrupt  man  will  be  very  unpleas- 
ant ;  yet  he  is  to  endeavour  to  perform  it  in 
such  a  manner  that  his  auditors  may  feel  the 
Word  of  God  to  be  quick  and  powerful,  and  a 
discerner  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart ;  and  that  if  any  unbeliever  or  ignorant 
person  be  present,  he  may  have  the  secrets  of 
Ills  heart  made  manifest,  and  give  glory  to  God." 

"  But  the  servant  of  Christ,  whatever  his 
method  be,  is  to  perform  his  whole  ministry, 

"  I.  Painfully,  not  doing  the  work  of  the  Lord 
negligently. 

"  2.    Plainly,  that  the  meanest  may  under- 


501 


APPENDIX. 


stand,  delivering  the  truth,  not  in  the  enticing 
word's  of  man's  wisdom,  but  in  demonstration 
of  the  Spirit,  and  of  power,  lest  the  cross  of 
Christ  should  lie  made  of  none  effect ;  abstain- 
ing, also,  from  an  unprofitable  use  of  unknown 
tongues,  strange  phrases,  and  cadences  of 
sounds  and  words,  sparingly  citing  sentences 
of  occlesiastical  or.other  human  writers, ancient 
or  modern,  he  they  never  so  elegant. 

"3.  Faithfully,  looking  at  the  honourof  Christ, 
the  conversion,  edification,  and  salvation  of  the 
people,  not  at  his  own  gain  or  glory,  keeping 
nothing  back  which  may  promote  those  holy 
ends,  giving  to  every  one  his  own  portion,  and 
bearing  indifferent  respect  unto  all,  without 
neglecting  the  meanest,  or  sparing  the  greatest 
in  their  sins. 

"4  Wisely,  framing  all  his  doctrines,  exhor- 
tations, and  especially  his  reproofs,  in  such  a 
manner  as  may  be  most  likely  to  prevail,  snow- 
ing all  due  respect  to  each  man's  person  and 
place,  and  not  mixing  his  own  passion  or  bit- 
terness. 

"  .'3.  Gravely,  as  becometh  the  Word  of  God, 
shunning  all  such  gesture,  voice,  and  expres- 
sions as  may  occasion  the  corruptions  of  men 
to  despise  him  and  his  ministry." 

"  6.  With  loving  affection,  that  the  people 
may  see  all  coming  from  his  godly  zeal  and 
hearty  desire  to  do  them  good.     And, 

"7.  As  taught  of  God,  and  persuaded  in  his 
own  heart,  that  all  that  he  teaches  is  the  truth 
of  Christ,  and  walking  before  his  flock  as  an 
example  to  them  in  it ;  earnestly,  both  in  pri- 
vate and  public,  recommending  his  labours  to 
the  blessing  of  God,  and  watchfully  looking  to 
himself  and  the  flock,  whereof  the  Lord  hath 
made  him  overseer;  so  shall  the  doctrine  of 
truth  be  preserved  uncorrupt,  many  souls  con- 
verted and  built  up,  and  himself  receive  mani- 
fold comforts  of  his  labours  even  in  this  life, 
and  afterward  the  crown  of  glory  laid  up  for 
him  in  the  world  to  come." 

Daniel  De  Foe  himself,  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  captivating  writers  of  which  our  country 
can  boast,  has  said  of  them,  "  They  preached 
sound  doctrine  without  jingle  or  trifling;  they 
studied  what  they  delivered ;  they  preached  their 
sermons  rather  than  read  them  in  the  pulpit ; 
they  spoke  from  the  heart  to  the  heart ;  nothing 
like  our  cold,  declaiming  way,  entertained  now 
as  a  mode,  and  read  with  a  flourish,  under  the 
ridiculous  notion  of  being  methodical ;  but  what 
they  conceived  by  the  assistance  of  the  great 
Inspirer  of  his  servants,  the  Holy  Spirit,  they 
delivered  with  a  becoming  gravity,  a  decent 
fervour,  an  affectionate  zeal,  and  a  ministerial 
authority,  suited  to  the  dignity  of  the  oflrce  and 
majesty  of  the  work  ;  and,  as  a  testimony  of 
this,  their  practical  works  left  behind  them  are 
a  living  specimen  of  what  they  performed  among 
us.  Such  are  the  large  volumes  of  divinity  re- 
maining of  Dr.  Goodwin,  Dr.  Manton,  Dr.  Owen, 
Dr.  Bates,  Mr.  Charnock,  Mr.  Poole,  Mr.  Clark- 
son,  Mr.  Baxter,  Mr.  Flavcl,  Mr.  Howe,  and  oth- 
ers too  numerous  to  mention."* 

How  perseveringly  they  preached  under  all 
the  discouragements  of  their  position,  ought  not 
to  be  overlooked:  they  endured  extraordinary 
fatigue,  and  exposed  themselves  to  no  common 
danger,  that  they  might  preach  Christ  to  their 


neglected  countrymen  ;  and  in  many  a  barn  or 
in  many  a  wood,  have  they  at  the  midnight  hour 
addressed  a  hungry  multitude  on  the  truths  of 
the  Gospel.  The  city  of  London,  too,  when  suf- 
fering under  the  successive  calamities  of  plague 
and  tire,  witnessed  their  compassionate  zeal  for 
perishing  souls.  At  the  height  of  the  pestilence, 
ten  thousand  persons  died  in  a  single  week  ; 
and  under  that  appalling  scourge,  the  Episcopal 
clergy  yielded  to  the  almost  universal  panic,  and 
fled  from  their  pulpits,  and  abandoned  their  poor 
parishioners  to  their  fate.  But  the  Nonconform- 
ist ministers,  though  proscribed,  resolved  to  visit 
the  sick,  relieve  the  poor,  and  to  preach  in  the 
forsaken  pulpits  ere  the  people  died.  And  whea 
the  devouring  fire  had  reduced  the  city  to  a 
smouldering  heap,  and  most  of  the  churches 
were  involved  in  the  common  ruin,  regardless 
of  the  threatening  penalties,  they  obtained  pla- 
ces in  which  to  preach  to  the  inquiring  multi- 
tudes, who,  aroused  by  successive  calamities, 
were  constrained  to  ask,  "  What  must  we  do  to 
be  saved  !"* 

3.  As  Nonconformists. — While  a  happy  uni- 
formity of  sentiment  respecting  the  great  veri- 
ties of  the  Gospel  prevailed  among  them,  there 
was  no  little  diversity  of  opinion  upon  subjects 
connected  with  church  government.  The  great 
majority  of  them  were  Presbyterians,  who  ear- 
nestly wished  to  see  established  by  law  a  system 
of  church  polity  analogous  to  that  of  Scotland  or 


*  "  The  silenced  ministers  had  till  this  lime 
preached  very  privately,  and  but  to  a  few.  But  when 
the  plague  grew  hot,  and  the  ministers  in  the  city 
churches  fled  and  left  their  flocks  in  the  time  of  their 
extremity,  several  of  the  Nonconformists,  pitying  the 
distressed  and  dying  people,  that  had  none  to  call  the 
impenitent  to  repentance,  nor  to  help  them  to  prepare 
for  another  world,  nor  to  comfort  them  in  their  ter- 
rors, when  about  ten  thousand  died  in  a  week,  were 
convinced  that  no  obedience  to  the  laws  of  any  mortal 
man  whosoever  could  justify  their  neglecting  men's 
souls  and  bodies  in  such  extremities ;  and,  therefore, 
they  wished  to  stay  with  the  people,  enter  the  for- 
saken pulpits,  though  prohibited,  and  give  them  what 
assistance  they  could  under  such  an  awakening 
providence,  and  also  visit  the  sick  and  get  what  re- 
lief they  could  for  the  poor,  especially  such  as  were 
shut  up. 

"  The  persons  that  set  upon  this  work  were  Mr. 
Thomas  Vincent,  Mr.  Chester,  Mr.  Janeway,  Mr. 
Turner,  Mr.  Grimes,  Mr.  Franklyn,  and  some  others. 
Those  often  heard  them  one  day  who  were  sick  the 
next,  and  quickly  died.  The  face  of  death  did  so 
awake  preachers  and  hearers,  that  the  former  ex- 
ceeded themselves  in  lively,  fervent  preaching,  and 
the  latter  heard  with  a  peculiar  ardour  and  attention ;. 
and,  through  the  blessing  of  God,  many  were  con- 
verted from  their  carelessness,  impenitence,  and 
youthful  lusts  and  vanities,  and  religion  took  that 
hold  on  the  people's  hearts  as  could  never  afterward 
be  loosed. 


*  Present  Stale  of  Parties,  p.  289,  290. 


"  This  unhappy  fire  (of  London)  made  the  way  of 
the  Nonconlbrmisls  yet  the  plainer  to  them  ;  for  the 
churches  being  burned,  and  the  parish  ministers 
gone,  for  want  of  places  and  maintenance,  the  peo- 
ple's necessities  became  unquestionable  ;  for  they  had 
no  places  now  to  worship  God  in,  save  a  few  churches 
that  were  left  standing,  which  would  not  hold  any 
considerable  part  of  them;  wherefore  the  Noncon- 
formists opened  public  meeting-houses,  and  were 
very  full.  And  as  circumstances  then  stood,  to  have 
forbid  the  people  to  hear  them  had  been,  in  effect,  to 
forbid  them  all  public  vvorshif)  of  God.  and  require 
them  to  live  like  atheists." — Ca!ami/'s  Ahrklgment  o^' 
Baxter's  Life  and  Times,  vol.  i.,  p.  130,  I3j. 


APPENDIX. 


505 


Geneva.  Some  of  them  were  the  friends  of  a 
modified  Episcopacy,  and  would  have  cheerful- 
ly sat  down  under  a  system  such  as  Archbishop 
Usher. had  proposed;  while  others  were  Eras- 
tians,  who  would  not  have  quarrelled  with  any 
ecclesiastical  polity  that  would  not  impose  its 
usages  upon  their  conscientious  observance. 

The  most  active,  though  certainly  not  the 
largest  body,  were  the  Independents,  or,  as  they 
preferred  to  be  called,  the  Congregational  breth- 
ren, and  who  principally  maintained  those  opin- 
ions which  prevailed  among  ourselves.  With 
this  class  we  may  include  the  Baptist  brethren, 
and  many  others,  who  were  then  contemptuously 
called  Sectaries,  and  some  of  whom  unquestion- 
ably held  mystical  and  eccentric  opinions,  but 
who  had  learned  at  least  one  lesson,  at  that 
time  known  only  to  a  few — how  to  distinguish 
between  spiritual  and  civil  power,  and  to  define, 
with  something  like  correctness,  the  appropri- 
ate sphere  of  each.  Between  these  advocates 
of  opposing  systems  of  church  order  there  were 
no  affinities  but  such  as  tiieir  love  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  their  unaffected  integrity  and  honour 
supplied.  What  the  heat  of  Christian  love  could 
not  accomplish,  the  fire  of  persecution  effected, 
and  these  various  bodies  were  fused  into  one 
mass  by  that  law  which  made  them  Noncon- 
formists. It  is,  perhaps,  desirable  to  recite  the 
leading  requirements  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity, 
in  order  to  ascertain  what  great  principles  were 
actually  avowed  by  their  resignation  of  their 
ecclesiastical  benefices,  and  to  what  extent  we 
are  entitled  to  name  the  illustrious  Iwo  thousand 
as  our  fathers  in  Nonconformity. 

That  act  required:  1.  That  they  should  vir- 
tually renounce  their  ordination  by  presbyters, 
and  submit  to  be  episcopally  ordained.  2.  That 
they  should  declare  their  unfeigned  assent  and 
consent  to  all  and  every  thing  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  and  administration  of  the  sac- 
raments, and  other  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the 
Church  ;  and  they  were  required  to  subscribe, 
ex  animo,  these  words  :  "  That  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  and  of  ordaining  bishops,  priests, 
and  deacons,  containeth  in  it  nothing  contrary 
to  the  Word  of  God  ;  and  that  it  may  be  law- 
fully used  :  and  that  they  themselves  would  use 
the  Form  in  the  said  books  prescribed,  in  pub- 
lic prayer,  and  administration  of  the  sacraments, 
and  no  other."  3.  That  they  should  take  oath 
of  canonical  obedience,  and  swear  subjection  to 
their  ordinary,  according  to  the  canons  of  the 
Church.  4.  That  they  should  abjure  the  sol- 
emn League  and  Covenant,  and  declare  it  an 
unlawful  oath,  and  not  obligatory  on  those  who 
took  it ;  and  lastly,  5.  That  they  should  declare 
that  it  is  not  lawful,  upon  any  pretence  what- 
ever, to  take  up  arms  against  the  king. 

Now  it  must  be  conceded,  respecting  a  law 
of  such  ample  and  varied  enactments,  and  for 
the  calm  consideration  of  which  no  adequate 
time  was  allowed,  that  it  is  not  possible  accu- 
rately to  determme  m  what  degree  the  whole 
body  of  Nonconformists  were  affected  by  its  re- 
quirements. Some  might  object  to  all,  while 
others  might  only  object  to  one  or  two  of  its 
impositions.  As  Mr.  Richard  Baxter,  however, 
may  be  considered  as  the  leader  and  represent- 
ative of  the  moderate  and  more  numerous  por- 
tion of  the  ejected  ministers,  we  may  fairly  gath- 
er from  his  book,  "  The  English  Nonconformity 

Vol.  II.— S  s  s 


truly  Stated  and  Argued,"  what  were  the  great 
points  of  objection  with  him  and  his  brethren. 
We  learn  on  his  authority  that  they  were  then 
decidedly  opposed  to  arbitrary  power,  and  would 
not  swear  that  it  is  always  unlawful  to  take  up 
arms  against  the  king.  They  were  fully  con- 
vinced of  the  validity  of  ordination  by  presby- 
ters, and  would  not  renounce  their  own  minis- 
terial character,  nor  virtually  disown  the  ordi- 
nation of  their  brethren  of  the  Reformed  church- 
es in  general.  They  were  familiar  with  the  ex- 
ercise of  free  prayer,  and  were  reluctant  to  have 
that  gift  superseded  by  an  unvarying  formulary. 
They  had  specific  objection  to  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer,  especially  to  the  services  of  bap- 
tism and  the  burial  of  the  dead,  and  also  to  the 
Athanasian  Creed.  They  saw  that  extensive 
church  reform  was  necessary,  and  therefore 
could  not  abandon  the  solemn  League  and  Cov- 
enant. But  the  greatest  principle  they  asserted 
by  their  noble  sacrifice  was  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  conscience  in  matters  of  religion,  and 
the  lawfulness  of  refusing  obedience  in  matters 
of  faith  and  practice  to  the  impositions  of  the 
civil  power.  They  generally  believed  in  the 
lawfulness  of  a  state  religion,  and,  consequently, 
were  not  dissenters  from  the  principle  of  an  es- 
tablishment, but  objected  to  certain  things  im- 
posed and  i)ractised  by  it.  This  led  many  of 
the  most  eminent  of  the  ejected  ministers  to  at- 
tend the  public  services  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  frequently  to  commune  at  her  altars.*" 


*  The  Rev.  John  Humtrey,  an  ejected  minister, 
writing  to  Ralph  Thoresby,  of  Leeds,  on  the  subject 
of  occasional  conformity,  says  . 

"  I  will  tell  you  first  my  own  judgment  and  practice, 
which  is  perhaps  singular.  There  is  our  staled  com- 
munion and  our  occasional  communion.  Our  mod- 
erate Nonconformist  Presbyterians  are  for  their 
stated  communion  with  the  congregations  whereof 
they  are  pastors  or  members,  but  they  will  join  in 
their  parish  churches  for  occasional  communion,  or 
else  they  think  themselves  guilty  of  schism.  Thus 
Dr.  Bates  does  some  time  in  the  year  receive  the 
sacrament  in  his  parish,  and  Mr.  Baxter  did  often  in 
the  parish  I  am.  But  as  for  myself,  I  declare  my 
stated  communion  to  be  with  the  parish  (where  we 
have  a  very  ingenious,  diligent,  and  exemplary  doctor 
for  our  minister),  and  my  occasional  communion  with 
the  Nonconformist  meetings,  where  1  go  sometimes  ;. 
and  sometimes  I  am  called  to  preach.  In  short,  I  am 
a  Nonconformist  minister,  but  a  conformist  parish- 
ioner." This  is  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  Dr. 
John  Sharp,  archbishop  of  York,  who,  writing  to 
Thoresby  on  the  same  subject,  says,  "  Mr.  Humfrey, 
I  am  sure,  will  vindicate  your  practice  of  communi- 
cating with  us  in  the  holy  sacrament,  because  it  is 
what  himself  doth,  both  as  to  prayers  and  sacraments, 
and  so  did  Mr.  Baxter ;  for  so  long  as  he  lived  in  my 
parish  (St.  Giles's  in  the  Fields,  1677),  he  seldom 
failed,  when  he  was  well,  of  coming  to  our  prayers 
and  sermons  twice  every  Lord's  day  ;  and  receiving 
the  communion  with  us,  kneeling  at  the  rails,  once 
or  twice  every  year ;  this  I  speak  of  my  own  knowl- 
edge."— Letters  addressed  to  R.  Thoresby,  vol.  i.,  p.. 
274,  321. 

Mr.  Baxter's  own  words  may  be  quoted  to  com- 
plete the  evidence.  "  I  constantly  join  with  the 
church  in  common  prayer;  I  communicate  in  the 
Lord's  Supper  with  the  Church  of  England  ;  I  exhort 
the  people  to  communion,  and  I  go  into  the  cnurch 
from  my  own  house  in  the  people's  view,  that  I  may 
persuade  them  by  my  example  as  well  as  mv  doc- 
trine." 

Dr.  John  Owen  was  of  another  mind,  and  publish- 
ed "  \n  answer  unto  Two  Questions,  with  Twelve 
Arguments  against  any  conformity  to  worship  not  of 


506 


APPENDIX. 


Dr.  John  Owen,  however,  and  the  Congrega- 
tional brethren  in  general,  questioned  the  iaw- 
fuint'ss  ol  these  acts  of  occasional  conformity, 
and  did  not  hesitate  to  gather  separate  churches 
of  believers  wlierever  they  were  prepared  to  do 
so. 

4.  As  Philanthropists. — It  has  sometimes  been 
insinuated  that  the  Nonconformist  ministers  of 
the  seventeenth  century  were  deficient  in  that 
expansive  zeal  and  benevolence  which  the  love 
of  Christ  in  the  heart  invariably  inspires.  A 
candid  view  ol'  their  position,  and  that  of  our 
country  too  at  that  period,  would  at  once  dispel 
this  notion,  and  show  that,  according  to  their 
opportunities,  they  were  as  vigorous  and  devo- 
ted as  any  of  their  descendants.  The  comiper- 
cial  enterprise  and  llie  colonial  empire  of  Eng- 
land were  then  in  their  infancy.  The  few  set- 
tlements we  then  possessed  in  the  West  Indies 
and  North  America  were  not  contiguous  to  any 
great  heathen  nation.  The  claims  of  the  North 
American  Indians,  however,  were  not  overlook- 
•ed  by  the  Puritan  ministers,  when  they  had  in- 
fluence over  the  minds  and  parses  of  their  coun- 
trymen. During  the  Commonwealth  they  form- 
ed a  society  for  the  promotion  of  the  Gospel ; 
and  Eliot,  the  apostle  of  the  Indians,  was  one 
of  their  first  and  most  successful  missionaries. 

After  the  ejectment,  many  of  these  confes- 
sors thought  of  the  claims  of  the  heathen.  Bax- 
ter, writing  to  Eliot,  says,  "  Though  our  sins 
have  separated  us  from  the  people  of  our  love 
and  care,  and  deprived  us  of  all  public  liberty  of 
the  Gospel  of  our  Lord,  I  greatly  rejoice  in  the 
liberty,  help,  and  success  which  Christ  has  so 
long  vouchsafed  you  in  his  work.  There  is  no 
man  on  earth  whose  work  I  think  more  honour- 
able and  comfortable  than  yours  ;  to  propagate 
the  Gospel  and  kingdom  of  Christ  into  those 
■dark  parts  of  the  world  is  better  work  than  our 
devouring  and  hating  one  another.  There  are 
many  here  who  would  be  ambitious  of  being 
your  fellow-labourers,  but  that  they  are  inform- 
ed you  have  access  to  no  greater  number  of  In- 
dians that  you  yourself  and  your  present  assist- 
ants are  able  to  teach.  There  are  many  here, 
I  conjecture,  who  would  he  glad  to  go  any- 
where— to  Persians,  Tartarians,  Indians,  or  any 
•unbelieving  nation,  to  propagate  the  Gospel.'"* 
In  zeal,  also,  for  the  extension  of  the  Gospel 
at  home,  they  were  fully  equal  to  them  that 
have  succeeded  them,  not  excepting  the  leaders 
of  Methodism  themselves.  Time  would  fail  to 
.tell  of  their  lengthened  itinerancies,  and  of  the 
.perseverance  with  which  they  taught  the  peo- 
ple at  the  hazard  of  their  liberty,  if  not  their 
lives. 

Nor  were  they  less  willing  to  exert  them- 
selves in  more  tranquil  times.  When  the  neg- 
lected condition  of  Wales  was  made  known,  an 
association  was  formed  on  the  most  catholic 
principles,  in  1674,  to  establish  schools,  and  to 
■circulate  the  Scriptures  and  other  religious  books 
^in  that  principality.     The  names  of  Bates  and 


Divine  institution." — (Works,  xxi.,  519,  536.)  At  a 
somewhat  later  period  of  the  history  of  nonconformi- 
ty, the  Rev.  Jnhn  Howe  vindicated  occasional  con- 
lormily  (roin  the  attacks  of  Daniel  Defoe.  'I'hat 
poweriul  writer  rephed  to  Mr.  Howe,  which  brought 
tlie  Rev.  James  Owen,  of  Shrewsbury,  into  the  field, 
and  several  other  writers  pro  ct  conira  on  the  same 
subject.  *  Orme's  Life  of  R.  Baxter,  p.  Ifi6. 


Baxter,  of  Gouge  and  Firmin,  are  associated 
with  those  of  TiUotson,  Outrain,  Parlrick,  and 
Stillingfleet.  to  accomplish  this  benevolent  ob- 
ject. 

It  is  an  ancient  proverb,  founded  upon  obvi- 
ous laws,  "  like  priest,  like  people,"  and  it  was, 
therefore,  humanly  impossible  that  such  as  ad- 
hered to  their  persecuted  ministers  should  fail 
to  imbibe  something  of  their  zeal  for  doctrinal 
and  practical  religion.  The  families  of  the  Non- 
conformists of  tiie  seventeenth  century  were 
trained  up  to  write  and  repeat  the  sermons  they 
heard,  to  attend  lengthened  fasts  and  family  de- 
votions, and  to  understand  most  of  the  theologi- 
cal questions  of  their  times.  The  strictness  of 
their  manners  accord  with  the  sternness  of  their 
principles,  and  thus  their  rigid  observance  of 
the  Sabbath,  and  their  entire  withdrawal  froiri 
frivolous  amusements,  exposed  them  to  the  rid- 
icule and  contempt  of  worldly  minds.  Their 
liberality  was  proved  by  the  contributions  which 
were  made  for  the  relief  of  the  persecuted  Pied- 
montese,  and  for  the  support  of  Christian  mis- 
sions to  the  Indians  of  New-England  *■ 

After  the  Nonconformist  ministers  had  made 
their  costly  sacrifices,  it  was  expected  that  per- 
secution and  reproach  would  break  their  spirits, 
destroy  their  influence,  and  extinguish  their 
race.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  twenty-six 
years  that  elapsed  between  the  return  of  the 
Stuarts  and  the  Revolution  were  years  of  un- 
pitying  severity  and  cruel  wrong,  both  to  them 
and  to  their  people.  Mr.  J.  White  collected  a 
list  of  the  names  of  sixty  thousand  Nonconform- 
ists who  suffered  in  various  ways  for  their  prin- 
ciples from  the  Restoration  to  the  Revolution. 
Nearly  eight  thousand  perished  in  noxious  dun- 
geons during  Charles  II. 's  reign,  besides  those 
who  died  in  bitter  exile  fnmi  their  native  land. 

It  is  computed  that  within  three  years  prop- 
erty to  the  amount  of  two  millions  of  money 
was  extorted  from  these  faithful  confessors,  by 
all  the  forms  of  legal  robbery  and  oppression  ; 
and  happy  would  they  have  been  could  they 
have  purchased  at  such  a  price  the  liberty  of 
worshipping  God  according  to  the  dictates  of 
their  own  minds. 

Persecution,  however,  rarely  accomplishes  its 
ohject,  for  it  mostly  exerts  a  conservative  influ- 
ence in  favour  of  the  system  intended  to  be  re- 
pressed. Such  was  the  effect  of  high-church 
malignity  in  the  present  instance.  The  people 
pitied  the  suffering  Nonconformists,  admired 
their  holy,  self-denying  lives,  and  were  thankful 
for  their  constant  devotedness  to  genuine  Prot- 
estantism ;  so  that  they,  at  length,  formed  the 
strength  of  that  party  who  narrowly  watched 
the  popish  tendencies  and  priestly  intrigues  of 
the  restored  Stuarts,  and  had  their  full  share  in 
consummating  that  work  of  England's  freedom 
at  the  glorious  Revolution,  which  they  or  their 
fathers  commenced  in  what  Clarendon  calls 
"  the  great  rebellion. "" 

But  it  is  now  time  that  we  should  speak  of  the 
Nonconformists  of  our  own  age. 

As  those  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  di- 


*  "  The  protector,"  says  Whitlock,  "  appointed  a 
solemn  day  of  humiliation  to  be  kept,  and  a  large 
contribution  to  be  gathered  throughout  the  nation." 
The  sum  raised  was  .£38,000.  besides  .£2000  which 
Oliver  himself  contributed.  The  New- England  mis- 
sion had  property  to  the  amount  of  £700  per  annum. 


APPENDIX. 


507 


Tided  into  several  classes,  so  their  descendants 
tjontinue  to  retain  their  denominational  distinc- 
tions. There  exists  at  present,  however,  a  far 
greater  uniformity  of  sentin)ent  on  questions  of 
church  polity  than  obtained  among  the  fathers 
of  nonconformity. 

The  Baptist  and  Congregational  denomina- 
tions maintain  nearly  the  same  principles  of  ec- 
ciesiasiica!  government;  and  many  of  the  Eng- 
lish Presbyterian  body,  who  have  unhappily  de- 
parted from  orthodox  opinions,  are  much  more 
like  Independents  than  the  Kirk  of  Scotland  in 
their  affairs.  The  evangelical  Nonconformists 
alone  have  now  a  much  larger  body  of  minis- 
ters than  were  ejected  on  Bartholomew's  day  ; 
while  the  principles  of  virtual  nonconformity 
have  been  spread  and  acted  upon  by  a  large  and 
influential  body,  once  in  close  relationship  with 
the  Church  of  England,  but  now  declaring  its 
separate  and  independent  church  existence  ; 
while  the  numerous  offshoots  of  Wesleyan 
Methodism  have  become  still  more  decidedly 
dissenting  in  their  principles  and  practices. 
Thus,  within  a  century  and  a  half,  there  have 
grown  up  separate  communities  of  evangelical 
nonconforming  Christians,  who,  in  the  aggre- 
gate number  of  their  congregations,  it  is  proba- 
hle,  are  fully  equal  to  that  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  itself,  and  are  constantly  extending  their 
influence  throughout  the  land.  Our  remarks, 
however,  must  be  restricted  to  those  who  avow 
this  nonconformity,  and  will  apply  to  modern 
dissenting  ministers  and  churches,  excepting 
that  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  whole  body 
who  profess  Unitarian  opinions. 

The  theological  sentiments  of  theliving,  work- 
ing portion  of  modern  Nonconformists,  are  de- 
cidedly influenced  by  the  doctrinal  views  which 
were  maintained  by  their  Puritan  forefathers. 
The  fall  and  ruin  of  man  ;  the  deity  and  incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God  ;  the  priestly  office 
and  atoning  sacrifice  of  the  Saviour  ;  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  and  salvation  by  free  and  sover- 
eign grace  ;  the  work,  power,  and  grace  of  the 
Holy  Spirit ;  the  regeneration  of  the  human 
heart,  and  the  vital,  experimental  nature  of  true 
godliness — these,  and  their  associated  and  sub- 
ordinate truths,  continue  not  only  to  be  the 
creed,  but  the  consolation  of  the  churches.  In 
these  principles  the  candidates  for  the  pastoral 
office  in  the  various  dissenting  colleges  are 
trained  ;  and  their  acceptance  amongthe  church- 
es greatly  depends  on  the  prominence  they  give 
to  those  great  doctrines  of  the  Reformation.  In 
the  public  worship  of  modern  Nonconformists, 
hymns  are  sung  in  accordance  with  those  of  the 
first  Christians,  "  Carmenque  Christo  quasi  Deo 
dicere ;"  and  their  free  prayers  are  characterized 
by  frequent  invocations  on  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.  Within  a  few  years  new  editions  of  the 
voluminous  works  of  Owen,  Baxter,  Howe, 
Bates,  Charnock,  Flavel,  Heywood,  and  other 
Bartholomew  confessors,  have  been  published  ; 
while  the  smaller  treatises  of  these  illustrious 
men,  and  of  their  contemporaries,  are  continu- 
ally issuing  from  the  press  in  every  variety  of 
form,  to  meet  the  increasing  demand  for  their 
doctrinal,  experimental,  and  practical  writings. 
These,  with  similar  facts,  are  sufficient  to  put 
to  shame  the  oft-repeated  and  designing  slan- 
der that  our  churches  are  corrupted  by  the  So- 
cinian  heresy. 


Their  opinions  on  Churcn  polity,  as  we  have 
said,  are  far  more  settled  and  uniform  than  were 
those  of  the  early  Nonconformists.  It  is  now 
almost  universally  agreed  among  at  least  the 
older  nonconforming  bodies,  "  that  the  power  of 
the  Christian  Church  is  purely  spiritual,  and 
should  in  no  way  be  corrupted  with  temporal  or 
civil  power."  "  That  Christ  is  the  only  head  of 
the  Church,  and  the  officers  of  each  church  un- 
der him  are  ordained  to  administer  his  laws  im- 
partially to  all ;  and  that  their  only  appeal  in 
all  questions  touching  their  religious  faith  and 
practice  is  to  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;"*  that  the 
ministers  of  religion  should  be  supported,  not 
by  the  imposts  of  civil  governments,  but  by  the 
free-will  offerings  of  the  people  who  enjoy  their 
services;  that, consequently,  national  establish- 
ments of  Christianity  are  calculated  to  deterio- 
rate and  impede  the  religion  they  propose  to 
extend. 

It  is  for  the  maintenance  of  these  opinions 
that  we  are  reproached  with  having  fallen  from 
the  sentiments  of  our  forefathers,  and  adopted 
"  the  various  novelties  and  fancies  which  arose 
about  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution."  It 
was,  indeed,  about  that  time  that  there  appear- 
ed from  the  pen  of  the  venerable  William  Gra- 
ham, of  Newcastle,  "A  Review  of  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Establishments  in  Europe,"  fraught  with 
these  sentiments  ;  deduced,  however,  not  from 
the  writings  of  French  encych)paedists,  but  from 
the  pages  of  inspired  Scripture. 

But  the  illustrious  John  Locke  recognised  the 
truth  and  justice  of  these  opinions,  when  he 
prepared  the  draught  of  a  Constitution  for  the 
State  of  South  Carolina  in  1682;  and  where  he 
learned  them  inay  be  fairly  gathered  from  the 
testimony  of  a  late  distinguished  statesman  and 
philosopher,  Sir  James  Mackintosh  :  "  Educa- 
ted, then,  among  the  English  dissenters,  during 
the  short  period  of  their  political  ascendency, 
Mr.  Locke  early  imbibed  that  deep  piety  and 
ardent  love  of  liberty  which  actuated  that  body 
of  men  ;_  and  he  probably  imbibed,  also,  in  their 
schools  the  disposition  to  metaphysical  inqui- 
ries, which  has  everywhere  accompanied  the 
Calvinistic  theology.  Sects  founded  on  the  right 
of  private  judgment,  naturally  tend  to  purify 
themselves  from  intolerance,  and  in  time  learn 
to  respect  in  others  the  freedom  of  thought,  ta 
the  exercise  of  which  they  owe  their  own  ex- 
istence. By  the  Independent  divines  who  were 
his  instructers,  our  philosopher  was  taught  those 
principles  of  religious  liberty  which  they  were 
the  first  to  disclose  to  the  world."  Let  those 
who  doubt  the  existence  of  these  opinions  in 
the  time  of  the  Cominonwealih,  read  Milton's 
treatise  "  On  the  Means  to  Remove  Hirelings 
out  of  the  Church,"  and  they  will  find  it  con- 
tains a  noble  argument  for  the  full  application 
of  the  voluntary  principle.  But  admit  these  to 
be  novel  opinions,  are  they,  therefore,  necessa- 
rily erroneous  1  The  progress  of  our  views  on 
ecclesiastical  freedom  is  not  equal  to  the  ad- 
vance which  our  countrymen  have  made  to- 
wards political  and  commercial  liberty.  The 
expulsion  of  the  Stuarts,  the  accession  of  Will- 
iam and  Mary,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  aiul  the  long  series  of  concessions 
to  popular  claims  which   have  followed  those 

*  Declaration  of  Faith  and  Order,  &c.,  of  Congre- 
gational Churches. 


508 


APPENDIX. 


.great  events,  have  necessarily  resulted  from 
great  principles,  which,  by  the  good  providence 
of  God,  werp  iniliodied  in  the  constitutional 
maxims  and  ancient  usages  of  our  Saxon  an- 
cestors. The  germes  of  our  liberties  were  there, 
though  it  required  the  experience  and  the  suf- 
ferings of  ages  to  develop  and  mature  them. 
So  we  believe  our  church  principles  were  pre- 
scribed and  practised  by  the  apostles  of  Jesus, 
though  it  has  required  the  labours  and  suffer- 
ings of  sixteen  centuries  to  demonstrate  the 
wisdom  and  the  rectitude  of  acting  upon  them. 

It  is  also  alleged  that  modern  Nonconform- 
ists have  deteriorated  in  domestic  and  personal 
religion.  In  comparing  their  habits  with  those 
of  their  ancestors,  there  are  shades  of  difference 
to  be  seen  sufficient  to  justify  this  remark,  and 
yet  the  present  generation  may  not  have  retro- 
graded. The  fact  is,  that  various  causes  com- 
bined to  produce  a  frightful  declension  in  the  se- 
riousness of  the  Nonconformists  a  century  ago. 
Job  Orton,  in  one  of  his  letters,  says,  "  It  grieves 
me  to  hear  of  a  growing  spirit  of  levity  and  dis- 
sipation among  the  people,  which  is  very  un- 
favourable to  the  interest  of  religion  and  a  com- 
fort of  ministers,  and  which  every  good  minis- 
ter should  exert  all  his  powers  to  restrain  ; 
though,  unhappily,  some  of  our  divines  have  set 
themselves  to  plead  for  such  a  compliance  with 
fashionable  amusements,  as  tends  to  the  utter 
ruin  of  our  interest,  and,  I  fear,  will  be  greatly 
injurious  to  the  best  interests  of  particular  per- 
sons. Strange  that  all  our  learned  and  wise 
fathers  should  be  so  wretchedly  mistaken,  in 
labouring  to  keep  their  people  from  '  the  course 
of  this  world,'  and  the  love  of  pleasure  and  dis- 
sipation. But  we  foolishly  throw  off  our  fa- 
-liers'  real  excellences  with  their  old  fashions 
and  peculiar  sentiments,  and  have  not  either 
judgment  to  see  the  difference  between  them,  or 
not  resolution  enough  to  withstand  the  customs 
and  fashions  of  the  age." 

The  blessed  revival  of  religion,  which  com- 
menced with  the  labours  of  the  Methodists,  and 
which  the  writings  of  Watts  and  Doddridge  so 
greatly  promoted,  quickened  the  languid  piety 
of  the  old  Independent  and  Baptist  churches  ; 
and  thus,  at  the  present  time,  they  are  found 
in  a  greatly  revived  state  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  eve  of  Methodism,  although  they 
may  not  be  equal  to  the  spirituality  and  devoted- 
ness  of  their  eminent  forefathers. 

Beneficence  towards  mankind  will  supply  a 
test  of  our  piety  towards  God  ;  and  the  Noncon- 
formists of  the  present  day  have  been  among 
the  earliest  and  most  steady  advocates  of  all 
those  noble  efforts  by  which  the  sufferings  of 
humanity  are  ameliorated,  and  the  ignorance  of 
mankind  dispelled.  For  the  abolition  of  the 
slave-trade  and  slavery  in  the  West,  and  for 
the  suppression  of  infanticide,  sutteeism,  and 
other  cruelties  of  the  Hindoos  in  the  East,  they 
have  pleaded  in  common  with  spiritual  Chris- 
tians of  other  communities  with  successful  im- 
portunity. When  the  education  of  the  people 
had  been  entirely  neglected,  and  the  Sunday 
School  system,  projected  by  a  benevolent  Epis- 
copalian, languished  in  the  hands  of  worthless 
hirelings,  the  Nonconformist  churches  supplied 
that  voluntary  agency  which  rescued  llie  project 
from  extinction,  and  carried  its  blessings  through 
every  district  of  the  nation.     In  the  associations 


for  the  diffusion  of  Bibles  and  other  religious 
books,  modern  Nonconformists  have  fell  them- 
selves happy  to  unite  with  great  and  good  men 
of  other  communions,  and  have  borne  their  full 
share  in  the  labours  of  the  study  and  the  plat- 
form, in  pecuniary  contributions,  and  personal 
agency  for  the  translation  and  circulation  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  and  religious  tracts  at  home 
and  abroad.  The  duty  of  missions  to  the  hea- 
then has  been  extensively  recognised  by  the 
Nonconformist  churches  during  the  last  half 
century,  and  the  claims  of  our  countrymen  in 
neglected  districts,  at  home  and  in  the  British 
colonies,  have  not  been  overlooked. 

These  diversified  schemes  of  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy could  not  be  permanently  sustained 
but  by  a  large  substratum  of  real  religion.  Ex- 
citement may  do  much  for  a  temporary  object, 
but  a  work  that  is  to  be  continued  through  long 
years  of  patient  and  apparently  unproductive  la- 
bour can  alone  be  upheld  by  principles  that  rule 
the  conscience  and  regulate  the  life.  Still  we 
have  need  to  be  on  our  guard  as  to  the  outdoor 
habits  which  religion  has  assumed.  It  was  the 
devotional  retirement  of  our  forefathers  that 
gave  firmness  to  their  convictions,  and  nerved 
their  souls  to  deeds  of  moral  heroism.  In  the 
light  of  the  eternal  throne  they  beheld  the  utter 
vanity  of  all  earthly  things,  and  saw  that  to 
"  win  Christ,  and  to  be  found  in  him,"  would  far 
transcend  the  concentrated  honours  and  enjoy- 
ments of  time. 

Let  us  emulate  their  deep  piety,  and  seek  that 
the  hidden  life  of  God  in  our  souls  may  be  in- 
vigorated by  fervent,  persevering  prayer.  Let 
the  devotional  writings  of  our  eminently  holy 
ancestors  be  the  chosen  companions  of  our  closet 
hours,  and,  above  all,  the  sacred  Scriptures  be 
consulted  as  the  only  "  oracle"  to  which  we  can 
implicitly  give  heed.  Then  we  shall  be  fitted 
for  the  work  to  which  the  providence  of  God 
may  call  us,  and  act  as  becometh  those  "  oa 
whom  the  ends  of  the  world  are  come." — C. 


No.  XX. 

A  Brief  Sketch  of  the  Efforts  made  by  the  Non- 
conformists to  Educate  their  rising  Minis  try  r 
taken  from  the  History  of  the  Protestant  Dis- 
senters. 

Among  those  who  engaged  in  the  education 
of  youth,  and  presided  over  seminaries  with 
reputation  and  success,  were  Mr.  Woodhouse, 
Mr.  Warren,  Mr.  Morton,  Mr.  Frankland,  Mr. 
Doolitlle,  Mr.  Shuttlewood,  and  Mr.  Veal. 

No.  1.  Mr.  Woodhouse' s  Academy. 
Mr.  Woodhouse,  though  not  ejected,  not  be- 
ing fixed  at  that  time  in  any  place  as  a  minister, 
was  silenced  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  while 
he  resided  in  Nottinghamshire.  He  afterward 
married  a  lady  of  good  fortune,  the  daughter  of 
Major  Hubbard,  of  Leicestershire  ;  yet  he  did 
not  consider  himself  as  excused  from  active  and 
useful  exertions,  but  opened  a  seminary  in  the 
manor-house  of  Sheriffhales,  near  Sbiffnal,  in 
Shropshire,  which  flourished  in  King  Charles 
II. 's  reign,  and  obtained  celebrity.  The  mix- 
ture of  sweetness  with  authority  in  the  govern- 
ment of  his  academy  gave  him  a  beneficial  in- 
fluence over  his  pupils,  whose  studies  he  direct- 


APPENDIX. 


509 


ed  with  singular  ability,  diligence,  and  fidelity  ; 
youth  from  tlie  most  considerable  families  in 
those  parts  were  placed  under  bis  care.  At  one 
time  his  students  amounted  to  between  Jorty 
and  fifiy.  Many,  wlio  afterward  made  an  enii- 
nentfigure  in  the  world  as  gentlemen  and  magis- 
trates, as  well  as  excellent  divines,  were  edu- 
cated by  him.  He  piously  managed  his  house 
as  a  nursery  for  heaven,  as  well  as  a  school  for 
learning  ;  and  on  those  who  were  intended  for 
the  pulpit,  he  frequently  inculcated  a  faithful, 
diligent  aim  to  promote  the  salvation  of  souls 
as  a  matter  of  the  highest  account.  A  list  of 
some  who  received  from  him  the  principles  of 
learning  and  religion,  especially  of  those  who 
were  assistants  and  immediate  successors  to 
the  ejected  ministers,  and  who  sustained  the 
character  themselves  with  exemplary  assiduity 
in  its  duties,  does  honour  to  his  memory.* 
When  circumstances  led  him  to  break  up  his 
seminary,  his  mind,  which  revolted  at  the 
thought  of  a  useless  life,  was  greatly  dejected  ; 
and  It  was  his  frequent  lamentation,  "  Now  ev- 
ery field  is  unpleasant,  for  I  fear  I  shall  live  to 
no  purpose."  But  Providence  soon  opened  to 
him  a  new  sphere  of  service,  for  he  was  invited 
to  he  pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Little  St.  Hel- 
en's, Bishopsgate-slreet,  London,  where  he  dis- 
charged the  duties  of  his  ministry  with  affec- 
tion, zeal,  and  usefulness,  till  within  a  few  days 
of  his  death,  which  took  place  in  1700.  Dr.  J. 
C.  VVoodhouse,  the  present  dean  of  Litchfield, 
the  author  of  a  translation  and  exposition  of 
the  Book  of  the  Revelation,  a  valuable  work, 
written  in  the  spirit  of  true  criticism,  is  his 
great-grandson.  The  late  excellent  Christian, 
and  candid  biblical  critic,  Mr.  John  Simpson,  of 
Bath,  was  descended  from  this  worthy  man, 
and  by  marriage  became  more  closely  connect- 
ed with  the  family  of  Woodhouse. 

The  students  in  the  seminary  at  Sheriff  hales 
were  conducted  through  a  course  of  lectures  on 
logic,  anatomy,  and  mathematics,  beginning 
usually  with  the  first,  and  sometimes  with  one 
or  the  other  of  these  branches  of  knowledge. 
These  were  followed  by  lectures  in  physics, 
ethics,  and  rhetoric.  They  were  heard  success- 
ively in  Greek  and  Hebrew  at  other  times  of 
ihe  day  or  week.  A  law  lecture  was  read  one 
day  in  the  week  to  those  who  had  entered  at 
the  Inns  of  Court,  or  were  designed  for  the  law  : 
and  they  who  were  intended  for  the  pulpit  were 
conducted  through  a  course  of  theological  read- 
ing. All  the  students  were  obliged  to  read,  in 
Natural  Theology,  Grotius's  "  De  Veritate  Chris- 
tiaiiae  lleligionis,"  construing  and  giving  the 
sense  of  it  as  one  of  their  Latin  authors:  to 
this  succeeded  the  reading  of  Wiikins's  "  Prin- 
ciples of  Natural  Religion,"  Fleming's  "  Con- 
firming Work,"  Baxter's  "  lleasonsof  ihe  Chris- 
tian Religion."  Bates  "  On  the  Existence  of 
God,  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  and  Divinity  of 
the  Christian  Religion,"  and  Stillingfleet's  "Ori- 
gines  Sacra;,"  with  parts  of  Bochart.  In  Logic 
they  began  with  Burgedicius,  which  was  gone 
through  a  second  time  with  Heereboord'sf  om- 
rnentary  ;  Sanderson.  Waliis,  Ramus,  and  his 
commentator  Dowman,  were  recommended  to 
their  private  perusal.     The  mathematical  au- 

*  See  Pabuer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol. 
ii,  p.  297, 298 ;  and  Thompson's  Account  of  Dissent- 
ing Academies,  MS.,  p.  1, 2. 


thors  through  which  they  were  conducted 
were  principally  Galiruchius,  Leybourn,  Mox- 
on,  Gunter,  Gassendi,  and  Euclid's  Elements, 
which  were  read  late.  In  Geography,  Echard, 
and  m  History,  Puffendorf,  furnished  the  text- 
hooks.  In  Natural  Philosophy,  the  authors  read 
and  explained  were  Heereboord,  Magirus,  Des 
Cartes's  "  Prmcipia,'"  Rhegius,  Rohault.  and  De 
Stair,  for  both  old  and  new  physics.  In  Anat- 
omy, with  Gibson  was  joined  the  perusal  of 
Blancardi  "  Anatomia  Reformata,"  and  Bartho- 
line.  The  writers  adopted  to  guide  them  in 
their  ethical  studies  were  Eustachius,  Whitby, 
More,  and  Heereboord"s  "  CoUeg.  Elhic ;"  and 
in  Metaphysics,  Froamenius,  Facchaeus,  and 
Baronius  ;  to  whom  were  added  Blank's  "  The- 
ses," and  Davenant  or  Ward's  "  Determina- 
tiones."  In  Rhetoric  they  were  assisted  by 
Radau,  Quinctilian,  and  V^ossius.  In  Law  they 
read  "  Doctor  and  Student,"  Littleton's  "  Ten- 
ures," or  Coke  on  Littleton.  In  Theology,  the 
authors  read  and  explained  were,  the  West- 
minster Assembly's  "  Confession  of  Faith"  and 
"Larger  Catechism,"  Corbel's  "Humble  En- 
deavour," Russonius's  "Compendium  of  Tur- 
retin."  These  were  followed  by  Calvin's  "  In- 
stitutes," Pareus  on  Ursin,  Baxter's  "  End  of 
Controversy,"  and  "  Methodus  Theologiae," 
Williams's  "Gospel  Truth,"  Le  Blane's  "The- 
ses," and  Dixon's  "  Therapeutica  Sacra." 

In  all  lectures  the  authors  were  strictly  ex- 
plained, and  commonly  committed  to  memory, 
at  least  as  to  the  sense  of  them.  On  one  day, 
an  account  of  the  lecture  of  the  preceding  day 
was  required  before  a  new  lecture  was  read  ; 
and  on  Saturday  a  review  of  the  lectures  of  the 
five  days  before  was  delivered.  When  an  au- 
thor had  been  about  half  gone  through,  they 
went  that  part  over  again,  and  so  the  second 
part  passed  under  a  second  perusal,  so  that 
every  one  author  was  read  three  times  ;  and 
after  this  they  exercised  one  another  by  ques- 
tions and  problems  on  the  most  difficult  points 
that  occurred. 

Practical  exercises  accompanied  the  course 
of  lectures,  and  the  students  were  employed  at 
times  in  surveying  land,  composing  almanacs, 
making  sundials  of  different  constructions,  and 
dissecting  animals.  On  one  day  of  the  week, 
Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew  nouns  and  verbs 
were  publicly  declined  in  the  lecture-room  ;  dis- 
putations, after  a  htgical  form,  were  holden  on 
Friday  afternoon;  they  were  accustomed  toEng- 
lish  composition  under  the  form  of  letters  and 
speeches,  and  the  students  designed  for  the  min- 
istry, according  to  their  seniority,  were  practis- 
ed in  analyzing  some  verses  of  a  psalm  or  chap- 
ter, drawing  up  skeletons  or  heads  of  sermons, 
and  short  schemes  of  prayer  and  devotional 
specimens,  according  to  Bishop  Wilkin's  meth- 
od, and  were  called  on  to  pray  in  the  family  on 
the  evening  of  the  Lord's  Day,  and  to  set  psalms 
to  two  or  three  tnnes.  On  the  Saturday  even- 
ing, a  didactical  or  polemical  lecture  on  divinity, 
either  on  Wollebius's  "Compendium  Theolo- 
giae," or  on  Ames's  "  Medulla  Theologia;,"  was 
read  by  the  tutor  to  the  senior  class,  and  the 
class  was  required  to  give  the  literal  sense  of 
the  author.  On  the  Lord's  Day  morning,  at  the 
time  of  family  prayer,  another  lecture  on  divin- 
ity took  place,  when  the  junior  class  gave  an  ac- 
count of  some  portion  of  Vincent's  "  Exposition 


510 


APPENDIX. 


of  the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism,"  repre- 
senting the  sense  of  the  author,  on  which  the 
tutor  enlarged  as  tiie  occasion  dictated  and  the 
subject  required.  Once  a  year  there  was  a 
repetition  of  ail  the  grairmiars,  especially  of  the 
Oxford  Latin  Grammar,  by  all  the  students. 
The  Hebrew  was  taught  by  Bythnei's  "  Gram- 
mar" and  "  Lyra,"  as  well  adapted  to  each 
other.* 

No.  2.  Mr.  Warren's  Academy. 
Mr.  Matthew  Warren,  of  Oxford  University, 
the  younger  son  of  Mr.  John  Warren,  a  gentle- 
man of  good  fortune,  at  Olterford,  in  Devon, 
being  ejected  from  the  chapelry  of  Downhead, 
in  Somersetshire,  soon  engaged,  at  the  impor- 
tunity of  some  friends,  in  the  l-.onourable  liter- 
ary employment  of  educating  youth  for  the 
Christian  ininistry  ;  and,  after  meeting  with 
many  difficulties  and  iriolestations  in  the  reigns 
of  Charles  IL  and  James  IL,  he  was  for  many 
years  at  the  head  of  a  flourishing  academy  at 
Taunton,  in  Somersetshire.  He  was  generally 
acknowledged  to  be  well  qualified  for  his  office 
as  tutor  by  a  good  share  of  useful  learning,  and 
by  humiliiy,  modesty,  and  good-humour,  which 
were  distinguishing  traits  in  his  character  pe- 
culiarly adapted  to  the  various  temper  and  ge- 
nius of  young  persons,  and  to  conciliate  the  af- 
fections of  his  pupils.  Convinced  of  the  great 
importance,  and  even  necessity,  for  the  conduct 
of  future  life,  of  furnishing  the  youthful  minds 
with  principles  of  morality,  he  directed  his  par- 
ticular attention  to  the  improvement  of  his  pu- 
pils' understandings  in  that  part  of  learning. 
In  reading  lectures  he  had  the  happy  art  of  ex- 
plaining things  even  to  the  lowest  capacities. 
He  had  been  himself  educated  in  the  old  logic 
and  philosophy,  and  was  little  acquainted  with 
the  improvements  of  the  new ;  yet  it  was  ex- 
pressive of  liberality  of  mind  and  good  sense 
that  he  encouraged  his  pupils  in  freedoin  of  in- 
quiry, and  in  the  study  of  those  authors  who 
were  better  suited  to  gratify  the  love  of  knowl- 
edge and  truth,  even  though  they  differed  from 
the  writers  on  whom  he  had  formed  his  own 

*  From  MS.  papers  with  which  John  Woodhouse 
Crompton,  Esq.,  of  Birmingham,  favoured  the  author. 
Among  them  is  a  certificate  of  the  ordinaiion  of  Mr. 
William  Woodhouse,  of  Rearsby,  in  the  county  of 
Leicester,  21st  of  August,  1702.  This  gentleman 
was  the  son  of  the  tutor.  It  is  a  document  which 
shows  the  practice  of  the  day,  and  the  idea  then  en- 
tertained of  the  nature  and  efficiency  of  the  service. 
It  runs  thus:  "Forasmuch  as  Mr.  William  Wood- 
house,  of  Rearsby,  in  the  county  of  Leicester,  has 
desired  to  enter  orderly,  according  to  the  rules  of  the 
Gospel,  into  the  sacred  office  of  the  ministry,  and 
has  requested  us,  whose  names  are  underwritten, 
solemnly  to  invest  him  with  the  ministerial  author- 
ity ;  and  knowing  him  to  be  sound  and  orthodox  in  his 
judgment,  of  a  pious  and  unblameable  life,  and  suf- 
ficient ministerial  abilities  (no  exception  being  made 
against  his  ordination  and  admission),  we  have  ap- 
proved him,  and  proceeded  solemnly  to  set  him  apart 
to  the  office  of  a  presbyter,  and  all  the  parts  and  du- 
ties belonging  to  it,  with  fasting,  prayer,  and  impo- 
sition of  hands,  and  do,  so  far  as  concerns  us,  em- 
power him  to  perform  all  the  offices  and  duties  of  a 
minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  witness  whereof  we 
have  hereunto  set  our  hands,  this  twenty-first  day  of 
August,  Anno  Dom.  1702. 

"John  Doughty,  Minister  of  the  Gospel. 
MicH.tEL  Matthews,  Minister  of  the  Gospel. 
Sa-muel  Lawrence,  Mmister  of  the  Gospel." 


sentiments.  While  Bergedicius  or  Derodon. and 
in  Ethics  Eusta(;hius,  were  used  as  text-books 
in  the  lecture-room,  Locke,  Le  Clerc,  and  Cum- 
berland were  guides  to  just  thinking,  close  rea- 
soning, and  enlightened  views  in  their  closets. 
Mr.  Warren  was  never  confident  or  imposing  ; 
never  vehement  or  rigid  in  his  own  opinion, 
but  open  to  argument,  and  disposed  to  prefer 
the  judgment  of  others  to  his  own.  He  was 
reckoned  among  the  moderate  divines  of  the 
day  :  ever  studious  of  the  things  that  make  for 
peace,  and  promote  Christian  harmony  and  love. 
He  encouraged  the  free  and  critical  study  of  the 
Scriptures.  Many  young  gentlemen  who  after- 
ward filled  civil  stations  with  respectability  and 
worth,  and  others  who  appeared  in  the  minis- 
try with  credit  and  usefulness,  were  educated 
under  him.  The  name  of  Mr.  Grove,  whose  ge- 
nius, character,  and  talents  were  formed  in  his 
seminary,  is  ahme  sufficient  to  do  honour  to  its. 
president.*     Mr.  Warren  died  in  1706. 

No.  3.  Mr.  Charles  Morton's  Academy. 
Mr.  Charles  Morton,  ejected  from  the  rectory 
of  Blisland,  in  Cornwall,  of  Wadham  College, 
Oxford,  was  descended  from  an  ancient  family 
at  Morton,  in  Nottinghamshire,  the  seat  of  J. 
Morton,  secretary  to  King  Edward  III.  He 
was  a  general  scholar,  but  was  particularly  em- 
inent for  his  knowledge  of  the  mathematics,  on 
which  account  he  was  greatly  valued  by  Dr. 
Wilkins,  the  warden  of  the  college  of  which  he 
was  a  fellow.  After  his  ejectment  he  removed 
to  a  small  tenement,  his  own  property,  in  the 
parish  of  St.  Ives,  where  he  resided  till  the  fire 
of  London,  in  which  he  sustained  great  loss. 
He  was  solicited  by  several  friends  to  under- 
take the  instruction  of  youth  in  acadetnical 
learning,  for  which  he  had  extraordinary  quali- 
fications. With  this  view  he  settled  at  iSlew- 
ington  Green.  He  had  a  peculiar  talent  of  win- 
ning youth  to  the  love  of  virtue  and  learning  by 
the  pleasantness  of  his  conversation,  and  by  a 
familiar  way  of  making  difficult  subjects  easily 
intelligible.  He  drew  up  systems  of  the  several 
arts  and  sciences  for  the  use  of  his  pupils,  which 
he  explained  in  his  lectures,  and  which  the  stu- 
dents copied.  One,  entitled  Eutaxia,  exhibited 
the  principles  of  policy  exactly  correspondent 
to  the  English  Constitution,  asserting  at  once 
the  rights  and  honour  of  the  crown  and  the 
liberties  of  the  subject.  It  traced  the  original 
of  all  government  to  the  institution  of  God  ; 
enforced  from  the  subject  love  to  the  person  of 
the  king,  obedience  to  the  laws,  and  a  dutiful 
submission  to  legal  taxes  for  the  support  of  the 
crown  and  the  laws.  It  confirmed  the  ordinary 
method  of  succession  ;  and,  in  case  of  total  sub- 
version or  failure,  gave  a  right  to  the  ordines- 
re^ni  to  restore  the  Constitution  by  the  extra- 
ordinary call  of  some  person  to  the  throne.  It 
is  pronounced  by  one  who  had  seen  it  to  have 
been  so  complete,  ingenious,  and  judicious  a 
system  as  to  be  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any 
printed  composition  of  the  kind.  He  also  drew 
up  a  Compendium  of  Logic,  which  was  the  text- 
book in  Harvard  College  after  he  became  ■>res- 
ident  of  that  American  seminary,  till  it  w  js  su- 
perseded by  one  on  a  more  improved  plan  by 

♦  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
358;  Grove's  Works,  preface,  vol.  i,  p.  14;  and 
Sprint'g  Funeral  Sermon  for  Warren,  p.  45,  46,  50. 


APPENDIX. 


51  r 


Mr.  Brattle,  minister  of  the  churcn  in  Cam- 
bridge. A  copy  of  each,  as  rare  specimens  of 
American  literature,  are  preserved  in  the  cabi- 
net of  tlic  Historical  Society.  A  great  many 
young  ministers  were  educated  by  him,  as  well 
as  other  good  scholars,  and  numbers  of  each 
class  were  afterward  very  useful  in  Church  and 
state ;  and  the  seminary  was  marked  by  a  uni- 
versal sentiment  of  respect  for  the  great  and  ex- 
cellent men  of  the  episcopal  order,  and  an  emula- 
tion of  their  virtues.  Mr.  Morton  himself  was  a 
pious,  learned,  and  ingenious  man  ;  of  a  sweet 
natural  temper  and  a  generous  public  spirit ;  an 
indefatigable  friend,  beloved  and  valued  by  all 
that  knew  him.  After  having  appeared  in  the 
character  of  a  tutor  with  reputation  for  twenty 
years,  he  was  so  harassed  with  processes  in  the 
ecclesiastical  court  that  he  found  himself  con- 
strained to  relinquish  it ;  and,  being  under  great 
apprehensions  for  the  interests  of  the  nation, 
he  emigrated  to  New-England  in  1685,  and  was 
chosen  pastor  of  a  church  in  Charlestown,  over 
against  Boston,  and  vice-president  of  Harvard 
College.  Mr.  Morton  died,  April,  1697,  in  the 
eightieth  year  of  his  age.  In  the  Philosophical 
Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  there  is  a 
treatise  of  his,  entitled  "A  Discourse  on  Im- 
proving the  County  of  Cornwall,"  the  seventh 
chapter  of  which  is  on  sea  sand  for  manure. 
He  published  several  small  treatises,  as  he  was 
an  enemy  to  large  volumes,  and  often  said, 
Mtya  iiitXiov  fieya  kokov,  "  a  great  book  is  a 
great  evil."  Dr.  Calamy  has  preserved,  besides 
his  vindication  of  himself  and  brethren  from 
the  charge  of  perjury,  on  account  of  teaching 
university  learning,  "Advice  to  Candidates  for 
the  Ministry  under  the  present  discouraging 
Circumstances."  It  was  drawn  up  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  II.,  hut  deserves  the  frequent  peru- 
sal and  serious  attention  of  those  who  bear  that 
character  in  the  present  day.  Both  these  pie- 
ces afford  proofs  of  the  talents  and  excellent 
spirit  of  the  author.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
only  few  names  of  his  students  are  come  down 
to  us.* 

No.  4.  Mr.  Richard  FranklaiuVs  Academy. 

Mr.  Richard  Frankland,  who  was  ejected  from 
a  lectureship  at  Bishnp's-Aukland,  in  the  coun- 
ty of  Durham,  was  born  in  1630,  at  Rathmill, . 
in  the  parish  of  Gigleswick,  in  Craven,  a  divis- 
ion of  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire,  and  re- 
ceived his  classical  learning  at  a  famous  school 
there.  In  1647  he  was  entered  a  student  in 
Christ  College,  Cambridge,  of  which  Dr.  Samuel 
Bolton  was  master,  where  he  made  a  good  pro- 
ficiency in  human  and  sacred  literature,  and 
imbibed  a  deep  sense  of  religion.  There  he 
took  the  degree  of  inaster  of  arts,  and  on  his 
removal  from  college,  after  a  short  residence  at 
Hexham  on  an  invitation  thither,  he  success- 
ively preached  at  Haughton-le  Spring,  Lancas- 
ter, and  Bishop's-Aukland.  The  living  of  Auk- 
land-St.  Andrews,  which  was  a  valuable  one, 
was  presented  to  him  by  Sir  .Arthur  Haslerig. 
It  is  a  testimony  that  he  was  well  known,  and 


*  Pahnei's  Noiicoiiforinist's  Memorial,  vol.  i ,  p. 
273,274;  Calamy's  .\cconiit,  p.  144;  Continuation, 
vol.  i.,  p.  176-211  ;  Dr.  Eliot's  American  Biograph- 
ical Dictionary,  article  Morton;  Sam.  Palmer's  De- 
fence of  the  Education  in  Dissenting  .Academies,  p. 
10;  and  Vindication  of  the  Dissenters,  in  Answer  to 
Mr.  Wesley's  Defence,  &c.,  4to,  1705,  p.  53-54. 


that  his  learning  and  character  were  esteemed, 
that  when  the  protector  Cromwell  had  ert'cicii' 
a  college  for  academical  learning  at  Durham,  in 
1657,  Mr.  Frankland  was  fixed  upon  to  he  a 
tutor  in  it.  By  the  destruction  of  the  instil ii- 
tion  at  tlie  Restoration  he  lost  the  office,  and 
the  Act  of  Uniformity,  with  which  he  refused 
to  comply,  though  solicited  to  it  by  Hishop  Co- 
sins  with  a  promise  of  preferment,  excluded  liiiii 
from  his  living,  and  he  retired  to  his  own  es 
late  at  Rathmill.  Here  the  persuasions  of 
friends  prevailed  with  him  to  open  a  private 
academy,  and  so  much  was  he  encouraged  in 
this  liberal  employment  of  his  talents,  that  in 
the  space  of  twenty-nine  years  three  hundred 
young  gentlemen  had  received  their  education 
under  him.  In  the  mean  time  he  repeatedly 
changed  the  place  of  his  abode,  but  still  carried 
on  his  academy  wherever  he  went.  In  1674  he 
removed  to  Natland,  near  Kendal,  in  West- 
moreland, on  an  invitatiim  to  become  the  min- 
ister of  a  church  there.  By  the  harassing  op- 
eration of  the  Five-mile  Act  he  was  obliged  to 
leave  that  place,  and  removed,  in  succession,  to 
Dawsonfold  in  the  same  county,  to  Harihur- 
row  in  Lancashire,  to  Calton  in  Craven,  in 
Y<irkshire,  to  Attercliffe,  near  Sheffield,  and 
again  to  Rathmill.  He  had  the  reputation  of 
being  an  acute  mathematician,  an  eminent  di- 
vine, sagacious  in  the  detection  of  error,  and 
able  in  the  defence  of  truth,  and  a  solid  inter- 
preter of  Scripture  ;  a  zeal  to  promote  the  Gos- 
pel in  all  places,  united  with  great  moderation, 
humility  of  mind,  and  affat)ility  of  deportment, 
liberality  to  the  poor,  and  an  amiable  attention 
to  all  relative  duties,  formed  in  his  character 
leading  features.  He  was  generally  beloved, 
and  very  useful ;  yet  his  patience  and  fortitude 
were  tried  by  many  and  various  troubles,  and 
even  after  the  Revolution  to  his  death  in  1698, 
when  he  was  sixty-eight  years  of  age,  there 
was  scarcely  a  year  passed  in  which  he  did  not 
meet  with  some  disturbance.  Dr.  Latham  has 
given  us  a  list  of  his  pupils.* 

No.  5.  Mr.  DooUltk's  Academy. 
Mr.  Doolittle,  A.M.,  of  Pembroke  Hall.  Cam- 
bridge, was  a  native  of  Kidderminster,  and 
ejected  from  the  rectory  of  St  ,\lphage.  Lon- 
don Wall.  He  first  oppned  a  boarding  school 
in  Moorfields,  which  was  much  encouraged  and 
patronised  ;  he  had  twenty-eight  pupils  when 
that  malignant  fever  called  the  plague  broke 
out  ;  on  this  he  removed  to  Woodford  Bridge, 
on  Epping  Forest.  Upon  a  license  granted  by 
King  Charles  II.  in  1672,  he  returned  to  the 
vicinity  of  the  city,  became  the  pastor  of  a  large 
congregation  in  Monkwell-slreet,t  and  set  up  a 
seminary  on  a  more  extensive  plan,  at  Islington,, 
to  educate  young  men  for  the  ministry,  in  which 


*  Calamy's  Account,  p.  284-288;  Continuation, 
vol.  i.,  p.  45.3.  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  MemoriaL 
vol.  i.,  p.  4^8-491. 

t  This  was  the  first  meeting-house  built  after  the 
lire  of  London,  1G62.  In  the  vestry  is  preserved,, 
framed  and  glazed,  the  royal  license  which  Mr.  Doo 
lillle  took  out  on  the  Declaration  of  (ndiilcence  grant- 
ed to  the  Nonconformists  in  1672,  signed  by  his  maj- 
esty's command.  Arlingtuu.  It  is  thought  to  be  the 
onl^V  memorial  of  the  kind  existing  in  the  city  — Si-e 
Wil.son'.t  Dissentini;  Churches,  vol.  hi.,  p.  18C.  1S7, 
where  the  author  has  given  an  exact  copy  of  it  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  curious. 


512 


APPENDIX. 


he  had  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Thomas  Vincent, 
M.A.,  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  ejected  from 
St.  Mary  Magdalen,  Milii-street,  London,  a  gen- 
tleman well  qualified  for  the  office.  When  the 
Oxford  Act  passed  he  removed  to  Wimbledon, 
and  his  lectures  were  privately  attended  by  sev- 
eral of  his  pupils,  who  accommodated  them- 
selves with  lodgings  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Among  the  names  of  those  who  studied  under 
him  are  some  who  afterward  made  a  figure, 
and  soared  above  the  lessons  they  had  receiv- 
ed in  the  academy.  Mr.  Doolitlle,  though  a 
■very  worthy  and  diligent  divine,  was  not  very 
eminent  for  compass  of  knowledge  or  depth  of 
thought.* 

No.  6.  Mr.  Jnhn  Shuttlewood's  Academy. 
Mr.  John  Shuttlewood,  A.B.,  of  Christ  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  born  at  Wymeswold,  Leices- 
tershire, January  3,  1631,  was  ejected  from 
llaunston  and  Hoose,  in  the  same  county.  He 
was  a  considerable  sufferer  for  his  nonconform- 
ity ;  for  not  only  was  he  deprived  of  his  living, 
but  was  harassed  with  various  prosecutions, 
which  obliged  him  to  frequent  removals,  some- 
times taking  his  abode  in  Leicestershire,  and 
sometimes  residing  in  Northamptonshire ;  yet  he 
could  not  secure  liis  person  from  imprisonment, 
nor  evade  the  seizure  of  his  goods.  His  health 
was  much  affected  and  injured  by  his  ministe- 
rial labours  in  incommodious  places  and  at  un- 
seasonable hours,  and  by  the  evils  of  persecu- 
tion in  those  rigorous  and  cruel  times.  His 
troubles,  however,  did  not  prevent  his  keeping 
a  seminary  at  Sulby,  near  Welford,  Northamp- 
tonshire, and  at  Little  Creaton,  where  he  lived, 
and  died  in  the  year  of  the  Revolution.  It  ap- 
pears, from  a  memorandum  in  his  pocket  alma- 
nac, "that  six  students  were  added  to  his  sem- 
inary in  one  year."  It  seems  to  have  had  a  good 
degree  of  reputation,  and  to  have  been  some- 
times flourishing.  The  list  of  students  which 
time  has  transmitted  down  to  us  reflects  credit 
on  his  academy,  if  not  by  the  number  of  names, 
yet  by  eminence  of  character  to  which  they 
rose.  Mr.  Shuttlewood  was  a  man  of  ability 
and  learning;  an  acceptable  and  useful  preach- 
er ;  much  esteemed,  not  only  in  the  places  of 
his  residence,  but  through  the  neighbouring 
country.  Of  this  the  concise  but  impressive 
inscription  on  his  tombstone  was  an  honourable 
testimony,  recording  that  he  was  "  multum  di- 
lectus,  multum  deflendus,"  much  beloved,  much 
lamented.!  He  was  the  father  of  the  dissenting 
cause  in  that  part  of  Northamptonshire  in  which 
he  fixed  his  residence. 

No.  7.  Mr.  Samuel  Cradock's  Academy. 
Among  others  who,  when  they  were  silen- 
ced by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  employed  their 
talents  and  learning  for  the  instruction  of  youth, 
was  Mr.  Samuel  Cradock,  B.D.,  fellow  of  Eman- 
uel College,  Cambridge,  ejected  from  the  rec- 
tory of  North  Cadbuiy,  Somersetshire.  The 
sacrifice  he  made  of  this  valuable  living  to  the 
principle  of  conscience  was  compensated  to  him 

*  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol.  i.,  p. 
SO-88.  Maith.  Henry's  Life,  p.  77.  Emlyn's  Works, 
vol.  i. 

t  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
12;i-128  ;  and  Thompson's  MS.  Collections,  vol.  h., 
anicle  Creaton. 


by  the  will  of  a  gentleman  to  whom  he  was 

next  heir,  Mr.  Waller  Cradock,  of  Wickhara 
Brook,  in  Suffolk,  who  bequeathed  his  estate  to 
him.  He  used  to  acknowledge,  with  great 
thankfulness,  this  allotment  of  Providence  in 
his  favour,  and  on  the  occasion  took  for  his 
motto,  "  Nee  ingratus  nee  inutilis  videar  vix- 
isse."  He  went  some  years  after  and  resided 
in  the  mansion  of  his  deceased  friend,  but  not 
to  indulge  in  useless  inactivity.  For  some 
years  he  usually  preached  twice  every  Lord's 
Day,  gratuitously,  to  the  neighbourhood,  and 
commenced  an  instructer  of  youth  in  academ- 
ical learning.  In  the  number  of  those  who 
studied  under  him  were  some  who  were  after- 
ward distinguished  by  their  stations  in  life  and 
by  worth  of  character.  His  lectures  were 
grounded  on  systems  of  logic,  natural  and  mor- 
al philosophy,  and  metaphysics,  composed  by 
himself  and  extracted  out  of  a  variety  of  au- 
thors. His  pupils  were  obliged  to  copy  them 
out  for  their  own  use  :  they  considered  this 
a  great  drudgery  ;  but  Dr.  Calamy,  who  was 
one  of  them,  was  inclined  to  think  that  the 
benefits  attending  this  task  overbalanced  the 
inconveniences  and  labour  of  it.  Mr.  Cradock 
treated  his  pupils  in  a  gentlemanlike  manner, 
lived  upon  his  own  estate,  kept  a  good  house, 
and  was  much  respected  by  all  the  gentlemen 
around  the  country.  This  was  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  a  mind  truly  catholic,  that  regard- 
ed with  esteem  every  man  for  his  goodness, 
and  secured  the  esteem  of  all  who  were  truly 
good  :  a  return  for  affable  and  courteous  man- 
ners. His  deportment  was  condescending,  and 
his  temper  forgiving.  "  We  had,"  says  Dr. 
Calamy,  "our  innocent  diversions,  and  used  to 
ride  and  visit  any  acquaintance  we  had  at  Bury, 
Sudbury,  Newmarket,  Cambridge,  and  other 
places  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  hut  I  never  knew 
anything  like  debauchery  among  Mr.  Cradock's 
domestics."  His  publications  remain  as  proofs 
of  his  solid  judgment,  digested  thought,  clear 
method,  and  unaffected  style  as  a  writer,  while 
they  breathe  the  spirit  of  serious  and  manly  pi- 
ety. His  commentaries  are  still  esteemed  as 
valuable,  and  his  treatise  entitled  "  Knowledge 
and  Practice"  has  been  recommended  as  the 
best  book  of  the  kind  for  young  ministers.* 

Among  others  who,  after  they  were  expelled 
from  the  pulpit,  assisted  the  studies  of  young 
men,  was  Mr.  Edward  Veal,  of  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  and  afterward  of  Trinity  College,  Dub- 
lin, who  at  first  exercised  his  ministry  in  Dub- 
lin and  its  vicinity,  and  when  he  was  deprived 
of  his  fellowship  for  nonconformity,  became 
chaplain  to  Sir  William  Waller,  in  Middlesex, 
and  on  the  death  of  his  patron  settled  as  a 
minister  with  a  congregation  at  Wapping,  and 
remained  in  this  connexion  to  a  good  old  age. 
The  infirmities  of  declining  life  obliged  him  to 
relinquish  his  pulpit  and  academy  some  years 
before  his  death,  June  6,  1708,  a;t.  76.  Mr. 
Nathaniel  Taylor,  an  eminent  and  popular 
preacher,  a  pastor  of  the  congregation  at  Salt- 
er's Hall,  called  by  Dr.  Doddridge,  on  account 
of  his  vast  wit  and  strength  of  expression,  the 
dissenting  South,  who  died  suddenly  in  April, 


*  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
353, 354  ;  Dr.  Calamy's  History  of  His  Uwn  Life  and 
Times,  MS. ;  and  Doddridge's  Preaching  Lectures, 
p.  82,  ISino,  1804. 


APPENDIX. 


513 


1702.  is  the  only  one  of  those  whi)  studied  un- 
<ier  Mr.  Veal,  whose  name  has  been  delivered 
down  to  us. 

Others  deserve  to  he  mentioned  with  respect 
as  assisting  the  studies  of  youth,  especially  of 
those  who  were  designed  for  the  ministry, 
though  the  records  of  the  times  supply  hut  very 
few  particulars  relative  to  their  mode  of  instruc- 
tion, and  those  who  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  it. 
Among  these  was 

The  excellent  Mr.  Philip  Henry,  who,  after 
he  was  ejected  from  Worthenbury,  and  remo- 
ved to  Broad  Oak,  till  his  death  in  1696,  fre- 
quently received  into  his  house  young  gentle- 
men who  had  in  other  seminaries  finished  a 
course  of  university  learning,  and  were  desirous 
of  the  benefit  of  his  instructions  and  counsels, 
and  who  assisted  in  the  education  of  his  own 
children.  One  of  the  first  who  joined  his  fam- 
ily, in  1668.  was  Mr.  William  Turner,  of  Ed- 
mund's Hall,  in  Oxford,  and  afterward  for  many 
years  vicar  of  Walburton,  in  Sussex;  a  seri- 
ous, laborious,  and  useful  preacher,  author  of 
an  elaborate  "  History  of  all  Religions,"  in  1695, 
and  of  "  A  History  of  Remarkable  Providences, 
&c.,"  the  plan  of  which  was  suggested  by  Mr. 
Matthew  Pool.  Another,  who  had  been  a  com- 
moner in  Edmund's  Hall,  and  then  pursued  his 
studies  under  Mr.  Henry's  roof,  was  his  kins- 
man, Mr.  Robert  Bozier,  a  young  man  of  preg- 
nant parts,  great  application,  and  exemplary  pi 
ety,  who  died  of  a  fever,  in  the  twenty-third 
year  of  his  age,  September  13,  1680,  at  Mr.  Doo- 
litile's,  Islington,  into  whose  seminary  he  had 
entered  himself  a  few  weeks  before  with  Mr. 
Matthew  Henry.  Mr.  Samuel  Lawrence,  of 
Nantwich,  who  spent  some  time  in  Mr.  Mor- 
ton's academy  at  Newington  Green  ;  Mr.  John 
Wilson,  of  Warwick,  pupil,  also,  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Rowe  ;  and  Dr.  Benion,  of  Shrewsbury,  who 
studied  likewise  at  Glasgow,  placed  themselves 
under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Henry.  The  great 
thing  which  he  used  to  press  upon  those  who 
were  candidates  for  the  ministry  was,  to  study 
the  Scriptures  and  make  them  familiar.  Bonus 
textiiarius  est  bonus  theologus  was  his  favourite 
maxim.  He  would  say  to  them,  "You  come 
to  me  as  Naaman  did  to  Elisha,  expecting  that 
I  should  do  this  or  that  for  you,  and,  alas  !  1  can 
•but  say  as  he  did.  Go,  wash  in  Jordan  ;  go  study 
the  Scriptures.  I  profess  to  teach  no  other 
learning  but  Scripture  learning."  With  this 
view,  it  was  his  custom  to  recommend  to  them 
the  study  of  the  Hebrew,  and  the  use  of  an  in- 
terleaved Bible,  into  which  to  transcribe  the 
expositions  and  observations  which  might  oc- 
cur in  reading,  and  which  often  surpass  those 
that  are  to  be  met  with  in  professed  commen- 
tators.* 

Dr.  Theophihis  Gale,  the  learned  author  of 
"TheCourt  of  the  Gentiles"  (who  died  in  1678, 
and  expressed  his  liberal  y.eal  for  the  encour- 
agement of  learning  by  leaving  all  his  real  and 
personal  estate  for  the  education  of  poor  schol- 
ars, and  by  the  bequest  of  the  philosophical 
part  of  his  well-chosen  library  to  students  at 
liome,  and  all  the  rest  of  it  to  Harvard  College, 
New-England),  opened  an  academy  about  the 
year  1666,  at  Newington  Green,  for  the  direc- 
tion of  which  he  was  eminently  qualified  by  his 

*  Theological  and  Biblical  Magazine,  vol.  vii.,  p. 
347.     Philip  Henry's  Lile,  p.  128,  1699. 
,  Vol.  11 — T  t  t 


deep  and  universal  learning.  Mr.  John  Ash- 
wood,  a  pious  and  ex(!ellent  man,  whose  life 
WHS  written  by  Mr.  Thomas  Reynolds,  and  Mr. 
Thomas  Rowe,  and  Mr.  Benoni  Rowe,  to  whose 
names  celebrity  is  attached,  studied  under  him. 

Dr.  Henry  L'lngley,  a  judicious  and  solid  di- 
vine, fellow  of  Pembroke  College,  Oxford,  after- 
ward appointed  master  by  ordinance  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  1647,  and  in  the  next  year  made  canon 
of  Christ  Church,  when,  at  the  Restoration,  he 
was  deprived  of  hoih  these  preferments  by  the 
visiters,  retired  to  Tubney,  near  Abingdon,  and 
instructed  young  men  in  academical  learning. 
He  died  September  10,  1779.  Mr.  James  Wa- 
ters, of  Uxbridge,  whose  daughter  married  Mr. 
Mason,  the  author  of  the  treatise  on  "  Self- 
Knowledge,"  commenced  his  studies  under  Dr. 
Langley.* 

Mr.  John  Maiden,  ejected  from  Newport,  in 
Shropshire,  a  man  of  great  learning,  an  excel- 
lent Hebrecian,  and  a  solid  preacher,  as  well  as 
exemplary  for  piety  and  deep  humility,  atter- 
ward  kept  a  private  academy  near  Whitchurch, 
in  the  same  county,  and  had  under  his  care 
many  young  men  of  great  promise,  among  others 
Mr.  Samuel  Lawrence,  after  he  left  Mr.  Henry, 
at  the  time  of  his  death,  on  May  23,  1681,  at. 
60.t 

Dr.  Obadiah  Grew,  ejected  from  St.  Michael's, 
Coventry,  after  the  grant  of  public  liberty,  add- 
ed to  his  ministerial  labours  the  tuition  of  some 
young  men  for  ihe  ministry  ;  an  employment 
for  which  he  was  as  eminently  qualified  by  solid 
learning,  sedateness  of  temper,  and  courteous 
manners,  as  by  regular  piety  and  great  candour. 
His  death  terminated  his  useful  exertions  Oc- 
tober 22,  1689.  Mr.  Samuel  Pomfret,  a  pious 
and  popular  preacher  in  London,  who  formed  a 
church  of  his  own  gathering  about  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  which  consisted 
of  more  than  800  communicants,  some  years 
before  his  death,  on  the  11th  January,  1721-22, 
commenced  his  academical  studies  under  Dr. 
Grew. 

Mr.  Thomas  Shewell,  M.A.,  a  native  of  Cov- 
entry, educated  in  theUniversity  of  Cambridge, 
and  ejected  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  from  the 
vicarage  of  Lenham,  in  Kent,  succeeded  Dr. 
Grew  in  his  two  characters  of  pastor  and  tutor, 
and  conducted  his  academy  till  his  death,  Jan- 
uary 19,  1693.; 

Dr.  Joshua  Oldfield,  who  had  been  a  student 
in  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  on  settling  at 
Coventry  as  successor  to  Mr.  Shewell,  follow- 
ed the  steps  of  his  predecessors  in  teaching 
academical  learning,  and  pursued  this  literary 
employment  here  for  a  considerable  time  with 
great  reputation,  till  his  removal  to  London  in 
1700,  where  he  resumed  it  in  conjunction  with 
other  learned  divines,  though  during  his  resi- 
dence at  Coventry  he  met  with  much  opposi- 
tion from  the  spiritual  courts.  He  was  assist- 
ed in  his  labours  as  a  tutor  by  his  co-pastor 
Mr.  Tong  () 

Mr.  Henry  Newcome,  of  Manchester,  who 
had  been  forced  to  remove  to  Ellenbrook  by  the 
Oxford  Act,  when  he  had  liberty  to  license  a 
place  of  worship  in  1672.  united  with  the  char- 
acter of  the  pastor  that  of  the  teacher  of  aca- 


*  Theological  and  Biblical  Magazine,  ut  ante,  p. 
349.  +  Ibid.,  p.  311. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  312.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  312,313. 


514 


APPENDIX. 


demica!  literature,  for  which  he  was  well  qual 
ified  by  his  great  proficiency  in  philosophy  and 
theology,  and  by  his  ease  and  freedom  in  com- 
municaling  from  his  stores  of  acquired  knowl- 
edge. Af^er  his  death  in  1695,  Mr.  John  Chorl- 
ton,  a  native  of  Salfoid,  near  Manchester,  a 
student  under  Mr.  Frankland,  and  first  assist- 
ant and  then  successor  to  Mr.  Newcome  in  his 
pastoral  office,  also  engaged  in  the  liberal  em- 
ployment of  educating  candidates  for  the  min- 
istry.* 

Mr.  James  Coningham,  M.A.,  educated  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  taught  academical 
learning  first  at  Penrith  in  Cumberland,  where 
he  began  his  ministry,  and  on  removing  to 
Manchester  in  1700,  to  be  co-pastor  with  Mr. 
Chorllon,  united  with  him  in  his  literary  labours 
of  tuition.  He  had  to  contend  with  persons 
inimical  to  the  Dissenters  after  Mr.  Chorlton's 
death  in  1705,  and  was  prosecuted  by  govern- 
ment for  keeping  an  academy.  This  seminary 
appears  to  have  been  broken  up  on  Mr.  Coning- 
ham's  removal  to  London  to  succeed  Mr.  Stret- 
ton,  in  1712. t 

Mr.  Ralph  Button,  B.D.,  canon  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  and  orator  of  the  University, 
who  lost  both  his  preferments  at  the  Restora- 
tion, though  he  had  celebrated  that  event  in  a 
Hebrew  and  Latin  poem,  should  be  mentioned 
as  one  of  those  who  devoted  their  time  and 
talents,  when  laid  aside  from  their  labours  as 
ministers,  to  the  laudable  employment  of  train- 
ing up  youth  in  science  and  literature.  After 
he  was  expelled  from  his  posts  in  the  univer- 
sity, he  removed  with  his  family  to  Brentford, 
where  he  was  induced  by  tlie  persuasions  of 
two  gentlemen,  who  were  knights,  privately  to 
instruct  their  sons,  for  whicii  he  was  cast 
into  jail  and  suffered  an  imprisonment  of  six 
months.  On  the  indulgence  he  removed  to  Is- 
lington, and  opened  a  private  academy.  Mr. 
Baxter  adds,  to  an  encomium  on  his  moral  and 
religious  character,  that  he  was  an  excellent 
scholar.  In  the  early  part  of  his  life  be  hdd 
been  an  eminent  tutor  in  Exeter  College,  to  a 
vacant  fellowship  in  which  he  had  been  previ- 
ously chosen  by  the  recommendation  of  Dr.  Pri- 
deaux,  its  rector,  in  1633.  In  1642  he  removed  to 
London,  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  wars, 
and  had  been  elected  professor  of  geometry  in 
Gresham  College.  These  situations  had  pre- 
pared him  for  private  tuition,  and  were  proofs 
of  his  literary  qualifications.  He  died  in  1680. 
Among  his  pupils  were  Mr.  Samuel  Pomfret, 
who  finished  his  studies  iinder  him;  Mr.  King, 
of  Wellingborough  ;  and  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll,  the 
son  of  a  clergyman,  afterward,  as  Mr.  Whiston 
delineates  his  character  with  force  and  con- 
ciseness, "  the  most  excellent  and  upright  Mas- 
ter of  the  Rolls."  He  was  distinguished  by  his 
disinterested  and  steady  attachment  to  the 
cause  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  by  the 
patronage  he  afforded  to  sacred  literature  and 
its  friends.  Instances  of  this  were  a  pension 
of  £50  per  annum  to  Mr.  Whiston,  and  an 
annual  salary  to  Mr.  Chubb,  whom,  before  he 
fell  into  a  skeptical  state  of  mind,  Mr.  Whiston 
had  introduced  to  him.  To  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll 
were  dedicated,  by  their  respective  authors. 
Bishop  Butler's  Sermons,  preached  in  the  Rolls 


*  Theological  and  Biblical  Magazine,  ul  ante,  p. 
348,349.  t  ibid.,  p.  348,349. 


Chapel,  and  Mr.  Lowman's  "  Paraphrase  and 
Notes  on  the  Revelation." 

Mr.  William  Wickens,  stated  by  Calimy  to 
have  been  ejected  from  St.  Andrew  Hubbard, 
Little  East-cheap,  London,  though  at  the  Res- 
toration it  should  seem  he  was  not  in  posses- 
sion of  that  living,  but  preacher  at  the  Pmiliry 
Compter,  is  in  the  list  of  those  who  presiduJ 
over  private  academies  at  Newington  Green, 
where  he  preached  to  a  small  congregaliim  till 
within  two  years  of  his  death,  September  22. 
1699,  set.  85.      It  may  he  concluded   that  he 
was  eminently  qualified    to   assist  theological 
studies,  from  his  familiar  acquaintance  with  tiie 
Old  and  New  Testaments  in  the  original  lan- 
guages, so  that  in  his  closet  he  seldom  had  re- 
course to  any  translation.    His  favourite  study, 
next  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  was  Oriental  learn- 
ing, especially  the  Jewish  laws  and  customs,  in 
the  knowledge  of  which  be   had  few  equals.* 
Mr.  Stephen  Lohb,  son  of  Richard  Lobb,  Esq., 
high-sheriff  of  Cornwall,  and  member  of  Par- 
liament for  St.  Michael,  in  that  county,  in  1659 
(who  was  the  pastor  of  an  Independent  congre- 
tion  in  Fetter,  London,  and  made  a  conspicu- 
ous figure  among  the  Dissenters  during  the 
reign  of  James  II.,  and  had  a  great  share  in  the 
controversy  with  Dr.  Williams),  is  not  to  be 
forgotten  in  the  enumeration  of  those  who  di- 
rected the  studies  of  candidates  for  the  minis- 
try.    He  is  said  to  have  enjoyed  every  advan- 
tage of  not  only  a  pious,  but  liberal  education, 
first  commenced  in  a  dissenting  academy,  and 
then  completed  in  Holland  ;  to  have  possessed 
a  discerning,  penetrating  spirit,  a  firm  and  sound 
judgment,  and  great  strength  of  mind ;  and  to 
have  united  with  these  natural  abilities  a  closa 
application  to  study,  and  was  a  great  master  of 
the  art  of  reasoning.    These  qualifications  will 
justify  us  in  forming  a  high  estimate  of  his  fit- 
ness lor  the  provim^e  of  a  tutor.     He  died  in 
the  vigour  of  life,  June  3,  1699.     Mr.  Francis 
Glascock  (a  gentleman,  it  is  apprehended,  of 
Scotch  extraction,  and  educated  in  one  of  the 
universities  of  North  Britain)  ought  to  be  men- 
tioned  in   connexion  with  the  two  preceding 
names.      He    was    predecessor   to    Dr.   Jabez 
Earle  as  pastor  of  a  congregation  which  as- 
sembled, first  in  Drury-lane,  and  then  in  Han- 
over-street, Longacre.      He  died  in  1706,  and 
a  few  months  before  his  death  had  been  chosen, 
though  a  Presbyterian,  a  Tuesday's  lecturer  at 
Pinner's  Hall,  where  he  delivered,  as  well  as 
in  his  own  pulpit,  many  elaborate  discourses, 
which  discovered  not  less  ability  than  they  ex- 
pressed zeal  in  defence  of  what  he  judged  to  be 
the  great  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  more  espe- 
cially the  deity  of  Jesus  Christ.     On  the  occa- 
sion of  the  excellent  Mr  Morton's  being  indu- 
ced, by  the  rigour  of  the  times,  to  seek  a  sphere 
of  usefulness  and  a  peaceable  asylum  in  Amer- 
ica, Mr.  Glascock,  Mr.  Lobb,  and  Mr.  Wickens 
undertook  to  give  private  lectures  to  the  stu- 
dents deprived  of  his  assistance  by  his  emigra- 
tion, and  disposed  to  form  themselves  into  a 
class,  and  to  others  who,  through  the  severity 
of  the  times,   were  deprived  of  more  public 
means  of  improvement.     Among  these,  while 
others  of  Mr.  Morton's  pupils  went  to  Geneva, 
was  Mr.  John  Beaumont,  a  native  of  London, 


374. 


Theological  and  Biblical  Magazine,  v,t  ante,  p. 


APPENDIX. 


515 


who  received  his  classical  education  in  St. 
Paul's  School  under  the  learned  Dr.  Thomas 
Gale,  with  whom  his  great  love  of  learning 
made  him  a  favourite.  Mr.  Beaumont,  when 
he  entered  on  the  office  of  the  minister,  besides 
preaching  with  great  acceptance  at  Fareham, 
in  Hampshire,  and  other  places,  was  successful 
in  raising  and  forming  three  congregations,  one 
at  Swallowheld  in  Berkshire,  a  second  at  Peck- 
ham,  and  a  third  at  Battersea  in  Surrey,  and 
assisted  in  gathering  another  at  Cherlsea  in 
the  same  county,  and  was  afterward  thirty-two 
years  pastor  of  a  congregation  at  Deptford  in 
Kent,  where  he  died  in  1730.  Dr.  Gale,  when 
he  was  fit  for  the  university,  urged  him,  and 
lilgld  out  offers  to  induce  him,  to  enter  in  one  of 
the  colleges  at  Camhridge,  which  he  declined 
from  conscientious  scruples  on  conformity.  He 
was  ordained,  after  the  Presbyterian  model, 
July  1,  1689,  with  Mr.  Hughes,  of  Canterbury, 
by  Dr.  Annesley,  Mr.  John  Reynolds,  Mr.  Rob- 
ert Franklin,  and  Mr.  John  Quick.  His  first 
settlement  as  a  pastor  was  at  Battersea,  where 
he  spent  five  years.  His  character  as  a  Chris- 
tian was  distinguished  by  a  holy,  blameless,  and 
inoffensive  conversation,  and  by  great  patience 
and  resignation  under  uncommon  afflictions, 
and,  as  a  divine,  by  his  zeal  in  asserting  the 
doctrines  that  are  called  orthodox.* 

Mr.  Benjamin  Robinson,  who  succeeded  Mr. 
Woodhouse  in  the  pastoral  connexion  in  Little 
St.  Helen's,  and  was  for  twenty  years  a  minis- 
ter of  eminence  in  London,  dying  April  30,  1724, 
in  the  early  days  of  his  ministry  was  engaged 
in  the  education  of  youth.  The  foundation  of 
his  qualifications  for  this  province  was  laid  by 
a  considerable  progress  in  the  Latin,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew  languages,  under  Mr.  Ogden,  a  po- 
lite scholar,  and  master  of  a  school  in  Derby, 
of  which  town  Mr.  Robinson  was  a  native,  from 
whose  care  he  was  removed  to  pursue  academ- 
ical studies  under  Mr.  Woodhouse.  At  Fin- 
dern,  near  Derby,  where  he  was  solemnly  or- 
dained to  the  work  of  the  ministry  in  October, 
1688,  he  first  opened  a  grammar-school  in  1693. 
In  this  situation  he  was  highly  esteemed  by 
many  worthy  clergymen  and  others  on  account 
of  his  learning  and  good  sense,  his  unaffected 
piety,  and  obliging  deportment,  and  had  offers 
of  preferment  in  the  national  Church  ;  yet  these 
circumstances,  so  honourable  to  his  character 
and  so  propitious  to  his  pursuits,  did  not  screen 
hin;  f'-om  a  citation  into  the  Bishop  of  Litchfield 
and  Coventry's  court.  But  his  acquaintance 
with  and  personal  application  to  Dr.  Lloyd,  the 
bishop,  and  who  afterward  kept  up  an  episto- 
lary correspondence  with  him,  soon  relieved 
him  from  the  trouble  of  this  litigious  process. 
Within  a  few  years  he  removed  to  Hungerford 
in  Berkshire,  where,  at  the  earnest  request  of 
his  brethren  in  those  parts,  he  opened  an  acad- 
emy. This  measure  awakened  enmity  against 
him,  and  a  complaint  was  lodged  against  him 
with  the  eminent  prelate  Bishop  Burnet,  who 
sent  for  him  as  he  passed  through  Hungerford 
on  the  progress  of  a  visitation,  to  whom  he 
gave  such  satisfaction,  both  as  to  his  under- 
taking and  his  nonconformity,  as   paved  the 


*  Theological  and  Biblical  Magazine,  ut  ante,  p. 
374-376;  Wilson's  History  of  Dissenting  Churches, 
vol.  iii ,  p.  436,  437-445  ;  and  Dr.  A.  Taylor's  Funer- 
al Sermon  for  Mr.  Beaumont,  p.  43-46. 


way  for  a  kind  intimacy  ever  after.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  distinguished  by  a  regard  to 
the  strict  and  genuine  sense  of  Scripture  ac- 
cording to  the  best  rules  of  interpretation. 
Many  were  educated  under  him  for  the  minis- 
try, and  some  younger  ministers,  settled  in  his 
neighbourhood,  derived  great  benefit  from  the 
light  he  cast  on  subjects  in  private  conferences, 
and  at  quarterly  meetings  held  in  Newbury,  at 
which  it  was  customary  to  handle  on  some  the- 
ological subject,  in  which  mode  of  discussion 
Mr.  Robinson  excelled.  He  appears  to  have 
been  assisted  in  his  academical  department, 
for  a  year  or  two,  by  Mr.  Edward  Godwin,* 
who  had  studied  under  the  learned  Mr.  Samuel 
Jones,  at  Tewkesbury,  and  settled  as  a  minis- 
ter in  Hungerford,  and  became,  in  1722,  co- 
pastor  with  Mr.  Robinson  at  Little  St.  Helen's. 
To  Mr.  Godwin's  judgment  Dr.  Doddridge  was 
indebted  for  several  important  alterations  and 
improvements  in  the  manuscript  of  his  "  Fam- 
ily Expositor,"  and  by  his  friendly  and  assidu- 
ous services  that  excellent  work  was  carried 
through  the  press.  Mr.  Robinson's  seminary 
was  broken  up  by  his  removal  to  London. 

Another  gentleman  usefully  engaged  at  this 
period  in  plans  of  education  was  Mr.  Henry 
Hickman,  B  D.,  whom  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
deprived  of  a  fellowship  in  Magdalen  College, 
Oxford,  on   which   he  went  over  to   Holland. 
On  his  return,  he  fixed  his  residence  in  a  re- 
tired situation  near  Stourbridge,  in  Worcester- 
shire,  his  native  county.     Here  he  opened  a 
private  seminary  to  read  lectures  in  logjo  and 
philosophy.     He  had  the  character  of  being  a 
man  of  excellent  and  general  learning,  a  cele- 
brated preacher,  and  an  acute  disputant.     The 
titles  of  his  publications  afford  a  presumption 
of  his  talents  as  a  scholar  and  a  disputant.    He 
was,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  minister  of 
an    English   church   at   Leyden,   and    died   at 
Utrecht,  in  a  very  advanced  age,  in  1G9I  or  2. 
The  names  of  two  of  his  disciples  are  trans- 
mitted down  to  these  times.      One  was  Mr. 
John  Ball,  many  years  the  revered  minister  of 
a  congregation  at  Honiton,  in  Devon,  where  he 
died  May  6,  1745,  in  the  ninety-first  year  of 
his  age:  he  had  exercised  his  ministry  in  this 
town  above  half  a  century,  and  preached  but  a 
few  days  before  his  death  with  great  fluency 
and  vivacity.    He  was  the  son  of  a  learned  and 
excellent  minister,  Mr.  Nathaniel  Ball,  ejected 
from  Royston,  in  Herts.     He  spent  some  time 
under  Mr.  John  Short,  also  the  son  of  a  minis- 
ter, ejected  from  Lyme  Regis,  in  Dorsetshire, 
a  man  of  learning,  and  who  educated  young 
men  for  the  ministry  at  Lyme  &?.•}.  Gulliton. 
Mr.  Ball  likewise  studied  at  Utrecht,  with  a 
closeness  of  application  that  brought  on  a  se- 
vere illness  and  a  weakness  of  several  years. 
He  spoke  the  Latin  tongue  with  great  fluency, 
could  read  any  book  in  Greek  with  the  same 
ease  as  in  English,  and  generally  carried  the 
Hebrew  Psalter  into  the  pulpit  to  expound  from 
it.     He  could  repeat  the  Psalms  by  heart,  and 
seldom  passed  a  day  without  hearing  or  read- 
ing six  or  eight  chapters  in  the  Bible.     It  was 
his  usual  custom  to  pray  six  times  a  day ;  a 
learned  pers(m.  not  particularly  favourable' to 

*  Wilson's  History  of  Dissenting  Churches,  vol 
I.,  p.  382.     Dr.  Cuinming's  Funeral  Sermon  for  Mr 


Robinson,  p.  55,  5G,  57. 


51G 


APPENDIX. 


him,  owned  that  "he  prayed  like  an  apostle." 
His  great  affability  and  good  temper  endeared 
him  to  persons  of  all  parlies,  and  for  his  gen- 
eral knowledge  of  the  world  and  facetious 
conversation,  his  company  was  esteemed  and 
courted.  He  was  liberal  to  the  poor.  In  his 
pastoral  duties  he  was  peculiarly  diligent  and 
active  in  catechising,  and  had  at  one  time  above 
two  hundred  catechumens.  A  person,  remark- 
able for  his  bias  to  Ueism,  said  of  him,  "  that 
man  is  what  a  minister  should  be."  Mr.  Ball's 
name  will  occur  in  a  subsequent  period  of  this 
history.  In  the  persecuting  times  of  Charles 
II.  and  James  11.,  Mr.  Ball  was  connived  at  in 
the  education  of  a  select  number  of  gentlemen's 
sons,  whose  fathers  did  not  accord  with  him  in 
sentiments  ;  for  he  was  greatly  beloved  by  per- 
sons of  rank  and  influence,  as  well  as  of  differ- 
ent parties,  in  the  neighbourhood.* 

Another  minister  who  studied  a  short  time 
under  Mr.  Hickman,  and  but  a  short  time,  on 
account  of  the  infirmities  of  his  declining  years, 
•was  Mr.  Thomas  Cotton,  M.A.,  born  at  or  near 
Workly,  in  Yorkshire.  His  father  was  a  con- 
siderable ironmaster  in  that  county,  and  noted 
for  his  great  hospitality  and  kindness  to  the 
ejected  ministers  ;  one  of  whom,  Mr.  Spawford, 
ejected  from  Sdkeslone,  he  received  into  his 
family  as  tutor  to  his  son  till  his  death.  Mr. 
Cotton  removed  from  Mr.  Hickman's  academy 
to  Mr.  Frankland's,  in  Westmoreland,  and  fin- 
ished his  academical  course  of  studies  at  Edin- 
burgh about  the  year  1677.  After  this  he  was 
engaged  to  he  chaplain  to  Lady  Sarah  Hough- 
ton, daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  for 
about  a  year,  when  a  severe  illness  obliged  him 
to  leave  that  situation.  When  he  had  recov- 
ered his  health,  he  preached  in  his  father's 
house  till  persecution  obliged  him  to  desist. 
By  the  advice  of  his  friends,  on  this  account, 
he  accepted  an  invitation  to  go  abroad  as  gov- 
ernor to  a  young  gentleman,  with  whom  he 
spent  three  years  in  travelling  through  several 
.■parts  of  Europe.  When  they  were  at  Paris, 
where  during  their  stay  they  attended  public 
worship  in  the  English  ambassador's  chapel, 
and  were  greatly  pleased  with  the  useful  and 
serious  preaching  of  Dr.,  afterward  archbishop. 
Wake,  they  received  continual  melancholy  ac- 
counts of  the  deplorable  state  of  the  Protestants 
in  tlie  southern  parts  of  France,  and  they  were 
afterward  witnesses  to  many  very  afflicting  in- 
stances of  persecution.  Assemblies  of  several 
thousands  were  broken  up  with  floods  of  tears  ; 
the  nearest  relations  were  rent  from  one  an- 
oilier ;  numberless  families  were  utterly  and 
barbarously  destroyed  ;  ministers  were  silen- 
^''''-  '.Vanished,  or  stnpped  of  all  they  had  ;  some 
were  made  slaves,  and  some  put  to  the  most 
cruel  deaths.  The  reports  of  the  persecution 
all  over  France,  which  on  leaving  Paris  they 
received  at  Lyons,  were  so  distressing  and 
lauipntable  that  they  resolved  to  turn  their 
course  to  a  Protestant  country,  and  they  were 
qiiickenec  in  the  execution  of  their  purpose  by 
ihn  bitter  reflections  against  the  Protestants 
and  the  new  insults  and  threatenings  produced 
by  llie  intelligence  which  reached  Lyons  at  that 
time  of  Monmouth's  rout  in  England.     They 


*  Waldron's  Funeral  Sermon  for  Mr.  Ball,  p.  22, 
2.1 ;  and  Palmer's  Nonconformist's  Memorial,  vol.  n, 
p.  191. 


went  next  to  Geneva,  where  their  sympathy  was 
exercised  and  their  minds  were  afflicted  by  fre- 
quent reports  of  the  sufl^erings  of  the  Vaudois, 
and  the  barbarities  practised  on  them.  Mr. 
Cotton,  on  his  return  to  England,  continued  in 
the  capacity  of  a  tutor  for  some  months,  as  his 
health  was  much  impaired.  His  income  in  that 
connexion  was  very  considerable.  His  pros- 
pects, if  he  had  inclined  to  any  civil  employ- 
ment, were  flattering,  and,  as  he  was  deter- 
mined for  the  ministry,  he  had  the  offer  of  a 
good  living  with  the  recommendation  of  the 
Ibnner  incumbent,  as  well  as  the  friendship  of 
the  patron,  and  the  overture  of  maintaining  a 
reader  to  perform  such  offices  as  he  should  ap- 
point. But  he  chose  to  take  his  lot  with  the 
Protestant  Dissenters.  He  was  first  the  pastor 
of  a  small  congregation  in  Hoxton,  with  whom 
he  remained,  under  very  little  encouragement, 
for  five  or  six  years.  He  then  spent  two  or 
three  years  at  Ware  in  Hertfordshire.  He  re- 
moved thence  to  settle  with  a  congregation  at 
St.  Giles's  in  the  Fields,  near  Great  Russel- 
street,  Bloomsbury.  He  was  very  useful  and 
laborious,  and  when  his  health  permitted,  be- 
sides preaching,  he  expounded  in  the  forenoon 
and  catechised  in  the  afternoon.  He  also  sup- 
plied as  chaplain  to  the  two  ladies  Russell,  the 
widows  of  Lord  Robert  and  Lord  James,  which 
engaged  much  time  and  attendance.  He  was 
a  man  of  good,  useful  learning,  without  show  ; 
of  great  piety  and  seriousness,  without  auster- 
ity and  moroseness  ;  and  of  great  regularity  in 
his  whole  behaviour,  without  being  troublesome 
to  any  body.  His  deportment  showed  the  Chris- 
tian, the  minister,  and  the  gentleman.  He  was 
a  solid  preacher,  and  had  a  very  happy  talent 
of  suiting  his  discourses  to  particular  persons 
and  occasions.  "  From  him  I  learned,"  said 
his  nephew,  Dr.  Wright,  "  in  a  manner  that  I 
have  reason  to  be  thankful  for,  that  application 
is  the  very  Ufe  of  preaching."  The  scenes  of 
dragooning  and  persecution  of  which  he  had 
been  a  witness  made  him  an  enemy  to  sub- 
scriptions to  human  articles  of  faith,  and  gave 
him  a  lively  conviction  of  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  the  great  Protestant  principle — the 
right  of  private  judgment.  Mr.  Cotton  died  in 
1730.* 


*  In  the  "  Memoirs"  of  his  travels,  written  for  his 
own  use,  he  related  many  affecting  scenes  of  this 
kind  of  which  he  was  a  spectator,  at  Ludun,  Poic- 
tou,  and  Saumure.  At  Poictou,  in  particular,  he 
was  exceedingly  moved  with  the  vast  numbers  at 
their  last  public  worship,  and  the  great  difficulty 
with  which  the  minister  pronounced  the  blessing, 
when  all  broke  out  into  a  flood  of  tears.  The  last 
religious  assembly  on  a  lecture-day  at  Saumure,  Mr. 
Cotton  could  never  recollect  without  lively  emo- 
tions ;  the  congregation  all  in  tears,  the  singing  of 
the  last  psalm,  the  pronouncing  of  the  blessing,  and 
afterward  all  the  people  passing  before  their  minis- 
ters to  receive  their  henediciions,  were  circumstan- 
ces he  wanted  words  to  describe.  The  ministers 
and  professors  were  banished,  and  he  attended  iheiu 
to  the  vessel  in  which  they  sailed.  The  alTectnig 
sight  of  the  vast  assemblage  which  formed  the  dm  rch 
at  Charenton,  and  of  such  numbers  devoted  to  ban- 
ishment, slavery,  and  the  most  barbarous  deaths, 
was  a  spectacle  that  overpowered  the  mind.  The 
stay  at  Saumure  had  been  very  pleasant,  and  tho 
agreeable  acquaintance  they  had  formed  in  that  town 
invited  their  continuance  in  it,  till  it  became  a  scene 
of  great  danger  and  affliction  ;  especially  after  an  or 


A  PPENDIX. 


517 


These  historical  gleanings  concerning  the 
academical  institutions  of  the  first  Noncon- 
foriiiists,  few  and  imperfect  as  they  may  be 
deemed,  are  sufficient  to  expose  the  iniquity 
and  folly  of  the  times.  The  necessity  of  such 
institutions  arose  from  the  spirit  of  intolerance 
which  had  excluded  from  the  Church  and  from 
the  universities  so  many  men  of  learning  and 
talents.  The  vexatious  and  continued  perse- 
cutions which  pursued  them  into  the  retire- 
ments of  science  and  literature,  showed  a  viru- 
lence and  malignity  of  temper.  It  was  great 
injustice  to  debar  men  from  the  honourable  and 
pacific  employment  of  their  acquirements,  ge- 
nius, and  intellect ;  an  employment  highly  use- 
ful to  the  community,  and  in  many  instances 
necessary  to  the  support  of  themselves  and  their 
lamilies,  as  well  as  affording  a  solace  when  si- 

der  was  issued  to  require  all  strangers,  particularly 
the  English,  to  accompany  and  assist  the  severe  pro- 
ceedings against  the  Protestants.  When  the  gov- 
ernor received  authoritative  directions  to  see  their 
church  demolished,  the  tearing  down  of  that  temple 
was  extremely  distressing ;  the  very  graves  were  open- 
ed, and  the  utmost  ravages  committed.  The  destruc- 
tion of  it  was  attended  with  a  remarkable  occurrence, 
which  Mr.  Cotton  recorded  as  an  instance  of  the 
contradictory  interpretations  which  the  same  act  of 
Providence  may  receive,  according  to  the  different 
principles  of  those  who  pass  their  opinion  on  it.  A 
person  who  was  ambitious  to  have  his  daughter  pull 
down  the  first  stone  of  the  church,  had  her  taken 
from  him  a  few  days  after  by  death.  The  parent, 
and  others  of  his  persuasion,  looked  upon  her  death 
as  a  speedy  call  to  heaven,  in  reward  of  so  merito- 
rious an  act ;  the  persecuted  Protestants  regarded 
it  as  a  just  and  very  affecting  judgment.  On  his 
journey  from  Poictou.  Mr.  Cotton  was  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  agitations  of  mind  and  the  expres- 
sions of  an  old  gentleman  who  came  into  an  inn 
nearly  at  the  same  instant  with  him,  who  stood  lean- 
ing on  his  staff,  and  shaking  his  head  and  weeping, 
cried  out,  "  Unhappy  France !  If  1  and  mine  were 
but  now  entering  into  some  country  of  refuge  and 
safety,  where  we  might  have  liberty  to  worship  God 
according  to  our  consciences,  I  should  think  myself 
the  happiest  man  in  the  world,  though  I  had  only 
this  staff  \n  my  hand."  This  person  was  found  to  be 
the  eldest  son  of  a  very  considerable  family,  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  large  estate. — Dr.  Wright's  Sermon  on  the 
Death  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Cotton,  p.  34-36,  notes. 


lenced  as  ministers.  It  heightened  this  injus- 
tice, done  not  to  them  only,  but  to  the  whole 
body  of  Dissenters,  that  the  law  made  the  uni- 
versities the  property  of  one  persuasion,  and 
rendered  private  academies  necessary  for  the 
youth  who  were  excluded  by  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity from  being  candidates  for  the  degrees 
and  preferments  of  those  seminaries,  and  from 
the  advantages  of  being  students  in  them,  but 
on  the  condition  of  conformity.  This  conduct 
was,  in  reality,  repugnant  to  the  spirit  and  de- 
sign of  the  Act  of  Toleration.  The  Dissenters 
were  allowed  by  that  act  the  just  liberty  of  wor- 
shipping God  according  to  their  own  conscien- 
ces, and,  in  the  first  instance,  the  benefit  of  a 
ministry  of  their  own  choosing ;  but  these  sever- 
ities, by  which  the  education  of  their  youth  was 
obstructed,  if  not  absolutely  prevented,  went  to 
preclude  them  from  the  enjoyment  of  a  succes- 
sion of  ministers  of  learning  and  ability.  With 
great  inconsistency,  the  end  was  granted,  but 
the  means  of  attaining  the  end  were  denied  to 
them. 

As  in  all  cases,  so  in  this,  the  measures  dic- 
tated by  a  spirit  of  persecution  were  not  only 
unjust,  but  impolitic.  The  evil  and  mischief 
was  not  confined  to  the  Dissenters,  it  affected 
the  interests  of  the  nation,  on  which  it  had  an 
unfavourable  aspect  by  obliging  the  more  opu- 
lent, at  a  great  expense,  and  at  the  risk  of  im- 
bibing sentiments  not  congenial  to  the  English 
manners  and  Constitution,  to  send  iheir  youth 
abroad  for  education.  It  affected  the  interests 
of  literature.  Where  a  competition  of  religious 
parties  exists,  there  is  a  rivalship  in  the  means 
of  giving  support  to  and  reflecting  honour  on 
each.  "  While  the  Protestant  religion  was  pub- 
licly professed  in  France,  learning  flourished 
there.  After  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of 
Nantes,  literature  declined.  The  priests  having 
none  to  expose  their  ignorance,  grew  lazy  and 
sensual.  Where  a  strict  uniformity  has  been 
required,  and  no  Dissenters  tolerated,  it  has 
been  observed  learning  is  at  a  low  ebb,  as  in 
Italy  and  Spain."* — C. 


*  Moderation  a  Virtue.   By  James  Owen.   Partii., 
p.  99. 


518 


APPENDIX. 


No  XXI. 

An  Historical  and  Critical  Account  of  Hugh  Pe- 
ters, after  the  manner  of  Mr.  Bnyic.     London  : 
Printed  ftir  J.  Noon,  Glieapside,  and  A.  Mil- 
lar, in  the  Strand.     1751. 
Hugh  Pkters,*  born  in   the  year  1599,  was 
the  son  of  considerable  parents,  ofFoy  in  Corn- 
wail.     His  father  was  a  inercliant  ;  his  mother 
of  the  ancient  family  of  the  Treffys.-f  of  Place, 
in  that  town.     He  was  sent  to  Cambridge  at 
fonrteen  years  of  age,  where,  being  placed  in 
Trinity  College,  he  took  the  degree  of  Bachelor 
of  Arts  in   IGIG,  and  of  Master  in  1622.     He 
was  licensed  by  Dr.  Mountain,  bishop  of  Lon- 
don, and  preached  at  Sepulchre's   with  great 
success. t     Meeting  with  some  trouble  on  the 
account  of  his  nonconformity,!^  he  went  to  Hol- 


*  Chiefly  extracted  from  "  A  Dying  Father's  last 
Legacy  to  an  only  Child  ;  or,  Mr.  Hugh  Peters's  Ad- 
vice to  his  Daughter,"  London,  1G60,  12mo. 

t  Thus  theiianie  is  spelled  in  Peters's  Last  Legacy ; 
but  the  same  family  was  lately,  if  it  is  not  now  in 
being,  in  the  same  house,  whose  name  is  always,  1 
think,  spelled  Treffry,  However,  from  hence  it  is 
very  apparent  that  Peters's  parentage  by  the  mother 
was  very  considerable  ;  for  the  antiquity  of  the  fam- 
ily is  known  to  most,  nor  does  it  yield  in  gentility  to 
any  of  the  Cornish  ;  which  is  no  mean  character  in 
the  eves  of  those  who  value  themselves  on  birth  and 
descent. 

%  His  account  of  his  coming  to  Sepulchre's,  and 
the  success  that  he  met  with,  will  let  us  see  some- 
thing of  the  man.*  "To  Sepulchre's  I  was  brought 
by  a  very  strange  providence;  for  preaching  before 
at  another  place,  and  a  young  man  receiving  some 
good,  would  not  be  satisfied  but  I  must  preach  at 
Sepulchre's  once  monthly  for  the  good  of  his  friends. 
In  which  he  got  his  end  (if  I  might  not  show  vanity), 
and  he  allowed  thirty  pounds  per  annum  to  that  lec- 
ture; but  his  person  unknown  to  me.  He  was  a 
chandler,  and  died  a  good  man,  and  member  of  Par- 
liament. At  this  lecture  the  resort  grew  so  great, 
that  It  contracted  envy  and  anger;  though  I  believe 
above  a  hundred  every  week  were  persuaded  from 
sin  to  Chnsi :  there  were  six  or  seven  thousand  hear- 
ers, and  the  circumstances  fit  for  such  good  work." 
Great  success  this  !  and  what  few  preachers  are 
blessed  with.  But  some,  1  know,  would  attribute  this 
to  enthusiasm,  which  is  very  contagious,  and  produces 
surprising,  though  not  lasting  effects.  However  this 
be,  it  is  no  wonder  envy  and  anger  were  contracted 
by  it:  for  church  governors  are  wont  to  dislike  pop- 
ular preachers,  especially  when  they  set  themselves 
to  teach  in  a  manner  different  from  them.  I  will 
only  remark  farther,  that  Peters  was  as  great  a  con- 
verter as  our  modern  Methodists. 

(J  Never  was  there  anything  in  the  world  more  in- 
consistent with  Christianity  or  good  policy  than  per- 
secution for  conscience'  sake.  Yet  sucli  was  the 
madness  of  the  prelates  during  the  reigns  of  the  Stu- 
arts, as  to  harass  and  distress  men  most  cruelly, 
merely  on  account  of  nonconformity  to  ecclesiastical 
ceremonies.  Laud  was  an  arch-tyrant  this  way,  as 
is  known  to  all  acquainted  with  our  histories;  nor 
were  Wren  and  others  much  inferior  to  him.  The 
very  spirit  of  tyranny  actuated  their  breasts,  and 
made  them  feared  and  loathed  while  living,  caused 
them  to  be  abhorred  since  dead,  and  will  render  them 
iiilamous  throughout  all  generations.  I  can  add  no- 
thing to  what  Locke  and  Bayle  have  said  on  the 
reasonableness  and  equity  of  toleration;  to  them  1 
will  refer  those  who  have  any  doubts  about  it.  Only 
as  to  the  popular  objections  of  its  being  inconsistent 
with  the  20od  of  the  state,  and  the  wars  and  tumults 
occasioned  by  it,  I  will  beg  leave  to  observe,  that  it  is 
evirient  to  a  demonstration  that  those  communities 
are  more  Itappy  in  which  the  greatest  number  of  sects 

*  Peters's  Legacy,  p.  101. 


land,  where  he  was  five  or  six  years,*  from 
whence  he  removed  to  New-England,  and,  after 
residing  there  seven  years,  was  sent  into  Eng- 
land by  that  colony  to  mediate  for  ease  in  cus- 
toms and  excise.  The  civil  war  being  then  on 
foot,  he  went  into  Ireland,  and  upon  his  return 
was  entertained  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  Sir 
Thomas  Fairfax,  and  Oliver  Cromwell,  afier- 
ward  protector.!     He  was  much  valued  by  the 


abound.  Holland,  the  free  cities  of  Germany,  and 
England  since  the  Revolution,  prove  the  truth  of 
my  assertion.  And  1  will  venture,  without  pretend- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  to  affirm,  that  whenever 
the  sects  in  England  shall  cease  learning  and  liberty 
will  be  no  more  among  us.  So  that,  instead  of  sup- 
pressing, wc  ought  to  wish  their  increase  ;  for  they 
are  curbs  to  the  state  clergy,  excite  a  spirit  of  emu- 
lation, and  occasion  a  decency  antl  regularity  of  be- 
haviour among  them,  which  they  would  probably  be 
otherwise  strangers  to. 

And  for  civil  wars  about  religion  ;  they  are  so  far 
from  arising  from  toleration,  that,  for  the  most  part, 
they  are  the  effect  of  the  prince's  imprudence.  "  He 
must  needs,"  says  an  indisputable  judge,  "have  un- 
seasonably favoured  one  sect  at  the  expense  of  anoth- 
er ;  he  must  either  have  loo  much  promoted,  or  too 
much  discouraged  the  public  exercise  of  certain  forms 
of  worship  ;  he  must  have  added  weight  to  party 
quarrels,  which  are  only  transient  sparks  of  fire  when 
the  sovereign  does  not  interfere,  but  become  confla- 
grations when  he  foments  them.  To  maintain  the 
civil  government  with  vigour,  to  grant  every  man  a 
liberty  of  conscience,  to  act  always  like  a  king,  and 
never  put  on  the  priest,  is  the  sure  means  of  preserv- 
ing a  state  from  those  storms  and  hurricanes  which 
the  dogmatical  spirit  of  divines  is  continually  labour- 
ing to  conjure  up."*  Had  Charles  the  First  had  the 
wisdom  and  prudence  of  this  great  writer,  he  never 
had  plunged  his  kingdoms  into  the  miseries  of  a  civil 
war,  nor,  by  hearkening  to  his  chaplains,  refused 
terms  which  would  have  prevented  his  unhappy  ca- 
tastrophe 

*  It  seems  that  he  behaved  himself  so  well  during 
his  stay  in  Holland  as  to  procure  great  interest  and 
reputation  in  that  country ;  for  being  afterward  in 
Ireland,  and  seeing  the  great  distress  of  the  poor 
Protestants  that  had  been  plundered  by  the  Irish 
rebels,  he  went  into  Holland,  and  procured  about 
thirty  thousand  pounds  to  be  sent  from  thence  into 
Ireland  for  their  relief. — Ludlow's  Memoirs,  vol.  iii., 
p.  75. 

t  Mr.  Whitlock  shall  be  my  voucher  for  this.f 
Mr.  Peters,  says  he,  gave  a  large  relation  to  the  Com- 
mons of  all  the  business  of  Lyme,  where  he  was  with 
the  Earl  of  Warwick.  Again, J  Mr.  Peters,  who 
brought  up  letters  from  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax,  was 
called  into  the  House,  and  made  a  large  relation  of 
the  particular  passages  in  the  taking  of  Bridgewater. 
AndiJ  Mr.  Peters  was  called  into  the  House  and  gave 
them  a  particular  account  of  the  siege  of  Bristol ;  and 
he  pressed  the  desire  of  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  to  have 
recruits  sent  him.  Lettersjl  brought  by  Mr.  Peters 
from  Lieutenant-general  Cromwell,  concerning  the 
taking  Winchester  Castle  ;  after  which  he  was  called 
in  and  gave  a  particular  relation  of  it.  HelT  came 
from  the  army  to  the  House,  and  made  them  a  nar- 
ration of  the  storming  and  taking  of  Dartmouth,  and 
of  the  valour,  unity,  and  affection  of  the  army,  and 
presented  several  letters,  papers,  crucifixes,  and  other 
popish  things  taken  in  the  town.  It  is  plain,  from 
these  quotations,  that  Peters  must  have  been  in  fa- 
vour with  the  generals,  and  that  he  must  have  made 
some  considerable  figure  in  the  transactions  of  those 
tmies.  It  is  not  iinprohable  that  the  distinction  with 
which  he  was  treated  by  them  attached  hiin  so 
firmly  to  their  interest,  that  in  the  end  it  cost  him 
his  life. 


*  Anti-Miichiavel  Enff.,  Trav.,  p.  32.S,  e<lit.  1741. 

t  Wtiitlock's  Memorials,  p.  a2,  Lond.,  1732,  folio. 

t  ll>id.,  p.  16.3.  d   ll'id.,  p.  171 

II  Ibid.,  p.  l75.  1  Ibid.,  p.  189. 


APPENDIX. 


519 


Parliament,  and  improved  his  interest  with  them 
in  the  behalf  of  the  unfortunate.*  He  was  very 
zealous  and  active  in  their  cause,  and  had  pres- 
ents made  him,  and  an  estate  given  him  by 
them.t  He  assisted  Mr.  Chaloner  in  his  last 
moments,  as  he  afterward  did  Sir  John  Hotham.J 


*■  "At  his  trial  he  averred  he  had  a  certificate  under 
the  -Marchioness  of  Worcester's  hand,  beginning  with 
these  words :  1  do  here  testify,  that  in  all  the  suffer- 
ings of  my  husband,  Mr.  Peters  was  my  great  friend. 
And,  added  he,  1  have  here  a  seal  (and  then  produced 
it)  that  the  Earl  of  Norwich  gave  me  to  keep  for  his 
sake  for  saving  his  life,  which  1  will  keep  as  long  as 
I  live."''  .And  how  great  the  opinion  was  of  his  in- 
terests with  the  persons  in  power,  we  find  from  the 
following  words  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Secretary 
Nicholas,  March  8,  1648:  Mr.  Peters,  presenting 
yesterday  Hamilton's  petition  to  the  speaker,  made 
many  believe  he  at  last  would  escape.!  Indeed,  here 
he  was  unsuccessful ;  but  his  good-nature  and  readi- 
ness to  oblige  were  manifested,  and,  one  would  have 
thought,  should  have  merited  some  return  to  him 
when  in  distress 

t  We  find  in  Whitlock  that  he  had  £100  given 
him  when  he  brought  the  news  of  taking;  Bridgewater; 
£50  when  he  brought  letters  from  Cromwell  con- 
cerning the  taking  Winchester  Castle ;  that  there 
was  an  order  for  £100  a  year  for  him  and  his  heirs ; 
and  another  ordonnance  for  £200  a  year.J  To  all 
which  we  may  add  the  estate  the  Parliament  gave 
him,  mentioned  in  the  body  of  the  article  (if  it  was 
distinct  from  the  100  and  £200  per  annum  mentioned 
by  Whitlock),  which  was  part  of  the  Lord  Craven's; 
and  the  bishop's  books  (Laud's,  1  suppose),  valued, 
as  he  tells  us,  at  ,£140;  and  likewise  the  pay  of  a 
preacher  as  he  could  get  it.(^  These  were  handsome 
rewards,  and  show  the  Parliament  to  have  been  no 
bad  masters.  But,  notwithstanding,  "he  says  he 
lived  in  debt,  because  what  he  had  others  shared 
in. "II  From  hence  generosity  or  prodigality  of  tem- 
per may  be  inferred  ;  but  as  it  may  as  well  be  attrib- 
uted to  the  former  as  to  the  latter,  I  know  not  why 
we  should  not  consider  him  rather  as  laudable  than 
culpable.  Indeed,  the  clergy  have  been  branded  for 
their  covetousness;  though  certain  it  is,  there  have 
been  some  among  them  who  have  performed  as  many 
generous,  good-natured  actions,  as  any  of  their  lU- 
willers. 

X  Mr.  Chaloner  was  executed^  for  what  was  call- 
ed Waller's  Plot,  an  account  of  which  is  to  be  found 
in  the  historians  of  those  times.  Pie  owned  he  died 
justly,  and  deserved  his  punishment.  In  compliance 
with  Peters's  request,  he  explained  the  part  he  had 
in  it,  and  being  desired  by  him,  Peters  prayed  with 
him.**  The  business  of  Sir  John  Hotham  is  well 
known.  Peters  attended  him  on  the  scaffold, tf  and 
received  jjublic  thanks  on  it  from  him.  I  will  trans- 
cribe part  of  his  speech,  and  likewise  of  Peters's  by 
his  command,  that  the  reader  may  judge  something 
of  his  temper  and  behaviour.  "  I  hope,"  said  Sir 
John.  "God  Almighty  will  forgive  me,  the  Parliament 
and  the  court-martial,  and  all  men  that  have  had 
anything  to  do  with  my  death.  And,  gentlemen,  I 
thank  this  worthy  gentleman+J.  for  putting  me  in  mind 
of  it."  Then  Mr.  Peters  spoke  again  [he  had  before 
mentioned  the  desire  of  Sir  John  not  to  have  many 
questions  put  to  him,  he  having  fully  discovered  his 
mind  to  him  and  other  ministers,  but  that  he  misht 
have  Liberty  to  speak  only  what  he  thought  fit  con- 


*  Exact  rmd  Impartial  Account  of  the  Trial  of  the  Regi- 
cides. Loini..  4lo,  Kifin,  p.  17.3. 

t  OrmniKi's  Papers,  published  by  Carte,  vol.  i.,  p.  233, 
Loud.,  1739. 

t  See  ncile  t,  2d  col.  of  previous  page. 

I)  Peters's  Legacy,  p.  102,  104,  115. 

II  Ihid.,  p.  103  IT  .July  5,  IfilS. 

'*  Riishw.  Hist.  Collect.,  part  iii.,  vol.  li.,  p.  327,  398, 
•Lond..  1692,  fol.  tt  January  2.  Ifi44. 

Jt  He  was  hereunto  moved  by  Mr.  Peters,  says  Rush- 
worth. 


He  could  fight  as  well  as  pray,*  though  perhaps 
in  his  capacity  as  a  preacher  he  was  most  ser- 


cerning  himself],  "  and  told  the  audience  that  he  had 
something  farther  to  commend  unto  them  from  Sir 
John  Holham,  which  was,  that  he  had  lived  in  abun- 
dance of  plenty,  his  estate  large,  about  £2000  a  year 
at  first,  and  that  he  had  gained  much  to  it ;  that  in 
the  beginning  of  his  days  he  was  a  soldier  in  the  Low 
Countries,  and  was  at  the  battle  of  Prague  ;  that  at 
his  first  going  out  for  a  soldier,  his  father  spoke  lo 
hiin  to  this  effect :  Son!  when  the  crown  of  England 
lies  at  stake,  you  will  have  fighting  enough.  That 
he  had  run  through  great  hazards  and  undertakings; 
and  now  coming  to  this  end,  desired  they  would  take 
notice  in  him  of  the  vanity  of  all  things  here  below, 
as  wit,  parts,  prowess,  strength,  friends,  honour,  or 
what  else. 

"Then,  Mr.  Peters  naving  prayed,  and  after  him 
Sir  John,  they  sung  the  38th  Psalm  ;  and  Sir  John, 
kneeling  behind  the  block,  spent  above  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  in  private  prayer  ;  after  which,  lying  down, 
the  executioner  at  one  blow  did  his  office."* 

We  see  nothing  here  but  great  civility  in  Peters, 
and  the  due  discharge  of  his  office.  Here  is  nothing 
troublesome  or  impertinent,  but  as  one  would  wish 
to  have  it  in  like  circumstances.  Let  the  reader  com- 
pare the  following  account  of  Sir  John's  behaviour 
with  Rushworth's,  and  judge  of  the  truth  of  the  nar- 
ration, and  the  justness  of  the  epithet  bestowed  on 
Peters. 

"  The  poor  man  (Sir  John  Hotham)  appeared  so 
dispirited  that  he  spoke  but  few  words  after  he  came 
upon  the  scaff"old,  and  suffered  his  ungodly  confessor, 
Peters,  to  tell  the  people  that  he  had  revealed  himself 
to  him,  and  confessed  his  offences  against  the  Par- 
liament ;  and  so  he  committed  his  head  to  the  block. "  + 

Peters,  we  see,  said  nothing  like  his  having  con- 
fessed his  offences  against  the  Parliament.  This, 
therefore,  is  mere  invention,  like  too  many  other 
things  to  be  found  in  this  celebrated  history  ;  the 
charge  of  interpolations  and  additions  against  which 
I  am  sorry,  for  the  noble  writer's  sake,  to  finil  affirm- 
ed to  be  groundless,  by  so  worthy  a  man,  and  so  good 
a  judge,  as  Mr.  Birch. J  As  to  the  epithet  ungodly 
conferred  on  Peters,  the  considerate  reader  will  judge 
of  it  as  It  deserves. 

*  Let  us  hear  Whitlock.  "  Mr.  Peters,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  troubles  in  Ireland,  led  a  brigade  against 
the  rebels,  and  came  oft"  with  honour  and  victory. "ij 
So  that  we  see  he  knew  how  to  use  both  swords,  and 
could  slay  and  kill,  as  well  as  feed  the  sheep,  which, 
in  the  opinion  of  Baronius,  Christ  gave  Peter  author- 
ity to  exercise  equally  as  occasion  might  require. || 
But  to  be  serious.  This  leading  a  brigade  against 
the  Irish  rebels  ought  not  to  be  imputed  to  Peters  as 
a  crime,  it  being  equally  as  justifiable  as  Archbishop 
Williams's  arming  in  the  civil  wars  in  England,  or 
Dr.  Walker's  defending  Londonderry,  and  fighting  at 
the  battle  of  the  Boyn  (in  which  he  gloriously  lost 
his  life)  in  Ireland ;  more  especially  as  the  Irish, 
against  whom  Peters  fought,  were  a  bloodthirsty 
crew,  vvho  had  committed^  acts  of  wickedness  hard- 
ly lo  be  paralleled  even  in  the  annals  of  Rome  papal. 
Against  such  villains,  theretbre,  it  was  meritorious 
to  engage,  and  Peters  was  undeniably  praiseworthy  ; 
for  there  are  times  and  seasons  when  the  gown  must 
give  place  to  arms,  even  at  those  times  when  our 
laws,  liberties,  and  religion  are  endangered  by  am- 
bitious, bloody,  and  superstitious  men.  And  were 
the  clergy  in  all  countries  as  much  concerned  for 
these  blessings  as  ibev  ought,  they  would  deserve 
the  reverence  of  all  orders  of  men. 


*  Rushwnrlh.  p.  803,  804. 

t  Clarendnii's  Hisrorv  of  the  Grand  Rebellion,  vol.  ii.. 
part  ii.,  p.  fi22.  Oxford,  1707. 

t  Life  of  Hampden,  among  the  Lives  of  Ilhistrious  Mon, 
a.  78.  t>  Whitlock,  p.  426. 

II   nedel'.s  Life,  p.  6.  8vo,  London,  1685. 

IT  Sec  a  tireviate  of  some  of  flic  cruelties,  murders.  &-c., 
committed  by  the  Irish  papal  rel)els  upon  the  Protestants, 
October,  23,  1641,  in  Rushworth,  part  iii.,  vol.  i  ,  p.  405. 


520 


APPENDIX. 


viceahle  lo  the  cause*  He  was  thought  to  be 
deeply  concerned  in  the  king's  death,  and  his 
name  has  heen  treated  with  much  severity  by 
reason  ol  it.  t     He  was  appointed  one  of  the  tn- 


*  Whitloc.k  tells  us,*  that  when  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax moved  for  storming  Bridgwater  anew,  and  it  was 
assented  to,  the  Lord's  Day  before,  Mr.  Peters, in  his 
sermon,  encouraged  the  soldiers  to  the  work.  And 
at  Milford  Haven  the  country  did  unanimously  take 
the  Engagement,  and  Mr.  Peters  opened  the  matter 
to  them,  and  did  much  encourage  them  to  take  it.+ 
He  preached  also  in  the  market-place  at  Torrington, 
and  convinced  many  of  their  errors  in  adhering  to 
I  he  king's  party. t  A  man  of  this  temper,  it  is  easily 
seen,  must  be  of  great  service  to  any  parly,  and  seems 
to  deserve  the  rewards  he  received ;  for  in  factions 
it  is  the  bold  and  daring  man,  the  man  that  will  spare 
no  pains,  that  is  to  be  valued  and  encouraged,  and 
not  the  meek,  the  modest,  and  moderate  one.  A  man 
of  wisdom  would  not  have  taken  these  employments 
upon  him,  nor  would  a  minister,  one  should  think, 
who  was  animated  by  the  meek  and  merciful  spirit 
of  the  Gospel,  have  set  himself  from  the  pulpit  to  en- 
courage the  soldiers  to  storm  a  town  in  which  his 
brethren  and  countrymen  were  besieged.  If  storming 
was  thought  necessary  by  the  generals,  they  them- 
selves should  have  encouraged  the  soldiers  there- 
unto ;  but  Peters,  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  should 
have  excited  them  rather  to  spare  the  effusion  of  hu- 
man blood  as  much  as  possible,  and  to  have  compas- 
sion on  the  innocent.  Peters,  however,  was  not 
singular  in  his  conduct.  The  immortal  Chilling- 
worth,  led  away  with  party  spirit,  and  forgetting  that 
he  was  a  minister  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  attended 
the  king's  army  before  Gloucester  ;  and  "  observing 
that  they  wanted  materials  to  carry  on  the  siege,  sug- 
gested the  making  of  some  engines  after  the  manner 
of  the  Ro?na?i  testudin.es  cum  plu/eis."()  Indeed,  the 
divines  of  both  sides  too  much  addicted  themselves 
to  their  respective  parties,  and  were  too  unmindful 
of  the  duties  of  their  function. 

t  Every  one  knows  he  suffered  for  this  after  the 
restoration.  He  had  judgment  passed  on  him  as  a 
traitor,  and  as  such  was  executed, ||  and  his  head 
afterward  set  on  a  pole  on  London  Bridge. 

Burnetf  tells  us,  "that  he  had  been  outrageous  in 
pressing  the  king's  death,  with  the  cruelty  and  rude- 
ness of  an  inquisitor."  Dr.  Barwick  says,  "  he  was 
upon  no  slight  grounds  accused  to  have  been  one  of 
the  king's  murtherers,  though  it  could  not  be  suf- 
ficiently proved  against  him."**" 

And  we  find  in  a  satirical  piece,  styled  Epnla 
Thyestce,  printed  1649,  the  following  lines  : 
"  There's  Peters  the  denyer  (nay,  'tis  said 
He  that  (disguised)  cut  off  his  Master's  head) ; 
That  godly  pigeon  of  apostacy 
Does  buzz  about  his  Anti-Monarchy, 
His  scaffold  doctrines." 

One  Mr.  Starkey,  at  his  trial, ft  swore  that  "he 
styled  the  king  tyrant  and  fool,  asserted  that  he  was 
not  fit  to  be  a  king,  and  that  the  office  was  danger- 
ous, chargeable,  and  useless." 

It  was  likewise  sworn  on  his  trial,  that  in  a  sermon 
a  few  days  before  the  king's  trial,  he  addressed  him- 
self to  the  members  of  the  two  Houses,  in  these 
terms  :tt  "  My  lords,  and  you,  noble  gentlemen,  it  is 
you  we  chiefly  look  for  justice  from.  Do  not  prefer 
the  great  Barabbas,  murtherer,  tyrant,  and  traytor, 
before  these  poor  hearts  (pointing  to  the  red  coats) 
and  the  army,  who  are  our  saviours." 

In  another  sermon  before  Cromwell  and  Brad- 
shaw,  he  said,  "  Here  is  a  great  discourse  and  talk 
in  the  world ;  what,  will  ye  cut  of!"  the  head  of  a 


'  Whitlock,  p.  162.        t  Ibid.,  p.  447.        i  Ibid.,  p.  194. 

t)  Maizeaiix's  Life  of  Chillingworth,  p.  280,  Lond.,  1725, 
8vo  ;  and  Rusbworth,  part  iii.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  290. 

II  October  Ifi,  lfi60. 

IT  History  of  his  own  Times,  Dutch  edit.,  in  12mo,  vol. 
i.,  p.  2fi4. 

**  Barwick's  Life,  Eng.  trans.,  p.  296,  London,  1724. 

tt  Trial  of  the  Regicides,  d.  159.  U  Ibid.,  p.  166. 


ers  for  the  ministry,*  and  a  commissioner  for 


Protestant  prince  .'  Turn  to  your  Bibles,  ami  ye  shall 
find  it  there, '  Whosoever  sheds  man's  blood,  by  man 
shall  his  blood  be  shed.'  I  see  neither  King  Charles, 
Prince  Charles,  Prince  Rupert,  nor  Prince  Maurice, 
nor  any  of  that  rabble  excepted  out  of  it."*  These, 
and  many  other  things  of  the  like  nature,  were  sworn 
against  him  at  his  trial,  and  notwithstanding  his  de- 
nial of  the  most  part  of  them,  caused  his  condemna- 
tion. So  that  there  seems  prelty  clear  proof  of  his 
guilt,  and  sufficient  reason  for  his  censure. 

Let  us  now  hear  Peters  speak  for  himself:  "  I  had 
access  to  the  king,  he  used  me  civilly  ;  1,  in  requital, 
offered  my  poor  thoughts  three  times  for  his  safety; 
I  never  had  hand  in  contriving  or  acting  his  death, 
as  I  am  scandalized,  but  the  contrary,  to  my  mean 
power."t  Which,  if  true,  no  wonder  he  should  think 
the  Act  of  Indemnity  would  have  includeii  him,  as 
well  as  others,  as  he  declares  he  did,  of  which  we 
shall  speak  more  hereafter. 

That  he  was  useful  and  serviceable  to  the  king 
during  his  confinement,  there  is  undeniable  proof 
Whitlock  writes,  "  that  upon  a  conference  between 
the  king  and  Mr.  Hugh  Peters,  and  the  king  desiring 
one  of  his  own  chaplains  might  be  permitted  to  come 
to  him,  for  his  satisfaction  in  some  scruples  of  con- 
science, Dr.  Juxon,  bishop  of  London,  was  ordered 
to  go  to  his  majesty. "t  "  And  Sir  John  Denham 
being  intrusted  by  the  queen  to  deliver  a  message  to 
his  majesty,  who  at  that  time  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  army,  by  Hugh  Peters's  assistance,  he  got  ad- 
mittance to  the  king."i) 

These  were  considerable  services,  and  could  hard- 
ly have  been  expected  from  a  man  who  was  outrageous 
in  pressing  the  king's  death  with  the  cruelty  and 
rudeness  of  an  inquisitor. 

And  as  to  what  was  said  of  his  being  supposed  t» 
be  the  king's  executioner,  one,  who  was  his  servant, 
deposed  on  his  trial  that  he  kept  his  chamber,  being 
sick  on  the  day  the  king  suffered  ;  and  no  stress  was 
laid  by  the  king's  council  on  the  suspicions  uttered 
against  him  on  this  head.  So  that,  in  all  reason,  Dr. 
Barwick  should  have  forborne  saying,  "That  he  was 
upon  no  slight  grounds  accused  to  have  been  one  of 
the  king's  murtherers." 

Certain  it  is,  he  too  much  fell  in  with  the  times, 
and,  like  a  true  court  chaplain,  applauded  and  justi- 
fied what  his  masters  did,  or  intended  to  do  ;  though 
he  himself  might  be  far  enough  from  urging  them 
beforehand  to  do  it.  He  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
pleased  if  the  king  and  army  had  come  to  an  agree- 
ment ;  but  as  that  did  not  happen,  he  stuck  close  to 
his  party,  and  would  not  leave  defending  their  most 
iniquitous  behaviour. 

Which  conduct  is  not  peculiar  to  Peters.  Charles 
the  First,  at  this  day,  is  spoken  of  as  the  best,  not 
only  of  men,  but  of  kings  ;  and  the  Parliament  is  said 
to  have  acted  right  in  opposing  his  tyranny,  and  like- 
wise in  bringing  him  to  the  block,  by  the  stanch 
party  men  of  each  side  respectively.  No  wickedness 
is  owned,  no  errors  are  acknowledged  on  the  one 
part,  nor  is  there  any  such  thing  to  be  granted  as 
wisdom  or  honesty  on  the  other.  These  are  the 
men  that  often  turn  the  world  upside  down,  and 
spirit  up  mobs,  tumults,  and  seditions,  till  at  length 
they  become  quite  contemptible,  and  perhaps  under- 
go the  fate  allotted  to  folly  and  villany. 

*  These  were  men  appointed  by  Cromwell  to  try 
the  abilities  of  all  entrants  into  the  ministry,  and 
likewise  the  capacity  of  such  others  as  were  pre- 
sented, or  invited  to  new  places.  Butler,  according 
to  his  manner,  has  represented  their  business  in  a 
ludicrous  light,  in  the  following  lines: 

"  Whose  business  is,  by  cunning  slight. 
To  cast  a  figure  for  men's  light ; 
Ti)  find  in  lines  of  beard  and  face 
The  physiognomy  of  grace  ; 


*  Trial  of  the  Regicides,  p.  168. 

t  Peter.ss  Legacy,  p.  102.  t  Whitlock,  p.  370. 

<)  Denham's  Epist.  Dedicat.  to  Charles  II.,  of  his  Poems, 
2d  edit.,  1671. 


APPENDIX. 


521 


amending  the  laws,  though  poorly  qualified  for 
it.*     He  is  accused  of  great  vices,  but  whether 


And  if  by  the  sound  ;ind  twang  of  nose, 
If  all  be  sound  within  disclose  ; 
Free  from  a  crack  or  flaw  of  sinning, 
As  men  try  pipkins  by  the  ringing." 

Hudib.,  canto  iii. 

However,  jesting  apart,  it  must  be  owned  the 
thing  in  itself  was  good  enough  ;  but  instead  of  ex- 
amining those  who  came  before  them  in  languages, 
divinity,  and  more  especially  morality,  things  of  the 
highest  importance,  one  should  think,  they  used  to 
ask  them  whether  they  had  ever  any  experience  of  a 
work  of  grace  on  their  hearts;'  and  according  as 
they  could  answer  hereunto,  were  they  received  or 
rejected.  How  much  more  intelligible  would  it  have 
been  to  have  inquired  whether  they  were  "blame- 
less, husbands  of  one  wife,  vigilant,  sober,  of  good 
behaviour,  given  to  hospitality,  apt  to  teach,  not  giv- 
en to  wine,  no  strikers,  not  greedy  of  filthy  lucre, 
patient,  not  brawlers,  not  covetous?  Whether  they 
ruled  well  their  own  houses,  and  had  a  good  report 
of  them  which  were  without?"!  I  say,  how  much 
more  intelligible  and  important  would  these  questions 
have  been,  yea,  how  much  easier  and  more  certain- 
ly determined,  than  that  above  mentioned  ?  But  it 
is  a  very  long  time  ago  that  these  were  the  qualifica- 
tions required  and  expected  from  clergymen  ;  for 
ages  past,  subscription  to  doubtful  articles  of  faith, 
declarations  very  ambiguous,  or  most  difficult  to  be 
made  by  understanding  minds,  or  the  shibboleth  of 
the  prevailing  party  in  the  Church,  have  been  the 
things  required  and  insisted  on.  Whence  it  has  come 
to  pass  that  so  many  of  our  divines,  as  they  are  styled, 
understand  so  little  of  the  Scriptures,  and  that  they 
know  and  practise  so  little  of  pure,  genuine  Christi- 
anity. I  would  not  be  thought  to  reflect  on  any 
particular  persons;  but  hope  those  in  whose  hands 
the  government  of  the  Church  is  lodged  will  consider 
whether  they  are  not  much  too  careless  in  their  ex- 
aminations of  young  men  for  ordinations  ?  Whether 
very  many  of  them  are  not  unqualified  to  teach  and 
instruct,  through  neglect  of  having  carefully  studied 
the  Word  of  God  ?  And  whether  their  conversation 
be  not  such  as  is  unsuitable  to  the  character  confer- 
red on  them  ?  It  is  with  uneasiness  one  is  obliged  to 
hint  at  these  things  ;  but  surely  it  is  more  than  time 
that  they  were  reformed,  and  St.  Paul's  rules  were 
put  in  practice. 

A  wise  virtuous,  prudent  clergy,  is  the  glory  and 
happiness  of  a  community,  and  there  cannot  be  too 
much  care  taken  to  procure  it.t  But  if  triers  neg- 
lect the  means  of  doing  this,  and  admit  all  who  are 
presented  to  a  curacy  to  orders,  if  so  be  they  will 
make  use  of  the  terms  in  vogue,  whether  they  under- 
stand them  or  no,  they  deserve  censure,  and  are 
answerable  for  all  the  sad  consequences  which  flow 
from  ignorance,  folly,  and  vice. 

*  He  as  good  as  owns  this  in  the  following  pas- 
sage :  "  When  I  was  a  trier  of  others,  1  went  to  hear 
and  gain  experience,  rather  than  to  judge ;  when  I 
was  called  about  mending  laws,  I  rather  was  there 
to  pray  than  to  mend  laws ;  but  in  all  these  I  con- 
fess I  might  as  well  have  been  spared.."i^  This  is 
modest  and  very  ingenuous ;  but  such  a  confession 
as  few  of  our  gentlemen  concerned  in  such  matters 
would  choose  to  make.  They  frequently  boast  of 
the  great  share  they  have  in  business,  though  many 
of  them  may  well  be  spared.  Let  us  confirm  the 
truth  of  Peters's  confession  by  Whitlock;  "1  was 
often  advised  with  by  some  of  this  committee,  and 
none  of  them  was  more  active  in  this  business  than 
Mr.  Hugh  Peters  the  minister,  who  understood  little 
of  the  law,  but  was  very  opinionalive,  and  would 
frequently  mention  some  proceedings  of  law  in  Hol- 
land, wherein  he  was  altogether  mistaken. "||  The 
ignorance  and  inability  of  the  man  with  regard  to 

*  Howe's  Life,  by  Calanr.y,  p.  21,  London,  1724,  8vo. 
t   I  Tim.,  iii.,  2-7. 

t  See  Hutchinson's  Introduction  to  Moral  Philosophy,  li. 
iii..  rh.  viii.,  sect.  1.  ^  Peters's  Legacy,  p.  109. 

II  Whitlock,  p.  51\. 

Vol.  II. — U  u  u 


justly  or  not  is  a  question  ♦     He  was  executed 


these  matters,  we  see,  are  as  plainly  described  here 
as  in  his  own  words ;  though  how  to  reconcile  his 
own  opinionativeness  and  activity  in  it  with  his  going 
to  the  committee  rather  to  pray  than  to  mend  laws,  I 
confess  I  know  not.  Perhaps  he  had  forgotten  the 
part  he  had  acted.  This*  "  committee  were  to  take 
into  consideration  what  inconveniences  were  in  the 
law,  how  the  mischiefs  that  grow  from  delays,  the 
chargeableness  and  irregularities  in  the  proceedings 
of  the  law  may  be  prevented,  and  the  speediest  way 
to  prevent  the  same."  In  this  committee  with  Peters 
were  Mr.  Fountain,  Mr.  Rushworth,  and  Sir  Anthony 
Ashley  Cooper,  afterward  Eail  of  Shaftesbury  and 
lord-high-chaiicellor,  besides  many  others  of  rank  and 
figure.  No  great  matters  followed  from  this  com- 
mittee, by  reason  of  the  hurry  of  the  times  and  the 
opposition  which  the  lawyers  made  to  it.  But  the 
Parliament  had  a  little  before!  passed  an  "  act  that 
all  the  books  on  the  law  should  be  put  into  English, 
and  that  all  writs,  process,  and  returns  thereof,  and 
all  patents,  commissions,  indictments,  judgments, 
records,  and  all  rules  and  proceedings  in  courts  of 
justice,  shall  be  in  the  English  tongue  only."  This 
act  or  ordinance  (to  speak  in  the  language  of  the 
times  of  which  I  am  writing)  does  great  honour  to  the 
Parliament,  and  is  an  argument  of  their  good  sense 
and  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the  people.  It  is 
amazing  so  good  a  law  should  not  have  been  con- 
tinued by  proper  authority  after  the  Restoration  !  But 
it  was  a  sufficient  reason  then  to  disuse  a  thing, 
though  ever  so  good  in  itself  that  it  had  been  enact- 
ed by  an  usurped  power.  Of  such  fatal  consequences 
are  prejudices  !  But  thanks  be  unto  God  !  we  have 
seen  the  time  when  this  most  excellent  ordinance 
has  been  again  revived,  and  received  the  sanction  of 
the  whole  Legislature.  How  much  were  it  to  be 
wished  that  a  committee  of  wise  and  prudent  persons 
were  once  more  employed  to  revise,  amend,  and 
abridge  our  laws !  that  we  might  know  ourselves  how 
to  act,  and  not  be  necessitated  to  make  use  of  those 
who  (we  are  sensible)  live  on  our  spoils.  This  would 
add  greatly  to  the  glory  of  our  most  excellent  prince, 
and  would  be  the  best  employment  of  that  peace 
which  his  wisdom  has  procured  for  us.  But  much 
is  it  to  be  feared  that  our  adversaries  will  be  too  hard 
for  us,  and  that  we  shall  be  obliged,  for  a  time  at  least, 
to  submit  to  their  yoke.  But  whenever  the  spirit  of 
true  patriotism  shall  generally  possess  the  breasts  of 
our  senators,  I  doubt  not  but  that  they  will  apply 
themselves  to  our  deliverance  in  good  earnest  and 
bring  it  to  perfection  (as  it  was  long  ago  done  in  Den- 
mark, and  very  lately  in  Prussia),  inasmuch  as  the 
happiness  of  the  community  absolutely  depends  there- 
on. 

*  I  will  transcribe  Dr.  Barwick  at  large.t  "  The 
wild  prophecies  uttered  by  his  (Hugh  Peters's)  im- 
pure mouth  were  still  received  by  the  people  with 
the  same  veneration  as  if  they  had  been  oracles, 
though  he  was  known  to  be  infamous  for  more  thari 
one  kind  of  wickedness;  a  fact  which  Milton  him- 
self did  not  dare  to  deny,  when  he  purposely  wrote 
his  Apology,  for  this  very  end,  to  defend  even  byname 
(as  far  as  was  possible)  the  very  blackest  of  the  con- 
spirators, and  Hugh  Peters  among  the  chief  of  them, 
who  were  by  name  accused  of  manifest  impieties  by 
their  adversaries."  Burneti^  says  likewise,  '•  He  was 
a  very  vicious  man."  And  Langbainejl  hints  some- 
thing of  an  "  affair  that  he  had  with  a  butcher's  wife 
of  Sepulchre's."  Peters  himself  was  not  insensible 
of  his  ill  character  among  the  opposite  party,  nor  of 
the  particular  vice  laid  to  his  charge  by  Lansbaine  ;, 
but  he  terms  it  reproach,  and  attributes  it  to  his  zeal 
in  the  cause.  "  By  my  zeal  it  seems  I  have  exposed 
my.self  to  all  manner  of  reproach  ;  but  wish  you  to 
know  that  (besides  your  mother)  I  have  had  no  fel- 
lowship that  way  with  any  woman  since  I  knew  her, 
bavins  a  godly  wife  before  also.  I  bless  God."^ 

*  This  ciinimilteo  was  appointed  Jan.  20,  1651. 
t  Oct.  2.5.  Ifi.Ml.  Whitlock.  p.  475. 

i  Bavwick's  Life.  p.  155.  156.  (>  Hist ,  vol.  i..  p.  264. 

II  Dramatic  Poets,  p.  339.  IT  Legacy,  p.  106. 


522 


APPENDIX. 


shortly  after  the  Restoration,  though  doubtless 
he  had  as  much  reason  to  think  he  should  liave 


A  man  is  not  allowed  to  be  a  witness  in  his  own 
cause  ;  nor  should,  1  Ihink,  his  adversaries'  leslnnony 
be  deemed  full  proof  One  loaden  with  such  an  ac- 
cusation as  Peters  was,  and  suffering  as  a  traytor, 
when  the  party  spirit  ran  high,  and  revenge  actuated 
the  breasts  of  those  who  bore  rule  ;  fur  such  a  one 
to  be  traduced  and  blackened  beyond  his  deserts,  is 
no  wonder.  It  is  indeed  hard  to  prove  a  negative  ; 
and  the  concurring  testimony  of  writers  to  I'eters's 
bad  character  makes  one  with  difficulty  suspend  as- 
sent unto  It.  But  if  the  following  considerations  be 
■weighed,  I  shall  not,  perhaps,  be  blamed  for  saying 
it  was  a  question  whether  he  was  accused  justly  or 
not. 

1.  The  accusations  against  him  came  from  known 
enemies,  those  who  hated  the  cause  he  was  engaged 
in,  and  looked  on  it  as  detestable,  it  may  easily, 
therefore,  be  supposed  that  they  were  willing  to  black- 
en the  actors  in  it,  or,  at  least,  that  they  were  suscep- 
tible of  ill  impressions  concerning  them,  and  ready 
to  believe  any  evil  thing  they  heard  of  them.  This 
■will,  if  attended  to,  lessen  the  weight  of  their  evi- 
dence considerably,  and  dispose  us  to  think  that  they 
may  have  misrepresented  the  characters  of  theiroppo- 
iients.  Barvvick,  at  first  sight,  appears  an  angry.  [)ar- 
tial  writer:  Burnet's  characters  were  never  thought 
too  soft ;  they  were  both  enemies  to  the  Republican 
party,  though  not  equally  furious  and  violent.  Add 
to  this,  that  neithei  of  them,  as  far  as  appears,  knew 
anything  of  Peters  themselves;  and  therefore  what 
they  write  must  be  considered  only  as  common  fame, 
than  which  nothing  is  more  uncertain. 

2.  The  times  in  which  Peters  was  on  the  stage 
-were  far  enough  from  favouring  vice  (public  vice,  for 
it  is  of  this  Peters  is  accused)  in  the  ministerial  char- 
acter. He  must  be  a  novice  in  the  history  of  tJiose 
times  who  knows  not  what  a  precise,  demure  kind 
of  men  the  preachers  among  the  Parliamentarians 
■were.  They  were  careful  not  only  of  their  actions, 
but  likewise  of  their  words  and  looks,  and  allowed 
not  themselves  in  the  innocent  gayeties  and  pleasures 
of  life.  1  do  not  take  on  me  to  say  they  were  as 
good  as  they  pretended  to  be  ;  for  aught  I  know,  they 
might  be,  yea,  perhaps  were  proud,  conceited,  cen- 
sorious, uncharitable,  avaricious.  But  then  drunk- 
enness, whoredom,  adultery,  and  swearing  were 
things  quite  out  of  vogue  among  them,  nor  was  it 
suffered  in  them.  So  that  how  vicious  soever  their 
inclinations  might  be,  they  were  obliged  to  conceal 
them,  and  keep  them  from  the  eye  of  the  public.  It 
■was  this  sobriety  of  behaviour,  this  strictness  of  con- 
■versation,  joined  with  their  popular  talents  in  the 
pulpit,  that  created  them  so  much  respect,  and  caus- 
ed such  a  regard  to  be  paid  unto  their  advice  and 
direction.  The  people  in  a  manner  adored  them, 
and  were  under  their  government  almost  absolutely. 
So  that  the  leading  men  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  those  who,  after  the  king's  death,  were  in  the 
administration  of  affairs,  were  obliged  to  court  them, 
and  profess  to  admire  them.  Hence  it  was  that  men 
of  such  sense  as  Pym,  Hampden,  Holies,  Whitlock, 
Selden,  St.  John,  Cromwell,  &c.,  sat  so  many  hours 
hearing  their  long-winded,  weak  prayers  and  preach- 
ments ;  that  men  of  the  greatest  note  took  it  as  an 
honour  to  sit  with  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  and 
treated  them  with  so  much  deference  and  regard. 
For  it  was  necessary  to  gain  the  preachers  in  order 
to  maintain  their  credit  with  the  people;  now  cer- 
tainly, if  Peters  had  been  a  man  so  vicious  as  he  is 
represented,  he  could  have  had  no  influence  over  the 
people,  nor  would  he  have  been  treated  by  the  then 
great  men  in  the  manner  he  was  ;  for  they  must 
have  parted  with  him  even  for  their  own  sakes,  un- 
less they  would  have  been  looked  on  as  enemies  to 
godliness.  But  Peters  was  caressed  by  the  great; 
his  prophecies  were  received  as  oracles  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  be  was  of  great  service  to  Cromwell  ;  and 
therefore  he  could  not  surely  (at  least  publicly)  be 
Jinown  to  be  infamous  for  more  than  one  kind  of 


escaped  as  many  others  *     The  charge  against 

wickedness,  as  Barvvick  asserts.     In  short,  hypocrisy 
was  the  characteristic  of  Peters's  age  ;  and 
"  Hypocritic  zeal 
Allows  no  sins,  but  those  it  can  conceal." — Drydcn. 

3.  Peters's  patrons  seem  to  render  the  account  of 
his  wickedness  very  impruliable.  We  have  seen  that 
he  was  entertained  by  the  Karl  of  Warwick,  -"ir 
Thomas  Fairfax,  and  Oliver  Cromwell,  and  that  he 
was  much  caressed  and  rewarded  by  the  Parliament. 
How  improbable,  then,  is  it  that  Peters  should  be  in- 
famous for  wickedness  !  His  p.itrons  were  never  ac- 
cused of  personal  vices  ;  they  were  men  who  made 
high  pretensions  to  religion  ;  and  the  cause  they 
fought  for,  they  talked  of  (if  they  did  not  think  it  to 
he)  as  the  cause  of  God.  Now,  with  what  face  could 
they  have  done  this,  if  their  chaplain,  confidant,  and 
tool  had  been  known  to  have  been  a  very  vicious 
man?  Or  how  could  they  have  talked  against  scan- 
dalous ministers,  who  employed  one  most  scan- 
dalous? In  short,  how  could  they  reward  Peters 
publicly,  when  they  always  professed  great  zeal  for 
godliness,  and  were  for  promoting  it  to  the  highest 
pitch  ?  Men  of  their  wisdom  can  hardly  be  thought 
to  have  acted  so  inconsistent  a  part ;  nor  is  there  any- 
thing in  their  whole  conduct  which  would  lead  one 
to  think  they  could  be  guilty  of  it.  From  all  these 
considerations,  therefore,  I  think  it  reasonable  to 
make  it  a  question  whether  Peters  was  charged  just- 
ly with  great  vices. 

*  "  I  thought  the  Act  of  Indemnity  would  have  in- 
cluded me;  but  the  hard  character  upon  me  exclu- 
ded me."*  And  no  wonder  he  should  think  so,  if  it 
was  true  "  that  he  never  had  his  hand  in  any  man's 
blood,  but  saved  many  in  life  and  estate."!  All  that 
was  laid  to  Peters's  charge  was  words ;  but  words, 
it  must  be  owned,  unfit  to  be  uttered  ;  yet,  if  we  con- 
sider how  many  greater  offenders  than  Peters  es- 
caped capital  punishment,  we  may  possibly  think  he 
had  hard  measure.  Harry  Martyn,  .lohn  Goodwin, 
and  John  Milton,  spoke  of  Charles  the  First  most  re- 
proachfully, and  the  two  latter  vindicated  Ins  murther 
in  their  public  writings.  As  early  as  1643,  we  find 
Martyn  speaking  out  plainly,  "  That  it  was  better  the 
king  and  hie  children  were  destroyed,  than  many  ;" 
which  words  were  then  looked  on  as  so  high  and 
dangerous,  that  he  was  committed  by  the  House  to 
the  Tower;  though  shortly  after  released  and  read- 
mitted to  his  jjlace  in  Parliament.!.  He  continued 
still  virulent  against  the  king,  was  one  of  his  judges, 
and  acted  as  much  as  possible  against  him.  Good- 
win justified  the  seclusion  of  the  members,  which 
was  the  prelude  to  Charles's  tragedy  ;  vindicated  his 
murther,  and  went  into  all  the  measures  of  his  mas- 
ters;  and  being  a  man  of  ready  wit  and  great  learn- 
ing, was  of  good  service  to  them.  And  as  for  Milton, 
there  is  no  one  but  knows  that  he  wrote  most  sharply 
against  King  Charles,  and  set  forth  his  actions  in  a 
terribly  black  light.  To  take  no  notice  of  his  wri- 
tings against  Salmasius  and  More,  what  could  be 
more  cruel  against  Charles  than  his  Iconoclastes  ! 
How  bitter  are  his  observations,  how  cutting  his  re- 
marks on  his  conduct!  How  horribly  provoking  to 
point  out  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  Arcadia  as  the  book 
from  whence  the  "  prayer  in  the  time  of  captivity," 
delivered  to  Dr.  Jnxon,  immediately  before  his  death, 
was  chiefly  taken  ?^  One  should  have  thought  this 
an  indignity  never  to  have  been  forgotten  nor  forgiv- 
en, especially  as  it  was  offered  by  one  who  was  sec- 
retary to  Cromwell,  and  who  had  spent  the  best  part 
of  his  life  in  the  service  of  the  anti-rovalists.  But 
yet  Milton  was  preserved  as  to  life  and  fortune  (hap- 
py for  the  polite  arts  he  was  preserved),  and  lived  m 
great  esteem  among  men  of  worth  all  his  days. 
Goodwin  had  the  same  good  fortune;  and  Martyn 
escaped  the  fate  of  many  of  hi.s  fellow-judges;  Ihouuh 


*   Peters's  Lo^arv,  V-  l"*'- 

t  Ilii  I.,  p.  104.     See  note  *,  col.  i.,  p.  501. 

J   Whitlonk.  p.  71. 

i>  Vid.  Hayle's  l)ic:t.,  article  Miltnu.     Milton's  works,  or 

Toland's  Amyutor. 


APPENDIX. 


923 


him  was  for  compassing  and  imagining  the  death 
of  the  king,  by  conspirmg  with  Oliver  Cromwell 

on  his  trial  he  behaved  no  way  abjectly  or  meanly. 
All  this  had  the  appearance  of  clemency,  and  Peters 
might  reasonably  have  expected  to  share  in  it.  But 
poor  wretch  !  he  had  nothing  to  recommend  him  as 
these  had,  and,  therefore,  though  more  innocent,  fell 
without  pity.  Martyn,  as  it  was  reported,  escaped 
merely  by  his  vices;*  Goodwni  having  been  a  zeal- 
ous Arminian,  and  a  sower  of  division  among  the 
sectaries,  on  these  accounts  had  friends;  but  what 
Milton's  merit  with  the  courtiers  was,  Burnet  says 
not.  Though,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  was  with 
his  having  saved  Sir  William  Davenant's  life  for- 
merly, which  was  the  occasion  of  the  favour  shown 
to  hun.  Merit  or  interest,  in  the  eyes  of  the  then 
courtiers,  these  had  ;  but  Peters,  though  he  had 
saved  many  a  life  and  estate,  was  forgotten  by  those 
whom  in  their  distress  he  had  served,  and  given 
up  to  the  hangman.  But  the  sentence  passed  on 
him,  and  much  more  the  execution  of  it,  will  seem 
■very  rigorous  if  we  consider  that  it  was  only  for 
words,  for  words  uttered  in  a  time  of  confusion,  up- 
roar, and  war.  I  am  not  lawyer  enough  to  deter- 
mine whether,  by  any  statute  then  in  force,  words 
were  treason.  Lord  ytrafl[brd,+  in  his  defence  at  the 
bar  of  the  House  of  Lords,  says  expressly,  "No 
statute  makes  words  treason."  But  allowing  they 
were,  such  a  law  must  be  deemed  to  have  been  hard, 
and  until  for  execution,  especially  as  the  words  were 
spoken  in  times  of  civil  commotion  ;  for  in  such 
seasons  men  say  and  do,  in  a  manner,  what  they  list, 
the  laws  are  disregarded,  and  rank  and  character  un- 
minded,  contempt  is  poured  on  princes,  and  the 
nobles  are  had  in  derision.  These  are  the  natural 
■consequences  of  wars  and  tumults ;  and  wise  men 
foresee  and  expect  them.  But  were  all  concerned 
in  them  to  be  punished,  whole  cities  would  be  turn- 
ed into  shambles.  To  overlook  and  forgive  what 
has  been  said  on  such  occasions,  is  a  part  of  wisdom 
and  prudence,  and  what  has  been  almost  always  prac- 
tised. Never  were  there  greater  liberties  taken  with 
princes,  nevermore  dangerous  doctrines  inculcated 
by  preachers,  than  in  France  during  part  of  the  reigns 
of  the  3d  and  4th  Henry.  "  The  College  of  Sorbonne, 
by  common  consent,  concluded  that  the  French  were 
■discharged  from  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Henry 
the  Third,  and  that  they  might  arm  themselves  in 
opposition  to  him."  In  consequence  of  vifhich,  the 
people  vented  their  rage  against  him  in  satyrs,  lam- 
poons, libels,  infamous  reports  and  calumnies,  of 
which  the  most  moderate  were  tyrant  and  apostate. 
.4.nd  the  curates  refused  absolution  to  such  as  owned 
they  could  not  renounce  him. J  And  the  same  Sor- 
'bonists  decreed  all  those  who  favoured  the  party  of 
Henry  the  Fourth  to  be  in  a  mortal  sin,  and  liable  to 
damnation  ;  and  such  as  resisted  him,  champions  of 
the  faith,  and  to  be  rewarded  with  a  crown  of  mar- 
tyrdom.ij  These  decrees  produced  terrible  effects; 
and  yet,  when  Henry  the  Fourth  had  fully  establish- 
ed himself  on  the  throne,  I  do  not  remember  that  he 
called  any  of  these  doctors  to  an  account,  or  that  one 
of  them  was  executed.  That  wise  prince  undoubt- 
edly considered  the  limes,  and  viewed  these  wretches 
with  pity  and  contempt  for  being  the  tools  of  cunning, 
artful  men,  who  veiled  their  ambitious  designs  under 
the  cloak  of  religion. 

So  that,  really  considering  what  had  passed  .abroad, 
and  what  pas.sed  under  his  own  ob.servation,  Peters 
had  reason  to  think  that  the  Act  of  Indemnity  would 
have  included  him.  But  setting  aside  all  Ihis,  I  be- 
lieve all  impartial  judges  will  think  he  lind  hard 
measure  dealt  him,  when  they  consider  that  those 
who  preached  up  doctrines  in  Ihe  pulpit  as  bad  as 
Peters's,  and  those  likewise  who,  though  guardians 
of  our  laws  and  liberties,  and  sworn  to  maintain  Ihem, 


*  Buniet,  vnl.  i.,  p.  <;fi5. 
t  Trial,  p.  5(11,  fol..  L.mdnn,  1080. 

t   Mainil)o«r?h'.s    History  of  the   I,fla?ue,  translated  hy 
Dryden.  Oct .  1684,  Lond.,  p.  432  and  437. 
«  Ibid.,  p.  805. 


at  several  times  and  places,  and  procuring  the 
soldiers  to  demand  justice,  by  preaching  divers 
sermons  to  persuade  them  to  take  off  the  king, 
comparing  him  to  Barabhas,  &c.  :  to  which  he 
pleaded  in  his  own  defence,  that  the  war  began 
before  he  came  into  England  ;  that,  since  his 
arrival,  he  had  endeavoured  to  promote  sound 
religion,  the  reformation  of  learning  and  the 
law,  and  employment  of  the  poor  ;  that,  for  the 
better  effecting  these  things,  he  had  espoused 
the  interest  of  the  Parliament,  in  which  he  had 
acted  without  malice,  avarice,  or  ambition  ;  and 
that  whatever  prejudices  or  passions  might  pos- 
sess the  minds  of  men,  yet  there  was  a  God 
who  knew  tliese  things  to  be  true. 

At  the  place  of  execution,  when  Chief-justice 
Coke  was  cut  down  and  cmhowelled,  Hugh  Pe- 
ters was  then  ordered  to  be  brought  that  he 
might  see  it ;  and  the  executioner  came  to  him, 
rubbing  his  bloody  hands,  and  asked  him  how 
he  liked  that  work.  He  told  him  he  was  not  at 
all  terrified,  and  that  he  might  do  his  worst. 
And  when  he  was  upon  the  ladder,  he  said  to 
the  sheriff,  "  Sir,  you  have  butchered  one  of  the 
servants  of  God  before  my  eyes,  and  have  for- 
ced me  to  see  it,  in  order  to  terrify  and  discour- 
age me,  but  God  has  permitted  it  for  my  sup- 
port and  encouragement." 

One  of  the  prodigies  of  those  times  attended 
Peters  going  to  the  gibbet,*  which,  as  it  may 


delivered  opinions  destructive  of  them,  even  from  the 
bench  :  1  say,  whoever  considers  the  comparatively 
mild  treatment  these  men  have  met  with,  will  be  apt 
tojudgethepunishmentof  Peters  very  severe.  What 
was  the  crime  of  Peters  ?  Was  it  not  the  justifying 
and  magnifying  th'e  king's  death  ?  And  is  this  worse 
than  the  doctrine  of  Montague,  Sibthorp,  and  Man- 
waring,  which  set  the  king  above  all  laws,  and  gave 
him  a  power  to  do  as  he  list  ?  is  this  worse  than  the 
opinion  of  the  judges  in  Charles  the  First  and  James 
the  Second's  lime,  whereby  it  was  given  for  law,  that 
the  king  might  take  from  his  subjects  without  con- 
sent of  Parliament,  and  dispense  with  the  laws  en- 
acted by  it .'  Far  from  it ;  for  the  depriving  the  peo- 
ple of  their  rights  and  liberties,  or  the  arguing  for 
the  expediency  and  jusnce  of  so  doing,  is  a  crime  of 
a  higher  nature  than  the  murlhering  or  magnifying 
the  murther  of  the  wisest  and  best  prince  under 
heaven.  The  loss  of  a  good  prince  is  greatly  to  be 
lamented,  but  it  is  a  loss  which  may  be  repaired; 
whereas  the  loss  of  a  people's  liberties  is  seldom  or 
ever  to  be  recovered  ;  and,  consequently,  the  foe  to 
the  latter  is  much  more  detestable  than  the  foe  to  the 
former.  But  what  was  the  punishment  of  the  justi- 
fiers  and  magnifiers  of  the  destruction  of  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  the  people?  Reprimands  at  the  bar 
of  one  or  other  of  the  houses,  fines,  or  imprisonment; 
not  a  man  of  them  graced  the  gallows,  though  none, 
perhaps,  would  better  have  become  it.  Peters,  there- 
fore, suffered  more  than  others,  though  he  had  done 
less  to  deserve  it  than  others,  which  we  may  well 
suppose  was  contrary  to  his  expectation. 

*  "  Among  Ihe  innumerable  libels  vvhich  they  (the 
fanatics)  published  for  two  years  together,  those  were 
most  pregnant  with  sedition  which  they  published 
concerning  prodigies.  Among  these,  all  the  prodigies 
in  Livy  were  seen  every  day  :  two  suns;  ships  sail- 
ing in  the  air ;  a  bloody  rainbow  ;  it  rained  stones  ; 
a  lamb  with  two  heads  ;  catherdral  churches  every- 
where set  on  fii-e  by  li^htning;  an  ox  that  spoke  ;  a 
hen  turned  into  a  cock;  a  mule  brought  forth;  five 
beautiful  young  men  stood  by  the  regicides  while 
they  suffered  ;  a  very  bright  star  shone  round  their 
quarters  that  were  stuck  upon  the  city  gates.  A 
certain  person  rejoicing  at  the  execution  of  Harrison 
the  regicide,  was  struck  with  a  sudden  palsy  ;  an- 
other inveighing  against  Peters  as  he  went  to  the 


524 


APPENDIX. 


afford  some  diversion  to  the  reader,  I  shall  give 
an  account  of. 

He  WHS  weak,  ignorant,  and  zealous,  and, 
consequently,  a  proper  tool  for  ambitious,  artful 
men  to  make  use  of.*    All  preachers  ought  to  be 


gil)bet,  was  torn  and  almost  killed  by  his  own  favour- 
ite (log;  with  an  infinite  number  of  such  prodi- 
gious lies."*  What  ridiculous  tales  are  here!  How 
worthy  to  be  preserved  in  a  work  called  a  history! 
The  (anatics,  if  they  reported  these  things,  undoubt- 
edly reported  lies;  though  many  of  them,  in  great 
simplicity  of  heart,  believed  them.  However,  it  is 
no  great  wisdom  to  relate  idle  stories  to  disgrace  the 
understanding  or  impeach  the  honesty  of  parties ; 
for  weak,  credulous,  superstitious  men,  are  to  be 
found  on  all  sides.  The  reader,  as  he  has  a  right,  is 
welcome  to  laugh  at  these  stories  ;  and  to  contribute 
to  his  mirth,  1  will  add  the  following  "  relation  of  a 
child  born  in  London  with  a  double  or  divided  tongue, 
which,  the  third  day  after  it  was  born,  cried  A  king,  a 
king,  and  bid  them  bring  it  to  the  king.  The  moth- 
er of  the  child  saith  it  told  her  of  all  that  happened 
in  England  since,  and  much  more  which  she  dare  not 
utter.  A  gentleman  in  the  company  took  the  child 
in  his  arms,  and  gave  it  money,  and  asked  what  it 
would  do  with  it.  To  which  it  answered  aloud,  that 
it  would  give  it  to  the  king."  This  story  matches 
pretty  well  the  others,  and,  I  believe,  will  be  thought 
equally  as  ridiculous,  and  yet  the  relator  of  it  (no 
less  a  man  than  Bishop  Bramhall)  says  he  cannot 
esteem  it  less  than  a  miracle. t  But  let  us  away  with 
these  trifles  ;  they  are  fit  for  nothing  but  ridicule,  and 
can  serve  no  purpose,  unless  it  be  to  show  the  weak- 
ness of  the  human  understanding,  or  the  wickedness 
of  the  human  heart ;  though  these  are  many  times, 
by  other  things,  but  too  apparent. 

*  Peters's  weakness,  ignorance,  and  zeal  appear 
from  his  own  confession,  as  well  as  the  testimony  of 
'Whitlock,  before  quoted.  Now  such  a  man  as  this 
was  thoroughly  qualified  to  be  a  tool,  and  could  hard- 
ly fail  of  being  employed  for  that  purpose.  Fools  are 
the  instruments  of  knaves;  or,  to  speak  softer,  men 
of  small  understandings  are  under  the  direction  and 
influence  of  those  who  possess  great  abilities.  Let 
a  man  be  ever  so  wise  and  ambitious,  he  never  would 
gain  the  point  he  aims  at,  were  all  men  possessed  of 
equal  talents  with  himself;  for  they  would  see  his 
aims,  and  would  refuse  to  be  made  use  of  as  tools  to 
accomplish  them.  They  would  look  through  his 
specious  pretences,  they  would  separate  appearances 
from  realities,  and  frustrate  his  selfish  intentions ;  so 
that  his  skill  would  stand  him  in  little  stead. 

But  as  the  bulk  of  men  are  formed,  nothing  in  the 
world  is  easier  than  to  impose  on  them.  They  see 
not  beyond  the  present  moment,  and  take  all  for  gos- 
pel that  is  told  them.  And  of  these,  there  are  none 
who  become  so  easily  the  dupes  of  crafty,  ambitio'is 
men,  as  those  who  have  attained  just  knowledge 
enough  to  be  proud  and  vain ;  it  is  but  to  flatter  them, 
and  you  become  their  master,  and  lead  them  what 
lengths  you  please;  and  if  they  happen  to  have  active 
spirits,  you  may  make  them  accomplish  yourdesigns 
even  without  their  being  sensible  of  it.  Those  who 
have  great  things  to  execute  know  this,  and  there- 
fore are  careful  to  have  as  many  of  these  instruments 
as  possible  to  manage  the  multitude  when  there  is 
occasion  ;  for  which  end  they  carefully  observe  their 
foibles,  and  seemingly  fall  in  with  their  notions,  and 
thereby  secure  them.  Hence  it  has  come  to  pass, 
that  real  great  men  have  paid  very  uncommon  respect 
to  those  they  despised  ;  they  knew  they  might  be  of 
use,  and  therefore  were  worth  gaining.  Peters  must 
necessarily  have  appeared  in  a  contemptible  light  to 
Cromwell ;  hut  as  his  ignorance  and  zeal  qualified 
him  for  business,  which  wiser  and  more  moderate 
men  would  have  declined,  he  was  thought  worthy  ot 
being  caressed,  and  had  that  respect  paid  him  which 


*  Parker's  Hist,  of  his  own  Time,  p.  23,  translated  by 
Newlin,  Londim,  1727,  8vo. 

t  Ornioude's  Papers,  by  Cnrte,  vol.  ii.,  p.  208. 


warned  by  his  fate  against  going  out  of  their 
province,*  and  meddling  with  things  which  no 


was  necessary  to  keep  him  tight  to  the  cause.  And, 
generally  speaking,  they  have  been  men  of  Peters's 
size  of  understanding  who  have  been  subservient  to 
the  interests  of  aspiring  statesmen,  and  the  imple- 
ments of  those  in  power.  Were  not  Shaa*  and  Pink- 
er weak  men,  in  assisting  the  then  Duke  of  Glouces- 
ter, protector,  afterward  Richard  the  Third,  to  fix 
the  crown  on  his  own  head?  Armed  with  impudence,. 
Shaa  at  Paul's  Cross  declared  the  children  of  Ed- 
ward the  Fourth  bastards;  and  Pinker,  at  St.  Mary's 
Hospital,  sounded  forth  the  praise  of  the  protector; 
both  so  full,  adds  the  historian,  of  tedious  flattery,  as 
no  man's  ear  could  abide  them.  What  was  John 
Padilla'st  priest,  who  did  not  fail  every  Sunday  to 
recommend  him,  and  the  sedition  of  which  he  was 
the  great  promoter,  with  a  pater-noster  and  an  ave 
Maria  ?  Indeed,  ill  usage  from  the  rebels  caused  him 
to  change  his  note  soon  after,  and  to  advise  his  peo- 
ple to  cry  out,  Long  live  the  king,  and  let  Padilla 
perish ! 

To  come  nearer  home.  Was  not  Sacheveral  a 
weak,  ignorant  man,  to  be  made  the  tool  of  a  party  .' 
Would  any  but  such  a  one  have  exposed  himself  by 
a  nonsensical  sermon,  set  the  nation  in  a  flame,  and 
brought  himself  into  trouble?  But  he  was  in  the 
hands  of  intriguing  politicians,  who  spurred  him  on, 
and  made  him  the  instrument  of  raising  a  cry  of  an 
imaginary  danger,  which  served  many  purposes  to 
themselves,  though  detrimental  to  the  nation.  And 
what  character  have  our  Jacobite  clergymen  univer- 
sally deserved  ?  If  we  will  not  be  uncharitable,  we 
must  impute  their  behaviour  to  ignorance,  and  the 
influence  they  have  been  under ;  for  men  of  sense 
and  penetration  could  never  have  set  themselves  to 
infuse  notions  into  their  flocks,  which  have  no  other 
tendency  than  to  enslave  body  and  soul.  And  men 
uninfluenced  would  not  run  the  risk  of  the  gallows 
for  the  sake  of  nonsense  and  absurdity,  as  Jacobitisin 
really  is.  But  they  have  been  the  dupes  of  wicked, 
artful,  and  ambitious  men,  who  have  blinded  their 
understandings,  and  by  flatteries  and  caresses  gained 
their  affections,  and  consequently  the  poor  wretches 
are  the  objects  of  pity. 

So  that  Peters,  we  see,  was  as  his  brethren  have 
been  and  are.  His  faults  arose  chiefly  from  his  weak- 
ness, and  his  being  in  the  hands  of  those  who  knew 
how  to  make  use  of  him.  Had  he  contented  himself 
with  obscurity,  he  had  avoided  danger;  which,  indeed, 
is  the  chief  security  for  the  virtue,  ease,  and  welfare 
of  men,  in  such  a  noisy,  contentious  world  as  this. 

*  The  business  of  the  clergy  is  that  of  instructing 
the  people  in  piety  and  virtue.  If  ever  they  meddle 
with  civil  matters,  it  ought  to  be  only  with  an  intent 
to  promote  peace  and  happiness,  by  exhorting  princes 
to  rule  with  equity  and  moderation,  and  the  subjects 
to  obey  with  willingness  and  pleasure.  This,  I  say, 
is  what  alone  concerns  them,  and  if  they  confine 
themselves  within  these  bounds,  they  merit  praise. 
But  if,  instead  hereof,  they  mix  with  civil  factions, 
and  endeavour  to  promote  hatred,  strife,  and  conten- 
tion ;  if  they  aspire  to  bear  rule  and  attempt  to  em- 
broil matters,  in  order  to  render  themselves  of  some 
importance,  they  then  become  not  only  really  con- 
temptible, but  likewise  criminal. 

"The  clergy,"  as  the  Marquis  of  OrmondeJ:  justly 
observes,  "have  not  been  happy  to  themselves  or 
others  when  theyhave  aspired  to  a  rule  so  contrary 
to  their  function."  Nature  never  seems  to  have  in- 
tended the  clergy,  any  more  than  the  Gospel,  for 
state  affairs.  For  men  brought  up  in  colleges,  and 
little  versed  in  the  world,  as  they  generally  are,  m:tke 
wretched  work  when  they  come  to  intermeddle  with 
secular  matters.  To  govern  well  requires  great 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  the  particular  interests, 
dispositions,  and  tempers  of  the  people  one  has  to  do 


*   Speed's  History,  p.  002,  ful.,  I.nndon,  1632. 
t   Bayle's  Diet.,  article  Padilla  (.lohnde). 
i  Ormonde's  Papers,  vol.  li.,  p.  457. 


APPENDIX. 


525 


way  belong  to  them.    But  perhaps  they  are  cau- 
tioned in  vajn.* 


with,  the  law  of  nations,  and  more  especially  I  he 
laws  of  the  country.  Great  skill  and  address  like- 
wise are  required  to  manage  the  different  and  con- 
tradictory tempers  of  men,  and  make  them  conspire 
to  promote  the  public  happiness;  as  likewise  great 
practice  in  business,  in  order  to  despatch  it  with  speed 
and  safety.  And  therefore  it  is  evident,  that  the 
clergy,  from  the  nature  of  their  education,  as  well  as 
their  profession,  cannot  be  qualitied  for  it.  They 
should,  therefore,  seriously  weigh  their  incapacity 
for  civil  affairs,  and  how  inconsistent  they  are  with 
the  business  to  which  they  have  solemnly  engaged 
to  devote  themselves.  They  should  consider  how 
contemptible  and  ridiculous  they  render  themselves 
in  the  eyes  of  all  wise  and  good  men  when  they  en- 
gage in  parties,  and  most  haieful  when  they  stir  up 
wars  and  tumults.  They  should  have  the  dignity  of 
their  character  before  their  eyes,  and  scorn  to  dis- 
grace it  by  letting  themselves  out  to  ambitious,  self- 
interested  men.  These  things  they  should  do;  and 
a  very  small  degree  of  knowledge  and  reflection  will 
enable  them  to  keep  themselves  rmm  this,  which  is 
one  of  the  greatest  blemishes  which  can  be  found  in 
their  character. 

If  this  is  not  sufficient,  let  them  call  to  their  minds 
Peters,  who,  after  having  been  sought  to,  and  caress- 
ed by  the  most  eminent  personages,  was  obliged  to 
skulk  about  privately  ;  was  seized  by  the  officers  of 
public  justice;  laden  with  infamy  and  reproach,  and 
embowel  led  by  the  hangman.  He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear. 

*  No  men  in  the  world  seem  less  willing  to  heark- 
en to  advice  than  the  clergy;  puffed  up  with  con- 
ceit of  their  own  knowledge  and  abilities,  and  being 
used  to  dictate  uncontrolled  from  the  pulpit,  they 
"with  contempt  hearken  to  instruction,  and  are  unin- 
fluenced by  persuasion  ;  for  which  reason,  I  say. 
perhaps  they  are  cautioned  in  vain  ;  Peters's  fate  will 
not  deter  them,  but  engage  in  factions  they  still  will. 
After  the  restoration,  the  pulpits  sounded  loud  with 
the  doctrines  of  passive  obedience  and  non-resist- 
-ance  ;  the  Whigs  and  Presbyterians  were  represented 
as  villains  ;  the  power  of  the  Church  was  magnified, 
and  the  regal  power  was  represented  as  sacred  as 
that  of  God  himself.  Then  Sam.  Parker  and  his 
fellows  arose,  full  of  rage  and  venom,  who  treated 
all  who  opposed  them  with  ill  manners  and  severity. 
Then  were  Englishmen  pronounced  slaves,  in  effect, 
by  Hicks,  in  his  Jovian  ;  and  then  was  the  infamous 
Oxford  Decree  framed,  which  was  doomed  to  the 
flames  by  the  sentence  of  the  most  august  assembly 
in  the  world,  anno  1710. 

The  bishops  stood  firm  by  the  Duke  of  York  ;  and 
the  whole  clergy  in  a  manner  damned  the  Bill  of  Ex- 
clusion. In  short,  such  was  their  behaviour,  that 
they  fell  under  great  contempt,  and  were  treated  with 
much  severity.  Under  .Tames  the  Second  they  acted 
the  same  part,  and  would  undoubtedly  have  continu- 
ed his  fast  friends,  had  he  not  given  liberty  to  the 
Dissenters,  and  touched  them  in  their  most  tender 
part,  even  that  of  their  revenue,  by  thrusting  in 
popish  persons  into  their  colleges.  This  alarmed 
them ;  they  suddenly  tacked  about,  wished  heartily 
for  the  coming  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  prayed 
for  his  success ;  he  came  and  delivered  them  out  of 
the  hands  of  their  enemies;  but  they  could  not  be 
quiet  and  thankful;  numbers  of  them  refused  to 
own  his  government ;  many  of  them  joined  in  meas- 
ures to  restore  the  tyrant  James,  and  a  great  part 
did  all  that  in  them  lay  to  blacken  and  distress  their 
deliverer.  Lesly,  Sacheveral.  &c.,  worked  hard  to 
inculcate  on  men's  minds  the  danser  of  the  Church, 
the  designs  of  the  Dissenters,  the  villany  of  the 
ministry,  during  the  first  and  glorious  part  of  Queen 
Anne's  rei^n.in  which  they  were  but  too  successful. 

When  the  Protestant  succession  took  place,  it 
was  railed  at,  and  even  cursed  by  these  men,  and 
manv  of  them  attempted  to  set  up  an  abjured  pre- 
tender.   Theirattempts,  however,  were  vain;  though 


PosTsoRiPT. — Since  transcribing  these  papers 
for  the  press,  a  very  learned  gentleman*  has 
been  so  kind  as  to  impart  to  me  an  account  of 
Peters's  writings  (his  Last  Legacy  excepted, 
from  which  a  good  deal  has  been  inserted  in  this 
work),  which  I  doubt  not  will  be  highly  accept- 
able to  the  curious;!  as  likewise  a  letter  from 


for  these  their  endeavours,  Parson  Paul  made  his 
exit  at  the  gallows,  and  the  celebrated  Atterbury  died 
in  exile.  What  has  been,  and  is  the  temper  since, 
every  one  knows;  the  Oxford  aff'air  is  too  fresh  in 
memory  to  let  us  remain  ignorant  of  ihe  disposition 
of  many  of  the  clergy;  they  are  of  Peters's  busy, 
meddling  disposition;  though  I  hope  they  will  not 
merit  his  fate. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  point  these  reflections  at  the 
whole  body  of  the  clergy;  numbers  of  them  have 
been,  and  are  men  of  great  worth,  who  not  only  dig- 
nify their  office,  but  add  lustre  to  the  human  nature. 
He  must  have  lost  all  sense  of  excellence  who  is  not 
struck  with  the  generosity  of  Tillotson,  the  integrity 
of  Clarke,  the  Christian  sentiments  of  Hoadley,  the 
worth  of  Butler  (on  whose  late  advancement  I  beg 
leave  to  congratulate  the  public),  and  the  piety,  hu- 
manity, and  patriotism  of  Herring. 

These  and  many  others  have  been  ornaments  of 
the  body  to  which  they  belong,  and  have  never  stud 
ied  to  embroil  us,  or  promote  a  party  spirit  among 
us.  Rectitude  and  benevolence,  piety  and  self-gov- 
ernment, have  been  their  themes ;  these  with  uncom- 
mon abilities  they  have  taught ;  and  those  who  tread 
in  their  steps  cannot  fail  of  being  honoured  now  and 
forever !  But  those  who  make  it  their  business  to 
poison  the  minds  of  the  people  with  factions  and  se- 
ditious discourses  ;  those  who  censure  their  govern- 
ors for  actions  of  which  they  are  frequently  no  com- 
petent judges,  and  traduce  and  vilify  everything,  right 
or  wrong ;  those  who  join  with  the  sworn  foes  of  the 
best  of  princes,  and  strive  to  promote  an  interest  in- 
compatible with  the  public  good,  are  the  men  who 
deserve  titles  which  I  do  not  care  to  give;  and  they 
may  be  certain,  that  though,  through  the  lenity  of  the 
present  government,  they  may  escape  unpunished, 
yet  contempt  will  be  their  portion  from  all  men  of 
sense  ;  for  when  men  pervert  so  excellent  an  office 
as  that  of  the  ministry  to  the  puposes  of  ambition 
and  the  lust  of  power,  hardly  any  censure  too  severe 
can  be  cast  on  them. 

*  The  Reverend  Mr.  Birch,  F.R.S. 

t  In  April,  1646,  he  preached  a  sermon  before  both 
houses  of  Parliament,  the  lord-mayor  and  aldermen 
of  London,  and  the  Assembly  of  Divines,  which  was 
printed  in  quarto.  In  this  sermon  he  expresses  his 
desire  that  "some  shorter  way  might  be  found  to 
further  justice;  and  that  two  or  three  friend-makers 
might  be  set  up  in  every  parish,  without  whose  la- 
bour and  leave  none  should  implead  another."  He 
proposed  likewise  that  the  Charter  House  should  be 
converted  into  a  iiospital  for  lame  soldiers. 

In  the  same  year,  1046,  he  published  at  London,  in 
quarto,  a  pamphlet  of  fifteen  pages,  entitled  "  Peters's 
last  Report  of  the  English  Wars,  occasioned  by  the 
Importunity  of  a  Friend  pressing  an  Answer  to  some 
Queries ;" 

L  Why  he  was  silent  at  the  surrender  of  Oxford? 

II.  What  he  observed  at  Worcester,  it  being  the 
last  town  in  the  king's  hand  ? 

HI.  What  were  best  to  be  done  with  the  armv  ' 

IV.  If  he  had  any  expedient  for  the  present  differ- 
ence? 

v.  What  his  thoughts  were  in  relation  to  foreign 
states  ? 

VI.  How  these  late  mercies  and  conquests  might 
be  preserved  and  improved  ? 

VII.  Why  his  name  appears  in  so  many  hooks,  not 
without  blots,  and  he  never  wipe  them  oiff? 

In  this  pamphlet  he  observes,  p.  14.  that  he  had 
lived  about  six  years  near  that  famous  Scotsman, 
Mr  John  Forbes  :  "  With  whom."  says  he.  •'  I  trav- 
elled into  Germany,  and  enjoyed  him  in  much  love 


526 


APPENDIX. 


Colonel  Lockhart  to  Secretary  Thurloe,  cnn- 
ceiiiing  Peters,  which,  as  very  cliaracteristiccil 
of  the  man,  and  containing  some  curious  par- 
ticulars relating  to  him,  I  cannot  forbear  giving 
at  lengih* — C. 

and  sweetness  constantly ;  from  whom  I  never  had 
bill  encouragement,  though  we  differed  in  the  way 
of  our  churches.  Learned  Amesius  breathed  hislast 
breath  into  my  bosom,  who  left  his  professorship  in 
Friezland  to  live  with  me,  because  of  my  church's 
independency,  at  Rotterdam  ;  he  was  my  colleague 
and  chosen  brother  to  the  Church,  where  I  was  an 
unworthy  pastor." 

In  1647,  he  published  at  London,  in  qnarto,  a  pam- 
phlet of  fourteen  pages,  entitled  "A  Word  for  the 
Army,  and  two  Words  to  the  Kingdom,  to  clear  the 
one  and  cure  the  other,  forced  in  much  Plainness  and 
Brevity,  from  their  faithful  Servant,  Hugh  Peters." 

It  appears  by  a  pamphlet,  printed  in  1651,  written 
by  R.  v.,  of  Gray's  Inn,  and  entitled  "A  Plea  for  the 
Common  Laws  of  England,"  that  it  was  written  in 
answer  to  Mr.  Peters's  "  Good  Work  for  a  good 
Magistrate, or  a  short  Cut  to  great  Quiet;"  in  which 
Mr.  Peters  had  proposed  the  extirpation  of  the  whole 
system  of  our  laws,  and  particularly  recommended 
,that  the  old  records  in  the  Tower  should  be  burned, 
as  the  monuments  of  tyranny. 

*     Colonel  Lockhart  to  Secretary  Thurloe.* 

From  Dunkirk,  July  8-18,  1658. 
"  May  it  please  your  lordship, 

"  I  could  not  suffer  our  worthy  friend,  Mr.  Peters, 
to  come  away  from  Dunkirk  without  a  testimony  of 
the  great  benefits  we  have  all  received  from  him  in 
this  place,  where  he  hath  laid  himself  forth  in  great 
charity  and  goodness  in  sermons,  prayers,  and  exhor- 
tations, in  visiting  and  relieving  the  sick  and  wound- 
ed ,  and  in  all  these,  profitably  applying  the  singular 
talent  God  hath  bestowed  upon  him  to  the  chief  ends 
proper  for  our  auditory ;  lor  he  hath  not  only  showed 
the  soldiers  their  duty  to  God,  and  pressed'  it  home 
upon  them,  I  hope  to  good  advantage,  but  hath  like- 

*  Thurloe'g  State  Papers,  vol.  vii.,  p.  249. 


wise  acquainted  them  with  their  obligations. of  otje- 
dience  to  his  highness's  government,  and  afi'ection  to 
his  person.  He  hath  lalioured  atnong  us  hore  with 
much  good  will,  and  seems  to  enlarge  his  heart  to- 
wards us,  and  care  of  us  for  many  other  things,  the 
effects  whereof  I  design  to  leave  U|)on  that  Providence 
which  has  brought  us  hither.  It  were  superlluous 
to  tell  your  lordship  the  story  of  our  present  con- 
dition, either  as  to  the  civil  government,  works,  or 
soldiery;  he  who  hath  studied  all  these  more  than 
any  I  know  here,  can  certainly  give  the  best  account 
of  them.  Wherefore  I  commit  the  whole  to  his  in- 
formation, and  beg  your  lordship's  casting  a  favour- 
able eye  upon  such  propositions  as  he  will  otier  to 
your  lordship  for  the  good  of  this  garrison. 
"I  am,  may  it  please  your  lordship, 

"  Your  most  humble,  faithful. 

"And  obedient  servant, 
"  Will.  Lockhart." 

[This  part  is  all  written vvith  Lockhart's  own  hand.] 
"My  Lord, 

"Mr.  Peters  hath  taken  leave  at  least  three  or 
four  times,  but  still  something  falls  out  which  hinders 
his  return  to  England.  He  hath  been  twice  at  Bergh, 
and  hath  spoken  with  the  cardinal*  three  or  four 
times  ;  I  kept  myself  by,  and  had  a  care  that  he  did 
not  importune  him  with  too  long  speeches.  He  re- 
turns loaded  with  an  account  of  all  things  here,  and 
hath  undertaken  every  man's  business.  I  must  give 
him  that  testimony,  that  he  gave  us  three  or  four 
very  honest  sermons  ;  and  if  it  were  possible  to  get 
him  to  mind  preaching,  and  to  forbear  the  troubling 
himself  with  other  things,  he  would  certainly  prove  a 
very  tit  minister  for  soldiers.  1  hope  he  cometh  well 
satisfied  from  this  place.  He  hath  often  insinuated 
to  me  his  desire  to  stay  here  if  he  had  a  call.  Some 
of  the  officers  also  have  been  with  me  to  that  pur- 
pose ;  but  I  have  shifted  him  so  handsomely,  as  I 
hope  he  will  nor  be  displeased ;  for  I  have  told  him 
that  the  greatest  service  he  can  do  us  is  to  go  to 
England,  and  carry  on  his  propositions,  and  to  own 
us  in  all  our  other  interests,  which  he  hath  under- 
taken with  much  zeal."  

*  Mazarine. 


APPENDIX. 


527 


No.  xxir. 


[The  following  Discourse  was  preached  hy 
Mr.  Mayhew,  minister  of  the  West  Church  in 
Boston.  It  comprises  a  lucid  and  well-timed 
illustration  of  several  important  to|)ics  connect- 
ed with  the  history  of  the  Puritans,  which  re- 
cent arrogant  assumptions  on  the  part  of  the 
Oxonian  ecclesiastics,  and  their  like-minded 
American  consociates,  render  necessary  again 
to  he  examined  and  accurately  understood. 
Therefore,  as  the  oracular  opinions  and  decis- 
ion of  the  Puritans,  both  Anglo-American  and 
British,  the  sermon  is  here  annexed  in  perpetu- 
am  rei  memoriam  .'] 

Unlimited  Submission  and  Nonresis/ance  to  the 
Hi i: her  Powers;  with  some  Reflections  on  the 
Resistance  made  to  King  Charles  /.,  and  on 
the  Anniversary  of  his  Death:  in  which  the  mys- 
'erious  Doctrine  uf  that  Prince's  Saintship  and 
Mariyrdiim  is  unriddled.  A  Sermon  preached 
III  the  West  Mcc/Dig-house,  in  Boston,  on  the 
Lord's  Day  after  the  thirtieth  of  January,  1750. 
By  Jonathan  Mayhew. 

He  that  ruleth  over  men  must  be  just,  ruling  in  the  fear 
of  God. — David. 

I  have  said,  ye  are  gods,  but  ye  shall  die  like  men,  and 
fall  like  one  of  the  princes. — David. 

Fear  Gud,  honour  the  king. — Paul. 

Quid  memorem  infandas  ccedes?     Quid  facta  tyranni 

EH'era?     Dii  capiti  ipsius  generique  rcservent. 

Neciion  Threicius  longa  cum  veste  sacerdos, 

Obloquiior. — RoM.  Vat.  Prin. 

PREFACE. 

"  All  Scripture  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for 
reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righte- 
ousness." Why,  then,  should  not  those  parts 
of  Scripture  which  relate  to  civil  government 
be  examined  and  explained  as  well  as  others'! 
Obedience  to  the  civil  magistrate  is  a  Chris- 
tian duty,  and  why  should  not  the  nature, 
grou.ids,  and  extent  of  it  be  considered  in  a 
Christian  assembly  .'  Besides,  if  it  be  said  that 
it  is  out  of  character  for  a  Christian  minister 
to  meddle  with  such  a  subject,  this  censure 
Will  fall  upon  the  holy  apostles.  They  write 
upon  it  in  their  epistles  to  Christian  churches; 
and  surely  it  cannot  be  deemed  either  criminal 
or  impertinent  to  attempt  an  explanation  of 
ti.eir  doctrine. 

It  was  the  near  approach  of  the  thirtieth  of 
January  that  turned  my  thoughts  to  this  sub- 
ject. On  that  day  the  slavish  doctrine  of  pas- 
sive obedience  and  nonrcsistance  is  often 
warmly  asserted,  and  dissenters  from  the  Es- 
tablished Church  represented,  not  only  as  schis- 
matics, with  more  of  triumph  than  of  truth, 
and  of  choler  than  Christianity,  but,  also,  as 
persons  of  seditious,  traitorous,  and  rebellious 
principles.  God  be  thanked,  one  may  speak  free- 
ly both  of  government  and  religion  ;  and  avow 
that  he  is  engaged  on  the  side  of  liberty,  the 
Bible,  and  common  sense,  in  opposition  to  tyr- 
anny, priestcraft,  and  nonsense,  without  being 
in  danger  either  of  the  Bastile  or  the  Inqui- 
sition ;  though  there  will  always  be  some  in- 
terested politicians,  contracted  bigots,  and  hyp- 
ocritical zealots  for  a  party  to  take  offence  at 
such  freedoms.  Their  censure  is  praise  ;  their 
praise  is  infamy.  A  spirit  of  domination  is  al- 
ways to  be  guarded  against  both  in  Church  and 
State,  even  in  times  of  the  greatest  security. 
Those  nations  who  are  now  groaning  under 


the  iron  sceptre  of  tyranny,  were  once  frc"-. 
So  they  might  probably  have  remained  by  a 
seasonable  caution  against  despotic  measures. 
Civil  tyranny  is  usually  sntall  in  its  beginning, 
like  "the  drop  of  a  bucket,"  till  at  length,  like 
a  mighty  torrent,  or  the  raging  waves  of  the 
sea,  it  bears  down  all  before  it,  and  deluges 
whole  countries  and  empires.  Thus  it  is  as  to 
ecclesiastical  tyranny  also— /Ac  most  cruel,  intol- 
erable, and  impious  of  any.  From  small  begin- 
nings "it  exalts  itself  above  all  that  is  called 
God,  and  that  is  worshipped."  People  have  no 
security  against  being  unmercifully  priest-rid- 
den but  by  keeping  all  imperious  bishops  and 
other  clergymen,  who  love  to  "  lord  it  over  God's 
heritage,"  from  getting  their  foot  into  the  stir- 
rup at  all.  Let  them  be  once  fairly  mounted, 
and  their  "beasts,  the  laity,"  may  prance  and 
flounce  about  to  no  purpose,  and  they  will,  at 
length,  be  so  jaded  and  hacked  by  these  rever- 
end jockeys,  that  they  will  not  even  have  spirit 
enough  to  complain  that  their  backs  are  galled  ; 
or,  like  Balaam's  ass,  to  "  rebuke  the  madness 
of  the  prophet." 

"  The  mystery  of  iniquity  began  to  work"^ 
even  in  the  days  of  some  of  the  apostles.  But 
the  kingdom  of  antichrist  was  then  in  one  re- 
spect like  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  however  dif- 
ferent in  all  others.  It  was  "  as  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard-seed." This  grain  was  sown  in  Italy,  and, 
though  it  were  "  the  least  of  all  seeds,"  it  sooa 
became  a  mighty  tree.  It  has  long  since  over- 
spread and  darkened  the  greatest  part  of  Chris- 
tendom, so  that  we  may  apply  to  it  what  is 
said  of  the  tree  which  Nebuchadnezzar  saw  in 
his  vision,  "  The  height  thereof  reached  unto 
heaven,  and  the  sight  thereof  to  the  end  of  all 
the  earth,  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  have  shad- 
ow under  it."  Tyranny  brings  ignorance  and 
brutality  along  with  it ;  it  degrades  men  from 
their  just  rank  into  th^  class  of  brutes  ;  it 
damps  their  spirits  ;  it  suppresses  arts  ;  it  ex- 
tinguishes every  spark  of  noble  ardour  and 
generosity  in  the  breasts  of  those  who  are 
enslaved  by  it ;  it  makes  naturally  strong  and 
great  minds  feeble  and  little,  and  triumphs  over 
the  ruins  of  virtue  and  humanity.  This  is  true 
of  tyranny  in  every  shape  :  there  can  be  no- 
thing great  and  good  where  its  influence  reach- 
es. For  which  reason  it  becomes  every  friend 
to  truth  and  human  kind,  every  lover  of  God 
and  the  Christian  religion,  to  bear  a  part  in  op- 
posing this  hateful  monster.  It  was  a  desire 
to  contribute  a  mite  towards  carrying  on  a  war 
against  this  common  enemy  that  produced  the 
following  discourse,  and  if  it  serve,  in  any 
measure,  to  keep  up  a  spirit  of  civil  and  reli- 
gious liberty  among  us,  my  end  is  answered. 
There  are  virtuous  and  candid  men  in  all  sects  ; 
all  such  are  to  be  esteemed  :  there  are  also 
vicious  men  and  bigots  in  all  seels  ;  and  all 
such  ought  to  be  despised. 

Jonathan  Mayhew. 

UNLIMITED  SUBMISSION  AND  NONRESISTANCE 
TO  THE  HIGHER  POWERS. 
Romans,  xiii.,  1-7  :  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the 
higher  powers.  For  there  Is  no  power  but  of  Cod  ;  tlio 
powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever,  th^e- 
fore,  rcsisteth  the  power,  rrsiateth  the  ordinance  of  God  ; 
and  they  that  resist  shall  ruceive  to  thenistlvcs  damnation. 
For  rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil. 
Wilt  thou  then  not  bo  afiaid  of  the  power?  Do  that  which 
is  good,  and  thou  shalt  have  praise  of  the  same.  For  he  is 
the  minister  of  God  to  iheo  for  (.'ood.     Hut  if  thou  do  that 


52S 


APPENDIX. 


■which  is  evil,  be  afraid  ;  for  he  benreth  not  the  sword  in 
■vain  ;  for  he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger  to  execute 
wrath  upon  him  thaldoeth  evil.  Wherefore  ye  must  needs 
be  subject,  not  only  for  wrath,  but  also  for  coiiscieuce' 
sake.  For  this  cause  pay  you  tribute  also  :  for  they  are 
God's  ministers,  attending  continually  upon  this  very  thing 
Render,  iherefore,  to  all  their  dues  :  tribute  to  whom  tribute 
is  due  ;  custom,  to  whom  custom  ;  fear,  to  whom  fear  ;  h(m- 
our,  to  whom  honour. 

("ivii,  government  may  properly  fall  under  a 
mora!  and  religious  consideration,  at  least  so 
far  as  it  relates  to  the  general  nature  and  end 
of  magistracy,  and  to  the  grounds  and  extent 
of  that  submission  which  persons  of  a  private 
character  ought  to  yield  to  those  who  are  vest- 
ed with  authority.  This  must  be  allowed  by 
all  who  acknowledge  the  divine  original  of  Chris- 
tianiiy.  For  although  there  be  a  very  plain 
and  important  sense  in  which  Christ's  "  king- 
dom is  not  of  this  world"  his  inspired  apostles 
have  nevertheless  laid  down  some  general  prin- 
cii)les  concerning  the  office  of  civil  rulers  and 
the  duty  of  subjects,  together  with  the  rea- 
son and  obligation  of  that  duty.  Hence  it  fol- 
lows, that  it  is  proper  for  all  who  acknowledge 
the  authority  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  inspi- 
ration of  his  apostles,  to  endeavour  to  under- 
stand what  is  the  doctrine  which  they  have  de- 
livered concerning  this  matter.  It  is  the  duty 
of  Christian  magistrates  to  inform  themselves 
■what  it  is  which  their  religion  teaches  con- 
cerning the  nature  and  design  of  their  office, 
and  it  is  equally  the  duty  of  all  Christian  people 
to  inform  themselves  what  it  is  which  their  re- 
ligion teaches  concerning  that  subjection  which 
they  owe  to  the  high  powers. 

This  passage  of  Paul's  is  the  most  full  and 
express  of  any  in  the  New  Testament,  relating 
to  rulers  and  subjects  ;  therefore  I  thought  it 
proper  to  ground  upon  it  what  1  had  to  propose 
to  you  with  reference  to  the  authority  of  the 
civil  magistrate,  and  the  subjection  which  is 
due  to  him. 

There  were  some  persons  among  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  apostolic  age,  and  particularly  those 
at  Rome,  to  whom  Paul  is  here  writing,  who 
seditiously  disclaimed  all  subjection  to  civil  au- 
thority ;  refusing  to  pay  taxes,  and  the  duties  laid 
upon  their  traffic  and  merchandise;  and  who 
scrupled  not  to  speak  of  their  rulers  without 
any  due  regard  to  their  office  and  character. 
Some  of  these  turbulent  Christians  were  con- 
verts from  Judaism,  and  others  from  Paganism. 
The  Jews  in  general,  long  before  this  tune,  had 
taken  up  a  strange  conceit,  that  being  the  pe- 
culiar people  of  God,  they  were  therefore  ex- 
empted from  the  jurisdiction  of  any  heathen 
princes  or  governors.  Upon  this  ground  it  was 
that  some  of  them,  during  the  public  ministry 
of  our  blessed  Saviour,  came  to  him  with  that 
question,  "  Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  unto  Ccesar 
or  not?"  This  notion  many  of  them  retained 
after  they  were  proselyted  to  the  Christian 
faith.  As  to  tlie  Gentde  converts,  some  of  them 
grossly  mistook  the  nature  of  that  liberty  which 
the  fiospel  promised,  and  thought  that,  by  vir- 
tue of  their  subjpctoin  to  Christ,  the  only  king 
and  head  of  his  Church,  they  were  wholly  freed 
from  subjection  to  any  otlier  prince  ;  as  though 
Christ's  kingdom  ''had  been  of  this  loorld"  in 
such  a  sense  as  to  interfere  with  the  civil  pow- 
ers of  the  earth,  and  to  deliver  their  subjects 
from  that  allegiance  and  duty  which  they  be- 
fore owed  to  them.     Of  these  visionary  Chris- 


tians in  general,  who  disowned  subjection  to 
the  civil  powers  in  being,  where  they, repect- 
ively  lived,  there  is  mention  made  in  several 
places  in  the  New  Testament.  The  apostle 
Peter,  in  particular,  characterizes  them  in  this 
manner  :  "  Tkem  that  despise  government,  pie- 
sumpluous  arc  they,  self-willed;  they  arc  not 
afraid  to  speak  evil  of  dignities.''''  Now,  with 
reference  to  these  doting  Christians,  the  apos- 
tle speaks  in  the  passage  before  us. 

The  apostle  begins  thus  :  "  Let  every  soul  be 
subject  unto  the  higher  powers ;  for  there  is  no 
■poioer  but  of  God  :  the  powers  that  be  are  ordairicd 
of  God.'"*  As  if  he  had  said,  "  Whereas,  some 
professed  Christians  vainly  imagine  that  they 
wholly  are  excused  from  all  manner  of  duty  and 
subjection  to  civil  authority,  refusing  to  honour 
their  rulers  and  to  pay  taxes — which  opinion  is 
not  only  unreasonable  in  itself,  but  also  tends 
to  fix  a  lasting  reproach  upon  the  Christian 
name  and  profession — I  now,  as  an  apostle 
and  ambassador  of  Christ,  exhort  every  one  of 
you  to  pay  all  dutiful  submission  to  those  who 
are  vested  with  any  civil  office  ;  for  there  is, 
properly  speaking,  no  authority  but  what  is  de- 
rived from  God,  as  it  is  only  by  his  permissi<in 
and  providence  that  any  possess  it.  I  may  add, 
that  ail  civil  magistrates,  as  such,  although  they 
may  be  heathens,  are  appointed  and  ordained 
of  God  ;  for  it  is  certainly  God's  will  that  so 
useful  an  institution  as  that  of  magistracy 
should  take  place  in  the  world  for  the  good  of 
civil  society."  The  apostle  proceeds  :  "  Who- 
soever, therefore,  resisteth  the  poioer,  resisleih  the 
ordinance  of  God  ;  and  they  that  resist  shall  receive 
to  themselves  damnation.'"  "'I'hink  not,  therefore, 
that  ye  are  guiltless  of  any  crime  or  sin  against 
God  when  ye  factiously  disobey  and  resist  the 
civil  authority.  For  magistracy  and  government 
being  the  ordinance  and  appointment  of  God,  it 
follows,  that  to  resist  magistrates  in  the  execu- 


■*  Every  soxd.  This  is  an  Hibraism,  which  signi- 
fies every  man  ;  so  that  the  apostle  does  not  exempt 
the  clergy,  such  as  were  endowed  with  the  gift  of 
prophecy,  or  any  other  miraculous  powers  which  sub- 
sisted in  the  Church  at  that  day  ;  and,  by  his  using  the 
Hebrew  idiom,  it  seems  that  he  had  the  Jewish  con- 
verts principally  in  his  eye. 

The  higher  powers  :  more  literally,  the  overruling 
powers,  which  term  extends  to  all  civil  rulers  in 
common. 

By  power,  the  apostle  intends  not  lawless  strevgth 
and  brutal/orcf,  without  regulation  or  proper  direc- 
tion, but  just  authority,  for  so  the  word  here  used 
properly  signifies.  There  may  be  power  where  there 
is  no  authority.  No  man  has  any  authority  to  do  what 
is  wrong  and  injurious,  though  he  may  have  power 
to  do  it. 

The  powers  that  be^:  Those  persons  who  are,  in 
fact,  vested  with  authority  ;  these  who  are  in  pos- 
session. Who  those  are,  the  apostle  leaves  Chris- 
tians to  determnie  for  themselves;  but,  whoever  they 
are,  they  are  to  be  obeyed. 

Ordained  of  God :  As  it  is  not  without  God's  prov- 
idence  and  permission  that  any  are  clothed  with  au- 
thority ;  and  as  it  is  agreeable  to  the  positive  will 
and  purpose  of  God  that  there  should  be  some per.tona 
vested  with  authority  for  the  good  of  society.  Not 
that  any  rulers  have  their  commission  immediately 
from  God,  the  supreme  Lord  of  the  fJniverse.  If 
any  assert  that  kings  or  any  other  rulers  are  ordain- 
ed of  God  in  the  latter  sense,  it  is  uicnmbent  upon 
them  to  show  the  commission  which  they  speak  of, 
under  the  broad  seal  of  heaven,  and  when  they  do 
this  they  will  no  doubt  be  believed. 


APPENDIX. 


529 


tion  of  their  offices  is  really  to  resist  the  will  and 
ordinance  ol'Goa  himself;  and  tliey  who  thus  re- 
sist will  accordingly  be  punished  hy  God  lor  this 
sin  in  common  with  others."  The  apostle  goes 
on  :  "  For  rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but 
to  the  evil.  Wilt  thou,  then,  not  be  a/raid  o/lhepoio- 
er  1  Do  that  ichich  is  good,  and  thou  shall  have 
praise  of  the  same  :  for  he  is  the  miriister  of  God 
to  thee  for  good.'"*  "  That  you  may  see  the 
truth  and  justness  of  what  I  assert,  that  magis- 
tracy is  the  ordinance  of  God,  and  that  you  sin 
against  him  in  opposing  it,  consider  that  even 
pagan  rulers  are  not,  by  ihe  nature  and  design  of 
their  office,  enemies  and  a  terror  to  the  good  and 
virtuous  actions  of  men,  but  only  to  the  injuri- 
ous and  mischievous  to  society.  Will  ye  not, 
then,  reverence  and  honour  magistracy  when 
ye  see  the  good  end  and  intention  of  it  !  How 
can  ye  be  so  unreasonable  1  Only  mind  to  do 
your  duty  as  members  of  society,  and  this  will 
gain  you  the  applause  and  favour  of  all  good 
rulers.  For  while  you  do  thus,  they  are  by  their 
office,  as  ministers  of  God,  obliged  to  encour- 
age and  protect  you  ;  it  is  ft)r  this  very  purpose 
that  they  are  clothed  with  power."  The  apos- 
tle subjoins  :  "  But  if  thou  do  that  which  is  evil,  be 
afraid,  for  he  bcareth  not  the  sword  in  vain.  For 
he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger,  to  execute 
wrath  upon  him  that  docth  ci;i/."t  "But,  upon 
the  other  hand,  if  ye  refuse  to  do  your  duty  as 
members  of  society  ;  if  ye  refuse  to  bear  your 
part  in  the  support  of  government ;  if  ye  are 
disorderly,  and  do  things  which  merit  civil 
chastisement,  then,  indeed,  ye  have  reason  to 
be  afraid  :  for  it  is  not  in  vain  that  rulers  are 
vested  with  the  power  of  inflicting  punishment. 
They  are,  by  their  office,  not  only  the  ministers 


*  For  rulers  are  not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the 
evil.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  apostle  designs 
here,  or  in  any  of  the  succeeding  verses,  to  give  the 
true  character  of  Nero,  or  any  other  civil  powers 
then  in  being,  as  if  they  were,  in  fact,  such  persons 
as  he  describes,  a  terror  to  evil  works  only,  and  not 
to  the  good;  for  such  a  character  did  not  belong  to 
them,  and  the  apostle  was  no  sycophant  or  parasite 
of  power,  whatever  some  of  his  pretended  succes- 
sors have  been.  He  only  tells  what  rulers  would 
be,  provided  they  acted  up  to  their  character  and 
office. 

t  it  is  manifest  ihat  when  the  apostle  speaks  of  it 
as  the  office  of  civil  rulers  to  encourage  what  is 
good,  and  to  punish  what  is  evil,  he  speaks  only  of 
civil  good  and  evil.  They  are  to  consult  the  good  of 
society  as  such,  not  to  dictate  in  religious  concerns ; 
not  to  make  laws  for  the  government  of  men's  con- 
sciences, and  to  inflict  civil  penalties  for  religious 
crimes.  It  is  sufficient  to  overthrow  the  doctrine  of 
the  authority  of  the  civil  magistrate  in  affairs  of  a 
spiritual  nature  (so  far  as  it  is  built  upon  anything 
which  is  here  said  by  St.  Paul,  or  upon  anything 
else  in  the  New  Testament)  only  to  observe,  that  all 
the  magistrates  then  in  the  world  were  heathen,  im- 
placable enemies  to  Christianity ;  so  that  to  give 
them  authority  in  religious  matters  would  have  been, 
in  efirect,  to  give  them  authority  to  e.xtirpate  tiie 
Christian  religion,  and  to  establish  the  idolatries  and 
superstitions  of  paganism.  And  can  any  one  reason- 
ably suppose  that  the  apostle  had  any  intention  to 
extend  the  authority  of  rulers  beyond  concerns  mere- 
ly civil  and  political,  to  (he  overthrowing  of  that  re- 
ligion which  he  himself  was  so  zealous  in  propaga- 
ting? But  it  is  natural  for  those  whose  religion  can- 
not be  supported  upon  the  footing  of  reason  and  ar- ! 
giiment  to  have  recourse  to  power  and  force,  which 
will  serve  a  bad  cause  as  well  as  a  good  one,  and, 
imiped,  much  better. 

Vol.  U.—X  x  x 


of  God  for  good  to  those  that  do  well,  but  also 
his  ministers  to  revenge,  to  discountenance, 
and  punish  those  that  are  unruly  and  injurious 
to  their  neighbours."  The  apostle  proceeds: 
''  Wherefore  ye  must  needs  be  subject,  nut  only  for 
ivrath,  bat  also  for  conscience^  sake."  "  Smce, 
therefore,  magistracy  is  the  ordinance  of  God, 
and  since  rulers  are,  by  their  office,  benefactors 
to  society,  by  discouraging  what  is  bad  and  en- 
couraging what  is  good,  and  so  preserving  peace 
and  order  among  men,  it  is  evident  that  ye 
ought  to  pay  a  willing  subjection  to  them  ;  not 
to  obey  merely  for  fear  of  exposing  yourselves 
to  their  wrath  and  displeasure,  but  also  in  point 
of  reason,  duty,  and  conscience.  Ye  are  under 
an  indispensable  obligation,  as  Christians,  to 
honour  their  office,  and  to  submit  to  them  in 
the  execution  of  it."  The  apostle  goes  on  : 
"  For  for  this  cause  pay  you  tribute  also  :  for  they 
are  Gjd''s  ministers,  attending  continually  upon 
this  very  thing."  "  And  here  is  a  plain  reason, 
also,  why  ye  should  pay  tribute  to  them  ;  for 
they  are  God's  ministers,  exalted  above  the 
common  level  of  mankind,  not  that  they  may 
indulge  themselves  in  softness  and  luxury,  and 
be  entitled  to  the  servile  homage  of  their  fellow- 
men,  but  that  they  may  execute  an  office  no 
less  laborious  than  honourable,  and  attend  con- 
tinually upon  the  public  welfare.  This  being 
their  business  and  duty,  it  is  but  reasonable 
that  they  should  be  requited  for  their  care  and 
diligence  in  performing  it,  and  enabled,  by  tax- 
es levied  upon  the  subject,  effectually  to  prose- 
cute the  great  end  of  their  institution — the  good 
of  society."  The  apostle  sums  up  all  in  the 
following  words  :  "  Render,  therefore,  to  all  their 
dues  :  tribute,  to  whom  tribute  is  due ;  custom,  to 
whom  custom  ;  fear,  to  whom  fear  ;  honour,  to 
whom  honour."*  "  Let  it  not  therefore  be  said 
of  any  of  you  hereafter,  that  you  contemn  gov- 
ernment, to  the  reproach  of  yourselves  and  of 
the  Christian  religion.  Neither  your  being  Jews 
by  natio#,  nor  your  becoming  the  subjects  of 
Christ's  kingdom,  gives  you  any  dispensation 
for  making  disturbances  in  the  government  un- 
der which  you  live.  Approve  yourselves,  there- 
fore, as  peaceable  and  dutiful  subjects.  Be 
ready  to  pay  to  your  rulers  all  that  they  may, 
in  respect  of  their  office,  justly  demand  of  you. 
Render  tribute  and  custom  to  those  of  your 
governors  to  whom  tribute  and  custom  belong; 
and  cheerfully  honour  and  reverence  all  who 
are  vested  with  civil  authority  according  to 
their  deserts." 

The  apostle's  doctrine,  in  the  passage  thus 
explained,  concerning  the  office  of  civil  rulers 
and  the  duty  of  subjects,  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  following  observations  : 

That  the  end  of  magistracy  is  the  good  ot 
civil  society,  as  such. 

That  civil  rulers,  as  such,  are  the  ordinance 
and  ministers  of  God  ;  it  being  by  his  permis- 
sion and  providence  that  any  bear  rule,  and 
agreeable  to  his  will  that  there  should  be  some 


*  Grotius  observes,  that  the  Greek  words  here 
used  answer  to  the  tributum  and  vectigal  of  the  Ro- 
mans ;  the  former  was  the  money  paid  for  the  soil 
and  poll,  the  latter  the  duties  laid  upon  some  sorts 
of  merchandise.  What  the  apostle  here  says  de- 
serves to  be  seriously  considered  by  all  Christians 
concerned  in  that  common  practice  of  carrying  on  an 
illicit  trade  and  running  of  goods. 


530 


APPENDIX. 


persons  vested  with  authority  in  society  for  the 
"well-being  of  it. 

Thai  which  is  here  said  concerning  civil  ru- 
lers exteruls  to  all  of  them  in  common.  It  re- 
lates, indifferently,  to  monarchical,  republican, 
and  aristocrat ical  government,  and  to  all  other 
forms  which  truly  answer  the  sole  end  of  gov- 
ernment, ilie  happiness  of  society  ;  and  to  all 
the  different  degrees  of  authority  in  any  par- 
ticular state  ;  to  inferior  officers  no  less  than 
to  the  supreme. 

That  disobedience  to  civil  rulers,  in  the  due 
exercise  of  their  authority,  is  not  merely  polit- 
ical sin,  but  heinous  offence  against  God  and 
religion. 

That  the  true  ground  and  reason*  of  our  oh- 
ligation  to  be  subject  to  the  higher  powers  is 
the  usefulness  of  magistracy,  when  properly 
exercised,  to  human  society,  and  its  subservi- 
ency to  the  general  welfare. 

That  obedience  to  civil  rulers  is  here  equally 
required  under  all  forms  of  government  which 
answer  the  sole  end  of  all  government,  the  good 
of  society  ;  and  to  every  degree  of  authority  in 
any  state,  whether  supreme  or  subordinate. 

Whence  it  follows,  that  if  unlimited  obedi- 
ence and  nonresistance  be  here  required  as  a 
duty  under  any  one  form  of  government,  it  is 
also  required  as  a  duly  under  all  other  forms  ; 
and  as  a  duty  to  subordinate  rulers  as  well  as 
to  the  supreme  ;  and  that  those  civil  rulers  to 
whom  the  apostle  enjoins  subjection  are  the 
persons  in  possessiim  ;  the  powers  that  be ; 
those  who  are  actually  vested  with  authority.! 


*  Some  suppose  the  apostle  in  this  passage  en- 
forces the  duty  of  submission  with  two  arguments 
quite  distinct  from  each  other ;  one  taken  from  this 
consideration,  that  rulers  are  the  ordinance  and  the 
ministers  of  God  (ver.  1,2,  and  4),  and  the  other  from 
the  benefits  that  accrue  to  society  from  civil  govern- 
ment (ver.  3,  4,  and  6).  And,  indeed,  these  may  be 
distinct  motives  and  arguments  for  submission,  as 
they  may  be  separately  viewed  and  contemplated  ; 
but  when  we  consider  that  rulers  are  noAhe  ordi- 
nance and  the  ministers  of  God  but  only  so  far  forth 
as  they  perform  God's  will,  by  acting  up  to  their  office 
and  character,  and  so,  by  being  benefactors  to  soci- 
ety, this  makes  these  arguments  coincide  and  run 
up  into  one  at  last;  at  least,  so  far  that  the  former 
of  them  cannot  hold  good  for  submission  where  the 
latter  fails.  Put  the  supposition  that  any  man,  bear- 
ing the  title  of  a  magistrate,  should  exercise  his  pow- 
er in  such  a  manner  as  to  have  no  claim  to  obedi- 
ence by  virtue  of  that  argument  which  is  founded 
upon  the  usefulness  of  magistracy,  and  you  equally 
take  off  the  force  of  the  other  argument  also,  which 
is  founded  upon  his  being  the  ordinance  and  the 
minister  of  God  ;  for  he  is  no  longer  God's  ordinance 
and  minister  than  he  acts  up  to  his  office  and  char- 
acter by  exercising  his  power  for  the  good  of  society  : 
this  is,  in  brief  tlie  reason  why  it  is  said  above,  in 
the  singular  number,  the  true  ground  and  reanon,  &c. 
The  use  and  propriety  of  this  remark  may  he  more 
apparent  in  the  progress  of  the  argument  concerning 
resistance. 

t  This  must  be  understood  with  this  proviso,  that 
they  do  not  grossly  abuse  their  power  and  trust,  but 
exercise  it  for  the  good  of  those  that  are  governed. 
Who  these  persons  were,  whether  Nero,  &c.,  or 
not,  the  apostle  does  not  say,  hut  leaves  it  to  be  de- 
termined by  those  to  whom  he  writes.  God  does 
not  interpose  in  a  miraculous  way  to  point  out  the 
persons  who  shall  hear  rule,  and  to  whom  subjection 
is  due.  And  as  to  the  unalienable,  indefeasible  right 
of  primogeniture,  the  Scriptures  are  entirely  silent, 
or,  rather,  plainly  contradict  it,  Saul  being  the  first 
king  among  the  Israelites,  and  appointed  to  the  royal 


There  is  one  very  important  and  interesting 
point  which  remains  to  be  inquired  into,  name- 
ly, the  extent  of  that  subjection  to  the  higher 
powers  which  is  here  enjoined  as  a  duly  upon 
all  Christians.  Some  have  thought  it  warrant- 
able and  glorious  to  disobey  the  civil  powers  in 
certain  circumstances  ;  and  in  cases  of  very 
great  and  general  oppression,  when  humble  re- 
monstrances fail  of  having  any  effect,  and, 
when  the  public  welfare  cannot  be  otherwise 
provided  for  and  secured,  to  rise  unanimously, 
even  against  the  sovereign  himself,  in  order  to 
redress  their  grievances  ;  to  vindicate  their 
natural  and  legal  rights ;  to  break  the  yoke  of 
tyranny,  and  free  themselves  and  posterity  from 
inglorious  servitude  and  ruin.  It  is  upon  this 
principle  that  many  royal  oppressors  have  been 
driven  from  their  thrones  into  banishment,  and 
many  slain  by  the  hands  of  their  subjects.  It 
was  upon  this  principle  that  Tarquin  was  ex- 
pelled from  Rome,  and  Julius  Caesar,  the  con- 
queror of  the  world  and  the  tyrant  of  his  coun- 
try, cut  off  in  the  senate-house.  It  was  upon 
this  principle  that  Charles  I.  was  beheaded  be- 
fore his  own  banqueting-house.  It  was  upoa 
this  principle  that  James  II.  was  made  to  fly 
that  country  which  he  aimed  at  enslaving. 
Upon  this  principle  was  that  revolution  brought 
about  which  has  been  so  fruitful  of  happy  con- 
sequences to  Britain.  But,  in  oppo.silion  to  this 
principle,  it  has  often  been  asserted  that  the 
Scripture  in  general,  and  the  passage  under- 
consideration  in  particular,  makes  all  resistance 
to  princes  a  crime  in  any  case  whatever.  If 
they  turn  tyrants,  and  become  the  common  op- 
pressors of  those  whose  welfare  they  ought  to 
regard  with  a  paternal  affection,  we  must  not 
pretend  to  right  ourselves  unless  it  he  by  pray- 
ers, and  tears,  and  humble  entreaties ;  and  if 
these  methods  fail  ofprocuring  redress,  we  must 
not  have  recourse  to  any  other,  but  suffer  our- 
selves to  be  robbed  and  butchered  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  Lord's  anointed,  lest  we  should  incur 
the  sin  of  rebellion  and  the  punishment  of  dam- 
nation. For  he  has  God's  authority  and  com- 
mission to  bear  him  out  in  the  worst  of  crimes, 
so  far  that  he  may  not  be  withstood  or  c(mi- 
trolled.  Now,  whether  we  are  obliged  to  yield 
such  an  absolute  submission  to  our  prince,  or 
whether  disobedience  and  resistance  may  not 
he  justifiahle  in  some  cases,  notwithstanding 
anything  in  the  passage  before  us,  is  an  inquiry 
in  which  we  are  all  concerned. 

Now  there  is  no  necessity  to  suppose  that 
absolute,  unlimited  obedience,  whether  active 
or  passive,  is  here  enjoined,  because  the  pre- 
cept IS  delivered  in  absolute  terms,  without  any 
exception  or  intimation  expressly  mentioned. 
We  are  enjoined  to  be  "  suhjr.cl  to  the  higher 
powers,"  and  to  be  "  subject  for  conscienee'  sake  ," 
and  because  these  expressions  are  absolute  and 
unlimited,  or,  more  properly,  general,  some  have 
inferred  that  the  subjection  required  in  them 
must  be  absolute  and  unlimited  also  ;  at  least, 
so  far  as  to  make  passive  obedience  and  non- 
dignitTduring  his  own  father's  lifetime  ;  and  he  was 
succeeded,  or,  rather,  superseded  by  David,  the  last 
horn  among  manv  brethren.  Now.  if  God  has  not 
invariably  determined  this  matter.it  must,  of  course, 
be  determined  bv  men ;  and  if  it  be  determined  by 
men,  it  must  be  determined  either  in  the  way  of  force 
or  of  cnmpnci.  and  which  of  these  is  the  most  equi- 
table can  be  no  question. 


APPENDIX. 


531 


resistance  a  duty  ir  rill  cases  whatever,  if  not 
active  obedience  lilcewise  ;  thougli  tliere  is 
here  no  distinction  l)t  iween  active  and  passive 
obedience;  and  if  either  of  them  be  required  in 
an  unlimited  sense,  tlie  other  must  be  required 
in  the  same  sense  also,  because  the  expressions 
are  equally  absolute  with  respect  to  both.  But 
that  unlimited  obedience  of  any  sort  cannot  be 
argued  merely  from  the  indefinite  expressions 
in  which  obedience  is  enjoined,  appears  hence, 
that  expressions  of  the  same  nature  frequently 
occur  in  Scripture,  upon  which  it  is  confessed 
that  no  such  absolute  and  unlimited  sense  ought 
to  be  put.  For  example  :  "  Lnve  not  the  world, 
neither  the  things  that  are  in  the  world ;"'  "  Lmj 
not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  on  earth  ;"  "  Take, 
therefore,  no  thought  for  the  morrow,''  are  pre- 
cepts expressed  in  at  least  equally  absolute  and 
unlimited  terms  ;  but  they  are  to  be  understood 
with  certain  restrictions  and  limitations,  some 
degree  of  love  to  the  world,  and  the  things  of 
it,  being  allowable.  Nor,  indeed,  do  the  right 
reverend  fathers  in  God,  and  other  dignified 
clergymen  of  the  Established  Church,  seem  to 
be  altogether  averse  to  admitting  of  restrictions 
in  the  latter  case,  how  warm  soever  any  of 
them  may  be  against  restrictions  and  limita- 
tions in  the  case  of  submission  to  authority, 
whether  civil  or  ecclesiastical.  Patience  and 
submission  under  private  injuries  are  enjoined 
in  much  more  peremptory  and  absolute  terms 
than  any  that  are  used  with  regard  to  submis- 
sion to  the  injustice  and  oppression  of  civil  ru- 
lers. Thus:  "  /  «aj/  unto  you,  that  you  resist 
not  evil ;  but  whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  the  right 
cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man 
will  sue  thee  at  the  law,  and  lake  aicay  thy  coal,  let 
him  have  thy  cloak  also.  And  whosoever  shall 
compel  thee  to  go  a  mile  with  him,  go  with  him 
twain.'"  Any  man  may  he  defied  to  produce 
such  strong  expressions  in  favour  of  a  passive 
and  tame  submission  to  unjust,  tyrannical  ru- 
lers, as  are  here  used  to  enforce  submission  to 
private  injuries.  But  how  few  are  there  that 
understand  those  expressions  literally  ;  and 
the  reason  why  they  do  not  is  because,  with 
submission  to  the  Friends,  common  sense 
shows  that  they  were  not  intended  to  be  so  un- 
derstood. 

Some  Scripture  precepts  which  are  more  di- 
rectly to  the  point  in  hand.  Children  are  com- 
manded to  obey  their  parents,  and  servants 
their  masters,  in  as  absolute  and  unlimited  terms 
as  subjects  are  here  commanded  to  obey  their 
civil  rulers.  Thus  this  same  apostle  :  "  Chil- 
dren, obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord,  for  this  is 
right.  Honour  thi/  father  and  mother,  which  is 
the  first  commandment  with  promise.  Servants, 
be  obedient  to  them  that  are  your  masters,  accord- 
ing to  the  flesh,  with  fear  and  trembling,  icith  sin- 
gleness of  your  heart  as  unto  Christ."  Thus, 
also,  wives  are  commanded  to  be  obedient  to 
their  husbands  :  "  Wwes,  submit  yourselves  unto 
your  own  husbands  as  unto  the  Lord ;  for  the  hus- 
band IS  the  head  of  the  wife,  even  as  Christ  is  the 
HEAD  OF  THE  Church.  Therefore,  as  the  Church 
IS  subject  unto  Christ,  so  let  the  wives  be  to  their 
own  husbands  in  evervthino."  In  all  these 
cases  submission  is  required  in  terms  as  abso- 
lute and  universal  as  are  ever  used  with  respect 
to  rulers  and  subjects;  hut  who  supposes  that 
the  apostle  evei  intended  to  teach  that  children, 


servants,  and  wives,  in  all  cases  whatever, 
should  obey  their  parents,  masters,  and  hus- 
bands, respectively,  never  making  any  opposi- 
tion to  their  will,  even  although  they  should 
require  them  to  break  the  conmiandments  of 
God,  or  should  causelessly  make  an  attempt 
upon  their  lives'!  No  one  puts  such  a  sense 
upon  these  expressions,  however  absolute  and 
unlimited.  Wiiy,  then,  should  it  be  supposed 
that  the  apostle  designed  to  teach  universal 
obedience,  whether  active  or  passive,  to  the 
higher  powers,  merely  because  his  precepts 
are  delivered  in  absolute  and  unlimited  terms'! 
If  it  be  said  that  resistance  and  disobedience  to 
the  higher  powers  are  here  said  positively  to  be 
a  sin,  so  also  is  the  disobedience  of  children  to 
parents,  servants  to  masters,  and  wives  to  hus- 
bands, in  other  places  of  Scripture.  But  the 
question  still  remains.  Whether  in  all  these 
cases  there  be  not  some  exceptions  1  In  the 
three  latter  it  is  allowed  there  are.  Hence  it 
follows,  that  barely  the  use  of  absolute  expres- 
sions is  no  proof  that  obedience  to  civil  rulers 
is  in  all  cases  a  duty,  or  that  resistance  in  all 
cases  is  a  sin. 

There  is,  indeed,  one  passage  in  the  New 
Testament  where  it  may  seem,  at  first  view, 
that  an  unlimited  submission  to  civil  rulers  is 
enjoined  :  "  Submit  yourself  to  every  ordinance 
of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake."  To  every  ordinance 
of  man.  However,  this  expression  is  no  strong- 
er than  that  before  taken  notice  of  with  rela- 
tion to  the  duty  of  wives,  "  So  let  the  loives  be  sub- 
ject to  their  own  husbands  in  everything."  But 
the  true  solution  of  this  difficulty  is  this :  by  "ev- 
ery ordinance  of  man"*  is  not  meant  every  com- 
mand of  the  civil  magistrate  without  excep- 
tion, but  every  order  of  magistrates  appointed 
by  man,  whether  superior  or  inferior ;  for  so 
the  apostle  explains  himself  in  the  very  next 
words  :  "  Whether  it  be  to  the  king  as  supreme, 
or  to  gorcrnors,  as  unto  them  that  are  sent,"  &c. 
(1  Pet.,'ii.,  13,  14).  But  although  the  apostle 
has  not  subjoined  any  such  explanation,  the 
reasim  of  the  thing  itself  would  have  obliged  us 
to  limit  the  expression,  "every  ordinance  of 
nvin,"  to  such  human  ordinances  and  commands, 
as  are  not  inconsistent  with  the  ordinances  and 
commands  of  God,  the  supreme  lawgiver,  or  with 
any  other  higher  and  antecedent  obligations. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  as  the  duty  of 
universal  obedience  and  nonresistance  to  the 
higher  powers  cannot  be  argued  from  the  abso- 
lute, unlimited  expressions  which  the  apostle 
here  uses,  so  neither  can  it  be  argued  from  the 
scope  and  drift  of  his  reasoning,  considered 
with  relation  to  the  persons  he  was  here  oppo- 
sing. As  was  observed  already,  there  w'afe 
some  professed  Christians  in  the  apostolic  age 
who  disclaimed  all  magistracy  and  civil  author- 
ity in  general,  "  despising  gorernment  and  speak- 
ing evil  of  dignities  ;''  some  under  a  notion  that 
Jews  ought  not  to  he  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Gentile  rulers,  and  others,  that  they  were  set 
free  from  the  temporal  powers  by  Christ.  Now 
It  is  with  persons  of  this  licentious  opinion  and 
character  that  the  apostle  is  concerned,  and  ail 
that  was  directly  to  his  point  was  to  show  that 


*  Literally,  everi/  human  iiislitulion  or  appointment. 
Py  which  manner  of  expression  the  a[)ostle  plainly 
intimates  that  rulers  derive  their  authority  immedi- 
attlij,  not  from  God,  but  from  men 


533 


APPENDIX. 


they  were  bound  to  submit  to  magistracy  in 
general.  Tliis  is  a  circumstanoe  very  material 
to  be  taken  notice  of,  in  ortler  to  ascertain  the 
sense  of  tiie  apostle  ;  for  this  is  sufficient  to 
account  for  all  that  he  says  concerning  the 
duty  of  subjection,  and  the  sin  of  resistances  to 
the  higher  powers,  without  having  recourse  to 
the  doctrine  of  unlimited  submission  and  pas- 
sive obedience  in  all  cases  whatever.  Were  it 
known  that  those,  in  opposition  to  whom  the 
apostle  wrote,  allowed  of  civil  authority  in  gen- 
eral, and  only  asserted  that  there  were  some 
cases  in  which  obedience  and  nonresistance 
were  not  a  duty,  there  would  then,  indeed,  be 
reason  for  interpreting  this  passage  as  contain- 
ing the  doctrine  of  unlimited  obedience  and 
nonresistance,  as  it  must  in  this  case  be  sup- 
posed to  have  been  levelled  against  those  who 
denied  that  doctrine.  But  since  it  is  certain  that 
there  were  persons  who  vainly  imagined  that 
civil  government  in  general  was  not  to  be  re- 
garded by  them,  it  is  most  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  the  apostle  designed  his  discourse 
only  against  them.  Agreeably  to  this  suppo- 
sition, we  find  that  he  argues  the  usefulness  of 
civil  magistracy  in  general ;  its  agreeableness 
to  the  will  and  purpose  of  God,  who  is  over  all ; 
and  so  deduces  thence  the  obligation  of  submis- 
sion to  it.  But  it  will  not  follow  that  beca»se 
civil  government  is  a  good  institution,  and  ne- 
cessary to  the  peace  and  happiness  of  human 
society,  therefore  there  are  no  supposable  cases 
in  wiiich  resistance  to  it  can  be  innocent ;  so 
that  the  duty  of  unlimited  obedience,  whether 
active  or  passive,  can  be  argued  neither  from 
the  manner  of  expression  here  used,  nor  from 
the  general  scope  and  design  of  the  passage. 

If  we  attend  to  the  nature  of  the  argument 
with  which  the  apostle  here  enforces  the  duty 
t)f  submission  to  the  higher  powers,  we  shall 
find  that  it  concludes,  not  in  favour  of  submis- 
sion to  all  who  bear  the  title  of  rulers  in  com- 
mon, but  only  to  those  who  actually  perform 
the  duty  of  rulers  by  exercising  a  reasonable 
and  just  authority  for  the  good  of  human  soci- 
ety. Now  the  question  before  us  turns  very 
much  upon  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  this  posi- 
tion. It  is  obvious  that  the  civil  rulers  whom 
the  apostle  here  speaks  of,  and  obedience  to 
whom  he  presses  upon  Christians  as  a  duty, 
are  good  rulers,*  such  as  are,  in  the  exercise  of 
their  office  and  power,  benefactors  to  society. 
Such  they  are  described  to  be  throughout  this 
passage.  Thus  it  is  said  that  they  are  not  "  a 
terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil  ,•"  that  they  are 
God's  "  ministers  for  good  ;  revengers  to  execute 
math  upon  him  that  doelh  evil ;"  and  that  "  they 
attend  continually  upon  this  very  thing."  Peter 
gives  the  same  account  of  rulers :  they  are 
"  '•-'■  a  praise  to  iheni  that  do  xoell,  and  the  pufush- 
mcnt  of  evil  doers."  This  character  and  descrip- 
tion o'f  rulers  agree  only  to  such  as  are  rulers 
in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name  ;  to  such  as  govern 
well  and  act  agreeably  to  their  office.  The 
apostle's  argument  for  submission  to  rulers  is 
wholly  built  and  grounded  upon  a  presumption 
that  they  do,  in  fact,  answer  this  character,  and 

»  By  good  rulers  are  not  intended  such  as  are  good 
in  a  7)ioral  or  religion.'!,  but  only  in  a  political  sense  ; 
those  who  perform  their  duty  so  far  as  their  office 
extends,  and  so  far  as  civil  society  is  concerned  in 
their  actions. 


is  of  no  force  at  all  upon  the  supposition  of  the 
contrary.  If  "  rulers  are  a  terror  to  good  works, 
and  not  to  the  evil ;"  if  they  are  not  '^  nnnisters 
for  good  to  society,"  hut  for  evil  and  distress,  by 
violence  and  oppression  ;  if  they  "  execute  wrath 
upon"  sober,  peaceable  persons,  who  do  their 
duly  as  members  of  society,  and  suffijr  rich  and 
honourable  knaves  to  escape  with  impunity  ; 
if,  instead  of  "attending  continually  upon"  the 
good  work  of  advancing  the  public  welfare, 
they  attend  only  upon  the  gratification  of  their 
own  lust,  and  pride,  and  ambition,  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  public  welfare ;  if  this  be  the 
c^se,  the  apostle's  argument  for  submission 
does  not  reach  them.  They  are  not  the  same, 
but  different  persons  from  those  whom  he  char- 
acterizes, and  who  must  be  obeyed  according 
to  his  reasoning.  Let  me  illustrate  the  apos- 
tle's argument  by  the  following  similitude.  Sup- 
pose, then,  it  was  allowed  that  the  clergy  are  a 
useful  order  of  men ;  that  they  ought  to  be  "  es- 
teemed very  highly  in  love  for  their  rcorks'  sake  ;" 
and  to  be  decently  supported  by  those  whom 
they  serve,  "the  labourer  being  loorthy  of  his  rc- 
vmrd."  Suppose,  farther,  that  a  number  of  rev- 
erend and  right  reverend  drones,  who  work 
not ;  who  preach  perhaps  but  once  a  year,  and 
then  not  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  the 
divine  right  of  tithes  ;  the  dignity  of  their  office 
as  ambassadors  of  Christ ;  the  equity  of  fine 
cures  and  a  plurality  of  benefices  ;  the  excel- 
lency of  the  devotions  in  that  Prayer  Book 
which  some  of  them  hire  chaplains  to  use  for 
them  ;  or  some  favourite  point  of  Church  tyr- 
anny and  antichristian  usurpation  ;  suppose 
such  men  as  these,  spending  their  lives  in 
effeminacy,  luxury,  and  idleness,  or  when  they 
are  not  idle,  doing  that  which  is  worse  than 
idleness  ;  suppose  such  men,  merely  by  the 
merit  of  ordination  and  consecration,  and  a 
peculiar,  odd  habit,  should  claim  great  respect 
and  reverence  from  those  whom  they  civilly 
called  the  "  beasts  of  the  laity,"  and  should  de- 
mand thousands  per  annum  for  that  good  ser- 
vice which  they  never  perform,  and  for  which, 
if  they  had  peformed  it,  this  would  be  much 
more  than  a  quantum  meruit ;  suppose  this 
should  be  the  case,  would  not  everybody  be  as- 
tonished at  such  insolence,  injustice,  and  im- 
piety !  Ought  not  such  men  to  be  told  plainly 
that  they  could  not  reasonably  expect  the  es- 
teem and  reward  due  to  the  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  unless  they  did  the  duties  of  their  office  ? 
Should  they  not  be  told  that  their  title  and  habit 
claimed  no  regard,  reverence,  or  pay,  separate 
from  the  care,  and  work,  and  various  duties  of 
their  function  ?  and  that  w,hile  they  neglected 
the  latter,  the  former  served  only  to  render  them 
the  more  ridiculous  and  contemptible  1  The. 
application  of  this  similitude  to  the  case  in  hand 
is  very  easy.  If  those  who  bear  the  title  of 
civil  rulers  do  not  perform  the  duty  of  civil  ru- 
lers, but  act  directly  counter  to  the  sole  end  and 
design  of  their  office  ;  if  they  injure  and  op- 
press their  subjects,  instead  of  defending  their 
rights  and  doing  them  good,  they  have  not  the 
least  pretence  to  be  honoured,  obeyed,  and  re- 
warded, according  to  the  apostle's  argument ; 
for  his  reasoning,  in  order  to  show  the  duty  of 
subjection  to  the  higher  powers,  is  built  wholly 
upon  the  supposition  that  ihey  do  in  fac^t  per- 
form the  duty  of  rulers. 


APPENDIX. 


533 


It  has  been  said  that  the  apostle  nere  uses 
another  argument  for  submission  to  the  higher 
powers,  besides  that  which  is  taken  from  the 
usefulness  of  their  office  to  civil  society,  when 
properly  discharged  and  executed  ;  that  their 
power  is  from  God  ;  that  they  are  ordained  of 
God  ;  and  that  they  are  God's  ministers ;  and 
that  this  argument  for  submission  to  them  will 
hold  good,  although  they  do  not  exercise  their 
power  for  the  benefit,  but  for  the  ruin  and  de- 
struction of  human  society.  But  rulers  have 
not  authority  from  God  to  do  mischief.  They 
are  not  God's  ordinance,  or  God's  ministers,  in 
any  other  sense  than  as  it  is  by  his  permission 
and  providence  that  they  are  exalted  to  bear 
rule ;  and  as  magistracy  duly  exercised,  and 
authority  rightly  applied,  in  the  enacting  and 
executing  good  laws — laws  attempered  and  ac- 
commodated to  the  common  welfare  of  the  sub- 
jects, must  be  supposed  to  be  agreeable  to  the 
will  of  the  beneficent  author  and  supreme  Lord 
of  the  universe,  whose  "  kingdom  ndelh  over  all," 
and  whose  "  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works," 
it  is  blasphemy  to  call  tyrants  and  oppressors 
God's  ministers.  They  are  more  properly  "  the 
messengers  o/Satan  to  buffet  us."  No  rulers  are 
God's  ministers  but  such  as  are  "just,  ruling 
in  the  fear  of  God."  When  once  magistrates 
act  contrary  to  their  office  and  the  end  of  their 
institution  ;  when  they  rob  and  ruin  the  public, 
instead  of  being  guardians  of  its  peace  and  wel- 
fare, they  immediately  cease  to  be  the  "ordi- 
naiice  and  ministers  of  God,"  and  no  more  de- 
serve that  glorious  character  than  common  pi- 
rates and  highwaymen.  So  that  whenever  that 
argument  for  submission  fails,  which  is  ground- 
ed upon  the  usefulness  of  magistracy  to  civil 
society,  as  it  always  does  when  magistrates  do 
hurt  to  society  instead  of  good,  the  other  argu- 
ment, which  is  taken  from  their  being  the  ordi- 
nance of  God,  must  necessarily  fail  also — no 
person  of  a  civil  character  being  God's  minis- 
ter in  the  sense  of  the  apostle,  any  farther  than 
he  performs  God's  will  by  exercising  a  just  and 
reasonable  authority,  and  ruling  for  the  good 
of  the  subject. 

Let  us  now  trace  the  apostle's  reasoning  in 
favour  of  submission  to  the  higher  powers,  and 
it  will  appear  how  good  and  conclusive  it  is  for 
submission  to  those  rulers  who  exercise  their 
power  in  a  proper  manner  ;  and  how  weak,  and 
trifling,  and  unconnected  it  is,  if  it  be  supposed 
to  be  meant  by  the  apostle  to  show  the  obliga- 
tion and  duty  of  obedience  to  tyrannical,  op- 
pressive rulers,  in  common  with  others  of  a  dif- 
ferent character. 

The  apostle  enters  upon  his  subject  thus  : 
"  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  pow- 
ers ;  for  there  ts  no  power  but  of  God  :  the  powers 
that  he  arc  ordained  of  God."  Here  he  urges 
the  duty  of  obedience,  because  civil  rulers,  as 
they  are  supposed  to  fulfil  the  pleasure  of  God, 
are  the  ordinance  of  God.  But  how  is  this  an 
argument  for  obedience  to  such  rulers  as  do  not 
perform  the  pleasure  of  God,  by  douig  good  ; 
but  tbe  pleasure  of  the  devil,  by  doing  evil ;  and 
such  as  are  not,  therefore,  God's  ministers,  but 
fhe  devil's  !  "  Whosoever,  therefore,  resjstclh  the 
power,  rcsisleih  the  ordinance  of  God ;  and  they 
that  resist,  shall  receive  to  themselves  damnation." 
Here  the  apostle  argues,  tliat  those  who  resist 
a  reasonable  and  just  authority,  which  is  agreea- 


ble to  the  will  of  God,  do  really  resist  the  will 
of  God  himself,  and  will  therefore  be  punished 
by  him.  But  how  does  this  prove  that  those 
who  resist  a  lawless,  unreasonable  power,  which 
is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God,  do  therein  resist 
the  will  and  ordinance  of  God  1  Is  resisting 
those  who  resist  God's  will  the  same  thing 
with  resisting  God  1  Or  shall  those  who  do  so, 
"  receive  to  themselves  damnation  !  For  rulers  are 
not  a  terror  to  good  works,  but  to  the  evil.  Wilt 
thou  then  not  be  afraid  of  the  power  1  Do  that 
which  is  good,  and  thou  shale  have  praise  of  the 
same ;  for  he  is  the  minister  of  God  to  thee  for 
good."  Here  the  apostle  argues  more  explicit- 
ly than  he  had  before  done  for  revering  and  sub- 
mitting to  magistracy,  from  this  consideration, 
that  such  as  really  perform  the  duty  of  magis- 
trates, would  be  enemies  only  to  the  evil  ac- 
tions of  men,  and  would  befriend  and  encourage 
the  good  ;  and  so  be  a  common  blessing  to  so- 
ciety. But  how  is  this  an  argument  that  we 
must  honour  and  submit  to  such  magistrates  as 
are  not  enemies  to  the  evil  actions  of  men,  but 
to  the  good  ;  and  such  as  are  not  a  common 
blessing,  but  a  common  curse,  to  society  !  "  But 
if  thou  do  that  ivhich  is  evil,  be  afraid ;  for  he  is 
the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger,  to  execute  wrath 
upon  him  that  doeth  evil."  Here  the  apostle  ar- 
gues from  the  nature  and  end  of  magistracy, 
that  such  as  did  evil,  and  such  only,  had  rea- 
son to  be  afraid  of  the  higher  powers  ;  it  being 
part  of  their  office  to  punish  evildoers,  no  less 
than  to  defend  and  encourage  such  as  do  well. 
But  if  magistrates  are  unrighteous  ;  if  they  are 
respecters  of  persons ;  if  they  are  partial  in 
their  administration  of  justice  ;  then  those  who 
do  well  have  as  much  reason  to  be  afraid  as 
those  that  do  evil.  There  can  be  no  safety  for 
the  good,  nor  any  peculiar  ground  of  terror  to 
the  unruly  and  injurious.  So  that  in  this  case, 
the  main  end  of  civil  government  will  be  frus- 
trated. What  reason  is  there  for  submitting  to 
that  government  which  does  by  no  means  an- 
swer the  design  of  government  1  "  Wherefore 
ye  must  needs  be  subject  not  only  for  wrath,  but 
also  for  conscience^  sake."  Here  the  apostle  ar- 
gues the  duty  of  a  cheerful  and  conscientious 
submission  to  civil  government,  from  the  na- 
ture and  end  of  magistracy,  as  he  had  before 
laid  it  down ;  as  the  design  of  it  was  to  punish 
evildoers,  and  to  support  and  encourage  such 
as  do  well ;  and  as  it  must,  if  so  exercised,  be 
agreeable  to  the  will  of  God.  But  how  does 
what  he  here  says  prove  the  duty  of  a  cheerful 
and  conscientious  subjection  to  those  who  for- 
feit the  character  of  rulers!  to  those  who  en- 
courage the  bad,  and  discourage  the  goodi 
The  argument  here  used  no  more  proves  it  to 
be  a  sin  to  resist  such  rulers,  than  it  does  to 
"resist  the  devil,  that  he  \my  flee  from  us."  For 
one  is  as  truly  the  minister  of  God  as  the  oth- 
er. "  For  after  this  cause  pay  you  tribute  also ; 
for  they  are  God's  ministers,  attending  continual- 
ly upon  this  very  thing."  Here  the  apostle  ar- 
gues the  duty  of  paying  taxes,  from  this  con- 
sideration, that  those  who  perform  the  duty  of 
rulers  are  continually  attending  upon  the  pub- 
lic welfare.  But  how  does  this  arguiiieiit  con- 
clude for  paying  taxes  to  such  princes  as  are 
continually  endeavouring  to  ruin  the  public  ? 
and  especially  when  such  payment  would  fa- 
cilitate and  promote  this  wicked  design  !  "  Ren- 


534 


APPENDIX. 


der,  therefore,  to  aL  their  dues :  tribute,  to  whom 
tribute  is  due  ;  citslom,  to  whom  custom  ;  fear,  to 
whom  fear  ;  honour,  to  whom  honour."  Here  the 
apostle  sums  up  what  he  had  been  saying  con- 
cerning the  duty  of  subjects  to  rulers.  His  ar- 
gument stands  thus:  "Since  magistrates  who 
execute  their  office  well  are  common  benefac- 
tors to  society,  and  may,  in  that  respect,  be 
properly  styled  the  ministers  and  ordinance  of 
God  ;  and  since  they  are  constantly  employed 
in  the  service  of  the  public,  it  becomes  you  to 
pay  them  tribute  and  custom  ;  and  to  reverence, 
honour,  and  submit  to  them  in  the  execution  of 
their  respective  offices."  This  is  apparently 
good  reasoning.  But  does  this  argument  con- 
clude for  the  duty  of  paying  tribute,  custoin, 
reverence,  honour,  and  obedience  to  those  per- 
sons, although  they  bear  the  title  of  rulers,  who 
use  all  their  power  to  hurt  and  injure  the  pub- 
lic ?  such  as  are  not  God's  ministers,  but  Sa- 
tan's 1  such  as  do  not  take  care  of,  and  attend 
upon  the  public  interest,  but  their  own,  to  the 
ruin  of  the  public  1  that  is,  in  short,  to  such  as 
have  no  natural  and  just  claim  at  all  to  tribute, 
custom,  reverence,  honour,  and  obedience?  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  those  who  have  any  regard  to 
the  apostle's  character  as  an  inspired  writer,  or 
even  as  a  man  of  common  understanding,  will 
not  present  him  as  reasoning  in  such  a  loose, 
incoherent  manner,  and  drawing  conclusions 
which  have  not  the  least  relation  to  his  premi- 
ses. For  what  can  be  more  absurd  than  an  ar- 
gument thus  framed  !  "  Rulers  are,  by  their 
office,  bound  to  consult  the  public  welfare  and 
the  good  of  society  :  therefore  you  are  bound  to 
pay  them  tribute,  to  honour  and  submit  to  them, 
even  when  they  destroy  the  public  welfare,  and 
are  a  common  pest  to  society,  by  acting  in  direct 
contradiction  to  the  nature  and  end  of  their  of- 
fice." 

Thus,  upon  a  careful  review  of  the  apostle's 
reasoning  in  this  passage,  it  appears  that  his 
arguments  to  enforce  submission  are  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  conclude  only  in  favour  of  submis- 
sion to  such  rulers  as  he  himself  describes:  those 
who  rule  for  the  good  of  society,  which  is  the 
only  end  of  their  institution.  Common  tyrants 
and  public  oppressors  are  not  entitled  to  obe- 
dience from  their  subjects  by  virtue  of  any- 
thing here  laid  down  by  the  inspired  apostle. 

The  apostle's  argument  is  so  far  from  proving 
it  to  be  the  duty  of  people  to  obey  and  submit 
to  such  rulers  as  act  in  contradiction  to  the 
public  good,*  and  to  the  design  of  their  office, 
that  it  proves  the  direct  contrary.  For  if  the 
end  of  all  civil  government  be  the  good  of  so- 
ciety ;  if  this  be  the  thing  that  is  aimed  at  in 
constituting  civil  rulers;  and  if  the  motive  and 
argument  for  submission  to  government  be  ta- 
ken from  the  apparent  usefulness  of  civil  au- 
thority, it  follows,  that  when  no  such  good  end 
can  be  answered  by  submission,  there  remains 
no  argument  or  motive  to  enforce  it ;  if,  instead 
of  this  good  end's  being  brought  ai)out  by  sub- 
mission, a  contrary  end  is  brought  about,  and 
the  ruin  and  misery  of  society  effi?cted  by  it ; 


*  This  does  not  intend  their  acting  so  in  a  few 
par/icular  instances,  which  the  best  of  rulers  may  do 
throiigli  mistake,  but  their  acting  so  hahiiually,  and 
in  a  manner  which  plainly  shows  that  they  aim  at 
mailing  themselves  great  by  the  ruia  of  their  sub- 
jects. 


here  is  a  plain  and  positive  reason  against  sub- 
mission in  all  such  cases,  should  they  ever  hap- 
pen. Therefore,  in  such  cases,  a  regard  to  the 
public  welfare  ought  to  make  us  withhold  from 
our  rulers  that  obedience  and  subjection  which 
it  would  otherwise  be  our  duty  to  render  to 
them.  If  it  be  our  duty,  for  example,  to  obey 
the  king  merely  for  this  reason,  that  he  rules 
for  the  public  welfare,  which  is  the  only  argu- 
ment the  apostle  makes  use  of,  it  follov/s,  by 
parity  of  reason,  that  when  he  turns  tyrant  and 
makes  his  subjects  his  prey  to  devour  and  to 
destroy,  instead  of  his  charge  to  defend  and 
cherish,  we  are  bound  to  throw  off  our  alle- 
giance to  him,  and  to  resist.  Not  to  discontin- 
ue our  allegiance  in  this  case,  would  be  to  join 
with  the  sovereign  in  promoting  the  slavery  and 
misery  of  that  society,  the  welfare  of  which 
we  ourselves,  as  well  as  our  sovereign,  are  in- 
dispensably obliged  to  secure  and  promote.  It 
is  true,  the  apostle  puts  no  case  of  such  a  ty- 
rannical prince;  but  by  his  grounding  bis  ar- 
gument for  submission  wholly  upon  the  good  of 
civil  society,  it  is  plain  he  implicitly  authorizes, 
and  even  requires  us  to  make  resistance  when- 
ever this  shall  he  necessary  to  the  public  safe- 
ty and  happiness.  Let  me  use  this  easy  and  fa- 
miliar similitude  to  illustrate  the  point  in  hand  : 
Suppose  God  requires  a  family  of  children  to 
obey  their  father  and  not  to  resist  him,  and  en- 
forces his  command  with  this  argument :  that 
the  superintendence,  and  care,  and  authority  of 
a  just  and  kind  parent  will  contribute  to  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  family,  so  that  they 
ought  to  obey  him  for  their  own  sakes  more 
than  for  his.  Suppose  that  this  parent  at 
length  becomes  distracted,  and  attempts,  in  his 
mad  fits,  to  cut  his  children's  throats'.  Now, 
in  this  case,  is  not  the  reason  before  assigned 
why  these  children  should  obey  their  parent 
while  he  continued  of  a  sound  mind,  their  com- 
mon good,  a  reason  equally  conclusive  for  dis- 
obeying and  resisting  him,  since  he  is  become 
delirious,  and  attempts  their  ruin  1  It  makes 
no  alteration  in  the  argument,  whether  this  pa- 
rent, properly  speaking,  loses  his  reason,  or, 
while  he  retains  his  understanding,  does  that 
which  is  as  fatal  in  its  consequences  as  any- 
thing he  could  do,  vvere  he' really  deprived  of  it. 
But  it  ought  to  be  remembered,  that  if  the 
duty  of  universal  obedience  and  nonrcsistance 
to  our  king  or  prince  can  be  argued  from  this 
passage,  the  same  unlimited  submission  imder 
a  republican,  or  any  other  form  of  government, 
and  even  to  all  the  subordinate  powers  in  any 
particular  state,  can  be  proved  by  it  as  well, 
which  is  more  than  those  who  allege  it  for  the 
mentioned  purpose  would  be  willing  should  be 
inferred  from  it.  So  that  this  passage  does  not 
answer  their  purpose,  but  really  overthrows 
and  confutes  it.  This  matter  deserves  to  be 
more  particularly  considered.  The  advocates 
for  unlimited  submission  and  passive  obedience 
always  speak  with  reference  to  kingly  or  mo- 
narchical government,  as  distinguished  from  all 
other  forms  ;  and  with  reference  to  submitting 
to  the  will  of  the  king,  in  distinction  from  all 
subordinate  officers  acting  beyond  their  com- 
mission, and  the  authority  which  they  have  re- 
ceived from  the  crown.  It  is  not  pretended 
that  any  person  besides  kings  have  a  divine 
right  to  do  what  they  please,  so  that  no  one  may 


APPENDIX. 


535 


Tesist  thern  without  incurring  the  guilt  of  fac- 
tiousness and  rebellion.  If  any  other  supreme 
powers  oppress  the  people,  it  is  generally  al- 
lowed that  the  people  may  get  redress  by  re- 
sistance if  other  methods  prove  ineffectual  ; 
and  if  any  officers  in  a  kingly  government  go 
beyond  the  limits  of  that  power  which  they 
have  derived  from  the  crown,  the  supposed 
original  source  of  all  power  and  authority  in 
the  state,  and  attempt  illegally  to  take  away 
the  property  and  lives  of  their  fellow-subjects, 
Ibey  may  be  forcibly  resisted.  But  as  to  the 
sovereign  himself,  they  say  he  may  not  be  re- 
sisted in  any  case,  nor  any  of  his  officers,  while 
Ihey  conrine  themselves  within  the  bounds 
which  he  has  prescribed  to  them.  This  is  a 
true  sketch  of  the  principles  of  those  who  de- 
fend the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  and  non- 
resistance.  Now  there  is  nothing  in  Scripture 
which  supports  this  scheme  of  political  principles. 
As  to  the  passage  under  consideration',  the 
ap(jsile  here  speaks  of  civil  rulers  in  general ; 
of  all  persons  in  common,  vested  with  authori- 
ty for  the  good  of  society,  without  any  particu- 
lar reference  to  one  form  of  government  more 
than  to  another ;  or  to  the  supreme  power  in 
any  particular  state  more  than  to  subordinate 
powers.  The  apostle  does  not  concern  himself 
with  the  different  forms  of  government*  This 
he  supposes  left  entirely  to  human  prudence 
and  discretion.  Now  the  consequence  of  this 
is,  that  unlimited  and  passive  obedience  is  no 
more  enjoined  in  this  passage  under  monarchi- 
cal government,  or  to  the  supreme  power  in 
any  slate,  than  under  all  other  species  of  gov- 
ernment which  answer  the  end  of  government ; 
or  to  all  the  subordinate  degrees  of  civil  authori- 
ty, from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  Those,  there- 
fore, who  would  from  this  passage  infer  the 
guilt  of  resisting  kings  in  all  cases  whatever, 
though  acting  ever  so  contrary  to  the  design  of 
their  office,  if  they  will  be  consistent,  must  go 
much  farther,  and  infer  from  it  the  guilt  of  re- 
sistance under  all  other  forms  of  government ; 
and  of  resisting  any  petty  officer  in  the  state, 
though  acting  beyond  his  commission  in  the 
most  arbitrary,  illegal  manner  possible.     The 


*  The  essence  of  government  (I  mean  good  gov- 
ernment, and  this  is  the  only  government  which  the 
apostle  treats  of  in  this  passage)  consists  in  the  ma- 
king and  executing  of  good  laws — laws  attempered 
to  the  common  felicity  of  the  governed.  If  this  be 
in  fact  done,  it  is  evidently  in  itself  a  thing  of  no  con- 
sequence at  all  what  the  particular  form  of  govern- 
ment is ;  whether  the  legislative  and  executive  pow- 
er be  lodged  in  one  and  the  same  person,  or  in  differ- 
ent persons;  whether  in  one  person,  whom  we  call 
an  absolute  monarch;  whether  in  a  few,  so  as  to 
constitute  an  aristocracy  ;  whether  in  many,  so  as  to 
constitute  a  republic;  or  whether  in  three  co-ordi- 
nate branches,  in  such  manner  as  to  make  the  gov- 
ernment partake  something  of  each  of  these  forms, 
and  to  be  at  the  same  time  esseiitiallvdifi'erent  from 
them  ail.  If  the  end  be  attained,  it  is  enough.  Hut 
1)0  form  of  government  seems  to  be  so  unlikely  to  ac- 
complish this  end  as  absolute  monarchy  ;  nor  is 
there  any  one  that  has  so  little  pretence  to  a  divine 
original,  unless  it  be  in  this  sense,  that  God  first  in- 
troduced it  into,  and  thereby  overturned  the  com- 
monwealth of  Israel  as  a  curse  upon  that  people  for 
their  folly  and  wickedness,  particularly  in  desiring 
such  a  government. — 1  Samuel,  viii.  .lust  so  God 
before  sent  quails  among  them  as  a  plague  and  a 
■  curse,  and  not  as  a  blessing. — Numbers,  xi. 


argument  holds  equally  strong  in  both  cases. 
All  civil  rulers,  as  such,  are  the  ordinance  and 
ministers  of  God  ;  and  they  are  all,  by  the  na- 
ture of  their  office,  and  in  their  respective  spheres 
and  stations,  bound  to  consult  the  public  welfare. 
With  the  same  reason,  therefore,  ihat  any  deny 
unlimited  and  passive  obedience  to  be  here  en- 
joined under  a  republic  or  aristocracy,  or  any  oth- 
er established  form  of  civil  government,  or  to 
subordinate  powers  acting  in  an  illegal  and  op- 
pressive manner,  with  the  same  reason  others 
may  deny  that  such  obedience  is  enjoined  to  a 
king  or  monarch,  or  any  civil  power  whatever. 
For  the  apostle  says  nothing  that  is  peculiar  to 
kings  ;  what  he  says  extends  equally  to  all  oth- 
er persons  whatever  vested  with  any  civil  office. 
They  are  all  in  exactly  the  same  sense  the  "or- 
dinance of  God,"  and  the  '^ministers  of  God;" 
and  obedience  is  equally  enjoined  to  be  paid  to 
them  all.  For,  as  the  apostle  expresses  it, 
'"there  is  no  power  but  of  God."  And  we  are 
required  to  '■'render  to  all  their  rf«cs,"  and  not 
more  than  their  dues.  What  these  duos  are, 
and  to  whom  they  are  to  be  rendered,  the  apos- 
tle saith  not,  but  leaves  to  the  reason  and  con- 
sciences of  men  to  determine. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  common  argument 
grounded  upon  this  passage  in  favour  of  univer- 
sal and  passive  obedience,  really  overthrows  it- 
self by  proving  too  much,  if  it  proves  anything 
at  all — that  no  civil  officer,  in  any  case  what- 
ever, is  to  be  resisted,  though  acting  in  express 
contradiction  to  the  design  of  his  office,  which 
no  man  in  his  senses  ever  did  or  can  assert. 

If  we  calmly  consider  the  nature  of  the  thing 
itself,  nothing  can  well  he  imagined  more  di- 
rectly contrary  to  common  sense  than  to  sup- 
pose that  millions  of  people  should  be  subjected 
to  the  arbitrary,  precarious  pleasure  of  one  sin- 
gle man,  who  has  naturally  no  superiority  over 
them  in  point  of  authority,  so  that  their  estates 
and  everything  that  is  valuable  in  life,  and  even 
their  lives  also,  shall  be  absolutely  at  his  dis- 
posal, if  he  happens  to  be  wanton  and  capri- 
cious enough  to  demand  them.  What  unpreju- 
diced man  can  think  that  God  made  ai,i.  to  be 
thus  subservient  to  the  lawless  pleasure  and 
phrensy  of  one,  so  that  it  shall  always  be  a  sin 
to  resist  him  !  Nothing  but  the  most  plain  and 
express  revelation  from  heaven  could  make  a 
sober,  impartial  man  believe  such  a  monstrous, 
unaccountable  doctrine  ;  and,  indeed,  the  thing 
itself  appears  so  shocking,  so  out  of  all  propor- 
tion, that  it  may  be  questioned  whether  all  the 
miracles  that  ever  were  wrought  could  make  it 
credible  that  this  doctrine  really  came  from 
God.  There  is  not  the  least  syllable  in  Scripture 
which  gives  any  countenance  to  it.  The  heredita- 
ry, indefeasible,  divine  right  of  kings,  and  the 
doctrine  of  nonresistance,  which  is  built  upon 
the  supposition  of  such  a  right,  are  altogether 
as  fabulous  and  chimerical  as  transubstautia- 
tion,  or  any  of  the  most  absurd  reveries  of  an- 
cient or  modern  visionaries.  These  notions  are 
fetched  neither  from  Divine  revelation  nor  hu- 
man reason  ;  and  if  they  are  derived  from  nei- 
ther of  those  sources,  it  is  no  matter  whence 
t!iey  come  or  whither  they  go  ;  only  it  is  a 
pity  that  such  doctrines  should  be  propagated 
m  society  to  raise  factions  and  rebellions  as 
they  have  been,  both  in  ihe  last  and  in  the  pres- 
ent reign. 


536 


APPENDIX. 


But  then,  if  unlimited  submission  and  passive 
obedience  to  the  higher  powers  in  all  possible 
cases  be  not  a  duty,  it  will  be  asked,  "  How  far 
are  we  obliged  to  submit  1  If  we  may  inno- 
cently disobey  and  resist  in  some  cases,  why 
not  in  all !  Where  shall  we  stop  ">.  What  is 
the  measure  of  our  dutyl  This  doctrine  tends 
to  the  total  dissolution  of  civil  government,  and 
to  introduce  such  scenes  of  wild  anarchy  and 
confusion,  as  are  more  fatal  to  society  than  the 
worst  of  tyranny." 

After  this  manner  some  men  object,  and,  in- 
deed, this  is  the  most  plausible  thing  that  can 
be  said  in  favour  of  such  an  absolute  submis- 
sion as  they  plead  for.  But  there  is  very  little 
strength  or  solidity  in  it ;  for  similar  difficulties 
may  be  raised  with  respect  to  almost  every  duty 
of  natural  and  revealed"  religion.  To  instance 
only  in  two,  both  of  which  are  near  akin,  and 
exactly  parallel  to  the  case  before  us.  It  is  un- 
questionably the  duty  of  children  to  submit  to 
their  parents,  and  of  servants  to  their  masters. 
But  no  one  asserts  that  it  is  their  duty  to  obey 
and  submit  to  them  in  all  supposable  cases,  or 
universally  a  sin  to  resist  them.  Now  does  this 
tend  to  subvert  the  just  authority  of  parents  and 
masters  !  or  to  introduce  confusion  and  anar- 
chy into  private  families  1  How,  then,  does  the 
same  principle  tend  to  unhinge  the  government 
of  that  larger  family,  the  body  politic?  We 
know,  in  general,  that  children  and  servants  are 
obliged  to  obey  their  parents  and  masters  re- 
spectively. We  know  also,  with  equal  certain- 
ty, that  they  are  not  obliged  to  submit  to  them 
in  all  things,  without  exception  ;  but  in  some 
cases  reasonably,  and  therefore  innocently,  may 
resist  them.  These  principles  are  acknowledg- 
ed upon  all  hands,  whatever  difficulty  there 
may  be  in  fixing  the  exact  limits  of  submission. 
Now  there  is  at  least  as  much  difficulty  in  sta- 
ting the  measure  of  duty  in  these  two  cases  as 
in  the  case  of  rulers  and  subjects.  So  that  this 
is  really  no  reasonable  objection  against  resist- 
ance to  the  higher  powers,  for  it  will  hold  equal- 
ly against  resistance  in  the  other  cases  men- 
tioned. It  is  indeed  true,  that  turbulent,  vi- 
cious-minded men  may  take  occasion  from  this 
principle,  that  their  rulers  in  some  cases  may 
be  lawfully  resisted  to  raise  factions  and  dis- 
turbances in  the  state,  and  to  make  resistance 
where  resistance  is  needless,  and  therefore  sin- 
ful. But  is  it  not  equally  true  that  children 
and  servants  of  turbulent,  vicious  minds,  may 
take  occasion  from  this  principle  that  parents 
and  masters  may  in  some  cases  be  lawfully  re- 
sisted, to  resist  when  resistance  is  unnecessa- 
ry, and  therefore  criminal^  Is  the  principle 
in  either  case  false  in  itself,  merely  because  it 
may  be  abused,  and  applied  to  legitimate  diso- 
bedience and  resistance  in  those  instances  to 
which  it  ought  not  to  be  applied  ]  According  to 
this  way  of  arguing  there  will  be  no  true  princi- 
ples in  the  world,  for  there  are  none  but  what 
may  be  wrested  and  perverted  to  serve  bad  pur- 
poses, either  through  the  weakness  or  wicked- 
ness of  men.* 


A  people  really  oppressed  to  a  great  degree 
by  their  sovereign,  cannot  be  insensible  when 


*  We  tnay  safely  assert  these  two  things  in  gen- 
eral withuui  utidermining  governmetit :  one  is,  that 
no  civil  rulers  are  to  be  obeyed  when  they  enjoin 
things  that  are  inconsistent  with  the  commands  of 
God.  All  such  disobedience  is  lawful  and  glorious, 
particularly  if  per.sons  refuse  to  comply  with  any  le- 


gal establishment  of  religion,  because  it  is  a  gross 
perversion  and  corruption  as  to  doctrine,  worship, 
and  disciphne,  of  a  pure  and  divine  religion  brought 
from  heaven  to  earth  by  the  Son  of  God,  the  only 
King  and  Head  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  propa- 
gated through  the  world  by  his  inspired  apostles.  All 
commands  running  counter  to  the  declared  will  of 
the  Supreme  Legislator  of  heaven  and  earth  are 
null  and  void.  Therefore,  disobedience  to  them  is  a 
duty,  not  a  crime.  Another  thing  that  may  be  as- 
serted with  equal  truth  and  safety  is  this,  that  no 
government  is  to  be  submitted  to  at  the  expense  of 
that  which  is  the  sole  end  of  all  government — the 
common  good  and  safety  of  society.  Because,  to 
submit  in  this  case,  would  evidently  be  to  set  up  the 
means  as  more  valuable,  and  above  the  end,  ihaa 
which  there  cannot  be  a  greater  solecism  and  con- 
tradiction. The  only  reason  of  the  institution  of 
civil  government,  and  the  only  rational  ground  of 
submission  to  it,  is  the  common  safety  and  utility. 
If,  therefore,  in  any  case  the  common  safety  and  util- 
ity would  not  be  promoted  by  submission  to  govern- 
ment, but  the  contrary,  there  is  no  ground  or  motive 
for  obedience  and  submission. 

Whoever  considers  the  nature  of  civil  government, 
must  indeed  be  sensible  that  a  great  degree  of  im- 
plicit confidence  must  unavoidably  be  placed  in  those 
that  bear  rule;  this  is  implied  in  the  very  notion  of 
authority's  being  originally  a  trust  committed  by  the 
people  to  those  who  are  vested  with  it,  as  all  just 
and  righteous  authority  is:  all  besides  is  mere  law- 
less force  and  usurpation.  Neither  God  nor  nature 
has  given  any  man  a  right  of  dominion  over  any  so- 
ciety, independently  of  that  society's  approbation  and 
consent  to  be  governed  by  him.  Now  as  all  men  are 
fallible,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  public  affairs 
of  any  stale  should  be  always  administered  in  the 
best  manner  possible,  even  by  persons  of  the  great- 
est wisdom  and  integrity.  Nor  is  it  sufBcient  to  le- 
gitimate disobedience  to  the  higher  powers  that  they 
are  not  so  administered,  or  that  in  some  instances 
they  are  very  ill  managed  ;  for,  upon  this  principle, 
it  is  scarcely  supposable  that  any  government  at  all 
could  be  supported  or  subsist.  Such  a  principle 
manifestly  tends  to  the  dissolution  of  all  government, 
and  to  throw  all  things  into  confusion  and  anarchy. 
But  it  is  equally  evident  that  those  in  authority  may 
abuse  their  trust  and  power  to  such  a  degree  that 
neither  the  law  of  reason  nor  of  religion  requires 
that  any  obedience  or  submission  should  be  paid  to 
them;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  should  be  to- 
tally discarded,  and  the  authority  which  they  were 
before  vested  with  transferred  to  others,  who  may 
exercise  it  more  to  those  good  purposes  for  which  it- 
is  given.  Nor  is  this  principle  that  resistance  to  the 
higher  powers,  in  some  extraordinary  cases,  is  justi- 
fiable, so  liable  to  abuse  as  many  persons  seem  to 
apprehend  it ;  for,  although  there  will  be  always 
some  petulent,  querulous  men  in  every  stale — men 
of  factions,  turbulent,  and  carpingdispositions — glad 
to  lay  hold  of  any  trifle  to  justify  and  legitimate  their 
caballing  against  their  rulers,  and  other  seditious 
practices,  yet  there  are,  comparatively  speaking,  but 
few  men  of  this  contemptible  character.  Mankind, 
in  general,  have  a  disposition  to  be  as  submissive 
and  passive,  and  tame  under  government,  as  they 
ought  to  be.  Witness  the  greatest  part  of  the  known 
world  who  are  now  groaiung,  but  not  murmuring, 
under  the  heavy  yoke  of  tyranny  !  While  those  who 
govern  do  it  with  any  tolerable  degree  of  modera- 
tion and  justice,  and  in  any  good  measure  act  up  to 
their  oflSce  and  character  by  being  public  benefac- 
tors, the  people  will  generally  be  easy  and  peacea- 
ble, and  lie  rather  inclined  to  flatter  and  adore  than 
to  insult  and  resist  them.  Nor  was  there  ever  any 
general  complaint  against  any  administration  which 
lasted  long  but  what  there  was  good  reason  for.  Till 
people  find  themselves  greatly  abused  and  oppressed 
by  their  governors,  they  are  not  apt  to  complain;  and 


APPENDIX. 


537 


they  are  so  oppressed.  Such  a  people,  if  I  may 
allude  to  the  ancient  fable,  like  the  hesperian 
fruit,  have  a  dragon  for  their  protector  and  guar- 
dian ;  nor  would  they  have  any  reason  to  mourn, 
if  some  Hercules  should  appear  to  despatch  him. 
For  a  nation  thus  abused  to  arise  unanimously 
and  to  resist  their  prince,  even  to  the  dethro- 
ning of  him,  is  not  criminal,  but  a  reasonable 
way  of  vindicating  their  liberties  and  just  rights. 
It  is  making  use  of  the  only  means  which  God 
has  put  into  their  power  for  mutual  and  self- 
defence,  and  it  would  be  highly  criminal  in 
them  not  to  make  use  of  those  means.  It 
would  be  stupid  lameness  and  unaccountable 
folly  for  whole  nations  to  suffer  one  unreasona- 
ble, ambitious,  and  cruel  man  to  wanton  and 
riot  in  their  misery ;  and,  in  such  a  case,  it 
would  be  more  rational  to  suppose  that  they 
who  did  not  resist,  than  that  they  who  did, 
would  receive  to  themselves  damnation. 

KING    CH.tRLEs's    SAINTSHIP    AND   MARTyRDOJI. 

This  naturally  brings  us  to  make  some  reflec- 
tions upon  the  resistance  which  was  made  about 
a  century  since  to  that  unhappy  prince,  Charles 
I.,  and  upon  the  anniversary  of  his  death.  This 
is  a  point  which  I  should  not  have  concerned 
myself  about  were  it  not  that  some  men  contin- 
ue to  speak  of  it  with  a  great  deal  of  warmth 
and  zeal  ;  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  under- 
mine all  the  principles  of  liberty,  civil  or  reli- 
gious ;  and  to  introduce  the  most  abject  slavery 
both  in  Church  and  State  ;  so  that  it  is  become 
a  matter  of  universal  concern.  What  I  have  to 
offer  upon  this  subject  will  be  comprised  in  a 
short  answer  to  the  following  queries  : 

For  what  reason  the  resistance  to  King 
Charles  I.  was  made  1  By  whom  it  was  made  ] 
Whether  that  resistance  was  rebellion*  or  not  1 
How  the  anniversary  of  King  Charles's  death 
came  at  first  to  be  solemnized  as  a  day  of  fast- 
ing and  humiliation'!  And  why  those  of  the 
Episcopal  clergy  who  are  very  high  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  ecclesiastical  authority  continue  to 
speak  of  that  unhappy  man  as  a  great  saint  and 
a  martyr  1 

For  what  reason,  then,  was  the  resistance  to 
King  Charles  made  1  The  general  answer  to 
this  inquiry  is  this,  that  it  was  on  account  of 
the  tyranny  and  oppression  of  his  reign.     Not 

whenever  they  do  find  themselves  thus  abused  and 
oppressed,  they  must  be  stupid  not  to  complain.  To 
say  that  subjects  in  general  are  not  proper  judges 
when  their  governors  oppress  them  and  play  the  ty- 
rant, and  when  they  defend  their  rights,  administer 
justice  impartially,  and  promote  the  public  welfare, 
IS  as  great  treason  as  ever  man  uttered :  it  is  trea- 
son, not  against  one  single  man,  but  the  state — 
agamst  the  whole  body  politic ;  it  is  treason  against 
mankind ;  it  is  treason  against  common  sense ;  it  is 
treason  against  God.  This  impious  principle  lays 
the  foundation  for  justifying  all  the  tyranny  and  op- 
pression of  which  any  prince  ever  was  guilty.  The 
people  know  for  what  end  they  set  up  and  maintain 
their  governors,  and  they  are  the  proper  judges  when 
they  e.\ecute  their  trust  as  they  ought  to  do  it ;  when 
their  prince  exercises  an  equitable  and  paternal  au- 
thority over  them ;  when  from  a  prince  and  common 
father  he  e.\alts  himself  into  a  tyrant ;  when  from 
subjects  and  children,  he  degrades  them  into  the  class 
of  slaves  ;  plunders  them,  makes  them  his  prey,  and 
unnaturally  sports  himself  with  their  lives  and  for- 
tunes. 

*  I  speak  of  rebellion,  treason,  saiiitship,  martyr- 
dom, &c.,  in  the  scriptural  and  theological  sense. 

Vol.  II.— Y  y  y 


a  great  while  after  his  accession  to  the  throne, 
he  married  a  French  papist,  and  with  her  seem- 
ed to  have  wedded  the  politics,  if  not  the  reli- 
gion of  France.  For  afterward,  during  a  reign, 
or,  rather,  a  tyranny,  of  many  years,  he  gov- 
erned in  a  perfectly  wild  and  arbitrary  manner,  . 
paying  no  regard  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws  of  the  kingdom,  by  which  the  power  of  the 
crown  was  limited,  or  to  the  solemn  oath  which 
he  had  taken  at  his  coronation.  It  would  be 
endless,  as  well  as  needless,  to  give  a  particu- 
lar account  of  all  the  illegal  and  despotic  meas- 
ures which  he  took  in  his  administration  ;  part- 
ly from  his  own  natural  lust  of  power,  and  part- 
ly from  the  influence  of  wicked  counsellors  and 
ministers.  He  committed  many  illustrious 
members  of  both  houses  of  Parliament  to  the 
Tower  for  opposing  his  arbitrary  schemes.  He 
levied  many  taxes  upon  the  people  without  con- 
sent of  Parliament,  and  then  imprisoned  great 
numbers  of  the  principal  merchants  and  gentry 
for  not  paying  them.  He  erected,  or  at  least 
revived,  several  new  and  arbitrary  courts,  ia 
which  the  most  unheard-of  barbarities  were 
committed  with  his  knowledge  and  approbation. 
He  supported  that  more  than  fiend,  Archbishop 
Laud,  and  the  clergy  of  his  stamp,  in  all  their 
church  tyranny  and  hellish  cruellies.  He  author- 
ized a  book  in  favour  of  sports  upon  the  Lord's 
Day,  and  several  clergymen  were  persecuted  by 
him  and  his  inquisitor  prelate.  Laud,  for  not 
reading  it  to  the  people  after  Divine  service. 
When  the  Parliament  complained  to  him  of  the 
arbitrary  proceedings  of  his  corrupt  ministers, 
he  told  that  august  body,  in  a  rough,  domineer- 
ing manner,  that  he  wondered  any  one  should 
be  so  foolish  and  insolent  as  to  think  that  he 
would  part  with  the  meanest  of  his  servants 
upon  their  account.  He  refused  to  call  any 
Parliament  at  all  for  the  space  of  twelve  years^ 
during  all  which  time  he  governed  in  an  abso- 
lute, lawless,  and  despotic  manner.  He  took 
all  opportunities  to  encourage  the  papists,  and 
to  promote  them  to  the  highest  offices  of  hon- 
our and  trust.  He  abetted  the  horrid  massacre 
in  Ireland,  in  which  two  hundred  thousand. 
Protestants  were  butchered  by  the  Roman  Cath- 
olics. He  sent  a  large  sum  of  money,  which, 
he  had  raised  by  his  arbitrary  taxes,  into  Ger- 
many, to  raise  foreign  troops,  in  order  to  force 
more  arbitrary  taxes  upon  his  subjects.  He 
not  only  by  a  long  series  of  actions,  but  also  ia 
plain  terms,  asserted  an  absolute,  uncontrollable 
power  ;  saying  in  one  of  .his  speeches  to  Parlia- 
ment, that,  as  it  was  blasphemy  to  dispute  what 
God  might  do,  so  it  was  sedition  in  subjects  to. 
dispute  what  the  king  might  do.  Towards  the 
end  of  his  tyranny,  he  went  to  the  House  of 
Commons  with  an  armed  force,*  and  demanded 
five  of  its  principal  meinbers  to  be  delivered  up 
to  him.  All  this  was  a  prelude  to  that  unnatu- 
ral war  which  he  soon  after  levied  against  his 
own  dutiful  subjects,  whom  he  was  bound  by 
all  the  laws  of  honour,  humanity,  piety,  and  of 
interest  also,  to  defend  and  cherish  with  a  pa- 
ternal affection.  I  have  only  time  to  hint  all 
these  facts,  -and  many  more  of  the  same  tenour 


*  Historians  are  not  agreed  what  number  of  sol- 
d:ers  attended  him  in  this  monstrous  invasion  of  the 
piivilegcs  of  Parliament.  Some  say  300,  some  400. 
I  he  author  of  "  The  History  of  llie  Kings  of  Scot- 
hnd"  jays  500 


538 


APPENDIX. 


*nay  be  proved  by  good  authorities.  So  that  the 
^gurative  language  which  John  uses,  concern- 

.  ing  the  just  and  beneficent  deeds  of  our  blessed 
Saviour,  may  be  applied  to  the  unrighteous  and 
execrable  deeds  of  this  prince,  "  Tlurc  are  also 
■many  other  things  which  King  Charles  did,  the 
which,  if  they  should  he  written  every  one,  I  sup- 
pose that  even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the 
books  that  should  be  written."  Now  it  was  on  ac- 
count of  King  Charles's  thus  assiuning  a  power 
above  the  laws,  in  direct  contradiction  to  his 
coronation    oalh,  and  governing   the  greatest 

■part  of  his  time  in  the  most  arbitrary,  oppres- 
sive manner,  that  the  resistance  was  made  to 

\him  which  at  length  issued  in  the  loss  of  his 
crown,  and  of  that  head  which  was  unworthy 
to  wear  it. 

But  by  whom  was  that  resistance  made  1 
Not  by  a  private  junto,  not  by  a  small  seditious 
party,  not  by  a  few  desperadoes,  who,  to  mend 
their  fortunes,  would  embroil  the  stale  ;  but  by 
the  Lords  and  Commons  of  England.  They 
almost  unanimously  opposed  the  king's  meas- 
ures for  overturning  the  Constitution,  and  chan- 
ging that  free  government  into  a  wretched,  ab- 
solute monarchy.  It  was  they,  when  the  king 
was  about  levying  forces  against  his  subjects, 
in  order  to  make  himself  absolute,  who  com- 
missioned officers  and  raised  an  army  to  defend 
themselves  and  the  public ;  and  it  was  they  that 
maintained  the  war  against  him  till  he  was 
made  a  prisoner.  This  is  indisputable.  Though, 
properly  speaking,  it  was  not  the  Parliament, 
but  the  army,  who  put  him  to  death  afterward. 
And  it  ought  to  be  freely  acknowledged,  that 
most  of  their  proceedings,  in  order  to  get  the 
matter  efTecied,  and  particularly  the  court  by 
which  the  king  was  at  last  tried  and  condemn- 
ed, was  little  better  than  a  mere  mockery  of 
justice. 

The  next  question  which  naturally  arises  is 
this  :  Was  the  resistance  which  was  made  to 
the  king  by  the  Parliament  properly  rebellion, 
or  notl  The  answer  to  which  is  plain,  it  was 
not.  It  was  a  most  righteous  and  glorious 
stand,  made  in  defence  of  the  natural  and  legal 
rights  of  the  people,  against  the  natural  and  il- 
.legal  encroachments  of  arbitrary  power.  Nor 
■was  it  a  rash  and  sudden  opposition.  The  na- 
tion had  been  patient  under  the  oppressions  of 
the  crown,  even  to  long  suffering,  for  a  course 
of  many  years,  until  there  was  no  rational  hope 
■of  redress  in  any  other  way.  Resistance  was 
absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  preserve  the 
nation  from  slavery,  misery,  and  ruin.  And 
who  were  so  proper  to  make  this  resistance  as 
the  houses  of  Lords  and  Commons  ;  the  whole 
representative  body  of  the  people  ;  guardians  of 
the  public  welfare  ;  and  each  of  which,  in  point 
of  legislation,  was  vested  with  an  equal,  co-or- 
dinate power,  with  that  of  the  crown!*     Here 


*  The  English  Constitution  is  originally  and  es- 
sentially free.  The  character  which  .lulins  Caesar 
and  Tacilus  both  give  of  the  ancient  Britons  is  this  : 
Tliat  they  were  e,\trernely  jealous  of  their  liberties, 
as  well  as  a  people  of  a  martial  spirit.  Nor  have 
there  been  wanting  frequent  instances  and  proofs  of 
the  same  glorious  spirit,  in  both  respects,  remaining 
in  their  posterity  ever  since;  in  the  struggles  they 
have  made  for  liberty,  both  against  foreign  and  do- 
laesiin  tyrants.  Their  kings  hold  their  title  to  the 
throne  solely  by  grant  of  Parliament,  in  other  words, 


were  two  branches  of  the  Legislature  against 
one ;  two  of  which  had  law,  equity,  and  the  Con- 
stitution on  their  side,  against  one  which  was  im- 
piously attempting  to  overturn  law,  and  equity, 
and  the  Constitution  ;  and  to  exercise  a  wanton, 
licentious  sovereignty  over  the  prdperties,  con- 
sciences, and  lives  of  all  the  people  ;  su(;h  a 
sovereignly  as  some  inconsiderately  ascribe  to 
the  Supreme  Covernor  of  the  world.  I  say 
inconsiderately,  because  God  himself  does  not 
govern  in  an  abscdutely  arbitrary  and  despotic 
manner.  The  power  of  the  Almighty  King — I 
speak  it  with  caution  and  reverence — the  pow- 
er of  this  Almighty  King  is  limited  by  the  eter- 
nal laws  of  truth,  wisdom,  and  equity  ;  and  the 
everlasting  tables  of  right  reason,  tables  that 
cannot  be  repealed,  or  thrown  down  and  broken 
like  those  of  Moses.  But  King  Charles  sat  him- 
self up  above  all  these,  as  much  as  he  did  above 
the  written  laws  of  the  realm  ;  and  made  mere 
humour  and  caprice,  which  are  no  rule  at  all, 
the  only  rule  and  measure  of  his  administra- 
tion. Is  it  not  perfectly  ridiculous  to  call  re- 
sistance to  such  a  tyrant  by  the  name  of  rebel- 
lion 1  the  grand  rebellion!  Even  that  Parlia- 
ment which  brought  Charles  II.  to  the  throne, 
and  which  run  loyally  mad,  severely  reproved 
one  of  their  own  members  for  condemning  the 
proceedings  of  that  Parliament  which  first  took 
up  arms  against  the  former  king.  Upon  the 
same  principles  that  the  proceedings  of  that 
Parliament  may  be  censured  as  wicked  and  re- 
bellious, the  proceedings  of  those  who  since  op- 
posed James  II.,  and  brought  the  Prince  of  Or- 
ange to  the  throne,  may  also  be  censured  as 
wicked  and  rebellious.     The  cases  are  parallel. 

by  the  voluntary  consent  of  the  people.  And  agree- 
ably thereto  the  prerogative  and  rights  of  the  crown 
are  stated,  defined,  and  limited  by  law,  as  truly  and 
strictly  as  the  rights  of  any  inferior  officer  in  the 
state,  or  of  any  private  subject,  and  it  is  only  in  this 
respect  that  it  can  be  said  that  "  the  king  can  do 
wrong."  Being  restrained  by  the  law,  while  he  con- 
fines himself  within  those  just  limits  which  the  law 
prescribes  to  him  as  the  measure  of  his  authority,  he 
cannot  injure  and  oppress  the  subject.  The  king,  in 
his  coronation  oath,  swears  to  exercise  only  such  a 
power  as  the  Constitution  gives  him  ;  and  the  subject, 
in  the  oath  of  allegiance,  swears  only  to  obey  him  in 
the  exercise  of  such  a  power.  The  king  is  as  much 
bound  by  his  oath  not  to  infringe  the  legal  rights  of 
the  people,  as  the  people  are  bound  to  yield  subjec- 
tion to  him.  Whence  it  follows,  that  as  soon  as  the 
prince  sets  himself  up  above  law,  he  loses  the  king 
in  the  tyrant:  he  does  to  all  intents  and  purposes  un- 
king himself,  by  acting  out  of,  and  beyond  that 
sphere  which  the  Constitution  allows  him  to  move 
in.  In  such  cases,  he  has  no  more  right  to  be  oliey- 
ed  than  any  inferior  officer  who  acts  beyond  his  com- 
mission. The  subjects'  obligation  to  allegiance  then 
ceases  of  course  ;  and  to  resist  him  is  no  more  rebel- 
lion than  to  resist  any  foreign  invader.  There  is  an 
essential  difference  between  government  and  tyran- 
ny ;  at  least  under  such  a  constitution  as  the  English. 
The  former  consists  in  ruling  according  to  law  and 
equity,  the  latter  in  ruling  contrary  to  law  and  equi- 
ty. So  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  re- 
sisting a  tyrant  and  rebellion;  the  former  is  a  just 
and  reasonable  self-de'ence  ;  the  latter  consists  in  re- 
sisting a  prince  whose  administration  is  just  and  le- 
gal ;  and  this  is  what  demonstrates  it  a  crime.  Now 
it  is  evident  that  King  Charles's  government  was  il- 
legal, and  very  oppressive  through  the  greatest  part 
of  his  reign.  Therefore,  to  resist  him  was  no  more 
rebellion  than  to  oppose  any  foreign  invader,  or  any 
other  domestic  oppressor. 


APPENDIX. 


539 


If  it  be  said  that,  although  the  Parliament 
■which  first  opposed  King  Charles's  measures, 
and  at  length  look  up  arms  against  him,  were 
not  guilty  of  rebellion,  yet  certainly  those  per- 
sons were  who  condemned  and  put  him  to 
death  ;  even  this  is  not  true,  for  he  had  unking- 
ed himself  long  before,  and  had  forfeited  his  ti- 
tle to  the  allegiance  of  the  people.  So  that 
those  who  put  hiin  to  death  at  most  were  only 
guilty  of  murder,  which,  indeed,  is  bad  enough, 
if  liioy  were  really  guilty  of  that,  wliich  is  dis- 
putuhle.  Cromwell,  and  those  who  were  prin- 
cipally concerned  in  the  nominal  king's  death, 
might  possibly  have  been  wicked  and  designing 
men.  Nor  sliall  I  say  anything  in  vindication 
of  the  reigning  hypocrisy  of  those  times,  or  of 
Cromwell's  administration  during  the  interreg- 
num, for  it  is  truth,  and  not  a  party  that  I  am 
defending.  But  still  it  may  bo  said  that  Crom- 
well and  his  adherents  were  not  guilty  of  rebel- 
lion, because  he  whom  they  beheaded  was  not, 
properly  speaking,  their  king,  but  a  lawless  ty- 
rant. Much  less  are  the  whole  body  of  the  na- 
tion at  that  time  to  be  charged  with  rebellion 
on  that  account,  for  it  was  not  the  national  act ; 
it  was  not  done  by  a  free  Parliament.  Much 
less  still  is  the  nation  at  present  to  be  charged 
with  the  great  sin  of  rehellion  for  what  their 
ancestors  did,  or  rather  did  not,  a  century  ago. 

But  how  came  the  anniversary  of  King 
Charles's  death  to  be  solemnized  as  a  day  of 
fasting  and  humiliation  1  The  true  answer  to 
which  inquiry  is  this  :  this  fast  was  instituted 
by  way  of  compliment  to  Charles  II.  upon  the 
Restoration.  All  were  desirous  of  making  their 
court  to  him — of  ingratiating  themselves,  and 
of  making  him  forget  what  had  been  done  in 
opposition  to  his  father,  so  as  not  to  revenge  it. 
To  effect  this,  they  ran  into  the  most  extrava- 
gant professions  of  affection  and  loyalty  to  him, 
insomuch  that  he  himself  said,  "  It  is  a  mad  and 
hair-!. rained  loyalty  which,  they  profess.'^  Among 
other  strange  things  which  his  first  Parliament 
•did,  they  ordered  the  thirtieth  day  of  January, 
the  day  on  which  his  father  was  beheaded,  to 
be  kept  as  a  day  of  solemn  humiliation  to  dep- 
recate the  judgments  of  Heaven  for  the  rebel- 
lion which  the  nation  had  been  guilty  of,  which 
was  not  a  national  thing,  and  which  was  not 
rebellion  in  them  that  did  it.  Thus  they  sooth- 
ed and  flattered  their  new  king  at  the  expense 
of  their  liherties,  and  were  ready  to  yield  up 
freely  to  Charles  II.  all  that  enormous  power 
which  they  had  justly  resisted  Charles  I.  for 
usurping  to  himself 

The  last  query  mentioned  was  this,  Why 
those  of  the  Episcopal  clergy  who  are  very  high 
in  the  principles  of  ecclesiastical  authority  con- 
tinue to  speak  of  that  unhappy  prince  as  a  great 
saint  and  a  martyr  1  This  they  constantly  do, 
especially  upon  the  thirtieth  of  January,  a  day 
appropriated  to  the  extolling  of  him,  and  to  the 
reproaching  of  those  who  are  not  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church.  "  Out  of  the  same  mouth  on 
this  day  jtrocetdcth  blessing  and  cursing,  there- 
with bless  they  their  God,  even  Charles,  and 
therewith  curse  thry"  the  Dissenters;  and  their 
"  tongue  can  no  man  tame;  it  is  an  unruly  evil, 
full  vj  deadly  poison."  King  Charles,  upim  this 
solemniiy,  is  Irequently  compared  to  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  boili  in  respect  of  the  hi/liness  of 
his  life,  and  the  greatness  and  injustice  of  his 


sufferings  ;  and  it  is  a  wonder  that  they  do  not 
add  something  concerning  the  merits  of  his 
death  also.  But  blessed  saint  and  royal  martyr 
are  as  humble  titles  as  any  that  are  thought 
worthy  of  him. 

Now  this  may  well  appear  to  be  a  very  strange 
phenomenon  ;  for  King  Charles  was  really  a 
man  black  with  guilt  and  "  laden  with  iniquity," 
as  appears  by  his  crimes  before  mentioned.  He 
lived  a  tyrant,  and  it  was  the  oppression  and  vio- 
lence of  his  reign  that  brought  him  to  his  un- 
timely and  violent  end  at  last.  Now,  what  of 
saintship  or  martyrdom  is  there  in  all  this? 
What  of  saintship  is  there  in  encouraging  peo- 
ple to  profane  the  Lord's  Day  1  What  of  saint- 
ship in  falsehood  and  perjury  1  What  of  saint- 
ship in  repeated  robberies  and  depredations! 
What  of  saintship  in  throwing  real  saints  and 
glorious  patriots  into  jails  1  What  of  saintship 
in  overturning  an  excellent  civil  constitution, 
and  proudly  grasping  at  illegal  and  monstrous 
powerl  Whatofsaintshipinthe  murder  of  thou- 
sands of  innocent  people,  and  involving  a  na- 
tion in  all  the  calamities  of  a  civil  war  !  What 
of  martyrdom  is  there  in  a  man's  bringing  aa 
immature  and  violent  death  upon  himself,  by 
•'  being  wicked  overmuch  /"  Is  there  any  suctx 
thing  as  grace  without  goodness  7  As  being  a  fol- 
lower of  Christ,  without  following  him!  As 
being  his  disciple,  without  learning  of  him  to 
be  just  and  beneficent  ■?  Or,  as  saintship  with- 
out sanctity?*  If  not,  it  will  be  hard  to  prove 
this  man  a  saint!  Verily,  one  would  be  apt  to 
suspect  that  that  church  must  be  but  poorly 
stocked  with  saints  and  martyrs  which  is  forced 
to  adopt  such  enormous  sinners  into  her  calen- 
dar in  order  to  swell  the  number. 

But,  to  unravel  this  mystery  of  nonsense  as 
well  as  of  iniquity,  which  has  already  worked 
for  a  long  time  among  us,  or,  at  least,  to  give 
the  most  probable  solution  of  it,  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  King  Charles,  this  burlesque 
upon  saintship  and  martyrdom,  though  so  great 
an  oppressor,  was  a  true  friend  to  "the  Church;" 
so  true  a  friend  to  her,  that  he  was  very  well 
affected  towards  the  Roman  Catholics,  and 
would  not,  probably,  have  been  very  unwilling 
to  unite  Lambeth  and  Rome :  this  appears  by 
his  marrying  a  true  daughter  of  the  true  "  moth- 
er of  harlots,"  which  he  did  with  a  dispensation 
from  the  pope,  that  supreme  Lord,  to  whom, 
when  he  wrote,  he  gave  the  title  of  Most  Holy 
Father.  His  queen  was  extremely  bigoted  to 
all  the  follies  and  superstitions,  and  to  the  hie- 
rarchy of  Rome,  and  had  a  prodigious  ascend- 
ency over  him  all  his  life.  It  was  partly  owing 
to  this  that  he  abetted  the  massacre  of  the 
Protestants  in  Ireland ;  that  he  assisted  in  ex- 
tirpating the  French  Protestants  at  Rochelle ; 


*■  Is  it  any  wonder  that  even  persons  who  do  not 
walk  after  tlieir  own  lusts  should  scoff  at  sucii  saints 
as  this,  both  in  the  first  and  in  the  last  days?  But 
perhaps  it  will  he  said  that  these  things  are  mys- 
teries, which,  although  very  true  in  themselves,  lay 
undfr.-itaudings  cannot  comprehend;  or,  indeed,  any 
other  persons  among  us  besides  those  who,  being  in- 
wardly moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  have  taken  a  trip 
across  the  Atlaniic  to  obtain  Kpi.scopal  ordirialion 
and  the  imielible  character.  However,  if  these  con- 
secrated gentlemen  do  not  quite  despair  of  us,  it  is 
hoped  that,  in  the  abundance  of  their  chanty,  they 
will  endeavour  to  elucidate  tliese  dark  poijits. 


540 


APPENDIX. 


that  he  all  along  encouraged  papists,  and  po- 
pishly  affected  clergymen,  in  prelerence  to  all 
other  persons  ;  and  that  he  upheld  that  mon- 
ster of  wickedness,  Archbishop  Laud,  and  the 
prelates  of  his  stamp,  in  all  their  church  tyran- 
ny and  diabolical  cruelties.  In  return  for  his 
kindness  and  indulgence  in  those  respects,  they 
caused  many  of  the  pulpits  throughout  the  na- 
tion to  ring  with  the  divinely,  absolute,  and  in- 
defeasible right  of  kings ;  with  the  praises  of 
Charles  and  his  reign,  and  with  the  damnable 
sin  of  resisting  the  Lord's  Anointed,  let  him  do 
■what  he  would.  So  that  not  Christ,  but  Charles, 
was  commonly  preached  to  the  people.  There 
seems  to  have  been  an  impious  bargain  struck  up 
betiveen  the  sceptre  and  the  surplice  for  enslaving 
both  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men.  The  king  ap- 
peared to  be  willing  that  the  clergy  should  do  what 
they  would — set  up  a  monstrous  hierarchy  like  that 
of  Rome — a  monstrous  inquisition  like  that  of 
Spain  or  Portugal,  or  anything  else  to  which  their 
own  pride  and  the  devirs  malice  could  prompt 
them,  provided  always  that  the  clergy  would  be 
tools  to  the  croimi ;  that  they  would  make  the  peo- 
ple believe  that  kings  had  God's  authority  for  break- 
ing God's  lav; ;  that  they  had  a  commission  from 
Heaven  to  seize  the  estates  and  lives  of  their  sub- 
jects at  pleasure  ;  and  that  it  was  a  damnable  sin 
to  resist  them,  even  when  they  did  such  things 
as  deserved  more  than  damnation.  This  is  the 
true  key  for  explaining  the  mysterious  doctrine 
of  King  Charles's  saintship  and  martyrdom. 
He  was  a  saint,  not  because  he  was  in  his  life  a 
good  man,  but  a  good  churchman  ;  not  because  he 
was  a  lover  of  holiness,  but  the  hierarchy  ;  not  be- 
cause he  was  a  friend  to  Christ,  but  the  craft. 
He  was  a  martyr  in  his  death,  not  because  he  brave- 
ly suffered  death  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  righ- 
teousness, but  because  he  died  an  enemy  to  liberty 
and  the  rights  of  conscience ;  and  not  because  he 
died  an  enemy  to  sin,  but  Dissenters.  For  these 
reasons,  all  bigoted  clergymen  and  friends  to 
church  power  paint  this  man  as  a  saint  in  life, 
though  he  was  such  a  mighty,  such  a  royal  sin- 
ner ;  and  as  a  martyr  in  his  death,  though  he 
fell  a  sacrifice  only  to  his  own  ainbition,  ava- 
rice, and  unbounded  lust  of  power.  From  pros- 
tituting their  praise  upon  King  Charles,  and  of- 
fering him  that  incense  which  is  not  his  due,  it 
is  natural  for  them  to  make  a  transition  to  the 
Dissenters,  as  they  commonly  do,  and  to  load 
them  with  that  reproach  which  they  do  not  de- 
serve, they  being  generally  professed  enemies 
both  to  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  We  are 
commonly  charged,  upon  the  thirtieth  of  Janua- 
ry, with  the  guilt  of  putting  the  king  to  death,  un- 
der a  notion  that  it  was  our  ancestors  that  did  it ; 
and  so  we  are  represented  in  the  blackest  col- 
ours, not  only  as  schismatics,  but  also  as  traitors 
and  rebels !  Those  lofty  gentlemen  usually  rail 
upon  this  head  in  such  a  manner  as  plainly 
shows  that  they  are  either  grossly  ignorant  of 
the  history  of  those  times  of  which  they  speak, 
or,  what  is  worse,  that  they  are  guilty  of  the  most 


shameful  prevarication,  slander,  and  falsehood  ! 
But  every  petty  priest,  with  a  roll  and  a  gown, 
thinks  he  must  do  something  in  imitation  of  his 
betters  in  law,  and  show  himself  a  true  son  of 
the  Church  ;  and  thus,  through  a  foolish  ambi- 
tion to  appear  considerable,  they  only  render 
themselves  contemptible. 

But  suppose  our  forefathers  did  kill  their 
mock  saint  and  martyr  a  century  ago,  what  is 
that  to  us  now  !  If  I  mistake  not,  those  gen- 
tlemen generally  preach  down  the  doctrine  of 
the  imputation  of  Adam's  sin  to  his  posterity  as 
absurd  and  unreasonable,  notwithstanding  they 
have  solemnly  subscribed  it  in  their  own  arti- 
cles of  religion.  Therefore,  one  would  hardly 
expect  that  they  would  lay  the  guilt  of  the 
king's  death  upon  us,  although  our  forefathers 
had  been  the  only  authors  of  it.  But  this  con- 
duct is  much  more  surprising,  when  it  does  not 
appear  that  our  ancestors  had  any  more  hand 
in  it  than  their  own.  However,  bigotry  is  suf- 
ficient to  account  for  this  and  many  other  phe- 
nomena which  cannot  be  accounted  for  in  any 
other  way. 

Although  the  observation  of  this  anniversary 
seems  to  have  been  superstitious  in  its  origi- 
nal, and  although  it  is  often  abused  to  very  bad 
purposes  by  the  established  clergy,  as  they 
serve  themselves  of  it  to  perpetuate  strife,  a  par- 
ty spirit,  and  divisions  in  the  Christian  Church  ; 
yet  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  one  good  end  will  be 
answered  by  it  quite  contrary  to  their  inten- 
tion ;  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  will  prove  a  stand- 
ing memento  that  Britons  will  not  be  slaves, 
and  a  warning  to  all  corrupt  counsellors  and 
ministers  not  to  go  too  far  in  advising  arbitra- 
ry, despotic  measures. 

To  conclude  :  let  us  all  learn  to  be  free  and 
to  be  loyal.  Let  us  not  profess  ourselves  vas- 
sals to  the  lawless  pleasure  of  any  man  on  earth, 
but  let  us  remember,  at  the  same  time,  govern- 
ment is  sacred,  and  not  to  be  trifled  with.  It  is 
our  happiness  to  live  under  the  government 
of  Prince  George  II.,  who  is  satisfied  with  ru- 
ling according  to  law,  as  every  other  good 
prince  will.  It  becomes  us,  therefore,  to  be 
contented  and  dutiful  subjects.  Let  us  prize 
our  freedom,  but  not  "  use  our  liberty  for  a  cloak 
of  maliciousness."  There  are  men  who  strike 
at  liberty  under  the  term  licentiousness  ;  there 
are  others  who  aim  at  popularity  under  the  dis- 
guise of  patriotisin.  There  is  at  present  among 
us  more  danger  of  the  latter  than  of  the  former, 
for  which  reason  I  exhort  you  to  pay  all  due  re- 
gard to  the  government  over  us,  and  to  "  lead  a 
quiet  and  peaceful  life."  And  while  I  am  speak- 
ing of  loyalty  to  our  earthly  prince,  be  loyal 
also  to  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  universe,  "67/ 
ivhom  kings  reign,  and  princes  decree  justice." 
To  which  king  eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  the 
only  wise  God,  be  all  honour  and  praise,  do- 
minion, and  thanksgiving,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.     Amen. 


INDEX. 


The  letters  n.  and  ns.  stand  for  note  and  notes. 


Abbey  lands,  given  to  courtiers,  or  sold  to  gentry,  i.,  35. 

Abbot,  Dr.,  his  mild  government,  i.,  author's  preface, 
■220.  Made  archbisliop  of  Canterbury  ;  Lord  Clarendon's 
account  of  him,  i.,  '256.  His  zeal  for  the  Protestant  cause 
in  Bohemia,  2B8.  Accidentally  kills  a  man  and  retires 
from  court,  272.  Writes  to  the  king  against  the  articles 
of  the  Spanish  match,  274.  Is  suspended  for  refusing  to 
license  Sibthorpe's  sermons,  286.  He  favours  the  lecturers, 
21)8.     His  death  and  character,  310. 

Abhorrers,  refer  to  Petitioners. 

Alijuralion  oath  for  discovering  papists,  i.,  453. 

Abstract  of  certain  acts,  injunctions,  and  canons  ;  a  book 
published  in  1584,  against  the  discipline  of  the  church,  i., 
171. 

Accommodation,  the  committee  of,  i.,  383.  A  grand  one 
between  the  Presbyterians  and  Independents,  and  their  pro- 
ceedings, ii.,  14. 

Aconiius  on  progressive  reformations,  i.,  269,  n. 

Act  of  supremacy,  the  substance  of,  i.,  32.  Against  ap- 
peals, 33.     For  subscribing  articles  of  faith  only,  115. 

Acts  and  Monuments,  and  Book  of  Martyrs,  by  Fox; 
their  character  and  elfects,  90,  185,  186,  n. 
AdaiTis,  Mr.,  burned,  i.,  42. 

Ailamson,  Mr.  Patrick,  his  confession,  i.,  255. 

Address  of  the  Puritans  to  the  queen  and  council,  and 
answering  all  objections  against  them,  i.,  199,  200,  and  ns. 

Adiaphorists  in  Germany,  i.,  51. 

Admonition  to  Christians,  a  work  written  by  Mr.  Knox; 
occasions  his  being  forbid  to  stay  at  Frankfort,  i.,  07. 

Admonition  to  the  Parliament  for  a  reformation,  i.,  121. 
The  presenters  imprisoned,  121.  The  second  admonition, 
121.  The  heads  of  it,  122,  71.,  123.  It  occasions  a  famous' 
Controversy  between  Cartwright  and  VVhitgifi,  123.  It  is 
■called  in  by  proclamation,  124.  Conclusion  of  the  contro- 
versy, 125. 

Advertisement  to  the  People,  &c.,  a  work  in  answer  to 
Martin  Mar-Prelate,  i.,  189. 

Advertisements  or  injunctions  of  the  bishops  for  uni- 
formity, i..  91.  The  queen  urged  to  enforce  them,  91. 
For  due  order  of  preaching,  95,  96,  ns.  For  unifonuity, 
<)5,  n. 

Afternoon  sermons,  of  suppressing  them,  i.,  517. 

Agitators  in  the  army,  ii.,  46. 

Agreement  of  the  people,  ii.,  79,  90 

Ainsvvorth,  Rev.  Mr.,  an  account  of  him,  his  writings 
and  death,  i.,  242,  243,  and  vs. 

Ainsworth,  Mr.,  one  of  the  heads  of  the  Brownists,  i., 
198,  208. 

Allein,  Mr.  J.,  of  Taunton,  his  sufferings  and  death,  ii., 
2G5. 

Allen,  Mr.,  his  case,  i.,  211. 

-Allegiance,  oath  of  i.,  245. 

Altars  ordered  to  be  taken  down,  and  tables  placed  in 
their  stead,  i.,  51.  Opinions  of  the  learned  on  them,  51. 
Altars  again  adopted  by  Laud;  author's  preface,  13.  Of 
co.isecrating  them,  509.  Antiquity,  &c.,  511.  Of  their 
furniture,  and  bowing  to  them,  512. 

Auies,  Rev.  Dr.  W.,  settles  at  the  Hague,  i.,  242.  His 
death,  character,  and   works,  318,  and  n. 

Anabaptists,  refer  to  Baptists. 

Anagram  on  the  word  Puritan,  with  proposals  for  a 
Roundheads'  feast,  i.,  4.i4,  v. 

Anderson.  Judge,  his  fury  against  the  Non-conformists, 
and  particularly  against  Mr.  Allen,  i.,  212. 

Annates,  or  tiist-fruits,  taken  from  the  pope  and  given 
to  the  kiim,  i.,  34.     Again  to  (iueen  Elizabeth,  72. 

Annesley,  Dr.,  his  siitienngs,  ii.,  301. 

Annotations  that  go  under  the  name  of  the  assembly  of 
divines,  ii.,  78. 

.•\nswer  of  the  vice-chancellor  of  Oxford  to  the  petition 
of  the  ministers  for  reform,  a  work  published  about  1603, 
i.,  228,  229. 

Answer  to  the  reasons  of  the  London  clergy,  containing 
a  ensure  on  the  Presbyterians,  and  defending  universal 
liberty  of  conscience,  ii.,  19. 

yVnU-ipologia,  a  quarto  volume,  against  the  Independents, 
i.,  492. 


Antiquitates  Britannica,  a  work  written  by  Parker, 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  i.,  138. 

Ancient  historians,  new  editions,  by  Archbishop  Parker, 
i.,  139,  n. 

Antinomianism  censured  by  the  assembly  of  divines,  i., 
463. 

Anti-toleration,  a  pamphlet,  ii.,  19. 

Anti-popes  in  Wickliffe's  time,  i.,  30. 

Antrim,  Marquis  of,  his  case,  i.,  397.  Charles  II.'s  letter 
to  the  Duke  of  Ormond  about  him,  397. 

Aphorisms  of  Dr.  Whichcote,  published  by  Dr.  Salter, 
1753,  ii.,  307. 

Apologelical  narration  of  the  Independeats,  with  re- 
marks, i.,  491. 

Apocryphal  writings,  the  Puritans  against  reading  them 
in  the  chuich,  i.,  246. 

Apology,  Bishop  Jewel's,  book  of  great  repute,  i.,  118, 

119,  7t. 

Apology  for  the  ecclesiastical  proceedings,  a  work  by 
Dr.  Cosins,  i.,  196. 

Appeal  to  jiarlianient,  or  Zion's  plea  against  prelacy,  a 
treatise,  i.,  301. 

Appeals  to  Rome  forbid,  i.,  32,  33,  72,  74 

Apprentices'  petition,  i.,  81,  r>. 

Arbitrary  methods  of  government,  i.,  297 

Archbishops  of  England,  their  power  before  the  Refor- 
mation, i.,  29.  Ordinances  for  abolishing  them,  bishops, 
&c.,  and  for  the  sale  of  their  lands,  464. 

Aichbishopsof  Canterbury  and  York,  their  power  before 
the  Reformation,  i.,  29. 

Archy,  his  jest  upon  Prince  Charles's  going  to  Spain,  i., 
274.  Upon  Archbishop  Laud,  for  which  he  is  discharged 
the  king's  service,  337,  and  n. 

Arians,  behaviour  of  two  in  prison,  i.,  65. 

Arminians,  their  state  under  James  I.,  author's  preface, 
i.,  219.  Progre.ss  of  the  Arniinian  controversy  in  Holland, 
2f)3.  Its  state  at  Charles's  accession,  281.  Restraint  of 
the  press  in  favour  of  it,  285.  Jesuit's  letter  about  its 
growth,  288.  Protestation  of  the  commons  against  it,  292. 
Ministers  e.xpelled  the  university  for  preaching  against  it, 
304.  Rise  of  the  Arminians  at  court,  270.  Conferences 
between  them  and  the  Calvinists,  284.  Death  and  char- 
•acter  of  Arminius,  253.  Arminianisin  and  popery  encour- 
aged by  Laud,  514,  n. 

Army.  Parliament  vote  the  raising  of  one,  i.,  423.  Char- 
acter of  it,  42.5.  Character  of  the  king's,  and  the  ravages 
they  committed,  428,  478.  Of  the  Parliament's,  their 
character  and  good  discipline,  479.  New  modelled,  ii.,  5. 
Rise  of  enthusiasm  in  it,  5,  38.  Their  separate  views, 
45.  Controversy  between  the  Parliament  and  them,  46. 
They  seize  the  king  at  Holmby,  47.  Their  declaration,  47. 
They  impeach  eleven  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 48.  Several  members  retire  to  them,  48.  They 
march  to  London,  49.  Reasons  of  their  deserting  the  king, 
51.  Their  proposals,  52.  They  unite  with  the  Parliament, 
55.  They  are  dissatisfied  with  the  treaty  of  Newport,  89. 
Their  proceedings  and  remonstrance,  89.'  They  seize  the 
king  a  second  time,  90.  They  march  to  London,  and 
purge  the  Parliament,  90.  Resolve  to  impeach  the  king, 
91.  Remonstrance  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  and  others 
against  them,  91.  Part  of  thein,  with  the  rem  linder  of 
the  Parliament,  proceed  against  the  king,  and  put  him  to 
death,  CA.  Scots  army  enter  England,  i.,  477  ;  ii.,  76,  125. 
See  Scots.  Progress  of  the  Enalish  army  in  Scotland,  126. 
Quarrel  between  theui  and  the  Parliament,  131.  They 
depose  Richard  Cromwell,  and  restore  the  Rump-parlia- 
ment, ii.,  186.  Their  petition,  188.  Behaviour  of  the  offi- 
cers, 198.    Origin  of  a  standing  army,  220,  n. 

Arrowsmith,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  and  of  his  Tae- 
tica  Sacra,  i.,  483. 

Arrow  against  Idolatry,  and  the  Coiilmunion  of  Saints; 
written  by  Ainsworth,  i..  242,  243,  and  vs. 

Articles  of  religion  devised  by  Henry  VIII.,  i.,  30.  The 
forty  two  articles  in  King  Edward's  reign,  45.  Articles  set 
forth  by  the  bishops  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  79.  The  thirty- 
nine  agreed  on  in  convocation,  anil  the  controverted  clause 
of  the  twentieth  considered,  87.  They  are  subscribed,  88. 
Act  for  subscribing  articles  of  faith  only,  115,  116.  Many 
deprived  for  not  subscribing  them,  119.    Whiigift's  three 


542 


INDEX. 


articles,  156.  Ministers  suspended  for  not  suliscribinp 
tlitiii,  157.  His  twenty  four  articles  for  tlie  court  oC  high- 
cuiiiiiiission.  IC3,  n.  Ltiuheih  articles,  209.  Articles  to 
be  subscrihc'il  1)V  the  clergy,  and  in  what  form,  2:19.  Lin- 
culiisliire  ministers'  reasons  against  lliem,  2-10.  Occasion 
a  second  separation,  248.  Articles  of  the  Church  of  Ire- 
land, 2()2.  At  large  in  Appendix,  VI.,  ii.,  448.  The  five  of 
I'erih,  i  ,  206.  Ratified  in  Parliament,  2C6.  Articles  of 
the  Spanish  match,  273.  Sworn  to  by  the  king  and  prince, 
273.  The  king's  declaration  before  the  thiity  nine,  291. 
Are  received  in  Ireland,  318.  Articles  of  visitation  by  the 
bishops,  324.  Alterations  made  in  the  .articles  of  the 
Church  of  England  by  the  assembly  of  divines,  403.  See 
also  Appendix,  VII.,  ii.,  454.  Articles  of  discipline  in  the 
as  emhlv's  confession  rejected  by  the  rarliament,  41,  and 
ApiHiidix,  VIII.,  457. 

Ascanio  licensed  to  import  popish  books,  i.,  182,  n. 

Ash,  Mr.  Simeon,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  240. 

Askew,  Mrs.  Anne,  burned,  i.,  42. 

Asseiidily  of  divines,  steps  towards  calling  it,  i.,  457. 
Ordinance  for  calling  it,  457.  Names  of  the  lay  assessois, 
458.  A  list  of  the  divines,  458,  459.  The  king  toibids 
their  meeting,  459.  Episcopal  clergy's  reasons  against  the 
assembly,  with  the  answers  to  them,  400.  Their  chiir.ic- 
ter,  460.  They  meet,  401.  Rules  agreed  on  by  them,  462. 
Their  vow  or  protestation,  462.  Regulations  sent  them  liy 
the  Parliament,  402.  Their  petition  to  the  Parliament  for 
a  fast,  403.  Their  alterations  in  the  thirty-nine  articles, 
403.  They  censure  Antinomianism,  403.  Scuts  commis- 
sioners appointed  to  join  them,  404.  Mr.  Marshall  and  Mr. 
Nye's  letter  to  tlieiu.  464.  Their  debates  on  the  solemn 
league  and  covenant,  464.  Their  exhortation  to  the  taking 
it,  467.  Their  letter  to  foreign  churches,  470.  Episcopal 
divines  leave  thetn,  473.  The  examination  and  approba- 
tion of  ministers  referred  to  them,  473.  An  account  of  the 
several  parties  among  them,  488.  Their  farther  proceed- 
ings, 493.  Confer  about  discipline,  493.  Their  proceed- 
ings and  advice  about  ordination,  494.  They  compose  a 
directory  for  public  worship,  495.  Debates  about  ordina- 
tion, ii.,  7.  The  power  to  ordain  given  them  pro  tempore, 
8.  They  debate  about  the  divine  right  of  Presbytery.  8. 
About  the  power  of  the  keys,  10.  They  petition  against 
the  ordinance  for  Presbyteries,  14.  Are  threatened  with  a 
premuuiie,  14.  Questions  propounded  to  them  about  the 
divine  right  of  Presbytery,  14.  Are  terrified,  and  appoint 
a  fast,  15.  They  recommend  a  new  version  of  the  P>alms, 
20.  Their  sentiments  of  the  jus  (/8«in«/7i,  24.  Tlieir  pro- 
ceedings upon  their  confession  of  faith.  40.  Their  larger 
and  shorter  catechisms,  42.  Scots  commissioners  take 
leave  of  them,  42.  Conclusion  of  the  assembly,  77.  Their 
works,  78.  Of  the  Annotations  which  go  under  their 
name,  78.  A  farther  account  of  their  character,  78.  'The 
confession,  Appendix,  No.  VIII.,  457.  Assembly  of  Epis- 
copal and  Presbyterian  divines  to  peruse  the  king's  decla- 
ration, 213. 

Associations  of  the  Presbyterian  ministers  in  the  coun- 
try, ii.,  80,  137.  Good  effects,  137.  Not  countenanced  by 
the  London  Presbyterians,  137.  To  stand  by  the  Prince 
of  Orange,  341. 

Assurance,  act  of,  i.,  87. 

Asty,  Mr.,  preaches  for  Mr.  Tomkins,  and  the  conse- 
quence, i.,  xvii.,  71.,  of  Neal's  memoirs;  agiin  discussed, 
i.,  225,  of  advertisement  prefixed.  Some  account  of  Mr. 
Asty,  225. 

Augmentations,  court  of,  i.,  35. 

Auriculiir  confession,  ex|iediency  of  maintained,  i.,  331. 

Axton,  Mr.,  his  remarkable  examination,  i.,  111-113,  n. 

Aylmer,  Dr.,  made  bishop  of  London,  and  from  a  fa- 
vourer, becomes  a  persecutor,  of  the  Puritans,  i.,  139.  The 
queen's  letter  to  Ixim  for  suppressing  the  prophesyings, 
and  his  order  thereon,  142,  143,  ?!.  His  persecuting  zeal, 
146,  n.  His  severities  against  the  Puritans,  107,  n.  His 
answer  to  the  privy  council's  letter  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Beni- 
son,  169.  His  ill  language  to  Mr.  Merbury  at  his  examina- 
tion, 169.  His  ditlerent  sentiments  before  he  was  made  a 
bishop,  170.  His  inhuman  treatment  of  Mr.  Gardner,  178. 
His  death  and  character,  207.  Anecdotes  of  him,  208,  n. 
His  description  of  the  female  se.ic,  218. 

B. 

Bagshaw's  readings  ags^inst  the  bishops,  i.,  343.  His 
speech  against  the  order,  ,370. 

Bailey,  William,  memoirs  of  him  and  his  wife,  ii.,  426,  n. 

Bainhim,  James,  knt.,  burned,  i.,  35. 

Ball.  Rev.  Mr.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  349. 

B.-illard,  a  popish  priest,  executed  for  a  plot;  his  judg- 
ment of  the  Puritans  and  of  Whitgift's  writings,  i.,  182. 

Bampfield,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  305,  and  7i. 

Bancroft,  Dr.,  first  advances  the  notion  of  the  divine 
right  of  E|)isco))acy  in  a  sermon,  i.,  186.  Dr.  Reynolds's 
remarks  upon  it,  186,  7!.  He  is  made  bishop  of  London, 
208.  His  behaviour  at  the  Hampton  Court  conference, 
231.  Is  against  a  preaching  ministry,  2,32.  Flatters  King 
James,  233.    Is  made  president  of  the  convocatiun,  237. 


Made  Archbishopof  Canterbury,  240.  His  temper,  furious 
proceedings,  and  persecution  of  the  Puriians,  241.  His 
letter  to  the  bishops  about  conHirniily  and  subscription, 
241.  His  death  and  character,  256,  and  71.  Satire  on  his 
death,  2.')6. 

Band  of  defence  of  the  Scots  nation,  i.,  .336. 

Baptism  of  infants,  on  what  fimnila  ion  adopted  by  the 
reformers,  i.,  87,  71.     Treatise  on  liapiism,  ii  ,  2.)7,  .3li2,  364. 

Bapii-ts.  their  history,  ii.,  3.53.  How  f.r  their  .senti- 
ments agree  with  those  of  Wickli  tie,  3.53.  Articlesdevi.sed 
by  Henry  VIII.  pointed  against  them,  354.  'I'heir  perse- 
cutions in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  3,57.  And  of  Queen 
Mary,  357.  A  prnclamaiion  against  their  writings.  357. 
How  persecuted  in  the  reign  of  Elizal)eth,  358.  Form  of 
the  abjuration  oath  tendered  them,  358.  Some  of  llieni 
burned  in  Smithfield,  300.  Many  of  them  go  into  exile, 
360.  Excellent  sentiments  charged  upon  them  by  their 
enemies,  300.  Plead  for  liberty  of  conscience,  ,361.  Vin- 
dicate their  principles,  .348.  Number  of  their  congregations 
in  1644,  362.  Their  first  congregation  in  London  ascer- 
tained, 3()2.  Various  churches  in  the  country  mentioned, 
363.  How  abused  by  Dr.  Featley,3G5.  Instances  of  their 
ministers  who  were  cruelly  persecuted,  368.  Tlieir  stale 
during  the  protectorship,  372.  Many  of  them  in  the  army 
of  the  Parliament,  375.  Their  bold  remonstrance  with 
Cromwell,  375,  71.  A  sketch  of  their  history  by  Major- 
general  Harrison,  377.  Their  condition  after  the  restora- 
tion, 380.  From  the  declaration  of  indulgence  to  the  rev- 
olution, 388. 

Barber,  Mr.  Edward,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  368. 

Barber,  Mr.,  suspended,  i.,  159. 

Barclay,  Robert,  intercedes  for  friends  in  Scotland,  ii., 
425.  Of  his  Apology,  and  other  works,  ii.,  428,  429.  Of 
his  father,  431. 

Bare-bones;  of  this  appellation  as  applied  to  Parliament, 
and  other  quaint  terras  applied  to  persons'  names,  ii.,  133, 
and  n. 

Barnadiston,  Giles,  memoirs  of,  ii.,  427. 

Barnes,  Dr.,  burned,  i.,  40. 

Barnes,  Dr.,  succeeds  Pilkington  as  Bishop  of  Durham, 
i.,  14.5.  Is  for  severe  measures,  145.  His  usage  of  Whit- 
tingham,  145. 

Barnstaple  plundered,  and  the  mayor  hung  by  the  king's 
soldiers,  i.,  479.     Taken  by  the  Parliament  forces,  ii.,  22. 

Barker,  John,  Life  of  Neal.  i.,  xxi. 

Baro,  his  case  in  the  predestinarian  controversy,  i.,  210. 

Baronets,  their  institution,  i.,  200. 

Barret  begins  the  predestinarian  controversy  at  Cara- 
Lridge,  i.,  209. 

B  irrowe,  the  Brownist,  his  supplication  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, i.,  200.  His  supplication  for  a  conference,  201. 
Reasons  for  refusing  it,  201.  His  first  examinaiion,  201. 
His  second,  202.  His  trial,  sentence,  and  execution,  202. 
His  letter  against  Archbishop  Whitgift,  202. 

Barrowists,  see  Brownists. 

Barwick,  his  mention  of  a  particular  oath  for  the  uni- 
versity, i.,  481.  A  curious  quotation  from  his  Querela 
Cavtabrig-ievsis,  485.     Account  of  ii.,  193,  and  7t. 

Baslwick.  his  sufferings,  i.,  317,  327. 

Bates,  Dr.  G.,  an  eminent  Royalist;  some  observation.s 
of  his,  ii.,  144,  146. 

Bayes,  Life  of  Neal,  i.,  xxii. 

Bayly,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  68. 

B  lynes.  Rev.  Mr.,  his  death  an<l  character,  i.,  203,  and  n. 

B  ixter,  Josiah,  strange  prosecutiim  in  this  name,  ii.,  383. 

Baxter.  Richard,  his  character  of  the  Parliament  party, 
i.,  426.  Of  the  Puritan  clergy,  428.  Keeps  his  ixsople 
from  taking  the  soleum  league  and  covenant,  469.  His 
account  of  the  sectaries  in  the  armv,  ii..  38.  His  senti- 
ments about  the  authors  of  the  king's  death,  99.  He  re- 
fuses the  bishopric  of  Hereford,  216.  His  behaviour  in  the 
Savoy  conference.  227-229.  He  and  others  imprisoned, 
263.  A|)prehendedagiin,279.  His  farther  sufltrings,  287. 
He  is  severely  |)roseculed,  301.  Again  in  prison.  308.  His 
trial  and  scurrilous  treatment  from  JeflVies,  317.  Long's 
characteristical  epitaph  on,  317,71. 

Beal,  Mr.,  writes  against  the  proceedings  of  the  bishops, 
i.,  106.     His  speech  in  P.irliainent  against  them,  197. 

Beale,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  i.,  482. 

Bedford,  Earl  of,  his  char.ncter,  i.,  351. 

Beckington,  suflerings  of  the  church-wardens  there,  i, 
321. 

Belenian,  Mr.,  burned,  i.,  42. 

Benefices,  how  the  vacant  ones  were  filled  up,  i.,  453. 
Parliament  nominates  to  them,  473. 

Benison,  Mr.,  his  suflerings,  i.,  168.  The  council's  let- 
ter in  his  favour,  169.    The  bishop's  answer  to  if,  169. 

Bennet,  William,  his  death,  ii.,  428. 

Bernard,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  siitferings,  i.,  293. 

Berry-street  lectures,  an  account  of,  i.,  xr. 

Best,  Paul,  proceedings  against  him,  ii..  20. 

Beza.  his  ch.-iracter  of  Cartwrlcht,  i..  1 14,  125.  His  leU 
ter  to  the  lord-treaaurer  for  a  farther  reformation  and  len- 
ity, 120. 


INDEX. 


54a 


Bible  translated  into  English,  i.,  36.  Burned  by  the  out  license,  80.  Prohibited  and  ca.strated  by  Liud,  515. 
bishops,  36.  Reviewed  and  corrected  by  Cranmer,  36.  Popish  ones  licensed,  and  their  iinpdrlation  connived  at  by 
Inirixluced  I'or  ihe  bei.etit  nf  Hie  puLlic  into  churclips,  'M.  him,  516.  Books  lor  and  against  King  Charles's dedth,  ii.^ 
lus  readiiig  ufleiward  f.Hbidden,  4'2.     Ag-iin  burned  by  the    D7. 

rapistj,  69.     Another  triu  sUuion  of  it  at  Geneva,  H3.     An- j      Book  of  Sports  published,  i.,  267.     Substance  of  it,  267. 
other,  called  tha  Bishops'  Bible,  111.     Account  of  English     Uemaiks,   2ti8.      Enforced    anew,   312.      Burned   by   the 


translalioMS,  257.     Bishops'  Bible,  258. 
Bid  ales,  i.,  312. 

Biddl  g  of  prayers,  rise  of,  i.,  44. 

Biddle,  John,  a  gre.it  o.ipugner  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Triniiy,  account  of,  ii..  157,  and  ns. 
Bilney,  Mr.,  burned,  i.,  35. 

Bilson,  bishop,  his  opinion  of  Christ's  sufferings,  account 
of  him,  i.,  210,  and  n. 

Bircliei's  madness  and  execution,  i ,  128. 
Birkenhead,  .Mr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  69. 
Bishops  to  lie  chosen  by  conge  d'elirc,  i.,  33.  Burn  Tyn- 
dal's  Te.^tament,  34.  To  be  appointed  by  letters  patent 
during  pleasure.  45.  The  opinions  of  the  Reformers  about 
the  orders  of  bishops  and  priests,  41,  re.,  50,  .56.  Bishops' 
proceedings  about  the  habits.  111.  The  ditlerence  between 
those  and  the  primitive  bishops  according  to  Mr.  Dcering, 
129.  Their  answer  to  the  Puiitans'  pioposnls  for  farther 
reformation,  173  Their  own  proposals,  173.  Bishops' 
Bible,  111.  Bancroft's  new  doctrine  about  them,  186. 
Debates  in  Parliament  about  their  power,  197.  Their  cru- 
elty set  forth  by  the  Brownists,  in  their  petition  to  the 
council,  199,  and  71.  Their  early  application  to  King 
James  I.,  228.  Endeavour  to  prepossess  him  against  the 
Puiitans,  229.  Entreat  against  alierations  in  the  (Church, 
and  reasons  for  il,231.  .^le  for  making  the  king  absolute, 
236-251.  Speech  in  Parliament  against  them,  and  their 
courts,  253.  Dr.  Leighton  wriies  against  ihem,  301.  Their 
articles  of  visitation  illegal,  324.  Their  uninterrupted  suc- 
cession maintained,  330.  Their  power  atlacked  by  Bag- 
shaw,  343.  They  press  the  et  cetera  oath  in  the  canons, 
347.  They  become  odious,  348.  Lord  Digby's  speech 
against  them,  352.  Others,  369-372.  Bill  for  depriving 
them  of  ttieir  voles  in  ParliamenI,  378.  Whether  they  are 
one  of  the  three  estates,  379.  Thirteen  of  ihem  impeach- 
ed, 388.  They  fall  into  neglect,  388.  Issue  of  the  im- 
peachment. 4j2.  Petiiions  lor  and  against  them,  402. 
They  are  insulted,  and  their  proteslation,  404.  Are  im- 
peached, 405.  Apology  for  tlieni,  405.  Not  brought  to 
trial,  bill  deprived  of  their  voles  in  Parliament,  407.  The  i 
act  for  ih  it  purpose,  408.  Ordinance  for  abolishing  bish- 
ops, &,c.,  and  for  the  sale  of  ilieir  lands,  ii.,  35,  36.  They 
send  10  ihe  king  at  Breda  with  instructions.  203.  The  old 
surviving  ones  at  the  Restoration,  207.  Translations  of, 
207.  NiW  ones  created,  207.  Their  views,  209.  Abstract 
of  iheir  reply  to  the  propo.sals  of  the  Presbyterians  for  a 
ci  iiipiehension,211.  Their  behaviour,  217.  They  are  re- 
stored 10  llieir  seals  in  Parii  iment,  225.  Their  farther  be- 
haviour, 248,  261.  Several  of  ihein  refuse  to  publish 
James's  declaration,  336.  Their  address,  and  the  king's 
answer,  337.  Seven  of  them 'ent  to  ihe  Tower,  337.  They 
court  the  dissenters,  338.  Their  advice  to  J.imes,  340. 
S<inie  refuse  the  oaths  10  William  and  Mary,  344. 

Bishops  and  presbyters,  ofllie  distinciions  between  them, 
j  ,3Ip5.     Of  the  sole  right  of  ordination  by  the  former,  265. 
Of  their  right  of  jurisdiction,  366. 
BislKipncs,  new  ones  eiecled,  i..  .35. 
Blacklock,  Samuel,  becmiies  a  Baptist,  ii.,  361. 
Biackwiiod.  Dr.,  his  slavish  position,  i.,  252. 
Bl.ickwood,  Mr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  391. 
Blake,  Bishop,  his  opinion  of  ihe  tendency  of  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Church  of  Engl  mil,  i.,  41,  n. 

Blake,  .Adinnal,  bis  actions  in  ihe  Mediterranean,  ii  , 
156.     Destroys  the  Spanish  g  illeons,  172.     Death,  charac- 
ter, and  anecdotes  of  him,  172,  jis.     His  body  dug  up.  236. 
Bl  isplieiiiy  and  heresy,  ordinance  against,  ii.,  117. 
Bloody  staiuie,  see  Six  Articles. 

Blount,  Mr.  Richard,  goes  to  Holland  to  be  baptized,  ii., 
361. 

Bohemia,  Queen  of.  King  James's  daughter,  the  delight 
of  the  Puritans,  i.,  26U.  Stale  ot'  the  Prote.-lant  religion  in 
Boliemia.  268.  She  is  reduced  with  her  f  mily  to  great 
necessity,  2.)9.  The  Long-parii  unent  zealous  in  her  in- 
terest, for  which  she  thanks  iliem.387.  Neglected  by  her 
brother  King  Charles  I.  and  by  Archbishop  Laud  and  his 
party,  320;  see  Palatine. 

Bnlejn,  .\niie,  her  marriage  with  Henry  VIIL,  i.,  33, 
A  lYieiid  to  ihe  reformation  ;  is  beheaded,  36. 

Bolt  in,  Robert,  his  death  and  ch  iracter,  i.  302,  and  vs. 
Bnlton.  Dr.  Samuel,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  155. 
Bonner,  Bishop  of  London,  submits  to  King  Edward's 
iiijuncliiins,  v.,  4.5,  and  to  the  new  service-book,  48.  But 
being  at  last  siispecled  is  deprived,  50  Is  restored  by 
Queen  Miry,  58.  His  unheard  of  cruelties  to  the  Pro- 
testants, 64.  Deprived  again,  and  imprisonod  by  Queen 
Eliz.ibeih,  77. 

Books  lirsi  published,  the  revival  of  learning,  i.,  34. 
Tlie  Bishop's  Book,  a  rem  irkable  one  set  forth,  38.  An- 
other, 4J.     Burnt  and  forbid,  42.    None  to  be  printed  wilh- 


hangman,  4.')4.     Encouraged  liy  Laud,  514. 
Booksellers,  their  complaints,  i.  285. 
Booth,  Sir  George,  his  insurrection,  ii.  189. 
Booh,  Mr.  Ab.,  his  animadversions  on  Baxter's  calum- 
nies, ii.,  374. 

Boston,  Joan  of  Salcombe,  her  hard  usage,  ii.,  279. 
Boihwell,  Earl   of,    his  infamous   marriage   with  the 
Queen  of  Scots,  and  miserable  end,  i.,  105. 
Boucher,  Joan,  narrative  of,  ii.,  356. 
Bound,  Dr.,  his  treatise  on  the  Sabbath,  i.,  209.     Sup- 
pressed, but  prevails,  210. 

Bourne,  Dr.  occasions  a  tumult  by  preaching  against  the 
reformaiion,  i.,  58. 

Bowing  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  opinion  of  the  Puritans  of 
it,  i.,  107.  Enforced,  314.  Bowing  towards  the  altar,  315, 
512.  At  the  name  of  Jesus,  512.  Antiquity  of  bowing  to 
the  altar,  513. 
Bowles,  Edward,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  246. 
Bradbourne's  Defence  of  the  Sabbath  day,  i.,  313.  An- 
swers to  this  work  by  White,  and  Dr.  Pocklington's  Sun- 
day No  Sabbath,  312. 

Bradford,  Mr.  John,  suffers  martyrdom,  i.,  63.  His 
charitable  temper,  65.     He  was  against  the  habits,  92. 

Bradshaw,  Mr.  publishes  his  English  Puritanism,  i.,  248. 
His  death  and  character,  267. 

Bradshaw,  Seijeant,  his  declaration  to  Cromwell,  about 
his  dissolving  the  parliament,  ii.,  132.  His  death,  190, 
and  n. 

Bramhall,  Bishop,  his  account  of  the  Papists  in  the  par- 
liament army,  ii.  30,  99. 

Brandt's,  Gerard,  remarks  on  the  execution  of  two  Dutcb 
Anabaptists,  i.,  138,  n.     On  persecution,  259,  n. 
Brayne,  Mr.  suspended,  i.,  163. 
Brent,  Sir  Nat.,  account  of  him,  ii.,  67. 
Brentford,  taken  by  the  king,  i.,  441. 
Brethren  of  the  second  separation,  i.,  248. 
Bridge,  Rev.  William,  retires  to  Holland,  i.,  341.    His 
death  and  character,  ii.,  270,  and  n. 

Bridgeman,  Sir  O.,  his  generosity,  ii.,  421. 
Bridges,  Dr.  writes  against  the  Puritans,  and  is  answer- 
ed by  i'enner,  i.,  183. 

Brief  Discovery  of  False  Churches,  a  work  by  H.  Bar- 
rowe,  i.  201. 
Brightman's  Rev.  Mr.,  death  and  character,  i.,  252,  and  tt, 
Brindholme  and  Bultolph,  two  Papists,  hangen,  i.,  40. 
Brook,   Lord,  his  death   and   character,  i ,  447.     His- 
favourable  opinion  ofllie  Baptists,  ii.,  365. 

Brook,  Lord,  his  Treatise  of  Episcopacy,  ii.,  .365.  Mil- 
ton's eulogium  on  his  character  and  principles,  365. 

Broughton,  Hugh,  e.\plains  Christ's  descent  into  hell, 
i.,  210. 

Browne,  Robert,  deprived,  i.,  119.  History  of  him,  149. 
Browne,  S  niiiel,  a  man  ger  in  Laud's  trial,  i.  523. 
Brownists,  their  rise,  i.,  149,  150.  With  them  commences 
the  third  period  of  Puritanism.  Their  principles,  150. 
Reasons  of  tlieir  separati  n  from  the  Church,  150.  Seve- 
rities against  them,  150.  Two  of  their  ministers  executed 
for  noncnnformiiy,  153.  Their  numbers  increase,  198. 
Their  church  settlement  and  administration  of  the  sacra- 
ments, 19(1  Their  examination,  and  petition  to  the  coun- 
cil, 199,  and  n.  Their  sutferings,  202.  The  petition  of 
those  who  were  in  the  London  prisons  to  the  lord-lreasurer, 
203,  n.  Several  of  them  flee  to  Holland,  and  there  plant 
churches,  208.  Their  history  carried  on,  242.  Their  opin- 
ion of  ilie  Church  of  England,  242-250. 

Brownrigge,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  i.,  482.    His  death,  ii.» 
198.  and  n. 
Brut",  Walter,  some  account  of,  ii.,  354. 
Bucer.  Martin,  comes  to  England,  and  is  made  divinity 
professor  at   Cambridge,  i.,  46.     His   opinion  about   the 
liabits,  52,  92.     His  sentiments  about  ecclesiastical  disci- 
pline, 56.     His  bones  dug  up  and  burned  by  flie  Papists,  64. 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  a  bad  minister,  i.,  279.    Stabbed 
by  Felton,  291. 

Buckingham,  Duke  of,  his  speech  for  a  toleration,  il., 
282. 

Biilkley,  Rev.  Mr.,  removes  to  New  England, !.,  321. 
Bullinger.  his  opinions  of  the  habits  and  ceremonies,  i.,  94. 
Burgess,  Rev.  Dr.,  his  speech  against  cathedrals,  i.,  381. 
His  death,  ii.,  2,56,  and  n. 

Burleigh,  lord-treasurer,  his  excellent  loiter  to  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift,  about  his  twenty-four  articles,  i.,  164. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  his  opinion  of  the  civil  magistrate's 
power  to  reform  religion  considered,  i.,  43.  On  the  anti- 
quity of  liturgies,  364,  n.  Quoted,  464,  n.  His  character 
of  Laud,  526.  Of  Ch.nrles  1.,  ii.,  96.  Of  the  authors  of 
the  king's  death,  98.  Of  the  parlies  in  Charles  ll.'s  time, 
ii.,  248. 


54 1 


INDEX. 


Burroughs,  Mr.  J.,  i.,  xxW.,  n. 

burroughs,  Mr.  Jereni.,  retires  to  Holland,  i.  341.  His 
decl.iratioii  in  the  niiriie  of  the  Independents,  ii ,  17.  His 
<ic;ith  :iiul  chiiracter,  40. 

Biirrough,  Edwiird,  his  death,  ii.,  418. 

Uurton,  Mr.,  his  suttieriiigs,  i.,  317,  327. 

Bury,  Mr.  Edward,  his  sutierings,  ii.,  299. 

Bushnell,  Mr.,  ejected,  ii.,  148.  His  narrative,  and  the 
coinniissioners  answer,  148. 

Butler,  Major,  his  report  of  Cromwell's  last  prayer,  ii., 
181. 

Button,  Mr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  72. 

Bylield,  Mr.,  hurned,  i.,  35. 

Bytiold,  Rev.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  273. 

C. 

Cabal,  their  character,  ii.,  209.  Their  projects  to  make 
the  King  absolute,  271.     Are  attacked  by  Parliament,  280. 

Calais  Inst  from  the  English,  i.,  70. 

Calarny,  Mr.,  a  passage  in  his  sermon  about  Christmas, 
i.,  500.  Sent  to  Newgate,  ii.,  250.  His  death  and  charac- 
ter, 2.58,  71. 

See  "  Calendar"  and  "  Catherine"  under  K. 

Calvin's  judgment  of  the  English  liturgy,  i.,  67.  Of  the 
English  ceremonies,  68. 

Calvini-in  discountenanced  at  court,  i.,  272. 

Cambridge  address,  ii.,  298.     Privileges  invaded,  325. 

Cameionians  in  Scotland,  ii.,  310. 

Campion  the  Jesuit,  &c.,  executed,  i.,  151. 

Canne,  Mr.  and  editions  of  his  Bible,  i.,  244,  361,  and  n. 

Canons,  act  for  revising  them  ;  never  done,  i.  34.  An- 
other act  for  it;  which  also  comes  to  nothing,  50.  New 
ones,  173.  Abstract  of  those  of  1603,  238.  Conclusion 
and  rati/ication  of  them,  240.  Bishops  obliged  to  relax 
their  rigour  fur  a  time,  241.  Book  of  canons  for  Scotland, 
322.  Canons  of  1640,  345.  Unacceptable  to  the  clergy, 
347.  Execution  of  them  suspended,  347.  Speeches  in  Par- 
liament against  them;  and  Resolutions  of  Parliament 
thereupon,  352.  Objections  of  the  Commons  against  them, 
354.     They  are  justified  by  Laud,  355. 

Canterbury  cathedral,  its  decorations,  i.,  304.  Furniture 
of  iLs  altar  consecrated,  315. 

Capel,  Mr.  Richard,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  168. 

Careless,  Mr.,  an  eminent  martyr,  his  disputes  in  prison, 
and  confession  of  faith,  i.,  65. 

Carew,  Mr.,  his  sutferings,  i.,  167. 

Caroline,  Princess  of  VVales,  her  interview  with  Mr. 
Neal,  i.,  xix. 

Carter,  Rev.  J.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  320. 

Cartwright,  Mr.,  his  senliments  of  the  ecclesiastical  su- 
premacy, i.,  74.  He  opposes  the  hierarchy  of  the  church  ; 
his  positions,  114.  He  writes  to  the  secretary,  115.  He  is 
«xpelled  the  University,  and  retires  beyond  sea,  115.  Be- 
ing returned,  he  draws  up  the  Puritans'  second  admoni- 
tion to  the  Parliament,  121.  His  famous  dispute  with 
Whitgift,  and  his  standard  of  discipline  and  church  gov- 
ernment, 123.  His  hard  usage,  123.  His  second  reply  to 
Whitgift,  12.3.  A  proclamation  against  him,  129.  He  as- 
sists in  framing  a  discipline  for  Guernsey  and  Jersey,  136. 
Is  chosen  preacher  to  the  English  factory  at  Antwerp, 
144.  Returns  to  England,  and  settles  at  Warwick,  176. 
Forbid  by  the  Archbishop  to  answer  the  Rhemist  Testa- 
ment, 178.  Examination  of  hini  and  his  brethren  before 
the  high-commissioners;  and  articles  exhibited  against 
him,  which  he  refuses  to  answer  on  oath,  194.  He  is  re- 
leased, and  restored  to  his  hospital  at  Warwick,  but  his 
brethren  continue  in  suspension,  195.  He  defends  himself 
and  his  brethren  from  being  c<incerned  with  Hacket,  196. 
His  death  and  character,  234.  His  confutation  of  the  Rhe- 
mish  Testament,  and  other  works,  234. 

Caryl,  Joseph,  his  death  and  exposition  on  Job,  ii.,  275, 7i. 

Carstairs,  Mr.,  tortured,  ii.,  303. 

Case,  Thomas,  his  death,  ii.,  301,  and  n. 

Cases  of  Conscience,  by  Perkins,  mentioned,  ii.,  305,  n. 

Castlemain,  Earl  of,  his  censure  of  the  Church's  perse- 
cuting the  dissenters,  ii.,  309. 

Cathecistns,  Assembly's  larger  and  shorter,  approved 
and  allowed  by  the  Parliament,  ii.,  42. 

Cathedral  worship  disliked  by  the  Puritans,  i.,  107. 
Request  against  them,  181.  Decorations  of  them.  303. 
Hacket's  defence  of  them,  381.  Burgess's  speech  against 
them,  381.  Memorandiun  for  reforming  them,  384.  Their 
state  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil  war,  423.  Ordinance 
for  seizing  their  revenues,  ii.,  20.    Vacancies  tilled,  ii.,  207. 

Cavaliers,  refer  to  Royalists. 

Cawdery,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  185.  His  farther  sutier- 
ings, and  appeal  to  the  court  of  exchequer,  195. 

Cawton,  Thomas,  Charles's  letter  to  him,  ii.,  195.  His 
death,  199,  and  n. 

Censures  of  the  Church,  Puritans'  opinion  concerning 
them,  i.,  249. 

Ceremonies  of  the  Church,  debates  in  convocation  about 
them,  i.,  88.  A  considerable  number  of  the  clergy  that 
were  for  amending  them,  88.    Several  of  them  scrupled 


by  the  Puritans.  93.  Objected  against  by  the  Puritans, 
232,  240.  Defended  by  Bishop  Moreton,  &.c.,  247.  See 
Kites. 

Chadderton,  Rev.  Dr.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  349. 

Chambers.  Dr.  Humphrey,  his  death,  ii.,  246. 

Chancellors,  patents,  and  censures,  canons  about  them. 
i.,  347. 

Chandler,  Dr.,  i.,  xxiii.,  n. 

Charles  I.  when  Prince  of  Wales,  his  oath  to  observe 
the  articles  of  the  Spanish  match,  i.,  273.  His  journey  to 
Madrid  and  letter  to  llie  pope,  274.  His  accession  and 
character,  278.  His  marriage,  and  character  of  his  queen, 
279.  Character  of  his  ministers,  279.  His  speech  to  his 
first  Parliament,  281.  His  answer  to  the  Coimnons'  peti- 
tion, 281.  He  favours  the  Papists,  282.  Contributes  to 
the  loss  of  Rochelle,  282.  Dissolves  the  Parliament,  283. 
Raises  money  by  arbitrary  methods,  283-286.  His  corona- 
tion, 283.  His  second  Parliament,  284.  Dissolved,  284. 
His  priiclamation  for  putting  an  end  to  the  disputes  of  the 
Calvinists  and  Arminians,  28.5.  Enters  into  a  war  with 
France,  287.  His  third  Parliament,  and  speech  to  them, 
287.  Passes  the  petition  of  right,  287.  Prorogues  the  Par- 
liament, and  answers  their  remonstrance,  288.  His  dec- 
laration before  the  thirty-nine  articles,  291.  His  arbitrary 
proceedings,  293.  297.  Speech  at  dissolving  his  third  Par- 
liament, 295.  Reasons  for  dissolving  them,  295.  His 
proclamations  against  prescribing  a  time  for  cilling  parlia- 
ments, 295.  His  instructions  about  lectures,  298.  His 
I>rogress  into  Scotland,  309.  His  usage  of  the  Scots  Par- 
liament, 309.  Revives  the  Book  of  Sports,  312.  Forbids 
the  Puritans  to  transport  themselves,  330.  His  reasons  for 
compiling  the  Scots  liturgy,  334.  He  threatens  the  Scots, 
337.  Resolves  on  a  war  with  the  Scots,  339.  Marches 
against  them,  but  agrees  to  a  pacification,  341.  His  in- 
structions to  his  high-commissioner,  342.  Refuses  to  con- 
firm the  Scots  acts  of  Parliament,  342.  Calls  an  English 
Parliament,  but  dissolves  them  in  anger,  343,  344.  Con- 
tinues to  raise  money  by  the  prerogative,  345.  Ma'ches  a 
second  time  against  the  Scots,  but  is  unsucce^^sful,  348. 
Opens  the  Long-parliament,  351.  His  speech  in  favour 
of  the  hierarchy,  369.  Favours  the  papists,  373.  His  an- 
swer to  the  remonstrance  of  the  Commons  against  them, 
373,  374.  His  design  of  bringing  the  army  to  London,  375. 
His  ministers  terrified,  376.  Passes  the  act  for  continuing 
the  Parliament,  377.  His  conduct  at  passing  the  bills  for 
the  abolition  of  the  high-commission  and  star-chamber, 
387.  Resolves  on  a  progress  to  Scotland,  390.  His  con- 
cessions there,  390.  He  repents  of  them,  390.  His  impru- 
dent conduct,  398.  His  letter  in  favour  of  the  hierarchy, 
399.  Fills  up  the  vacant  bishoprics,  399.  The  grand  re- 
monstrance of  the  Commons  presented  to  him,  399.  His 
answer  to  their  petition,  and  to  the  remonstrance,  401. 
Goes  to  the  house  to  seize  five  of  the  members,  406. 
Leaves  Whitehall,  407.  Passes  the  act  to  take  away  the 
votes  of  the  bishops,  408.  Resolutions  of  his  cabinet  coun- 
cil at  Windsor,  409.  Refuses  the  Scots  mediation,  412. 
His  high  language  to  his  Parliament,  413.  Denied  en- 
trance into  Hull,  and  his  proceedings  in  the  north,  413. 
Orders  the  courts  of  justice  to  follow  him,  413.  His  an- 
swer to  the  Parliament's  memorial,  414.  And  to  their 
proposals,  415.  His  preparation  for  war,  416.  His  propo- 
sals for  borrowing  money,  417.  Applies  to  the  papists, 
419.  His  letter  to  the  coimcil  of  Scotland,  421.  Sets  up 
the  standard  at  Nottingham,  423.  Of  his  clergy,  427.  Of 
his  army,  428.  His  proclamation  for  the  better  govern- 
ment of  it,  428.  His  evil  counsellors,  429.  Pursues  his 
march  to  London  after  the  battle  of  Edge-hiW,  441.  Takes 
Reading  and  Brentford,  441.  Retreats  ag.iin,  441.  Mo- 
tives of  his  march,  442.  His  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Hamil- 
ton, 442.  Encouraging  prospect  of  his  afl'iirs,  443.  His 
truce  with  the  Irish  rebels,  443.  Parliament's  propo<ition3 
to  him  at  the  treaty  of  Oxford,  444.  His  own  proposals, 
445.  His  answer  to  the  Parliament  commissioners,  446. 
Which  breaks  off  the  treaty,  446.  His  proclamations 
against  the  city  of  London,  448.  Success  of  his  affairs, 
448.  Makes  reprisals  on  the  Parliamentarians  in  relation 
to  the  clergy,  453.  Dissolves  their  monthly  fast,  and  ap- 
points another,  455.  Prohibits  the  assembly  of  divines, 
459.  Forbids  the  taking  of  the  covenant,  469.  Brings 
over  forces  from  Ireland,  469.  Ill  consequences  of  it  to 
his  affairs,  470.  His  protestation,  470.  His  reply  to  the 
assembly's  letter  to  foreign  Protestants,  472.  Remarks 
upon  it,  473.  He  holds  a  Parliament  at  Oxford,  which 
comes  to  nirthing,  477.  His  letter  to  the  queen,  477.  Char- 
acter of  his  armv,  479.  Bad  state  of  his  affairs,  479.  He 
forbids  the  use  of  the  directory,  497.  Some  arbitrary 
clauses  in  his  speeches  and  proclamations,  503.  His  con- 
duct in  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge,  537.  More  letters  of  his  to 
the  queen,  527,  532;  ii.,  22.  His  instructions  to  the  com- 
missioners on  the  head  of  religion,  529.  His  concessions, 
,■131.  His  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Ormond, .532.  Ciiieen'sas- 
cendant  over  him,  5.33.  His  warrant  to  the  Earl  of  Gla- 
morgan about  the  Irish  papists,  .533.  Progress  of  his  for- 
ces, and  his  defeat  in  the  battle  of  Naseby,  ii.,  6.    He  fo- 


INDEX. 


545 


mjnt'S  the  divLsinns  between  the  Presbyterians  and  Inde- 
pendents, 19.  His  melancholy  condition  at  Oxlnrd,  23. 
lie  e<cM|)es  to  llie  Scots  army,  and  surrentle:s  himself  lo 
thetn,  2-2.  Ci:inniiHsion3  the  Miirquls  of  Or.nond  t )  con- 
chide  ;i  peace  wiih  the  Irish  Papivts,  22.  The  Scots'  be- 
liavioiir  towards  iiim,  27.  Conference  between  him  and 
Jlr.  Henderson  abmit  Epi  cop  icy.  27.  His  first  p  iper  upon 
il,27.  His  second,  28.  His  third,  30.  His  la.st  pipers,  3J. 
Reniiirks  upon  hs  principle^,  30.  Parli  iment's  proposi- 
tions to  him  at  Newcastle,  32.  Greni  intercession  m  ide 
with  him  to  comply,  and  the  Lord  chancellor  of  Scolland's 
speech  to  him,  33.  He  refiisis,  33  His  answer,  33.  His 
conference  Willi  the  Scois  coiiims  ione-s,  33.     Scots  kirk 


Chear,  Abraham,  memoirs  of,  ii.,  392. 

Cheney's  Collectinnes  Tlieiilogica;  licensed,  while  Twis- 
se's  Answer  to  Arminiiis  was  suppressed,  i.,  285. 

Cheynel,  L)r.,  hLs  behaviour  at  Mr.  Chillingworth's  in- 
terment, 474,  and  n.  Account  of  liim,  ii.,  71.  His  death, 
257,  and  n. 

Chilli.igworlh,  Mr.,  liis  observations  on  the  Bible,  !., 
108.     His  death  and  character,  i.,  474. 

Cliristinas.  order  for  laying  aside  the  observation  of  it, 
i.,  50J.     Ordinance  for  abolishing  it,  ii.,  55. 

Church,  tlie  Puritans'  opinioa  concerning  it,  i.,  248. 
King  .lames  declares  against  the  service  of  the  Church  of 
England,   when   in   Scotland,  227.     What   the   Puritans 


will  not  trust  him  34.     Their  solemn  warning  declaration    wanted  to  have  reformed  in  it,  231,  234.     Conformity  lo  it 


ahoiit  him,  34.  Pioceedings  of  the  Scots  Parliament  in 
relation  to  him,  35.  They  deliver  him  up  to  the  English 
Parliament,  .35.  Who<e  cnmiiiissioners  receive  him,  and 
convey  biiii  to  Holiiiby-hoiise,  35,  and  n.  His  pressing 
letter  for  a  personal  treaty,  35.  In  what  manner  he  lived 
at  Holiiihy,  35.     His  .separate  views,  45.     His  farther  an- 


eiiforced,  2.36.  Its  canons,  2,.'8.  Lawfulness  of  separation 
from  it  argued,  244.  Persons  obliged  under  a  penally  to 
cinrie  to  it,  2i,5.  Second  separation  from  it,  248.  Laud's 
scheme  for  governing  it,  297,  and  n.  Its  splendour,  3D3. 
Its  approaches  towards  popery,  328.  Design  of  uniting  it 
to  the  Cluirch  of  Rome,  332.     Its  service  neglected,  361. 


swer  to  the  propositions  of  Newcastle,  47.    He  is  seized    Condition   of  it  at  the  beginning  of  the  civil  war,  423. 


and  carried  to  the  army,  47.  His  motions  with  them,  50. 
Cromwell  and  Ireton  confer  with  him,  51.  His  mistaken 
conduct,  51.  Which  proves  his  ruin,  51.  Reasons  of  the 
army's  deserting  him.  51.  He  escapes  from  Hampton- 
court,  .52.  And  is  confined  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  52,  Mo- 
tive of  his  escape,  53.     His  private  treaty  with  the  Scots, 

54.  His  concessions  from  ilie  Isle  of  Wight,  54.  He  dis- 
approves of  the  ordinance  for  abolishing  Christmas,  &c., 

55.  His  clergy  petition  to  be  restored  to  their  livings,  .56. 
Treaty  of  Newport  between  him  and  the  Parliament,  81. 
A  prayer  drawn  up  by  his  direction  on  that  occasion,  81. 
His  reply  to  the  Parliament's  proposals,  82.  His  conces- 
sions on  the  article  of  religion,  82.  Conference  between 
him  and  the  Parliament  divines  about  Episcopacy,  82. 
His  first  paper.  82.  His  second,  83.  His  Inst,  84.  His 
final  concessions,  8.5.  Arguments  and  motives  to  gain  his 
consent,  86.  States  of  Scoiland  press  him  to  consent,  86. 
His  speech  to  the  commissioners,  87.  His  letter  to  the 
jirince,  89.  He  is  seized  by  the  army  a  second  time,  90. 
His  trial  resolved  on,  91.  Voice  of  the  nation  against  it, 
91.  His  trial  and  execution,  94,  and  n.  His  character. 
95.  His  works,  and  particularly  of  Eikoon  Basilike.  !I6. 
Bonks  published  for  and  against  his  death,  90.  Who 
were  the  authors  of  his  death,  97. 

Charles  II.,  his  letter  about  the  Marquis  of  Antrim,  i , 
397.  Scots  treaty  with  him  in  Holland,  ii..  111.  Condi- 
tions of  it,  114.  He  arrives  in  Scotland,  114.  Is  crowned 
there,  122.  His  oath,  122.  He  signs  the  covenant  and  a 
<ieclaration,  122.  He  marches  to  EngUind  with  the  Scots 
army,  126.  Preparations  of  the  Parliament  against  him, 
326.  Marches  his  army  to  Worcester,  and  is  defeated  by 
Cromwell,  127.  Escapes  into  France,  127.  Neglects  the 
Presbyterians,  and  turns  his  eyes  towards  Ihe  Papists,  127. 
Pints  in  his  favour,  142  176.  Address  of  the  Anabaptists 
to  him,  180.  He  abjuies  the  Protestant  religion  at  the 
Pyrenees,  194.  Proofs  of  his  being  a  Papist  before,  195. 
But  he  denies  it  to  foreign  Protestants,  195.  His  letter  to 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Cawton,  19.5.  French  ministers  employed  to 
■write  that  he  is  a  Protestant,  195,  196.  E.xtract  from  his 
letter  to  the  House  of  Coninnns.  196.  Steps  towards  his 
restoration,  199.  Terms  on  which  the  Scots  and  English 
Presbyterians  would  resore  him,  200.  Monk  corresponds 
with  him,  201.  His  declaration  from  Breda,  201.  He  is 
invited  home  without  any  terms,  owing  in  part  to  Lord 
Clarendon,  202.  A  deputation  of  lords  and  comntons, 
with  some  mini':lers,  wait  on  him  at  Breda,  202.  The 
bishops  send  to  him  with  instructions,  203.  He  lands,  and 
Tides  through  the  city  to  Whitehall,  204.  His  views,  209. 
Abstract  of  his  declaration  concerning  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
213.  Opinion  of  some  churchmen  concerning  it,  215. 
Acceptaiile  to  most  of  the  Presbvterians,  216.  Rejected 
by  the  House  of  Commons.  217.  Hisiiiarri<gp.  224,  Made 
a.  pieiiimiire  to  call  him  Papist,  225.  His  speech  to  his 
P.irliamenr,  235.  His  pretended  zeal  for  the  hierarchy, 
249.  His  concern  for  the  Papists,  249,  His  declaration 
concerninsr  indulgence,  249.  His  speech  to  Parliament  in 
support  of  it,  2.50.  He  moves  for  a  general  toleration,  260. 
His  iiianageiiient  with  ilie  dissenters,  263.  His  design  of 
yoverninc  absolutely,  209.  His  new  declaration  of  indul- 
gence, 272.  He  gives  it  up,  270.  Is  displeased  with  his 
Parli'iiient,  279.  And  publishes  a  severe  order  against 
the  dissenters,  279.  His  arbitary  government  and  declara- 
tion about  P.irlininents,  208.  His  order  for  persecuting  the 
dissenters,  .308.     His  death  and  character,  311,  and  n. 

Charnoi'.k,  Mr.  Stephen,  his  death  and  character,  ii., 
296,  and  n. 

Charke.  Mr.,  expelled  the  univereity  for  preaching 
agiinsi  the  hierarchy,  i.,  121. 

Charters  taken  away,  ii.,  300. 

Cbauncey,  Rev.  Mr.,  bis  piifTerings,  i.,  299.  His  recan- 
tation, and  retires  to  New-F,ngland,  321.  Some  account 
of  him,  and  of  his  works,  340.  and  n. 

Cbaiintries  given  to  the  king,  i.,  36. 
Vol..  II.— Z  z  z 


C«uirch  ales,  312.  Church  government,  oath  to  prevent 
alterations  in  it,  346.  Several  schemes  of  it,  ,383.  Church 
livings,  what  the  Puritans  would  have  reformed  concern- 
ing them,  22S.  Church  ornaments,  iiiinislers  surt'er  for 
preaching  against  them,  306.  Churchwardens'  oath,  324. 
Proclamaiion  for  repairing  churches,  303.  Its  discipline 
andhie-archy  dissolved,  480.  Of  the  consecration  of  them, 
.509,  510.  Of  Church  music,  512.  Questions  respecting 
the  divine  right  of  Church  government,  ii.,  14.  Sentiments 
of  the  assembly  of  divines  upon  it,  25.  And  of  the  London 
ministers,  26.  Whether  the  Church  of  Rome  is  a  true 
Church ;  Liiid's  design  of  reconciling  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land to  it,  529. 

Cluirch  of  England  becomes  independent  of  tlie  pope 
and  foreign  jurisdiction,  i.,  33.  By  what  authority  and  in 
what  way  reformed,  41.  Reformation  of  its  offices,  46. 
Of  its  doctrine,  54.  Fariher  reform  of  its  puliMc  ottices,  54. 
A  more  complete  reform  designed  by  Edward  VI.,  56. 
Reconciled  to  Rome  in  Uueen  Mary's  reign,  61.  Reform- 
ed again  under  Elizabeth,  76.  The  mischiefs  occasioned 
by  the  act  of  uniformity,  77,  82.  The  first  separation  of 
the  Nonconformists  from  it,  105.  Some  of  Uer  ministers 
disguised  Papists,  126.  Statute  to  oblige  pareons  to  attend 
church,  148.  Survey  of  its  ministers,  180.'  A  most  severe 
act  to  punish  those  who  refused  to  go  to  it,  198.  Another 
act  of  the  same  kind  that  does  not  pass,  213.  Its  low 
condition,  ii.,  127,  180,  193.  Restored,  205.  It  applies  to 
Ihe  dissenters  for  assistance  in  James's  reign,  330,  338. 

Chutch-lands  alienated,  i.,  55.  Restored  by  Queen 
Mary,  61. 

Churchwardens,  conclusions  of  the  Puritans  concerning 
them,  i„  140. 

Civil  magistrate.  Puritans'  opinion  concerning  him,  i.,  249. 
Civil  liberties  of  England  destroyed,  332.  Wheiher  reli- 
ligion  may  be  reformed  without  the  civil  magistrate,  ii.,  28. 
Civil  war,  preparations  for  it,  i.,  417.  It  opens,  423,  Au- 
thors of  it,  428.  Grounds  and  reasons  on  which  it  pro- 
ceeded, 430.  Miseries  and  desolation  of  that  between  the 
king  and  Parli;iinent,  478.  Conclusion  of  the  first,  ii.,  22. 
Views  of  the  parties,  45.  The  second  civil  war,  75.  Re- 
marks on  the  consequent  confusion,  77. 

Chipham,  Enoch,  on  the  different  sects  of  religion  at 
tliat  period,  ii.,  361, 

Clarendon,  Lord,  his  History  quoted,  i.,  xi.    His  account 
of  the  Papists,  332.     His  representation  of  the  times,  333. 
His  high  principles,  and  attachment  to  the  bishops,  ii,,  209. 
His  speech  to  the  Parliament,  225.     Promotes  the  net  of 
iiniformitv,  242.     His  speech  against  the  Nonconformists, 
255.     His  fall,  259,  and  HS. 
Clarke,  Matthew,  some  account  of  him,  i.,  xi.v. 
Clarke,  Hugh,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  320. 
Clarke,   the   name  adopted   by  Richard  Cromwell  for 
some  years,  during  his  residence  near  Romsey,  ii.,  204, 
and  n. 
Clarke,  Samuel,  his  death,  &c.,  ii.,  .301,  and  n. 
Clarkson,  Mr,,  his  i('canlMtion,  ii.,  498,  and  7i. 
Clarkson,  David,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  332,  and  n 
Classes,  conclusions  of  the  Puritans  concerning  them, 
i.,  140.    Their  proceeilings  in  them,  185. 
Clayton,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  67. 
Clergy,  their  rights  surrendered  into  the  pope's  hands, 
i.,  29.     Their  tyranny  and  cruelties,  31,  and  i;„  33,  .35,  73. 
Brought  under  the  statute  of  preniiinire,  and  on  what  con- 
ditions pardoned  by  Henry  VIH,,  32.    Their  submission,  .34. 
A  stop  put  to  their  cruellies  for  a  time  by  the  rupture  be- 
tween the  king  and  the  po|)e,  35.    The  king's  injunctions 
to  them,  37.     The  majority  of  them  for  Popery,  44.     Vet 
comply  wilh  the  new  service-book,  4r>.     Their  marriages 
legitimated.  55.     Are  for  restoring  Popery  in  Queen  Mary's 
reign,  60.     Numbers  rejected  for  being  married,  ,59.     Many 
for  the  reformation  that  recanted  under  Queen  .Mary,  and 
afterward   turn    again,   fiS.      In    convocation    they   were 
I  against  the  reformation  in  the  beginning  of  Queen  Eliza- 


546 


INDEX. 


beth's  reiiro,  77.    The  inconsiderable  number  that  quitted 
tie  r  livines  on  that  account,  82.    The  sad  slate  of  those 
that  remained  in  the  Church,  8G.  181.     Hardships  of  the 
couuiry   clergv,    170.     Seidell's  oharacler  of  them,  276. 
Their  pride  and  auiltition,  MG.    Their  approach  towards 
Poperv,  33'-     Cai  on  concerning  iheir  eonvers  ition,  347. 
Piocfeiliii(!-ii'giin*il 'he  clergy  for  malifinancy,450.     Qual- 
ity of  ilidse  ejected,  and  sequestration  of  their  estates,  452. 
Tlieir  hard.'^hips.  45:?.     Quality  of  those  who  succeedeil 
Ihein,  4.'>3.     Their  hardships  from  the  solemn  league  and 
covenant,  470.     Nuinliers  ejected.  486.     Compared    with 
the  ejected  ministers  at  the  restoration,  487.     ^^ardships 
on  both  sides,  488.     Laiul  ch  irged  with  attempting  to  set 
up  an  independent  power  in  them,  .503.     Parliament's  care 
for  a  regular  clergy,  533.     Bill  for  punishing  scandalou'; 
clergymen,  445.    See  Committee  and  Scandalous.    Suf- 
ferings of  the  Epis<:opal  clergy,  449.     How  fir  they  con- 
tributed 10  the  king's  death,  ii.,  98.    Their  forwardness, 
203.    Sequestered  clergy  restored,  205.     Act  for  it,  217. 
Their  behaviour  and  char.icter,  248,  261.     Clergymen  be- 
longing to  cithedrals  whose  offices  were  abolished,  pro- 
vision for  their  maintenance,  118. 
Clerk-ales,  i.,  312. 
Cluhnien.  tlieir  rise,  i.,  478. 
Coale,  Josiah,  his  death,  &c.,  ii.,  420. 
Colchester,  siege  of,  ii.,  75. 
College,  Stephen,  e.vecuted,  ii.,  298. 
Collins,   Anthony,  pid)lishes  Priestcraft   in   Perfection, 
and  other  works,  which  e.xcite  controversy,  i.,  89,  n. 
Collins,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  i.,  482. 
Collins,  Mr.  John,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  333. 
Colman,  Mr.,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  39. 
Comber,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  i.,  482. 
Commentary  on  the  Ephesians,  and  Dioclesian's  Trials, 
two  treatises  by  Mr.  Baynes,  i.,  263,  and  n. 

Commentiries  on  the  Colossians  and  St.  Peter,  pub- 
lished by  Mr.  Byfield,  a  divine  of  great  piety,  capacity,  and 
learning,  i ,  273. 

Commissioners,  ecclesiastical,  sse  High-commission. 
Commitments,  illegal,  charged  upon  Archbishop  Laud, 
i.,  505. 

Committee  of  accommodation,  i..  383.  The  sub-com- 
mittee, 383.  Their  propositions  and  queries,  383.  They 
break  up,  385.  Committee  for  preaching  ministers,  and 
lor  scandalous  ones,  391,  and  n.  One  for  scandalous  min- 
isters. 449.  One  for  plundered  ministers,  4.50,  451.  Coun- 
try conmiittees.  452.  Cointuitiee  to  examine  clergymen  ; 
their  method  of  e.vamination,  474.  Committee  of  seques- 
tration, 480.  Another  for  scandalous  ministers,  with  the 
Earl  of  Manchester's  warrant  to  them,  485.  His  letter  to 
them,  480.  Their  method  of  proceeding,  486.  Committee 
of  accommodation  between  the  Presbyterians  and  Inde- 
pendents, ii.,  16.    Committee  of  safety,  190. 

Common  Praver-hook  levised,  i.,  .54.  Established  by 
act  of  Parliament,  55.  See  Service-book.  Puritans'  ob- 
jections to  it,  246.     Queries  concerning  it,  384. 

Commonwealth  government  set  up,  ii.,  107,  and  n.  Op- 
poseil  by  the  Scots,  107.  Scotland  united  to  it,  127.  Their 
power  and  wise  conduct,  130,  132. 

Communion-tables  placed  instead  of  altars,  reasons  for 
it,  i.,  51,  81.  Reformation  in  the  communion  service,  40, 
54.  Canon  about  them,  239.  Turned  into  altars,  303. 
Votes  about  them,  391. 
Commutation  of  penance,  i.,  347,  50G. 
Comprehension  attempted  between  the  Presbyterians 
and  Independents  in  vain,  ii.,  15.  Presbyterians'  address 
for  it,  209.  Another  project  for  it,  261.  Quashed  by  the 
bishops,  263.  Farther  fruitless  attempts  for  it,  279.  At- 
tempt in  Parliament  for  it,  294,  346. 

Complon,  Bishop,  his  character  and  conduct.  Si.,  325, 
and  ns. 
Concealments,  coiumission  of,  i.,  151. 
Conference  at  Lambeth,  i.,  166,  167. 
Conferences  between  the  Romish  priests  and  Protestant 
divines,  i.,  .x.xiii. 

Conferences  of  the  Puritans,  vindicated  by  them,  i., 
194. 

Confession  of  faith  of  the  authors  of  the  Admoniticm  to 
Parliament,  i.,  122,  n.  Assembly  of  divines'  proceeding 
uiwn  a  confession  of  faith,  ii.,  41.  Presented  to  Parlia- 
ment, who  debate  on  it,  41.  Articles  of  discipline  rejected, 
but  the  whole  received  by  the  Scots,  41.  Censures  upon 
it,  41. 

Confession  of  faith.  Baptists',  when  published,  ii.,  364, 
389. 
Confirm-ition,  what  the  Puritans  disliked  in  it,  i.,  107. 
Conformity,  terms  of,  disliked  by  many,  and  remarks 
thereon,  i.,  82.  The  queen  requires  full  conformity.  148. 
Severe  act  to  enforce  it.  148,  197.  Proclamition  for  en- 
forcing it,  234.  Bancroft's  letter  about  pressing  it,  241. 
Terms  of  it  by  the  act  of  uniformity,  ii.,  241. 

Confoi  ini-^ts,  dilTerence  between  the  old  ones  and  many 
of  the  present,  i.,  93.  No  difference  in  points  of  doctrine 
between  the  Puritans  and  Conformists,  108,  and  n. 


Conge  i'elire,  bishops  appointed  to  be  chosen  by,  i.,  33'r 
72,  74. 

Connecticut  colony  founded,  i.,  340. 

Constitution  given  up  and  destroyed,  ii.,  307,  and  n. 

Conventicle  act,  and  sad  consequences  of  it  to  ministers 
and  people,  ii.,  251,  252.     The  act  revived,  2(15. 

Convention  Parliament,  their  sentiments  as  to  the  au- 
lliors  of  the  king's  deiith,  ii..  99.  Convention  in  1660,201. 
Invite  the  king  home  without  terms,  202.  Are  turned 
into  a  Parliament,  and  give  up  everything  the  court  desire, 
202.  Their  acts,  217.  Convention  in  1688  offer  the  crown 
to  the  prince  and  princess  of  Orange,  342.  Turned  inlo  a. 
P.irliament.  344. 

Convocations,  how  held  formerly,  and  their  power,  i., 
29.  Restrained  by  Henry  VIII.,  34.  Original  of  them,  56. 
They  have  all  their  powers  from  the  king,  72.  In  Queen 
Mary's  reign  subscribe  to  transubstanliatioii,  .59.  In  the 
beginning  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  ag  linst  the  Ucfor- 
mation,  77.  They  ne.tt  agree  upon  the  thirty-nine  articles, 
87.  But  are  divided  about  the  ceremonies,  88.  Another 
increases  the  hardships  of  the  Puritans.  115.  Defends  plu- 
ralities and  non-residence,  173.  Continues  sitting  nfter 
the  Parliament,  182.  Address  the  queen  against  liie  bill 
to  prevent  pluralities,  187.  Make  some  regulations  in 
spiritual  courts,  213.  Proceedings  of  the  convocation  of 
1603,237.  Their  book  of  canons,  238.  Denounce  e.\com- 
munication  on  all  who  reflect  on  them,  or  question  their 
authority,  239.  Proceedings  of  that  of  1640,  344.  Con- 
tinued after  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament,  344.  Their 
book  of  canons,  345.  Objections  of  the  Commons  to  them, 
3.54.  The  last  in  Charles's  time,  353.  Of  the  sitting  of 
the  convocation  after  the  Parliament,  507.  Meeting  of 
convocation,  ii.,  231.  Ordered  to  review  the  liturgy,  231. 
Proceedings  of  the  convocation  in  King  William's  reign, 
348. 

Cooke,  Mr.,  secretary,  i.,  292. 

Copes,  of  their  use,  i.,  512. 

Coppe,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  368. 

Copping,  Mr.,  the  Brovvnist,  executed,  i.,  153. 

Corbet,  Edward,  his  death,  ii.,  231. 

Corbet,  John,  bis  death,  character,  and  works,  ii.,  296. 

Cornish,  Rev.  Mr.,  suspended  for  preaching  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  Lord's  day,  and  Mr.  Devenish  of  Bridgewater,. 
i.,  325. 

Cornish,  Alderman,  executed,  ii.,  318. 

Cornwall,  petition  of  the  inhabitants  of,  to  the  Parlia- 
ment, for  better  ministers,  i.,  146. 

Cornwell,  Francis,  his  history,  ii.,  390. 

Coronation  oath,  alterations  in  it,  objected  to  by  Laud, 
i.,  506.  The  king  scruples  about  it,  with  regard  to  the 
Church,  507;  ii.,  29,  85. 

Corporation  act,  ii.,  226. 

Cosins,  Rev.  D.,  his  book  favouring  Popery,  i.,  330. 
Censured  in  Parliament,  359,  imd  ns.  Account  of  him, 
481.  His  behaviour  at  the  Savoy  conference,  ii.,  230. 
Reinark.ihle  passage  in  his  will,  248. 

Cotton,  Rev.  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  317. 

Covenant,  see  Solemn  League. 

Covenant  or  vow  to  stand  by  the  Parliament,  i.,  447. 

Coverdale,  Miles,  assists  in  translating  ihe  Bible,  i.,  36. 
Made  coadjutor,  and  then  Bishop  of  Exeter,  .53.  Retires 
out  of  the  kingdom,  58.  His  sufferings  and  death,  90. 
Much  fi)llowe<l  by  Ihe  Puritans,  104. 

Council  table,  its  arbitrary  proceedings,  i.,  280.  Council 
of  officers  and  agitators,  ii.,  46.  Council  of  state,  a  new 
one,  ii.,  128.     Dismissed  by  Cromwell,  132. 

Country  clergy,  their  hardships,  i.,  170. 

Countryman's  catechism,  or  the  Church's  plea  for 
tithes,  ii.,  130. 

Court  of  Charles  II.,  tlieir  views  with  respect  to  a  com- 
prehension or  toleration,  ii.,  209,  242.  Their  behaviour, 
217.  Their  licentiousness,  237.  Their  proceedings  to  es- 
tablish arbitrary  pov\er,  281. 

Coward,  William,  institutes  the  lectures  in  Berry-street, 
i.,  xxi. 

Cowel,  Dr.,  his  extravagant  positions  concerning  the 
prerogative,  i.,  2,52. 

Co.x.  Dr.,  brings  in  King  Edward's  service-book  at  Fr.ank- 
fort,  and  breaks  up  the  old  congregation,  i.,  67. 

Cox,  B.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  368. 

Cox,  Mr.  Benjamin,  some  particulars  of,  ii.,  391. 

Cranford,  James,  his  death,  ii.,  176. 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  gives  sentence  of  divorce  for 
Henry  VIII.,  i.,  33.  Promotes  the  Reformation,  34.  Re- 
views and  corrects  Tyndal's  Bible,  36.  Appointed  to  dis- 
pute against  Lambert  the  martyr,  39.  His  power  decline.-, 
42.  His  judgment  concerning  the  Episcopal  juri.sdictiou, 
48.  His  perseciiling  principles,  48.  Causes  Joan  of  Kent 
and  George  Van  Paris  to  be  burned  as  heretics.  49.  He  is 
zealous  for  the  habits,  51.  But  rela.xes  his  opinion  about 
them,  .52.  His  sentiments  about  discipline,  .5().  Not  satis- 
fied wiih  the  liturgy,  though  twice  reformed.  .56.  He  is 
sent  to  the  Tower,  58.  Tried  for  high  treason,  59.  De- 
clared a  heretic,  CO.    Degrtided,  and  recants,  64.     Retracts 


INDEX. 


547 


his  recantniinn,  ana  is  burned,  C4.  Was  utterly  agninst 
the  P(i(iisli  habits  at  last,  i1'2.     C'raiimer's  Bible,  '258. 

Creed  Cliuich,  manner  ol"  its  consecration  by  L.iiid.,  i., 
302. 

Crisp,  Dr.,  of  London,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  447. 

Crolton,  Ml.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  217. 

Cronivvell,  Lord,  a  liiend  to  the  Reformation,  i.,  34. 
Made  visitor  general  of  the  nionasleiies,  ."iS.  Arrested, 
and  beheaded  without  trial,  39.  Cause  of  his  fall  discuss 
ed,  41),  and  7i. 

CiDiiivvell.  Oliver,  designs  to  go  to  New  England,  i., 
340,  3il9.  HU  character,  ii.,  5.  His  bravery  and  CDi.diict 
in  the  battle  of  Naseby,  6.  He  and  Ireton  cnnler  with  the 
king  about  his  restoration,  51.  Reasons  of  his  deserting 
him,  51,  and  n.  His  speech  in  Pai  liament,  155.  He  reduces 
the  Welsh,  75.  Defeats  the  Scots  under  Duke  Haniiltnn, 
7ti.  Returns  to  London,  iiO.  His  speech  on  the  motion 
for  trying  the  king,  91.  Reduces  Ireland,  108.  He  and 
his  aimy  jielilion  for  a  toleration,  110.  Marches  against 
the  Scots  and  defeats  them  at  Dunbar,  115.  Invites  the 
Scots  ministers  to  return  to  their  churches,  115.  His  let 
ter  to  the  governor  of  Edinburgh  castle,  115.  Ministers' 
reply,  and  his  answer,  IIG.  Reply  to  the  governor's  com- 
plaint, IIG.  Chosen  Chancellor  of  O.vford,  and  his  letter 
to  the  university  thereon.  IIC.  Progress  of  his  army  in 
Scotland,  126.  Deleats  the  king  at  Worcester,  127.  His 
letter  to  the  Parliament,  126.  He  and  his  army  qiiainl 
wiih  Parliament,  131.  Advises  about  a  new  foriu  of  gov- 
ernment, 131.  His  ambitious  designs,  131.  Forcibly  dis 
solves  the  Long-parliament,  131.  Dismisses  the  council 
of  state,  1.32.  He  and  his  council  of  officers  assume  the 
government,  132.  His  form  of  summons  for  a  new  Parli.-i- 
ment,  1,33.  Declared  protector  by  the  council,  134.  His 
instalment  and  oath,  135.  Mr.  Baxter's  testimony  to  his 
government,  136.  His  first  council,  136.  State  of  the  na- 
tion at  his  assuming  the  protectorship,  138.  His  grandeur 
and  wise  management,  138.    Gives  peace  to  the  Dutch, 

138.  High  reputation  among  foreign  nations,  138.  French 
ambassador's  speech  to  him,  139.     His  domestic  enemies, 

139.  His  management  of  the  Cavaliers,  Presbyterians,  ;ind 
Republicans,  139.  His  friends,  139.  Incorporates  Scotland 
and  Ireland  with  England,  140.  Royalists  plot  against 
him,  140.    E.vecutes  the  Portuguese  ambassador's  brother, 

140.  Calls  a  new  Parliament,  goes  in  state,  and  his 
speech,  140.  Second  speech ;  appoints  a  recognition  of 
the  government,  141.  He  dissolves  them,  141.  Plots 
agiiinsl  him,  142.  His  vigilance.  142.  Severity  to  the 
Royalists,  by  decimation,  142.  For  univeral  liberty  of 
conscience,  and  his  speech  to  Parliament  for  that  purpose, 
144.  Bates's  testimony  to  it,  144.  Is  for  encouraging 
learning,  153.  Appoints  new  visitors  for  the  universities, 
152.  His  zeal  for  the  Protestant  religion,  and  his  letter  to 
the  Prince  of  Tarento,  153,  159.  Appoints  major-generals, 
156.  Enters  into  an  alliance  with  France,  156.  Sends 
Blake  to  the  Mediterranean,  156.  Publishes  a  severe  or- 
dinance against  the  old  .sequestered  clergy,  but  is  willing 
to  dispense  with  it,  158.  Reisons  of  the  severities  against 
the  Papists,  158.  Is  for  encouraging  the  Jews,  159.  As- 
sists the  Protestants  in  the  valleys,  159.  His  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  160.  Calls  a  new  Parliament,  162.  As- 
sists the  Protestants  at  Nisines,  167.  His  letter  to  Cardinal 
Mazarine,  167.  Debates  about  giving  him  the  title  of  king, 
his  reasons  for  declining  it,  169.  His  title  of  protector 
confirmed,  and  his  second  instalment,  170.  His  grandeur, 
and  wise  administration,  171.     His   treaty  with  France, 

172.  Constitutes  an  upper  house  of  Parliament,  and  his 
speech  at  their  dissolution,  173.  Purges  the  army,  and 
projects  a  union  of  the  whole  reformed  interest,  174.  Re- 
signs his  chancellorship  of  O.fford,  174'.  Apiioints  his  son 
Henry  Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland,  175.  His  only  remain- 
ing descendants,  175.  Success  of  his  arms  abroad,  176. 
Plots  against  him,  176.  His  sickness,  and  last  prayer,  181. 
His  death,  burial,  and  character,  181.  As  a  soldier  and 
statesman,  182.  His  public,  religious,  and  moral  character, 
183.  His  entliUHasm,  183.  Objections  against  him,  183. 
Sum  of  his  character,  184.  Poems  on,  184.  His  body 
taken  up  after  the  Restoration,  218. 

Cromwell,  Henry,  appointed  by  his  father  Lord-lieuten- 
ant of  Ireland,  ii.,  175.  Some  account  of  him  and  his 
family,  175.  His  letters  to  his  brother,  187.  His  letter  to 
Fleetwood,  187.    Others,  188,219. 

Cromwell,  Richard,  chosen  Chancellor  of  O.xford,  ii., 

173.  Proclaimed  protector,  185.  Calls  a  Parliament,  and 
obliged  by  the  army  to  dissolve  them,  186.  Resigns  the 
protectorship,  188,  and  n.  Resigns  his  chancellorship, 
and  ab'iconds,  203.  His  character,  204.  De.tth  and  char- 
acter of  his  wife,  283,  n. 

Crosby's  History  of  English  Baptists,  i.,  39;  ii.,  105. 

Cross  in  baptism,  objections  of  the  Puritans  against  it, 
i..  107.  Bishop  Riidd's  moderating  speech  about,  237. 
Puritans'  objections,  247.     Parker's  treatise  on,  252. 

Cro<se,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  71. 

Crosses  pulled  down,  i.,  455.  and  n. 

Crowder,  Mr.,  hard  treatment  of  i.,  305. 


Crowly,  Mr.  sufferings  of,  i.,  102. 
Cudworth,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  482,  and  n. 

D. 

Daill6,  of  Paris,  his  letter  on  the  king's  constancy  in  re- 
ligion, ii.,  196. 

De  L'Angle  on  the  same,  ii.,  196. 

Damplln,  a  Papist,  hanged,  i.,  40. 

Danger  of  the  church,  cry  of,  ii.,  282. 

Dangei  field's  plot,  ii.,  290.  Proceedings  against  him  in 
James's  lelgn,  310. 

D'Anvers,  an  eminent  minister  and  writer,  an  account 
of  ii.,  39.3. 

Darrel,  Mr.,  his  sufferings  for  pretending  to  cast  out  un- 
clean spirits,  and  his  protestation,  i.,  211. 

Davenant,  Bishop,  censured,  i.,  301.  Death  and  char 
acter,  and  benefactions  to  Queen's  College,  Cambridge, 
394. 

Davenport,  Rev.  M.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  317. 

Davenport,  Christopher,  account  of  the  work  be  wrote 
under  the  title  of  Franciscus  de  Clara,  i.,  331,  and  n. 

Day,  Bishop,  deprived,  i.,  .55.    Restored,  58. 

Deicons,  conclusions  of  the  Puritans  concerning  them, 
i.,  140. 

Dead  bodies  of  considerable  persons  in  Cromwell's  and 
Parliament  times  dug  up,  ii.,  218. 

Dead,  praying  for  them,  i.,  44. 

Deans  and  chapters,  bill  for  abolishing  them,  i.,  381. 
Resolutions  of  the  Commons  agiinst  them,  382. 

Declaration  of  faith  by  the  Reformers  in  prison,  i.,  65- 
Of  articles  of  religion  set  forth  by  the  bishops,  82. 

Declaration  of  the  Ministers,  to  justify  those  who  refused 
the  garments,  i.,  103. 

Declaration  to  encourage  sports  on  the  Lord's  day  is- 
sued by  James  1.,  i.,  267. 

Deering,  Mr.,  articles  of  his  examination ;  deprived,  i., 
129.     His  death  and  character,  142. 

Deering,  Sir  Edward,  his  speech  against  the  hierarchy, 
i.,  380. 

Defence  of  the  ministers'  reasons  for  refusal  of  sub- 
scription to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  i.,  248. 

Defender  of  tlie  faith,  the  origin  of  that  title,  i.,  31. 

Defenders  in  Bohemia,  some  account  of,  i.,  268. 

Delaune,  Sir ,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  304,  and  ns. 

Delegates,  rise  of  the  court  of  i.,  34. 

Delinquents,  ordinance  for  seizing  their  estates,  i.,  453. 

Dell,  Wiliam,  a  Baptist  minister,  some  account  of,  ii., 
390. 

Demonstration  of  Discipline,  proceedings  against  the 
supposed  author,  i.,  191. 

Denne,  Mr.  Henry,  his  disputation  in  prison  with  Dr. 
Featly,  ii.,  21,  n.  His  sufferings,  368.  His  death  and 
character,  238,  n. 

Derby,  Earl  of  defeated,  ii.,  127. 

Descent  of  Christ  into  hell,  controversy  about  it,  i.,  210. 

Design  of  this  work,  i.,  9. 

Detestation  of  the  Errors  of  the  Times,  by  the  assembly 
of  divines,  ii.,  37. 

Devon  and  Cornwall  ministers'  protestation  of  their  loy- 
alty, i.,  250. 

De  Witt  murdered,  ii.,  174. 

Devvsbury,  William,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  431. 

Digby,  Lord,  his  speech  against  the  bishops  and  new 
can(ms,  i.,  352.  Another  for  reforming  the  hierarchy,  371. 
Another  against  the  Earl  of  Strafford,  .376. 

Diodati  of  Geneva,  his  answer  to  the  letter  of  the  as- 
sembly of  divines,  i.,  472,  n. 

Dippers  dipped,  ii.,  21,  71. 

Directory  for  public  worship  established,  i.,  495.  The 
king  forbids  the  use  of  it,  497.  University  of  Oxford's  ob- 
jections, ii..  59.  The  king's  objection  to  it,  86.  Ajipendix, 
VIII.,  ii.,  457. 

Directory  for  ordination  of  ministers,  ii.,  7;  Appendix, 
IX.,  ii.,  468. 

Disciplina  Ecclesie,  by  Travers,  i.,  172. 

Discipline  of  the  Church,  Reformers'  opinion  of,  i.,  40, 
and  n.,  56,  57.  Puritans'  objections,  and  complaints  of  the 
want  of  it.  106.  The  Commons  address  the  queen  to  re- 
form it,  116.  Rules  for  it  agreed  upon  bv  the  ministers  of 
Northampton,  117.  Associations  of  the  Puritans  for  re- 
storing it,  135.  Their  book  of  discipline.  172.  Another 
treatise,  called  the  Abstract,  172.  Bill  to  reform  it,  172. 
Form  of  subscription  to  the  book  of  discipline,  182.  What 
the  Puritans  wanted  reformed  in  it,  228.  Innovations  in 
it,  383.     Bishop  Williams's  scheme  of  it,  384. 

Disney,  Dr.,  bis  life  of  Jortin  quoted,  ii.,  80,  71. 

Dispensing  power,  argnments  for  and  against  it;  the 
Commons  vote  against,  ii.,  276.  The  Dissenters  rcnriunce 
it,  276,  328.  Exercised  by  James  II.,  and  declared  legal 
by  the  judges,  .321. 

Disputation  at  Oxford  between  the  Reformers  and  Pa 
pists,  i.,  60.     Aiio'her  appointed  by  Queen  Elizabeth.  75. 

Dissenters,  Protestant,  fiiends  to  their  country,  !.,  xi 
Grievances  on  them,  .\ii.    Bill  for  their  ease,  ii.,  277.    sV 


513 


INDEX. 


verity  of  the  cniirt  ngainst  them  revii-ed.  280.  Bill  for  easing 
tlicui  withdriiwn  by  the  ck-rk,  295.  Procefdings  thereon 
in  lUe  next  Paili.iMiiiit.'JyT.  Tlieir  persecntion  reviveil  l)y 
order  <if  kin^  anil  CDiiiicil,  2!)8.  Tre;iti»e.s  in  fnvoiir  of 
them.  299.  Their  fariher  sufTt'rings,  299.  Their  persecn- 
tion coin|iired  with  the  Reformers  in  Mnry's  reign,  HOy. 
PiTt^iicution  revived  in  Jiinies's  reign,  316.  Some  turn 
from  tlie  Church  to  theiTi,  319.  Their  methods  to  conceal 
tlieir  nipeiings,  319.  Rea.sons  for  their  not  writing  against 
Popery,  320.  Tlie  end  of  their  prosecution  by  tlie  penal 
l.iws,  321.  Computation  of  sulferers,  and  estimation  of 
daiMMgp.s,  322.  Commission  of  inquiry  into  their  losses  by 
the  Cliurcli  party,  323.  They  are  courted  hy  the  king  and 
Church,  326.  Admitted  to  serve  officers,  331.  But  will 
nut  acknowledge  the  dispensing  power,  331.  Addresses 
of  some  of  them,  who  are  jealous  of  the  king's  conduct, 
328.  The  Church  applies  to  them  for  assistance,  \a  itli  as- 
surances of  favour  in  better  times,  329.  Prince  of  Orange's 
advice  to  them.  330.  Reasons  for  their  not  lieing  for  abro- 
gating the  penal  laws  at  this  crisis,  331.  Are  courted  by 
the  bishops  in  their  distress,  with  fair  promises,  338.  Con- 
duct of  the  Tories  towards  them  since  the  Revolution,  350. 

Distractions  in  the  state,  i.,  394. 

Divine  Beginning  and  Institution  of  Christ's  true,  visi 
ble.  and  material  Church,  by  Mr.  Jacob,  i.,  2ti2. 

Divisions  between  the  first  Reformers  that  fled  to  Frank- 
fort and  Geneva,  i.,  x. 

Doctrinal  Puritans,  i.,  x.,  209. 

Doctrine  of  the  Church,  Reformers"  opinions  on,  i.,  40, 
n.  Doctrines  reformed,  54.  Refornuition  of  it  desired  in 
the  conference  at  Hampton  Court,  231.  Innovations  in  it, 
3d3. 

Dod,  Mr.,  his  death,  character,  and  sayings,  ii.,  21,  and  n. 

Dorislaus,  Dr.,  circumstances  of  his  death ;  anecdotes  of 
him,  ii.,  108,  and  n. 

Dorset,  Devon,  Somerset,  and  Hampshire,  ravaged  by 
the  king's  troops,  i.,  478. 

Downer,  Ann,  a  woman  of  eminent  strength  of  piety 
anil  intellect,  ii.,  432. 

Downing,  Dr.,  and  Mr.  Marshall,  defended  against  a 
charge  of  Dr.  Grey,  i.,  442,  n. 

Downing,  Dr.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  501. 

Drelincourt,  his  letter  on  the  king's  constancy  in  religion, 
ii„  195. 

Drop  of  Honey,  a  tract,  ii.,  394. 

Dublin  University  founded,  i.,  2G1. 

Du  Moulin,  Lewis,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  71.  His 
sentiments  about  the  authors  of  the  king's  death,  99. 

Dunbir,  battle  of,  ii.,  115. 

Dunkirk  delivered  to  the  English,  ii.,  176.  A  story  of 
Cromwell  in  relation  to  it,  176.  Sold  to  the  French  by 
Charles  H.,  and  Lord  Clarendon's  hand  in  it,  238,  and  n. 

Duppa,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  207. 

Diiry,  Mr.,  writes  against  the  Jews,  ii.,  159. 

Dutch  and  French  churches,  their  address  to  James  I., 
and  his  answer,  i.,228.  Address  to  the  Bishop  of  London, 
and  his  answer,  240.  Laud  obliges  them  to  conformity, 
and  his  injunctions  to  them  ;  they  are  broken  up,  319.  See 
German  and  Dutch  Church.  Disturbed  by  Archbishop 
Laud,  520. 

Dutch  war,  under  the  Long-parliament,  ii..  130.  Crom- 
well puts  an  end  to  it,  138.  Under  Charles  XL,  252.  The 
second,  274.  Ended,  280.  Holland  overrun  by  the  French, 
274. 

Dyke,  Mr.,  suspended;  his  parishioners  and  the  lord- 
treasurer  intercede  for  him  in  vain,  1.,  168. 

**  E. 

Earle,  Dr.  J.,  account  of,  i.,  xxii. 

Eaton,  Rev.  John,  his  death,  character,  and  work  enti- 
tled the  Honevcotnb  of  Free  Justification,  i.,  395. 

Ecclesiastical  courts,  their  power  extended  by  Laud,  i., 
3i3.  Ecclesiastical  commission  e'^^cted,  ii.,  323.  To  pre- 
pare mtteiials  for  a  bill  of  compi  ,(iension,  346.  Reasons 
ji^'.inst  alterations  in  the  liturgy,  347.  Proceedings,  347. 
Eicle.ii  istical  I  iws,  see  Canons. 

Fcolesiaslical  historians,  remarks  on,  i.,  xv. 

I^H^^  1  ...   -,ht   i    4^3 

Edmunds,  St.,  Church  in  Salisbury;  its  painted  win- 
dows, i.,  ?07.      '  i      J  •■    i,r 

Edinburgh  Castle  surrendered,  n.,  116. 

Edwaid  VI.  born,  i.,  38.  Succeeds  his  father,  44.  The 
regency  appointed  during  his  iiiinoiity,  44.  The  Reforma- 
tion -idvance-  44.  His  injunctions  about  religion,  4a,  and 
71  His  lim  service-book,  47.  Prohibits  all  preaching, 
and  whv  40.  Insurrections  in  his  reign,  and  on  what  ac- 
count 48.  Severities  on  account  of  religion  in  his  time, 
48  His  reluciince  to  sign  the  warrant  for  Joan  Boucher's 
evecution  for  heresv,  49.  An  instance  of  his  piety,  .'■)2. 
His  letter  to  the  archbishop  to  dispense  with  the  habits  in 
Hooper's  consecration,  .52.  His  patent  for  establishing  the 
German  Church  in  London,  53.  His  hook  of  articles,  54. 
His  fccimd  service  book,  54.  Aiipoints  a  royal  visitation 
about  the  Clmrch  plate,  55.    How  far  the  Reformation 


proceeded,  and  the  king's  desire  of  proceeding  farther,  55. 

He  laments  that  he  could  not  restore  tlie  primitive  disci- 
pline, .56.  His  death  and  character,  56.  Sentiments  of 
the  Reformers  in  this  reign.  57.  By  his  will  ap[iohits  Lady 
Jane  Grey  his  succes.sor,  57.  His  laws  about  religion  le- 
pe  lied,  59.  But  revived  l)y  Uueen  Elizalieth,  72.  His 
service-book  re-est:iblislied,  with  alterations,  76. 

Edwaids,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  69. 

Edwards's  Antapologia,  against  the  Independents,  i., 
492.     His  Gangrsna,  ii.,  37. 

Ejected  ministers,  their  sufferings,  ii.,  245.  Names  of 
those  who  survived  the  Revolution,  351.     See  Ministers. 

Eikoon  Basilike,  a  spurious  book,  ii.,  96. 

Elders,  Puritans'  opinion  concerning  them,  i.,  249. 

Elector  palatine  takes  the  covenant,  and  sits  in  the  as- 
sembly of  divines,  i.,  408.  His  answer  to  the  committee  of 
Lords  and  Commons,  499. 

Elenchus  Religionis  Papisticae  denies  the  divine  right  of 
the  order  of  bishops,  i.,  317.  Other  works  ascribed  to 
him,  327.     Extract  from  the  Elenchus,  427. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  restores  King  Edward's  liturgy,  i.,  x. 
Erects  a  court  of  hiffh  commission,  x.  Carries  her  prerog- 
ative as  high  as  Charles  I.,  xi.  Illegitimated  by  her  fa- 
ther, 36.  Her  dinger  and  sufferings  in  her  sister's  reign, 
69.  Her  accession  to  the  crown,  70.  State  of  the  nation 
and  of  religion  at  that  time,  71.  She  forbids  all  preaching 
for  a  time,  71.  The  supremacy  restored  to  her  by  Parliii- 
ment,  72.  She  appoints  ecclesiastical  commissioneris,  73. 
Is  afraid  of  reforming  too  far,  76,  86.  Her  injunctions 
about  religion,  79.  She  retains  images,  and  several  Popish 
ceremonies  in  her  chapel,  81.  Assists  the  confederate 
Protestants  in  Scotland,  84.  The  pope  writes  to  her,  85. 
She  is  averse  to  the  married  clergy,  87.  Her  supremacy 
confirmed.  87.  She  writes  to  the  archbishops  to  enforce 
the  act  of  uniformity,  90.  Refuses  to  ratify  the  bishops' 
advertisements,  91,  96,  100.  She  visits  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  101.  A  remarkable  instance  of  her  stretching 
the  prerogative,  108.  Her  dangerous  sickness,  and  the 
hazard  of  the  Reformation  at  that  time,  110.  She  assists 
the  confederate  Protestants  of  France  and  Holland,  111. 
Rebellion  of  her  popish  subjects,  HI.  She  is  excommu- 
nicated by  the  pope,  111.  Proceedings  of  her  P.irliament 
thereupon,  112.  She  is  very  arbitrary  with  her  Parlia- 
ment, 115,  117,  120.  And  stops  their  attempts  for  a  far- 
ther reformation,  124.  Her  inveteracy  against  the  Puri- 
tans, and  attempt  to  suppress  them,  127.  She  was  f:\- 
vnurable  to  the  Papists,  1.37.  Persecutes  the  Anabaptists, 
137.  Her  reasons  for  putting  down  the  religious  exercises 
of  the  clergy,  142,  and  v.,  144.  Her  letter  to  the  Bi-ihop  of 
London  for  that  purpose,  142,  n.  Grindal's  honest  advice 
to  her,  143.  For  which  she  sequesters  and  confines  him, 
144.  Her  designed  marriage  with  the  Duke  of  Anjoii, 
147.  She  forbids  a  fast  appointed  by  the  Commons,  147. 
And  the  private  fastings  of  the  clergy,  147.  She  reqnires 
full  conformity,  148.  Continues  to  assist  foreign  Protes- 
tants, 151.  Grants  a  commission  of  concealments,  151. 
Grants  a  new  ecclesiastical  commission,  160.  Stops  the 
Parliament's  proceedings  for  a  farther  reform,  174.  A 
plot  of  the  Papists  against  her  life,  175.  Rejects  the  bill 
for  the  better  observation  of  the  Sabbath,  176.  Stops 
other  bills  for  reform,  182.  Another  plot  of  the  Papists 
against  her,  182.  Puritans  petition  her,  but  in  vain,  184. 
Her  conduct  in  the  Spanish  invasion.  187.  She  again 
stops  the  proceedings  of  Parliament,  188.  Prohibits  the 
books  against  the  Church,  190.  Her  arbitrary  messages 
to  the  Parliament,  197.  She  repents  of  putting  Barrowe 
and  Greenwood,  two  Brownists,  to  death,  202.  Dislikes 
the  predestinarian  controversy,  210.  She  again  stops  the 
Parliament's  proceedings,  212,  213.  Her  death  and  char- 
acter, 216.  The  editor's  supplemental  reflections  on  her 
reign,  21  f>-218. 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  married  to  the  elector  palatine,  i., 
260. 

Elliot,  Sir  John,  his  speech  in  Parliament,  i.,  292.  He 
dies  in  prison  ;  of  his  portrait,  29.5,  ns. 

Elliott,  Rev.  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  305. 

Elliston,  Mr.,  liis  sulTerinss,  i.,  170. 

Engagement,  a  new  oath  established  to  the  common' 
wealth,  ii.,  107,  110.  Refused  by  the  Presbyterians,  110. 
Cavaliers  and  sectarians  take  it,  111.  Reasons  fur  and 
agiinst  it.  111.     Tendered  to  the  universities,  116. 

England's  Complaint,  against  the  canons,  i.,  347. 

English  Pope,  i.,  .331. 

English  Puritanism,  by  Mr.  Bradshaw,  I.,  248. 

Enthusiasm,  rise  of  it  in  the  army,  ii.,  6,  38. 

Episcopacy,  rise  of  the  controversy  about  its  divme 
right,  i.,  186.  The  controversy  carried  on.  206.  Restored 
in  Scotland,  255.  Pamphlets  for  and  against.  363.  IJi--lii- 
op  Hall's  defence  of  it,  and  answer  liy  Smectymnuiis,  303. 
Bill  for  its  abolition,  422.  Debated  in  the  treaty  of  U.x- 
bridge,  529.  Between  the  king  and  Mr.  Henderson,  u., 
"7  Abolished  by  Parliament,  36.  Debated  in  the  treaty 
of  Newport,  82.  Archbishop  Usher's  sentiments  about  it, 
89      State  of  before  the  Restoration,  193.     Restored  in 


INDEX. 


549 


Scotland  tigamst  the  king's  mind,  234.  Keptored  in  Ire- 
land, 234.  Abolished  in  Scothind,  234.  Which  excites 
disaffection  to  the  government  and  to  the  Englisji  Dis- 
senters, 349.     Cromwell  tolerates  Episcopalians,  13G. 

Erastians,  their  opinion  of  Church  government,  i.,  491. 
Their  chief  pvtrons  in  the  assembly  of  divines  and  in  the 
Parli.inient,  491.  Their  objections  to  the  divine  right  of 
Presbytery,  ii.,8.  Their  conduct,  10.  Their  opinion  about 
suspension  and  e.xcorumunication,  11. 

Erasmus's  Paraphrase  on  the  Gospels  in  English,  or- 
dered to  be  set  up  iu  churches,  i.,  80. 

Erastus's  famous  book,  De  Excommunicatione,  i.,  213. 
His  principles,  220. 

Erudition  of  a  Christian  man,  i.,  40,  41,  and  n. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  his  character,  i.,  350.  Character  of  his 
party,  351.  Arrives  in  London  after  the  battle  of  Edge- 
hill,  441.  Is  defeated  in  Cornwall,  478.  He  is  removed, 
U.,  5.     His  death  and  character,  39. 

Essex,  petitions  for  their  deprived  ministers,  i.,  159, 168. 
Names  of  those  that  were  suspended,  167,  n. 

Et  ctEtera  oath,  i.,  346,  355. 

Evans,  Dr.  John,  account  of,  i.,  xx. 

Evans,  Catherine,  travels  and  history  of,  ii.,  416. 

Ewins,  Mr.,  some  particulars  of  him,  ii.,  392,  and  n. 

Exchequer  shut  up,  ii.,  271. 

Exclusion  bill  brought  in,  ii.,  290,  297. 

E.xcommunication,  Puritans'  notion  of  it,  i.,  198.  Terri- 
ble consequences  of  it  in  spiritual  courts,  242.  Canon 
about  it,  347.  Opinions  of  the  Presbyterians,  Independents, 
and  Erastians  on  it,  ii.,  10.     Ordinance  of  it,  11. 

Executions  for  Treason,  i.,  64. 

Exercises,  religious,  see  Prophesyings. 

E.xeter  besieged  by  a  popish  faction  in  Edward  VI. 's 
time,  i.,  48.  The  inhabitants  relieved  by  Lord  Russell, 
48.  It  surrenders  to  the  Parliament  army,  and  the  Prin- 
cess Henrietta,  the  king's  daughter,  made  prisoner  there, 
but  escapes  to  France,  ii.,  22. 

Exhortation  to  the  Governors,  by  Mr.  Penry,  i.,  203. 

Exhortation  to  the  taking  of  the  solemn  league  and  cov- 
enant, i.,  467,  468. 

Exiles  for  religion  in  Queen  Mary's  days,  1.,  58,  66. 
Their  petition  to  her  in  behalf  of  the  sufferers  at  home, 
63.  Disputes  among  them  about  the  ceremonies  and  ser- 
vice-book, which  gave  rise  to  the  Puritans,  66.  They  ap- 
peal to  Calvin,  67.  Some  of  them  set  up  the  Geneva  dis- 
cipline, 68.  Their  reasons  for  laying  aside  the  rites  and 
ceretiionies,  68.  They  return  home  on  Queen  Elizabeth's 
accession,  and  with  what  temper,  71.  Their  good  resolu- 
tions, 71.    See  Reformers. 

F. 

Factories,  English,  in  Holland,  regulations  of  them  pro- 
jected by  Laud,  i.,  308. 

Fagius  comes  to  England,  i.,  46.  His  bones  dug  up  and 
burned  by  the  Papists,  64. 

Fairfax,  General,  his  character,  ii.,  5.  King's  clergy  pe- 
tition to  him,  56.  Counter-petition  of  the  Presbyterian 
clergy  to  him,  57.  He  suppresses  the  Cavaliers  in  Kent 
and  Essex,  75. 

Faith,  the  first  Reformers'  opinion  about  it,  i.,  40,  n. 

Falkland,  Lord,  his  speech  for  reforming  the  hierarchy, 
i.,  371.     Against  the  Earl  of  J^trafford,  376. 

False  news,  proclamation  against  spreading,  ii.,  274. 

Family  of  love,  an  enthusiastic  sect,  i.,  137. 

Fanner,  Richard,  some  accoimt  of,  ii.,  392. 

Fast  voted  by  the  Commons;  forbid  by  the  queen,  i., 
147.  Parliament's  monthly  one,  454.  The  king's  in  op- 
position, 455.  Parliament's  kept  on  Christmas-day,  500. 
Occasional  fasts,  455. 

Fastings  of  the  clergy  put  down,  i.,  147. 

Feasts  of  dedication,  i.,  311 ;  ii.,  303.    Their  rise,  306. 

Feally,  Dr.,  expelled  the  assembly  of  divines,  and  taken 
into  custody  as  a  spy,  i.,  473.  His  death,  ii.,  20.  An  account 
of  his  book  against  the  Baptists,  20,  n.  His  challenge  in 
defence  of  the  Church  of  England,  20.  His  character, 
and  last  prayer,  21. 

Fell,  Dr.,  vice-chancellor  of  Oxford,  treats  the  Parlia- 
ment's visiters  with  contempt,  ii.,  63.  Is  deprived  of  his 
vice-chancellorship,  and  taken  into  custody.  63.  Some 
farther  account  of  him,  C8.     His  death,  &c.,  333. 

Fell,  Mrs.  M.,  per-ecuted,  ii.,  412. 

Fellows,  form  of  inducting  the  new  ones  at  Cambridge, 
i.,  484. 

Felton  slabs  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  i.,  291. 

Fenner,  Mr.,  ilefeiids  the  Puritans,  i.,  183. 

Feolfees  censiucd  in  the  star-chamber,  i.,  306. 

Ferrars,  Bishop,  burned,  i.,  63.  He  was  against  the 
Popish  gnnrieiils,  92. 

Field,  Mr.,  suspended,  i.,  159. 

Field  and  Wilcox  imprisoned  for  the  admonition  to  the 
ParliHinenl,  i.,  121.  Their  !ip<il(igv.  121.  Their  supplica- 
tion, 122.  Their  confe-sion  of  faith,  122.  and  f?.  Their 
conference  with  the  archbishop's  chaplain,  and  hard 
usage,  123. 


Field  conventicles,  act  against,  ii.,  310. 

Fifth  monarchy  men,  their  plot  against  Cromwell,  ii., 
176.  Their  insurrection  after  the  Restoration,  220.  Dis- 
owned by  the  Indei)endents,  the  Baptists,  and  the  Qua- 
kers, 221,  222. 

Fifths  of  estates  allowed  wives  and  children  of  delin- 
quents, i.,  453.     And  of  ejected  clergymen,  488. 

Finch,  li>rd-chief  justice,  his  character,  i.,  280. 

Finch,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  case,  i.,  450. 

Finch,  Dr.,  sent  to  invite  the  Prince  of  Or.inge,  by  the 
heads  of  colleges,  to  Oxford,  ii.,  341. 

Fire  of  London,  ii.,  257.  Produces  a  sort  of  liberty  to 
the  Nonconformists,  2.58. 

Firtnin,  George,  his  character  of  Mr.  Marshall,  ii.,  162. 

First-fruits  and  tenths,  see  Annats. 

Fisher,  Bishop,  refuses  to  take  the  oath  of  succession 
and  supremacy,  i.,  34.    Beheaded,  37. 

Fisher,  Samuel,  his  death,  ii.,  257. 

Fitz-Harris's  sham  plot,  ii.,  297. 

Five  nietnbers,  king  goes  to  seize,  ii.,  406,  and  n. 

Five-mile  act  agains t  Nonconformist  ministers,  ii.,  25.5,  n. 

Five  points,  a  declaration  forbidding  to  preach  on  thera, 
i.,  514. 

Fleetwood,  Lieutenant-general,  for  deposing  Richard 
Cromwell,  ii.,  186.  Henry  Cromwell's  letter  to  him,  187. 
His  death,  188. 

Fletcher,  Dr.,  made  Bishop  of  London,  and  persecutes 
the  Puritans;  the  queen  displeased  at  his  second  mar- 
riage ;  his  death,  i.,  208. 

Ford,  Mr.,  and  others,  expelled  the  university  for  preach- 
ing against  Arminiasm  and  the  new  ceretnonies,  i.,  304. 

Foreign  Protestants  take  sanctuary  in  England,  i.,  53. 
Their  sentiinents  about  the  habits  and  ceremonies,  94. 
Foreign  Protestant  churches  disowned,  320.  Laud  ilis- 
courages  them,  517,  520. 

Forma  promissionis  et  abjiirationis,  i.,  130. 

Forms,  &c.,  a  vniiety  of  them  in  different  churches,  al- 
lowed even  by  the  Papists,  i.,  47.  This  complained  of  in 
the  Church  of  England,  91. 

Fownes,  Mr.  George,  history  of,  ii.,  393. 

Fox,  Mr.  John,  his  letter  to  Dr.  Humphreys,  i.,  86.  His 
Acts  and  Monuments,  91.  Neglected  by  the  Church  for 
scrupling  the  habits,  91.  Summoned  before  the  commis- 
sioners, but  refuses  to  subscribe,  98.  Intercedes  with  the 
queen  to  spare  some  Anabaptists  that  were  condemned  to 
be  burned,  138.    His  death  and  character,  185. 

Fox,  George,  account  of  him  and  his  parents,  ii.,  118, 
and  ns.,  119,  and  7is.     Is  joined  by  others,  120,  406,  412. 

Foxes  and  Firebrands,  authors  of,  i.,  287. 

France,  war  with  it,  i.,  287.  French  ambassador's  speech 
to  the  protector,  ii.,  138.  Their  conquests,  261.  Declare 
war  with  the  Dutch,  and  overrun  their  country,  274. 
Their  minister's  employed  to  enforce  the  idea  of  King 
Charles's  being  a  Protestant,  195.  Their  conduct  after 
the  Restoration,  235. 

Frankfort,  the  congregation  there,  and  their  manner  of 
worship,  i.,  66.  Interrupted  by  Dr.  Cox  and  his  party,  67. 
The  congregation  divided  again,  and  their  new  book  of 
discipline,  68. 

Frederic,  elector  palatine,  marries  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth, i.,  260.  Chosen  King  of  Bohemia,  268.  Defeated 
and  driven  out  of  his  kingdom,  269. 

Freemen  of  London  disfranchised  for  not  going  to  church, 
i.,  108. 

Free-will,  the  first  Reformer's  opinion  about  it,  i.,  40. 
Rise  of  the  controversy  about  it,  65.    See  Predeslinaiion. 

Freke,  Dr.,  made  Bishop  of  Norwich,  i.,  140.  His  se- 
verity against  the  Puritans,  145.  And  against  the  Brown- 
ists,  and  his  articles  against  the  justices,  150. 

French  Church  in  London  restored,  i.,  83.    See  Dutch. 

French  match,  i.,  275.  Completed,  and  the  consequen 
ces  of  it,  279. 

Frewen,  Dr.,  an  account  of,  ii.,  207,  and  n. 

Frith,  John,  burned,  i.,  35. 

Frith,  Simon,  publishes  a  book  against  friars,  i.,  35 

Face,  Joseph,  his  surterings,  ii.,  413. 

Fuller.  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  242. 

Fuller  and  Grey's  idea  of  superstittion,  i.,  .394,  n. 

Fundamentals  in  religion,  attempts  to  settle  them,  1., 
143.    Committee  to  draw  up  the  articles,  143 


Gag,  a  new,  for  the  old  Gospel,  some  account  of,  i.,  276 
And  of  Apello  Ca;sarem,  276.  283,  284. 

Gale,  Mr.  Theophilus,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  290, 
and  71. 

Galloway.  Mr.  P.,  his  account  of  the  Hampton  Court 
conference,  i..  231. 

Gangra-na,  Mr.  Edwards's,  ii..  37. 

Gaping  Gulf,  n  treatise  against  the  French  match  with 
the  queen,  i.,  147. 

Gardiner,  Bishop,  pent  to  the  Fleet  prison  for  protesting 
against  the  injunctions  and  iKnuilies,  i.,  45.  His  further 
persecution,  48.    Deprived  of  his  bishopric,  .53.    Restored 


550 


INDEX. 


hy  Queen   Mary,  58.     Cnmmissionen   to  persecute  the 
Protestants.  C'2.     His  cruelty  to  Dr.  Taylor  the  marlyr,  02. 
His  f  irlher  cniilties,  nixl  reuiark;ilile  illness  anil  death,  63. 
Gardiner,  Mr.,  his  melancholy  case  anil  hard  usage,  i., 
178. 
Garnipnts,  Popish,  see  Hahita. 
Gat  iker,  Thomas,  his  dealli,  ii ,  1.54. 
G.iclifs,  Kayniond,  his  letter  to  Mr.  Baxter  on  the  king's 
eonstancv  in  religion,  ii ,  1U5. 

Gatford's  treatise  for  the  vindication  of  the  use  of  the 
common  prayer  mentioned,  ii.,  147. 

G  iiiden.  Dr..  his  protestation  against  trying  the  king,  ii., 
91.    Tlie  author  of  Eikonn  Basilike,  96.     His  behaviour 
in  the  Savoy  conference,  030. 
Gaunt,  Mrs.,  hiirned,  ii.,  318. 

Gawion,  Mr.,  his  bold  letter  to  the  bishop  of  Norwich, 
i.,  141. 

General  assembly  in  Scotland,  their  protestation  against 
setting  up  bishops  there,  i.,  255.  General  assembly  at 
Glasgow,  337.  Dissolved,  but  continues  silting,  and  their 
reasons  for  it,  and  their  acts,  338.  Thev  depose  the  bish- 
ops, 338.  General  assembly  at  Edinburgh,  341.  Their 
reasons  to  induce  the  convention  of  states  to  assist  the 
EnKlish  Parliament,  464. 

General  and  particular  Baptists,  i.,  497. 
Geneva  discipline  set  up  by  some  of  the  English  exiles 
at  Geneva,  i.,  68. 
Geneva  divines,  their  opinions  of  the  habits,  i.,  94. 
Geneva  Bible,  account  of  it,  i.,  83,  257. 
Gerhard  and  Vowel  executed,  ii.,  140. 
German  and  Dutch  Clnirch  established  in  London,  i., 
53.     Put  down  ^v   Clueen   Mary,  58.     Restored   under 
Queen  Elizabeth,  83.     Forbid  to  admit  Puritans  to  their 
conununion,  133.     See  Dutch. 

Get  many  kindly  shelters  the  Reforiners  who  flpd  from 
Queen  Mary's  persecution.  Disputes  there  occasioned  by 
the  Interim,  51. 

Gerr.ird,  Mr.,  burned,  i.,  40. 
Gibson,  William,  history  of,  ii.,  428. 
GitJiird,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  167. 
Giles's,  St.,  church  consecrated  by  Laud,  i.,  303. 
Gillibranil's  almanac,  i.,  515. 

Gilpin,  Mr.  Bernard,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  154. 
Glamorgan,  Earl  of,  his  treaty  with  the  Irish  Papists,  i., 
533. 

Gloria  pntri,  of  standing  up  at  it,  i.,  513. 
Gloucester,  city  of,  besieged  by  Charles  I.,  but  relieved 
by  the  Earl  of  Essex,  i.,  448. 

Godfathers  and  godmothers,  opinion  of  the  Puritans 
about  them,  i.,  107. 

Godfrey,  Sir  Ed.,  particulars  of  his  murder,  ii.,  288. 
and  n. 

Good,  Mr.,  of  Exeter,  prevails  with  the  ministers  to 
enter  into  an  association  of  concord,  ii.,  137. 

Goodman,  a  priest,  reprieved  by  the  king,  i.,  373. 
Goodwin,  Dr.  Thomas,  retires  to  Holland,  i.,  341.     Death 
and  character,  ii..  291,  and  n. 

Goodwin,  John,  some  account  of  him  and  his  writings, 
ii.,  45.  Writes  in  defence  of  the  king's  death,  97.  His 
book  burned,  219. 

Gooil  works,  our  first  Reformers'  opinion  about  them,  i., 
41,  n. 
Goodyear,  Thomas,  his  ill-treatment,  ii.,  409. 
Goring.  Lord,  his  character,  i.,  478. 
Gosnold,  .John,  some  account  of.  ii.,  394. 
Gospellers,   congregations   of   Reformers   so  called   in 
Queen  Mary's  reign,  their  places  of  meeting,  their  discov- 
ery, and  fate,  i..  06. 
Gouge,  Dr.  William,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  138. 
Gouge,  Thomas,  his  death,  ii.,  300. 
Gough's  history  of  the  Quakers,  ii.,  405. 
Govan,  Captain,  executed  in  Scotland,  ii.,  234. 
Government,  the  change  of  in  Cromwell's  turning  out 
the  Long-parliament,  ii.,  132. 
Government  of  women,  a  book  against,  i.,  119. 
Granger,  remarks  from  him,  i.,  371,  «. 
Great  seal,  a  new  one  ordered  by  Parliament,  i.,  476. 
Greaves,  Mr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  69. 
Greenh>m,  Mr.,  suspended,  i.,  141. 
Greenville,  Rich.,  his  character  and  behaviour  in  the 
war,  i.,  478. 

Greenwood,  the  Brownist  minister,  tried  with  Barrow, 
and  executed,  i..  202. 
Greenwood,  Dr.,  some  account  of  him,  ii.,  70. 
Greenwood.  Dr.  D  ,  vice-chancellor  of  Oxford,  ii.,  116. 
Grenville,   Sir  John,  brings   letters   from   the   king   at 
Bieda  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  his  reward  for  it,  ii., 
21)1.  and  n. 

Grey,  T,ndy  Jane,  proclaimed  queen,  i.,  58.  Tried  for 
high  treason,  and  executed  with  her  husband,  .59. 

Grev,  Dr.,  his  examination  of  Mr.  Neal's  historv.  i.,  225. 
Quo'eil,  and  observed  on  in  notes.  227,  235.  248,  251,  2.52, 
271,  274  278.  289,  297,  309,  313,  316,  330,  3.52,  353.  356, 
357,  373,  391,  390,  397,  409,  419,  442,  443,  446   409,  473, 


525,  .527,  533 ;  il.,  23,  27.  31,  57,  7.5,  76,  87,  88,  108,  133.  155. 
171,  176,  207.  208.  217,  222, 238,  340,  267,  271,  284,  286,  302, 
303,  317,  328,  336,  340, 

Grievances  complained  of  by  the  Puritans,  I.,  ISO.  In 
the  slate,  2,53.     Petitions  about  llicm,  2.54.     In  religion,  400, 

Grimsione,  Sir  Harbottle,  his  speech  against  Laud,  i,, 
3.57. 

Grindal,  Dr..  made  Bishop  of  London,  i.,  78.  Was 
against  the  habits,  though  he  coi. formed,  92.  Of  a  mild 
temper,  96,  102.  Several  Puritans  examined  before  him, 
108.  White's  smart  letter  to  him,  110.  Is  made  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  115.  Suppresses  a  letter  to  the  queen 
from  the  elector  palatine  in  favour  of  the  Puritans,  117. 
Cannot  go  the  lengths  of  Archbishop  Parker,  1 19.  Samp- 
son's plain  dealing  with  him,  135.  He  is  made  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  139.  Petitions  to  him  in  behalf  of 
Mr.  Stroud,  141.  He  regidates  the  prophesyings,  142. 
Refuses  to  put  them  down,  and  writes  to  the  queen  in 
their  behalf,  143.  For  which  he  is  sequestered  and  con- 
fined, 144.  He  submits  in  part,  144,  Licenses  Puritan 
ministers  to  preich,  145.  Admits  of  Presbyteriaa  ordina- 
tion, 1.52.     His  death  and  character,  155. 

Grosvenor,  Dr.  B.,  i.,  xxii. 

Growth  of  Power,  and  Argument  to  Grand  Juries  :  sup- 
posed by  Andrew  Marvel,  great  rewards  offered  for  the 
author,  &c..  ii.,  282. 

Gualter,  his  advice  to  the  English  Reformers,  :.,  71,  72. 
His  letters  against  the  habits,  94. 

Guernsey  and  Jersey,  reduced  to  conformity,  i.,  251. 

Guest,  Dr.,  Bishop,  of  Rochester,  his  opinion  of  the  cere- 
monies, i.,  93. 

Guise,  Dr.  John,  i.,  xxi. 

Gunning,  Bishop,  his  behaviour  in  the  Savoy  confer- 
ence, ii,,  229,  230.  His  zeal  against  the  Nonconformists, 
267. 

Gunpowder  plot,  i.,  244.  To  be  fathered  on  the  Puritans, 
245. 

Guthrie,  Mr.,  executed  in  Scotland,  ii.,  234. 

H. 

Habernfield's  plot.  Archbishop  Laud's  conduct  in  rela- 
tion to  it,  i.,  520. 

Habits  or  vestments,  the  Reformers'  opinions  of  them, 
i.,  47.  The  heads  of  the  two  parties,  47.  Rise  of  the 
controversy  about  them,  51.  Hooper  refuses  them,  51. 
Judgment  of  foreign  divines  about  them,  52.  And  of  the 
reforming  clergy  at  home,  53.  The  Puritans  write  to  the 
courtiers  against  pressing  them,  but  the  bishops  are  for 
enforcing  them,  91.  More  sentiments  of  the  first  Reform- 
ers about  them  ;  state  of  the  question,  92-94.  The  English 
laity  averse  to  them.  95,  103.  The  bishops'  injunctions 
for  enforcing  them.  95,  n.  Dr.  Humphreys  and  Sampson 
cited,  and  examined  about  them,  96.  Their  arguments 
against  them,  96,  n.  Reasons  of  the  deprived  clergy  for 
refusing  them,  99,  n.  They  are  scrupled  by  the  Universi- 
ty of  Cambridge,  101.  Abstract  of  the  rea-sons  of  the  de- 
prived ministers  against  them,  103.  And  of  the  Puritans 
in  general,  106. 

Hacket  executed,  and  tlie  Puritans  not  concerned  with 
him,  i.,  196. 
Hackett,  Dr.,  his  defence  of  deans  and  chapters,  i.,  381. 
Hackston,  Mr.,  his  execution,  and  invincible  courage,  ii., 
310. 

Hccretico  comburendo,  De,  act  repealed,  iii.,  206,  and  n. 
Hakewell,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  67. 

Hale,  Matthew,  made  lord-chief-justice  by  Cromwell, 
ii.,  138.     His  upright  conduct,  424. 
Hales,  Judge,  his  hard  usage,  i.,  59. 
Hales,  John,  of  Eton,  his  death,  character,  and  works, 
ii..  168,  ?^. 

Hall,  Bishop,  his  divine  right  of  Episcopacy,  i.,  342. 
Revised  and  altered  by  Laud,  343.  His  defence  of  litur- 
gies, answered  hy  Smectymnuus,  3ti3.  His  concessions 
about  liberty  of  prayer,  364.  His  farther  defence  of  Epis- 
copacy, 3()5.  His  death  and  character,  ii.,  167. 
Hall,  William,  of  Congleton,  persecuted,  ii.,  422. 
Hamilton,  Marquis  of,  sent  high-commissioner  into  Scot- 
land, i.,  337.  Declaims  against  lay-elders.  338.  Duke 
Hamilton  enters  England  with  the  Scots  army ;  is  defeated 
by  Cromwell,  ii.,  76. 

Hammond,  Dr.,  his  vindication,  ii.,  45.  Farther  account  of 
him.  79.  His  protestation  against  trying  the  king  and  put- 
ting him  to  death,  91.     His  death  and  character,  ii.,  224. 

Hampden,  Mr.,  his  character,  i.,  351.  His  death,  &c.. 
475. 

Hampton  Court  conference,  proclamation  for  it,  i.,  229. 
Persons  concerned  in  it,  2,30.  First  day's  conference.  230. 
Second  day's  conference,  231.  Third  day's  conference, 
233.  Puritans  refuse  to  be  concluded  by  it,  and  their  rea- 
sons, 234. 

Happiness,  on,  by  Mr.  Bolton,  i.,  306,  n. 
Harbour  for   faithful   Subjects,  a   treatise   against  the 
wealth,  &c..  of  bishops,  by  Ay'«icr,  before  his  own  ad- 
vancement, i.,  139,  170. 


INDEX. 


551 


"Hardcastlei  Thomas,  account  of,  ii.,  392. 

H  iriiian,  Mr.,  account  of,  ii.,  72. 

Harris,  Dr.  William,  account  of,  i.,  xxii. 

Harris,  Dr.,  of  Honiton,  his  liislory  quoted,  i.,  230,  266, 
"277,  378;  ii.,  30,  vs. 

Harris,  Dr.,  of  Trinity  College,  account  of,  ii.,  70. 

H.irris,  Dr.  .lohn,  his  <leath,  ii.,  184. 

Harris,  Dr.  Roliert,  his  deatli,  ii.,  185,  71. 

U  irsnet.  Bishop,  and  others,  grounds  of  his  and  their 
rise  ai  court,  i.,  275,  and  n. 

Harvey,  Mr.,  suspended,  i.,  141. 

Harwood,  Dr.,  his  character  0}  Fell's  Greek  Testament, 
ii.,  334. 

Hayden,  Kcv.  Mr.,  of  Devonshire,  his  sufferings,  i.,  307. 

Heads  of  colleges  in  Oxford  that  sul)niitted  to  the  P.ir- 
liiment  and  kept  llieir  places,  ii.,  66.  Their  characters. 
67.  List  of  those  who  were  ejected,  and  of  those  who 
succeeded,  68-72.  Their  behaviour,  72.  Heads  and  fel- 
lows of  colleges  restored,  206. 

Heath,  Bishop,  deprived,  i.,  51,  53.  Uestored,  58.  His 
speech  against  the  act  of  uniformity,  76.  Deprived  again, 
77. 

Heavens,  Elizabeth,  and  Elizabeth  Fletcher,  their  cruel 
treatment,  ii.,  408,  and  n. 

Hehvi.se,  Thomas,  account  of,  ii.,  371. 

Hencbman,  Bishop,  character  of,  ii.,  206,  n. 

Henderson,  Mr.,  his  speech  against  bishops  in  the 
treaty  of  Uxbridge,  i.,  529.  His  conference  with  the  king 
about  Episcopacy,  ii.,  27,  28-32,  v. ;  Appendi.v  X.,  ii.,  474. 

Henry  VIH.,  his  birth  and  character,  i.,  31.  Obtains 
the  title  of  defender  <if  the  faith  by  the  pope,  for  writing 
against  Luther,  31.  Moves  the  pope  to  be  divorced  from 
his  Queen  Catherine,  and  appeals  to  the  principal  univer- 
sities of  Europe,  32.  Breaks  with  the  pope  for  not  granting 
the  divorce,  and  assumes  the  title  of  supreme  head  of  the 
Church,  32.  Is  divorced,  and  marries  Anne  Boleyn,  33. 
The  clergy  submit  to  him  ;  obtains  the  first-fruits  and 
tenllis,  34.  Monasteries  surrendered  to  him,  and  sup- 
pressed, 35.  Articles  of  religion  devised  by  him,  36.  He 
is  e.\communicated  by  the  pope,  37.  His  injunctions  in 
consequence,  for  regulating  the  behaviour  of  the  clergy. 
37.  Obst  icles  to  a  farther  reformation  in  his  reign,  38. 
He  persecutes  the  Protestants  and  Papists,  40,  42.  State 
of  the  Reformation  at  his  death,  42.     His  death,  43. 

Henry,  Prince,  his  death  and  chtiracter,  i.,  260,  n. 

Henry.  Philip,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  299. 

Henshaw's,  Bishop,  persecuting  spirit,  ii.,  267,  n. 

Heretics,  rise  of  the  penal  laws  against,  i.,  30.  Some 
of  those  laws  repealed,  33,  45.  Revived  in  Queen  Mary's 
reign,  62.     Again  repealed.  72.     Several  burned,  49. 

Herle,  Charles,  one  of  the  assembly  of  divines,  i.,  459. 
His  opinion  of  the  apologetical  narrative  of  the  Independ- 
ents, 492.  Prolocutor,  and  one  of  the  committee  of  the 
assembly  of  divines,  for  forming  the  confession  of  faith 
and  catechism,  ii.,  40.  His  speech  at  the  conclusion,  42. 
His  death.  199. 

Hertford,  Earl  of,  chosen  protector  and  governor  of  Ed- 
ward VI.,  i.,  44. 

Hertford,  marquis  of,  his  declaration  concerning  church 
government,  i.,  530,  n. 

Hewet,  a  poor  apprentice,  burned,  i.,  35. 

Hewet,  Dr.,  his  trial,  ii.,  177.  He  is  condemned  and 
executed,  ii.,  177. 

Heylin,  his  reflection  upon  Edward  VI.,  i.,  56. 

Heywood,  Justice,  stabbed  by  a  Papist,  i.,  373. 

Hierarchy,  objections  of  tlie  Puritans  against  it,  i.,  106. 
Opposed  by  Cartvvright,  115.  The  Brownists'  opinion  of 
it,  199,  n.  Petitions  against  and  in  favour  of  it,  367.  Min- 
isters' petition  for  reforming  it,  369.  The  king  interposes 
in  favour  of  it,  369  Speeclies  for  and  against  it,  309,  370, 
378. 

High-church  clergy,  their  character  and  conduct,  ii., 
248,  299. 

High-commission  Court,  erected  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  i., 
X.  The  rise  of  it,  72.  A  great  grievance  to  the  subject, 
72  The  first  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  81.  Their  pro- 
ceedings, 9.5,  97,  98.  Their  new  injunctions,  with  the 
consequences  of  them,  100.  Their  arbitrary  doings,  123. 
Their  farther  proceedings,  127,  131.  A  new  one  appoint- 
ed, and  the  preaud)le  to  the  commission,  160,  and  71.  The 
reason  of  the  name,  and  their  jurisdiction,  161-163.  Their 
jnterriigatories  framed  by  Whitgifl,  163,  n.  Their  prohi- 
bition to  (ireach  in  the  city  without  a  licence,  184.  Their 
))owers  debited  in  Mr.  Cawdery's  case,  195.  Their  cru 
elty  set  forth  by  the  Brownists,  199.  Their  i)r(iceedings 
against  the  I'liritans.  249.  Petition  of  the  Parliament 
against  it,  2.")4.  Grievances  in  its  e.vecution,  254.  Sum- 
mary account  of  their  arbitrary  proceedings,  2.S0.  Farther 
account  of  them.  ,339.     Act  for  its  abolition,  386. 

High  court  of  justice  for  the  trial  of  Charles  I.,  ii.,  94. 
Hilder'hani,  Mr.,  his  forcn  of  recantation  and  sulferings, 
j.,  185.     His  death  and  character.  305. 

Hill.  Dr..  .account  of,  i.,  483.     His  death,  ii.,  138,  and  n. 
Hill,  Mr.,  called  Consul  BibuUis  by  Laud,  i.,  523. 


History  of  Nonconformity,  ii..  228,  n.  Account  of  their 
meetings,  283.  Conformists'  Plea,  299.  Nonconformists' 
Plea,  31)4. 

Histriomasti.T,  a  book  against  plays,  by  Mr.  Prynne,  i., 
316,  ami  n..  317. 

Hitton,  Mr.,  burned  at  Sniithfield,  i.,  35. 

HoHdIey,  Bishop,  a  reflection  of  his,  i.,  475,  n. 

Holdsworth,  Dr.,  some  account  of  i.,  482. 

Holdgate,  archbishop  of  Yoik,  sent  to  the  Tower,  i.,  58. 

Hollis,  Denzil,  his  character,  i.,  351. 

Hollis,  the  cosmopolite,  his  memoirs  quoted,  i.,  518,  n. 

Holmby  House,  Charles  I.  carried  thither,  ii.,  35. 

Holt,  in  Norfolk,  the  religious  exercises  there  commend- 
ed by  the  privy  council,  i.,  134. 

Homilies,  first  book  of,  i.,  45.     A  second  book,  83. 

Honiton  magistrates,  at  its  quarter  sessions,  act  with 
great  severity  towards  some  Quakers,  ii.,  405. 

Hood,  Dr.,  account  of  ii.,  67. 

Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  account  of  i.,  206. 

Hooker,  Rev,  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  317 

Hooper,  Bishop,  his  char.acter,  i.,  51.  Refuses  the  hab- 
its, and  his  reasons  for  it;  ill  treated  for  it.  52.  Complies 
a  little,  and  is  made  Bishop  of  Gloucester;  his  character 
as  a  bishop  and  a  preacher,  52.  Imprisoned  by  Queen 
Mary,  58.  His  martyrdom,  and  e.xcellent  letter  to  Bullin- 
ger,  62. 

Horn,  Dr..  flies  beyond  sea,  i.,  58.  Made  Bishop  of  Win- 
chester, 78.  Preaches  for  the  habits,  but  was  not  fond  of 
them  at  first,  91,  92. 

Hornbeck,  Professor,  translates  into  Latin  the  Indepen- 
dents' declaration  of  faith,  ii.,  178. 

Hotham,  John,  his  character,  i.,  351.  Proclaimed  a 
traitor  by  the  king,  413. 

House  and  field  conventicles  in  Scotland,  ii.,  310. 

Howe,  John,  his  conversation  with  Archbishop  Tillot- 
son,  on  his  sermon  preached  1680,  i.,  xiv.,  n. 

Howe,  Samuel,  account  of,  and  his  Sufficiency  of  the 
Spirit's  Teaching,  i.,  361,  71. 

Howe,  John,  chaplain  to  the  protector,  one  of  the  synod 
of  the  Independents,  ii.,  178.  Impiisoned,  217.  Against 
the  dispensing  power,  328.     Anecdote  of,  329,  n. 

Howgill,  Francis,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  413.  Death,  &c., 
420. 

Hoyle,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  70. 

Hubbard,  Mr.,  i.,  xxi. 

Hubberthorn,  Richard,  his  death,  ii.,  418. 

Hubbock,  Mr.,  his  sulferings,  i.,  195. 

Hubert,  a  man  who  suffered  for  the  fire  of  London,  ii., 
258,  m. 

Huddlestone's  treatise,  A  Short  and  Plain  Way,  ii.,  127. 

Hughes,  Dr.  O.,  i.,  xxii. 

Hughes,  George,  prevails  on  ministers  to  enter  into  an 
association  of  concord,  ii.,  137.  His  death  and  character, 
ii.,  261,  n. 

Hull,  the  king  denied  entrance  there,  i.,  413. 

Humble  petition  and  advice,  ii.,  170. 

Humphreys,  Dr.,  his  letter  against  the  habits,  i.,  93. 
Cited  with  Mr.  Sampson  before  the  ecclesiastical  commis- 
sioners, 96.  Their  letter  to  them,  and  their  answers  to 
the  archbishop's  questions,  96,  n.  Humphrey's  letter  to 
the  queen  ;  he  obtains  a  toleration,  and  at  last  conforms, 
97.     His  death,  188. 

Hunt,  Dr.,  J.,  ii.,  xxii. 

Hutchinson,  Colonel,  adopts  the  principles  of  the  Bap- 
tists, ii.,  378.  Account  of  his  family,  378.  Is  violently 
persecuted,  379.  Chosen  member  of  Parliament,  379.  His 
death  and  character,  380. 

J. 

Jackson,  Arthur,  his  death,  ii.,  258,  n. 

Jacob,  Mr.  Henry,  i.,  244.  Sets  up  Independency  in 
Bn:;land,  262. 

JacomI),  Thomas,  his  death,  ii.,  332,  n. 

Jamaica  taken  from  the  Spaniards,  ii.,  156. 

James  I.  born,  i.,  105.  Writes  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in 
favour  of  Mr.  Udal,  193.  Writes  to  her  again  in  favour  of 
Mr.  Cartwright  and  his  brethren,  195.  From  a  rigid  Cal- 
vinist  becmiies  an  Arminian,  and  an  enemy  to  the  Puri- 
tans, author's  preface,  219.  His  children,  227.  His  beha- 
viour previous  to  his  coming  to  England,  and  his  declara- 
tion in  the  general  assembly  in  favour  of  the  kirk;  his 
sudden  change,  297.  Application  of  the  Papists,  bishops, 
French  and  Dutch  churches  to  him;  his  answer  to  ihe 
latter;  application  of  the  Puritans  lo  him,  2-28.  Procla 
Illation  for  the  Hampton  Court  conference,  229.  His  be- 
haviour in  it,  230,  231,  233,  71a-.  His  speech  at  the  first 
day's  conference:  is  salisfn'd  about  some  little  scruples, 
230.  His  reason  for  permitting  Popi-li  books,  2!2.  His 
speech  about  uniformity,  and  against  Presbytery.  232. 
Is  flattered  by  the  bishops,  232.  His  letter  lo  Mr.  Bl  ike 
about  the  Puritans,  232.  He  resolves  to  enforce  conlbiui- 
ity,  and  publishes  a  proclam.atioii  fir  that  purpose,  234. 
Pioclanialions  against  the  Jesuit.s  and  Puritans,  236.  His 
speech  to  liis  Parliament,  236.    His  arbitrary  proceedings, 


5£2 


INDEX. 


236,  255.  Ritifio."  the  canons,  2W.  Deimnils  the  opin- 
ion of  the  twelve  juilges  in  regard  to  proceedinj^s  against 
the  I'lirltiiis,  '.Ml.  Uis  solemn  proiestat.on  against  la- 
vourini;  I'Dix^ry,  J-ll.  How  the  guiipiiwder  plot  was  dis- 
covered to  Mini,  -ii't.  His  severe  speech  .'igMiist  the  Puri- 
tinis,  and  Ills  tenderness  and  respect  to  the  Papists,  245. 
Conrirais  tlie  (Jliurch  government  of  Guernsey  and  Jersey, 
hilt  al.' rward  deslroys  it,  251.  Hii  prerogative  advanceil 
ali;nc.'  a;!  law  by  the  bishops'  creatures,  251.  Summons 
llic  I'liliimant  lo  Wliitehall,  and  makes  an  arliilrary 
speech  to  ihein,  253.  Their  remonstrance  thereon,  253. 
Their  petition  to  him  in  favour  of  the  Puiit  ins,  and  against 
the  liigh  commission,  254.  Dissolves  them  in  anger,  255. 
Project  for  restoring  Episcopacy  in  Scoil.ind,  255.  Trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  in  his  reign,  258.  His  zeal  against 
Vorstiiis,  2o8.  Slate  of  his  court,  2()0.  Marries  his  daugh- 
ter to  the  elector  palatine,  260.  Calls  a  Parliament,  and 
dissolves  them  in  anger,  281.  His  discourse  in  the  star- 
chamber,  2j2.  His  progress  into  Scotland,  and  behaviour 
there,  2(i5.  His  weak  jinnagenient  in  the  atfair  of  Bohe- 
mia, 268.  Of  a  zealous  Calvinist  he  becomes  a  favourer 
of  the  Aruiiniins,  270.  His  speech  to  his  Parliament ;  he 
adjourns  them  ;  writes  to  the  speaker,  and  dissolves  them, 
271.  Rela.^es  the  laws  against  Papists,  271,  274.  His  in- 
junctions to  restrain  preaching  of  Calvinism,  272.  His  pro- 
ceedings in  the  Spanish  match,  273.  Speech  to  liis  Par- 
liunent,  275.  His  remarkable  answer  to  their  petition, 
275.  His  letter  to  the  pope,  275.  He  dies;  siunmary 
state  of  religion  in  his  reign  ;  character  of  him  and  his 
court,  275-278.  Supplemental  remarks  to  his  reign  by  the 
editor,  ii.,  .300. 

James  H.,  his  first  speech  to  the  privy  council,  ii.,  315. 
Universities'  addresses  to  him,  316.  The  Quakers',  310. 
Begins  with  arbitrary  and  severe  methods,  316.  Meets 
his  Parliament,  316.  His  severe  prosecution  of  the  Whigs, 
3J7.  His  speech  to  his  Parliament,  318.  Open  war  be- 
tween him  and  the  Church,  319.  He  caresses  the  Dis- 
senters. 321.  Erects  an  ecclesiastical  commission,  324. 
His  standing  army,  324.  Invades  the  privileges  of  the 
universities,  325.  He  courts  the  Dissenters ;  his  speech  in 
council  for  liberty  of  conscience;  his  declaration  for  in- 
dulgence, 326,  327,  ns.  Goes  a  progress,  331,  n.  Changes 
tile  iiKigistrates  in  corporations,  331.  Goes  into  rash  and 
violent  measures,  331.  Attempts  to  convert  the  princess 
of  Orange  to  Popery,  and  the  prince,  334.  His  queen  de- 
clared to  be  with  child,  335.  His  second  declaration  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  335.  His  answer  to  the  bishops,  337, 
n.  Sends  the  bishops  to  the  Tower,  337,  n.  Suspected 
birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  339.  He  has  intelligence  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange's  e.\iX3ditlon  ;  his  preparations  against 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  339,  340.  He  leaves  the  kingdom, 
341.  Outlines  of  a  memorial  presented  to  him  by  a  Jesuit 
for  entirely  rooting  out  the  Protestant  religion,  433. 

James,  J.,  his  suft'erings,  ii.,  383. 

Janeway,  James,  his  death,  ii.,  279. 

January  30th,  act  for  its  observation,  ii.,  217,  n. 

Jeanes,  Henry,  his  death,  ii.,  246. 

Jenkyn,  Mr.  William,  his  sutl'eiings  and  death,  ii.,  309,  n. 

Jetiries,  Judge,  his  scurrilous  treatment  of  Mr.  Baxter, 
ii.,  317.  His  cruelties  in  the.  west  of  England,  318.  He  is 
taken  and  sent  to  the  Tower,  341. 

Jennings,  Dr.,  i.,  .xxi. 

Jerome,  Mr.,  burned,  i.,  40. 

Jersey  and  Guernsey,  reformation  there,  and  their  book 
of  discipline,  i.,  130.     Reduced  to  conformity,  251. 

Jesaey,  Henry,  memoirs  of,  ii.,  253.  His  great  kindness 
to  the  Jews,  253. 

Jesuits,  proclamation  against  them,  i.,236.  Jesuits'  let- 
ter about  the  growth  of  Arminianivm,  288. 

Jewel,  Bishop,  subscribes  in  Queen  Mary's  reign,  but 
afterward  recants,  i.,  05.  His  letter  to  Bullinger  about  a 
thorough  reformati<in,  72.  lie  preaches  for  the  habits,  91. 
But  inveighed  against  them  belbre,  92.  His  death,  cliar- 
acter,  and  writings,  118. 

Jews,  Cromwell  is  for  encouraging  and  admitting  them, 
ii.,  159.     Mr.  Jessey's  goodness  to  them,  253. 

Images  in  part  taken  from  churches,  i.,  39.  Taken 
wholly  away,  39.  Set  up  ag;iin,60.  Images  and  crucifixes 
countenanced  by  Laud  ;  their  antiquity,  508. 

Impropriations,  of  buying  them  up,  i.,  517. 

Indemnity,  act  of,  by  the  Long  parliament,  ii.,  128. 

Independent  church  government,  its  rise,  i.,  207.  Inde- 
pendents, who  was  the  first  of  llieni,  243.  Rise  of  them 
in  England,  202.  Their  manner  of  erecting  a  church,  262. 
Their  history  continued,  301. 

Indcpendenis  in  the  assembly  of  divines,  i.,  491.  Their 
apolcgeiical  narration,  491.  Vindication  of  them,  493. 
Debaips  w  itii  ihem  aboiii  ordination,  ii.,  8.  Their  objec- 
tions to  the  divine  rigiii  of  Ple^bytery,  8.  They  com]ilain 
(if  their  usage  in  tbe  assembly,  10.  Their  <ipiiiion  aboiii 
sn.-pension  and  e.vciiniiiiiinication,  II.  Design  of  a  coni- 
prelieni^ion  for  them  defeated  by  the  Presbyterians,  16. 
Their  pi<)pi:sals  for  n  toleration,  17-19.  They  are  courted 
by  the  king,  19.    Ojipose  the  Presbyterians'  remonstrance 


ag%inst  sectiries,  24.  TTieir  separate  views,  46.  Their 
betiiviour  with  regard  to  the  king's  death,  93.  How  fir 
they  were  concerned  in  it,  98.  Friends  to  the  prniector, 
139.  Hold  a  synod,  and  agree  up  in  a  confession  ot  faitli, 
177-180,  n.  Monk's  letter  to  iheiii,  196.  Their  behaviour 
against  Monk  and  the  Presbyterians,  198.  Their  rise, 
aad  r.;solu:e  progress  through  the  war,  198.  Their  state 
at  the  Restoration,  208.  They  disown  Venner's  insurrec- 
tion, 221.     Their  address  to  King  J  imes,  328. 

Indians,  corporation  for  propagating  the  Gospel  among 
thein,  ii.,  113. 

Indulgences  granted  by  the  Church  to  Protestant  Non- 
conformists not  jiiejudicial  to  it,  i.,  xi.  Nonconformists* 
petition  for  it,  ii.,  249.  Charles's  declaration  concerning 
it,  249.  Supported  by  his  speech  to  the  Parliament;  ad- 
dress of  the  Commons  against  it,  250.  Tlie  king  movea 
for  a  general  indulgence  ;  the  Parliament  petition  against 
it.  260.  Another  project  for  it,  and  how  it  was  resente.l, 
271.  A  new  declaration  of  indulgence,  272.  The  Non- 
conformists not  forward  to  accept  it  by  the  dispensing 
power,  273.  James's  declaration  of  indulgence,  32u.  His 
second  ;  appointed  to  be  read  in  all  churches  ;  consequen- 
ces, 335-339. 

Infant  baptism,  on  what  groand  it  was  founded  by  the 
Reformers,  i.,  87,  n. 

Informers,  i.,  321.  Their  infamous  lives  and  deaths; 
are  encouraged  by  the  court  and  bisliops,  ii.,  284. 

Ingoldsby,  Colonel,  liis  case,  ii.,  217,  n. 

Injunctions  of  Henry  VHI.  on  the  clergy,  i.,  .37.  Of 
Edward  VI.,  45,  71.  Of  Mary,  59.  Of  Elizabeth,  79.  Of 
James  to  restrain  the  preaching  of  Calvinism,  272.  In- 
junctions again-t  lecturers,  315. 

Innovations  in  the  Church,  i.,  302.  Authors  of  thetn 
censured  in  Parliament,  355.  Votes  against  ihem,  302. 
Committee  for  considering  them,  383.  Bill  against  them, 
443.     Laud  charged  with  countenancing  them,  508. 

Institution  of  a  Christian  Man  set  forth,  i.,  40. 

Instrument  of  government  for  the  protector,  !  bstxact  of 
it,  ii.,  134.    Articles  relating  to  religion,  135. 

Insurrections,  i.,  37,  48,  HI  ;  ii.,  Is9,  220,  n. 

Intellectual  System,  by  Cutlworlli,  some  account  of  this 
excellent  work,  i.,  483,  n. 

Interim  in  Germany,  what,  and  its  consequences,  i.,  51. 

Interrogatories,  Whitgift's  twenty-four,  i.,  103,  n.  The 
lord-treasurer's  remarks  on  them,  i63. 

Invocation  of  saints  favoured  by  the  clergy,  i.,  3.30. 

Invocation  to  saints,  and  Montagues  otlier  writings  com- 
mented on,  i.,  283,  285,  330. 

Joan  of  Kent  burned  ;  Cranmer  the  occasion  of  it ;  her 
character  discussed,  i.,  49,  n. 

Johnson,  Mr.,  a  rigid  Brownist,  i.,  242. 

Johnson,  Robert,  suspended,  i.,  119.  His  suflerings  and 
death,  130. 

Johnston,  Mr.,  his  address  to  the  Protestant  officers  ia 
James's  army,  and  his  sufferings  on  that  account,  ii.,  324,  n. 

Jones,  lord-chief-justice,  his  observation  to  the  king, 
with  his  reply,  ii.,  321,  ?i. 

Joy,  George,  translates  the  Psalter,  Jeremiah  and  the 
Song  of  Moses,  i.,  257. 

Ireland,  abstract  of  the  reformation  there,  i.,  261.  Scots 
settlements  there,  261.  State  of  religion  there,  289.  The 
thirty-nine  articles  received  there,  318.  Reduced  by  Crom- 
well, ii.,  108,  109.  Ordinance  for  encouraging  religion  and 
learning  there,  112.  Incorporated  with  England,  140. 
Popery  revives  there,  220.  Episcopacy  restored,  235. 
Condition  of  it  in  James's  reign,  325. 

Ireton  confers  with  the  king,  ii.,  51.  His  speech  in  Par- 
liament, 55.  Burnet's  opinion  of  the  hand  he  had  in  the 
king's  death,  99.    His  death  and  char.ncter,  128,  n. 

Irish  forces  brought  over  by  the  king,  i.,  469.  The  af- 
fair debated  in  the  treaty  of  Oxbridge,  528.  Earl  of  Gla- 
morgan concludes  a  treaty  with  the  Irish  Papists,  533. 
As  also  does  the  Marquis  of  Ormond,  ii.,  23. 

Irish  insurrection  and  massacre,  i.,  395.  Spreads  terror 
over  England,  396.  Concern  of  the  English  court  in  it,. 
397.  Eari  of  Essex's  account  of  it:  the  Marquis  of  An- 
trim's, 397.     Proceedings  of  the  Parliament  upon  it,  398. 

Judges,  their  opinion  about  deprivations,  jirohibitions, 
and  petitions,  i.,  241.  Their  character,  280.  Their  opin- 
ion of  the  convocation's  sitting  after  the  dissolution  of  the 
Parliament,  344. 

Julian  the  Apostate,  a  book  published  in  1882,  some  ac- 
count of,  ii.,  324,  V. 

Junius  succeeded  in  the  divinity  chair  of  Leyden  by  Ar- 
minius,  i.,  253. 

Jnrisdiciion  of  bishops  and  preshyter.s,  i.,  365. 

Jury,  judges  of  law  a.s  well  as  fact,  ii.,  113,  n.  A  curi- 
ous return  of  one  (iir  Susse.t,  133,  n. 

Jus  diviiium,  ii.,  10,  14,  25.  1'he  divine  right  of  aa 
evangelical  iiiinistrv,  143. 

Justices  of  Nori'u'lk.  Suffolk,  iheir  answer  to  the  bishops' 
articles  of  iiiipeaclimenl  against  them,  i.,  1.50.  Their  sup-. 
plication  to  the  council  in  behalf  of  the  Piiiitans,  1.53. 

Jiistiticaiion,  our  first  reformers'  opinion  about,  i.,  40,  n. 


INDEX. 


553 


Jnxon,  Bishop,  made  lord-high-treasurer,  i.,  325,  3'i6,  ns. 
His  de-ah,  ii.,  2o3. 

K. 

Kalendiir  reformed,  i.,  86. 

Katlierine,  Queen,  iliviirced  from  Henry  VIII.,  i.,  33. 

Keacli,  Mr.  B.,  his  suft'erings,  his  publications,  ii.,  383- 
337. 

Kennet,  Bishop,  his  remark  on  the  ordinance  exhorting 
to  re|)ciUiiice,  i.,  443.  On  the  breaking  off  tlie  treaty  of 
0.vford,  447. 

Kentish  ministers,  their  supplication  to  the  council,  i., 
15'.(.     Numbers  suspended,  157. 

Key  to  open  Sciipture  Metaphors,  ii.,  304,  n. 

Kevs,  the  power  of,  contention  about,  ii.,  U. 

Kcyser,  John,  committed  to  jail  on  a  charge  of  heresy, 
i.,  31,  71. 

Ket.  a  tanner,  heads  a  Popish  foction  in  Norfolk ;  dis- 
persed by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  the  leaders  executed, 
i.,  48. 

Killingworth,  G.,  his  tract  on  baptism,  i.,  .xxiii. 

Kiinbolton,  Lord,  his  character,  i.,  351. 

Kingly  power  of  reforming  the  Church  debated,  i.,  44. 
Canons  about  it,  345. 

King's  Book  in  Henry  VIII.'s  time,  and  abstract  of  it, 
i.,  41,42,  71. 

King's  inauguration-day,  canon  about  it,  i.,  345.  De- 
bates about  tlie  title  of  king,  ii.,  109.  The  protector's  rea- 
sons for  declining  it,  170.  Attainder  of  the  king's  judges; 
trials  and  execution,  217-238. 

Kingsmill,  Andrew,  iiis  death  and  character,  i.,  114. 

Kirk  of  Scotland,  James  I.  declares  solemnly  in  favour 
of  it,  i.,  227.  But  afterward  deserts  it,  227.  Kirk  disci- 
pline, an  account  of,  ii.,  42,  n.  Its  low  condition,  128. 
Courted  by  Monk,  19B. 

Kirk's  cruelties  in  the  west  of  England,  ii.,  318. 

Kneeling  at  the  sacrament,  by  what  authority  enjoined, 
i.,  76.     Exceptions  of  the  Puritans  against  it,  107,  24G,  247. 

Knight,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  167. 

Knighr,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  sermon  against  the  prerogative,  i., 
271.  His  bold  answer  upon  being  questioned  by  the  court, 
272. 

Knollys,  Rev.  H.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  368-370. 

Kno.x,  Mr.,  banished  from  Frankfort,  i.,  67.  Chosen 
pastor  by  the  English  exiles  at  Geneva,  68.  Begins  the 
reformation  in  Scotland,  83.  His  death  and  character, 
127. 


Lactantius  and  others,  their  opinion  of  images,  as  parts 
of  divine  worship,  i.,  508. 

Lad,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  242. 
'   Laity,  English,  their  zeal  against  Popery  and  the  hab- 
itB,  i.,  95.    Form  of  subscription  for  tlieni,  130. 

Lambert,  Colonel,  imprisoned  in  Jersey,  ii.,  217,  238. 

Lambert,  John,  burned  in  Smithfield,  i.,  40. 

Lambeth  articles,  i.,  209.  Disliked  by  the  court,  210. 
Lambeth  chapel,  superstitious  pictures  in  it,  304. 

Lancashire  provincial  assembly,  ii.,  79. 

Laney,  Dr..  account  of,  i.,  482. 

Langbain,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  67. 

Langley,  Mr.  John,  his  death,  ii.,  175,  n. 

Langley,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  71. 

Lascels  and  others  burned,  i.,  43. 

Lasco,  John,  obtains  a  patent  for  establishing  a  church 
of  foreign  Protestants  in  London,  i.,  53.  His  book  De  Or- 
dinatione  Ecclesiarum  Peregrinarum  in  .\nglia,55.  Com 
manded  by  Queen  Mary  to  leave  the  kingdom,  58.  Re- 
turns in  Elizabeth's  time  ;  resigns  as  minister  of  the  Dutch 
church,  83. 

Lather,  Mr.,  account  of,  i.,  331. 

Latimer,  Bishop,  promotes  the  Reformation,  i.,  34.  Re- 
signs his  bishopric  on  account  of  the  six  articles,  and  is 
imprisoned,  40.  Complains  of  the  alienation  of  church 
revenues,  .55.  Is  sent  to  the  Tower,  58.  Burned  at  Ox- 
ford, 63.     Was  against  the  habits,  91. 

Liud,  Bishop,  of  his  temper,  principles,  and  conduct, 
author's  preface,  i.,  220,  279,  280.  Made  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don, becomes  prime  minister,  291.  His  answer  to  the 
Commons'  remonstrance.  292.  Libels  against  him,  295. 
His  scheme  for  governing  the  Church,  297.  His  behaviour 
at  ptsr-ing  sentence  on  Dr.  Leighton,  302.  His  consecra- 
tion of  Creed  church,  302.  His  c:ire  of  the  press,  308.  His 
bthaviour  in  Scotland.  309.  His  regulation  of  the  king's 
chapel  at  Edinburgh,  309.  His  letter  about  wakes  an<l 
revel.-',  311.  M  ikes  alteritinns  in  the  -ervice  book,  314. 
His  account  of  the  state  of  his  province.  316.  He  obliges 
the  French  and  Dutch  churches  to  conformity.  319.  His 
exceptions  to  the  brief  for  the  Palatine  ministers,  320. 
Farther  account  of  his  province.  321.  Increases  the  power 
of  the  ecclesiastical  courts,  32.3.  Makes  new  statutes  for 
Oxford,  324.  His  speech  in  the  star-chamber,  .327.  More 
libels  iigiinst  him,  329.  He  complains  against  the  king's 
jester,  337.  Stirs  up  the  king  to  hasten  his  preparations 
Vol.  !J.— 4  a 


against  the  Scots,  338.  Excites  the  clergy  to  contributa 
towards  the  war,  339.  Revises  and  alters  Bishop  Hall's 
book  of  Episcopacy,  342.  Is  insulted  by  the  popiil;ice, 
344.  The  secretary's  letter  to  him  against  pressing  the  ct 
cetera  oath  in  the  canons,  348.  Justifies  the  canons,  3.)5. 
Is  impeached  of  high  treason,  35().  The  Scots  charge 
against  him,  and  his  reply,  350,  n.  Sir  H.  Grimstone's 
speech  against  him,  3.57.  Committed  to  the  bhick  rod, 
3.i7.  Heads  of  his  impeachment,  3.'>7.  He  speaks  for 
himself,  and  is  sent  t<i  the  Tower,  358.  Suspended  from 
his  jurisdiction,  393.  His  superstitious  remarks  on  L<ird 
Brooke's  death,  447.  Suspended  by  Parliament.  473.  Trial 
for  high  treason;  articles  of  impe:ichment;  his  answer ; 
order  and  method  of  trial ;  suiimiary  of  the  charge,  .501. 
Impeachment  opened  by  Serjeant  Wild,  and  the  arch- 
bisiiop's  speech,  502.  First  branch  of  the  charge,  sub- 
verting the  rights  of  Parliament,  with  the  archbishop's 
leply,  503.  Arbitrary  speeches  made  by  him  for  the  king, 
503.  Arbitrary  speeches  of  his  own,  504.  Second  charge, 
attempting  to  set  aside  the  laws,  with  his  reply,  503-507. 
Of  ship-money,  tonnage,  and  poundage,  504.  Of  pulling 
down  houses  for  the  repair  of  St.  Paul's,  505.  Illegal 
commitments  and  prohibitions  in  the  spiritual  courts,  .505. 
Bribery,  505.  Commutation  of  penance,  506.  Alterati(ms 
in  the  coronation  oath,  .506.  Attempt  to  set  up  an  inde- 
pendent power  in  the  clergy,  .506.  Sitting  of  the  convoca- 
tion after  the  Parliament,  507.  Third  general  charge,  at- 
tempting to  alter  religion,  and  introduce  Popish  innova- 
tions, with  his  answers,  and  the  manager's  replies,  307. 
Images  and  crucifixes,  508.  Consecration  of  churches  and 
altars,  and  feasts  of  dedication,  509.  His  letter  to  Sir  N. 
Brent,  510.  Introducing  divers  superstitions  into  divine 
worship.  512.  Promoting  the  book  of  sports,  514.  En- 
couraging Arminianism  and  Popery,  515.  Prosecuting  Piu-i- 
tans,517.  Reconciling  the  Church  of  Engl:md  with  Rome, 
assuming  Papal  titles,  discouraging  foreign  Protestints, 
corresponding  with  Popish  priests,  517.  Managers'  con- 
clusion, 520.  His  speech  at  the  clo?e  of  his  trial,  521. 
Censures  of  his  behaviour,  5-32.  His  character  of  the 
witnesses,  and  censure  of  the  managers,  522,  523.  Peti- 
tions for  justice  against  him,  524.  Condemned  by  bill  of 
attainder,  5-25,  n.  His  last  speech,  prayer,  and  execution, 
524,  525,  n. 

Laurence,  Mr.,  suspended,  i.,  146. 

Lawrence,  Dr.,  account  of  him,  ii.,  67. 

Laws,  Popish,  repealed,  i.,  45. 

Laws,  moti(m  for  translating  them  into  English,  ii.,  113. 
Lawsuits,  attempts  to  regulate  them,  130. 

Laj'-assessors  in  the  assembly  of  divines,  i.,  458.  Lay- 
elders,  ii.,  9.  Causes  of  the  increase  of  lay- preachers,  73. 
Rise  of  it  in  the  army,  5.  Discouraged  by  the  Parliament, 
36;  Appendix,  No.  [X.,  ii.,  468. 

Laying  on  of  hands,  controversy  about,  ii.,  388.  Gos- 
no'd's  treatise  about,  394. 

Leavesly,  T.,  i.,  xxii. 

Lecturers,  an  account  of  those  in  Berry-street  and  Salt- 
ers'  Hall,  i.,  xx.,  xxi.  King's  instructions  about  lecturers; 
character  and  proceedings  against  them,  298.  Injunctions 
against  them,  315.  Bishop  Montague's  articles  of  inquiry 
concerning  them,  and  Bishop  Pierce's  usage  of  them,  325. 

Legate  Bartholomew  burned  for  Arianisin,  copy  of  the 
writ  for  burning  him,  i.,  259,  71. 

Legate's  court  in  England  under  Wolsey,  i.,  31. 

Legenda  Lignea,  a  work  published  by  the  Papists,  u., 
127. 

Leicester  taken  by  storm  by  Charles  I.,  and  the  inhabi- 
tants u.sed  cruelly,  ii.,  6. 

Leighton,  Dr.,  writes  against  the  bishops;  his  sentence, 
sufferings,  and  char.icter,  i.,  301,  302.  His  petition  to  the 
Long-parliament,  and  release,  359. 

Lenthal,  William.  Esq  ,  his  character,  i.,  351.  Repri- 
manded by  the  speaker,  ii.,  204. 

Le.«sons,  the  order  of  thetii  settled,  i.,  86. 

L'Estrange,  Roger,  account  of,  ii.,  282,  289,  71s. 

Letter  of  the  assembly  of  divines  to  foreign  Protestants, 
i.,  470.     The  king's  lejily  to  it,  471. 

Levellers  oppose  the  new  commonwealth,  who  are  dis- 
persed, ii.,  107. 

Lever,  Mr.  Thomas,  his  letter  to  the  Puritans  in  prison, 
111.     He  resigns  his  iM-ebend,  1 19.     His  death,  144. 

Lewis,  John,  burned  for  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
i.,  158,  71. 

Lev,  Mr.  John,  his  deith  and  char  icter,  ii.,  246. 

Libellers,  seditions,  to  suffer  death,  i.,  143.  Libellous 
books,  413.     Ordinance  ag:iinst  seditious  libels,  ii.,  113. 

Liberty  of  pr  yer.  defence  of  it,  i.,  363.  Bishop  Hull's 
concessions  about  it,  .363.  Liberty  of  conscience  settled 
in  Scothind,  ii ,  128.  Voted  by  Crnmwell's  little  Parlia- 
ment, 134.  Est  blished  by  his  instrument  of  government,. 
135.  James's  speech  in  council  for  it,  326.  See  Indul- 
gence. 

Licenses  for  preachine  to  he  renewed,  i.,  9.5,  n.,  100, 
119,139.  Licen-^es  to  marry,  347.  Ordinance  for  appoint- 
ing licensers  »f  books,  456.    Copy  of  Cli;ules's  license  for 


554 


INDEX. 


a  Noncnn'ormist  minister  to  prench,  ii.,  273,  n.     Partiality 
of  licenters,  320.  n.     Lice  ce-i>rtice,  321,  32  i,  n. 

Lilie  and  Maiiiitis  ol  I'nie Clin.siians,  by  Kobert  Brovra, 
i.,  14!). 

Lightl'iiol,  Dr.,  ace  lunt  of  hitn,  i.,  484. 
Lilbiiiiie,  Mr.,  Iin  senicncu  anil  sntl'eiins^,  i,,  329, 
Li  biirne,  Culonel,  his  tri  A  and  character,  ii.,  113,  n, 
Liiiiborch  (jiioled  on  per-ecntion.  i.,  259,  n, 
Lincolnshire  ministers'  reasons  for  not  subscribing,  i., 
24l)-250. 

Lind.>ey,  Mr,,  his  representation  of  Wightuian's opinions, 
i.,  2.-19,  71. 

Lisle,  Lady,  ii.,  318. 

List  of  the  assembly  of  divines,  i,,  458. 

Liiclitield  and  Coventry,  Bi  hop  of,  his  sermon,  i.,  xii. 

Litchti..ld  and  Coventry,  Bisliop  of,  his  letter  for  putting 
down  the  prophesyings,  i.,  143. 

Little  Parliament,  called  by  Cromwell,  ii..  133. 

Liturgy,  Kins  Edw.iid's  first,  i.,  47.  See  Service-bor)k. 
The  tir?t  ages  used  none,  47.  E\ceptioiis  of  the  Puritans 
against  it,  106.  New  li.uigy  conlirnicd  by  Parliament, 
47,  .54.  Reasons  for  anie  .ding  it,  157.  Abstract  of  ihe 
controversy  on  the  anli(|U  ty  of  liturgies,  .3()3  Reasons 
for  selling  it  aside,  4  5.  Re-tored,  ii.,  205.  Reviewed,  al- 
tered, (iddltions;  sent  .TiUriuled  to  the  king,  council,  and 
peers,  231-2.i3,  ns.     Farther  alterations  proposed  in  it,  2C2. 

Livings,  the  augment  it  on  of  poor  ones,  by  litlies  and 
first  fruits,  ii.,  113.  Ordinance  for  uniting  small  ones,  ai.d 
dividing  greater,  149. 

Loan,  a  method  of  raising  money,  i.,  283,  Persons  im- 
prisoned on  account  of  it,  285. 

liOe,  ThotUMS,  his  death,  ii.,  420. 

Lollards,  Wickliffe's  followers  so  called,  statutes  against 
them,  i.,  30,  31.     Repealed,  3),  4). 

London,  lines  of  circumvallation  drawn  round  it,  i.,  443. 
King's  I  roclamations  against  it,  448,  Commotions  there, 
ii.,  48.  Submits  to  the  army  on  their  approach,  49.  Pro- 
vincial assemblies  there,  43,  78. 

London  clersy,  proceedin;;s  of  the  ecclesiastical  com- 
niisioners  against  them,  i.,  '.18.  Reas' ns  of  those  who 
were  deprived  for  refusing  the  habits,  99,  n.  Sad  conse- 
quences of  these  proceedings,  103,  Abstract  of  their  rea- 
sons for  nonconforniiiy,  103.  Their  petition  to  the  convo- 
cniion  to  be  restored,  1.59.  Classical  division  of  the  prov- 
ince of  London,  ii.,  2.5. 

London  ministers  assert  the  divine  right  of  Presbytery, 
ii.,  25.  Their  paper  of  cunsiderations  and  cautions,  25. 
Their  testimony  to  truth,  and  against  error,  44.  Their 
aversion  to  a  toleration,  44.  Their  vindication  of  them- 
selves, 50. 

London,  citizens   of,  their  petition    to   the   Parliament 
^    for  belter  ministers,  i.,  146,     Sad  condition  for  want  of 
preachers,  103.     Its  ch  u  ter  taken  away,  ii.,  301.     Bishop 
of  London  suspended,  .305,  71s. 

Londonderry  built,  i.,  261, 

Long-parliament,  see  Parliament. 

Lord's-day,  public  sports  on  it,  i.,  154.  The  bill  for  the 
better  observance  of  it  rejected  by  the  queen,  176.  Wakes 
on  it  countenanced,  311.  Declaration  for  sports  on  it,  its 
morality,  318.  Votes  for  the  strict  observance  of  it,  391. 
It  was  strictly  observed  by  the  Parliament  party,  424,  Or- 
dinance for  a  stricter  observance  of  it,  ii.,  118,  166. 

Lords  disagree  with  the  Commons,  i.,  392.  House  of, 
laid  aside,  ii.,  91. 

Lords  of  the  council  dissatisfied  with  the  bishops'  pro- 
ceedings against  the  Puritans,  and  write  to  them  about  it, 
i.,  165. 

Love,  Mr.,  his  sermon  at  Uxbiidge,  i.,  528,  His  trial,  ii., 
123,  Evidence  against  him,  hi-i  defence,  intercessions  for 
him,  his  speech  on  the  scaffold,  his  execution  and  charac- 
ter, his  history,  123-125,  ns. 

Love,  Alderm.in,  renotinces  the  dispensing  power  in  the 
name  of  the  Dissenters,  ii.,  276. 

Low-church  clergy,  their  character,  ii.,  248. 

Lower.  Thomas,  and  George  Fox,  particulars  of  their 
persecution,  &c.,  ii.,  423. 

Lowman,  Moses,  account  of,  i.,  xxii. 

Ludlow,  Miijor  general,  taken  into  custody,  ii.,  162. 

Linbington,  Thomas,  account  of,  ii ,  237,  n. 

Lutherans,  their  uncharitableness,  i,,  66, 

M. 

Macauly's  History  of  England,  i.,  235,  n,,  512,  513,  525, 
526,  ns, 

Macail,  Hugh,  his  sufferings  and  last  words,  ii.,  324. 

M'Gill's  proi-ecution  for  his  Essay  on  the  death  of 
Christ,  adduced  as  a  proof  of  the  intolerance  of  Scotch 
Pre'^byierianisni,  ii  ,  51),  n. 

Maddox,  Bi-ihop,  his  opinion  of  the  habits,  i.,  53,  101, 
128,  1,53,  183,  vs. 

Madye,  Rev,  Mr.,  and  others,  censured  for  preaching  on 
prcdei-tination,  i.,  301. 

Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  its  privileges  invaded,  ii.,  326. 

Magistrates,  contests  about  their  election,  ii.,  300. 


M:ijor  generals  appointed,  ii.,  156. 

Man,  Isle  of,  Bisliop  of,  has  no  bifony,  but  is  equally  a 
bishop,  as  to  jurisdiciion  and  ordination,  but  has  no  place 
in  Parliament,  i.,  379. 

Manchester,  Earl  of,  his  character,  i.,  480.  His  proceed- 
ing in  relorining  the  Univer.-ity  of  Cambridge,  480.  His 
warrant  lo  the  comiiiitiee  for  scandalous  ministers,  his  in- 
struction to  tliein,  anil  leiter  to  them,  485.  His  method  of 
ejecting  tlie  scandalous  or  malignant  minister,  and  filling 
the  vacant  benefice,  4r?6. 

Mansel,  Dr.,  account  i(f,  ii.,  68. 

Manton,  Dr.,  his  deatli^  and  character,  ii.,  287,  n. 

Man  waring.  Dr.,  his  sermon,  i..  285.  His  severe  sen- 
tence, is  pirdiined  and  preferred,  287,  288, 

Marcus  Antoninus,  Uataker's  valuable  edition  of,  ii., 
154,  n. 

Marriages  of  the  clergy  legitimated,  i.,  .55.  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth averse  to  them,  87.  Ordinance  relating  to  marriages, 
ii.,  134.     Act  for  confirming  them,  218. 

M.-irri.ige  ring,  forbidding  it,  and  licensing  it  for  money, 
disliked  by  the  Puritans,  i.,  107. 

Marshall,  S.,  his  death,  ii.,  161,  n.  His  body  dug  up, 
286. 

Marston  Moor,  battle  of,  i.,  478. 

Martin  Mar-Prelate,  a  saiiiical  pamphlet,  i.,  189. 

M.irtin,  Dr.,  account  of.  i..  482. 

Martyn,  Peter,  invited  to  England,  and  had  the  divinity 
chair  at  Oxford,  j.,  40.  His  opinion  about  the  habin,  52, 
94,  96.  Ordered  to  leave  the  kingdom  in  Queen  Mary's 
reign,  58.     His  wife's  body  dug  up,  69, 

Marvel,  Mr.  Andrew,  writes  agiinst  Parker,  ii.,  264. 

Mary,  Queen,  her  accession  to  the  crown,  i,,  50.  Her 
declarations  about  religion,  58.  Her  treatment  of  the  Suf- 
folk men,  58.  She  restores  Popery,  59.  Her  injunctions 
to  the  bishops,  59.  Her  marriage  with  Philip  of  Spain, 
60,  She  restores  the  church  lands,  61.  Rases  out  what- 
ever was  (lone  against  the  monks,  62.  Burnings  of  the 
Protestants  in  her  reign,  62-64.  Her  fiery  zeal,  64.  Num- 
ber of  those  who  were  put  to  death  for  religion  in  her 
time,  64,  and  n.  Calamities  under  her  government,  her 
sickness,  death,  and  character,  70. 

Mary,  queen  of  Scots,  her  bigotry  and  ■!!  conduct,  ;.,  ,05. 
Her  favourite  and  husband  murdered,  105.  She  is  obliged 
to  resign  her  crown  to  her  son,  and  is  put  lo  death  by 
Queen  Elizabelh,  106. 

Mary,  Queen,  dissenting  minister's  address  to  her,  ii., 
344. 

Mass  books  called  in,  i.,  51.  Mass  and  real  presence 
asserted,  330.     Mass  houses  pulled  down,  ii.,  341. 

Massachusetts'  Bay  colony,  rise  of  it;  their  church 
covenant;  hardships;  farewell  request  to  the  Church  of 
England  ;  numbers  that  went  over,  i.,  299,  300. 

ftlassacre  at  Paris,  a  terrible  one,  i.,  127. 

Masters  turned  out  of  the  Universityof  Cambridge,  their 
character,  i.,  482.  Character  of  their  successors,  and  their 
induction,  484. 

Mather,  Richard,  removes  to  New- England,  i,,  322. 

Malher's  Increase,  his  voyage  to  England  with  address- 
es, and  his  reception  at  court,  ii.,  327,  n.  The  queen's 
reply  to  him,  344,  n. 

Matthew's  Bible,  i.,  36,  257. 

Maunsel,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  242. 

May  29th,  act  for  its  observation,  ii.,  218. 

May,  Thomas,  his  body  dug  up,  ii.,  236. 

Maynard,  Serjeant,  one  of  the  managers  of  Laud's  trial, 
his  reply  to  King  William,  i.,  523. 

Meal-tub  iilot,  ii.,  290. 

Mede,  Joseph,  his  character,  works,  and  death,  i,,  340. 

Meetings,  pamphlets  in  favour  of  separate,  ii,,  283, 

Members  of  Parliament  committed  to  prison,  i.,  261,  271, 
u:95.     They  are  fined,  294, 

Merbury,  Mr.,  his  examination  and  imprisonment,  i.,  169. 

Merchants,  committee  of,  appointed  by  Cromwell  for 
promoting  trade,  ii.,  159. 

Merchants'  lecture  at  Pinners'  Hall,  ii.,  275. 

Merit  maintained,  i.,  331. 

Mercurius  Aulicii.s,  a  paper  by  J.  Berkenhead  against 
ihe  Parliament,  ii.,  69. 

Mercuries  and  diurnals  printed  in  Oxford,  and  disiiersed, 
notwithstanding  the  restraints  on  the  press,  i.,457.  Their 
nature,  ii.,  57. 

Midwife's  oath,  i.,  2.30. 

Miles,  Dr,  Henry,  account  of,  i.,  xxv. 

Militia,  debates  about  it,  i.,  409.  Ordinance  of  both 
houses  for  disposing  of  it,  411.  Debated  at  the  treaty  of 
Uxliridge,  i.,  528. 

Millenarv  pctiiion  of  the  Puritans,  i.,  228. 

Milton,  John,  his  biioks  burned,  ii.,  219.  His  death  and 
char.-icter,  280, 

Ministers  suspended  and  deprived  for  nonconformity,  i., 
98,  no,  124,  129,  141,  146,  157,  167,  108,  170,  182,  184,  195, 
240,  241,  n.,  321,  32.5,320,  340.  Ministers  retire  to  Holland, 
242,  340.'  Piirit  ins'  opinion  of  ministers  of  the  word.  249. 
Muiisters  petition  for  reforming  the  hierarchy,  369.     Qual- 


INDEX. 


555 


ity  of  those  ejected  by  Parliament,  452.  Of  their  succes- 
sors, 4.'>4.  Coiniiiittee  for  exainlniiig  them,  474.  Ministers 
sent  to  reform  the  University  of  Oxford,  their  conduct  and 
succtess,  ii.,  57,  58. 

Ministers,  Nonconformist,  i.,  xi.  Queen  Elizabeth's 
aversion  to  them,  instituting  a  new  court  to  deprive  tliem  of 
their  livings,  xi.  Some  of  thirm  quit  their  livings,  ii.,  242. 
Ejected  by  the  act  of  uniformity;  their  hardships  greater 
tlian  the  Papists'  at  tlie  Kelormalion  ;  and  than  the  loy- 
alists in  the  time  of  the  civil  war;  compared  wilh  the 
new  preachers ;  Dr.  Bates's  account ;  their  sufferings  ;  Mr. 
Baxter's  account ;  other  accounts,  243-245.  They  pre  ich 
(luring  the  plague,  which  brings  lliem  under  farther  haid- 
shi|)s,  255.  Some  take  the  oath  in  Ihe  five-mile  act:  the 
generality  refuse,  and  go  into  banishment;  their  names 
registered  in  the  bishops'  courts,  256.  Their  ditress,  2li3. 
Their  address  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  342.  Their  address 
to  him  after  he  was  king,  and  to  Queen  Mary,  343,  344. 

Ministry,  Puritans'  complaint  of  the  ab.ise  of  it,  i.,  106. 
Their  conclusions  for  regulating  it,  140.  What  the  Puri- 
tans vvanle<l  to  have  reformed  concerning  ministers,  22i), 
232.  Ministers  forbid  to  meddle  in  politics,  ii.,  113.  Com- 
missioners for  the  approbation  of  ministers,  144.  See 
Triers.  Ordinance  for  ejecting  scandilous  ministers,  147. 
Instructions  of  the  conuuissioners,  objections,  147.  Com- 
missioners for  Wales,  149.  Presbyleiian  ministers  wail  on 
the  king  at  Breda ;  their  address  and  reception,  ii.,  202. 

Minshull,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  484. 

Mischief  and  Hurt  of  the  Mass,  a  book  written  by  the 
Reformers  against  those  who  temporized  in  Mary's  reign, 
i.,  66. 

Mobhings,  i.,  344,  360,  392,  403. 

Monarchy  turned  to  a  commonwealth,  ii.,  107. 

Monasteries  visited,  and  suppressed ;  their  revenues,  i., 
35. 

Money,  new  methods  of  raising  it,  i.,  260,  283. 

Monk,  General,  reduces  Scotland,  ii.,  127.  Marches  to 
England  for  a  free  Parliament,  190.  Abjures  Ihe  king, 
and  swears  to  be  true  to  the  common we,i I ih  ;  he  enters 
the  city,  190.  Restores  the  secluded  members,  lill.  His 
character,  192.  His  letter  to  the  lnde|)endenls,  190.  To 
the  Parliament,  197.  Courts  the  Presbyterians,  and  the 
Scots  kirk,  197.  He  corresponds  with  the  king,  201.  His 
protection  of  the  Quakers,  409. 

Monks  and  priors  executed  by  Henry  VIII.,  i.,  37.  One 
directs  an  insurrection,  37. 

Monmouth's  rebellion;  affects  Dissenters;  executions 
in  the  west  of  England  on  account  of  it,  ii.,  317,  318. 

Monopolies,  grievances  by  them,  i.,  253,  2.55. 

Mont;igue,  Dr.,  his  book  favouring  Popery,  i.,  276.  Cited 
before  the  Commons ;  censured,  and  a  letter  by  several 
bishops  in  his  favour,  283.  Articles  against  him,  284. 
Made  Bishop  of  Chichester,  288.  His  articles  of  inquiry 
concerning  lectures,  325.  His  farther  favouring  of  Popery, 
330.    His  death  and  character,  394. 

Monthly  fast,  i.,  424. 

Montrose,  Marquis  of,  e.xecuted,  ii.,  114. 

Monuments  of  superstition,  removal  of  them  ;  ordinance 
for  that  purpose  ;  manner  of  its  execution,  i.,  455. 

Moore,  Stephen,  i.,  362. 

Moore  and  Philly,  their  travels,  ii.,  417. 

More,  Thomas,  refuses  the  oath  of  succession  and  su- 
premacy ;  beheaded  for  it,  i.,  34,  37. 

Moreland,  Samuel,  sent  by  Cromwell  to  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  in  behalf  of  the  oppressed  Protestants,  ii.,  160. 

Moreton,  Bishop,  his  vindication,  ii.,  180. 

Morgan,  a  priest,  executed,  ii.,  39. 

Morley,  Bishop,  his  behaviour  in  the  Savoy  conference, 
ii.,  230. 

Morning  lecture,  the  rise  of  it,  i.,  424. 

Morrice,  Mr.,  attorney,  his  arguments  against  the  oath 
e%  officio,  i.,  196.  He  moves  the  House  of  Commons 
against  it,  and  against  the  spiritual  courts,  and  is  impris- 
oned, 197. 

Morton,  John,  account  of,  ii.,  372. 

Musgrave,  C,  his  saying  on  the  severe  treatment  of  the 
Quakers,  ii.,  423. 

N. 

Nag's  Head  consecration,  a  fable,  i.,  77  ;  ii.,  ISO. 

Naseby,  battle  i]f,  ii.,  6. 

Nation,  distracted  state  of  it,  i.,  394,  409.  Petitions  to 
the  Parli'iment  to  provide  for  the  safely  of  it,  409.  State 
of  when  Cromwell  as-^umed  thegovernmeni,  ii.,  138.  Un- 
happy st;ite  of  it  in  Charles  II.'s  time,  266,  285.  Stale  of, 
at  James  II.'s  accession,  315. 

Nature  juid  Properties  of  God,  a  very  exceptionable 
■work,  written  by  Conradus  Vorstius,  i.,  258,  n. 

Naylor,  James,  ii.,  164-106. 

N(-al,  D  inici,  his  life,  i.,  xvii.  Animadverted  on,  49,  n,  7.5. 
71.  His  r.'View  quoted,  56,  n,  21.'),  n.  Viiulicateil  i:painst 
Bishop  Warburton.  59,  n.,  9.3,  ».,  1.54,  n.  Defended  .it'.iinst 
Bishop  Maddo.x,  101,  71.,  183,  n.  His  letter  to  Dr.  Francis 
Hare  quoted,  with  an  extract  from  it,  editor's  advertise- 


ment for  vol.  ii.,  p.  226.  Defend.s  himself  from  some 
charges,  i.,  4:n.  Cursory  view  of  the  period  of  which  he 
writes,  and  of  the  design  of  this  history ;  uniformity  of 
opinion  in  religion;  persecution  of  all  parties  when  in 
power ;  the  clergy  invested  with  civil  power ;  that  refor- 
mation in  religion  has  not  arisen  from  the  clergy  ;  free- 
dom in  religion,  in  subordination  to  the  civil  power ;  the 
present  times,  in  contrast  to  the  formei  turbulent  ones,  ii., 
101-104. 

Neg  itivc  oath,  i.,  413.  University  of  Oxford's  objection 
to  it,  ii.,  61. 

Negus,  Mr.,  deprived,  i.,  167. 

Neile,  Archbishop,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  349. 

Newbury,  battle  of,  i.,  4-18,  479. 

Newcastle,  Parliament's  propositions  to  the  king  there, 
ii.,  32.  Which  he  refuses  to  consent  to,  33.  His  answer 
to  them.  47. 

Newcoinen,  Matthew,  his  death  ;  his  concern  in  the  as- 
sembly's catechism,  ii.,  265. 

New-England,  the  foundation  of  that  colony,  i.,  208. 
Puritans  settle  there,  270,  299,  305,  317,  323,  339. 

Newhaven  colony,  i.,  317. 

Newlin,  Dr.,  account  of  ii.,  68. 

Newman,  J.,  account  of,  i.,  xxii. 

Newmin,  Samuel,  author  of  the  Concordance,  removes 
to  New-England,  i.,  340. 

New  Orders,  ji  pamphlet  in  ridicule  of  the  Parliament- 
ary party  in  Charles  l.'s  time,  with  an  anagram  on  the 
word  Purit  m,  i..  454,  45.5,  its. 

New  Plymouth  cobmy,  i.,  270. 

Newport,  treaty  of  ii.,  81. 

New  Testament,  first  translated  into  English  by  Wick- 
liffe,  i..  30.  Then  by  Tyndal,  with  the  whole  Bible,  34, 
30.  Tyndal's  Testament  burned  by  the  bishops,  34.  See 
Bible. 

Nicolas,  Robert,  one  of  the  managers  of  Laud's  trial,  i., 
523. 

Nimeguen,  peace  of  ii.,  288. 

Nismes,  the  protector  assists  the  Protestants  there,  ii., 
167. 

Nonconformists,  friends  to  their  country,  i.,  xi.  Ab- 
stract of  their  reasons  for  nonconformity,  99,  n.  See  Puri- 
tans. Curious  descriptit)n  of  them  by  Archbishop  Parker, 
i.,  218.  SuUerings  for  nonconformity,  321.  The  beginning 
of  their  persecution,  ii.,  217.  Their  hardships  before  the 
act  of  uniformity,  233.  Their  sufferings  afterw.ird,  245. 
Their  views,  247.  They  petition  for  indulgence,  249. 
Their  hardships  from  the  conventicle  act,  and  cautious 
conduct,  252.  They  set  up  meetings,  258.  Project  of  a 
comprehension  for  them,  260.  Proposals  of  indulgence 
for  such  as  could  not  be  comprehended,  263.  Their  per- 
secution revived,  267.  Are  not  f  )rvvard  to  accept  indul- 
gence by  the  dispensing  power,  27,3.  Penal  laws  against 
them,  278.  Attempts  for  an  accommodation  frustrated  by 
the  bishops,  280.  People  comptissionate  their  sufferings, 
281.  Their  principles  and  practice.s,  283.  Pamphlets  in 
their  defence,  283.     See  Dissenters. 

Nonconfonnist  ministers,  refer  to  Ministers,  Ministry. 

Nonsubscribers  to  Whitgift's  articles,  their  supplications 
to  the  council,  i.,  157,  158.  Petitions  of  gentlemen  and 
parishioners  in  their  behalf,  159.  Nonsubscribers,  number 
of  them,  241.  Nonsubscribing  loyalists,  act  for  thetr  re- 
lief, ii.,  251. 

Non-jurors,  their  rise,  ii.,  344.    Their  practices,  347. 

Northampton,  rules  for  discipline  agreed  upon  there,  and 
the  prophesyings  there,  i.,  118.  Scarcity  of  preachers 
there,  146. 

Northumberland,  Earl  of,  his  rebellion,  i..  111. 

Norton,  Rev.  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  319. 

Norwich,  visitation  of  that  diocess,  i.,  128.  Prophesy- 
ings supressed  there,  134. 

Novice  Presbyter  Instructed,  a  pamphlet  in  answer  to 
the  Busy  Bishop,  ii.,  45. 

Noy,  Attorney-general,  his  character,  i.,  280. 

Nye,  Philip,  removes  to  Holland,  i.,  341.  His  death,  ii., 
275,  n. 

O. 

Oak  of  reformation,  whence  so  called,  i.,  48. 

O.ites,  Samuel,  tried  for  the  death  of  Ann  Martin,  i., 
498.     And  his  sufferings,  ii.,  370. 

Oates,  Titus,  proceedings  against  him  for  perjury,  ii., 
316,  n. 

O.ith.  ex  nfficin,  what,  and  the  unretsonableness  of  it,  i., 
161,  164,  180.  The  Puritans' objection  to  it,  194.  .Attorney 
Miurice's  .-irguments  ag.iin-t  it,  196.  Many  of  the  Puri- 
tans take  it.  and  discover  their  synods,  and  their  reasons 
for  it.  196.     Their  opinion  of  it.  2.>0. 

Oath  f<ir  churchwardens,  i.,  324.  The  oath  called  et 
cwtrra  346. 

Occasion  il  conformity  bill,  ii.,  3.")0.     Appendix  XIV.,  486. 

Ochinus  comes  10  Kngland,  i.,  41!. 

CEcolampadius,  with  other  foreigners,  against  altars, 
i.,  51. 


556 


INDEX. 


Offices  of  the  chiircli  rernrmerf,  i.,  4C. 
OKilhy,  ;i  Scois  baron,  sent  l"  S|min  by  James  I.,  i.,  277. 
Okcy,  Col<in('l,  one  o("  llie  regicides,  ii.,  2)8.     Brought 
from  (ioll.Mul,  with  others,  sinil  e.veciiteil,  238. 

OImvc,  St.,  and  Si.  Saviour's  churches  in  Southwark, 
tumults  in  then),  i.,  .■!il2. 

Olden!)  irnevelt  tnkes  the  side  of  tlie  Arminians  in  the 
disputes  in  Holland,  i.,  2U3. 
Oliver,  Dr.,  ticcount  of',  ii.,  68. 

Orange,  Prince  of",  made  st;i(ltholder,  ii.,  274.  His  bra- 
very and  success  against  the  Freneh,  274.  His  marriage 
witii  the  Princess  Mary,  286.  His  advice  to  the  Dissenters, 
32}).  His  reply  to  James  about  the  penal  laws  and  test, 
334.  His  expedition,  339.  Hisdeclnrcition,  341).  His  prog- 
ress, 341.  His  answer  to  the  dissenting  ministers'  address, 
342.  He  and  his  princess  jiroclaimed  king  and  queen, 
342.  See  William  IH.  James  endeavours  to  convert  the 
Princess  of  Orange  to  Popery,  334.     See  Mary. 

Ordinal,  a  new  one  in  King  Edward's  time,  i.,  50,  54. 

Ordinance  of  Parliament,  e.\horting  to  repentance,  Bish- 
op Kennet  remark  upon  it,  i.,  444.  Ordinance  for  seques- 
tration of  benelices  and  estates  of  the  clergy,  &,c.,  i.,  452. 
For  removing  monuments  of  superstition,  455.  Manner 
of  executing  it,  456.  For  licensing  books,  456.  For  call- 
ing an  assembly  uf  divines,  457.  For  the  committee  of 
sequestrations,  480.  For  enforcing  the  use  of  the  directo- 
ry. 496.  For  the  better  observation  of  the  Lord's  day, 
499.  For  tlie  ordination  of  ministers,  ii.,  7.  For  suspen- 
sion from  the  sacrament;  provisos  in  it,  11,  12.  For 
erecting  presbyteries,  13.  The  Scots  exceptions  to  it,  and 
English  Presbyterians  petition  against  it,  13,  14.  Another 
ordinance  for  that  purpose,  80.  For  abolishing  archbishops 
and  bishops,  35.  And  for  the  sale  of  their  lands,  36.  For 
abolishing  Christmas  and  other  holidays;  it  occasions  tu- 
mults, 55,  .56.  A  terrible  ordinance  against  blasphemy 
and  heresy,  79.  Ordinance  against  seditious  libels,  113. 
For  taking  away  the  penal  laws,  and  suppressing  vice, 
117.  For  the  stricter  observation  of  the  Lord's  day,  118, 
166.  In  regard  to  marriage,  134.  For  commissioners  for 
approbation  ol  public  teachers,  144.  For  ejecting  scanda- 
lous ministers,  147.  For  uniting  small  livings,  and  divi- 
ding greater,  151.  Against  the  old  sequestered  clergy,  157. 
Agiinst  Papists,  166. 

Ordination  of  ministers,  see  Ordinal. 

Ordination  in  foreign  churches,  and  not  Episcopal,  al- 
lowed to  be  valid  by  our  first  Reformers,  i.,  57.  Admit- 
te<l  by  Archbishop  Grindal,  152.  Of  Episcopal  and  Pres- 
byterian, 31)5.  Assembly  of  divines  consult  about  ordina- 
tion ;  ordinance  of  Parliament  in  pursuance  thereof  494. 
Directory  for  it;  debates  about  it ;  power  of  it  given  to  the 
assembly  of  divines  ;)ro  tempore,  ii.,  7,  8. 

Orleans,  his  confession  of  some  resolutions  of  the  queen 
and  cabinet  at  Windsor,  1.,  428.  His  opinion  of  General 
Monk,  with  others,  ii.,  192.  About  the  debates  in  Parlia- 
ment, 235. 

Ormond,  Marquis  of,  his  treaty  with  the  Irish  Papists, 
ii.,  23. 

Osbaldeston,  Mr.,  his  sentence,  i.,  329.  Released  by  the 
Long-parliament,  359. 

Osborne,  Mr.,  his  opinion  as  to  the  discovery  of  the 
powder-plot,  i.,  244. 

Osbourne,  John,  presents  Mr.  Brightinan  with  the  rec- 
tory of  Haunes  in  Bedfordshire,  who  dies  while  riding 
with  him,  i.,  252. 

Owen.  Hugh,  appointed  by  Cromwell  one  of  the  com- 
missioners fir  Wales,  ii.,  149. 

Owen,  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  and  Owen  of  Landatf,  im- 
peached with  other  bishops,  i.,  388. 

Owen,  John,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  306,  n. 

Oxenbridge,  Mr.,  subscribed  the  book  of  discipline,  i., 
183,  n. 

Oxford,  transactions  of,  see  University.  Treaty  of,  i., 
444.  Broke  otf,  446.  Oxford  Parliament,  476.  Visitation 
of,  ii.,  58.  Oxford  decree,  304,  v.  Oxford  Parliament,  297. 
Heads  of  colleges  send  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  sign 
the  association,  341. 

Oyer  and  Terminer,  the  penal  laws  put  in  execution  by 
way  of,  i.,  127. 

O. 

Paget,  Eusebius,  his  sufferings ;  articles  against  him ; 
causes  of  his  deprivation  ;  his  suft'erings,  i.,  170,  171. 

Palatine,  elector,  marries  James  I.'s  dui^'litor,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Puiilans,  i.,  260.  Is  ch(  sea  King  of  Bo- 
hemia, 268.  Is  turned  out  of  his  kingdom  and  electorate, 
being  bisely  deserted  by  his  father  in  law,  269.  Manife-to 
in  favour  of  the  Palatine  fmiily,  387.  Brief  lor  the  P;ila- 
tine  ministers,  with  L:tud's  exceptions,  320.  Palatine 
family  great  favourites  of  Ihe  Pmilans,  499. 

Palniei-,  Dr.,  account  of  ii.,  71. 

Palmer,  Ileibort,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  483,  n.; 
ii.,  74. 

Papists  rir^e  for  the  old  religion  in  King  Edward's  reign, 
i.,  48.     Their  demands,  and  are  suppressed,  48.    Thtir 


numbers  formidable  in  Elizabeth's  time,  and  their  expec- 
tations fiom  her  death;  they  rise  in  the  north,  hut  are 
su|ipressed.  111.  Their  first  o|)en  separation  from  the 
Church,  111.  Pen;il  l:iws  against  them.  111,  176,  215. 
Their  ex|  ectations  from  King  Janrcs,  228.  Hi<  tenderness 
tow.-irds  them,  and  ofiers  to  meet  thent  half  way,  2;i6. 
Remonstraircesof  the  Parliament  against  them,  271.  Laws 
against  them  relaxed,  271.  Articles  in  iheir  favour  in  the 
Spanish  match,  271.  Laws  agiinst  them  suspended,  and 
they  are  favoured  and  promoted  at  court,  331.  Their 
numbers  and  inHuence,  and  Lord  CI  irendon's  account  of 
them,  332.  Proceedings  against  them;  the  king  favours 
them,  373.  Applies  to  ihem  to  assist  him  iu  the  war,  419. 
Two  thirds  of  their  enates  seized  ;  oath  for  discovering 
them,  453.  Some  in  Ihe  Parliament  army,  ii.,  39.  Stories 
of  their  having  a  hanil  in  the  king's  death,  99.  Papal 
titles  assumed  liy  Laud,  i.,  517.  Reasons  for  the  protect- 
or's severity  against  l'api-;ts,  ii.,  158.  Their  expectations 
at  the  Restoration,  208.  Their  views,  209.  They  declare 
their  principles,  235.  Their  farther  views,  247.  The 
Commons  address  the  king  against  them,  277,  280.  Their 
insolence,  281.  Act  to  disqualify  them  fiimi  silting  in  Par- 
liament, 289.     Many  of  them  in  King  James's  army,  332. 

Parker,  Archbishop,  publishes  the  ecclesiastical  laws, 
under  Ihe  title  of  Refoitiiatio  Legum  Anglicarum,  i.,  50. 
His  consecration,  77,  n.  Confirmed  by  Parlianrent,  78. 
Visits  his  diocess,  settles  the  order  of  lessons,  85.  His 
zeal  against  the  Puritans,  91,96,  100.  Was  not  fond  of 
the  habits  at  first,  92.  His  questions  to  Humphreys  and 
Sampson  at  their  examination,  96,  n.  His  violent  pro- 
ceeding<,  97,  100,  101.  His  complaints,  102,  1.36.  His  zeal 
for  uniformity,  126.  His  letter  upon  Mr.  Deering's  being 
restored  by  the  council,  129.  He  incenses  the  queen 
against  the  religious  exercises  of  the  clergy,  and  suppresse.? 
Iheiri  in  the  diocess  of  Norwich,  134.  His  conduct  in  a 
sham  plot,  which  he  delcnds,  135,  136.  Visits  the  Isle  of 
Wight ;  his  severe  proceedings  there  disliked  by  the  queen, 
and  his  angry  letter  thereon,  136.  His  death  and  charac- 
ter, 138. 

Parker,  Robert,  retires  to  Amsterdain,  i.,  242.  His  suf- 
ferings, and  wonderful  preservation,  2')2. 
Parker-,  Bishop,  writes  for  the  court,  ii.,  332. 
Parkhurst,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  inveighs  against  the 
habits,  i.,  92.  His  timorousness.  128.  Laments  the  per- 
secution of  the  Puritans,  133.  His  approbation  of  the  re- 
ligious exercises  of  the  clergy,  133.  He  is  forced  to  sup- 
press them,  134.     His  death  and  character,  134. 

Paris  gardens,  in  Soirthwark,  the  seat  of  public  sports 
on  the  Lord's  day,  i.,  154. 

Paris,  George  Van,  burned,  i.,  49.  Cranmer,  the  cause 
of  49. 

Parisian  massacre,  i.,  127. 

Parlianrent.  attempts  in  it  towards  a  farther  reformation, 
i.,  115,  117,  120,  127,  174,  181,  197.  First  session  of  James 
I.,  his  speech  and  remarks,  236.  Proceedings,  236,  253. 
King's  speech,  petitions  of  grievances,  254.  Dissolved, 
255.  Another  called,  and  dissolved,  261.  Another,  with 
the  king's  speech;  their  declaration,  remonstrance  against 
Papists;  petition  and  protestation  ;  dissolved, 271.  Anoth- 
er, with  the  king's  sjieech  ;  petition  against  Papists,  king's 
answer,  275.  The  first  of  Charles  I. ;  petition  against  Pa- 
pists, king's  answer,  281.  Dissolved,  28.3.  His  second, 
284.  His  third,  287.  Remonstiance,  king's  answer,  288. 
Proceedings,  291.  Keep  the  speaker  in  the  chair  while 
they  make  a  protestation.  293.  Dissolved,  295.  Th« 
Short-parliament,  343.  Sad  condilion  of  the  court  at  call- 
ing of  the  long  one,  348.  Character  generally,  and  of  the 
leaders  of  both  houses,  350.  Opens,  appoints  committees, 
351.  Speeches  against  the  late  canons,  objections  to 
thern,  3.52,  .353.  Proceedings  against  Laud,  .355.  Set  pris- 
oners of  the  prerogative  free,  358.  Censure  the  authors  of 
the  Church  innovations,  360.  Vote  the  innov.ations  down, 
362.  Petitions  t'or  and  against  Ihe  hierarchy,  367.  Speech- 
es on  them,  369,  370.  Resolirtions  [hereon,  372.  Proceed- 
i  igs,  &c.,  against  Papists,  373.  Against  the  Earl  of  Siraf- 
foi-d,  374.  Court  plot  against  them,  375.  Act  for  its  con- 
tinti  ince,  377.  Solemn  vow,  377.  Debate  on  depriving 
the  bishops  of  their  votes;  on  abolishing  derms  and  chap- 
ters, 378-:!82.  Abolish  the  high-commission  coirrt  and 
star  chamber,  386.  Irriperrch  tliirreen  bishops,  388.  Dec- 
larati(Mi  on  sitting  on  a  Siriiday,  388.  Pr'oceedings  on  the 
Irrsh  insurrection,  398.  Grand  reminstrance,  ,399.  Decla- 
ration of  their  inteniions,  400.  Petition  presented  with  le- 
rrronstiitnce,  401.  King  goes  to  seize  five  rirembers,  406. 
City  of  Lonilon  for  them,  406.  They  take  away  the  bish- 
ops' vot(;s,  408.  King  resolves  to  break  with  theiri,  409. 
Petilions  to  Iherri ;  proceedings  ;  king's  reply,  their  an- 
swer, 409.  Accepi  the  Scois  rrredialion,  Iheir  declai-atioii 
concerning  refornration,  412.  Appoint  a  necative  oath, 
413.  Proceedings,  riremorial.  414.  Their  nineteen  irropo- 
sitions,  415.  Prcpnraiions  for  war,  borrow  ino^ev  and 
plate,  417.  Confederate  with  the  Scots  420.  Reply  to 
Ihi!  general  assembly's  letter,  421.  Abolish  Episcopacy, 
422.     Vote   the  raising  of  au  army,  423.     Character  of 


INDEX. 


557 


those  who  tonk  part  with  it,  425.    Whether  the  king  may 
adjourn  P.-irliaineiit,  295. 

P.irliaiiieiit  sue  for  peace,  i.,  441.  The  nice  point  of 
their  ireaunp  with  llie  Scots,  441!.  Ttieir  nr(lin;ini:e  ex- 
honin"  to  repentance,  443.  Their  propositions  at  the 
tre;itv  of  Oxford,  444.  Their  five  liills,  443.  Plots  against 
tiiein',  447.  Low  state  of  Iheir  affiirs,  448.  Tlieir  pro- 
ceedings with  regard  to  the  clergy,  4.^)2-4.>l.  With  rog  ird 
lo  the  Sabliath,  and  monthly  and  occasional  fasts,  4.54.  j 
Ordinance  for  removing  monuments  of  superstition,  455.  ! 
Orders  for  restraining  the  press,  45G.  They  call  an  as- 
semlily  of  divines,  456.  And  send  tlieni  regulations,  4G2. 
They  call  in  the  Scots,  463.  Agree  to  the  solenm  league 
and  covenant,  465.  Order  the  taking  it  throughout  the 
nation,  467.  Th(-ir  proceedings  on  the  king's  bringing 
over  the  Irisli  forces,  470.  They  order  a  new  great  seal 
to  lie  made,  476.  They  nominate  men  to  livings,  473. 
Character  of  their  army,  479.  Division  among  their  gen- 
erals, 4ri0.  They  order  the  assembly  of  divines  lo  confer 
about  church  government,  494.  They  establish  and  en- 
force the  use  of  the  directory,  495.  Enforce  the  observa- 
tion of  the  Lord's  day,  499.  Abolish  Christmas,  500;  ii., 
.55.  Pass  a  bill  of  attiiinder  against  Laud,  i.,  524.  Their 
instructions  to  their  commissioners  in  the  treaty  of  Ux- 
bridve  upon  religion  ;  their  reply  to  the  king's  concession, 
528-.53-2.  Their  army  new  modelled,  534.  Their  care  for 
a  regular  clergy,  ii.,  6.  They  reject  the  cliiuse  of  the  di- 
vine right  of  Presbytery,  10.  Their  ordinance  for  suspen- 
sion fiom  the  sacr.ament,  11.  And  for  erecting  presbyter- 
ies, 13.  Their  reply  to  the  Scots'  exceptions.  14.  Their 
questions  propounded  to  the  assembly  abriul  the  jhs  divi- 
vuiu  in  matters  itf  church  government,  14.  They  attempt 
nn  accommod.ition  between  the  Presbyterians  and  Inde- 
pendents. 15.  Olitain  a  complete  conquest  over  the  king, 
•2-2.  Their  management  with  the  Presbvterians,  24.  1'heir 
propositions  to  the  king  at  Newcastle,  32.  Their  commis- 
sioners receive  the  king  from  the  Scots,  and  convey  him 
to  Holmby,  35.  They  nl)oli>h  archbishops  and  bi-hops, 
nnd  dispose  of  their  lands,  35,  36.  Their  proceedings  to 
jilease  the  Presbyterians,  36.  They  debate  on  the  assem- 
\  ly's  confession  of  faith,  and  reject  the  articles  of  disri- 
^liine,  41.  Approve  and  authorize  their  catechisms,  42. 
Controversy  between  them  and  the  army.  48.  Eleven  of 
their  members  impeached,  48.  Tumults  in  the  house,  48. 
Upon  which  several  of  the  members  retire  to  the  army, 
48.  Proceedings  of  the  remainder,  49.  Which  wore  nn- 
milled  upon  the  army's  marching  to  Londcm,  49.  They 
agree  to  the  proposils  of  the  army,  53.  Their  votes  of 
non-addresses  to  the  king,  and  remonstrance,  55.  They 
send  ministers  to  reform  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  re- 
solve on  a  visitation  of  it,  57,  58.  They  resolve  to  support 
their  visitors,  63.  Presbyterians  prevail  among  thein  in 
the  ab.sence  of  the  army,  77.  They  make  a  terrible  ordi- 
nance against  blasphemy  and  heresy,  80.  Their  ordinance 
for  the  farther  establishment  of  Pre*^byterv,  80.  Their 
jiroposals  to  the  king  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  81.  Repiv  of 
their  divines  to  the  king's  papers  about  Epi-copicy,  82-85. 
Their  conmiissioners  press  his  consent,  86.  Their  pro- 
ceedings upon  the  army's  marching  lo  London;  they  are 
purged  by  the  army,  90.  Votes  of  the  remainder,  who 
resolve  to  try  the  king,  91.  And  establish  a  high  court  of 
justice  for  tiiat  purpose,  94. 

Parliiment  called  the  Rump,  and  why,  set  up  a  com- 
monwealth, ii.,  107,  77.  Their  measures  to  support  their 
iiuthority,  110.  Vindicate  themselves.  111.  State  of  reli- 
gion under  them,  113.  Their  preparations  asainst  the 
king  and  Scots  army,  126.  Publish  an  act  of  indenmity, 
and  choose  a  new  council  of  state,  128.  Their  Dutch  war, 
130.  Quarrel  with  the  ■■irmy,  130.  Cromwell  dissolves 
them  by  force,  131.  Their  ciiaracter,  132,  tj.  New  model 
of  Parlituuent  in  Cromwell's  instrument.  135.  Cromwell's 
first  Parliament,  133.  His  second,  and  his  speech  to  them  : 
their  proceedings;  his  second  speech  ;  a  lest  or  recognition 
iippoiiited  them;  farther  proceedinss :  dissolved;  speech 
iit  their  dissolution,  140-144.  His  third  ;  obliged  to  recog- 
nise the  government;  iheir  acts.  162,  If>3.  Proceedings, 
169.  Upper  house  appointed.  172.  Rad  consequences  of 
it;  dissolved,  173.  Rich;  rd  Cromwell's  Parliament,  186. 
Army  compel  him  to  dissolve  them,  18G.  The  rmiip  re- 
Stored,  186.  Turned  out  ag;  in,  189.  Restored  asiin;  se- 
r.ludcii  members  restored  hv  Rlonk.  190.  Proceedings  of 
the  Pirliaiiient  hereon,  101.  Restore  Presbytery,  192. 
iWssolve  themselves,  192. 

Parliament.  King  Charles  [I.,  cee  Convention.  Charnc- 
ler  of,  ii.,  2-25.  v.  Their  ads.  22.i.  Act  of  nniforniitv, 
239-241.  Vote  ag  insl  the  dis|>en  ing  power,  276.  Thev 
addrc'ss  the  king  asr-iinst  P  pi^t.s,  279,  280.  Are  dissolved. 
291.  Bring  in  the  bill  of  exclusion,  and  jire  dissolved.  2('0. 
Bring  in  the  hill  of  evrlusion  a  second  time.  293.  Their 
vote.i,  and  riis  olulion.  295.  Revive  the  exclusion  hill,  297. 
Suddenlv  dissolved.  2'i7.  .iMrnes  ihe  Second's  Parliame't 
316.  The'r  pmceedinss.  316.  They  are  dissolved,  319. 
for  King  W'lliani's,  see  Conven'ion. 
Parsons,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  217. 


Paske,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  482. 
Passive  obedience  revived,  ii.,  217. 
Patrick,  Dr.,  his  friendly  debate,  and  a  remarkable  in- 
stance ot  his  candour,  ii..  264. 

Paul's,  St.,  Church  repiired.  i.,  303.  Of  pulling  down 
its  cross,  455.  Of  pulling  down  houses  for  its  repair,  505. 
Commutation  of  penance  for  it,  506.  A  proverb  on  this 
artHir,  525. 

Pearson,  John,  his  death,  ii.,  333. 

Pelagians,  their  opinions  pointed  out  as  obnoxious  in 
the  articles  devised  by  Henry  VIII.,  i.,  36. 

Pembroke,  Eirl  of,  made  Chancellor  of  Oxford,  and 
visits  in  person,  ii.,  64.  His  proceedings,  65.  Reports  the 
behaviour  of  the  university  to  Parliament,  65. 

Penn  and  Mead,  their  trial,  ii..  268.  Injustice  and  cru- 
elty of  the  court,  268.  Jury  threatened,  2ti9.  Acquitted, 
2t)9.     Recorder's  speech,  269,  n. 

Penal   laws  taken  away  by  the  Rump-parliament,  ii., 
1 17.     King  Charles's  Parliament  to  put  them  in  execution, 
260.     A  summary  account  of  them,  278.    Consequences 
of  them,  278. 
Penn,  William,  his  grant,  and  consequences,  ii ,  426. 
Pennington,  Isaac,  memoirs  of,  ii.,  427. 
Penry,  Mr.,  the  Brownist,  his  history,  i.,  202.    Is  taken, 
204.     His   petition  to  the  queen  unfinished,  203,  n.     His 
trial,  condemnation,  declaration,   and  complaints  to   the 
treasurer,  204.    His  protestation,  204.    Is  executed  in  a 
hurry.  205.  <• 

Perkins,  William,  his  death,  character,  and  writings,  i., 
213. 

Pern,  A.,  liis  death,  ii.,  l.')4. 

Persecution  of  the  Protestants  under  Henry  VIII.,  i.,  .35, 
39,  42.  Of  those  called  heretics  in  Edwa  d  VI.'s  time,  49. 
Of  the  Protestants  in  Queen  Mary's  reign,  62.  Of  the 
Protestants  in  France  and  the  Low  Countries,  111.  Of 
the  Anabaptists  in  England,  138.  Of  the  Brownists,  150, 
198.  See  .Anabaptists,  Brownists,  Puri.ans. 
Perth,  five  articles  of,  i.,  266. 

Petitions  of  the  ministers  in  seve-al  counties  against 
subscription,  i.,  158.  Of  genllemen,  and  parishioners  for 
their  ministers,  l.TO,  168.  Their  petitions  to  Parliament, 
172,  173,  179.  To  the  convocation,  175.  To  the  queen, 
184,  195.  See  Supplication.  Petition  for  liberty  of  con- 
science for  the  Puritans,  250.  Petition  of  the  Parliament 
in  their  favour,  254.  And  against  the  ecclesiastical  com- 
mission, 254.  Against  the  growth  of  Popery,  281.  Of  the 
Calvinists  against  the  king's  declaration,  291.  Of  the 
Scots  against  the  liturgy,  3.35.  Of  Dr.  Leighton  to  the 
Long-parliament,  359.  Of  that  Parliament  to  the  king, 
401.  Of  Ihe  lord-mayor,  &c.,  to  the  Parliament,  402.  Of 
the  London  apprentices,  402.  Of  the  Puritan  clergy  for 
reformation,  403.  Petitions  for  and  against  the  hierarchy, 
367,  402.  Pelition  of  right,  287.  Of  the  city  ministers,  for 
settling  discipline  and  worship,  494.  Petition  for  unor- 
dained  preachers,  ii.,  73. 
Peiitioners  and  abhorrers,  ii.,  292. 

Peyton,  John,  a  zealous  churchman,  appointed  governor 
of  Jersey  and  Guernsey,  lo  root  out  the  Geneva  discipline, 
and  plant  the  English  liturgy  and  ceremonies;  his  pro- 
ceedings and  success,  i..  251. 

Philip,  King,  m.arries  Queen  Mary,  i.,  60.    His  riches, 
and  view  in  the  connexion,  60,  ti. 
Philips,  Arthur,  professor  of  nuisic,  ii.,  68. 
Phil  pot,  a  Papist,  hanged,  i.,  41. 

Philpot,  Mr.,  his  martyrdom  ;  his  intolerant  spirit,  63,  n. 
Piedmont,  sufl^erings  of  the  Protestants  there;  are  as- 
sisted by  Cromwell,  ii.,  160. 

Pierce's  Vindication  of  the  Dissenters,  i.,  30. 
Pierce,  Bishop,  his  usage  of  the  lecturers,  i.,  325. 
Pilkington.  Bishop  of  Durham,  writes  to  the  Earl  of  Lei- 
csier  against  the  habits,  i.,  90.    His  death  and  character, 
142. 
Pin'bld,  Dr.,  notice  of,  ii..  3)9,  n. 
Pitt,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  68. 

Plague,  Ihe  great  one  ;  anecdote  relative  to  it,  ii.,254,  n 
Plays  put  down,  i.,  424  ;  ii.,  73. 

Pint  again-t  the  Long-parliament;  consequences  of  it, 
i.,  :t75.     Plots  against  Parliament,  445. 

Plumbers'  Hall,  the  Purit.ans  meeting  there  apprehended 
and  examined,  i.,  108.    They  are  imprisoned,  109. 
Plundered  ministers,  committee  for,  i.,  4.50. 
Pluralities  au'l  non-residence,  the  bill  against  them  op 
1  osed  by  the  convocation,  i.,  173.     Rejrcled  by  the  lords, 
174.     Another  hill  to  prevent  lliem,  which  the  convocation 
alsii  addresses  the  queen  against,  187.     Puritans  complain 
cf  them,  232.     Rill  against  them,  445. 
Pi  cock.  Dr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  67,  n. 
Pocklington.  Dr.,  censured  in  P.irliament  for  his  works, 
•Sunday  no  Sabbith,"  and  "Christian  Altar,"  i.,  360. 

Poley.  Mr.,  his  receipts  for  money  and  iilate  of  St. 
John's  Camliriilge.  for  the  king's  use,  i.,  419. 

Pol\glot  Bible,  ii.,  174.     Encouraged  by  Mr.  Cawton, 
199.  ». 
Pole,  Cardinal,  reconciles  the  kingdom  to  Rome,  i.,  61. 


558 


INDEX. 


Loses  his  influences  liecaiise  not  severe  enough  against 
heretics-,  69.     His  deitli.  70. 
Pcn)l,  Malt.,  Iilsdealli,  ii.,  291,  n. 

Pope'.s  power  and  evictions  in  England,  i.,  20.  Re- 
strained Uy  tlic  statutes  of  provisors  and  preiniinire,  29. 
Henry  VIII.  quarrels  with  liiin,  and  for  what,  :t2.  His 
authority  in  Kiigland  all<)li^llell  liy  Parliament,  D3.  O  illi  to 
be  taken  ngaintit  it,  34.  He  e.xi:oiiiiiiitiiicatc8  Henry  VIII  , 
37.  Laws  against  liiiti  repealed  in  Cint-en  M  uy's  time, 
61.  Kevived  liy  Queen  Elizaljetli.  72,  87.  His  autlioiity 
abolished  in  Scotland,  85,  lOG.  He  adinoni>hes  tineen 
Elizabeth,  85.  And  e.xcnniniunicates  lier,  111.  Pope's 
nuncios  in  England,  519,  520. 

Popery  revived  under  Queen  Mary,  penal  laws  ngiiinst 
the  Refortners  put  into  e.veculion,  nuinhers  fly  to  Gcrtnany, 
Switzerland,  and  Geneva,  i.,  i.x.  Sad  pictnie  of  ii,  57.  It 
is  restored  by  Parliament,  59.  A  bloody  religion,  64.  65, 
90.  The  people  of  England's  aversion  to  it,  95.  It  gains 
ground  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  126,  137,  151,  205. 
Statute  against  seducing  her  subjects  to  it,  148.  Advances 
to  it  in  James  l.'s  reign,  275.  In  Charles  l.'s  reign,  and 
cause,  281-293.  Increase  in  Ireland,  289.  Advances  of 
the  Cliiirch  of  England  towards  it,  330.  Its  great  increase, 
331.  Canons  against  it,  345.  Popery  connived  at  and  en 
couraged  by  Laud,  514.  His  correspondence  with  Popish 
priests,  and  countenancing  them,  520. 

Popery  revives  in  England,  ii.,  220,  2.35.  And  in  Ire- 
land, 220.  Its  growth  in  England;  remedies  proposed  by 
Parliament  against  it,  270,  271.  Its  progre-;s,  319.  Clergy 
forbid  to  piencli  against  it,  but  write  against  it,  319.  Rea- 
sons for  the  Dissenters  not  writing  against  it,  320. 
Popish  laws  repealed,  i.,  45. 
Popish  bonks  licensed,  i.,  182. 

Popish  bishops  deprived,  i.,  77.     Their  behaviour  to 
Queen  Elizabeth,  85.     Popish  lords  petitioned  against,  402. 
Popish  confederacy  to  e.xtirpate  the  Protestant  religion, 
i.,  HI. 

Popish  plot ;  alarms  the  nation,  but  not  credited  at 
court,  ii.,  288. 

Pordage,  Dr.,  ejected ;   his  pamphlet  and  answer,  ii., 
148,  n. 
Potter,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  68. 
Portuguese  ambassador's  brother  executed,  ii.,  140. 
Powel,  v.,  his  vindications;  his  sufferings  and  death, 
ji.,  151,  n.,  273,  n.,  365-367. 
Powers,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  i.,  74. 
Poynet,  Dr.,  trtmslated  to  the  see  of  Winchester,  i.,  54. 
His  death,  69. 

Practice  of  Prelates,  a  pamphlet  published  by  the  Puri- 
tans, i.,  158. 

Prayers  for  the  dead,  opinion  of  the  Reformers  about 
them,  i.,  42,  n.     Of  bidding  prayer,  45. 

Preachers,  the  great  scarcity  of  good  ones  formerly  in 
the  Church,  i.,  82,  85,  102,  146,  147,  163,  n..  179-184.  Dili- 
gence of  the  Puritan  preachers,  139.  Preaching  ministers 
desired  by  the  Puritans,  232.  Preaching  on  conformity, 
346.  Votes  for  encouraging  it,  391.  Petition  for  imor- 
dained  ones,  ii.,  73.  Committee  for  preaching  ministers, 
i.,  449. 

Preaching  forbid,  i.,  36,  46,  58,  71. 
Predestination  and   free-will,   ri.se  of  the  controversy 
about  them,  i.,  65.     Revived  in  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge ;  sentiments  of  the  Church  on  this  head,  209,  210. 
Premunire,  the  statute  of,  i.,  29. 

Prerogative,  acts  in  favour  of,  i.,  39.  Advances  of  it, 
252.    Sibthorpe  and  Manwaring's  sermons  for  it,  285. 

Presbyterians,  their  ordination  admitted  by  Archbishop 
Grindal.  i.,  152.  Their  first  church  in  England  established 
at  Wandsworth,  126.  Presbyteiians  in  the  assembly  of 
divines,  and  their  chief  patrons  in  the  Parliament,  490. 
Their  severity  in  enforcing  uniformity  in  the  use  of  the 
directory,  496.  Their  reply  to  the  Independents  about  the 
divine  right  of  Presbytery,  ii.,  9.  Their  zeal  to  have  that 
right  established,  10.  Are  offended  at  the  provisos  in  the 
ordinance  about  suspension  from  the  sacrament,  13.  Pe- 
tition against  the  ordinance  for  presbyteries,  because  it 
gave  them  not  |X)Wer  enough,  14.  Defeat  the  design  of  a 
comprehension  for  the  Independents,  15.  Their  reply  to 
the  proposals  for  a  toleration,  16.  Argue  against  the  law- 
fulness of  a  separation;  their  higli  notions  of  uniformity, 
and  against  liberty  of  conscience,  17.  Censured  in  a 
pamphlet,  19.  Petition  against  sectaiies  ;  seconded  by  the 
Scots,  24.  Petition  again  against  sectaries,  36.  Their 
aversion  to  a  toleration,  44.  Their  separate  views,  45. 
Their  proposals,  53.  Counter-petition  of  their  clergy,  and 
an  ordinance  in  their  favoar,  56.  Their  provincial  assem- 
blies, 43,  78.  Their  country  associations,  79.  A  terrible 
ordinance  p.a.ssed  by  their  influence  against  blasphemy 
and  heresy,  79.  Remonstrance  of  their  ministers  against 
the  proceedings  of  their  army  in  relation  to  the  king,  91. 
Their  t'jirther  vindication,  92.  Whether  they  are  charge- 
able with  the  king's  death,  98.  Their  conduct  towards 
the  commonwealili  government;  refuse  the  engagement, 
110.    Proceedings  against  them,  116.    A  plot  ;igainst  Par- 


liament, 122.  Their  state  under  Cromwell,  137.  Copies 
<if  testimonials  to  ministers,  137.  Enemies  to  Ciomwell's 
government,  139.  Are  for  restoring  the  king,  189.  Are  in 
full  poshession  of  the  nation,  191,  199.  Are  courted  by 
Monk,  197.  Terms  on  which  they  v\()nld  restore  the  king, 
200.  Their  vain  expectations  from  the  court,  201.  A 
deputation  of  their  ministers  wait  on  the  king  at  Breda, 
202.  Their  ministers  made  king's  ch  i  plains,  205.  Address 
lor  a  comprehension;  abstract  of  their  first  proposals; 
their  recepuon,  209-21 1.  Abstract  of  a  defence  of  these 
piopos.ils  ag  liiist  the  bishops.  212.  The  beginning  of  their 
sutlerings;  they  apply  to  the  king,  213.  Abstract  of  their 
second  paper  of  e.xception.s  and  requests,  213.  The  king's 
declar-tion  acceptable  to  most  of  them,  213.  Some  accept 
preferments,  216.  Are  in  despair  on  the  Commons  re- 
jecting the  king's  declaration,  216.  Their  troubles',  2ii2. 
Sham  plots  fathered  on  them,  22r.,  251,  2)^8,  297.  Their 
hardships  in  the  Savoy  conference,  228.  They  descend  to 
entretuies,  229.  Behaviour  of  their  divines  at  the  confer- 
ence, 230.  Their  h.irdships  before  the  act  of  uniformity, 
233.  Their  conduct  after  the  act,  242.  Their  Uifliculties, 
242.     See  Nonconformists  and  Dis.senters. 

Presbyterian  government ;  Presbytery  established  by 
law  in  Scotlnnd,  i.,  205.  English  Presbyterian  churches 
in  Holland,  242.  Ordination  by  Presbyters  defended  ;  their 
jurisdiction,  366.  Propositions  for  establishing  it  in  the 
treaty  of  U.xbridge,  529.  Divine  right  of  it  debated,  ii.,  8. 
Carried  in  the  assembly  of  divines,  but  dropped  in  Parlia- 
ment, 10.  Petitions  to  admit  the  divine  right  of  it,  10. 
Established  by  way  of  probation,  13.  Exceptions  of  the 
Scots,  and  their  amendments  to  it  proposed,  13.  Parlia- 
ment's reply,  14.  Questions  sent  to  the  assembly  of  di- 
vines, about  its  divine  right,  15.  Attempts  for  a  farther 
establishment  of  it,  24.  London  ministers  assert  it  to  be 
jure  divino,  24.  How  far  the  establishment  of  it  prevail- 
ed, 26,  80.  Settled  in  Scotland,  43,  n.  University  of  Ox- 
ford's objections  to  it,  59.  It  is  established  without  limi- 
tation of  time,  80.  Presbyterian  government  established, 
111.  Enileavours  to  support  it.  142.  Restored,  192.  Abol- 
ished at  the  Restoration,  205,  207.  Restored  in  Scotland, 
349. 

Press  restrained,  i.,  104,  176.  A  private  one  set  up  by 
the  Puritans,  188.  Discovered,  and  its  promoters  punished, 
190.  Restraint  of  it,  in  favour  of  Arminianism  and  Popery, 
285.  Laud's  c:ire  of  it,  308.  Farther  restraint  of  it,  329. 
Orders  for  restraining  it,  456.  Abuse  of  by  Laud,  515. 
Again  fettered,  ii.,  247. 
Preston,  John,  i.,  275,  276,  281.  His  death,  296,  n. 
Price,  Samuel,  i.,  xxi. 

Prince  of  Wales,  king's  letter  to  him,  ii.,  89. 
Prisoners  of  the  prerogative  released  by  the  Long-par- 
liament, i.,  358. 

Proclamation  for  the  Hampton  Court  conference,  i., 
229.  To  enforce  conformity,  234.  Against  Jesuits  and 
Puritans,  235.  Against  Papists  in  Ireland,  289.  Against 
prescribing  a  time  for  calling  Parliaments,  295.  For  re- 
piiring  churclies,  303.  For  preventing  the  emigration  of 
the  Puritans,  330.  For  the  better  government  of  the  king's 
army,  428. 

Proclamation,  acts  concerning  them,  i.,  39.    Repealed,  45. 
Professors  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  who  submitted 
to  the  Parliament,  ii.,  67.     Of  those  who  were  ejected,  08. 
Of  those  who  succeeded,  08.     Their  behaviour,  72. 

Prohibitions  granted  to  stop  proceedings  in  the  bishops* 
courts,  i.,  212.     Prohibitions  in  the  spiritual  courts,  505. 

Prophesyings,  the  the  of,  and  orders  about  them;  con- 
fession of  faith  signed  by  the  members,  i.,  118.  They  in- 
crease, 133.  Are  supj  ressed  in  the  diocess  of  Norwich; 
the  council's  letter  to  tontinue  them,  134.  They  are  regu- 
lated in  other  dioceses,  142.  Queen's  reasons  for  putting 
thetn  down ;  Iter  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  London  for  that 
purpose,  142,  n.  Letter  of  the  Bishop  of  Litchfielii  and 
Coventry  to  his  archdeacon,  in  compliance  therewith,  143. 
Grindal  refuses  to  put  them  down,  and  writes  to  the  queen 
in  their  favour,  144.  They  are  totally  suppressed,  144. 
Attempt  to  revive  them  to  no  purpose,  176. 

Protestants  unhappily  adopt  the  persecuting  conduct  of 
the  Papists,  i.,  49.  Burned  in  Queen  Mary's  lime,  65. 
Private  congregations  of  them,  66.  A  mi.ved  execution  of 
Protestants  and  Papists,  40.  Protestants  in  France  and 
the  Low  Countries  cruelly  persecuted,  110,  111.  See  Per- 
secution and  Reformers.  Protestant  interest  in  Germany 
ruined  by  King  James,  269.  Union  of  it  protected  by 
Cromwell,  ii.,  174.  Protestants  turned  out,  and  Papists  put 
into  office  by  King  James,  332. 

Protestation  of  Puritan  ministers  on  the  king's  suprema- 
cy, i.,  250.  Of  loyalty,  from  the  Devon  and  Cornwall 
niinisters.  250.  Of  the  general  assembly  in  Scotland, 
against  Episcopacy,  255.  Of  the  Conmions.  against  Ar- 
minianism, 292.  Against  thai,  and  tonnage  and  pound.-tge, 
293.  Of  the  Scots,  against  imposing  the  lituigy,  335.  Of 
the  Long-parliament,  377.  Of  the  bishops;  objections 
against  it,  404,  405. 
Protestation  of  the  lung's  supremacy,  made  in  the  name 


INDEX. 


559 


of  the  afflicted   ministers,  and  opposed  to  the  shnmeful 
caluiiiiiiiilioiis  of"  the  prelates,  i.,  2o(l. 

Provincial  assembly  of  Lonilon,  ttie  first,  ii.,  43.     Gen- 
eral  rules  for  it,  43.     Tlie  second,  and  their  petition  lo 
Parli.iinent,  43.    Tiie  Ihird   and  fonrih,  78.     Lancashire 
assembly,  78.     Assembly  of  London,  their  proceedings, 
15(). 
Provi.^rs,  the  statute  of,  i.,  29. 
Prowd,  Rlr.,  his  letter  to  Lord  Burleigh,  i.,  147. 
Prynne,  his  sentence  with  Bistwick  and  Burton  in  the 
star  chamber,  i.,  31t5,  ns.     Their  second  senlence,  3i;7. 
Disgust-!  the  nation,  328.     Released  by  the  Long-parlia- 
mejit,  358.     His  memento  against  the  king's  death,  ii.,  91. 
Psalms,  a  new  version  of,  ii.,  20. 

Puritans,  origin  of  that  term,!.,  x.  Account  of  the  pub 
lication  of  the  present  work  in  1732,  xx.  Editor's  adver 
tisement,  xvi.  Tlieir  doctrines  agreeable  to  VVicklitfe,  30. 
Their  rise  also,  66.  Tlieir  sentiments  concerning  the  su- 
premacy, 74.  They  were  fur  uniloruuty  in  religion  as 
well  !is  the  other  Reformers,  79.  When  and  on  what  ac- 
count they  began  to  be  called  Puritans,  76.  Several  of 
them  refuse  bishoprics,  77.  Their  principles  compared 
with  those  of  the  other  Reformers,  78.  Some  of  them  re- 
fuse liviiigs,  and  others  comply  for  the  present.  85.  Their 
proposals  in  convocation  fur  a  farther  reformation,  88. 
They  write  to  the  courtiers  against  the  habits,  91.  Their 
reasons  against  them,  91-9-1,  ns.  Other  things  in  the 
Church  ilisliked  by  them,  93.  Deprived  for  refusing  the 
habits,  98.  Farther  severities  against  them,  100.  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge  favourable  to  them,  101,  n.  Sad 
consequences  of  their  deprivation  to  themselves  and  ihe 
Church,  102.  The  hardships  they  were  under,  104.  Some 
continue  in  the  Church,  others  separate,  105.  Their  ob 
jeclions  against  the  hier.vchy,  106.  Agree  with  the  Con- 
formists in  doctiine,  108.  A  meeting  of  them  broke  up  at 
Plumbers'  Hall,  and  their  e.xamination  before  the  Bishop 
of  London,  108.  Their  sufferings  and  zeal,  109.  Their 
loyalty,  1 10.  The  laws  against  the  Papists  turned  against 
them,  112.  Their  courage  and  integrity  in  confessing 
what  they  believed  to  be  the  truth,  112,  n.  The  ditFicul- 
ties  they  labomed  under  in  their  ordinations,  116,  140. 
Farther  h-rirdships  put  upon  them  by  the  clergy  in  convo- 
cation, 117.  And  by  Archbishop  Parker,  119.  More  of 
Ihem  suspenned,  119.  They  apply  to  Parliament.  121. 
Their  admonitions  to  them,  121.  They  gain  ground,  and 
erect  a  presbytery  at  Wandsworth,  126.  A  severe  perse- 
culiim  began  agiinst  them.  127.  They  ofTer  a  public  dis 
putatiori,  128.  Deprived  for  refusing  to  subscribe  two 
forms  of  the  ecclesiastical  commissioners,  1,30.  New  forms 
of  sub  cription,  130.  Their  ministers  caressed  by  the  peo- 
ple, 131.  Their  separate  communions,  and  the  protesta- 
tion of  the  mi-nibers,  132.  Diuch  and  French  churches 
forbid  to  admit  theui  lo  their  cooununion,  1.33.  A  sham 
plot  fathered  on  them,  136.  Diligence  of  their  preachers  ; 
their  associ;itions ;  and  conclusions  therein,  139,  140. 
More  of  their  ministers  suspendt-d,  141.  Several  of  them 
ordained  at  Antwerp,  1-14.  Fartlier  severities  ag.-iinst 
them,  14.5,  148.  The  ihird  period  of  Puitanisui  commen- 
ces with  the  Brownists,  149,  7i.  They  are  received  into 
gentlemen's  houses,  151.  Supplication  of  ihe  justices  in 
their  favour,  153.  A  great  many  more  of  their  ministers 
sns|)ended,  157.  The  hardships  they  were  under  from 
Whitgifi's  articles,  158.  Petition.^  in  their  favour,  158. 
The  lord  ire  isiirer  and  the  council  write  to  the  archbishop 
in  their  favour,  164,  165.  They  rbtain  a  kind  of  confer- 
ence atLaud)eth,  166.  Bishop  Aylmer's  severities  against 
them,  167.  More  of  their  ministers  su-pended,  167.  Their 
farther  hardships,  170.  Their  book  of  discipline,  172. 
Apply  to  Parliament;  iheir  propos.ils  for  reform;  their 
supplication,  172.  Bishops'  answer  lo  their  proposal.  173. 
173.  They  apply  to  convocation,  175.  Their  .apcdogy  to 
the  Church,  and  proposals  lo  the  nichbishop,  175.  Sup- 
plicate Parliament  again.  179.  Bill  for  farther  reform, 
181.  Ballard's  judgment  of  them,  182.  They  remove  far- 
ther from  the  Church;  their  form  of  subscription  to  the 
book  of  discipline,  182.  Names  who  signed  the  biKik  of 
discipline,  183,  n.  Farther  sufferings,  183.  Their  quiet 
behaviour;  petition  the  queen,  184.  Apply  to  the  court 
of  aldermen,  but  in  vain,  184.  Proceedings  in  their  class- 
es, 185.  Apply  .laain  10  Parliament,  187.  Farther  suffer- 
ings. 193  The  minisleis  address  the  queen,  and  vindicite 
themselves  from  all  charses,  195,  and  Appendix  V.,  ii., 
415.  S  inie  of  thei7i  take  the  oath  ci  officio,  and  discover 
theirsynods.  i.,  I9'"i  Their  opinion  of  the  nature  of  Christ's 
suffTiiigs,  210.  Th-^y  are  turneil  over  to  the  assizes,  21 1. 
The  controversy  between  them  and  the  church  ce  ises  for 
a  lime  212.  Summary  of  the  controversy  with  them  in 
the  reign  of  Ciueen  Elizalieh.  213.  Their  principles  and 
character,  214.  Francis  Walsinsihim's  account  of  the 
queei's  coiuluct  tow  inls  them,  215.  James  I.  an  enemy 
to  them,  219.  They  increase  under  liis  reign,  and  ihe 
cause.  219.  Combined  against  by  Ihe  Arniinians,  219. 
Their  expectatiions  from  James  I..  227.  Millen.-iry  peti 
tion,  238.    Answered  by  the  University  of  O.vford,  229. 


Conference  with  the  bishops  at  Hampton  Cotirt,  230-234. 
Proclamation  against  them,  236.  Struggles  in  convocation 
to  no  purpose;  Bishop  Rudcl  speaks  in  their  favour,  237. 
Canons  against  them,  238,  To  suffer  excommunication, 
239.  Persecution  of  them  furiously  carried  on,  240-242. 
Many  retire  to  Holland,  242.  Differ  about  the  lawfulness 
of  separation  from  the  Church,  245.  Gunpowder  plot  to 
be  fathered  on  Iheni,  245.  Their  arguments  returned  upon 
ih.at  of  the  bishops  against  tolerating  them,  245.  Oder  a. 
public  <lisputation,  245.  Arguments  .against  sub-ascribing 
the  book  of  common  prayer,  246.  Against  the  ceremonies, 
and  panicularly  the  surplice,  246,  247.  Against  the  cross 
in  baptism,  ami  kneeling  at  the  sacrament,  247.  Agdnst 
ceremonies,  246.  Remove  farther  from  the  Church,  and 
the  occasion,  247.  Their  prin<;iples  about  religion  in  gen- 
eral, the  Church,  ministers  of  the  word,  elders,  and  church- 
censures,  and  concerning  the  civil  magistrate.  248,  249. 
Their  protestation  on  the  king's  supremacy,  250.  And  pe- 
tition for  liberty  of  conscience,  2.50.  They  protest  their 
loyalty,  250.  The  unreasonableness  of  persecuting  them, 
251.  Petition  of  Parliament  in  their  favour,  2,54.  Sever.il 
emigrate  to  Ireland,  261.  Rejoice  at  Ihe  elector  palatine 
being  chosen  King  of  Bohemia,  268.  They  settle  in  New- 
England.  269.  Distinction  of  church  and  state  Puritans 
270,  Doctrinal  Puritans,  272.  Gain  ground,  275.  Bishop 
Williams  favourable  to  them,  286.  More  emigrate  to 
New-England,  299,  317, 321,  340.  Hardships  in  relation  to 
the  book  of  sports,  313.  Indiscreet  zeal,  321.  Their  cour- 
age, .329,  Forbade  to  leave  the  kingdom  ;  they  increase, 
330.  What  they  aimed  at  in  Ch-irles  I.'s  time,  385.  Their 
petition  for  reformation,  402.  Character  of  the  Puritan 
clergy;  Iheir  politic  d  behaviour;  Iheir  vindication,  426. 
Sufferings  of  the  Puritan  clergy,  448.  Of  those  who  were 
ejected  ai  the  Restoration,  487.  Severely  prosecuted  by 
Laud,  517.  The  name  of  Puritans  is  sunk,  and  they  are 
spoken  of  under  other  titles,  488,  n.  Changed  to  that  of 
Protestant  Nonconformists,  ii,,  247. 

Pym,  Mr.,  his  speech  in  Parliament,  i.,  292.  Character, 
351.  Death,  .and  vindication  of  himself,  476,  n.  His  body 
dug  up,  ii.,  236. 

a. 

Quakers,  their  rise,  i.,  38,  118-121.  First  called  by  that 
name,  120,71.  Their  behaviour,  120.  Their  doctrines,  121, 
n.  Their  forgiving  temper  under  injuries  illustrated  by 
facts,  131,  n.  Their  extravagances,  163,  n.  They  address 
KingCharles,  and  avow  their  innocency,  222,  Petition  for  a 
toleration,  and  an  act  against  them,  236.  n.  Their  sufferings, 
237,  ?i.,  2.52.  The  effect  of  the  actof  uniformity  and  corpo- 
ration act  on  them,  240,  n.  Their  courage.  208,  w.  Pub- 
lish an  account  of  their  sufferings,  299.  They  address  in 
vain,  303.  Address  King  .lames  on  his  accession,  315.  n. 
Summary  account  of  their  sufferings,  321,  n.  The  penal 
laws  on  which  they  suffered,  322,  n.  Their  address  of 
thanks  for  James's  indulgence,  .327, n.  Their  history  con- 
tinued from  the  protectorship  of  Cromwell  to  the  declara- 
tion of  indul.sence3,  1674,  405.  Theirsiluation  underCrom- 
well.  405.  IMany  persecuted  in  the  west,  40.5.  General 
Monk's  kindness  towards  them,  409.  Their  monthly  and 
yearly  meetings,  415,  Their  general  character,  418.  Their 
h-story  continued  from  the  declaration  of  indulgence  to 
tne  Revolntif)n,  A.I).  1674-If)88,  421.  Avail  themselves  of 
the  declaration  of  indulgence,  421.  Their  charity  to  other 
Dissenters,  421.  Their  persecutions,  and  particular  sufier- 
ings,  422-425.  E.xert  themselves  to  promote  liberty  of  con- 
science, 425.  Grant  of  William  Penn,  426.  Memoirs  of 
principal  members,  men  and  women,  418-121,  .and  420-431. 
They  abrogate  se.vual  distinctions,  431. 

Queen  of  Charles  I.,  her  character  and  influence  over 
the  king,  i.,  279,  428.  Her  negotiations  in  Holland,  409, 
416,  A  chief  means  of  bringing  on  the  civil  war,  428. 
Sends  arms  to  the  king,  and  uien  and  money,  44.3,  448. 
King's  letter  to  her,  477.  Lauil  forbids  the  clergy  lo  pray 
for  her  conversion,  519.  Letters  of  the  king  to  her,  .527; 
ii.,  22.  Queen's  letters,  with  his  answers,  i.,  532.  She 
pres,ses  him  to  comply  with  the  Presbyterians,  ii.,  33. 

Queen-mother,  her  Catholic  court  at  Somerset  House, 
ii.,  235. 

Queen  of  Bohemia,  refer  to  Bohemia. 

Querela  Cantabrigiensis,  by  Dr.  Barwick,  i.,  485. 

R. 

Ridcliffe,  Dr.,  account  of.  ii.,  08. 

Ralphson,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,305. 

Rapin,  nniarks  on.  i.,  385. 

Rawlin,  Mr.,  i.,  xix. 

Reading  taken  by  the  king,  i.,  441.  Retaken  by  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  448. 

Reasons  taken  out  of  God's  Word,  by  Mr.  Jacob,  a  zeal- 
ous Puritan,  i.,  243. 

Rebellion,  the  Puritans  vindicate  themselves  from  the 
charge,  i.,  196. 

Recognition  of  the  government  imposed  by  Cromwell 
on  his  Parliament,  ii.,  141. 


SCO 


INDEX. 


Reformatinn,  smc  of  religion  in  Enpland  before  it,  i., 
29.  Wickliffe's  alteiiipls  tow.irds  it,  'M.  Rise  of  it  in 
Henry  VIII. 's  time,  3.'i.  A  remarkable  circuiiistance  at 
this  |)eri<)(l,  :i3.  Its  farther  progress,  and  by  whom  favour- 
ed, 34.  'i"ho  liody  of  inferior  clergy  ag  linst  it,  and  also  the 
monks  and  friars,  1)4.  Account  of  it  in  this  reign,  :«-4:}. 
Obj^tacles  to  its  i)ro!rres.s,  39.  State  of  it  at  the  king's 
death,  42.  The  parties  for  and  against  it,  on  Edward  Vl.'s 
succession,  44,  ji. 

The  beginning  and  progress  of  it  in  this  reign.  42.  Ref 
ormalinn  of  the  communion  and  other  offices,  46,  54.  Of 
the  ecclesiastical  laws  which  do  not  take  place,  50.  Of 
the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  54.  Blemishes  of  the  Refiir- 
Diation,  55.  It  was  left  imperfect,  55.  Farther  progress 
of  it  intended,  58,  57.  Hopes  of  the  progress  of  the  Refor 
mation  done  away  by  Mary,  58-66.  Revives  under  Eliza- 
betli,  71.  Advice  of  foreign  divines  about  it,  71.  The 
clergy  in  convocation  against  it,  77.  The  populace  for  it, 
81.  Goes  on  but  slowly,  86.  Attempts  in  convocation  for 
a  farther  reformation,  83.  Unsuccessful  but  by  a  single 
proxy,  89.     It  is  in  gre.at  danger  by  the  queen's  sickness, 

110.  Popish  confederacy  to  banish  it  out  of  the  world, 

111.  Parliament  for  a  farther  reform,  115,  116,  120.  Stop- 
ped by  the  queen,  115.  Farther  proceedings  in  Parliameiit 
in  favour  of  it,  179.  182.  Again  stopped  by  the  queen,  182, 
187.  Reformation  of  doctrine  required  in  the  Hampton 
Court  conference,  231.  Reform  in  the  manners  of  people 
remarkable  in  the  Parliament  times,  and  in  their  army, 
425. 

Reformers  in  Henry  VIII.'s  time,  their  sentiments  in 
sundry  points,  i.,  40,  n.  Their  fatal  mistake  about  uniform- 
ity, 47,76.  Are  divided  about  the  habits  or  vestments,  47 
Many  of  tliein  of  persecuting  principles,  48.  Which  g  ive 
groat  advantage  to  the  Papists,  .50.  Several  fly  beyond 
sea  in  Queen  Mary's  reign,  53.  See  Exiles.  The  declara- 
tion of  faith  of  those  that  were  imprisoned,  61.  Divided 
about  discipline  and  ceremonies  in  Clueen  Elizabeth's 
time,  77.  Their  declaration  of  faith  in  the  beginning  of 
her  reign,  85. 

Refugees  return  in  Edward  Vl.'s  reign,  i.,  44.  In  Clueen 
Elizabeth's  time,  71.     See  Exiles. 

Regency  appointed  during  the  minority  of  Edward  VI., 
i.,  44. 

Regicides  tried,  and  many  executed,  ii.,  218,  n.  Three 
more  executed,  238. 

Relics  and  images  destroyed,  i.,  35. 

Religion,  sad  state  of  it,  i.,  128,  143.  Religious  assem- 
blies broke  up,  135.  Puritans'  opinion  of  religion,  248. 
Unsettled  state  of  it,  391-393.  Parliament's  propositii  ns 
relating  to  it,  415.  Debated  at  the  treaty  of  Uxbridge.  529. 
Propositions  relating  to  it  sent  to  the  king  at  Newc  isMe, 
ii.,  32.  State  of  it,  73.  Under  the  Rump-i)arliament,  113. 
Articles  relating  to  it  in  Cronivvell'.s  instrument  of  govern- 
ment, 135.  Allairsof  it  in  histime,  142.  Committee  draw 
up  the  fundamentals  of  it,  143.  Article  relating  to  it  in 
the  humble  petition  and  advice,  170.  State  of  it  after  the 
Eestor.ation,  2.37. 

Religion  of  Protestants  a  Safe  Way  to  Salvation,  an  ex- 
cellent treatise  by  Chillingworth,  i.,  474. 

Remonstrance  of  Parliament  against  Papists,  i.,271.  Of 
King  Charles's  third  Parliament,  288.  Of  the  Long-par- 
liament against  P.apists,  373.  Their  grand  remonstrance 
and  petition,  400,  401. 

Removal  of  certain  Imputations,  a  pamphlet  published 
by  the  ministers  of  Devon  and  Cornwall  to  vindicate  their 
loyalty,  i.,  250. 

Republicans,  two  sorts  of,  and  Cromwell's  management 
of  them,  ii.,  139.     They  plot  against  him,  142. 

Responses,  first  adopted  at  the  Reformation,  i.,  x. 

Restoration  of  Charles  11.,  ii.,  199.  The  times  preceding, 
and  that  followed.  208. 

Revels,  refer  to  Wakes. 

Revolution,  reflections  on,  and  on  the  act  of  toleration, 
ii.,  432. 

Reynolds,  Dr.,  his  remarks  on  Bancroft's  sermon  about 
the  divine  right  of  Episcopacy,  i.,  180,  n.  His  part  in  the 
Hampton  Court  conference,  231.  His  death  and  character, 
and  the  remarkable  case  of  him  and  his  brother,  2.52. 

Reynolds,  Dr.  Edward,  account  of,  ii.,  69.  His  behaviour 
in  the  Savoy  conference,  230.     His  death,  284,  n. 

Rhemist  Testament,  Ciu-twright  forbid  to  answer  it,  i., 
178,  258. 

Ridley,  Dr..  preaches  against  linages  in  churches,  i.,  44. 
Succeeds  Bonner  in  the  bishopric  of  London,  50.  Is  very 
zealous  about  the  habits,  .52.  Relaxes  in  his  opinion  of 
them,  53.  Burned  with  Bishop  Latimer  at  Oxford.  63. 
Was  utterly  against  the  Popish  garmen's  at  last,  92,  103. 

Ring  in  marriage,  why  the  Puritans  disliked  it,  i.,  107. 

Rippon,  Mr.,  the  Brownisl,  inscription  on  his  coffin,  i., 
5200. 

Rippon,  treaty  of,  i.,  348. 

Rippon.  Dr.,  his  edition  of  the  Baptists'  confession  of 
faiih,  noticed  with  others,  ii  ,  389. 

Rites  and  Ceremonies,  of  retaining  the  Popish  ones,  i., 


47.  Reasons  of  the  English  exiles  at  Geneva  against  them, 
68.     See  also  Ceremonies.     Canon  about  them,  346. 

Roberts,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  71. 

Robinson,  John,  the  first  Independent,  i.,  243.  His  part- 
ing speech  to  iiis  congregation  at  llieir  going  to  New-Eng- 
land, 2t)9. 

Robinson's  Plan  of  Lectures  on  the  various  degrees  of 
religious  tyranny,  ii.,  24.  n.     On  the  directory,  42,  «. 

Rochelle,  siege  of,  i..  282. 

Uockrey,  Mr.,  expelled  the  university  for  nonconformity 
to  the  habits,  i.,  141. 

Rogers,  Ji>hn,  nsists  in  translating  the  Bible,  i.,  36. 
Preferred,  44.  His  martyrdom,  62.  Was  against  the  Po- 
pish habits,  92. 

Rogers,  John,  his  sulTerings,  i.,  326.  N.  Rogers  retires 
to  New-Engl  md,  32;;.     Ezekiel  Rogers  retires  also,  340. 

Romish  mis.sals,  foundation  of  the  morning  and  evening 
services  of  the  Common  Prayer-book,  i.,  47. 

Root  and  Branch  petition,  i.,  367,  368.  Counter  petition, 
308.     Speeches  for  the  former,  369. 

Rose  well.  Mr.,  his  trial,  ii.,  308.  He  is  condemned,  but 
pardoned,  309. 

Roundhead  and  Cavalier,  origin  of  those  appellations, 
i.,  403. 

Rouse,  Mr.,  his  speech  in  Parliament,  i.,  292. 

Rowe,  Mr.  John,  his  death,  &c.,  ii.,  287,  n. 

Royal.— State  of  the  royal  family,  ii.,  153.  Origin  of 
the  Royal  Societv,  174.  Cromwell's  management  of  the 
Royalists,  1.39.  "Their  plots  against  him,  140,  142,  176. 
His  severity  against  them  by  decimation,  142. 

Rudd,  Bishop,  his  speech  in  convocation  on  the  cross  in 
baptism,  and  in  favour  of  the  Puritans,  i.,  237. 

Ruperl,  Prince,  his  ch.aracter  and  behaviour  in  the  war, 
i.,  478.  His  bad  conduct  in  the  battle  of  Naseby  ;  the  king 
displeased  with  him,  ii.,  6. 

Russel,  L)rd,  beheaded,  ii.,  302. 

Rye-house  plot,  ii.,  302.  Nonconformists  charged  with 
it,  303.    Quakers  exonerate  them.selves  from  it,  303. 


Sabbath,  controversy  about  it.  i.,  208.  See  Lord's  day. 
Strict  observation  of  it,  454.  Ordinance  for  that  purpose, 
499. 

Sacrament,  act  for  administering  in  it  both  kinds,  i.,  45. 
Sacramentaiies,  who,  38.  Reformatiun  of  the  service,  46, 
54. 

Sacramental  test,  a  national  blemish,  i.,  xii.,  222. 

Sacrimenlaries  pe  secuted,  i.,  .38. 

Sadler,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  case  published,  ii.,  146. 

Saints'  days,  disliked  by  the  Puritans,  i.,  106.  Abolish- 
ed, ii.,  55. 

Salisbury  entered  by  a  party  of  armed  horse  during  the 
assizes,  and  the  judges  seized  by  the  Royalist.",  ii.,  142. 
They  are  defeated,  and  the  leaders  executed,  142. 

Salkield,  Mr.,  bis  sufTerings,  ii.,  306,  v. 

Sale  of  bishi'ps'  lands,  ordinance  for  it,  ii.,  36,  86 

Salteis'  Hall  lectures,  i.,  xx. 

Saltinarsh,  Mr.,  his  extraordinary  death,  ii.,  74. 

Samaritan  Bible,  some  particulars  of  it.  ii.,  161,  n. 

Sampson,  Mr.,  letter  of  agiinst  the  habits,  i.,  93.  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  ecclesiastical  commissioners  against  him 
and  Dr.  Humphreys,  96,  97,  7is.  He  is  deprived,  97.  Re- 
signs his  lecture.  135.  His  plain  dealing  with  Grindal, 
135.     His  death  and  character,  188. 

Snncroft,  archbishop,  his  circular  letter  to  his  clergy, 
ii.,  338. 

Sanderson,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  69,  n.  His  senti- 
ments concerning  the  ''Ct  of  uniformi:y,  242,  n. 

Sandys,  bishop  of  Worcester,  inveighs  against  the  hab- 
its, i.,  92,  93.  Reminds  the  queen  of  the  great  scarcity  of 
preachers,  100.  Translated  to  London,  and  his  charge  to 
the  clergy,  1 15.  His  letter  to  the  treasmer  for  suppressing 
the  Puritans,  124.  Made  Archbishop  of  York,  1.39.  His 
proceedings  against  Dean  Whittingham,  145.  And  other 
Puritans.  183.  His  death  ;  remarkable  passage  in  his  will, 
188,  71. 

Saville,  Lord,  his  letter  to  encourage  the  Scots,  i.,  343. 

Savoy  confession,  ii.,  178. 

Savoy  conference  ;  name.s  of  the  divines  on  both  sides  ; 
opening  of  the  conference;  haidships  of  the  Pn^sbyterians 
in  it;  a  disputation  proposed;  bi-havicuir  of  the  commis- 
sioners; of  the  disputants;  of  the  auditors;  censures  of 
the  conference,  ii ,  227-231. 

Saunders,  Mr.,  burned  at  Coventry,  i.,  62. 

Saunders,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii..  67. 

Seandabuis  ministers,  committee  for  them,  i..  449. 
White's  publication,  called  the  First  Centiirv  of  them; 
other  testimonies  of  their  character,  451.  The  Earl  of 
Manchester's  warrant  empowering  it  to  .act,  4H6. 

Schism,  Puritans  vindicate  themselves  from  this  and 
other  chiirges,  i.,  195.  Schism  bill:  repealed  by  George 
I.,  ii.,  3.50;  Appendiv  XV.,  XVI.,  490,  491. 

Scholars  of  the  Univer.-ity  of  Oxford,  for  their  inso- 
lence are  expelled,  ii.,  66. 


INDEX. 


561 


School  in  Gravel-lane,  SouOiwark,  u.,  435. 
Schoolmasters  restrained,  i.,  177. 

Scotland,  the  Reformation  there,  i.,  83.  Their  confes- 
sion of  faitli,  and  kirk  discipline,  84.  Farther  account  of 
attairs  there,  10.5.  Their  kirk  discipline  established,  106. 
A  sumnmry  of  the  kirk  affairs  there,  206.  Scots  divines 
■write  to  the  bishops  against  imposing  the  habits,  94.  Be- 
haviour of  James  I.  before  his  accession  to  the  English 
crown,  227.  Episcopacy  restored  there  against  the  sense 
of  the  nation,  255.  His  progress  and  proceedings  there, 
205.  Charles's  progress  there,  308.  I^aud's  behaviour 
there,  309.  Book  of  canons  for  that  kingdom,  322.  And 
liturgy,  334.  Charles's  second  progress.  390.  Progress  of 
the  English  army  there,  ii.,  114,  126.  Reduced  by  Monk, 
and  united  to  the  commonwealth,  127.  Low  condition  of 
the  kirk;  liberty  iif  conscience  settled;  the  kirk  insulted, 
128.  State  of  Scotland  then,  and  afterward,  128.  Incor- 
porated with  England,  140.  Episcopacy  restored,  233. 
Summary  of  the  persecution  there;  proceedings  of  the 
government;  which  occasion  an  insurrection,  310.  Of 
house  and  field  conventicles,  310.  Effects  of  the  persecu- 
tion, 310.  Its  affairs  in  James's  reign.  325.  His  declara 
lion  there,  327.     Presbytery  restored,  350. 

Scots  bishops  consecrated,  i.,  265.  Their  declinator 
against  thp  general  assembly,  338.  They  are  deposed, 
339.  Scots  liturgy,  334.  Imposed  by  the  prerogative,  334. 
Occasions  tumults,  334.  Reasons  against  it.  335.  Peti- 
tions against  it,  and  a  protestation,  335.  Scots  Parliament, 
342.  Scots  .=ettlemenls  in  Ireland,  261.  Their  discipline  ; 
and  ordinations,  262.  Scots  tables,  and  solemn  league 
and  baud  of  defence,  336.  King's  concession  to  them, 
337.  Preparations  of  the  English  court  against  them,  3:i8. 
Are  encouraged  by  the  English,  343.  Their  charge  against 
Laud,  3.i6.  Abstract  of  the  pacification  with  them  ;  de- 
clared faithful  subjects,  38S).  Offer  their  mediation  be- 
tween the  king  and  English  Parliament,  412.  Their  letter 
to  the  P.irliament,  420.  First  Scots  war,  339,341.  The 
second,  348.  Scots  called  in  by  ihe  English  parliament 
and  assembly  of  divines,  463.  Their  le'isons  for  assisting 
the  Parliament;  they  appoint  a  solemn  league  and  cove- 
nant, 404.  Their  unbounded  zeal  in  imposing  it,  467. 
Their  army  enters  England,  477.  Their  e.\ceptions  to  the 
ordinance  for  erecting  presbyteries  in  England,  ii.,  13.  The 
Parliament's  reply,  14.  Their  declaration  against  toleri- 
tion,  19.  The  king  surrenders  himself  to  their  array,  22. 
Their  zeal  against  sectaries,  24.  Their  behaviour  to  the 
king,  27.  Their  kirk  will  not  trust  him,  and  publish  a 
solemn  warning  and  declaration;  proceedings  of  their 
Parliament  in  relation  to  him,  34.  They  deliver  him  up, 
and  publish  their  reasons,  34.  They  receive  the  whole 
Westminster  confession  of  faith,  42.  Their  commissioners 
take  leave  of  the  assembly,  42.  They  appoint  a  fast  for 
the  distractions  of  England,  42.  Account  of  the  discipline 
in  their  kirk,  42,  n.  King's  private  treaty  with  them,  53. 
Their  army  enters  England  under  Duke  Hamilt  m,  and  is  de- 
feated by  Cromwell,  76.  They  press  the  king's  consent  in 
the  treaty  of  Newport,  86.  "They  protest  against  putting 
him  to  death,  94.  Their  declaration  against  the  English, 
111.  Their  treaty  with  the  king  in  Holland,  111.  Condi- 
tions of  it,  114.  Cromwell  marchesagainstthem, 114.  De- 
feats them  at  Dunbar,  115.  He  invites  their  ministers  to 
return,  115.  Their  army  under  the  king  marches  to  Eng- 
land, 126.  Are  defeated  at  Worcester,  127.  Low  state 
of  the  kirk,  127.  Terms  to  restore  the  kins,  200.  New 
ficots  bishops  made,  233.  Their  character,  234, 310.  Char- 
acter of  the  Scots  Presbyterians,  and  their  sufferings,  310. 
Scripture,  whether  to  be  interpreted  by  antiquity  and 
tradition,  ii.,  29,  30. 

Scriptures,  debates  about  translating  them,  i.,  36.    See 
Bible. 

"Scruple-shop,"  ap])ellation  of  the  conference  held  by 
the  divines  sent  to  reform  the  University  of  O.vford,  ii.,  58. 
Seaman,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  482. 
Be-Baptist,  a  title  given  to  Mr.  Smith,  i.,  243. 
Secret  History  of  the  Court  and  Reign  of  Charles  II.,  i., 
233,  236,  277,  ns. 

Sectaries,  canon  against  them,  1.,  346.     Presbyterians' 
remonstrance  .against  them,  ii.,  24.    The  Independents  op- 
j)0se  it,  24.     Presbyterians'  petition,  36.     Edwards's  Gan- 
gra;na  written  against  tliem,  37.    Ba.xter's  account  of  them ; 
Lord  Clarendon's  and  Bishop  Bramhall's,  38. 
Sedgwick,  O.,  his  death,  ii.,  175. 
Sees,  vacant  ones,  debates  about  filling  them,  ii..  194. 
Selden,  Mr.,  his  recantation,  i.,  266.     Hi?  character  of 
the  clergy,  2"6,  n.     His  sentiments  concerning  convoca- 
tions, 461,  n.    On  the  Parliament  at  O.xford,  477,  71.     His 
speech  against  suspensions  and  e.xcommuaications,  ii.,  11. 
His  death  and  character,  153,  71s. 
Self-denying  ordinance,  ii.,  6. 

Self-employment  in   Secret,   by  Corbet,   an    excellent 
work,  ii.,  290. 

Seminaries,  Popish,  erected,  i.,  137.    The  oath  taken  by 
the  students,  137. 
Sepi  ration  from  the  Church  of  England,  the  rise  of  it, 
Vol.  1I.-4  B 


i.,  105.  The  chief  leaders  of  It,  103.  It  increases,  148. 
Protestation  of  the  members  of  those  that  joined  the  sep- 
arate Church,  132.  Their  assemblies  broke  up,  135.  Arch- 
bishop Laud's  sentiments  of  it,  243.  A  second  separation 
from  the  Church,  248.  Debates  about  the  lawfulness  of 
it,  ii.,  17. 

Sequestrations,  committee  of.  i.,  480. 

Servants,  time  for  their  recreation,  ii.,  55. 

Service-book,  or  liturgy.  King  Edward's  first,  i.,  47.  Oc- 
casions insurrections,  48.  His  second  service-book.  54.  A 
belter  designed  by  Cranmer,  56.  Disputes  about  it  among 
the  English  exiles,  66.  Calvin's  judginent  of  it,  66.  Re- 
viewed and  established  under  Queen  Elizabeth,  70.  "The 
pope  ofleis  to  confirm  it,  85.  Motives  for  Jimendments  in 
it,  1.57.  Service  of  the  Church,  what  the  Puritans  wanted 
amended,  228-2.32.  Laud's  alteration  in  the  service-book, 
314.     Of  reading  the  second  service,  513. 

Settle,  Mr.,  his  examination  and  troubles,  i..  183. 

Seward,  Dr.,  his  reply  to  Mr.  Henderson  about  bishops, 
i.,  530. 

Sexual  distinction,  wisely  abrogated  by  Quakers,  ii.,  431. 

Sliaftesbury,  Earl  of,  deserts  the  cabal,  ii.,  277.  He  is 
sent  to  the  Tower,  298. 

Shaxton,  Bishop,  a  friend  to  the  Reformation,  i.,  34. 
Resigns  his  bishopric,  but  turns  apostate  and  prosecutor, 
39. 

Sheldon,  Archbishop,  account  of,  ii.,  08,  n.  Promotes 
the  act  of  uniformity  ;  his  character,  240.  Proceedings  at 
the  opening  of  his  theatre,  264,  n.  His  letter  to  the  bish- 
ops against  the  Nonconforn)ists,  207.  Another,  280.  His 
death,  286,  vs. 

Shep])ard,  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  318. 

Sheitield,  Mr.,  tried  in  the  star-chamber  for  demolishing 
some  painted  windows  in  St.  Edmimd's  Church,  Salisbu- 
ry;  his  defence  and  sentence,  >.,  307,  509. 

Ship-money,  tonnage,  &c.,  promoted  by  Land,  i.,  504. 

Shorter,  J.,  lord  tnnyor  his  behaviour,  ii.,  331. 

Shower,  John,  his  reception  at  Geneva,  ii.,  302,  n. 

Sibhes,  Dr.,  his  death,  character,  and  works,  i..  323,  it. 

Sibthorpe's  sermon,  i..  286.    He  is  preferred,  287. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  executed,  ii.,  302,  n. 

Sims,  John,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  370. 

Simpson,  Cuthbert,  put  to  the  rack  and  burned,  1.,  66. 

Singleton,  John,  account  of.  i.,  xviii. 

Singularity,  the  Puritans  vindicate  themselves  from  that 
and  other  charges,  i.,  195. 

Six  articles,  statute  of,  i.,  39.  Their  rigour  abated,  42. 
Repealed,  45. 

Skippon,  Major  general,  encourages  his  soldiers,  i.,  441. 
His  bravery  in  the  battle  of  Naseby,  ii.,  6. 

Small  brook.  Dr.,  on  the  danger  of  the  Church  and  Dis- 
senters, i.,  436. 

Smart,  his  sufferings,  i.,  299,  n. 

Smectvmnuus  reply  to  Bishop  Hall's  defence  of  litur- 
gies, i.,  363.  And  of' the  English  liturgy,  304.  They  are 
for  ordination  by  presbyters,  365.  Their  petition  about 
Episcopacy  and  liturgy,  367. 

Smith,  George,  i.,  xxi. 

Smith,  John,  examined  with  other  Puritans  by  Arch- 
bishop Grindal,  i.,  108. 

Smith,  Mr.,  and  other  Brownists,  their  sufferings,  i., 
199,  243,  n. 

Snape,  Dr.,  spirit  of  his  writings,  i.,  475, 71. 

Snelling,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  313. 

Society  for  propagating  the  Gospel,  ii.,  253.  For  distrib- 
uting Bibles  in  Wales,  280,  n. 

Socinianism,  canon  against  it,  i.,  345. 

Solemn  league  and  covenant  renewed,  i.,  336.  Solemn 
vow  of  the  Long-parliament,  377.  Ordered  to  be  gener- 
ally taken,  377.  Drawn  up  and  passed  by  the  Scots  ;  de- 
bates npon  it  in  England;  where  it  is  agreed  to,  464.  A 
copy  of  it,  465.  Manner  of  taking  it,  467.  An  exhortation 
to  the  taking  it,  467.  Unretisonableness  of  imposing  it, 
408,  409.  Instructions  for  taking  it  in  Ihe  country,  468. 
The  king  forbids  the  taking  it,  469.  The  influence  it  had 
on  the  clergy,  409.  Ordered  to  be  read  and  hung  up  in 
churches,  500.  Presbyterians'  petition  to  have  it  imposed 
on  the  whole  nation,  ii  ,  .30.  Abstract  of  the  University 
of  Oxford's  reasons  against  it ;  exceptions  against  the  pre- 
face ;  the  covenant  in  general;  contradictions  and  doubt- 
ful expressions  in  the  covenant ;  absurdities  in  pursuing 
the  ends  of  it ;  of  the  salvos  for  ttiking  it,  59-02.  The  sol- 
emn league  declared  illegal,  225. 

Song  of  Solomon  and  the  Revelations,  commentaries  on, 
by  T.  Brightman,  i.,  252. 

Sons  of  the  clergy,  origin  of  the  society  for,  ii.,  100. 

Spanish  invasion,  i.,  187. 

Spanish  match,  i.,  273.     Broken  off  274. 

Spanish  Plate  fleet  taken,  ii.,  163.  Another  destroyed, 
172. 

Sparke,  Dr.,  in  the  conference  at  Lambeth,  i.,  166. 

Speeches  of  James  1.  to  his  Parliament,  i  ,  2.36,  253,271, 
27.5.  Of  Bishop  Rudd,  about  the  cross  in  baptism,  and  in 
favour  of  the  Puritans,  237.    Speech  against  bishoiH  and 


562 


INDEX. 


their  courts,  253.  Speeches  in  Parliament,  291,  2<)2,  n.";2, 
309,  381.  Of  King  Charles  I.  at  dissolving  his  tliird  Par- 
liament, 295.     In  ftivour  of  the  hierarchy,  309. 

Spiritual  courts,  on  what  ground  their  authority  now 
stands,  and  /low  limited,  i.,  33.  Olijections  of  the  Puritans 
against  them,  100.  Their  e.\tortion  and  rigorous  proceed- 
ings, 112,  131.  Debates  in  Parliament  about  them,  197, 
212.     Prohibitions  to  stop  proceedings  in  them,  212. 

Spratt's  History  of  the  Ryehouse  Plot,  ii.,  302,  n. 

Spurstow,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  484. 

Spurstow,  William,  his  death  and  character,  ii.,  259. 

Siiuire,  Mr.,  his  case,  i.,  450. 

Standing  army,  origin  of,  ii.,  220,  n.  James's,  324.  Mr. 
Johnson's  letter  to  them,  324,  n.  New  modelled  by  the 
admission  of  Papists,  332. 

Star-chamber,  account  of,  i.,  194.  A  great  grievance, 
195.    Account  of,  280.    Act  for  abolishing  it,  380. 

Statuies  of  O.vford,  i.,  512,  513. 

Staunton,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  71.    Hi?  death,  273,  n. 

Stay  against  straying,  by  J.  Ball,  i.,  348. 

Stern,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  482. 

Sternhold  and  Hopkins'  version  of  the  Psalms  complain- 
ed of  by  the  assembly  of  divines,  and  Rouse's  version 
adopted,  ii.,  20. 

Stillingfieet's  Irenicum,  ii.,  223.  On  his  change  of  sen- 
timents, 224,  n.    Writes  against  Dissenters,  295. 

Stordy,  Thomas,  history  of,  ii.,  428. 

Strafford,  Earl  of,  advises  a  second  war  with  the  Scots, 
i.,  339.  His  impeachment  and  trial;  execution  and  char- 
acter, 374-376. 

Stretten,  R.,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  306. 

Strickland,  Mr.,  forbid  the  House  of  Commons  by  the 
queen,  i.,  11.5. 

Stringer,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  69. 

Strong,  William,  his  death,  ii.,  154.  His  body  dug  up, 
236. 

Strotid,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  124.  His  farther  troubles, 
and  petitions  in  his  favour,  141. 

Strype,  Mr.,  his  errors  in  the  memorials  of  Cranmer, 
i.,  xvi. 

Stubbs,  Mr.,  writes  against  the  queen's  match,  for  which 
his  right  hand  was  cut  off,  i.,  147. 

Stuarts,  character  of  the,  i.,  227.  End  of  the  male  line 
of,  ii.,  ,S41. 

Subscriptions  to  human  forms,  the  unreasonableness  of 
imposing  them,  and  the  difficulties  the  clergy  labour  under 
therefrom,  i.,  116.  See  Articles.  Form  of  subscription 
for  the  clergy  and  laity,  130.  Subscription  required  by 
Whitgift,  156-158.  Subscription  required  of  the  clergy, 
239.  Numbers  refuse,  241.  Lincolnshire  ministers'  rea- 
sons against  it,  246.     Occasions  a  second  separation,  248. 

Succession  and  supremticy,  the  oath  of,  i.,  34.  Uninter- 
rupted succession  of  the  bishops,  330. 

Sufterings  of  Christ,  dispute  about  the  nature  of  them, 
i.,210. 

Suffolk  men,  how  treated  by  Queen  Mary,  i.,  58. 

Supplication  of  the  Puritans  to  the  Parliament,  with 
their  survey  and  bill  annexed,  i.,  179.    See  Petitions. 

Supplication  of  the  Beggars,  a  book,  i.,  34. 

Surplice,  see  Habits.     Puritans'  objections  to,  i.,  246. 

Supremacy,  act  of,  i.,  32.  Oath  administered,  33.  Exe- 
cutions for  refusing  it,  37-40.  It  may  as  well  be  prejudi- 
cial as  serviceable  to  religion,  57.  An  act  for  restoring  it 
under  Elizabeth,  72.  Powers  vested  in  the  crown  there- 
by, 73.  An  act  to  confirm  it,  87.  Puritans'  sentiments 
about  it,  195.  Protestation  about  it,  249.  Reasons  for 
amending  the  act  of,  254. 

Survey  of  the  Church,  as  to  its  ministers,  in  the  years 
1585,  1586,  i.,  180,  184. 

Suspension  from  the  sacrament,  ii.,  10.  Ordinance  and 
rules  for  it,  11,  12. 

Swaffield,  J.,  of  Salisbury,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  279. 

Switzerland,  entertain  with  great  humanity  the  early 
Reformers  of  England,  who  fled  from  the  persecutions  of 
(iueen  Mary,  i.,  x. 

Swinton,  Mr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  431,  n. 

Symmonds,  Mr.,  i.,  450. 

Synderconibe's  plot,  ii.,  163. 

Synod  of  Dort;  oath;  behaviour  of  the  remonstrants, 
and  of  the  English  divines,  i.,  263-265.  Censures  on  the 
synod,  265.  Debates  about  the  subordination  of  synods, 
ii.,  9. 

Synods  of  the  Puritans,  conclusions  in  them,  1.,  140, 185, 
194,  196.     See  Classes. 

Synopsis  Criticorum,  5  vols,  folio,  by  Pool,  some  account 
of;  his  commentary,  ii.,  291,  n. 

T. 

Tables  ordered  in  the  room  of  altars,  i.,  51. 
Table-talk,  by  Selden,  i.,  461.  n.,  477,  n. 
Tarente,  Prince  of,  Cromwell's  letter  to,  ii.,  153. 
Taxes,  grievous  ones  on  the  people,  i.,  448. 
Taylor,  Dr.,  his  martyrdom,  i.,  02.    He  derided  the  Po- 
pish garments,  92. 


Taylor,  Francis,  his  death  and  works,  ii.,  209,  n. 

Taylor,  Thomas,  memoirs  of,  ii.,  407. 

Teojple,  William,  sent  to  Holland,  and  concludesa  triple 
alliance,  ii.,  261. 

Templars  received  the  sacrament  sitting,  i.,  172. 

Test-act;  original  design  of  it,  i.,  xii.     Its  hardship,  223. 

Test-act  brought  into  the  house;  receives  the  royal  as- 
sent, ii.,  277.     King  William  for  taking  it  off,  345. 

Testimonials  to  ministers,  copies  of,  ii.,  137. 

Thacker,  Mr.,  executed,  i.,  153. 

Theodosius's  law,  a  usurpation  on  conscience,  I.,  43. 

Theses  Martiniante,  a  satirical  work,  i.,  189. 

Thirty-nine  articles,  see  Articles. 

Thomas,  Serjeant,  his  speech  against  the  bishops,  i., 
370.     Against  de.ans  and  chapters,  382. 

Thompson,  John,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  280. 

Tillolson,  Archbishop,  his  sermon;  anecdote  relating  to 
the  quotation,  i.,  xiv.,  n.,  79.  Account  of  ii.,  230,  280.  His 
answer  to  Archbishop  Shelden,  272,  n. 

Timothy  and  Titus  not  called  bishops  in  the  Alexandri- 
an copy  of  the  Bible,  i.,  365,  n. 

Titchbourne,  Alderman,  one  of  the  lay-commissioners 
for  the  approbation  of  ministers,  ii.,  144. 

Tithes,  Selden's  History  of,  i.,  260,  n.  Petitions  against 
tithes,  ii.,  130. 

Titles  of  pamphlets  on  Episcopacy,  i.,  363.  Against  vis- 
iters of  the  University  of  Oxford,  ii.,  68.  On  King  Charles's 
death,  97. 

Toleration,  proposals  for  it  by  the  Independents,  ii.,  16, 
17-24.  London  ministers  declare  against  it,  44.  Petitioned 
for  by  Cromwell  and  his  army,  110.  Debates  on  the  rea- 
sonableness of  toleration,  264.  Attempted  in  Parliament, 
and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham's  speech  for  it,  282.  Act  of 
toleration  brought  in  and  passed,  345,  n.  See  the  act,  Ap- 
pendix XIH.,  483.     Reflections  on  this  act,  432. 

Tombes,  Mr.,  account  of,  i.,  498.  His  death,  ii.,  285. 
Triers  admit  him,  and  acknowledge  the  Baptists,  392. 

Tomkins,  Martin,  account  of,  i.,  xvii.  The  aflkir  be- 
tween Mr.  A.«ty  and  him  discussed,  225,  226. 

Tomkins's  plot,  i.,  447. 

Tonnage  and  poundage,  i.,  294,  295. 

Tonstal,  Bishop,  deprived,  i.,  55.  Restored,  58.  De- 
prived again,  77. 

Tories,  account  of,  ii.,  293.  King  William  made  uneasy 
by  them,  and  their  conduct  to  the  Dissenters  since  the 
Revolution,  350. 

Towie,  Thomas,  his  request  to  the  editor,  respecting  an 
assertion  relative  to  Mr.  Asty,  i.,  225. 

Tracts  in  three  vols,  folio,  against  Popery,  noticed,  ii., 
320,  ns. 

Travers,  Mr.,  testimonial  of  his  ordination  to  Antwerp, 
i.,  144.  Concerned  in  the  Lambeth  conference,  166.  His 
troubles.  171.  Suspended,  177.  Supplicates  the  council, 
and  Hooker's  answer  to  it,  177.  He  is  silenced  for  life, 
178. 

Travis,  Rebecca,  account  of,  ii.,  432. 

Treaty  of  Ripp  >n,  i.,  348.  Of  Newport,  ii.,  81.  Parlia- 
ment's proposals,  and  the  king's  reply,  81.  Conference 
between  the  king  and  the  Parliament  divines  about  Epis- 
copacy, 82.  King's  (ina!  concessions,  86-88.  Treaty  of 
Oxford,  i.,  444-446.  Of  Uxhridge,  527.  The  commission- 
ers, 527.  Treaty  begins,  528.  Debates  about  the  militia, 
528.  About  Ireland,  528.  About  religion,  529.  Breaks 
off,  532. 

"Triers  appointed  for  the  approbation  of  ministers;  their 
names  and  instructions ;  copy  of  their  presentation,  ii., 
145.  Complaint?  and  objections  to  them ;  their  proceed- 
ings, 146.  Mr.  Baxter's  opinion  of  them,  147.  Of  their 
admission  of  Mr.  Tombes,  and  acknowledgment  of  the 
Baptisu,  392. 

Trigg,  Hannah,  her  sufferings,  ii.,  413. 

Trigland,  Dr.,  the  Dutch  minister  at  the  Hague  written 
to,  to  prove  the  king's  steadfastness  in  the  reformed  faitli, 
ii.,  195. 

Tuckney,  Dr.,  account  of,  i.,  483.    His  death,  ii.,  270,  n. 

Tumults  about  the  Parliament-house,  and  in  the  city, 
i.,  403. 

Turner,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  69. 

Tutchin,  Mr.,  sentencetl  to  such  whipping  that  he  peti- 
tions to  be  hanged,  ii.,  318. 

Twisse,  Dr.,  prolocutor  to  the  assembly  of  divines,  i., 
458.     His  death  and  character,  ii..  40. 

Tyndal's  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  the 
whole  Bible,  i.,  36.    He  suffers  martyrdom,  36. 


Vacancies  in  the  University  of  Oxford  filled  up,  ii.,  73 

Valentine,  Mr.,  committed  with  others  to  the  Tower, 
i.,  294. 

Van  Paris,  George,  burned  for  a  heretic,  i..  49. 

Vane,  H.  sen.,  his  character,  i.,  351.  H.  Vane,  jun.,  his 
speech  in  Parliament.  369.  His  trial ;  his  execution  and 
behaviour  on  the  scaffold,  ii.,  239. 

VanistS;  a  sect  during  the  Parliament  times,  ii.,  38. 


INDEX. 


563 


Variffi  Lectiones,  an  unfinished  pamphlet  against  the 
Church,  seized,  i.,  189. 

Viissal,  Mr.,  and  other  merchants,  their  goods  seized, 
i.,  294. 

Vaiiglian,  Bishop,  translated  to  London,  and  his  answer 
to  the  French  and  Dutcii  cluirclies,  i.,  340. 

Vaughan,  J.,  his  character  and  conduct,  ii.,  269,  n. 

Venables  and  Penn  talce  Jamaica,  ii.,  156. 

Venuer's  insurrection,  ii.,  220. 

Veslinents  of  the  priests,  see  Habits. 

Ve.\atious  citations,  canon  about  them,  i.,  347. 

Vezey,  Bishop,  resigns,  i.,  54. 

Vices,  ordinance  against,  ii.,  117.  Increase  after  the 
Restoration,  237. 

Vickris,  Richard,  his  case,  ii.,  42-1. 

View  of  Public  Wants  and  Disorders,  by  Mr.  Penry  in 
1588,  i.,  203. 

Villiers  Barbara,  Charles  II.  spends  on  her  the  money 
that  the  sale  of  Dunkirk  produced,  ii.,  238,  n. 

Vincent,  Thomas,  liis  death,  ii.,  289,  n.,  302. 

Vindication  of  the  Presbyterian  Government  and  Minis- 
try, ii.,  18,  n. 

Vines,  Dr.,  account  of,  !.,  483,  ii.,  155,  n. 

Virginia,  a  bishop  designated  for  it,  ii.,  311,  «. 

Visitation  Royal,  in  Edward  VI. 's  time,  for  promoting 
the  Reformation,  i.,  42.  To  e.\amine  the  church  plate,  55. 
Another  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  79. 

Vitalian,  Pope,  first  introduced  music  and  chanting  of 
prayers  into  tlie  Church,  A.D.  066,  i.,  513. 

Voltaire  censured,  i.,  77,  ?;. 

Vorstius,  his  opinions,  and  James  I.'s  zeal  against  him, 
i.,  258,  n. 

Votes  of  no  more  addresses  to  the  king,  ii.,  55. 

Vowel  and  Gerhard  executed,  ii.,  140,  n. 

Udal,  Mr.,  his  examination,  i.,  190.  His  imprisonment 
in  the  Gatehouse,  192.  His  trial ;  he  is  convicted.  192. 
The  judges  offer  him  a  submission,  which  he  refuses,  but 
offers  one  of  his  own,  192.  His  petition,  192.  His  reasons 
for  arrest  of  judgment,  192.  His  sentence,  193.  His  con- 
fession of  faith,  193.  Petitions  to  be  banished,  193.  His 
death  in  prison,  and  character,  193. 

Undertree's  sham  plot,  i.,  135. 

Uniformity  in  religion,  the  unreasonableness  of  forcing 
it,  i.,  44,  108.  The  Reformers'  mistaken  opinion  of  its  ne- 
cessity, 47,  75,  77.  Debates  about  it,  ii.,  17.  Acts  of  uni- 
formity brought  into  Parliament,  and  passed;  authors  or 
promoters  of  it ;  conduct  of  the  Presbyterians ;  ministers 
quitting  their  livings,  and  ejected  by  that  act,  239-246. 

Uniformity,  act  of,  i.,  76.  Complaint  made  of  the  non- 
observance  of  it;  the  queen's  order  to  enforce  it,  90. 

Universities  visited,  i.,  69.  Their  sad  state,  86.  See 
Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  New  visiters  for 
them,  ii.,  152.  Heads  of  colleges,  &c.,  restored  at  the 
Restoration;  new  creations  in  the  universities.  206.  A 
general  licentiousness  prevails  in  them,  204.  Their  ad- 
dresses to  King  James  upon  his  accession,  315. 

University  of  Oxford  visited  by  the  Papists,  who  burn 
all  the  English  Bibles,  i.,  69  Their  answer  to  the  Puri- 
tans' millenary  petition,  SK29.  Their  famous  decree,  272. 
Their  new  statutes,  324.  ,\ddress  in  favour  of  the  hierar- 
chy, 381.  Their  loyalty,  417.  Vice-chancellor's  letter  in 
behalf  of  it,  418.  Tlie  chancellor's  answer,  418.  Condi- 
tion of  the  university,  462.  Ministers  sent  to  reform  it,  ii., 
57.  Ordinance  for  visiting  it,  58.  Abstract  of  their  rea- 
sons against  the  covenant,  59.  The  visitation  opened,  62. 
They  use  the  visitors  ill,  and  will  not  submit,  63.  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  being  made  chancellor,  visits  them  in  jierson, 
64.  Insolence  of  the  scholars,  66.  Heads  of  colleges,  67. 
Their  behaviour,  72.  Vacancies  in  the  universities  filled 
up,  58-73. 

University  of  Cambridge,  their  privilege  of  licensing 
preachers,  i.,  101.  They  scruple  the  habits,  101.  Petition 
of  some  of  the  students  for  better  ministers,  147.  The  pre- 
destinarian  controversy  begins  there,  209.  Declare  highly 
for  the  Church,  229.  Thank  the  Oxonians  for  their  an- 
swer to  the  Puritans,  229.  Votes  of  Parliament  agiinst 
subscriptions  there,  362.  Address  in  favour  of  the  hierar- 
chy ;  their  loyalty,  381.  Their  behaviour,  480.  Visitation 
of  it,  4H].    Their  revenues  preserved,  ii.,  20. 

Usher,  Archbishop,  i.,  261.  His  notion  of  Episcopacy, 
303,  360, 71.  Ilis  reduction  of  it  to  a  synodical  government, 
384.  His  sentiments  about  Episcopacy,  and  scheme  for 
reducing  it  to  the  form  of  Presbytery,  ii.,  88.  His  death 
and  ch.-iracter,  160,  101,  ns. 

Utenhovius,  i.,  240,  n. 

Utrecht  and  other  places  sought  aa  an  asylum  from  the 
abuse  of  church  power,  i.,  242. 

Uxbridge,  treaty  of,  i.,  527. 
W. 

Wakes  and  revels  on  the  Lord's  day  countenanced,  i., 
311.  Laud's  letter  and  the  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Well's 
answer  about  them.  311,  312. 

Waldron,  Mr.,  his  memorandiun  in  Mr.  Neal's  history, 
ii.,  308,  n. 


Wales,  act  for  propagating  the  Gospel  there,  ii.,  112, 149. 
Its  good  etj'ecis,  130.  Commissioners  for  Wales,  149.  Sad 
state  of  that  principality,  149-151. 

Walker,  Thomas,  account  of,  ii.,  09. 

Walker,  George,  his  death,  ii.,  129. 

Walker,  Dr.,  on  the  Suflerings  of  the  Clergy,  i.,  434;  ii., 
243,  244,  ns. 

Wallingford  House  party  depose  Richard,  ii.,  186. 

Wallis,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  7J,  n.  His  letter  to  Mr. 
Boyle,  on  the  opening  of  Archbishop  Sheldon's  theatre, 
264,  re. 

Walloon  Church,  i.,  156,  n. 

Wandsworth,  the  first  presbytery  held  there,  1.,  126. 

Warburton  replied  to  for  his  censures  on  Neal's  history, 
i.,  59,  93,  108,  146,  148,  151,  152,  154,  159,  176,  177,  l»l,  190, 
223,  227,  233,  232,  206,  268,  274,  275,  270,  299,  320,  329,  374, 
396,  399,  404,  406,  416,  422,  425,  427,  431,  460,  468,  477,  499, 
528,  533 ;  ii.,  50,  79,  89,  90,  97,  98,  99. 

Warcup,  Mrs.,  of  Berkshire,  shelters  Dr.  Humphreys 
and  other  persecuted  Protestants,  i.,  97. 

Ward,  Samuel,  account  of,  i.,  482. 

Ward,  Dr.  Seth,  account  of,  ii.,  71,  71. 

Waring,  Mr.,  account  of,  ii.,  69. 

Warmistre,  Mr.,  his  speech  in  convocation,  i.,  353. 

Warner,  H.,  arrested  on  a  charge  of  heresy,  i.,  31,  n. 

Warner,  Dr.,  his  sentitnents  on  the  King's  Book,  i.,  3], 
n.  Other  remarks  of  his,  62,  03,  81,  85,  87,  100,  108,  197, 
198,  229,  233,  256,  282,  354. 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  his  character,  i.,  351. 

Welsh  Bibles,  eight  thousand  printed  by  Mr.  Gouge,  ii., 
300. 

Wentworth,  Peter,  his  answer  to  the  archbishop,  i.,  115. 
His  bold  speech  to  Parliament,  120. 

Westminster  bishopric  erected,  i.,  35.     Suppressed,  55. 

Westtield,  Bishop,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  500. 

West  of  England,  Kirk  and  Jeffries'  cruellies  there,  ii., 
318. 

Whig  and  Tory,  rise,  ii.,  293.  Sufferings  of  the  Whigs, 
307.     Severely  prosecuted  by  King  James,  318. 

Whichcote,  Dr.,  .-iccount  of,  i.,  483,  v. ;  u.,  307. 

Whitaker,  Jeremiah,  his  death,  ii.,  155.  William  Whit- 
aker,  279. 

White,  William,  his  bold  and  smart  letter  to  Archbishop 
Grindal,  i.,  110. 

White,  Mr.,  his  remarkable  examination,  i.,  131.  n. 

White,  Mr.,  his  publication  entitled  Century  of  Scanda- 
lous, Malignant  Priests,  i.,  451.  Ilis  death  and  character, 
533,  n. 

White,  T.,  his  letter  about  the  growth  of  Popery,  i.,  367. 
White's  speech  against  the  oider  of  bishops,  370. 

White,  Jeremy,  some  account  of  his  manuscript  list  of 
Dissenters'  suflerings,  ii.,  322. 

Whitehead,  Mr.,  his  death  and  character,  i.,  119, 

Whitehead,  George,  and  T.  Burr,  their  persecution,  ii., 
424. 

Whiteing,  Rev.  Mr.,  removes  to  New-England,  i.,  327. 

Whitgift,  Dr.,  writes  for  dispensing  with  the  habits  at 
Cambridge,  i.,  102.  But  afterward  defends  them,  102.  Is 
Cartwright's  great  antagonist,  114.  Answers  the  admoni- 
tion to  the  Parliament;  his  standard  of  discipline  and 
church  government,  and  his  severe  usage  of  Curtwright, 
123.  His  defenc(;  of  his  answer  against  Cartwright's  rejily, 
and  his  ungenerous  treatment  of  his  adversary,  124.  Made 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  156.  His  three  articles,  .and 
his  power  of  imposing  them  examined,  156.  His  primary 
visitation,  157.  His  reason  for  subscribing  his  articles, 
158.  Remonstrates  to  the  council  against  the  petitions  of 
the  people  for  their  deprived  ministers,  159.  Peiitions  the 
queen  for  a  new  ecclesiastical  commission,  160.  His 
twenty-four  articles  of  inquiry,  163,  n.  Which  he  justi- 
fies, 164.  His  reasons  for  the  oath  ex  officio.  165.  His 
complaint  of  Mr.  Beale  in  the  star  chamber,  166,  Hi«  be- 
haviour in  the  Lambeth  conference,  166.  {'is  letter  iCi 
the  queen  against  the  bills  for  fiirther  reform,  174.  His 
reasons  against  marrying  at  all  times  in  the  year,  175.  He 
rejects  the  proposals  of  the  Puritans,  175.  Gets  the  press 
restrained,  176.  Licenses  Popish  books,  182.  His  treat- 
ment of  Mr.  Settle,  183.  His  new  articles  of  visitation, 
190.  Sir  F.  Knolly's  letter  to  the  treasurer  about  his  ar- 
bitrary proceedings,  195.  His  examination  of  Barrow  the 
Brownist,  201.  BaiTow's  saying  of  him,  and  letter  against 
him,  202.  He  complains  of  prohibitions  being  granted,  but 
in  vain,  212.  He  sends  express  to  James  I.  in  Scotland, 
upon  the  death  of  Ciuecn  Elizabeth,  228.  His  letter  to 
Cecil  about  the  Puritans,  230.  Ilis  behaviour  in  the  Hamp- 
ton Court  conference.  231.  His  fialtering  speech  to  King 
James,  233.     His  death  and  character,  235. 

Whitelocke,  Bulstrode,  his  speech  in  the  assembly  of  di- 
vines, about  the  divine  right  of  Presbytery,  ii.,  S.  About 
sus)iension  and  excommunication,  11.  His  speech  on  the 
motion  for  translating  the  laws  into  English,  118.  Hi.s 
conference  with  Cromwell  about  altering  the  government. 
131. 

Whittinghaui,  dean  of  Durham,  writes  to  the  Earl  of 


E64 


INDEX. 


Leicester  ngninet  presans  the  habits,  i.,  91.  His  troublps, 
145.  Validity  of  liis  (mliualion  ilisi)iited,  145.  His  death 
and  chaiacler,  145.  Had  a  share  in  translating  the  Gene- 
va Bible,  and  I'.salins  in  metre,  145. 

Wicklifle.  account  of  him,  his  doctrines  and  writings,  i., 
99.  Agreed  in  soaie  points  with  the  Baptists,  and  wilh 
the  Puritiins,  2:),  ?j..  :iO.  His  doctrines  conilejnned  at  Rome 
and  Lon<lon,  30.  He  first  translated  the  New  Testament 
into  English,  30.  His  Collowers  termed  Lollards,  and  per- 
seeiiied,  30.     His  New-Testament,  257. 

VVigginglon,  Mr.,  his  siiflering.s,  i.,  179. 

Wighiman,  Edward,  burned  for  heresy,  i.,  259,  n. 

Wightwick,  Mr.,  account  of,  ii.,  69. 

Wilco.v,  Thomas,  his  death,  ii.,  393. 

Wild,  Serjeant,  o()ens  the  impeachment  against  Laud, 
i.,  502.     Laud's  character  of  him,  523. 

Wilkin,  Mr.,  writes  to  the  treasurer  in  favour  of  the  Pu- 
ritans, i.,  152. 

Wilkins,  Dr.,  account  of,  ii.,  09.  His  character,  and  his 
replv  to  ihe  Duchess  of  Newcastle,  70,  n.  His  replv  to 
King  Charles,  2GG.     His  death,  275. 

Wilkinson,  John  and  Henry,  account  of,  ii.,  70.  Death 
of  Henry,  74. 

Wilkinson  and  Story,  lending  separatists,  ii.,  429. 

William  IH.,  the  dissenting  ministers'  address  to  him, 
ii.,  343.  Recommends  to  Parliament  to  qualify  all  his 
Protestant  suhjecls  for  serving  the  government,  345.  is 
uiade  uneasy  hy  the  Torie-i,  3.50. 

Williams,  Bishop,  favourable  to  the  Puritans,  i.,  286. 
His  trial  and  cruel  sentence,  328.  Set  at  liberty  by  the 
Long-parliament,  358.  Chairman  of  the  committee  for  in- 
novations, his  letter  to  the  sub  commi;tee,  383.  His  scheme 
of  church  discipline,  384.  His  visitation,  393.  Made 
Archbishop  of  York,  399. 

Williams.  D.iniel,  hia  firm  stand  against  the  dispensing 
power,  ii.,  328,  n. 

Wilmot,  Lieutenant-general,  his  character,  i.,  478. 

Wilson,  Mr.,  suspended  and  ill  treated,  i.,  186. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  202. 

Wilson,  Thomas,  his  death,  ii.,  129. 

Windsor,  resolutions  of  the  cabinet  council  at,  i.,  409. 

Withers,  George,  deprived  for  objecting  to  the  habits,  i., 
98. 

Women.  Bishop  Aylmer's  character  of  them,  i.,  218. 
Sketch  of  them  from  Histrjomasti.v,  316,  n.  Belter  trails 
of  them,  409,  n.  Their  zeal  for  peace,  448.  Baptism  by 
women.  230.  First  introduced  as  actresses,  ii.,  208.  A 
sexual  distinction  properly  disregarded,  431. 

Wof)dl)ri<lge,  Benjamin,  his  death,  ii.,  309. 

Woodciick,  Francis,  his  death,  ii.,  129. 

Woodhonse,  in  Devonshire,  fourteen  west-countrv cloth- 
iers hung  there  by  the  kJng's  party  of  soldiers, 'though 
they  were  not  in  arms,  i.,  479. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  his  legatine  power,  i.,  31.  His  fall 
and  death,  32. 


Worcester,  battle  of,  ii.,  127. 

Workman,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  307. 

Worship,  primitive  manner  of  it,  i.,  363 

Wren,  Bishop,  his  articles  of  visitation,  1.,  324.  He  ia 
censured  by  the  Parliament,  360. 

Wright,  S.,  i.,  x.\ii. 

Wright,  Mr.,  his  sufferings,  i.,  151.  His  ordination  de- 
nied, 152. 

Wright,  Robert,  history  of,  ii.,  387. 

Writ,  de  htBretico  cumburendo,  i.,  31,  34.  Put  in  execu- 
tion, 138. 

Wyat's  rebellion,  i.,  69.  Falsely  accuses  the  Princess 
Elizabeth  as  being  concerned,  but  denies  it  on  the  scaffold, 
09. 

Wyke  Mr.  Andrew,  his  sufferings,  ii.,  370. 


Yarmouth,  the  most  ancient  Church  of  the  Independ- 
ents, ii.,  177. 

Yarrington,  Captain,  committed  to  prison  on  a  false 
charge,  ii.,  220. 

Yates,  Mr.,  and  others,  their  books  suppressed,  and  the 
publisher-s  questioned  by  the  star-chamber,  i.,  291. 

York,  Duke  of,  his  views  at  the  Restoration,  ii.,  209 
He  abjures  the  Protestant  religion,  271.  His  second  mar- 
riage, 279.  Bill  for  excluding  bhn  the  succession,  289 
292,297.    See  .lames  II. 

York  and  Lancaster,  contentions  between  the  houses  ; 
improved  by  the  Catholic  clergy  to  their  advantage,  i., 
30. 

Young,  Justice,  hia  severity  to  the  Brownists,  i.,  200. 

Young,  Dr.  account  of,  i.,  483. 


Zanchiua  and  other  divines,  their  opinions  attacked,  i., 
210. 

Zanchy,  Professor,  writes  by  order  of  the  elector  pala- 
tine to  Ciueen  Elizabeth  in  favour  of  the  Puritans,  i.,  117. 
Is  against  ceremonies,  246. 

Zealand,  the  pastors  and  elders  of,  addressed  by  the  as- 
sembly of  divines,  i.,  472.  The  king  removes  into  Zea- 
land, ii.,  142. 

Zion's  plea  against  prelacy,  by  Dr.  Leighton ;  account 
of  him,  i.,  301. 

Zouch,  Dr.,  some  account  of,  ii.,  67.  His  concern  in  the 
manifesto  against  the  covenant,  59,  n. 

Zuinglius,  with  other  learned  foreigners,  against  altars, 
i.,  51.  , 

Zurich,  divines  of,  written  to  by  the  Nonconformists 
on  the  subject  of  wearing  the  habits;  opinions  of  those 
learned  foreigners  on  the  habits  and  ceremonies,  i.,  93. 

Zuylestein,  Mr.,  gives  the  Prince  of  Oran|;e  the  strong- 
est assurances  of  the  English  Protestants  ap^Jearing  in  hia 
favour  on  his  landing,  ii.,  339. 


TUB  ENI>, 


CONTENTS 


THE    SECOND   VOLUME. 


PART  III.— Continued. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  progress  of  the  war. — Debates  in  the  as- 
sembly about  ordination.— The  power  of  the 
key.— The  divine  right  of  the  Presbyterian 
government. — Committee  for  comprehension 
and  toleration  of  the  Independents  . 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  conclusion  of  the  first  civil  war,  by  the  king's 
surrendering  his  royal  person  to  the  Scots. — 
Petitions  of  the  assembly  and  city  divines 
against  toleration,  and  for  the  divine  right  ot 
the  Presbyterial  government,  which  is  erected 
in  London. — Debates  between  the  king,  Mr. 
Henderson,  and  the  Scots  commissioners. — 
His  majesty  is  removed  from  Newcastle  to 
Holmby  House. — Farther  account  of  the  sec- 
taries         

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Proceeding&ot  the  assembly  upon  their  confes- 
sion of  faith  and  catechisms. — Provincial  as- 
semblies of  London. — The  king  taken  out  of 
the  custody  of  Parliament,  and  conveyed  to 
the  army. — His  majesty's  conduct. — He  es- 
capes from  Hampton  Court,  and  is  confined 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight 

CHAPTER  IX. 
The  visitation  of  the  University  of  Oxford. — 
State  of  religion  at  the  end  of  the  year   . 


Fige 


22 


40 


57 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  second  civil  war. — The  conclusion  of  the 
assembly  of  divines. — The  progress  of  Pres- 
bytery.— Treaty  of  the  Isle  of  Wight.— Death 
and  character  of  King  Charles  I. — His  works ; 
and  the  authors  of  his  unhappy  sufferings  7.5 


Preface  to  Vol.  IV.  of  the  Original  Edition        .  101 
Advertisement  to  Vol.  IV.  of  Dr.  Toulmin's  Edi- 
tion   105 

PART  IV. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  PURITANS  FROM  THE  DEATH  OF 
KING  CHARLES  1. TO  THE  DEATH  OF  KING  CHARLES 
II.,  A.D.  1G49-1684. 

CHAPTER  I. 
From  the  death  of  King  Charles  I.  to  the  coro- 
nation of  King  Charles  II.  in  Scotland    .        .  107 

CHAPTER  II. 
From  the  coronation  of  King  Charles  II.  in  Scot- 
land to  the  protectorship  of  Oliver  Cromwell .  122 


CHAPTER  m.  ^' 

From  the  beginning  of  the  protectorship  of  Oli- 
ver Cromwell  to  his  death       ....  138 

CHAPTER  IV. 

From  the  death  of  the  protector  to  the  restora- 
tion of  Kine  Charles  II.  .        .  .        .  185 

CHAPTER  V. 
From  the  restoration  of  King  Charles  II.  to  the 
conference  at  the  Savoy 209 

CHAPTER  VL 

From  the  Savoy  Conference  to  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity   227 

CHAPTER  VII. 
From  the  Act  of  Uniformity  to  the  banishment 
of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon         .        .        .        .247 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
From  the  banishment  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon  to 
the  king's  declaration  of  indulgence  in  the 
year  1672 260 

CHAPTER  IX. 

From  the  king's  declaration  of  indulgence  to  the 
Popish  Plot 274 

CHAPTER  X. 

From  the  Popish  Plot  to  the  death  of  King 
Charles  II 288 

Advertisement  to  Vol.  V.  of  Dr.  Toulmin's  Edi- 
tion   313 

PART  V. 

CHAPTER  I. 
From  the  death  of  King  Charles  II.  to  King 
James  II  's  declaration  for  liberty  of  conscience  315 

CHAPTER  II. 
From  King  James  II. 's  declaration  for  liberty  of 
conscience  to  the  Act  of  Toleration  in  the  reign 
of  King  William  and  Queen  Mary,  1688         .  334 


SUPPLEMENT. 

HISTORY    OF    THE   BAPTISTS   AND    QUAKERS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Some  account  of  the  Bapti.st.s  from  the  days  of 
Wickliffe  to  the  reign  of  James  I.,  A.D.  1370- 
1600 353 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  n. 
History  of  the   Baptists  during  the  reigns  of 
James  I.  and  Charles  I.,  A.D.  1C02-1650         .  361 

CHAPTER  HI. 

History  of  the  Baptists  during  the  Protectorate    372 
CHAPTER  IV. 

History  of  the  Baptists  from  the  Restoration  of 
King  Charles  II.  to  the  fall  of  Lord  Clarendon, 
A.D.  1660-1670 380 

CHAPTER  V. 

From  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  to  the  Rev- 
olution     388 

HISTORY    OF   THE   QUAKERS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
From  the  protectorship  of  Cromwell  to  the  Dec-  • 
laration  of  Indulgence,  1674    ....  405 

CHAPTER  n. 

From  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence  to  the  Rev- 
olution, A.D.  1674-1688   421 

Reflections  on  the  Revolution  and  the 
Act  of  Toleration       .....  432 


APPENDIX. 

No.  I.  A  declaration  of  certain  principal  articles 
of  religion 437 

No.  II.  Letter  to  the  bishops  and  pastors  of  Eng- 
land who  have  renounced  the  Roman  anti- 
christ     438 

No.  III.  John  Fox's  letter  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
to  dissuade  her  from  burning  two  Dutch 
Anabaptists 439 

No.  IV.  A  directory  of  church  government,  an- 
ciently contended  for  and  practised  by  the 
first  Nonconformists 440 


No.  V.  Letter  of  the  imprisoned  Puritan  minis- 
ters to  her  majesty,  in  vindication  of  their 
innocence 445 

No.  VI.  Articles  of  religion  agreed  upon  by  the 
archbishops,  bishops,  &c.,  of  Ireland  .        .  448 

No.  VII.  Articles  of  the  Church  of  F  ngland,  re- 
vised by  the  assembly  of  divines  in  1643      .  454 

No.  VIII.  The  directory  for  the  public  worship 
of  God  agreed  on  by  the  assembly  of  divines 
at  Westminster,  approved  by  the  general 
assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and 
ratified  by  Parliament  in  1645      .        .        .  457 

No.  IX.  The  form  of  Presbyterial  church  gov- 
ernment         468 

No.  X.  The  assembly's  declaration  of  the  false- 
hood of  a  lying,  scandalous  pamphlet  by  Mr. 
Henderson 474 

No.  XI.  A  confession  of  faith  of  seven  congrega- 
tions or  churches,  commonly  but  unjustly 
called  Anabaptists 475 

No.  XII.  Robert  Barclay's  concise  view  of  the 
chief  principles  of  the  Christian  religion  as 
professed  by  the  people  called  Quakers       .  480 

No.  XIII.  The  toleration  act      .        .        .        .483 

No.  XIV.  The  occasional  conformity  act  .        .  486 

No.  XV.  The  schism  act 488 

No.  XVI.  The  repeal ;  an  act  for  strengthening 
the  Protestant  interest         ....  490 

No.  XVII.  Notice  of  James  Naylor  .        .        .  491 

No.  XVIII.  The  closing  chapter  of  Godwin's 
History  of  the  Commonwealth    .        .        .  495 

No.  XIX.  Characteristics  of  the  Nonconform- 
ists of  the  seventeenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies     502 

No.  XX.  A  brief  sketch  of  the  efforts  made  by 
the  Nonconformists  to  educate  their  rising 
Ministry :  taken  from  the  History  of  the 
Protestant  Dissenters 508 

No.  XXI.  An  historical  and  critical  account  of 
Hugh  Peters,  after  the  manner  of  Mr.  Bayle  518 

No.  XXII.  Unlimited   Submission  and  Nonre- 

sistance  to  the  Higher  Powers    .        .        .  537 

Index 641 


ERRATA. 

The  editor  regrets  that  his  absence  from  the  city  when  the  first  number  of  this  work 
was  passing  through  the  press  occasioned  the  omission  of  a  few  hnes  in  the  original 
notes  of  Toulmin.  They  are  restored  by  this  errata  ;  and  the  editor  takes  this  opportu- 
nity to  state,  that  the  mistake  is  wholly  his  own,  and  not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  publish- 
ers. 


P.  53 — "  Mr.  Neal,  in  his  review  of  the  transac- 
tions of  this  year,  has  also  omitted  to  inform  his  read- 
ers that  the  doctrines  established  by  the  Reformers 
by  no  means  met  with  an  implicit  reception  from  all. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  denied  by  many,  and 
Unitarian  sentiments  were  so  plainly  avowed,  and 
spread  so  fast,  that  the  leading  churchmen  were 
alarmed  at  it,  and  feared  their  generally  prevailing. 
Mr.  Strype's  words  are,  'Arianism  now  showed  it- 
self so  openly,  and  was  in  such  danger  of  spreading 
farther,  that  it  was  thought  necessary  to  suppress  it, 
by  using  more  rugged  methods  than  seemed  agreea- 
ble to  the  merciful  principles  of  the  profession  of  the 
Gospel.'  " — Lindsey's  Historical  Vietu  of  the  State  of 
the  Unitarian  Doctrine  and  Worship,  p.  84. — Ed. 

P.  63. — "  The  title  of  this  piece  plainly  indicates 
that  no  calm  investigation  of  truth,  or  candid  retract- 
ing of  intemperate  language  and  spirit,  is  to  be  ex- 
pected in  it.  Mr.  Lindsey  has  given  it  at  length  in 
his  '  History  of  Unitarian  Worship,'  with  pertinent, 
judicious,  and  valuable  remarks,  to  which  with  pleas- 
ure we  refer  the  reader,  p.  84  to  194."— Ed. 

P-  65. — "  Mr.  Neal's  language  and  sentiments  are 


not  here  the  most  correct.  Disputes,  arising  from 
differences  of  opinion  on  points  of  speculation,  may 
be  proofs  of  the  frailty  of  our  nature ;  as  they  show 
that  all  cannot  attain  to  precise  ideas,  a  clear  discern- 
ment, and  comprehensive  views  on  subjects  that  are 
attended  with  many  difficulties.  But  how  do  they 
indicate  the  corruption  of  human  nature?  That  be- 
trays itself  in  the  intemperate  spirit  and  language 
with  which  they  are  managed,  and  should  be  impu- 
ted, not  to  human  nature,  but  to  the  want  of  self-gov- 
ernment in  those  individuals  who  thus  offend.  It  is 
not  proper  indiscriminately  to  condemn  disputes,  be- 
cause such  censures  operate  as  discouragements  and 
bars  to  the  investigation  of  the  truth." — Ed. 

P.  138.—"  It  should  be  added,  that  one  ground  of 
the  odium  which  fell  on  those  who  were  called  Ana- 
baptists, was  their  deviation  from  the  established 
creed,  in  their  ideas  concerning  the  person  of  Christ 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  shows  at  hovr 
early  a  period  of  the  Reformation  Unitarian  senti- 
ments arose  among  the  more  thoughtful  and  inquis- 
itive, but  the  hand  of  power  was  lifted  up  to  suppress 
their  growth  and  spread." — Ed. 


02-17-fl5  32180    >!?! 


fie  history  of  trie  Puritans,  or 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00017  5705 


